A massive rally in support of the government's arms-procurement budget is to take place today. The main purpose of the rally is to push for the speedy legislative review and approval of the special arms budget, as well as to highlight the importance of self-defense to Taiwan on the country's path toward "normalization."
It is open knowledge that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) have worked together to block the deliberation of the arms procurement budget by the legislature a total of 29 times. The bill has not even managed to make it to the legislative floor so far.
This farce has gone on for so long that even the US is questioning whether the government is serious about buying the weapons package on offer. So, it is high time for the people of Taiwan to step up and voice their support for the bill. Through today's rally, they can let the rest of the world and the US see that they do know the importance of maintaining a self-defense capability and that the pan-blue lawmakers do not represent the mainstream popular will on sovereignty-related issues.
Reportedly last week former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told President Chen Shui-bian (
While as with any other multi-party democracy, competition and differences between the two major political parties in the US, it is nothing close to what the people of Taiwan have endured from the bickering between the pan-blues and pan-greens over the past few years.
The resentment that the pan-blue camp feels toward the Chen government has multiple roots -- the two biggest ones perhaps being kicked out of office in the 2000 presidential election and their confused sense of national identity. The former, aggravated by a second consecutive presidential defeat last year, has grown into an almost personal hatred, not only on the part of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
On the other hand, the gap in national identification between the pan-blues and pan-greens has an even deeper and more complicated impact on the country -- the disputes over arms procurement being just one symptom. Obviously, the biggest and some would even say the only real enemy of Taiwan is its neighbor across the Taiwan Strait. Despite Beijing's rapid military build up and its missile threats to Taiwan, some segments in this country continue to view Taiwan as part of the great and mighty "China." They object to anything that stand in the way of "Chinese unification," let along buying arms to stand up against Beijing.
However, it must be made clear that the mainstream popular will is supportive of the arms procurement plan and fully aware of the military threat from China. Today's rally will provide an opportunity for these people to speak up and to pressure the pan-blue camp to answer to the demands and desires of the people of this country. Hopefully, the deadlock in the legislature can come to an end immediately -- for the sake of the nation.
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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