More than Marriage Equality, it’s a Battle Between Reason and Obscurantism

The current mess isn’t a gentlemen’s debate on policy, where one side’s facts are weighed against those of their opponents; it is, instead, a battle between the forces of reason and obscurantism

What a dispiriting state of affairs. As the two camps involved in the battle on whether to legalize same-sex marriage in Taiwan confront each other in yet another round of public hearings today, the opposing camp has continued to escalate its assault, not only against the LGBT community, but against reason itself.

The sad part about all this is that the anti camp, despite calling itself the “silent majority,” constitutes but a small fraction of the Taiwanese public and is primarily a Christian one in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country. Despite this, its members have succeeded in hijacking a process that isn’t only beneficial to Taiwan, but that shouldn’t even have been a controversial one, given public attitudes. 

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Thousands protest as Taiwan inches closer to legalising same-sex marriage

Opponents of same-sex marriage rallied outside the legislature as lawmakers discussed proposed amendments to the civil code

Several thousand people on Thursday gathered outside the legislature in Taipei as legislators met inside the chambers to debate the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Amid changing attitudes, the country is poised to become the first in Asia to do so.

Brought by the busload from all over the nation, the white-clad protesters — the majority of them from Christian churches — assembled on a main road outside the barricaded parliament, chanting slogans and seeking to pressure legislators to delay, or cancel altogether, the passage of amendments to the civil code that would permit homosexual unions.

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Christians fighting same-sex marriage in Taiwan are now utterly desperate

Gay marriage would help gangsters and other criminals, apparently

Conservative Christians have been taking to the streets to stop same-sex marriage in Taiwan – and they are getting desperate. Taiwan is inching ever closer to becoming the first country in Asia to legalize equal marriage despite Christian groups warning it will destroy society as we know it.

The groups, such as the Protect the Family Alliance and the Happiness of the Next Generation Alliance, have good reasons to be desperate.

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A Taiwan Defense Blueprint for the Trump Era

Three things Taiwan can and should do now to mitigate the potentially negative repercussions of a Trump presidency 

The election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States on November 9 is expected to bring change — how drastic remains to be seen — to different aspects of U.S. policy, both domestically and internationally. Largely the result of mounting discontent with the U.S. political establishment, Trump’s successful campaign also tapped into a growing segment of American voters who want a U.S. global disengagement. 

For U.S. allies worldwide, a possible winding down of the U.S. security umbrella, which has ensured stability in Europe and the Asia Pacific over the past 70 years, will be a source of apprehension. Vulnerable frontier states like Taiwan, whose continued existence as a free, liberal-democratic country next to authoritarian, expansionist and revisionist China is largely predicated on continued U.S. political support and military assistance. 

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'One Country, Two Systems' Is as Good as Dead

Interest in unification with Beijing has been dwindling. Developments in Hong Kong are the nail in the coffin 

The latest round of protests in Hong Kong following Beijing’s disqualification of two pro-independence lawmakers isn’t only a symptom of the territory’s growing volatility: it once and for all closes any possibility of the “one country, two systems” formula ever being applied to Taiwan. 

As police hit protesters with truncheons and attempt to disperse them with pepper spray, across the Taiwan Strait in democratic Taiwan, twenty-three million people are taking note, aware more than ever since retrocession in 1997 that “one country, two systems” is not a viable option for them, if indeed it ever was. 

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Can Taiwan Hold Out Against China’s New Strategy?

China ius busy trying to dismantle the U.S. security alliance in Asia. Can Taiwan weather the storm? 

After years of assertiveness that only succeeded in tightening a United States-led regional alliance meant to contain its ambitions, China appears to have changed tack recently and is now intensifying its efforts to woo what it sees as the weak links in this chain. With two apparent successes in the past month—first, the Philippines, which hitherto had been a staunch US ally, followed by Malaysia—China has put the viability of the US “pivot” to Asia into doubt and likely caused other US allies to question Washington’s commitment to remaining in the region and its ability to ensure their security. 

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The Riddle of Hung’s ‘Peace Platform’ with China

Can the KMT chairwoman create new facts on the ground with Beijing? 

Kuomintang Chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) arrived in China this week for a series of meetings and a cross-party forum, causing divisions within her party and apprehensions across Taiwan that the Beijing-friendly politician may seek to sign a “peace treaty” with China. 

Hung, whom the KMT leadership pushed aside as the party’s presidential candidate at the eleventh hour in late 2015 due in large part to the unpopularity of her cross-strait policies, has been accused of manipulating the KMT’s new policy platform, adopted on Sept. 4, which while reinforcing the so-called “1992 consensus” failed to incorporate longstanding references to each side interpreting differently what “one China” means. 

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China No Longer Has a Taiwan Strategy

Money, persuasion and coercion have all failed 

For all the talk about the inevitability of the eventual “reunification” of Taiwan and China and bluster about China’s determination to accomplish the “China dream,” ongoing trends in the Taiwan Strait have made it clear that Beijing’s approach to Taiwan is failing. Short of military conquest, there is very little in the current set of options available to Beijing suggesting that “peaceful unification” is even remotely possible.  

For a while, Beijing seemed to have a strategy, and if one did not look too closely it even seemed to be succeeding. Occurring at a time of shifting balance of economic and military power in the Taiwan Strait, the election of Ma Ying-jeou of the “Beijing-friendly” Kuomintang (KMT) in the 2008 elections, followed by the signing of a series of agreements and indications of political rapprochement, led many analysts to conclude that the Taiwan “question” was, at long last, on its way to peaceful resolution. Moreover, the seeming passivity of the Taiwanese public in the early years of the Ma administration seemed to indicate general support for his efforts. 

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President Tsai: Proceed With Marriage Equality. Now

The electoral costs to the government of proceeding with legalizing same-sex unions in Taiwan are so low it makes no sense to delay the matter any further. And from a moral standpoint, it's the right thing to do 

As Taipei prepares to host the largest LGBT Pride parade in Asia on Saturday, the question of legalizing same-sex marriage in Taiwan is once again making headlines, this time with a reinvigorated drive by legislators to pass the necessary amendments to make this possible. 

After months — years, in fact — of foot-dragging, the stars appear to be aligned for Taiwan to become the first country in Asia to embrace marriage equality. A larger-than-ever number of legislators now support legalization, with former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Kuomintang (KMT) becoming the latest to do so. And in the judicial branch, likely appointees have also been sending all the right signals. 

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China’s Negative Impact on Freedom of the Press Expands Outwards

We all know how China treats its own journalists. But what about the CCP's critics outside China? More and more, it's going after them, too 

A total of 38 civil society organizations signed a petition earlier this month urging Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whose father established relations between Canada and the People’s Republic of China in 1970 — to prioritize protections for freedom of expression as Ottawa moves to deepen its relationship with the authoritarian country. 

“We, the undersigned organizations and supporters, call on the Canadian government to put human rights, especially free expression and press freedom, at the heart of the ‘renewed’ Canada-China relationship,” the petition says, referring to the rapid pace of developments between the two governments following the somewhat cooler relationship under Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. 

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WEF Corrects 'Error' in Annual Report, Reinstates ‘Taiwan, China’

Beijing imposes a fiction about Taiwan and often gets its way in global institutions. But in the end, nomenclature will never change the facts on the ground 

“In an initial version of the Global Competitiveness Report 2016, Taiwan, China, was incorrectly listed as Chinese Taipei. The change in nomenclature happened as a technical matter — guided by designations used by other international organizations — and in no way signifies a lack of support by the World Economic Forum of the People’s Republic of China’s ‘One China policy.’” 

Thus a press release by the WEF on Sept. 29, one day after the release of the report. Due to a “technical matter,” the WEF used the reviled misnomer “Chinese Taipei” adopted by many international institutions to refer to Taiwan or the Republic of China. 

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Is Double Ten a Deadline for President Tsai?

Don’t hold your breath for a breakthrough in President Tsai’s cross-Strait policy on National Day 

As Oct. 10 approaches, a growing chorus of voices has argued that Taiwan's National Day will be some sort of “deadline” for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to deliver something palatable to Beijing. 

The notion that Double Ten marks a point in cross-Strait relations, beyond which President Tsai’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus and “one China” would prompt further punitive measures by China, has been around for a while. Chinese participants at various conferences and other settings have mentioned it, followed, often quietly in small circles, by a number of Western academics with “insider” knowledge. 

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Is the West Losing the Influence War to China?

Like-minded coalitions of major states are increasingly unable to counter Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taiwan at international institutions 

As Taiwan’s dignity and regional air safety are compromised due to silly political games at the ICAO assembly in Montreal, news emerged yesterday that Taiwan’s attempt to participate as an observer at another international organization, Interpol, is also “not going well.” 

Once again, it is expected that Taiwan’s ability to join multilateral organizations are being frustrated by Beijing, which appears to be delivering on its threat to punish Taiwan for the new government’s refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus and “one China.” 

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For Taiwan, the Sun Doesn’t Rise and Set with China

Only when the international community stops looking at Taiwan through the China lens will those motivations be fully understood 

Taiwan isn’t just an orphan: it is a misunderstood orphan. Due to its international isolation, a dwindling presence by foreign media personnel and a self-inflicted inability by successive governments (including the current one) to make the proper investments in public diplomacy, it is often ignored. And when it is not, what is said or written about it is quite often downright wrong. 

One of the most oft-repeated fallacies in international media coverage and analysis of Taiwan is the notion that everything the Taiwanese do is in relation to China, that changing weather patterns in Taiwan, if you will, occur because a butterfly batted its wings somewhere in Guangdong. 

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ICAO Refuses to Invite Taiwan to Assembly

The decision yet again demonstrates China's ability to coerce international institutions into making decision that go against their very mandate, putting politics before public health and safety 

The Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has refused to invite Taiwan to attend its upcoming triennial assembly, sparking a strong protest by Taipei on Friday, which called the decision "extremely unfair to Taiwan and a major loss to global aviation safety." 

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SCMP the Good Little Mouthpiece

More and more, the South China Morning Post’s editorials read as if they were drafted in Beijing. Here’s an example 

Following Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s (馬雲) acquisition of the 113-year-old Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post last year, many questions were raised as to whether the move would have an impact on the paper’s editorial line. 

The paper had been bleeding independent minds for years and editorial pressure existed well before Mr. Ma took over. Still, the pro-Beijing line became more apparent, and earlier this year the SCMP was one of the few news organizations that were given access to the ostensibly staged “confessions” of Chinese activists. Under Mr. Ma’s watch, the online version of the paper also became free. 

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To Terminate or Not? Taiwan’s ‘Cloud Peak’ Medium-Range Missile Program

A recent report by the ‘China Times’ claims Taiwan has decided to abandon efforts to develop a medium-range missile that could hit Beijing or Shanghai. While aborting the program would make sense, Taipei won’t be doing so for the reasons stated in the article 

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Tuesday denied claims by the Chinese-language China Times that Taiwan has decided to scrap efforts to develop a medium-range surface-to-surface missile capable of hitting Beijing and Shanghai as a “goodwill gesture to China.” 

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China the Twelve Year Old

For far too long we have allowed the tyrant child to determine our actions. This must stop. We must stop fearing it 

Here we go again, the old tired accusations of “broken promises” and damage done to China’s “core interests” after European Union parliamentarians met with Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on European soil on Sept. 15. 

For a country that constantly reminds us of its glorious 5,000 years of history, its leadership behaves very much like a 12-year-old: pouting and bullying when it doesn’t get what it wants. To be perfectly honest, it’s rather embarrassing and hardly warrants the space and scare quotes it gets in the world’s media. (I see what you’re thinking: I’m also guilty of giving it space here, but bear with me for a second and I will get to the point.) 

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Spurned, Beijing Bypasses Taiwan’s Central Government

Beijing is seeking to undermine the authority of Taiwan’s central government by creating bilateral dependencies and sowing division within society. It has been going on for quite a while 

Top representatives from eight municipalities in Taiwan controlled by the pan-blue camp visited China at the weekend for talks with Chinese officials and to promote tourism and agricultural produce as Beijing shows Taipei the cold shoulder for its refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus. 

Besides belonging to the same camp — six of the eight city and county government heads belong to the Kuomintang (KMT) and two others are blue-leaning independents — all eight representatives have stated they recognize the “1992 consensus,” which an inflexible Beijing has set as a precondition for cross-Strait exchanges. 

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Japanese Politician's Taiwan Connection Causes Storm as Party Vote Looms

Attacked for her dual nationality, Democratic Party deputy head Renho is in a race to abandon her ROC citizenship. And did she or did she not say that Taiwan is not a country? 

Democratic Party deputy head Murata Renho (村田蓮舫), a half-Japanese and half-Taiwanese politician who is locked in a three-way race to assume leadership of the DP in Sept. 15 elections, revealed on Tuesday that she has yet to renounce her Republic of China citizenship. 

Under attack for her dual citizenship, the politician, who goes by Renho, admitted on Tuesday that she had not, as previously stated, relinquished her ROC citizenship at the age of 17. 

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