The Formosan Statehood Movement and Its Founder
Any hurried admission to the temple of freedom would be unwise, any forced admission would be contradiction in terms, unthinkable, revolting. But a duty lay on the people of the United States to admit all qualified applicants freely. (This was Manifest Destiny in its pure form: peaceful, automatic, gradual, and governed by self-determination.)
— quoted from Frederik Merk: Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History
With no regrets, we're determined to build an American Universal State on the values of freedom, democracy, human rights, rule of law, clean government, market economy, open society, racial equality, social justice, and upward mobility. This is Manifest Destiny with a new and enlightened definition.
— David C. Chou, Founder of the Formosan Statehood Movement
Nearly a century and a half after Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his contemporaries' occupation and settlement plans for Taiwan, the standard of the Formosan Statehood Movement (FSM) was finally raised by David C. Chou, an American-educated Formosan.
David Chou and his comrades set up the 51st Club of Taiwan and started the FSM in 1994. The Club is believed to be the first indigenous civic group of its kind to promote the cause of Formosan statehood in the Union.
David Chou was born in Taiwan in 1949, the year Chiang Kai-shek occupied Taiwan and set up his government-in-exile on this island. He received his Bachelor of Law degree from the National Taipei University (formerly National Chunghsing University) and Master of Comparative Law degree from Dickinson Law School, Pennsylvania State University.
Mr. Chou was actively involved in the Taiwan Independence Movement in his late thirties. Later on, he found that most residents on Taiwan did not want to risk their lives declaring de jure independence, nor did they favor so-called "unification with China," placing their hard-won democracy, freedoms, and higher standard of living in jeopardy. He therefore came up with a new approach — integration into the American Union — as a Third Option.
Mr. Chou believes his plan will create maximum benefits for the Formosan people and Americans as well. For this same reason, he argues, his proposition will prove to be a popular, workable, pragmatic, peaceful — indeed ideal solution.
The Formosan Statehood Movement outright rejects any form of political association with China and urges that any independent nation-building project must give way to the statehood plan, or the Formosan people will find themselves, in the near future, facing very grave dangers in the wake of Communist China's meteoric rise to great-power status, fueled by a massive transfer of wealth from the United States and Western Europe via astronomical trade deficits that pump hundreds of billions of dollars a year into the treasury of Communist China, to be used for whatever purposes the Butchers of Beijing may choose.
The Formosan Statehood Movement offers a pragmatic "2-phase Taiwan-U.S. Integration Project" to the general public of Taiwan. In each stage, a set of necessary measures are to be taken to draw Taiwan closer to America in terms of values and systems.
Phase 1: Taiwan as a Self-Governing Commonwealth in the American Union
The Formosan Statehood Movement advocates that the U.S. Government and the people on Taiwan work together to make Taiwan a U.S. territory like Puerto Rico or the Northern Mariana Islands, making Taiwan a self-governing "Commonwealth" of the United States, without a plebiscite or through a plebiscite to be held such time as the U.S. Government may deem appropriate.
Phase 2: Taiwan as a State of the United States
The Formosan Statehood Movement calls for full membership in the Union for Taiwan as the final, and best, solution to Taiwan's status problem.
The Formosan populace, we believe, will not be completely satisfied with the "Commonwealth" status for very long, because they will eventually appreciate that only with full membership in the Union can they enjoy full representation in the U.S. Congress, full vote for President, and political power commensurate with their economic strength.
Predicably, the future State of Formosa will rank top three in the American family in terms of the size of its population and economy. Taiwan as a State of the United States will have 2 senators and about 33 representatives to voice the will, aspirations, and needs of its residents. It's solid middle-class values of self-help, the need for education, and the overarching importance of family will resonate with the bulk of Americans and reinforce the best values of American civilization.
DONATIONS
To promote the Formosan Statehood Movement and push through our working agenda, we do need donations of time and money.
Checks and money orders, if any, should be made out in the name of "David C. Chou," with this notation in the "memo" space: "For the Formosan Statehood Movement." Bank charges might otherwise eat up a part of donations that can better be applied directly ro the Movement's projects.
Please send your donations to:
Mr. David C. Chou
P. O. Box 41
Huwei 632
Taiwan
A receipt will be sent to every donor, signed by David C. Chou and the treasurer of the Movement.
All communications with, and mail to, the Formosan Statehood Movement should be addressed to:
P. O. Box 41
Huwei 632
Taiwan
(This is the end of this page.) [FSM: An Ardent Appeal] [FSM: History of Taiwan in a Nutshell] [Expansionist Party home]