During an interview with this newspaper (published in two parts, yesterday and today) President Chen Shui-bian (
With the political forces of the ancien regime waiting for an opportunity to make a comeback, and in the face of young democracies the world over which are also facing similar situations, it is hard not to agree with Chen. Just as he pointed out in the interview, the biggest danger for those countries pursuing democracy is the question of whether their peoples are ready to accept the pain of reforms.
Looking at countries in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe which have recently emerged from authoritarianism, it is clear from their development that democratic reforms are a long and messy road. For example, the people may lose their desire to continue on the path of reforms due to the temporary pain of the reforms. Reactionary conservatives can still make a comeback. Voters in these countries appear to have a short memory, and -- amid the pain and chaos of the early days of reforms -- some begin to long for the stability and economic order they remember from the authoritarian system. Prime examples of such wayward nostalgia are South Koreans who long for a leader such as Park Chung-hee, who ruled the country with an iron fist for 18 years, and the recent Mao Zedong (
The nation is at a crossroads -- it will either deepen its democracy or regress. It is time to remind the voters and the friends of this country that the people must stand firm on the ideals of democratic reform. Voters must make the correct historic choice. All those countries friendly to Taiwan should view the March 20 election with sympathy and support the universal values of democracy and reforms.
It has not been easy for the Taiwanese people to gain an opportunity to hold their first national referendum. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) have shown their clear contempt for the referendum and have launched a drive to dissuade people from voting in it. They even echoed Beijing's opposition to such referendums. They have used Chinese nationalism to mobilize the pro-unification groups and oppose the referendum in an attempt to eliminate the momentum of reforms and the rise of a Taiwanese consciousness.
The lackluster performance of the nation's economy in the past four years has fueled some people's discontent and their willingness to blame Chen despite the fact that the global economy has also been in the doldrums during this time. Some voters yearn for the days of the bubble economy under the KMT, when the stock market seemed to rise every day. They forget the pyramid schemes that collapsed and the embezzlements that robbed many people of their savings.
Fortunately the global economy has been recovering. The success of the Chen government's financial reforms are paving the way for a better future, just as the people's enthusiasm for democratic reforms will signify the arrival of spring for the nation's politics and economy. Chen's re-election would also be a shot in the arm for countries facing a similar situation.
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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