So perhaps the pan-blues are to get their way after all. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is, we are told, considering whether an independent commission should be established to investigate his shooting on March 19. Apart from the dubious constitutional position of such a commission -- criminal investigations are entirely a matter for the Judicial Yuan -- it is hard to find fault with the idea. A harsh investigatory light is perhaps the only thing that will get rid of the pan-blues' shadowy claims and refocus attention on the most likely explanation for the shooting: a lone gunman prompted by the pan-blue's obscene election campaign.
If we're in the business of creating special commissions, however, let us not forget that there are a number of other crimes that cry out for high-profile treatment. Saturday saw the 23rd anniversary of the murder of Professor Chen Wen-cheng (
And why stop there? Because it is not just a case of the Martial Law regime getting a little heavy-handed. The Martial Law regime was itself illegal. The KMT regime was not, after all, the sovereign government of Taiwan, but a regime of occupation tasked with the temporary administration of Taiwan. International law is quite strict on what occupiers may not do with regard to changing the society and institutions of the lands they occupy. In this light almost everything the KMT did from 1945 was illegal. What is needed is an investigatory commission into the criminality of the KMT regime itself.
At the seminar on Friday it was pointed out that Taiwan had given priority to providing compensation for the injustices of the past but that money was often not what the victims' families actually wanted. Nor did cash bring the closure that they sought. Taiwan's approach has been both open-handed and mealy-mouthed. While compensating for injustices it has avoided addressing the issue of by whom or for what reason those injustices were performed. As such, justice itself has been ill-served.
This is not an abstract issue. It means the murderers and the torturers of the Martial Law era walk among us with impunity. Should they? Those who gave them their orders still play a major role in Taiwan's political life. Should they?
One of the things we have learned from various attempts at truth commissions and the like in the last decade or so is that emerging democracies are stronger for having had them, stronger for facing up to their past. Only when the dark deeds of the past are scrutinized properly will people understand what was so bad about it all and why we don't want to return there.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to