"Thank you [for your comments and suggestions]," was Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
"Thank you [for your comments and suggestions]," was Ma's response when he was mobbed by reporters earlier this month after KMT Keelung Mayor Hsu Tsai-li (
So it came as no surprise when Ma, approached for his response to Premier Frank Hsieh's (
While some may regard such responses as a gesture of modesty, the public deserves to hear more than just "thank you" from the leader of the country's largest opposition party.
As someone who has his heart set on winning the key to the Presidential Office in 2008, the public deserves to know what Ma really stands for, and what his views are on a number of public issues.
Ma has been the darling of the local media for the longest time. He has been pampered by them, in fact.
In the latest example of this, a bare-chested Ma was shown soaking in a hot spring with some fellow Taipei City Government officials in a bid to promote the hot-spring industry in Taipei City's Peitou (
Although it is a noted fact that there are hordes of Ma fans among the nation's female reporters, endless footage of the shirtless KMT chairman is way too much exposure. Not to mention the so-called political commentators who attempt to beautify Ma's conduct and rhetoric on TV talk shows.
With the around-the-clock media bombardment on how "charming" Ma is, it is no wonder that the premier has warned his party not to underestimate the "Ma Ying-jeou phenomenon" that is being promoted by the KMT-friendly media.
In a recent interview with Newsweek, the KMT chairman said that the KMT's eventual goal in cross-strait relations is unification.
According to a recent poll conducted by the Taiwan Thinktank, merely 6.6 percent of respondents support Ma's talk of unification, whereas nearly 89 percent said that the decision should be left to the Taiwanese people as a whole. The same survey showed that nearly 66 percent expressed support for President Chen Shui-bian's (
The survey suggested that although Ma and the Ma-obsessed media might attempt to manipulate the public's impression of him, most people are not being fooled.
Many pan-blue supporters are hoping that Ma will lead the KMT back to the Presidential Office at the 2008 election. However, before Ma attempts to prove that he has what it takes to become president two years from now, he should prove that he has the guts to shoulder the responsibility for his own conduct and rhetoric by starting to make responsible comments and stop hiding behind his well-worn response of "Thank you [for your comments and suggestions.]"
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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