Thursday's comments by the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) legislative caucus cause a severe philosophical headache. There are, proverbially, three categories of untruth: lies, damned lies and statistics. The KMT's manipulation of the the results of last year's referendum on the purchase of anti-missile technology involves the misuse of statistics to disseminate damned lies. So into which category does it fall, or is there a whole fourth category of untruth of its own: KMT statements?
The KMT's argument is that the proposal to purchase PAC-3 missile batteries was defeated in the referendum and according to the Referendum Law (
This is not just rubbish of the sort we expect from this source, it is a dangerous lie that is making every single resident of Taiwan significantly more unsafe for longer than they need to be by delaying weapons purchases essential for the nation's defense. Let us be clear: For all of the perhaps frivolous language, this is absolutely no laughing matter.
So what is the truth? In March last year, 7.5 million people voted in the referendum -- 92 percent of which voted for the arms purchases, while 8 percent voted against. The referendum was not, however, considered to have passed because the law requires that more than 50 percent of eligible voters agree to the proposal. This meant that for a referendum to be considered a valid test of public opinion, half of Taiwan's 16 million eligible voters would have to vote either yes or no. Not only did not enough people support either outcome, not enough voted to even make a valid decision possible.
It should be remembered that this was a deliberate strategy of the pan-blue camp. Having been outfoxed by the government over the holding of the referendum in the first place, it encouraged its supporters not to vote in the referendum in order to ensure that the referendum simply failed to produce a result.
It takes an astonishing twisting of the truth therefore to come to the KMT's present position that the vote on the missiles was "defeated" in the referendum. For it to have been defeated, about 8 million people would have had to vote no. How many people did vote no? Some 581,000.
The KMT has deliberately tried to confuse two issues: the referendum's failing to be valid and the defeat of the referendum proposal.
Since the referendum was not valid, it cannot bind the government to any policy in any way. If the KMT wants to think of the referendum as valid after all, then it appears that Taiwanese who care about the issue overwhelmingly want the anti-missile weapons. We could argue that those who didn't vote simply don't care. The pan-blues might call this intellectually dishonest, to which we could cynically reply that "what's sauce for the goose ...." But of course we don't have to.
The referendum was not valid. This is a fact, not a piece of politically motivated obfuscation. An invalid referendum, just like a law that fails to pass, binds nobody's hands.
We could of course add that the referendum was on the topic of the purchase of more anti-missile weapons, and point out that those under current consideration had been requested and approved long before the referendum by the KMT itself. But comparing the KMT in the days of former president Lee Teng-hui (
What matters is this: Taiwan is in grave danger because its legislature is controlled by a group working in the interests of its enemy. It is as if al-Qaeda controlled the US Congress. The question is: What are patriotic Taiwanese, desperate to save their country, going to do about this?
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS