Sunday saw the conclusion of the latest cross-strait forum held in Beijing between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Former KMT chairman Lien Chan (
The forum came just days after the nation's 11th attempt to gain admission to the WHO was rejected because of China's interference.
It also came as China last week -- once again -- tried to deny Taiwan's sovereignty by making it the first leg of the "domestic route" for the torch in the build-up to next year's Beijing Olympics.
And it comes after seven years of Chinese authorities ignoring the democratic government of Taiwan.
That China has almost 1,000 ballistic missiles pointing at their homeland didn't seem to bother the delegates from Taiwan in the least.
These are the same KMT and People First Party lawmakers who swore allegiance to the Republic of China and vowed to uphold its integrity, but stand there like dummies while Chinese leaders denigrate the nation and treat them like provincial delegates.
That these people do not represent the government of Taiwan and have no authority to discuss and seal such deals didn't seem to take anything away from the occasion.
Lien and his friends could return to Taiwan with a few more meaningless economic concessions from their "friends" across the Strait, but the few crumbs that Beijing has thrown at them are just the latest chapter in China's "united front" strategy that aims to suck the life out of Taiwan's economic autonomy until the nation -- and its independence -- is swallowed up by its neighbor.
All the measures are designed to do is prevent Taiwan's dynamic business sector from reaching out further around the globe, help China secure even more of Taiwan's investment capital and steal Taiwan's know-how and intellectual property.
We have already seen an example with the fruit exports that the KMT agreed on with China during one of its trips. Not long after the first batches of Taiwanese fruit arrived in China, the Chinese market was swamped with low-quality fakes and imitations -- all claiming to be from Taiwan -- hurting the revenues and reputation of Taiwanese farmers.
The behavior of the opposition since Lien's first trip to China in 2005 has been a thorn in the side of the government. But it is particularly hard to know how to deal with legislators who participate in subversive activity and deal directly with the government of a hostile state.
Jailing them or revoking passports would lead the former political prisoners and democracy activists in the Democratic Progressive Party into a domestic conflict for which they are ill-prepared.
The best we can ultimately hope for in a democracy is that the electorate will see through the faux loyalty of these opportunists and punish those who block important legislative matters at home to cosy up to a regime of autocrats.
One of the great hopes for the new legislative electoral system is that it will help dispose of some of the flotsam that pose as legislators.
In order to facilitate this, the names of the 30 lawmakers who attended the forum and those who visit China on a regular basis should be publicized so that the electorate can make a clear and informed choice between legislators who are proud to represent Taiwan and those who are more interested in singing the praises of China.
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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