In a recent poll, US President George W. Bush had a job approval rating of 36 percent. About a month ago, President Chen Shui-bian (
Both Bush and Chen had several things in common in their presidential elections. They were first elected in 2000 with small margins, but they were re-elected in 2004. Their victories were challenged with strong protests, ballot recounts and even litigation.
With their poor job approval ratings, both presidents have to worry about the possible defeats of their parties in the midterm elections at the end of this year, and in the presidential elections in 2008. President Bush has to cope mainly with the "four I's" -- Iraq, Iran, Immigration and Information. On the other hand, Chen has to tackle the "four C's" -- China, Corruption, Confrontation and the Constitution. As the "Son of Taiwan," Chen must above all save Taiwan politically and economically without letting it fall into communist hands. Time is running out and Chen has to be creative and proactive.
According to the same recent US poll, the job approval rating of the US Congress was 22 percent, even worse than Bush's 36 percent. The Taiwanese legislature has long been known as a "source of chaos." It would be helpful to have a poll about the job performance of this notorious legislature. People in Taiwan will continue to suffer if their legislators cannot improve their job performance. Voters are partly responsible for the behavior of their representatives.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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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