Features

Taiwan: Will it retain independence or be taken over?

Published

4 years ago

2021/10/17

After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, there continues over there a painful period of adjustment and as we hear, grave shortages of essentials to the general population. There also seem to be Afghans eligible to migrate to the US awaiting permission to go. The G7 has promised help and President Biden specifically stated much financial and other aid would come to the people of Afghanistan but through international aid agencies.

The current hot spot of probable conflict and growing tension is Taiwan, and yes, if inflamed, could be much worse than the Afghan conflagration. On October 10, President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, insisted in her speech at the National Day celebrations in Taipei, that Taiwan would not succumb to Chinese dominance nor join mainland China as a unified nation. Tsai emphasized “resilience, unity, diversity, competitiveness, and renewed confidence and pledged to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and denounced unprecedented challenges brought by China’s recent military coercion.”

At the same time, China staged a massive show of force in celebration of the 110^th anniversary of the revolution that established the first Chinese Republic. Chinese President Xi Jinping made it almost militantly clear that China calls for “Taiwan’s peaceful reconciliation with China in Taiwan’s best interests.” He urged the island state to “stand on the right side of history.” This statement was denounced by Taiwan’s President as a “distortion of history” and called on Beijing to stop threatening the island.

In The Island of October 13, Gwynne Dyer gives a fine analysis of the problem and says that China will baulk at the prospect of invading Taiwan because it will face blocking of all sea routes on which its trade is totally dependent. Western nations, Japan, Korea, even India will not stand by and merely watch a military invasion by Chinese forces of independent Taiwan.

Support for Taiwan

The G7 at the end of its meeting in Cornwall in June 2021, affirmed the “importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and their strong opposition to any “unilateral attempts to change the status quo and increase tensions.” China immediately denounced G7 for interfering. “For the Chinese Communist Party, the status of Taiwan is a sensitive topic. Together with Tibet, and the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, foreign visitors to China are routinely advised to avoid any discussion of it. To China’s leaders, Taiwan is an indivisible part of the ‘big Motherland’, a ‘renegade province’ that will eventually, by persuasion, coercion or force if necessary, be ‘reunited’ with mainland China. Alternative views are firmly suppressed.”

Taiwan, smaller in area than the Netherlands, is considered to be on par with Australia in its economy and population. “For a country that in 1950 was poor, overwhelmingly agricultural and exported labour to the Philippines, this has been a huge achievement and one that owes nothing to China.”

History

Reading about Taiwan was very interesting. That island was originally named Formosa, which dates from 1542 when Portuguese sailors sighted an uncharted island and named it ‘Ilha Formosa’ – beautiful island. In 1625, the Dutch East India Company established a base in Taiwan.

The Ming rulers in China were increasingly preoccupied with a growing threat from the Manchu, or Qing, to the north. In 1644, Beijing fell and the Ming dynasty ended, succeeded by the Qing who ruled Formosa too. In 1911, the Qing Dynasty collapsed and that date is when the Republic of China in the island was established.

In 1861, Great Britain opened the first consulate on the island and “early consular reports are peppered with frustration at the unwillingness or outright refusal of government representatives on the island to adhere to agreements set down in bilateral treaties.”

The Japanese had controlled Taiwan for 50 years (1895-1945) with Tokyo sending 19 governors general to rule Taiwan. Upon the defeat of Japan in August 1945, Chiang Kai-shek, who was head of China sent troops and administrators to take control of Taiwan. “The Taiwanese had been expecting liberation from Japanese rule to lead to self-government, not the imposition of another regime. The move was far from popular, dissatisfaction only compounded by Chiang’s handling of it. Corruption, nepotism and minor altercations grew, and hardly any locals spoke Mandarin, yet overnight this was imposed as the official language. Not surprisingly, resentment grew while the economy collapsed, culminating in major riots at the end of February 1947. These were brutally put down. By some estimates as many as 20,000 Taiwanese lost their lives.”

Beginnings of modern Taiwan

Chiang was an ally to the Brits and Americans, helping them to defeat Japan in WW II. Then came the civil war with the communists led by Mao Zedong and Chiang’s Nationalists were defeated in 1948. The next year his government and army retreated to Taiwan where he presided over a tumultuous period of martial law, social reforms and economic prosperity. He was President of the Republic of China for five six-year terms and also Director General of the Kuomintang until his death in 1975. It was a rival government to China and the world’s nations had to choose between the two. Most recognised mainland China. “Just 15 nations, most of them small island states in the Caribbean or Pacific, have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.” Between 1946 and 1949 an estimated one million mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan, whose own population in 1940 had been less than six million.

After Chiang died in 1975, his son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo, sensing the changing tide of global opinion in favour of the People’s Republic of China, took the first steps towards the introduction of democratic government. Martial law was lifted in 1987 and in 1996 the Taiwanese were finally able to choose their own president through direct elections. Since then, democratic governance has taken firm root and the present President is the fourth and first woman to head the nation. Opinion polls show a growing majority consider themselves Taiwanese, not Chinese; proud of their country’s history and identity.

Mao Zedong, once he came into power, had aimed at bringing Taiwan under the party’s control as part of the ‘Motherland’. “Mao might have succeeded, too, had he not intervened in support of Kim Il-sung in the Korean War in 1950, prompting the US to move to support Chiang on Taiwan.”

The San Francisco Conference of 1951 was convened to conclude the peace agreement with Japan and agree on the post-war order in Asia. “Although Japan renounced its claim to Taiwan, with the US and UK recognising different Chinese governments, both of which were excluded from the conference, no agreement was reached and a decision on the status of Taiwan was shelved. As far as Britain was concerned, de jure sovereignty over Taiwan remained undetermined, while the US recognised Chiang’s Republic of China in Taipei as the legitimate Chinese government, a position that only changed in 1979.”

Taiwanese companies are among the biggest investors, exporters and employers in China. “The rapprochement reached its pinnacle in 2015 in Singapore, with the first ever meeting between the leaders of China and Taiwan. The move was widely interpreted in Taiwan as an attempt to boost the prospects of a ‘China-friendly’ president in the election due in early 2016; which misfired badly. After Tsai Ing-wen’s victory, China largely cut off official contact and stepped up its threats and intimidation against the island. In 2020 Tsai was re-elected in a landslide, her success widely attributed to Taiwanese reactions to China’s clampdown in Hong Kong in the preceding months.” And now unless mainland China, it is said, can bring itself to accept reality, the Taiwan Strait will remain one of the world’s potential flashpoints.

NOTE:

Facts given above are mainly from a long article by Michael Reilly, who is a non-resident Senior Fellow in the Taiwan Studies Programme at the University of Nottingham. From 2005-09, he was the British representative in Taiwan. He is the author of The Great Free Trade Myth: British Foreign Policy and East Asia Since 1980 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). The article I quote from is ‘Between China and a Hard Place’ in History Today, Vol 71:10, Oct 2021.

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Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

17 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the progressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world of democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

17 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

17 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.