AsiaGlobal Voices

Despite the pandemic, the United States has made provocative moves over the Taiwan issue. Not only does it support Taiwan’s participation as an observer in the World Health Assembly (WHA), but American warships and military aircraft have repeatedly crossed the Taiwan Strait. Could this lead to conflict between China and the US?

Since 2017, the US government and Congress have pursued a coordinated approach to China, including on Taiwan-related issues. On Taiwan, the government has issued extreme resolutions or bills on the grounds of values, ideology or geopolitical competition. A series of bills, passed by Congress, have been quickly signed by the president. Once established, this approach is difficult to change. US policy towards China on Taiwan-related issues will only intensify.

Although American officials claim to adhere to the one-China policy, recent US legislation has reduced the importance of the principle. In the past three years, the US has issued such documents on Taiwan-related issues as the National Defense Authorization Act, while also strengthening official contacts with Taiwan and showing support for "Taiwan independence" actors. This is not only a reflection of the US abandoning its previous policy framework for engagement with China but also a demonstration of its moving towards a competitive stance.

Third, although the US government is dominated by super hawks who hold extreme positions against China, recent attitudes on the Taiwan issue show that the US still prefers to use Taiwan as a political and diplomatic tool to contain the mainland. For example, in response to Taiwan’s request to participate in the WHA, the US repeatedly gave verbal backing and encouraged other countries to provide support but never submitted any proposal.

Ultimate authority on the Taiwan issue remains on the mainland, as it has been in the past and will remain so in the future.

President Tsai Ing-wen emphasized in her re-election speech on May 20 that she resolutely rejects Beijing’s "one country, two systems" proposal. Yet, the next day, while the pan-Blue opposition coalition were still criticizing President Tsai for not showing any goodwill to the mainland, the Chinese National People's Congress of announced plans to introduce a national security law in Hong Kong.

In terms of impact, the national security law covers serious crimes such as subverting state power, splitting the country, interfering with foreign forces, and terrorist activities, which could involve imprisoning and strictly controlling the freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and procession. Under such a law, the people of Hong Kong could be easily be convicted of any crime. If they threaten the regime of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), they risk being charged and detained by the authorities. The official introduction of law will mark the moment when the freedom of the Hong Kong people and “one country, two systems” die.

“One country, two systems” has been a mask for the leadership of Hong Kong. When society does not obey orders, the CCP has been shown to throw off this mask, revealing their true face of brutality. The CCP and the Hong Kong government have recently used the excuse of the Covid-19 epidemic measures to suppress the Hong Kong people’s objections to this law. While control measures were expected to have expired, they were suddenly extended to June 4, with all assemblies and processions banned. Nevertheless, the population has already gathered to protest against Chief Executive Carrie Lam.

President Tsai was correct to reject firmly the proposal of “one country, two systems”. Furthermore, judging from the brutality of Beijing’s national security law in Hong Kong, the pan-Blue coalition are simply boneless worms led by the CCP.

The Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia recently announced its support for Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s decision to reopen parts of the economy. While this was criticized and ridiculed by some people, it is important to avoid using this crisis to score political points. The reason why the Gerakan, a professional and responsible political party, made such a decision was for the sake of the people and ensuring the stability of Malaysia.

The Gerakan Party understands the desire of the people to have a democratic government, and respects and practices democratic principles. In the face of the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, however, the most important thing right now is to defeat the virus, improve the economy and assist citizens out of the difficulties as quickly as possible.

It is therefore very important to support and cooperate with the current government to ensure that the country can address these unprecedented challenges. Malaysians are now facing problems such as high living expenses and increasing unemployment. The country must have a stable government to formulate and implement effective anti-epidemic strategies and policies to stimulate economic growth.

The Gerakan calls on the government to continue the national reform agenda, launch a people-oriented ruling declaration, and lead the country and people out of the epidemic and economic crisis. Gerakan will play the role of an active and constructive opposition party by speaking out for the people without fear, while checking and balancing the government.

Nothing is more important than life, and priority must be given to protecting people ’s lives as much as possible. To achieve this, Malaysia needs a stable government supported by robust epidemic strategies, political stability and economic support.

The biggest political story in Japan in the first half of May was not only COVID-19, but also the attempt by the Abe government to revise how special prosecutors are appointed. The move resulted in huge and unprecedented backlash on social media, and plummeting poll numbers for Abe and the cabinet, forcing Abe to back away from the plan.

Take a sober second look at the controversy surrounding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s proposed amendments to the law on how special prosecutors are appointed. These changes are perceived by opposition lawmakers and the public to make it easier to control the public prosecution office and make it difficult to investigate alleged government abuses. The debate surrounding the proposed amendment has been clouded by emotion rather than based on reality. Affecting the tenor of the discussion has been the slump in Abe's popularity since the start of the Covid-19 crisis in Japan in late February.

Critics of the amendment have embarked on a fishing expedition that is aimed at scoring political points instead of uncovering the truth, with facts being replaced by intuition and gut feeling about the prime minister's supposed disingenuousness and duplicity when proposing the amendments. With the help of uninformed television celebrities, the fishing expedition has snowballed into a social media hashtag campaign. The public had already made up their minds without bothering to learn about the proposed amendments.

While everyone in Japan is free to express a political opinion, individual judgement must not be based on intuition, feelings and anti-intellectualism.

We are not fighting a war against Covid-19. Instead, it is a marathon. Shigeru Omi, who has been on the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Board since 2013 and is deputy chair of the Japanese government's expert panel on the coronavirus, has stated that war imagery should not be used as a metaphor for the struggle against epidemic in Japan.

Kaori Muto, a specialist in research ethics at The University of Tokyo, has also argued that militaristic language is problematic, because it implies there are generals who control the "battle", while there are "the weak" whose lives must be sacrificed. This is unacceptable, she says.

Health authorities are continuously struggling to find the best ways to inform and persuade the public. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, has called the fight against Covid-19 "World War III" and a "war of endurance". So, another challenge for health professionals is how to compete with government in providing reliable information.

Is quarantine a method of punishment? That may be a good question to ask after watching police prevent Northern Province politicians from commemorating Tamils who were killed during the civil war that ended 11 years ago.

While the government was preparing to commemorate the members of the armed forces and the police who laid down their lives in the fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Northern politicians planned a commemoration of those Tamils, including members of the LTTE, who were killed in the war. 

The government, despite its opposition to those events, had not banned them. But the police used the public-health instructions to prevent the Tamil politicians and the Northern people from attending.  

The quarantine process was perceived as a method for isolating people infected with the coronavirus. The police warned former Northern Province chief minister CV Wigneswaran, who was heading to a commemoration, that they would punish him with quarantine if he disobeyed, even though he and his followers said that they would adhere to health requirements. 

Wigneswaran proceeded to the venue with police permission. He and his group travelled in separate vehicles, wearing face masks. Yet the police later consulted the higher authorities before they prevented him from attending the event. The government had instructed the police not to allow gatherings because of the Covid-19 threat. If he had disobeyed, they could have arrested him.

The importance placed on these events by the Tamil politicians and media indicates the vast division among communities 11 years after the end of the war. The government’s position on the commemoration of Tamils killed in the war is not clear. Is it illegal to hold such events? If so, why didn’t the government ban those commemorations under the relevant law without citing the coronavirus threat?

Looking at the scheme for the recovery of the economy, I doubt if this will improve the purchasing power of the public, which the Covid-19 crisis has damaged far more than the monetary crises of 1998 and 2008. The virus has affected both upstream and downstream sectors of the economy where micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) and the cooperatives operate, representing 99.3 percent of Indonesian enterprises, contributing 57 percent of GDP.

The recovery scheme envisages a leading role for major companies, including the state-owned enterprises. The role of MSMEs and cooperatives is minimal. Out of the state funding of 318.09 trillion rupiahs (US$21.5 billion), MSMEs and cooperatives get only 34 trillion rupiahs (US$2.3 billion), and that in the form of interest subsidies.

I suspect there is a hidden agenda in this program in which certain elements have lobbied for a leading role in policy. Our recommendation is for a bigger role for the MSMEs and cooperatives.

As Covid-19 rages across the globe, both the appeal of globalization and the influence of international organizations have diminished. Instead, this crisis has emphasized the importance of building a strong nation and resilient economy.

ASEAN members are among the countries with the closest economic and trade exchanges with China, with which they have strong ties through global supply chains. The impact of the pandemic is evident in two areas: First, ASEAN's tourism revenue depends significantly on Chinese tourists. The significant decline in their numbers has had a huge negative effect on tourism, aviation, catering and other supporting sectors across ASEAN. Second, ASEAN countries participate in the China-centered global industrial chain, relying upon exports of raw materials and intermediate products to China for final processing and assembly. Many countries, notably Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, have trade deficits with China. Deepening deficits will be detrimental to their industrial development.

As a result of rising production costs in China combined with accelerated domestic economic transformation and the Sino-US trade war, a considerable number of multinational companies are diversifying their supply chains by moving some facilities out of China. Covid-19 has accelerated this process, with the crisis being a turning point in the restructuring of the global industrial chain. While seizing the opportunities brought about by these developments remains crucial for ASEAN’s economic growth, the crisis has demonstrated that economic reliance on China and its industry chains carries significant risks.

With a large young labor force and expanding middle class, ASEAN’s potential is huge. The region’s rich natural resources and low production costs allow ASEAN to play a growing role in the global industrial chain. The restructuring of the global supply chain provides an opportunity for ASEAN countries to implement bold economic and labor reforms to accelerate development of manufacturing.

The public is debating whether to rescue Thai Airways from its 200 billion-baht (US$6.2 billion) debt or let it go bust. At its peak, the 60-year-old airline was the pride of the nation. But today, Thai Airways is seen as a source of national embarrassment and never-ending sinkhole of taxpayer money. Rumors have it that the airline is ready to file for bankruptcy.

Should taxpayers shoulder the burden? This is not a question of pride or no pride, but how the government should spend our money at the time Thailand is facing grave economic prospects due to the coronavirus.

Not every Thai takes pride in Thai Airways because its prohibitive prices led some to view the airline as more of the pride of the middle class and the elite. It’s an airline on which politicians and those in power feed, while ordinary people are left to clean up the mess. Perhaps the only aspect for which it can now truly be called a national carrier is that all of us taxpayers will likely have to reach into our pockets to cover the losses incurred by the airline.

Thai Airways is a shadow of its past glories. It failed to be competitive now that the aviation sector is full of low-cost rivals. Its management is bloated and ineffective, its business model a failure.

Even if one says that the government should bail out Thai Airways, there is no guarantee how long it will take before the airline comes back begging for more taxpayers’ money. Any attempt to bail out the airline must be sound, transparent and accountable to the public. Thai Airways must bite the bullet and reform. We cannot keep paying for it as long as they can’t give us a credible solution to its woes.

Although the government of Shinzo Abe has been launching one emergency economic measure after another, the prime minister's popularity has cratered, falling to an approval rating of just above 30 percent since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in February. According to a poll conducted in mid-May, support for the government was 33 percent, down from 41 percent a month earlier, the administration’s second-worst result since it was formed in 2012. Only 15 percent of respondents said that Abe is exercising the leadership needed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Nearly 70 percent said that his efforts were insufficient.

Despite a variety of relief packages aimed at countering the economic crisis caused by Covid-19, a large part of the electorate feels alienated by the government, thanks to years of austerity and neglect. People have been expected to help themselves and have been actively discouraged by the Abe administration over the past decade from seeking any help from the government during tough economic times. Even after receiving 100,000 yen (US$930) in government relief funds, just 15.8 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the government’s measures. Besides complaining that it took too long to distribute the benefit payments, many voters simply feel alienated after nearly a decade of neglect by the Abe government.

It is a shame that the Chinese-language teaching reform over recent years seems to have overlooked the issue of rapid mass literacy. Rapid mass literacy refers to the process of students learning a lot of words in a very short period of time with the goal of quickly being able to read independently.

As the recognition of new words will provide an important foundation for students to learn, literacy teaching should be the focus in the lower grades of primary school. Students can only read independently if they have mastered a certain number of Chinese characters and vocabulary. The promotion of rapid mass literacy, therefore, will support early reading and writing ability.

Singapore’s Ministry of Education has mentioned the importance of literacy each time it carries out Chinese-language education reforms. They have, however, always lacked specific implementation measures. The current approach to literacy teaching takes places over a long time period and has minimal benefit to the cultivation of students’ interest in reading. As a result, the level of Chinese literacy among students does not match their intellectual development.

Promoting rapid mass literacy in the first and second grades of primary school offers a feasible approach. This is not only a way to tackle the difficulty of learning Chinese but is also the only way to increase students' interest in learning Chinese. It is therefore hoped that future Chinese education reforms will seek to promote rapid and large-scale literacy.

Press freedom is both a basic right and an important social indicator. The Hong Kong Journalists Association recently released the latest Hong Kong Press Freedom Index survey results, which reported the lowest score since its inception. The survey is divided into two parts: the public’s assessment of 41.9 (the closer to zero the greater the press freedom) and the media’s score of 36.2. The scores have been declining in recent years.

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontiers, or RSF, in French) publishes the annual World Press Freedom Index. According to data for 2020, Hong Kong ranked just 80th out of 180 countries and regions surveyed, down seven places from the previous year and a record low. Hong Kong ranked 18th in the world in 2002, when the index debuted.

Last year’s protests presented a crisis in both politics and the press. Journalists faced three specific problems while working: personal threats while conducting interviews, difficulties in obtaining the information needed for reporting, and insufficient laws to protect them while doing their job.

In addition, violence has become increasingly problematic and frequent. This year’s survey showed that 65 percent of the 222 journalists interviewed had been violently treated by police or civilians an average of four times.

Political disputes are intensifying, the economy is facing difficulties due to the impact of Covid-19, and the society is under increased pressure. Meanwhile, the press is facing both political and economic pressures as well as self-censorship. While Hong Kong must work hard to get out of its predicament, we must also pay attention to the freedom of the press.

Even as the world battles a virus that has gripped the human race, Muslims observe the month of fasting with fervor and hope. Covid-19, in fact, should be taken as an opportunity for those who pray, because they can now do so in isolation and away from temptations of social gatherings. This is the time for deep introspection and developing and strengthening one’s bonds with the Creator, with no one watching.

Ramazan is very special for Muslims. It is one of the main ways God prescribes for them to work towards developing piety and righteousness. Indeed, if we do not control tendencies to anger, abuse, lying, cheating, committing other small or big sins, our fasts will be merely acts of starvation.

The main reason for the special place occupied by Ramazan in the hearts of Muslims is that the Quran was first revealed during this month. The night during which this revelation first came to the Prophet is the one every practicing Muslim aspires to search for and find. It is the blessed night during which every matter is decreed. It is the night in which, through prayer, sins are forgiven, supplications are accepted, and mercy and blessings surround the persons engaged in prayer.

It is clear that sincere worship during this night would have considerable worth in the eyes of God. This is when angels descend to do God’s merciful bidding. This is the night of peace, consolation, warmth and compassion, bringing Muslims and the universe together into one entity of creation by God, bound to Him by virtue of this connection and hence bound to each other, called upon to establish peace and harmony, with each other and with nature.

President Tsai Ing-wen and Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung, supported by media aligned with the ruling coalition, like to boast about Taiwan’s Covid-19 achievements. The government has sought recognition from overseas and even engaged in activities such as face-mask diplomacy, which has garnered thanks from foreign dignitaries.

The reality, however, is that in the early stage of the epidemic Taiwan civilians successfully controlled the epidemic through rapid compliance and the wearing of masks. Major tasks such as the analysis of the virus, antibody screening, testing and vaccine development have not been given significant attention. 

The crisis in Taiwan has nearly subsided, with no domestic cases appearing for 29 days. Taiwan must now focus on its post-epidemic prevention work. While the government claims to have an overall plan for the development of vaccines, new drugs, and faster testing, they have forced academic institutions and private pharmaceutical companies to pursue the fight alone, without government funding.

As a result, no concrete achievements have been made in Taiwan, while research in these fields has yielded results in many countries around the world. Reviewing the situation objectively, Taiwan's epidemic prevention work has fallen behind. Taiwan must urgently think about what should be done to handle another wave of the epidemic.

As nationwide efforts are made to combat the Covid-19 epidemic, we must also prevent the emergence of another disease – corruption. It has recently been reported that there have been suspected cases of corruption in the course of the Ministry of Health’s procurement of medical materials during the crisis. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is investigating several allegations including abuse of power relating to negotiations and contracts.

The purchase of medical materials must follow the principles of transparency, openness and integrity. While government departments should be able to make purchases quickly with minimal red tape, they must still choose reputable and recognized contractors or sellers. Medical supplies such as respirators and medical equipment should only be purchased from established companies. In addition, the government should publish the amount and details of the materials. While enhancing transparency and credibility, this can also eliminate rumors and speculation.

During the crisis, many large companies, businesses, civilians and non-governmental organizations have made donations. When received by the government, they should also provide information about these materials so that medical staff and hospitals can ensure they have access to the available supplies and equipment they need. 

Investigations will clarify if there are indeed cases of corruption or abuse of power. This epidemic is expected to continue for a long time. Steps must be taken to prevent individuals from using this crisis to make a fortune.