People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
However, based on the remarks Soong issued before departing for China, it is likely that this very humble hope will be disappointed.
Frankly speaking, other than the pair of pandas that Beijing has promised to give to Taiwan, it is difficult to see what good has come out of Lien's meeting with Hu. Given that some critics say that sending the nearly-extinct pandas to Taiwan would constitute animal cruelty, Lien's trip is officially meaningless. Surely Soong, being the proud man that he is, aspires to do better than that. For that to happen, Soong must avoid repeating Lien's mistake of acting as a "yes man" to Hu. Speak and behave as an "advocate" for the interests of Taiwan, please.
Soong has said that he is not a messenger for President Chen Shui-bian (
Unfortunately, Soong appeared to be headed in the wrong direction even before he left. Based on his comments so far, he seems determined to follow Lien's example and use the so-called "1992 consensus" as the basis for discussions with Hu. If that is all he intends to do, then his trip will add nothing significant. As the second opposition party leader to meet with Hu, Soong's visit would be completely overshadowed by Lien's in terms of newsworthiness.
According to Soong, he is meeting with Hu with the so-called "10-point consensus" he signed with Chen. While he and Chen both deny that Soong will be acting as a representative of the Taiwanese government and said that the meeting with Hu would be strictly on a party-to-party basis, the existence of the "10-point consensus" would seem to tacitly add some weight to what Soong has to say to Hu. This is reinforced by the fact that Chen indicated on Tuesday that he has not retreated from the 10-point consensus and that he will acknowledge whatever he has accepted in writing.
The problem is that nowhere in the Chen-Soong 10-point consensus can one find the so-called "1992 consensus." In fact, Chen and the Taiwanese government have consistently repudiated the existence of any such consensus. What Chen acknowledged in his joint statement with Soong was the legitimacy of the Republic of China, as defined by the Constitution. The so-called "1992 consensus" is supposedly an agreement to accept the "one China" principle with each side of the Taiwan Strait free to define what "one China" is. To equate the two is a difficult stretch requiring an active imagination.
Since Soong is such a self-proclaimed die-hard defender of the "Republic of China," he should at least have enough courage to utter the name the "Republic of China" while in China. If he does, he will have outperformed Lien, who was so overwhelmed by the imperial reception accorded by Beijing that he completely forgot his favorite slogan -- "one China" is the "Republic of China."
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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