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After a bitter campaign, an assassination attempt, and a photo-finish election, the Kuomintang leads Taiwan into crisis.11:30 AM, Mar 22, 2004 • By JOHN J. TKACIK JR.Taipei
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, eight Taiwanese pro-democracy activists organized a human rights day march in the southern city of Kaohsiung. When police blocked the progress of the demonstrators (who had a permit), violence broke out. The organizers were arrested, court-martialed for sedition, and sentenced to between 8 and 13 years in prison. Taiwan was a one-party dictatorship then, and governed under martial law. But following the death in 1988 of Chiang Kai-shek's son who was then Taiwan's president, the island swiftly democratized.
Read more... From the February 9, 2004 issue: Taiwan's democracy is not the problem.Feb 9, 2004, Vol. 9, No. 21 • By GARY SCHMITTON JANUARY 16, Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, announced the wording of the referendums he intends to put on the ballot in March, when the people of Taiwan go to the polls to elect a president. The referendums will ask whether, in the face of the missile threat from the mainland, Taiwan should purchase more advanced anti-missile weapons, and whether its government should negotiate with the mainland to create a new framework for peaceful and stable relations.
Read more... From the December 22, 2003 issue: To avert such a crisis, the president needs to revert to his core principles and make clear that the United States supports the Taiwanese democracy.Dec 22, 2003, Vol. 9, No. 15 • By ROBERT KAGAN and WILLIAM KRISTOLIT WAS A SAD SPECTACLE: Sitting next to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, visiting emissary from the world's largest dictatorship, President Bush last week performed a kowtow that would have made Bill Clinton blush. Following a script dictated by Beijing, and translated into English by senior national security council official James Moriarty, the president condemned Taiwan's popularly elected president for certain unspecified "comments and actions" indicating a desire for Taiwan's independence.
Read more... President Bush chooses to partly appease the Chinese and chastise Taiwan.11:00 PM, Dec 8, 2003 • By GARY SCHMITT, ROBERT KAGAN and WILLIAM KRISTOLU.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN POLICY contains a host of formulations, complications, and nuances, all of which (at least most of which!) we are happy to discuss. But let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Read more... Two proposed policy changes make a military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait more, not less, likely.3:07 PM, Dec 2, 2003 • By GARY SCHMITT and WILLIAM KRISTOLSENIOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS may be engineering a dramatic and dangerous shift in American policy toward Taiwan as a gift to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is visiting the United States next week. There are two elements of this proposed policy change, both of which favor Beijing at the expense of democratic Taiwan, and one of which may actually encourage Beijing to take military action against Taiwan. Both policy changes are being pushed by the staff of the National Security Council over the objections, we understand, of both the Departments of State and Defense.
Read more... Taiwan edges closer to independence.Oct 20, 2003, Vol. 9, No. 06 • By DAVID DEVOSSTaipei, Taiwan
TING TAI FUNG on fashionable Hsin-I Road is the hottest new restaurant in Taipei. Its specialty is Shanghai dumplings made by photogenic chefs who labor in a glass-walled kitchen. Spend a few minutes eavesdropping on the café's upwardly mobile customers, however, and you'll hear people talking, not about the shrimp and pork shao-mai, but of a new name for their homeland.
Early last month, 150,000 people took to the streets of Taipei in the largest demonstration ever held in the city.
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