Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan: No Honeymoon For Ma Ying-jeou this time

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

The dust of the January 2012 elections has barely settled and Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou has already found himself in trouble. The nagging issue of US beef is back on the burner. When the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt spoke in Taiwan in 2011, he pooh-poohed the idea that the beef issue was a major problem between the USA and the Ma administration's failure to deliver on its promises. After all he explained, the amount of money involved was negligible in view of the total amount of money involved in all the transactions between the two countries. Further the USA would certainly be happy with Ma's re-election. Other pundits tried to join the chorus. But if it was all so negligible, why then right after the election, is Burghardt all of a sudden back on Ma's doorstep saying it is time to settle our bill?

Helping Tibet would help Taiwan

Taipei Times Editorial

Although it is unlikely that Taiwan, under the leadership of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), will ever support Tibetan independence, Taipei could give a real boost to the beleaguered forces fighting for Tibetan human rights in China with one simple and long--overdue move — dropping the Republic of China’s (ROC) claim to Tibet.

The ROC Constitution is an anachronistic document that claims more territory than even the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has at least dropped its claim to Mongolia, an independent country with a seat in the UN.

US intervened in Jan. 14 election

Chen Ching-chih 陳清池

Evidence shows that the US government failed to live up to repeated public statements that it would remain neutral in the Jan. 14 presidential election.

First, in September last year, right after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) met with US National Security Council and State Department officials, including US Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides and US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Cambell, in Washington, the Financial Times reported an unidentified senior official as saying that Tsai had left US President Barack Obama’s administration with “distinct concerns” about her ability to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait. The US Department of State immediately made known publicly that this was not the administration’s view.

The Chinese shadow on Taiwan’s elections

Gerrit van der Wees

The dust is settling over the Jan. 14 elections and many a commentator has weighed in with the conclusion that this was a vote for “stability,” in particular across the Taiwan Strait.

I would disagree, for a number of reasons, which will be elaborated on below. However, first, I would like to mention that I speak from the perspective of a long-time Taiwan observer, who started to follow and analyze the country’s political developments in the late 1970s, and who experienced Taiwan’s momentous transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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