Since the US-Iraq war broke out, Taiwan's green and blue camps have turned into pro-US and pro-China factions respectively. They are now engaging in a "saliva war" almost as vehement as the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, the opposition camp is stopping at nothing to humiliate Chen Shui-bian's (
On the legislative floor, pan-blue legislators are hurling abuse at Chen for his support of the US war in Iraq, calling him a "toady of the Americans" and a "child-emperor." Although Chen's remarks have hardly been inappropriate, the opposition lawmakers overstepped the bounds of propriety with their insulting accusations. Such vitriol will not win any sympathy from the public. Taiwan now has freedom of speech, but the people of this country did not give their lawmakers the power to insult or vilify their president under any pretext. The opposition parties should seriously question and debate government policies instead of gossiping about the president's private affairs on the legislative floor. Such unwarranted abuse of the interpellation sessions simply turns the legislature into a national rumor mill.
Before the war broke out in Iraq, we heard Democratic members of the US Congress fiercely opposing Us president George W. Bush's plan to take military action. However, US Democrats never mounted a personal attack on their president or resorted to character assassination, no matter how much they disagreed with Bush. That's because they know that using their official power to humiliate the president is the equivalent of being disloyal to their country. Unless they are in fact loyal to another country, representatives of the people should not do that.
If more than one opposition lawmaker publicly claims on the floor of the legislature that their own president is the son of the US "emperor" and a lackey of the Americans, how can they also claim to respect the choices of the people of Taiwan? Was not the president democratically elected by the people of Taiwan? Such talk gives one the impression that these legislators would rather give their loyalty to another country and another head of state.
Everyone knows that next year's presidential election is drawing near. The chairman of the KMT, which was ousted from power only three years ago, and the chairman of the PFP, who narrowly lost the election at that same time, are now setting their sights on the posts of president and vice president. They are vowing to bring another transition of political power to Taiwan. From the perspective of democratic politics, everyone will accept the ultimate choice of the majority of the electorate. But we would like to ask the opposition parties not to be so base. It might give people the impression that the opposition is trying to assume power by trampling on the basic principles of democratic politics by defaming their political opponents.
We know that the Taiwanese electorate is not stupid. In the previous legislative elections, the voters dumped a large number of politicians who abused their power trying to humiliate and tarnish the head of state. This should have served as a valuable lesson to the opposition camp. We hope to see the KMT and the PFP play their appropriate role as opposition and show loyalty to their country, instead of siding with the regime in Beijing on every issue -- mere happenstance, to be sure -- and insulting their country's president.
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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