Eligible voters in Taiwan have to wait until next Jan. 14 to go to the polls to elect their president, but a local English-language newspaper seems to think it's already time to start canvassing votes for Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the Democratic Progressive Party. Tsai would be “running neck and neck” with President Ma Ying-jeou if the election took place now, according to the latest TVBS poll.
The canvassing is subtle, of course. A Taipei Times deputy news editor contributed an op-ed article on Sunday, pointing out if Ma couldn't come up with a new China policy, “Taiwanese could very well turn to his main opponent (Tsai of the opposition party) ... who can also be counted on to ensure that ... Taiwan ... as word and nation, remains alive and well.” The writer, who must be an American citizen working for the sister Liberty Times paper, argues the leaked World Health Organization memo to its staff regarding the reference to Taiwan as “Taiwan, China” is proof that Ma is selling out our country's sovereignty. “The word 'Taiwan' cannot be allowed to disappear,” the argument goes on, adding: “It is incumbent on Ma to propose a new course of action for engaging Beijing, lest he become a modern Asian iteration of Marshall Philippe Petain and turn Taiwan into Vichy France.”
One thing must be made crystal clear first: The name of the Republic of China in official United Nations documents after it ousted our country is Taiwan, a province of China. Insofar as that world body is concerned, China is represented by the People's Republic of China, which claims Taiwan as one of its provinces. The WHO, unlike the World Trade Organization, is an organization affiliated with the United Nations and simply must follow the “Taiwan, China” designation. As relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait improved after 2008, a compromise was reached for Taiwan to participate in the World Health Assembly, a decision-making body of the WHO, as an observer from “Chinese Taipei.” Remember Chinese Taipei was introduced in 1979 to make it possible for the Republic of China to take part in the Olympic Games. The country joined the WTO in 2001 under the cumbersome name of the “Special Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu,” which for “convenience's sake” was abbreviated to “Chinese Taipei.”
Because of Beijing's opposition, Taiwan can't join the U.N. or any other world governmental organizations. If we want to participate at all, we have to accept the title of “Chinese Taipei.” That's why the previous administration under President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party sent public health officials to Geneva to participate in WHO meetings “under protest” as representatives from “Taiwan, China.”
Mr. J. Michael Cole, who works on the staff of the Taipei Times, must know China isn't the official name Beijing uses. The People's Republic of China is. Incidentally, none of the Chinese dynasties called the country China. The First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty called his realm Qin. Then the unified country was known as Han, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming. The United States signed a Wanghya agreement with the Ta Tsing Empire to open diplomatic relations with China in 1844. President Woodrow Wilson recognized the Republic of China, not China, in 1913. As a matter of fact, “Taiwan, a province of China” is better than “Taiwan, a province of the People's Republic of China.”
Ma couldn't be Petain. The French marshal was put up like Quisling in Norway by Adolf Hitler. France was under Nazi German occupation when Petain was forced to head the puppet regime at Vichy. Will Taiwan be occupied by the People's Liberation Army in the next couple of years? Taiwan would have been without President Harry S. Truman's help in 1950. That help wouldn't have come unless Chiang Kai-shek removed his defeated 600,000-strong army from the Chinese mainland at the end of 1949. Chiang never failed to call Taiwan a province of the Republic of China.
Fortunately, Mr. Cole isn't a U.S. Department of State employee. He is free to state his opinions. If he was a U.S. state department employee, he might be considered persona non grata for trying to influence the presidential election. It isn't appropriate for a foreign journalist in the employ of a Taipei paper to even suggest support for any of the presidential candidates. Is it possible that Mr. Cole was told by his employer to help rally support for Tsai? We do not want another foreign member of the press in Taiwan to repeat an incident like the CNN poll to find whether Ma should be voted out of office for failure to avert the disastrous aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in 2009. And Tsai — and for that matter, anybody else — can keep Taiwan as a “word” but not as a “nation.” Though not recognized by any country in the world, the Republic of Taiwan only lasted 12 days in 1895. There is no sovereign country called Taiwan, albeit President Chen tried in vain to write a constitution for it and get it adopted before May 20, 2008. There is little point in trying to maintain our nation's existence as a sovereign state recognized by no one and unable to participate in any international organizations.
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（本文刊載於100.5.25 The China Post 4版 ）