Political analysts look for changes in the Taiwan-US relationship after even the most insignificant events, so it is not surprising that they will jump into overdrive after a major development such as the US midterm election.
There is, however, a distinction between making a necessary assessment of an altered political dynamic and the irrational self-absorption with which many commentators approach this country's relationship with Washington.
Evidence of this can be seen daily, when reporters from Taiwan's major Chinese-language dailies pester the US State Department spokesman for comments about cross-strait ties or the Taiwan-US relationship. Approaching the subject from a position that is hopelessly egocentric and naive, the reporters ask such improbable and ridiculous questions as: "Is the US worried that President Chen Shui-bian's (
The answer, of course, is an emphatic "no." No serious US bureaucrat or politician has the slightest interest in the minutiae of Taiwanese politics or the petty partisan one-upmanship that characterizes the bulk of political "discourse" in this country.
So the State Department spokesman, whoever the unlucky individual happens to be, smiles with chagrin and restates rote US policy for the umpteenth time in response to an utterly absurd question.
The Taiwanese media can be forgiven for its lack of perspective, because the political establishment here encourages the kind of inbred thinking that we see every day on the TV news. It is merely the nature of things: Flowers bloom in spring, and politicians seek validation from every possible source.
So when the usual commentators start putting their cutting insights into print, telling us how the US election is good for the pan-blues, or good for the pan-greens, or good for Taiwan, or bad for Taiwan, or whatever their formulation might be, we would do well to remember that the election will probably have very little impact on US-Taiwan relations.
There are manifold reasons for this, but primarily it is because Taiwan is on the periphery of political debate in the US. American voters and politicians are worried about a lot of things, but on the whole, Taiwan isn't foremost among them.
One might argue that this is a good thing: It isn't necessarily a blessing to be the recipient of the US political establishment's attentions. But the salient point for Taiwan is that its support among the US public and in Congress is not a partisan affair; it is an ideological one. The Americans who are willing to step up to the plate for this country do so for a variety of reasons, some noble and some selfish.
The common ideological thread that most of these people share, however, is support for Taiwan's right to self-determination. That support will continue so long as Taiwanese show that they are interested in their own future. This is why the US State Department isn't interested in taking sides in the current brouhaha over the president. From the US' point of view, it is immaterial which Taiwanese political party or faction has the upper hand from week to week.
The important question relates to process. There is a vast difference between red-clad rabble-rousers bringing down the president using mob rule, and a prosecutor bringing down the president using legal means. The more rabid extremists may not see this, but we must hope that these people remain where they belong: on the fringe of popular opinion.
And if that happens, there may come a day when people here are confident enough in their own system of government that they no longer need to seek affirmation from a staid foreign bureaucrat speaking from a podium.
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,
RSS