Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ma’s empty protests are more than a bad joke

James Wang 王景弘

So there’s this senior official who is having an affair. He goes to a hotel where he gets up to things he would prefer no one else found out about. There, he is caught with his pants down, so to speak, and he scrambles around for a team of defense lawyers. He finds a team of three. Lawyer One tries to play the whole thing down, saying the official’s predecessor had got up to the same thing. Lawyer Two gets all sanctimonious about the fact that this was a secret rendezvous, demanding the head of the Judas who leaked the story. Lawyer Three opts for diversionary tactics, saying they got the lady’s name wrong, they used her husband’s surname — that’s not very polite, is it?

US ‘clarifies’ statements on ‘one China’

Taipei Times

The US Department of State has issued a note of “clarification” that appears to contradict Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde’s (陳炳德) version of what he was told by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about US policy toward Taiwan.

At a Washington press conference on Wednesday, Chen said: “During my office call on Secretary Clinton this morning, she told me — she reiterated the US policy; that is, there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China.”

His remarks alarmed Taiwanese-American groups, who called the US Department of State on Thursday asking for an explanation.

Simply flabbergasted by wimpy Ma

Taipei Times Editorial

“China, Taiwan: do not use ‘Taiwan.’ This area is considered, within the United Nations system, as a province of China, under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government in Beijing. In general, if it is mentioned, it should be referred to as ‘Taiwan, China.’ The expression ‘Chinese Taipei’ should only be used for the list of participants, summary records and similar documents of World Health Assemblies to which that entity is invited as an observer.”

So read a leaked WHO internal policy statement, which affirmed the denigration of Taiwan’s status at the global health body.

No payoff from Ma’s China gamble

Michael Mazza

In a speech to a US think tank on Thursday last week, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) declared that his “approach to the Republic of China’s [ROC] national security is already at an optimum.” By making the pursuit of closer ties with China a central pillar of that approach, Ma made a strategic bet that Beijing would reciprocate with a more cooperative cross-strait policy of its own. Now approaching three years into his presidency, it is clear that Ma’s bet has not paid off.

Ma’s pursuit of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which was finally realized last summer, was a bold move aimed at not only improving the Taiwanese economy, but also securing Taiwan’s future. While it is certain to benefit Taiwan economically in the years ahead, it has not significantly improved cross-strait stability or expanded Taipei’s broader international engagement.

More Articles...