Resist intimidation

By Vunshik Zan

Thursday, May 20, 2004,Page 8

There is still a long way to go before the leadership in China will understand what modern civilization means -- in terms of human rights and democracy in particular. There is patriotic controversy now boiling in Taiwan, for sure, but arguments emerge because the concept of citizenship unknown in traditional Chinese culture is still strange to many of the elderly Chinese nationals who immigrated to Taiwan with the retreat of the Chiang Kai-shek (???) regime.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/05/20/2003156311

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Leach is a suitable choice

By Frank O'Donnell

Thursday, May 20, 2004,Page 8

Thank you for reporting on US Representative Jim Leach's coming to the presidential inauguration ("US announces its delegation to attend Chen's inauguration," May 16, page 1). His background makes him just about the most suitable American for this event. In 1986 in Washington I had the privilege of thanking him personally for what he was doing to help the Taiwanese people. He did quite a bit to help.

As one of the architects of the Taiwan Relations Act, Leach has helped Taiwan survive.

Years ago, Belgian author Simon Leyes told us what a disaster China was. But there was hope for change when former US president Richard Nixon established a relationship with China and, as Richard Holbrook wrote in 1982, agreed to disagree with China over Taiwan. Near the end of the 1970s, along came another president who dropped recognition of Taiwan and recognized China.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/05/20/2003156247

There is still a long way to go before the leadership in the United States of America will understand what modern civilization means -- in terms of human rights and democracy in particular.

Unless you call stolen elections, barring outside inspectors from monitoring U.S. elections, and the privatization of the black box voting industry, which has been know to return negative votes (subtract votes from a candidate's total), democracy.

And then there is human rights, where I believe we have more people in jail than China does, some of ours being political prisoners still locked up from the early COINTEL days.

China did have Tienanmen Square, but we had Kent State.

As our middle class has shrunk, China's has grown.

And if Taiwan expects the U.S. to be of any help against China, just imagine Bush asking Congress for more money to wage yet another war--this time against a country that DOES have weapons of mass destruction and has already seen on TV how we treat people we capture.