The jackals and hyenas are out once again. On Saturday, the pan-blue forces took to the streets to demand that President Chen Shui-bian (
Whether the rumors can be substantiated remains to be seen; in the past they have not. Certainly this is a matter the courts must examine. However, while we are waiting for any substantiated accusations to be brought forth let us get some perspective on the jackals and hyenas that are pursuing Chen.
A starting point is the stolen state assets that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) claimed as personal possessions because of its privileged one-party state rule over Taiwan for a half a century. These remain unreturned. Last year, after he was elected KMT chairman, Ma Ying-jeou (
Hsu Tsai-li (
In Taitung County, Wu Chun-li (
Since Wu could not appoint a spouse or relative as a stand-in, he promptly divorced his wife Kuang Li-chen (
As regards past instances of corruption, consider former KMT legislator Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元) of Pingtung. After Wu was convicted of corruption, it turned out that former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) had loaned him US$1 million for election campaigns. Upon his conviction, several KMT legislators stood as guarantors for him so he could be released from prison prior to sentencing. He skipped bail, left the country and has not been seen since. The jackals and hyenas remain silent.
Return now to last Saturday's rally. What makes this particular rally of jackals and hyenas so blatantly hypocritical is its leader, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
Proof is still lacking in the current allegations against Chen. It is not the president who is accused, but those around him. If Chen is guilty, then certainly he should be made to answer. However, that he should give way to the jackals and hyenas that have never owned up to their own pasts is not a rational option.
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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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