Three days from now, voters will be making a choice between the ticket of President Chen Shui-bian (
But the significance of this time's vote goes beyond choosing the country's leadership for the next four years.
In light of the differences between the China policies of Chen and Lien, Saturday's vote will determine the nation's future relations with China. It will determine whether Taiwan will leave China's shadow behind and walk its own path, or whether walk backwards to past KMT rule -- and have its Taiwanese awareness suppressed by the pan-blue camp and accept Beijing's manipulation.
The DPP's campaign headquarters also has decided to focus the final days of the campaign on Taiwanese awareness and opposition to "black gold" politics.
Lien and Soong prostrated and kissed the ground last Saturday in an attempt to prove their love for Taiwan and win over the hearts of middle-of-the-road voters. But their pretension was hardly convincing. In its editorial yesterday, the Chinese-language Liberty Times [the Taipei Times' sister paper] minced no words about Lien and Soong's behavior. The editorial asked whether the two men kissed the land of Taiwan, or did they kiss the land of a province of China? Would a politician ever need to kneel down and kiss the ground to show his love for Taiwan if he or she has fought for the construction of Taiwanese awareness, or if he or she has taken to the streets to join hands with others in protest against Chinese missiles?
After 2 million people took to the streets to say no to China on Feb. 28, the KMT-PFP camp immediately began organizing rallies for last Saturday in an attempt to kiss up to China. The message that the pan-blue camp sent to Beijing was: "Master, you need not worry that the Taiwanese people may resist you. Look, we have more people loyal to China. We can show them what we are made of." So they prostrated themselves and kissed the land of Taiwan Province, China; they have always viewed this nation that way.
In another sign of apparent desperation, fugitive tycoon Chen Yu-hao (
Another dubious character who has popped up to back the pan-blue ticket is Chu An-hsiung (
Saturday's election comes down to the choice between a vote for a future for Taiwan or a vote for the past.
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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