Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

KMT, CCP both see their home in China

Lee Min-yung 李敏勇

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ruled the Republic of China (ROC) in China for about 22 years, from 1927, after the Northern Expedition provided some national unity to a China divided by warlords and revolution to the time it moved to Taiwan, after being thrown out of China by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

When it came to implementing a Leninist party-state system, the CCP learned from the expert KMT.

Even today, both parties hold to the “one China” principle. The CCP sees the elimination of the ROC as unfinished business, and the KMT — and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — claims that the territory of the ROC also includes China.

Taiwan has a strategic role to play in region

Rong-i Arthur Hong 洪榮一

On Oct. 11, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director William Stanton delivered a talk in Taipei that was open to the public, titled “The Strategic Significance of Taiwan.” In addition to talking about well-known themes such as Taiwan’s economic development and democratic transformation from a geostrategic perspective, Stanton also examined the special strategic position the nation occupies in the first island chain to provide a reinterpretation of Taiwan’s strategic importance to the US as an unsinkable aircraft carrier and as a supply station for submarines.

Ma accused of ‘lying’ about relations

Taipei Times

Commentator Nan Fang Shuo speaks to the press yesterday on the sidelines of a Democratic Progressive Party China policy forum in Taipei.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times

Political analysts and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians yesterday criticized President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for describing cross-strait relations as not international and cross-strait flights as domestic flights.

“What Ma has been doing in the past five years, in terms of external relations, is lying. He lied to the Taiwanese, the US and Beijing, hoping to reap benefits and personal gains,” political commentator Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) said on the sidelines of a DPP-organized forum in Taipei.