Where ex-generals’ loyalties lie

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 230314

A Feb. 28 article in Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, or Nikkei, alleging that many Taiwanese retired military officers had served as spies for China has sparked fervent debate in the nation, in particular drawing a furious reaction from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), a retired lieutenant general. The article had obviously touched a nerve.

To protest the article, Wu proposed that Taiwan and Japan stop all military exchanges. Japan is one of the most important members of the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy; suspending Taipei’s military exchanges with Tokyo would be to withhold participation in this strategy altogether.

Oppose the CCP, but do not mention China itself

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2022.12.29

Former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) once used the slogan: “We shall defeat communism; we shall build the nation.” As time passed, a new slogan — “oppose communism, safeguard Taiwan” — emerged, lowering the bar of countering communism. By taking out nation-building, the only goal left was to “oppose communism” by protecting Taiwan, a value the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) does not dare to mention and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) seems uncertain about. What was the reason for the change?

“Oppose China, safeguard Taiwan” might prove more popular with the public. Changing “communism” to “China” would make more sense, as communism has become a dirty word around the globe, a synonym for autocracy, barbarism and brutality. This is why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has tried to separate the idea that the CCP equals China.

Xi Jinping sees Taiwan as vital to his legacy

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2022.11.1

The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was a farce played out before the eyes of the world. In 1956, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union led to the country’s rightward shift and its eventual collapse.

As the CCP’s 20th National Congress accelerated its leftward shift, what changes will this bring?

High tech and China decoupling

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2022.10.19

On Oct. 7, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security added 31 Chinese companies and research institutes — including China’s largest memorychip foundry Yangtze Memory Technologies Co — to its Unverified List of possibly noncompliant entities, while also imposing new controls on high-tech exports to China.

Whether by design or coincidence, this announcement was made at the end of China’s National Day holiday and on the eve of the Oct. 9 opening of the seventh plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which in turn was a prelude to the party’s 20th National Congress, which opened on Sunday.

China paved way for Biden’s pledge

    By Paul Lin 林保華

Taipei Times  20220530

In a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Monday last week, US President Joe Biden was asked: “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” Biden was unequivocal in his answer: “Yes... That’s the commitment we made.”

The remarks came as a surprise departure from decades of US policy, although a White House official later offered a message to the media: “As the president said, our policy has not changed.”

Beijing shirks HK responsibility

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipai Times  2022.3.30

During last year’s celebrations in Beijing to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) boasted that Beijing had gained full administrative control over Hong Kong and said this would “guarantee the territory’s long-term stability and prosperity.”

Predictably, at the postponed “patriots only” legislative election in December last year, pro-Beijing flunkies wiped the board, taking every available seat. Xi had chalked up a major win: “anti-China elements” would no longer cause chaos in Hong Kong and “obstruct the territory’s transition to stability and prosperity.”

DPP must not become too confident

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taiei Times 2022.1.20

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) threw all of its weight behind last month’s four referendums — all of which it initiated — as well as a by-election in Taichung’s second electoral district and a recall vote for independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) in Taipei’s fifth electoral district, both on Jan. 9.

In a key test of public opinion, the KMT lost everything: each referendum, the recall vote and the by-election.

US-China ties have Taiwan at core
Taipei Times 2011.11.10
    By Paul Lin 林保華

On Oct. 31, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. Chinese state media and netizens dined out on a report that Blinken had entered the hotel where the two met through a side entrance. This was interpreted as the US being in an inferior position and subservient to China.

Reports of the meeting indicate that its main purpose was to discuss issues relating to Taiwan. Wang reportedly warned Blinken that the “Taiwan problem” has the potential to topple the US-China relationship and that a top priority for both sides is to make political preparations for the next stage of the China-US relationship.

Honesty can aid transitional justice

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2021.10.24

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) admitted he had been an informant for the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian regime when he was a student and has announced that he is to resign from the DPP.

This decision should be affirmed, but hopefully he can also tell the whole truth to show his determination to distance himself from his past. He could use the opportunity to promote the implementation of transitional justice.

Will Taiwanese defend themselves?

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2021.8.31

The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan resulted in the Taliban romping to victory in a blitzkrieg-style campaign, knocking over the Afghan army like skittles. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wasted no time in milking the fall of Kabul for all it was worth.

Taiwan’s KMT-supporting pan-blue media immediately began to sow discord about the Taiwan-US relationship. No matter how many times the pan-blue camp professes to be pro-US, at critical junctures, it always reveals its true colors.

Fighting the traitors’ call to arms

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2021.8.12

At a forum in Shanghai last month, China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) founder Chang An-le (張安樂) once again explained his call for an “uprising before the battle,” saying that he wants to develop an organization to mobilize young Taiwanese and that when China attempts to force unification, he would let his troops take the lead.

Late last month, a video posted on YouTube by retired general Kao An-kuo (高安國), called “Taiwan’s generals,” shows him calling on Taiwanese military officers to overthrow the “fraudulent Democratic Progressive Party regime” and “complete the sacred mission of unification with China.”

Learning from China’s diplomacy

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  210424

April 10 marked the 50th anniversary of the US and China’s “Ping-Pong diplomacy.” Washington and Beijing issued statements to mark the occasion, which betrayed a sense that both sides, like lovers apart, still hold a fondness for their previous relationship. The US should not at all be sentimental, as Ping-Pong diplomacy was a trap — a triumph of deceit and subterfuge for Beijing, and a five-decade strategic disaster for Washington.

It began in 1971 when Beijing extended an invitation to US table tennis players to visit China. It was the first time that the People’s Republic of China had shown goodwill to what it had hitherto castigated as “evil American imperialists.” The visit was a harbinger of a major strategic shift in Chinese foreign policy that would culminate in a visit by then-US president Richard Nixon two years later.

Defend against the CCP or perish

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2021.1.3

Less than 10 days after enjoying a solo concert by Taiwan-born pianist Chen Ruei-bin (陳瑞斌), I was saddened to learn that China’s foremost pianist, Fou Tsong (傅聰), who at the end of the 1950s went into exile in the UK, had succumbed to COVID-19. These extremes of emotion served up by the pandemic — joy and heartache — conjure up memories.

Fou’s father, Fu Lei (傅雷), was a well-known translator of French literature. When I returned to China in 1955, Fu was living in Shanghai and had already achieved distinction. Two years later, at age 19, I was lucky enough to escape the horrors of the Anti-Rightist Movement. Fu was less fortunate and in 1958 was branded a “rightist.”

Trumpism is not going anywhere

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2020.12.2

The result of the US presidential election is not yet official, and US President Donald Trump is pursuing litigation, hoping to take it to the US Supreme Court, but even without a second term for Trump, Trumpism has taken a foothold.

Even the Western leaders first to congratulate US president-elect Joe Biden were anxious to see whether Trumpism would continue into the new administration: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was concerned about Biden’s policy toward Huawei Technologies Co and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was worried about his attitude toward the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.

Mongolia might be Xi’s next target
Taipei Times 2020.9.25
    By Paul Lin 林保華

Late last month, Beijing introduced changes to school curricula in the

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, requiring certain subjects to be

China’s reaction to US-Taiwan ties

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2020.9.4

The visit of a 90-member delegation led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil is another diplomatic breakthrough for Taiwan. During the third wave of democracy in the second half of the 20th century, the Czech Velvet Revolution and Taiwan’s quiet revolution were reflections of each other.

Taiwanese will always remember former Czech Senate president Jaroslav Kubera, who in January paid with his life for the Senate’s plan to visit Taiwan, according to his family.

Fri, Aug 14, 2020 page8

    Facing the nation’s enemy within
        By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times

    Washington has gradually realized that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seeks to challenge global democratic values and US supremacy. As a result, US officials have set to work to “clean the stables.”

A storm is brewing in the CCP politburo
Taipei Times  2020.7.26
    By Paul Lin 林保華

Most Chinese provinces and especially the Yangtze River basin have been hit by floods, and as a result, grain shortages are likely to occur in the country this year.

Despite this, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who wants to be personally in charge of everything, has disappeared from sight for quite a while.

Taiwan, HK are global concerns
Taipei Times  2020.6.4
    By Paul Lin 林保華

The inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to her second term on May 20 with Vice President William Lai (賴清德) gave Taiwan an unprecedented high-profile platform to showcase a positive image of democracy, disease control and the positive energy it can contribute to the post-COVID-19 global order.

On the next day, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) announced a plan to introduce new national security legislation for Hong Kong. In doing so, the NPC has ruined Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” formula.