Uh oh ...  

Posted by Lisa in , ,

This ... worries me. I first read about it from michaelturton.blogspot.com.
Choice quotations:

Many citizens may be unaware that almost immediately after taking power from the Democratic Progressive Party administration of former president Chen Shui-bian Tuesday, the term "Taiwan" was purged from the Chinese language header of the homepage of the "Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)." (Upon looking it up, the Taiwan is actually still on the website. Not sure if it was taken off and then put back on or it was a mistake in the article.)

Moreover, one of the first actions by new KMT Defence Minister Chao Chao-min upon assuming his post was to similarly expunge the phrase "Taiwan" from the front page of the Ministry of National Defence - owned "Youth Daily News" and to change its banner lead slogan from "fighting for Taiwan's survival" to "fighting for the Republic of China and fighting for the security of the people on Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu."

In addition, the official stamp commemorating the inaugural of President Ma and Vice President Vincent Siew on May 20 also made no mention of Taiwan in Chinese.


and this ...

It is expected that the KMT government would move quickly to realize its campaign program and move to improve relations with the PRC, but the Ma administration should not simply naively look at the positive side and neglect the possible risks.

If the KMT government is unable to maintain an objective and cool mentality to examine the present and future interaction between the two sides and negate Taiwan`s ideological pluralism for the sake of currying favor with Beijing, more and more citizens will worry about possible grave negative side-effects from liberalization of cross-strait ties.



And lastly, this puts the worries into words:

Such actions gives rise to serious concern over whether President Ma has sufficient wisdom and resolution to resist ultraconservative forces in his own party and pressure from Beijing for faster movements toward "ultimate unification" and spark doubt whether Ma's claims of "ove [sic] for Taiwan" and commitment for Taiwan's democracy were merely exercises in campaign rhetoric to be forgotten after the KMT has "won back Taiwan."

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23 at Friday, May 23, 2008 and is filed under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

2 comments

"ove for Taiwan"?

I agree with you~ I was reading my google reader today and Taipei Times has articles saying the same thing...

As I have always said since he got elected..."It's the end of the world/Taiwan as we know it..."

>.<

May 23, 2008 at 6:25 AM
Anonymous  

sigh...i think we have stooped so low to please our neighbors that even the name taiwan will cease to exist soon enough

May 24, 2008 at 7:39 AM

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