Ending days of speculation, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) finally announced yesterday his decision to appoint former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) as the new premier.
The resignation of Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) also suggests an end to the "reconciliation and co-existence" approach by which Hsieh hoped to peacefully "co-exist" with the pan-blues, but in the end turned out to be little more than wishful thinking on his part.
Perfecting the "reconciliation and co-existence" approach was Hsieh's biggest political task when he assumed the premiership in February. However, after an 11-month "trial period," the continued rejection of the arms procurement plan by the legislature, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) strategy of uniting with the Chinese Communist Party and the legislature's boycott of most Cabinet initiatives exacted a desperate toll on Hsieh's political career. The atmosphere of reconciliation that he hoped for is still sadly lacking.
Given the pan-blue camp's difficulty in ridding itself of the "party-state" mindset, the failure of Hsieh's attempts at reconciliation and co-existence with the residue of an autocratic era came as no surprise.
The DPP administration must take this lesson to heart and not veer from its localization path. After all, that is the main reason why voters gathered behind the party and voted Chen into the Presidential Office in 2000 and 2004.
A new Cabinet resolved to reinvigorating Taiwan's economy and putting the president's "active management, effective opening" approach to cross-strait economic exchanges into effect must not waver from leading Taiwan in this direction.
Apart from making an effort to understand the public's needs, the new Cabinet also needs to improve communication with party members.
With that said, the new Cabinet also needs to keep in mind that an attempt to build a harmonious political climate with the opposition parties does not mean pandering to all of their demands, nor does it require ingratiation with the pan-blues and their slight legislative majority.
The new Cabinet must remain cool-headed, try to hold the political highground and ditch the mindset of fawning to the pan-blue camp, because as Hsieh and his Cabinet found out, the very idea that in return for the government's goodwill the pan-blues will be more cooperative is pie in the sky.
It is to be expected that the pan-blues, knowing full well that Su is likely to be one of the main contenders for his party's presidential ticket in the 2008 presidential race, will not give him an easy ride, and will probably work to undermine his standing during the tenure of his premiership.
Therefore, the road ahead will no doubt be an arduous one for Su and the members of his new Cabinet when they begin dealing with the legislature next month.
The new Cabinet, under Su's leadership, must be determined, take firm action, improve the government's overall performance and revive public confidence in the present government if it wishes to have any impact on the country.
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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