After the demonstration on Saturday in support of the commonsense move to change Taiwan's name to, well, Taiwan, pro-China so-called experts were quick to claim that the turnout for the rally marked some kind of maximum mobilization support for the pro-independence camp. This was of course ludicrous, as if pro-independence supporters numbered only the 150,000 who turned out on Saturday. Since we are not as stupid as these "experts" we will not suggest that the 7,000 who turned out yesterday exhausted the support for reunification and the maintenance of the absurd "Republic of China" title. We will, however, note, with thanks to the rally's organizers, that the two rallies appear to demonstrate that people having pro-Taiwan nationalist sentiments outnumber the pro-China reunificationists by 20 to one. Hoist by their own petard, the reunificationists have demonstrated by this show of weakness the size of the mandate for change in Taiwan. Thanks.
Saturday also saw the KMT formally endorse the pan-blue joint presidential election ticket. And this raises an issue of how seriously the DPP wants to win next year's election and to what degree it is prepared to use the flaws in Taiwan's legal and constitutional framework to get what it wants. For it should be remembered that at present it is not legal to field an election ticket with candidates from different parties. "Why on earth not?" ask civil libertarians. "Who cares?" we answer; the reason for this bizarre rule is lost in the history of KMT one-party hegemony. The point is that the pan-blue camp is relying on the law being changed.
Currently the necessary amendment to the Presidential Election and Recall Law is crawling through the legislature and there is little doubt that the blue camp, with its control of that body, will make sure that it is passed in time. But passage of a law does not guarantee it will be enacted. A law passed by the legislature can always be vetoed by the Cabinet. Such a veto can be overturned, but this requires the support of two thirds of the Legislative Yuan, a majority that the pan-blues cannot muster.
It thus lies in the power of the government to stop the pan-blue ticket in its tracks. We advise that they do so. This will not mean that the Lien-Soong pairing cannot run. But it would necessitate that the PFP and the KMT recombine into one party. This is something that the KMT is particularly unwilling to do. Having suffered a severe truncation of its wealth since it lost power and thus the ability to shamelessly manipulate the stock market, the last thing the KMT wants is to let the PFP's kleptomaniacs anywhere near its assets. We say tough luck, there's no honor amongst thieves.
We also say that the DPP should stop fantasizing about getting some KMT big shot -- they have their eye on party vice chairman Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) -- onto its own joint ticket. There is plenty of talent in the DPP to provide a capable vice presidential candidate should a change be needed. But when such a perfect opportunity for throwing a spanner in the works of the blue-camp campaign presents itself, the DPP should use it.
There will be the usual hypocritical squawks from the blue camp about undemocratic behavior. The answer to this is that the DPP legislative program for the past three years has centered on a number of issues that almost everyone in Taiwan wants, such as greater social welfare provision, legislation against corruption and the referendum law, and which the blue camp has shamelessly blocked out of pure self interest. Time for the blue camp to learn that others can act out of self interest too. And if this can derail the pan-blue election campaign, a victory for which would mean the end of Taiwan as we know it, it is in all our interests.
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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