Meditation on 2.28 - Taiwan's Peace Day

For years the "228 Incident" and the 40-years long "White Terror Era" are two deep wounds in the Taiwanese history and both are opened every year becasue there are no closure of these sore cases. To have a closure one requires the truth of these incidents followed by a fair justice to the victims and punishment to the executioners.

Lacking the closure of these incidents, the history will be twisted by politicians and further tinted for their political purpose.
-- BigEagle.


Here is an example: (the article was originally posted on ETToday.com)

Author: 畫龍

228這個事件不是一件單純的族群屠殺，實際上是基於一種政治形態的清剿，外省人，哪怕是只有一個人和本省人一起被屠殺，這件事情的性質就完全變了，為什麼事隔這麼多年，這樣的一件雙方都不願意的悲劇卻總是被拿來操作成族群鬥爭？那些白髮蒼蒼的大爺們和小姐們手挽手面對大陸的時候，有沒有想過，就算外省人殺戮有罪，可當時大陸共產黨和劊子手的關係是敵對的？李登輝曾做過共產黨，他最清楚，他為什麼不站出來？反而要帶領一群人要揭歷史的傷疤？這就證明，問題的關鍵不在於事實！而在於為什麼要做！

台灣有幾個老人，白髮蒼蒼，老當益壯，算算年齡都曾是亡國奴(BigEagle: Taiwan was colony of Japan for 50 years before the end of WWII) ，本來不便於評論，但是最近這些人忽然覺得青春煥發，要搖身一變成為正義的化身；筆者突然醒悟到，原來台灣人大罵中國人是共產奴的時候，就是這樣掩蓋自己卑劣的歷史的，在亞洲韓國已經徹底清算日本奴才，台灣人用228來年年轉移視線，保護為日本殖民的憲兵大隊長的兒子，無中生有的攻擊大陸，是不是可以叫做反咬一口啊？

大概台灣的這些光榮前輩們沒有專門做一部電影反映自己受蔑視的委屈，（韓國人最近的一部電影就是，可查，片名叫作SHITUP閉嘴，我還是蠻同情的），但是這種英雄的塑造也太過荒唐了吧？

有時我就想，為什麼德國戰敗了，為什麼歐洲沒有根據什麼他對法國曾經的傷害，也煽動法國人做一個法式的228呢？儘管當時德國的目標是猶太人和不服從的法國人，但是就像臺灣，只要法國人受到了傷害，勝王敗寇，歐洲作為最大的戰勝國，是完全可以大作文章的，為什麼不呢？？我想是一種尊重，這種尊重就建立在歐洲人人皆盡知的公平理論上，好人沒有罪，孩子沒有罪，有罪的只是歷史和沾滿別人鮮血的人，從這一點看，臺灣還有待向歐洲學習。

聽到許多台灣人憤恨的提起228，稱頌現在有亡國奴參加的紀念活動，本人想，你不能讓我們認同你，這樣的自娛自樂有意義嗎？多少年以後，除了你們自己，誰還會理解你們？大概都和我們在一起笑談怪異人群罷了！

Think-Tanks and Policy Research

Recently the news of several Taiwanese American think-tanks in US has gradually caught people's attention and also get interested to their research. However, at present it is difficult to read or obtain their research papers and understand the subject of their issues. I hope in the very near future, their publication can be more available and they would share with public about their finding.

There is an institute in Taipei, Taiwan called "Institute for National Policy Research" that publisheded lots of their work, for example: "Crafting Democracy in Taiwan" (by Yun-han Chu, 1992)". This institute also has many research partners in USA. Perhaps our group of think-tanks can also work with these US organizations. List of those organizations can be found from INPR: http://www.inpr.org.tw/partners/america.htm.

Ranking the Democracy

There is an organization that "audits" yearly countries around the world. In its report of January, 2005, World Audit of Democracy (see http://www.worldaudit.org/) ranked Taiwan in the following orders among 210 countries:

(1) World Democracy Audit Overall Ranking: No. 39 (Range: 1-149) [Remark: Finland and New Zealand are No. 1; US got No. 14]

(2) Political Rights: No. 2 (Range: 1-7) [Remark: US and several others are rated No. 1]

(3) Civil Liberties: No. 2 (Range: 1-7) [Remark: US and several others got No. 1]

(4) Press Freedom: No. 38 (Range: 1-100) [Remark: highest rank is 8. Finland and New Zealand got it. US is rated 17.]

(5) Corruption: No. 31 (Range: 1-100) [Remark: Best score is New Zealand's 5. US got 25.]

BigEagle notes - US rankings are put here because many readers may be more familiar the American way of democracy.

Poll shows insistence on ROC sovereignty

Taiwan: Poll shows insistence on ROC sovereignty

Publish Date:05/14/2004;
Story Type:Commentary; Taken from posting on /www.unpo.org/
UNPO: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation

On behalf of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Elections Study Center of National Chengchi University conducted a public opinion survey April 23-25 on a broad range of issues relating to Taiwan-China relations. Coming one month after the presidential election, the survey sample consisted of 1,083 adult ROC citizens, with a 2.98-percent margin of error. Of the 11 questions in the survey, two dealt directly with the sovereignty issue.

One of them asked respondents to choose the best of six policy positions for Taiwan's political status vis-a-vis China. The percentages for the various options were: unify as soon as possible, 2.0 percent; maintain the status quo and eventually move toward unification, 9.8 percent; maintain the status quo and decide upon independence or unification depending upon conditions, 40.0 percent; maintain the status quo indefinitely, 13.0 percent; maintain the status quo and eventually move toward independence, 15.5 percent; declare independence as soon as possible, 3.3 percent; and no answer, 10.2 percent.

Those who, for whatever reason, preferred to maintain the status quo amounted to 78.4 percent, a figure that has varied only slightly in recent years. The significance of this number and the numbers for the subcategories cannot be interpreted with certainty, however, inasmuch as public understanding of what "the status quo" means is changing. Previously, it meant neither unifying with China nor declaring the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan. Now, more and more, it has come to mean simply the official status of the ROC as understood by the president and other elected national leaders: The Republic of China is indubitably an independent, sovereign country, whose sovereignty its leaders are bound by solemn oath to defend.
Within the ROC's constitutional system, in other words, sovereignty is a given, something that can be lost, not gained.

In contrast with the aforementioned survey question, the other question touching on the sovereignty issue was clear-cut. It asked respondents whether they approved of China's proposed "one country, two systems" formula, whereby Taiwan would accept Chinese sovereignty and thenceforth become a local government of the People's Republic of China, giving up the name Republic of China. The result: 80.8 percent disapproved, 7.3 percent approved, while 10.8 percent offered no opinion. The 80.8-percent rejection rate is 9.4 percentage points higher than that in a similar MAC survey conducted in November 2003.

The message to Beijing and the world should be loud and clear: The Taiwanese people overwhelmingly regard themselves as a sovereign nation on an equal footing with China.

Source: Taiwan Government Information Office


Addendum by BigEagle:

According to same office's poll taken lately (2004/9/19), the statistics shows:
- unify as soon as possible: 1.6% [was2.0%]
- maintain the status quo and eventually move toward unification: 11% [was 9.8%]
- maintain the status quo and decide upon independence or unification depending upon conditions: 40.7% [was 40%]
- maintain the status quo indefinitely: 18.8% [was 13.0%]
- maintain the status quo and eventually move toward independence: 18.7% [was 15.5%]
- declare independence as soon as possible: 6.9% [was 3.3%]
- no answer: 2.2% [was 10.2%].