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Taiwanhjørnet - Taiwan Corner
Michael Danielsen was interviewed to Taiwan's Liberty Times and the interview was published on December 15. 2008. The interviewer was journalist Zou, Jing Wen from Liberty Times.
The published interview can be found here...
The foundation of the interview can be read in full below.
Q: Can you introduce the motivation for establishing Taiwan Corner in Denmark?
A:Taiwan Corner came to my mind a late Friday evening while I was enjoying a glass of good red wine with some close friends who share my interest for Taiwan. I had already been writing articles about Taiwan in the newspapers, and in my political life I had been provoked several times like my friends. We had to listen to one-sided and highly respected commentators, politicians and professors talking about the one-China policy like Taiwan is just a brick in a game chess that you can move around without thinking about the people of Taiwan. It is even worse that they appear to lack basic knowledge of Taiwanese history and current affairs.
In order to understand the level, let me give you an example. A highly respected sinologist in Denmark once said that Taiwanese are Chinese because they speak Chinese, and thus that is logic that Taiwan shall be part of China. This is of course absurd. If we use this kind of logic, then Singapore should also be a part of China.
We were convinced that we could do a much better job and give a more correct picture of Taiwan, and we have rather successful doing this.
Taiwan displays the hypocrisy of the West. The reason is that Taiwan put the European Union and US governments in a moral and political dilemma. Both support democracy and human rights but only to a point. In their hearts they support Taiwan but their pragmatic politics drags them to China which they are afraid of.
I have a strong believer in the universality of human right and democracy. Personally I believe that the people of Taiwan have the right to choose a free and independent Taiwan.
Q:About the political parties' changing after May in Taiwan, what are your opinions and observation? Especially about cross-strait relations' changing?
A:I am happy to see a peaceful change of government in Taiwan for the second time. That is a part of democracy. The problem however is that Taiwan is not a normal democracy because the main politicians do not share a common future for Taiwan. Denmark does not have such a fundamental problem. Therefore, a change of government means a lot more than economic policies and ideology. It means that Taiwan is moving closer to China or moving closer to independence. With the current government Taiwan is clearly moving fast toward China.
All serious politicians like to see dialog and normalization of the relationship between China and Taiwan. This includes me. What people disagree about is how many concessions do you like to make and what shall be the terms of negotiations. The whole foundation of these talks is worrying. The current negotiations are based on the so-called 1992 consensus where both Taiwan and China agrees that there is one China. This is fundamental. You actually state that Taiwan is a part of China and use this as a starting point of negotiations. This weakens Taiwan’s sovereignty and runs against the wishes of the Taiwanese people who do not want to be a part of China.
It is my clear impression that Denmark and the EU supports dialog between Taiwan and China and they have a strong believe that the current relation is healthy and improving for the common good. There is strong hope that Taiwan and China will obtain peace. However, do not make a mistake and a wrong interpretation. They are not that concerned about the Taiwanese people as with good relations with China. Denmark and the other European countries have not changed their one-china policy. They will be happy if the Taiwan problem disappears and they will not mind a Hong Kong solution for Taiwan. This is not my own opinion but many countries in EU will accept this if Taiwan and China agrees on it. I do not support this.
For many reason Taiwanese people voted for a better economy during a KMT government. I can understand this, and Ma also promised a pro-Taiwan policy. So there existed many good reasons for voting for Ma and KMT. If we look at the situation now, the economy is deteriorating but the government is not in full control because it is also a global issue. However, Ma has total control of his Taiwan and China policy. So why is he not following his promise of a pro-Taiwan policy? A lot of people must feel betrayed.
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