It was a privilege to be able to hear a discussion forum with Council member Brown. Her discussion about political action on a small community scale was very interesting. When she mentioned that any community can guarantee have a meeting with a council member remind me of an assignment I had to do for U.S History back in high school. All students in U.S History class had to go to a town hall meeting to see how the democratic process work on a smaller scale. During town hall meeting, the towns by law mandated that a time need to be designated as “citizens speak” time for concerned citizens to speak in front of committee member an issue related to the committee. I am glad that the similar idea to be found beyond Massachusetts.
My biggest takeaway from Council member was the importance of public transportation to the development of a community. I already knew that Columbus is one of the U.S major cities to not have a public rapid transit, however, I did not fully realize how big of an economic opportunity could the public transits bring to the communities it passes through. Now to come to think of it, Taipei Metro is one of the perfect example of positive impact a public rapid transit could bring to the communities. One of the many benefits is increase economic growth in Taipei’s outskirt town due to rise of tourist. The Metro also mitigated Taipei congestion issue and offers a more environmentally friendly transportation option. In the future year, I will be supportive of Columbus building its own rapid transits. Furthermore, I am also happy to see more high speed railway build in the U.S. just like how the Chinese accomplished last decade.
For my issues on Taiwan political status, I am going to split it into two different section: educational, and political. For this writing, I am going to talk about the issues in the lens of politics.
The very nature of Taiwan status is about politics, so every political action three countries takes (Taiwan, USA and PRC) regarding this issue will have significant impact towards this issue, no matter how small the action is. For example, then president-elect Donald Trump accepted the phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen spurred great unpleasant from the PRC. The PRC reiterate any move that disrupt the peace on both side of Taiwan Strait, the Chinese will invade and reintegrated Taiwan back to Chinese’s governance. The Chinese further proves its capability of making such military action by sending its fighter jets circle the islands twice, and have its aircraft carrier breach the first island chain and sail through the Pacific Ocean, which located east of Taiwan.
Ever since Jimmy Carter announced to terminated the official diplomatic tide with Taiwan, many congressional members (usually the Republicans) has been trying to help protect Taiwan in many ways. Most notably are multiple congress members writes a joint letter to the president urging him to approve the military sales towards Taiwan to strengthen Taiwan’s defense against its rising neighbor. Such movement continues to this day. Other than urging military sales, both US and Taiwan has many exchanges in many aspects, from transportation, commence to technology exchanges between retired officials on the visits to both countries. Each visit both nations reiterate that Taiwan is one of the U.S top trade partner and important democratic ally in the Asia Pacific, and both nations should promote more interaction on all aspects. In summary, there are many measures taken by small groups of people advocating for Taiwan’s security indirectly within the U.S.
Currently, the most direct way of impacting this issue is to write letters to Senator, Congressmen or Congresswomen who are already known to be supporting Taiwan to urge them to approve more military sales or have more official interaction between the two nations (for example: allow Taiwan to be in the military exercise hosted by the U.S, or have U.S speaks out to support Taiwan to join certain international organization, like ICAO or WHO). And/or write letter to other members of the Congress to tried to persuade them to sympathize and potentially speaking out in support of Taiwan. That way there will be more member in support of Taiwan in a congress.
Couple of challenges exists when taking this course of action. First challenge is to be able to identified which congress members has been traditionally looking out for Taiwan. This requires a very in-depth research on each individual congress member, even though a congress member is advocating for Taiwan, it might not be a big issue that the individual very interested in, so it is a large effort to be able to recognize which member of congress should I focus on first. Second, and perhaps the most difficult challenges of all is once I wrote the letters and send it to Congress members, and they decide to neglect my request. I predicted that because to them, this issue might simply be the most important thing on their minds. Especially right now when the new government holds the office, and major change in domestic policy that occupies a lot people’s time right now.
