President Chen Shui-bian (
The shouts of disapproval within Taiwan -- mostly from the pan-blue camp -- regarding the stopover in Libya have two main themes. First, since Libya is a country that is well-known for its past association with terrorist activities and Taiwan is a democratic country that places a high premium on respect for human rights, there is concern about damage to Taiwan's international image. And second, there is a fear that the stopover may upset the US, since Libya continues to be on the US' terrorist blacklist.
Chen's decision to go ahead with the stopover in Libya, and the possibility of building closer ties with that country, was obviously based on pragmatic, strategic and self-interest considerations alone. So far, Taiwan's "good image" has not helped the nation win formal diplomatic recognition from foreign nations and respect within the international community. There are, of course, inherent risks associated with allowing Taiwan's image to become degraded. This needs to be balanced against Libya's strategic importance as a springboard into North Africa and the abundant oil resources of the country.
Furthermore, it isn't as though Taiwan has no experience in courting friendships with countries trapped in controversies. When South Africa faced diplomatic isolation due to its apartheid system, Taiwan was one of the country's few formal allies. Of course, as soon as South Africa regained a position in the international community after it abandoned apartheid, it severed formal diplomatic ties with the nation. That is the sad reality of international politics, but it also highlights Taiwan's plight and the good sense of Chen's stopover diplomacy.
The truth is that moral and ethical considerations do not weigh heavily in the decision of most countries when they embrace "one China" and sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. One cannot help but ask: Is it such a crime for Taiwan, in the face of severe international isolation, to give self-interest top priority? As former French president Charles de Gaulle once said, "Nations don't have friends, they have interests."
As for concerns about upsetting the US, that has proven to be a non-issue. US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Thursday that the relationship between his country and Libya has changed over the past few years, after Libya gave up its program to develop weapons of mass destruction. So, it is up to Taiwan and Libya whether they want to develop their bilateral relationship. The US has no qualms about the matter.
The joke is that pan-blue lawmakers are usually the first ones to jump up and accuse the Chen government of "kissing up" to the US. Their anti-US sentiment has kept the arms procurement bill tied up in the Legislative Yuan for two years now. Since when have they been concerned about how the US feels about anything?
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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