THE QUESTION
Should Taiwan hold a democratic vote on whether to declare independence from China, or do Taiwan's leaders have a greater responsibility to their people to avoid war?
Posted by Natalie Ahn on July 10, 2007 9:35 AM
FROM THE PANEL
Annie Wang is a journalist, public speaker, and author who specializes women’s issue. She has published eight Chinese books and two English novels. Her English debut, Lili - A Novel of Tiananmen, (June 2001 Pantheon Books) published internationally to critical acclaims. A multi-layered novel, Lili, is a story of a "bad girl's" maturation and adventure in the Post-Mao Era leading up the Tiananmen Student Movement in 1989. Her most recent English novel, The People’s Republic of Desire (Harper Collins 2006) is a hilarious satire and an insightful portrait of China’s MTV generation, urban women, and cross-cultural relationships. It has been hailed as a cross between Sex and the City and Joy Luck Club. A child prodigy in her native China, Annie Wang studied mass communications at UC Berkeley and won the Berkeley Poetry Contest in 1996 with two poems, "Speaking to Mao Tse-tung, Tongue-in-cheek" and "A Woman from a Mountain Area". She has worked for high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, and then served in the Washington Post's Beijing bureau and the US State Department. In 2004, she returned to China and ran a fashion magazine in Shanghai. Currently, she lives with her husband and son and divides time between the U.S. and China.
Playing Hardball in the Cloak of Democracy
Don't get me wrong, I'm very much of a Western pro-democracy type of mentality. But I really think Taiwan's president is using his version of "democracy" to create chaos and provoke mainland China. The best way for Taiwan's leaders to protect their democracy is to avoid direct confrontation, especially as China engages in its own slow democratization.
Annie Wang Shanghai, China |Jul 10, 2007 at 9:44 AM
Shim Jae Hoon is a Seoul-based journalist and commentator writing for a variety of international publications including YaleGlobal Online, The Straits Times of Singapore, The Taipei Times and Korea Herald. He was a correspondent for Far Eastern Economic Review in Seoul, Taipei and Jakarta.
Tread Softly, Make China Responsible
Shim Jae Hoon South Korea |READER RESPONSE
» FreePress | The answer to your question is that Taiwan's leaders have a greater responsibility to their people (and I would add to the world)to avoid war. With a...
» Nivedita | A lot of the Taiwanese friends I have spoken to assert their independence from China and I think China should respect it instead of casting hedgemonis...
» D. Hodara | With China's newly gained importance in international trade, politics and the coming Olympic games, war does not seem to be on its agenda. Furthermore...

