Even as huge numbers of Taiwanese took to the streets last Saturday, Chi Mei Group founder Hsu Wen-lung (
That Hsu, a business tycoon who has long been a staunch supporter of the pan-green camp, should release such a statement on the day of a rally in which hundreds of thousands of people voiced their rejection of China's enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law is hardly coincidental. That this was shadowy attempt by China to undermine the March 26 demonstration is perfectly obvious.
Although the statement was signed by Hsu, both its content and wording suggested the work of another hand. Hsu is accustomed to speaking in Taiwanese and Japanese, and the carefully worded and neatly phrased statement is not convincing as a document voicing Hsu's own sentiments. Notably, some of the wording in the statement, such as the respectful reference to Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Hsu is an entrepreneur with a strong sense of Taiwanese identity. During former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) administration, Hsu wrote to Lee asking when he would fulfill his promise to change the country's official name. Lee wrote back, telling him to learn from the Japanese shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, and wait patiently for the right moment to act.
Later, in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, Hsu was a key member of then-presidential candidate Chen's National Policy Advisory Committee, and was made a senior policy adviser to the president after Chen was elected. Chi Mei has long been perceived as a pro-green camp enterprise, and Hsu has weathered many hardships as a result. Having survived so long, the fact that he has released statements at this crucial juncture that fly in the face of his previously expressed ideals -- and which are contrary to the interests of the Taiwanese people -- suggests that he has been put under unbearable pressure.
If China makes an example of Hsu, other Taiwanese businesspeople investing in China will hardly dare support the pan-green camp publicly anymore. With so many ways to threaten Taiwanese business interests in China, a company need only be suspected of pro-independence leanings to put its profits and its staff in danger.
This is yet another demonstration of China's oppression of Taiwan's freedom of speech and thought. The follow-on effect will mean that not only businesspeople, but Taiwanese as a whole, will suffer from restricted freedom. Even the public's right to remain silent may be restricted.
Hsu's action should come as a wake-up call about the government's "active opening, effective management" cross-strait policy. The continual increase in the rate at which businesses are moving to China is the result of this policy, and now 37 percent of Taiwanese exports are headed for Hong Kong and China.
It is time to strike back. Lee has called on the government to make an immediate change in its China policy, abandoning blind support for "active opening" in favor of a reprise of the "no haste, be patient" policy. This is certainly worth thinking about.
The government should use this time to observe China's reaction to the anger expressed by the populace on Saturday and to the dissatisfaction of the international community.
In the meantime, the government should refrain from taking any steps to promote direct links.
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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