Last week, former premier and former Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) agreed to run in the Taipei mayoral race on behalf of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This is most certainly one of the best pieces of news the party has had since the the investigation into corruption among top DPP officials and members of the first family began.
It is no secret that Hsieh has his eyes on the DPP candidacy for the 2008 presidential election. Hsieh and President Chen Shui-bian (
This is not to mention that Hsieh was twice elected mayor of Kaohsiung City -- the only special municipality in Taiwan other than Taipei. Under the circumstances, the Taipei mayoral seat was simply not enough to attract Hsieh's interest and satisfy his ambition. Following Chen into the Presidential Office -- or at least winning the DPP's nomination -- has to be the next logical step in Hsieh's career plan.
It is also no secret that up until the time when the insider trading scandal involving Chen's son-in-law Chao Chien-ming (
But then Chao was taken into custody and Chen delegated most of his constitutional powers to Su. The "balance of power" and the race between the four superstars changed overnight. Su surpassed everyone else, and with the government more or less completely in his hands, Su has been given a chance to prove himself. Su is now not only the center of power, but also Chen's most likely successor -- that is, if Su performs well.
There are, of course, grave risks as well. With the pan-blue camp using every chance it can get to pull Su off his horse, he has every reason to fear becoming a casualty long before the 2008 presidential race even begins.
Under the circumstances, Hsieh's decision to run in the Taipei mayoral race is a wise move -- both for himself and for his party. For Hsieh, running for mayor will keep him in the media spotlight and give him the visibility he needs to maintain his status within the DPP. Even if he trails behind Su for now, at least there is a chance to catch up later. Of course, Hsieh is very likely to lose the mayoral race, given that the level of support for the DPP is at an all-time low and that voters in Taipei traditionally lean toward the pan-blues.
However, he will be remembered and revered by his comrades within the DPP for stepping up to fight a gritty battle. For the DPP, Hsieh's decision salvages the party from the embarrassment of having no candidate in the race. More importantly it gives the party some hope at a time when it has hit rock bottom. With a strong candidate in the race, the mayoral race is likely to become a focal point that unites the party -- and that is something that the DPP desperately needs at the moment.
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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