The opposition parties' vicious presidential recall motion failed to muster the two-thirds support it needed in the legislature, and was nixed. The pan-blues' united efforts to recall President Chen Shui-bian (
That the recall motion would fail was a foregone conclusion. As anyone with any political common sense will tell you: Seeking a recall of a popularly elected president for political reasons, and in the absence of any evidence that the president broke the law, is unacceptable by any reasonable legislator's political and ethical standards.
Partisan politics should be defined as a healthy competition between political parties that espouse different political ideals. If a precedent is set that a popularly elected president can be ousted on purely political grounds, then such a phenomenon is bound to repeat itself, no matter who is president. That is, whichever party becomes the governing party, it is bound to face the same challenge, and a vicious cycle will ensue, with parties ceaselessly trying to unseat each other's presidents.
Needless to say, the pursuit of political stability and the development of a functional multi-party system will be hindered by such tactics, and ultimately, democracy will fade. This explains why, in a mature democratic nation, opposition parties cannot seek to recall the president in such a cavalier fashion.
Recalling the president also presents problems of a technical nature. US presidential elections, for example, are almost never landslides; the winner typically wins the White House with a thin majority of votes. That is, the US public is usually not overwhelmingly in favor of one candidate or the other, making any attempt to unseat the president an extremely risky venture.
As much as the US Democratic Party detests President George W. Bush's policies and views, they have never behaved like the Taiwanese opposition by trying to drum up support to unseat the commander-in-chief.
The US boasts a rich tradition of public dissent and assembly, but rallies organized by political parties are rare; non-governmental organizations are typically the organizers of such events. In the US, partisan politics is not encouraged to spill out onto the streets.
Why were the pan-blues determined to put the recall motion to a vote when they knew full well that it would fail? Why have they slapped this on the table at the expense of political stability and national interests?
The reason is that the modern Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has a long tradition of dictatorship, and has not adapted to operating within a democratic environment of healthy competition between parties.
Ever since it became an opposition party, the KMT has done little but whine. Their stoking of people's emotions and prejudices and calling on supporters to participate in a signature drive to seek Chen's ouster all reek of Chinese Communist Party-style tactics: Recall how China's Cultural Revolution began.
Black-clad gangsters attended recent KMT-led rallies in droves. The KMT is notorious for its close connections with gangs: Recall the 1984 slaying in California of writer Henry Liu (
The party is calling on its gangster brethren once again: This time, to intimidate the ruling party. Fortunately, Taiwan has already made the leap to democracy, and the ghosts of Chiang Kai-shek (
Cao Changqing is a freelance journalist based in the US.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of