In their attempts to secure power and influence within the pan-blue camp, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his People First Party (PFP) counterpart James Soong (宋楚瑜) held their second behind-closed-doors meeting last week. They reached a consensus on several controversial post-election issues, including the possibility of the pan-blue camp forming a new Cabinet, the arms procurement package and the confirmation of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) Control Yuan nominees.
Under the premise of "respect the institution before policy and personnel," Ma's scheme was to set up a "firewall" to prevent Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) from accepting an alleged offer of the premiership from Chen. By securing support from Soong, Ma attempted to reinforce his position in any talks with the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on a Cabinet reshuffle.
On arms procurement, Ma echoed Soong's stance that the budget was both unreasonable in price and procedure.
Finally, citing the example of the nominations for the National Communications Committee (NCC), the two said the nomination procedure for Control Yuan members should be equally strict and transparent.
The conclusions they have reached are not only politically disgraceful but also constitutionally objectionable.
The preemptive strike on Chen's possible invitation to Wang to head the Cabinet reveals Ma's sense of insecurity, despite his party winning a huge victory in the Dec. 3 elections. Ma's personal rivalry with Wang during the KMT chairmanship election also deepened their mutual distrust.
While Ma is worried that Wang's defection might threaten the KMT's legislative majority, Soong is even more eager to dance to Ma's tune and therefore extend his life in politics. Such cooperation is a classic marriage of convenience.
Though political calculations dominated the Ma-Soong meeting, the elevation of partisan interests over national security has had a detrimental effect on the cross-strait situation.
Soong again stressed the pan-blue's opposition to "cash-for-friends" arms procurement because of the cost, the amount of weapons, the types of weapons and the procedure used. Ma agreed that the government should consider buying other weapons rather than the US arms named in the bill.
Ma and Soong have made two grave mistakes.
First, they failed to offer an explanation for how Taiwan is supposed to cope with China's ballooning military budget and growing arsenal. Ma should also have explained to the public why the weapons plan -- passed by his predecessors when the KMT was in power -- is now politically unacceptable.
Moreover, with China's National People's Congress passing the "Anti-Secession" Law in mid-March and authorizing the People's Liberation Army to use force against Taiwan, how can they justify allowing the nation's self-defense capability to be compromised?
Finally, by citing the nomination procedure for the NCC as a "good model" for the nomination system for Control Yuan committee members, Ma and Soong brazenly infringed upon the president's constitutional powers.
A constitutional amendment will be needed if the pan-blue camp wishes to incorporate the NCC model as the method of selection for Control Yuan members.
The proposal was based largely on political considerations because the pan-blue camp can manipulate the selection of committee members in accordance with their majority in the Legislative Yuan.
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
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