When the campaign to unseat President Chen Shui-bian (
However, a look at the agenda of the legislature reveals that the president's nominations for the Control Yuan and state public prosecutor-general have once again been blocked in the blue-camp-dominated Procedure Committee (the Control Yuan investigates corruption and other illegal behavior by public servants, among other duties).
The prosecutorial system investigates and prosecutes violations of the law, and the prosecutor-general is at the top of the tree. The pan-blue camp is asking that the president be investigated for corruption, but leaves the system without a leader.
So much for pan-blue lectures on graft.
If the pan-blue camp believes that some of the president's nominees are inappropriate, it can vote against those nominees during the review process and have them struck from the list.
Instead, while it is likely that the pan-blue camp is not opposed to certain nominees, it simply opposes the fact that Chen nominated them.
Chen's nomination for prosecutor-general, Hsieh Wen-ting (
The pan-blue camp would therefore rather stop the government from functioning than give Chen the smallest taste of success. And this is the way it has been for more than six years.
It is hard to judge the merit of the accusations that the KMT and pro-China media have leveled at Chen. These corruption allegations require a professional investigation by the Control Yuan and the prosecutorial system -- not hack reporters operating under instructions. Regardless, the KMT has allowed rumors and lies to be spread by refusing to put Chen's Control Yuan nominees to formal scrutiny, thus prohibiting the Control Yuan and the prosecutorial system from functioning.
Opposing graft is a just cause which should be supported by all, but this campaign should not be directed at getting rid of just one person. Irrespective of Chen's fate, there are legitimate concerns to be had over future KMT administrations, given the party's infamous record on corruption. Only a non-partisan legal system has the power to remove graft by the roots.
For a properly functioning legal system, the legislature should give priority to debating Chen's nominees for the Control Yuan and prosecutor-general, establish an anti-corruption agency and make other anti-corruption institutions function more effectively.
Secondly, it should pass the "sunshine bills" that set clearer standards on the use of assets, political donations, capital and lobbying by political parties, public servants and private organizations.
This would create greater political transparency and give voters more power in monitoring the interaction between government and civic society. This is the only path to building and maintaining government integrity.
An anti-corruption movement that only demands Chen's resignation and fails to address the need for a system that can fight corruption is nothing but a front for political wrangling and manipulation.
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
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
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS