Toma nota.../Take note...

The Republic of China retreated to Taiwan in 1949 maintaining its de facto, if not de jure, independence, but Beijing has consistently refused formally to abandon the idea of reunifying Taiwan with China. As well as growing military pressure, the Peoples Republica of China (PRC) irredentist policy is premised on encouraging cross-Strait economic integration. Responding to preferential measures, Taiwanese industrialists have invested massively in the PRC, often relocating their businesses there. Fragments of a nation torn apart by contradictory claims, these entrepreneurs are vectors of a new form of unification imposed by the Chinese Communist Party, promoted but postponed on the island by the Nationalist Party, and rejected by a majority of the Taiwanese population.Within what can be described as an unfinished civil war, socio-economic dynamics remain embedded in conflicts over sovereignty.

Taiwan and Neutrality

A way forward for Asia’s direct democratic tiger

by Bruno Kaufmann

Neutrality, combined with participatory democracy, is not a guaranteed recipe for a country’s lasting stability. But history suggests it is better insurance than the most sophisticated weapons systems.

Taipei, Jul.3.– How can a small country like Taiwan best defend its democracy against the explicit threats of its stronger neighbours? How can it withstand the pressures of geopolitical aggression between great powers?

Neutrality might be the answer.

Contrary to what is usually reflected in the mass media, Christian thought has been highly relevant in the evolution from absolutism to democracy and its eventual struggle against totalitarianism. Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th Century and Jacques Maritain in the 20th Century, through Leo XIII from the Holy See and the resulting Church Social Doctrine are notable exponents of the relevance of Christian teachings and their influence on democratic ideas. The following article offers an excellent analysis of this topic. 

Frenchmen in America: How Alexis de Tocqueville and Jacques Maritain Discovered America

Introduction
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At first glance, Alexis de Tocqueville and Jacques Maritain would appear to have little in common. An aristocrat from one of France’s oldest families, Tocqueville had many doubts about the truth claims of Christianity, though we have good reason to believe that he returned to the Catholic faith on his deathbed. Tocqueville also wrote very much as what we would call political sociologist, even a type of political scientist. Though obviously familiar with Christian sources and thought – indeed, he never stopped attending Mass – it’s clear that he was as much influenced by reading Rousseau, Voltaire, and especially Montesquieu as he was by reading Augustine.

By contrast, our second figure, Jacques Maritain, was raised as a Protestant. For a time, he was an agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. Aristotle and Aquinas were Maritain’s lodestones, and his thought forms part of that great revival of Thomas Aquinas’ thought occasioned by Leo XIII’s 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris. A fierce critic of Voltaire and even more so of Rousseau, Maritain authored over 60 books, which focused on subjects ranging from metaphysics to the nature and role of the state. Maritain was also viewed as a type of representative of 20th century Catholic intellectuals. It was not a coincidence that Pope Paul VI presented his “Message to Men of Thought and of Science” at the end of Vatican II to Maritain.

Russian meddling failed in Moldova and their annexation did not crystallize thanks to Ukraine's independence creating a buffer zone between this small country and their powerful Eastern neighbor. Nevertheless, an artificial geographic belt baptized as Transdniester Republic was snatched from the moldovans and is controlled by Russia since 1992, well before the Russian anexation of Crimea.  

Republic of Moldova: Transition from communism to democracy

Chişinău, May 16.– The Moldovan Democratic Republic was established in 1917, but was incorporated by the Kingdom of Romania in 1918. After the Second World War, the country was part of the Soviet Union. In 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic proclaimed its independence from Moldova, because they wanted to remain in the Soviet Union and feared a reunification with Romania. It was neither recognised by Moscow or Chişinău.

Moldova became itself independent in 1991. Since then, and until 2009, Moldova was under a more or less disguised communist government. On the 5th of April 2009, the Communist Party won the parliamentary elections with 60 seats out of a possible 101. It became contested after people claimed that there had been some manipulation with the votes and their counting. The electoral campaign was marked by numerous accusations against the Communists (harassment of opposition political parties, misuse of administrative funds, and interference in the editorial policy of public mass media).

As the United States seeks to eliminate nuclear weapons from North Korea, our cover this week looks at how arms control is unravelling. President Donald Trump is poised to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. The limits on the nuclear arsenals of Russia and America are set to lapse by 2021, leaving them unconstrained for the first time in almost half a century. The chances are increasing that nuclear weapons will spread and that someone, somewhere will miscalculate.

Despite North Korea, arms control is unravelling

Complacent, reckless leaders have forgotten how valuable it is to restrain nuclear weapons

May 3.– Rarely do optimism and North Korea belong in the same breath. However, the smiles and pageantry in April’s encounter between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in, leaders of the two Koreas, hinted at a deal in which the North would abandon nuclear weapons in exchange for a security guarantee from the world, and in particular America. Sadly, much as this newspaper wishes for a nuclear-free North Korea, a lasting deal remains as remote as the summit of Mount Paektu. The Kims are serial cheats and nuclear weapons are central to their grip on power (see article). Moreover, even as optimists focus on Korea, nuclear restraints elsewhere are unravelling.

By May 12th President Donald Trump must decide the fate of the deal struck in 2015 to curb Iran’s nuclear programme.