President Chen Shui-bian's (
Shortly afterward, Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (
A pro-blue camp evening newspaper and an English-language paper published comments on how Japanese General Maresuke Nogi sent his two sons to the front line during the Russo-Japanese War, where they died in action. The comments were meant to ridicule the first family for purportedly being so fearful of death. The evening paper even eulogized Mao Zedong (
History textbooks tell us that the Russo-Japanese War was an inevitable result of Japanese expansionism following the Meiji reforms. The immediate cause of the war was a dispute between Russia and Japan over how to divide the booty of China's Liaodong Peninsula between them. It was a battle that should be condemned by any peace-loving person.
What happened to Nogi's sons was a tragedy. For the sake of his ambitions and Japanese military expansionism, Nogi sent his sons to die on the battlefield. This only reflects an individual's ignorance caused by nationalist and militaristic brainwashing. As for Mao's merits and demerits, there is no need to say more.
The opposition camp opposes Japan and Chen because they are pro-China. Their opposition to Japan is based on historical Chinese hatred toward that nation. They oppose Chen because they don't think he is loyal to China. Ironically, to browbeat the first family, the pro-unification media has not hesitated to use a war between two countries that invaded China. This only reflects the confused values of the opposition camp in their haste to attack Chen.
SARS has killed six health-care workers in this country. These deaths are an unfortunate loss both for the families of the departed and the nation. The deaths also appear to be the result of negligence on the part of hospitals and policy-making authorities. No one wants to see a single health-care worker sacrificed, much less any health-care worker staking their lives to prove their loyalty to the country. In light of the severe strain brought by SARS on health-care personnel, we hope the hospitals can properly plan their manpower allocation so as to ensure the safety of all health-care workers and patients.
And don't forget, among the three presidential candidates who ran in 2000, Chen is the only one whose son (or sons) has ever completed full military service. KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (
If the anti-Chen media really wants to eulogize war, they should use Nogi and Mao to teach the children of Lien and Soong a lesson.
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,
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
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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