Saturday saw the much-awaited return of People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
While in the US he paid a trip to Washington in the vain hope that officials there could restore his morale by treating him as a serious contender for Taiwan's presidency. Quite the reverse, they appear to have treated him rather as a serious pain in the neck, because of his party's opposition to purchasing the weapons the US has offered Taiwan.
We can only hope that on closer acquaintance the US better understands exactly whose interests Soong has at heart. The nature of those interests are quite plain: Soong wishes to go down as a great Chinese historical figure by accomplishing "reunification" -- handing Taiwan over to the People's Republic of China. And naturally he is opposed to anything that would interfere with this vision of his manifest destiny, such as Taiwan's democratic processes or US weapons.
There has been much ado about the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) trying to work together with Soong and the PFP to try to break the current political impasse. This idea seems to be dead, thank goodness.
The sensible option for the DPP was always to wait until KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Soong and the PFP, on the other hand, are not constructive in any way, representing as they do the rump of the Mainlander ascendency who, as John Tkacik so memorably said, prefer China rule Taiwan rather than Taiwanese rule Taiwan. The DPP's courting of Soong was either a publicity exercise of the deepest cynicism or, if seriously meant, a piece of folly for which the country might have paid dearly.
As for Soong, the degree of speculation over his intentions prior to his return, not to mention his feting at the airport only go to show the limits of Taiwan's much vaunted democratic transition.
The idea of spreading democracy promulgated by Western powers since the end of the Cold War has always centered on elections. Certainly free and fair elections are necessary to what we understand as liberal democracy, but they are far from sufficient. Other factors matter as well, especially the rule of law. If this can be flouted with impunity, then elections become little more than an argument over who should share the spoils.
Taiwan has great steps to take before we can say the rule of law effectively applies. Soong's very prominence gives the lie to any notion of the rule of law applying in this society. There is a wealth of evidence to show that Soong is a thief. He is known to have put NT$360 million of KMT funds illegally -- ie, without the consent of the party -- into his family members' bank accounts. That is theft. Since he had management of the funds at the time as the KMT's secretary general it is also breach of trust.
And this leads us to a bitter paradox: Taiwan will not enjoy the rule of law and will not be the liberal democracy it claims to be while the government is trying to woo someone like Soong. Taiwan will only be a real democracy when Soong is in jail.
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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