A few days ago, former president Lee Teng-hui (
I watched the receptions he received in New York and Los Angeles. The banquets put on for him in those cities demonstrated the affection and respect the Taiwanese still have for their former leader.
The New York dinner was held in a plush hotel in Manhatten, and commanded US$250 per head. The event ran up a bill of US$250,000, all paid for by local Taiwanese.
A declaration of affection for Lee, it was a very touching occasion.
In Los Angeles he was treated to a dinner called the "Banquet of the Century," attended by more than 300 people.
The reception given to Lee as he entered the room was something akin to the fervor one would expect at a political rally prior to a presidential election.
Not even Kim Dae-jung or Kim Young-sam in South Korea, Corazon Aquino in the Philippines or the four former living US presidents could expect a welcome like this.
This enthusiasm was not limited to Taiwanese people. It also came from the the US media, with reports appearing in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, with the Post publishing a special interview.
The Wall Street Journal called on Americans to give Taiwan's Mr Democracy a hero's welcome. Lee was also called a hero by the Los Angeles Times, which quoted a US senator as saying that Taiwan should take down all the statues of former president Chiang Kai-shek (
The US is visited by political figures week in and week out, sometimes presidents and prime ministers, but these visits, let alone those by former leaders, do not necessarily reach the papers, as was the case with a recent visit by the prime minister of Bulgaria.
This time, it was the former leader of a country that doesn't even have a UN seat.
Lee's speech at the National Press Club (NPC) in Washington was also an unprecedented occasion, with over 200 journalists in attendance. According to the NPC chairman, there had never been so many reporters there.
In the US Congress, more than 20 senators took to the podium with speeches of welcome for Lee, all praising the former president for his promotion of democracy.
A Cuban-born woman senator wished that her country would one day become like Taiwan.
A chairman of the US Congressional Taiwan Caucus welcomed the fact that Lee has been termed a "troublemaker," saying that name was also leveled at former presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
Lee was presented with a US flag that had flown on Capitol Hill in recognition of his promotion of democracy in Taiwan, and the praise Lee had had for US democracy during the course of his trip.
For Taiwan, Lee is a hero struggling to protect Taiwan from China.
For US senators, he is a hero who is fighting for the cause of democracy.
One could say that he is a hero for anyone who believes in democracy and freedom.
His trip across the US has been a victorious call for democracy, a hero's voyage in which Taiwan has been allowed to shine.
Cao Changqing is a writer based in New York.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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