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.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS