In
a letter to the Taipei Times Lee Yen-mou argues that it is silly to hold a vote on whether the Republic of China [ROC] should be named Taiwan at the United Nations as the constitution calls the country ROC - not Taiwan. Instead, Yen-mou, argues for the constitution to be changed to call the country Taiwan, in order to give the name consistency and legitimacy.
That is an argument around the constitution providing national identity, and where it contradicts popular sentiment, it weakens the power of both.
Yen-mou argues that there should be a democratic display that the national name is Taiwan, not ROC, and the laws and constitution be amended to reflect that.
It would be ridiculous for us to use the name "ROC" internally, but "Taiwan" externally. A powerful, meaningful and necessary step is to demonstrate that "Taiwan" is our country's name.
The people of Taiwan must express their desire through a democratic referendum or other legal means that can demonstrate our view that we are Taiwan.
With that done, laws and the Constitution can be amended to change our name. This way we might succeed in winning enough international support for our country's name and our country's right to representation within the UN.
In conclusion, the obstacle is not just that China is blocking us, and not just that there is no sufficient support abroad for the issue.
The problem is that we must first change the name of our country to "Taiwan."
In realpolitik terms Taiwan is in a difficult place. They have transitioned to liberal democracy and have been a trading-state far longer than China has, but power is power in realpolitik, and China has more of it than Taiwan.
China is yet to discover how bad war/conflict and political instability are for business. Courtesy of Deming and Statistical Process Control [SPC] a factory is independent of any regional factors. Factories in China can be ripped up and put in southern Mexico, or India, or Indonesia; there will be a capital cost, but SPC guarantees that quality won't suffer.
Americans won't notice that the trinkets they are buying in Walmart are no longer made in China, and instead are coming from Indonesia. It is the nature of global trade.
More reading on China and Taiwan:
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
