The use by the pan-blues of Adolf Hitler in their campaign ads is beneath contempt but we hope that in the last week of the election campaign it might serve to focus people's minds on the choice they have to make. For what was Hitler's government but the capture of the institutions of the state by a criminal gang? And what is the pan-blue alliance but a criminal gang seeking to capture the institutions of the state?
For those who find even this analogy in questionable taste let us remind them that during its period of government in China the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) murdered some 10,075,000 people -- ordinary innocent people, we stress, as this figure does not include war deaths. It is often forgotten that Chiang Kai-shek (
Times have changed, say the pan-blues. Perhaps so, but the fact that the pan-blues have never shown even the slightest contrition for what they have done -- and hard-liners were in fact incensed when in the late 1990s former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) apologized on behalf of the government for the 228 massacre -- suggests that they gave up the habit of killing not because of some Damascene conversion in their moral outlook but simply because it was expedient to do so.
What the pan-blues have never given up is their propensity for theft. Their presidential candidates are themselves mired in this culture of theft. People First Party Chairman James Soong (
Thieves leading a party of theft -- hardly an edifying prospect for a future government. Which makes Saturday's mass turnout for the pan-blues rather depressing. Why would people want to vote for a party whose principle skill is looting? It is truly amazing that anybody can fail to see the pan-blues' desire for power as anything other than the desire of confidence tricksters to persuade the people to leave the cookie jar in their care. Voting for the pan-blues is simply queuing up to have one's pocket picked.
This election has been characterized as a fight between pro-Taiwan and pro-China forces. It has been described as a battle between progressive forces, with an agenda that stresses democratic choice and popular sovereignty, and the forces of reaction, with their record of political exclusion and their current rejection of democratic choice -- a rejection best summed up as "you can vote, but only for the things we allow you to vote for." Both of these characterizations are correct.
But there is one more way of looking at the election. It is between those who have had a vision of how to make Taiwan a better society and have tried to actualize that vision, and those who see political power as a means only to enrich themselves. The pan-blues are not interested in making Taiwan a better place to live in. They are interested in expanding their real-estate portfolios in the US at our expense. What amazes is that Lien and Soong's prostrating themselves on Saturday did not cover them with ridicule. After all, if they love Taiwan so much, why did that make sure their sons dodged military service? Why do they have so much property and so many family members overseas? Can Taiwanese really fall for these crooked charlatans? Do turkeys really vote for Christmas?
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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