The mood surrounding this year's Christmas period is quite different from previous years. There is more anxiety than joy. This is very different from the message of jubilation that this holiday usually brings to Taiwan and other places around the world. The shadow of war and chaos appears to be drowning the auspiciousness of Christmas.
In Christianity, the greatest significance of Jesus' birth should be that he brought humanity the hope of peace and love and allowed all people under the sun to share this message through the celebration of his birthday. Out of this healthy and meaningful hope grows vitality and the spirit of loving others like oneself, which makes everyone willing to love and help each other and to help those who need help while raising one's vision, renouncing violence and interacting with each other peacefully. If this is the case, then there will naturally be no violence and war in this world. As such, regardless of their religious affiliations, people should not reject such an inspiring truth.
In the last 10 years of the last century, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, humanity left behind the potential crisis of a third World War. No one would have anticipated that no sooner did we enter the new century than we would be facing a serious threat of terrorism targeting the US and many other countries. Chilling terrorist attacks have wrapped the entire world in the gloom of the US anti-terror campaign. This year the world is again overshadowed by a possible US and UK joint attack against Iraq. This has hindered the prospects of an international financial recovery. The economies of various regions remain sluggish and many people feel uncertain about their futures. A milieu of pessimism permeates everywhere. This certainly affects people's moods even as they try to celebrate Christmas.
We cannot help but ask whether this conflict -- which began from an excessive rich-poor divide and religious differences and expanded into a conflict between ethnic groups and religions -- should be resolved by military means as the ideological conflicts of the last century were resolved? On the other hand, do the sufferings of a small number of people and their disagreement with other people's lifestyles justify the killing of innocent people and the unleashing of terror throughout the world? What exactly did we learn from the two World Wars and numerous other conflicts large and small in the last century? History has already taught us that genocidal methods like those employed by Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic cannot solve humanity's conflicts.
World peace has been threatened by terrorism right at the beginning of a new century. What can we do to reverse this situation and prevent it from worsening? We believe world peace cannot be achieved in one stroke. It takes more tolerance, mutual trust and communication to nurture it. Perhaps, the US could take the initiative by demonstrating its Christian spirit, attaching more importance to the plight of people in poor countries, treating other countries with sincerity and humility and showing love for the world's peoples. Only then can the virus of ethnic hostility stop breeding and spreading. Only then will it be meaningful to greet and celebrate Christmas. Only then will there be real hope for world peace.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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