Insightful Commentary on the Taiwan-China Situation

Column dated 26 April 2005

This is an editorial I found in a Taiwanese newspaper. The writer points out basically the same thing I have been saying -- that despite all of the anti-Japanese rhetoric coming out of China, demanding that Japan be held accountable for WWII, that they educate their citizens fully regarding WWII atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, and that they adopt the PRC's position that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory, it is China, not Japan, that is Asia's most likely source of militaristic aggression and expansionism.

What follows is just an excerpt of the editorial, but I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

"[W]e believe Hu and other PRC leaders should be told in no uncertain terms that the world will not accept a moral and political double standard.

The Chinese Communist Party regime cannot be allowed to get away with just blaming the Japanese government and citizens of today for the wrongdoings of their predecessors without sincerely "facing" their own history of wrongdoing to their own people and to their neighbors, including its attempt to impose the CCP's version of "correct" history on the rest of the region and indeed on the world.

Instead of demanding that Japan should accept all of Beijing's demands on issues ranging from the rewriting of textbooks to please the CCP or adopting Beijng's definition of a "correct" position on Taiwan, Hu and the rest of the his cohort should take the initiative to re-examine the June 1989 Tiananmen Incident and other repressive or dark pages in the PRC's history and abandon the ill-advised and expansionist "anti-secession law" and reopen cross-strait dialogue without preconditions.

If Asia is to avoid another cycle of aggression and hatred, the PRC government and the people of China will have to join the rest of the world in learning to be both responsible and civilized if they hope to play a significant and positive role in the region."

The United States is partly to blame for the situation in Asia. For some reason, our government has decided that it is okay to treat the tyrannical Beijing regime, that doesn't have an inkling of understanding about what basic human rights are, as a legitimate government.

posted by The Sovereign Editor | 10:46 AM

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