The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is staging a splendid imperial-style spectacle. KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Similar charades from imperial times can be read in history textbooks. After a power struggle, the victor would say that "the support of so many people left him no choice but to take the throne." It was a hackneyed ploy even back then, but Lien has never been one to avoid a cliche.
It's time to say enough is enough and put an end to this soap opera, this comedy of horrors. By putting on such an outmoded spectacle, the KMT has once again demonstrated that it is out of touch with reality and with the democratic era.
Of course, pan-green camp supporters should be delighted, for if Lien stays as chairman, he will certainly try to be the KMT's presidential contender in the 2008 election. That would basically guarantee a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) victory, regardless of who its candidate is. The reason for this is simple: By staying on as chairman, Lien will block the democratization of the KMT and the transfer of power to the next generation. All the pan-green camp needs to do is stand by and watch the KMT fall apart.
Pan-blue supporters shouldn't pin their hopes on Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
However, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
This response clearly shows how far the KMT has to go in learning the ways of democracy. A choice of candidates is standard in democratic elections, but as soon as Ma challenged Lien, he was accused of splitting the party. With that kind of mentality, no wonder the KMT has long behaved as though national elections risk splitting the nation.
While many pan-greens and others would applaud the idea of Lien, as captain, going down with his ship as the KMT sheds employees and hemorrhages money, such a drawn-out death scene would be hard to stomach. Does Taiwan really need another four years of Lien's spoiled-brat sulks and "one true king" pretensions? For the sake of the nation's democracy, Lien should step down to allow for the restructuring and democratization of the KMT and for multi-party politics to flourish.
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,
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
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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