If we regard the way people take to the streets as a showcase of a nation's democracy, the recent protests against the WTO in Hong Kong have sent a message to the international community. Unfamiliar with international protesters, the Hong Kong riot police mobilized armored vehicles, tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters trying to break through the barricades. Many protesters were arrested, unsettling many WTO delegates.
In recent years, many countries have attempted to resolve trade differences via the WTO. However, the media have also given extensive coverage to anti-globalization activists eager to voice their displeasure. Although tens of thousands of Hong Kongers protested proposed amendments to Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law and the inability to elect their chief executive, that performance seemed rather passive in comparison -- chanting a few slogans before dispersing, rather like weekenders out for a stroll.
On the other hand, quite a few of the WTO protesters were well-trained and experienced. South Korea is a nation where people often take to the streets and its democracy was built upon such protests. Moreover, South Korea's student and labor unions are even more radical than its farmers. It is quite routine for them to protest against Japan, the US and their own government. In Hong Kong, South Korean farmers only made a token demonstration and called it quits when they felt their opinions had been heard, because they did not want to embarrass the police.
Taiwan's democracy was also won via street protests. And although protests in Taiwan tend to be noisy and rumbustious affairs, they always hold back from the point of bloody confrontation, for whoever incites direct violent conflict will not be tolerated by the media or the public. Therefore, Taiwanese protest groups in Hong Kong exercised restraint and did not look particularly active.
At the beginning of December, 200,000 people in Hong Kong marched to demand direct elections. Some warned that the demonstrators would be rioters, and seemed unaware that demonstrations are part of daily life in democratic countries. Last week's anti-WTO demonstrations were a revelation, and might even have altered the perception of democracy for many Hong Kongers. Democracy is about hearing the people's voice, and demonstrating is one way of making that voice heard. If people are the masters, then it is for them to directly elect their representatives and administrative chief. Reducing the number of appointed assembly members and calling it reform is not substantive and shows that the Hong Kong government still has a long way to go to achieve real democracy.
Although the WTO protest scenes were dramatic, this was certainly preferable to the recent deaths of protesters in Dongzhou in Guangdong Province at the hands of the Chinese police. But during the Hong Kong protests, the authorities arrested 14 people on charges of illegal assembly. This is quite ridiculous as thousands of people were involved. If these 14 were in fact guilty of rioting or assaulting a police officer, then of course charges should be pressed. That's how other democratic countries handle demonstrations. Otherwise, they should be released. How the authorities handle the aftermath of last week's protests and the subsequent treatment of the 14 prisoners looks likely to provide further insight on the prospects for further democratic development in the territory.
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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