Taiwan's Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award is ridiculous

Politics Taiwan Politics
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The Government of the Republic of China has established an organization called the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

The President of the Legislative Yuan concurrently serves as Chairman of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs concurrently serves as Vice Chairman of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy established the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award. This award has been given for more than ten years since 2006. Every year, the President personally presents the award to the recipient.

Since the award establishment in 2006, it has never been given to any dissidents in any authoritarian country in the past decade or so.

Wang Dan, the leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement, criticized a few years ago why the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award was never awarded to Chinese dissidents.

The Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award, if not given to Chinese dissidents, could at least be given to Lee Ming-che.

But in fact, in the past decade or so, the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award has never been awarded to any human rights fighter in any authoritarian country. Instead, the winners of the Prize are all humanitarian and public welfare organizations, and none of them is a politically sensitive figure.

The Government of the Republic of China set up the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, which was modeled after the National Endowment for Democracy in the United States. However, as they do not want to irritate the Chinese Government on human rights issues, they dare not give awards to Chinese dissidents, resulting in the poor existence of this foundation, which has little significance.

If the government of the Republic of China does not have the guts to actually give awards to human rights fighters in authoritarian countries, then it should simply stop organizing the Asia Democracy and Human Rights Awards.

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Who are they giving them to?

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Are there any articles (in Chinese, English, or other languages) discussing this situation? Or is this just your personal opinion?

Guy

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In simplified Chinese? :thinking:

Guy

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This is an article written by Wang Dan at the Independent Chinese PEN.

Independent Chinese PEN is an organization founded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Wang Dan was a student leader in 1989.

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I know who Wang Dan is.

As I’m sure you know, Wang recently had his teaching gig at National Tsing Hua University (the one in Hsinchu, not in Beijing) terminated after allegations of serial harrassment became public.

Guy

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Oh yeah? How’d that go?

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Some stuff has been happening with him lately. Here’s one source trying to untangle the allegations. Warning: this is not for the faint-of-heart.

Guy

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At tpe T1 arrivals

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To be continued…

2033: @Mataiou was allowed to open an account with LINE Bank.

2035: @slawa linked his Richart account to EasyWallet.

2051: Resident foreigners were considered actual residents by tax authorities.

2057: A fisherman was allowed to change his job without the fishing boat sinking first.

2077: All migrant workers included under Labor Standards Act and minimum wage.

:whistle:

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2079: V wakes up from a coma and realizes all his friend has abandoned him/her.

But seriously, human rights in Asia isn’t a very high bar at all, when you got theocracies who basically have no human rights.

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Recently I watched a German show calling out populism and how to detect it. Some of the examples were when a ‘politician’ would use us vs them rhetoric. This is dangerous as it implies that some others deserve less rights and influence.
On the final note the show host said the most important thing for democracy is equality for everyone.

I would deduct quite a lot of points from Taiwanese democracy index for not treating all people residing in Taiwan equally. Taiwanese deliberately treat ‘non Taiwanese’ differently and give them fewer rights even in areas that can be considered basic human rights.

They came a long way from martial law suppressive regime. There are still many areas to improve though.

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Japan had problems similar to this after the Meiji restoration. The western governments wouldn’t accept them in equal terms unless foreigners were treated as they would be treated in their home countries .

Taiwan is behind the curve in that one and it shows. Land ownership being one of the obvious examples.