The Taipei City Government has granted permission to former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (
The decision has provoked anger and skepticism because the Taipei City Government has never before allowed rallies of this nature to extend beyond a late evening deadline.
Attacks on this special treatment for Shih, of course, will not hurt Shih's rally in garnering more media attention.
Of more interest is whether the campaign can attract support from the wider community of pan-green supporters and civic groups. If the purpose of Shih's rally is to convince Chen to step down of his own accord, rather than provide a stage for Shih as a comeback politician, then the last thing that Shih would want is to have his rally too closely associated with the pan-blue camp.
Most pan-green supporters are disappointed with Chen, and among these are some voices calling for him to step down. However, because of the long history of antagonism between the pan-green and pan-blue camps, pan-green supporters tend to back down or at least hold great reservations about giving support to causes if they are deemed to be "pan-blue" activities.
Shih's rally does seem to be gathering a level of support from the general public. But the question is: who exactly? If the bulk of support comes from supporters of the pan-blue camp, then this is hardly constructive in terms of making Chen step down. The reason that Chen is able to continue his presidency is that most in the pan-green camp do not support his resignation or removal.
However, in view of the treatment granted to Shih by the Taipei City Government -- interpretable as special treatment from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Making the situation more complicated for Shih and Ma is criticism from within the pan-blue camp, and the People First Party (PFP) in particular. The PFP pointed out that two years ago Ma ordered Taipei police to disperse an anti-Chen rally led by then KMT chairman Lien Chan (
Hoping to make hay out of all of this, the Taiwan Solidarity Union's Taipei mayoral candidate, Clara Chou (
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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