Some of Taiwan's neighbors are continuing to watch closely for further cases of avian flu, but Taiwan itself has remained free of the disease so far. Hopefully such good luck will last so that the nation can avoid human deaths, financial losses to poultry farmers and the slaughter of migratory birds.
But while Taiwan has so far been spared, its political environment seems to get sicker by the day. The governing and opposition parties are growing more confrontational, trading trumped-up accusations and even blows on the legislative floor. This is the political epidemic that always seems to take hold of the nation before elections -- and it could become disastrous.
With the Dec. 3 local government elections drawing near, some politicians are bending over backwards to laud China's rise and denigrate their own nation, completely at ease with the Chinese regime's authoritarian nature. On one television talk show, a caller even suggested using suicide bombing as a political weapon -- without reproach by the host of the program.
If the nation's political climate continues to deteriorate at this level, and if political parties refuse to moderate their behavior, the specter of violence may loom larger.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen has thrown himself into the campaign with some verve. But, it should be remembered, his efforts did not help the DPP win a legislative majority last year -- and were probably counterproductive. Will this year's efforts be more successful? So far, it would appear the tenor of his campaign will not help achieve the reconciliation between political parties that he has appealed for.
Ma's performance, meanwhile, has been disappointing. He sidestepped Chen's accusations of involvement in the illegal sale of land belonging to the Institute on Policy Research and Development by flippantly telling Chen to spend less time appearing on television and get a medical check-up. Such impudence damages his own image, and shows his unwillingness to respond to the charges Chen and Hsieh have leveled at him.
Moreover, in supporting pan-blue candidates for the Dec. 3 elections, Ma has repeatedly chanted the slogan, "A pan-green government means a corrupt government." Given the KMT's rotten past during its 50 years in power, does such a statement have any resonance?
Many voters think that the DPP is good at winning elections but lousy at governing. They are also aware of the pan-blue camp's drift toward China. Unfortunately, neither party is willing to take a long, hard look at its own shortcomings. Instead, both devote their energies to smearing their opponent. This is the infection that has caused Taiwanese so much anxiety over so many years -- and there doesn't seem to be any cure in sight.
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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