The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) once again demonstrated how seriously out of step it is when it announced on Friday that it was revoking the party membership of Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (
The KMT's Evaluation and Discipline Committee said that Lee was kicked out of the party for "fawning" over the Democratic Progressive Party government, but in the same press release revealed the real reason for Lee's expulsion: he had disrespected late dictator and party icon Chiang Kai-shek (
This came just days after Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
These two episodes highlight the problems faced by a party stuck in the past and remind us how a party that cannot break free from the shackles of its authoritarian history is unfit to lead Taiwan.
The KMT's failure to change and come to terms with democratization and the growth of a Taiwan consciousness will continue to hold it back.
How can the people of Taiwan be expected to take the KMT seriously if, almost six decades after being defeated in the Chinese Civil War, it still refuses to relinquish its claim to be the legitimate government of China and concentrate its efforts on Taiwan?
The KMT's strict adherence to the Confucian concepts of loyalty and respect mean it remains unable to deal properly with embarrassing episodes from its past.
And while loyalty and respect are worthy concepts, they are sometimes incompatible with the requirements of modern democratic politics.
Loyalty to senior party figures is why the KMT cannot completely close the door on the Chiang era and also why it let former chairman Lien Chan (
But worst of all, it is the KMT's underlying Chinese supremacist attitude that has seen it struggle to cope with the rapid changes occurring in society.
Look at how the party undid all the good work of former president and party chairman Lee Teng-hui (
This attitude is also why the party will almost certainly select former chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Wang is Taiwanese, and the KMT would be loath to give him the chance to lead the nation because of the lingering memories of Lee's "betrayal" of the party.
While the KMT talks about caring for Taiwan and expresses regret over the 228 Incident, the party's dogmatic devotion to a flawed history, refusal to accept criticism of Chiang and reluctance to commit itself wholeheartedly to this nation's future create a different impression.
It is this stubbornness that will continue to harm the KMT in the eyes of the electorate. And for this it has only itself to blame.
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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