Taiwan Politics Quotes

For years, Taiwan has been dominated politically by a single party, the Kuomintang. People now want the place to be more democratic. They want to place more emphasis on human rights and transparency in terms of government decision-making. This is different from the way the government conducted business in the days when this was pretty much an authoritarian place.

I expect the ruling and opposition parties to work together for the future of Taiwan.

People movements have heralded a new era of Taiwan politics.

I have this idea of a Taiwan Consensus, which means people in Taiwan have to get together and form a consensus of their own and that they turn around to talk to the Chinese to form a cross-strait consensus so we can build a relationship on that consensus. And in my view, that is the right order to do things.

The majority of Taiwan people cannot accept Taiwan becoming a second Hong Kong, nor can we accept Taiwan becoming a local government of the People's Republic of China or a Special Administrative Region of China.

Many in Taiwan believe that Hu Jintao is much more sophisticated than his predecessors in understanding Taiwan. He represents a different generation of leaders, more pragmatic, less ideological.

I think that there is a relatively small number of people who are pushing for independence in Taiwan.

Taiwan isn't ruled by rule of law. Taiwan is a country of liars and fraudsters. Our politicians are full of lies. They change their position from one day to the next.

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

Gender used to be a barrier for women to overcome if they wanted to be in politics, but today in Taiwan the situation is somewhat different. I think there is even a preference for a woman candidate, and in local elections, we have seen that younger, better-educated female candidates are overwhelmingly preferred by the voters.

We must unify Taiwan; we cannot afford to have our society being divided in half.

Taiwan is the Republic of China, the Republic of China is Taiwan.

I have spent time discussing the American political system and current events in Taiwan with the junior diplomats, and they have repeatedly expressed their country's desire to avoid confrontation with China.

Taiwan politics certainly is colorful.

Ma Ying-jeou tends to use cross-strait policy as an election tool and a political tool, too, and my position is that we don't use that as a political tool because that is an issue that is critical and essential to the interests of the Taiwanese people.

Taiwan is an independent sovereign country.

The election of the nationalist Chen Shui-bian as president in 2000 and his re-election in 2004 was a nadir in the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland.