In light of the social confrontation following the presidential election, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (
Shen's remarks against the DPP have brought criticism not only from the party but also from former president Lee Teng-hui (
Shen's specious remarks have been interpreted as an attempt to curry favor with pro-blue voters in Taipei, so as to pave the way for a bid in the 2006 Taipei mayoral election. An even bigger mistake was the failure to see political realities and to wrongly link loving Taiwan to ethnicity. Who says that loving Taiwan is the preserve of any one ethnic group?
The DPP's traditional supporters are Hoklo -- descendants of immigrants from the southern region of China's Fujian Province, also known as Minnan. There is a clear distinction between the Hakka and the indigenous peoples here on the one hand and the Hoklo on the other, due to their historical conflicts in the early phase of Taiwan's development. Hence, Chinese leaders have always cooperated with the Hakka whenever the Hoklo started a rebellion. The Qing government even granted the title of "loyal citizens" to the Hakka who sacrificed themselves during fights with the Hoklo.
The reason why indigenous peoples feel they have been unfairly treated by the Hoklo is that throughout history, their land has been exploited by the Hoklo, Taiwan's largest ethnic group . This was well understood by the KMT government. When it moved to Taiwan in 1949 and was faced with the Hoklo group, which made up 70 percent of the local population, they made it their strategy to promote people of Hakka descent, secure the support of indigenuous peoples and isolate the Hoklo. The Hakka and the indigenuous peoples thus became part of the KMT's traditional support base.
Taiwanese politics are still troubled by the ethnicity issue. Fortunately, during the recent presidential election, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) nurtured an emerging but still weak Taiwanese national consciuousness in order to oppose China's missile deployment and pro-China politicians in Taiwan. He promoted love for Taiwan and broke down ethnic barriers, thereby gaining more support from the Hakka community.
If we want to thoroughly break the curse of ethnicity and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) strategy of isolating the Hoklo, we need an ethnicity-transcending political platform and mind-set. Only by uniting under the banner of national consciousness can we become one instead of fragmenting into different ethnic groups. The most powerful slogan for crossing the ethnic divide is "Love Taiwan."
But if we believe that loving Taiwan is the preserve of the DPP, which uses it to manipulate ethnic groups, doesn't that mean that no ethnic group but the Hoklo loves Taiwan? Shen is wrong. The Hoklo can indeed love Taiwan, but Mainlander descendants are of course also capable of loving Taiwan. And they should.
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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