The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Wednesday unanimously passed a proposal to have outgoing chairman Lien Chan (連戰) serve as the party's honorary chairman after he steps down next month. Accepting the title specifically created for him, Lien said that he would be a "lifetime volunteer" for the party.
To simplify matters, the KMT has so far not considered amending its regulations and formalizing the post. In other words, the title of honorary chairman has been presented to Lien and Lien alone -- no succeeding chairmen are likely to enjoy such an esteemed designation.
But is Lien really fit for the title? And does the KMT really need to have an honorary chairman? In all of its history, the KMT has only had five chairmen: Sun Yat-sen (
Has Lien, a two-time presidential election loser, really outperformed his predecessors? The Chinese Communist Party, despite all of its dictatorial trappings and inclinations, did not have a special title created for paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (
The very fact that the title had to be made up suggests the KMT has ignored the grassroots voters who comprehensively rejected Lien's favored candidate and thus is yet to ditch its feudalist thinking -- observe the new generation of leaders scratching their heads over what to do with their vain predecessors. Worse, the creation of an honorary position may affect future party operations.
After Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
But let's not forget Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-ping (
Given that Lien will serve as the president of a KMT-linked think tank in addition to being honorary chairman, the question needs to be asked: Will he continue to pull the strings?
Since cross-strait affairs will probably be one of the central concerns of Lien's think tank, who now will have the last word on cross-strait policy?
"It's better to quit while you're ahead," as they say. Lien doesn't believe in this old slice of wisdom, and so he is not likely to reconsider accepting the honorary chairman's post. Having finally presided over something the KMT can be proud of -- a genuinely democratic party election -- Lien could have taken a graceful bow and left the stage.
Instead, he is likely to make himself an even bigger laughingstock as the KMT struggles to transform itself into a genuinely democratic party of the present.
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,
RSS