Former Presidential Office secretary-general Su Tseng-chang (
Perhaps Lien just didn't want to be reminded about his own job. Although he has repeatedly claimed he will step down when his term as chairman expires in August, he has remained tight-lipped about a transition of power.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
After Su assumed the DPP leadership, he said he would rely on action and interaction to maintain the DPP's position as a party able to touch the hearts of the people. "Action" is not something the DPP has ever lacked. The biggest obstacle to the DPP retaining that position is the different roles that parties in government and in opposition are expected to play.
While in opposition, the DPP sympathized with the poor and pushed for democracy. When looking at the DPP's development, it is hard to forget the many magazines established in the 1980s by Kang Ning-hsiang (
The DPP's firm support for and love of Taiwan were closely connected to environmentalism, and the workers' and farmers' movements, including efforts to inspire a greater cultural consciousness among indigenous peoples as part of the localization movement. It spoke for minority groups. Its members carried out forceful protests despite the risk of being sent to prison.
Obviously, it is not in the nature of environmental interests, labor groups and groups for the disadvantaged to be led by a ruling party, but at the same time, a ruling party must not sacrifice the interests of the people by compromising with established interests. Pushing for direct links amounts to toadying to capitalists intent on exploiting the China market, and risks the future of this nation's workers. If the DPP aims to please the capitalists and forgets its obligations to its grassroots supporters, then it is clearly a party that has been corrupted and lost its way.
If the DPP wants to touch the hearts of the people, then it must rekindle the flame of idealism, so that this flame can light the way for a new generation of intellectuals. Compromise may be politically expedient in the short term, but it could cause supporters to desert. The suggestion that the KMT move its headquarters south is not new, but it is something that the DPP could learn from. The south is the center of agricultural production and traditional industries, the core of the workers' and farmers' movements, and therefore also the fount of Taiwan consciousness.
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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