People's Liberation Army Major General Zhu Chenghu (
Although Zhu's belligerent tone has drawn US condemnation, Beijing has yet to respond except to say that "Zhu was merely expressing his personal views." It is hardly surprising that in an authoritarian nation such as China, soldiers should seek to stand out by their hawkish views. The Chinese leadership is apparently reluctant to condemn Zhu's words because he is simply expressing their own thoughts. It is also hard to imagine that he spoke out without official approval.
It is understandable that both Taiwan and the US were stunned by Zhu's remarks, for democratic societies do not tolerate a military officer exceeding his authority in such a way. The duty of a soldier is to remain neutral and steer clear of politics. If Zhu had been a soldier in a democratic country, he would have been severely criticized and probably would have suffered professionally.
Zhu's comments were typical of the Chinese military, indicating the haughty and bellicose nature of the PLA. The rising jingoism in China in recent years has gone hand-in-hand with its military expansion. This has warned the whole world that China's so-called "peaceful rising" is anything but that.
It is no surprise, therefore, that a Pentagon report published on Tuesday in Washington affirmed the rapid pace of China's military expansion. The report said that China now has between 650 and 730 CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range missiles targeting Taiwan, and that the number is increasing by around 100 every year. This alone is frightening, quite apart from the expansion in other areas.
This high level of military expansion shows us that Zhu's statement is anything but an isolated incident or the opinion of just one officer. There are probably thousands of people in the PLA whose thinking is identical to Zhu's -- he's just the one who spoke publicly.
The threat that China now poses is an issue that Taiwan and its neighbors need to resolve. In fact, it concerns countries around the world. The EU certainly must take a more responsible attitude in its considerations over whether to lift its arms embargo on China. It should stop focusing on the commercial benefits of lifting the ban and do the responsible thing to help ensure regional peace in Asia and the rest of the world.
As for the pan-blue camp, its members have simply buried their heads in the sand as far as China's military threat is concerned. Although they have long refused to face reality, hopefully pressure from the US and other nations will convince its leaders to greenlight passage of the long-delayed special arms purchase bill.
In the face of China's military threat, Taiwan has no choice but to acquire the means to defend itself effectively. It must not always count so heavily on the aid of its allies.
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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