A few days ago, former Judicial Yuan president Shih Chi-yang (
In the face of the pan-blue camp's attempts to deprive the people of their right to vote in the country's first ever referendum, the pan-green camp has also brought together more than 800 legal experts to refute Shih's argument. This group believes the pan-blue camp's claims distort the current situation and ignore the threats posed by China's 500 or so missiles aimed at this country. Taiwan will not have the time to hold a referendum when a life-and-death threat arises. The Referendum Law would be useless at such a point.
The views of the pan-green's experts are valid. After all, the Democratic Progressive Party government has only been in power for less than four years after 40 years of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule. The thorny problems left behind by the old regime, such as its illegally gained assets, the size of the legislature, changing electoral constituencies and the establishment of a double ballot system as well as the creation of a new constitution compatible with the nation's democratic development, all need to be determined via referendums.
Referendums are an expression of the people's power. They also guarantee that this nation's democratic development will be regulated by law. Therefore, the sooner the referendum is held, the earlier the nation's democracy will be deepened.
Taiwan remains under military threat from China. Beijing's missiles are real and so is the threat they pose, as shown by the 1996 missile crisis. At the same time, Taiwan's international space remains limited by China. Fewer than 30 countries recognize Taiwan's sovereign status. Isn't the situation serious enough to merit a referendum?
Taiwan must make its voice heard in the international community and express its people's opposition to China's missile threat and their love for peace. With all the attention focused on the presidential election, it is certainly worthwhile to use this time to make the nation's voice heard in the international community.
The enthusiasm displayed during the hand-in-hand rally on Feb. 28 was proof that public opinion is tilting toward the exercise of referendum rights and saying a loud no to China's military threat. This popular sentiment is a power that any future government must heed. The pan-blue camp should take note of public opinion and try to win the approval of voters by siding with the people of this country and not the leadership in Beijing. They should spend more time explaining China's oppressive acts to the international community instead of blindly echoing Beijing's condemnation of the referendum and trying to disrupt the balloting. The pan-blue camp has just a few days left to try to persuade voters that they have this nation's best interests at heart -- not their own.
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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