In his letter (Nov. 11, page 8) addressing a Taipei Times editorial, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Chi (
The father and son dictators -- former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (
KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) visited the tombs right after winning the chairmanship. Ironically, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who terminated the KMT's authoritarian tradition, was banished from the party by former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰). Apparently, Lien Chan and the KMT are more comfortable dealing with Beijing's dictators than the democratically elected president of Taiwan.
The dictators may be gone. But the KMT is still enjoying its looted assets and faces no repercussions whatsoever for the crimes it committed during its White Terror. The KMT's authoritarian rule may have ended, but they still cherish their authoritarian past. Their totems of power still stand high, their assets are still abundant and their crimes are still not subject to accountability.
The KMT never truly repented. They coddle Beijing's authoritarian regime and practice their "one China" war against Taiwan. With their "united front," all hell has broken loose. Can Taiwan survive this enduring authoritarian connection?
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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