Your Dec. 8 editorial “Time to lay the facts out for Taiwan” prompts us to lay out different facts for your readers.
The 21 million people on Taiwan subtly expressed their self-determined spirit last month by voting for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The DPP position says, “Taiwan is not part of China.” The DPP won against the current Taiwanese ruling party, the KMT, which confused the world by echoing the Chinese position that Taiwan is part of China.
The Taiwanese spirit was also expressed before the election through a Gallup poll published by a Taiwanese newspaper. President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan has also expressed the same by saying, “Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation.”
It is shortsighted to interpret the DPP-supporting results of the voting as solely for Taiwan’s domestic issues. Doing so also exhibits the “ostrich hiding its head in the sand” mentality.
The voting also signified the spirit of democracy and freedom, which America has long advocated, and the self-determination that is the fundamental principle of the United Nations. The voters also silently charted themselves for their own future by democratic voting–the “peaceful means” that the U.S. asked for.
It is self-evident that the strong existence of Taiwan is in the United States’ national interest. The voters have expressed themselves without words to coincide with that interest.
With the missile threat of last March, China paid a big price without war to unveil the bottom line of The Taiwan Relation Act, which unequivocally expressed that the U.S. will defend Taiwan if Taiwan is attacked by force. The Chinese leaders were warned by Newt Gingrich when his congressional delegation visited Beijing last year and again when President Jiang Zemin visited the White House last October. China should have realized by now that to use force against Taiwan makes absolutely no sense. Therefore, there is no need to set the alarm of war.
If Taiwanese voters continue crafting the same course with caution, it may enlighten the 1.2 billion people in China to become more democratic, free and self-determined. Then, the world will be a better place, and human rights will be respected more by the Asian giant.
