Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski had lunch with Lee and members of the World Affairs Council (WAC) at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, where he stayed yesterday.

Lee gave a public speech on Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific's democratization.

Lee said that the establishment of democratic systems and values was a challenging reform for Taiwan, which continues to face China's bullying and intention to annex Taiwan. China is uneasy about Taiwan's democracy, Lee said, simply because such democratic achievements serve as an example for the Chinese people and even the entire Asia-Pacific region. Such achievements represent the hopes and future of democratization in the region, he added.

Lee also recounted the process of Taiwan's democratization during his more than 12-year presidency, stressing that the support of the international community was a key factor, and that the US had played the most important role during this process -- including during the 1996 missile crisis and the presidential election in 2000.

Thanks to international and US support, and the Taiwanese people's pursuit of democracy and their faith in being their own masters, Beijing was forced to restrain itself, Lee said.

Lee reminded the outside world that the true intention of China's threat to attack Taiwan by force under its fake purpose of unification was actually to cover up the irrationality and fragility of its authoritarian rule, which was highlighted by Taiwan's democratization.

Lee urged the US to help Taiwan break free of its international isolation, so that it can build normal relations with neighboring countries and become a full member of international society.

He said that Taiwan is fighting for peace and stability in the face of China's military threat. For the continuance of Taiwan's democracy, the US has to stand up in East Asia in order to uphold human rights and democracy, he said.

New viewpoint needed, not reform

By Lai I-chung

Recently, the "new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) movement" and other reform campaigns have focused largely on superficial issues, such as whether the party is corrupt, or whether it listens to the public's voices. It has insisted that reform is a party issue and is nobody else's business. But actually, Taiwan's biggest challenges are in its current circumstances and domestic social change.

This situation is also related to whether the understanding of the situation by academic and social groups, which are intimately connected with the DPP, is able to produce an effective response.

For example, the paradigm for interpreting Taiwan's democratic development has usually been a highly polarized one of activists versus the government. This has failed to take into account the influence of international events. This has given rise to the contradiction that exists in the so-called "one China" principle. Thus, the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime attempted to use the "one China" myth to justify its rule and resist democratic reforms such as re-election of the legislature. As a result, Taiwan's discourse on democracy has been framed in terms of a face off with the "one China" principle.

International China experts such as Charles Freeman Jr, believe that the US' "one China" policy has eased China's anxieties and helped to stabilize the Sino-US relationship, giving Taiwan space for democratic reform. So the world's security mainstream actually believes that the "one China" concept that has stabilized the Taiwan Strait is a key element to this reform. This is completely inconsistent with mainstream opinion in Taiwan.

The above discourses can explain two phenomena:

First, Taiwan's democratic development was not linked to the overall international environment at that time. Domestically, the focus was on social groups' opposition to the "one China" policy of the party-state system, at the same time as international observers regarded the "one China" policy as contributing to the stabilizing of the cross-strait environment.

Second, Taiwan's democratic discourse lacked an international perspective, making it unable to offer a response to the international view.

Taiwan needs a more complete understanding of its democratic development in light of its democratization in the 1990s and the end of the Cold War.

Take its democratization as an example. Now that the KMT has been forced to reform itself, and has become a element of the democratization process, the former model of a confrontation of opposites is no longer useful. It is now necessary to understand both the positive and negative contributions that the DPP, KMT and other parties have made.

A more comprehensive analysis is now necessary, and in practical terms, will also be useful for dealing with ethnic issues, for if an ethnic group feels that it is being made the target of reform, or that it is being sacrificed to political correctness, then the ethnic problem can never be resolved.

Of the challenges that Taiwan now faces in the international community, the most notable is the "rise" of China and the consequent reshuffle of the strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, Taiwan must also face various global issues, as well as struggle over issues such as the level of its competitiveness, democratic governance and social justice.

How to achieve effective management to protect both competitiveness and social values, while at the same time avoiding being sidelined as a result of indifference to global issues, are all becoming increasingly important. The fact of China's threat, and the fact that China is also becoming a major player in the international community, makes this situation even more complex.

As a result of China's "rise," the "one China" principle, so long the main target of Taiwan's demo-cracy, has ceased to serve as a mythology supporting the KMT's legitimacy. It is now a question of a real military threat. This has begun to influence events in domestic politics, including the schedule of constitutional reform, and with the questions of national title and textbook revision now impinging on national security, it is hardly a surprise that the matter of a referendum is now inseparable from military concerns.

The influence of these problems has increased with the growth of Chinese power. Surely we have not forgotten the six sessions of constitutional amendment that took place in the 1990s. At the time, the Cold War was just over and China was still an international pariah as a result of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Back then, constitutional amendment was not tied to national security concerns, and Beijing would never have dared make such a fuss over the titles of Taiwan's representatives.

It is because Taiwan's democratic discourse lacks an international dimension that there are international experts who say that the only responsible democracy is one that accepts the "one China" principle.

When they accuse Taiwan of wishing to escape the constraints of "one China," Taipei is unable to respond. It has proved unable to link Taiwan's democracy with the issue of regional security, let alone confirm the positive and negative impact of international issues on Taiwan's democracy.

In this situation, every reform issue in Taiwan ultimately boils down to what kind of system we need to continue exercising effective democratic government, protect national security and maintain social justice in the face of globalizing forces.

This is the heart of constitutional reform. The debate over whether Taiwan should adopt a presidential or Cabinet system of government should not be an issue of political theory, but rather needs to be considered from a more practical perspective.

At the moment, the DPP has the will but not the strength to implement reform. It is therefore necessary to remind those promoting reform that they should look more closely at the problems that Taiwan is facing, and review the inadequacies of the tools and methods used in understanding Taiwanese society in the past.

I believe that it is only by changing the paradigm of our understanding that we will be able to respond to current challenges.

Lai I-chung is the director of foreign policy studies at Taiwan Thinktank.

Celebrating something that never really was

By Cao Chang-qing

Celebrations for Double Ten National Day were held in Taipei, New York, Australia and several other places around the world. While Taiwanese people were enjoying the festivities celebrating the 94th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China (ROC), they seemed to forget a fundamental question: is there really a national title called the "ROC," and does it really exist now?

First, let us look at the past 94 years. From the ROC's founding to Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese National Party (KMT) to the regime's retreat to Taiwan, the name ROC had been the national title for China for 38 years. When the title ROC was first established in 1911 in China following the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it had jurisdiction over 35 provinces, excluding Taiwan (which had been ceded to Japan by the Qing government). Then, for 56 years after 1949, the title of ROC has referred to the government in Taiwan, with no jurisdiction over China.

In other words, the title ROC currently exists in a place (Taiwan) that was originally not under its jurisdiction, and the time it has been in a foreign place (56 years) exceeds that of its founding place (38 years). Is this reasonable? Is there another example of such a situation anywhere else in the world?

Second, during the four-year period between Japan's surrender in 1945 to 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established a new regime in China, the ROC -- which used to govern the whole of continental China -- in fact ruled over Taiwan for only four years.

There are even controversies over this period of sovereignty arising from the fact that Japan's renunciation of Taiwan in the San Francisco Peace Treaty did not specify who would take over the government of the territory.

Some people argue that since Taiwan was ceded to Japan by the Qing government, when Japan relinquished it, it would have been given back to the ROC, the successor of the Qing Dynasty.

But, with the same logic, Beijing can also say that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the KMT, and the ROC was replaced by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949 in China -- therefore, China should be qualified to inherit the ROC's sovereignty over Taiwan.

But, most Taiwanese people think the vagueness over whose jurisdiction Taiwan fell under in the San Francisco treaty was intentional. The intention was to return Taiwan to its owners, the people of Taiwan. Such thinking has some legal basis for the theory that Taiwan's international status has yet to be determined.

But however we look at it, the continued existence of the title "ROC" is a ridiculous phenomenon. And, given the aforementioned examples, it is not difficult to see that the ROC is simply an illusion.

The cross-strait peace advancement bill proposed by the KMT and the People First Party (PFP) aims to give legitimacy to the "two sides, one China" principle, preventing the Taiwanese people from changing the national title and using one that reflects the actual situation.

If the KMT and the PFP intend to recover the mainland, end the CCP's one-party regime and restore the sovereignty of the ROC, then their policy has some validity. But, the situation is entirely different, for they are willing to allow Taiwan to be conquered by China rather than allow the country to adopt "Taiwan" as its national title. This is the key issue.

On Oct. 10 this year, it was ridiculous to see the public still celebrating Double Ten National Day because they, in fact, are celebrating something that has not existed in Taiwan for 94 years.

Cao Chang-qing is a Chinese dissident writer based in New York.