For the past few days, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been broadcasting its plans for a large-scale rally this Sunday to call the government's attention to the need to improve living standards.
Striking a graceful pose in front of the cameras, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
A look at the KMT chairman's own house, however, reveals just how empty his remarks were.
The very moment Ma spoke of the need for the party to go all out and hit the streets to demand that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government improve its game, a large chunk of his own people who have sweated years or even decades working for the party were struggling after being forced into early retirement owing to the party's "financial problems."
According to KMT union leader Liu Chien-song (
In spite of all these problems, the party still insists on organizing the rally, which costs an estimated NT$10 million (US$308,000).
It seems as if KMT officials, while zealous in their enthusiasm to stage the march to vent their anger against Chen, are all too blind to their own party staff's woes.
KMT Spokesman Cheng Li-wen (
Based on these party officials' remarks, is the party suggesting that while everybody needs to strive to improve their livelihoods, this does not include KMT staff members? Or have they simply failed to tell their fellow party staff members in plain language that "all KMT staff members should tighten their belts and help Ma strive for the presidency?"
Either way, the question that follows is if Ma can't even take good care of his own party members' livelihoods, how can he prove that he can work for the betterment of all Taiwanese?
When Beijing recently ran crying to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, saying that the People's Republic of China had long replaced the Republic of China, China had effectively nullified the KMT's precious "1992 consensus," in which "each side has its own interpretation of the `one China' policy." After that slap in the face, one would think that holding a rally against China would be a more justifiable cause for the KMT. Holding the rally would also help the KMT's plight if it does not wish to be upstaged by the pan-green camp, which will hold a demonstration next Saturday to voice its indignation against China's continuous deployment of missiles against Taiwan.
Should the KMT continue to stay mum on China's actions and persist with its irrational attacks on the Chen administration, then Ma, who is scheduled to visit the US next month, will surely face more interviewers like Stephen Sackur and risk seeing himself being placed in an awkward and embarrassing spot again.
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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