Taiwan's climate is not cold enough to warrant the use of radiators, so the 319 investigation committee lacks the cheap investigatory resources -- tying someone to an overheated radiator until they tell you what you want to hear -- of less torrid climes. Doubtless the pan-blues who dominate the committee will be thrown back on the means they used in the "good old days, when people had hope," as they call it, better known to others as the days of the White Terror. The old hands from the Taiwan Garrison Command haven't forgotten how to wire up someone's genitals to a hand generator, surely? God forbid that the old and valued skills of extracting confessions under duress should have withered in this democratic age.
Why do we paint the investigation commission as resembling the Spanish Inquisition? Because it has armed itself with pretty much the same set of powers and, far more importantly, shown about the same delicacy regarding human and constitutional rights -- ie, none at all. Let us be honest and admit that the issue has been mishandled from the start. There is talk of the new committee being unconstitutional. But the simple fact is that any committee at all would probably be so. The Constitution explicitly says that the Judicial Yuan has charge of civil, criminal and administrative cases. So any committee which impinged on these powers would either be constitutionally dubious or toothless. But given that the investigation of the election-eve shooting seemed to be going nowhere, President Chen Shui-bian (
What was needed was a constitutional amendment to allow criminal investigations, in restricted and exceptional circumstances, by other organs -- some sort of independent counsel's office, for example. This would have required an intelligent appreciation of what was needed, cooperation in the legislature toward passing the measure, and time, none of which the pan-blues were interested in granting.
What we actually got was the pan-blues passing their own bill, which aimed not to find out the truth but to provide them with a political tool to embarrass and harass the government and the pan-greens as much as possible without having to take any responsibility for the consequences. They can accuse whomever of whatever and leave it to seconded prosecutors to press the charges, however vacuous and ill-prepared they might be.
We could talk about the damage to the principle of separation of powers in setting up this committee. The independence of a judiciary from those staples of legislatures the world over, horse-trading, lobbying and the pork barrel, is a basic principle. What the new committee setup gives us is the majority faction in the legislature having the right to interfere in the affairs of the judiciary in any way it pleases, without any check on its power whatsoever. No wonder the committee has been called "a tool to rape justice."
This might violate the basic principles of democratic government, but it is not, however, the most outrageous thing about the new committee and its powers. Nor even is the fact that the committee is to be composed of party political hacks with no legal training. The real scandal, likely to do Taiwan's reputation as a liberal democracy serious damage, is that it dispenses with basic constitutional rights and protections. The statute creating the committee explicitly exempts it from the application of the Code of Criminal Procedure. This means that "due process" simply doesn't have to be followed, which in turn means safeguards against coercion do not apply. There is apparently nothing like a good beating with a rubber hose at the behest of a legislative appointee to find out who shot the president.
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
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
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017