In its long battle for international recognition, Taiwan has no greater asset than its hard-won democracy. More than anything, its democratic achievement is what distinguishes it from the authoritarian system in China. It is therefore crucial that this democracy be seen by the international community to be a functioning one worth protecting.
With crackdowns on human-rights advocates, curtailed freedom of the press and threats of illegal use of force against another nation, Beijing continues to provide ample contrasts with Taiwan, and those differences are part of the means by which the latter can express its identity.
But the determination of one's identity through differentiation can only accomplish so much. A nation cannot define who and what it is solely by focusing on what it is not. In fact, to find its true self, it must also make a statement about what it is.
And what it is is much more than what differentiates it from China -- a democratic system versus an authoritarian regime -- and comes instead from how it has developed the gift of democracy.
As such, next year's elections must be about more than the fact that elections can be held in the first place. Beyond process alone, it is the substance and quality of the elections that constitute the true health check of the nation and that provide it with the opportunity to underscore its value to the world.
Hence the need for voters next year to be offered choices among contending politicians who have been cleared, through impartial investigations, of wrongdoing or corruption. Nothing could be more harmful to Taiwan's survival and ambitions for sovereignty than for the world to see that its people value their democracy so lightly as to bring a crook to power. Should the world come to the conclusion that Taiwanese opted to elect an individual who has openly lied about his powers while in office, it will no longer feel the obligation to protect that society from anti-democratic encroachment.
After all, we cannot expect the rest of the world to care about Taiwan's democracy if its very people are incapable of seeing to it that it remains healthy and truly representative.
Just as Taiwan's military allies need to see that it is willing to do what it must and acquire what it needs to defend its territory from military aggression, its diplomatic allies -- and in fact even those who side with Beijing -- need to see that Taiwanese are ready to do what they must to protect their precious democracy. Commitment to that principle -- the process itself as well as the quality of the choices given a people -- is just as important as commitment to national defense.
Canada recently showed what it means to protect the quality of a democratic system by pushing for the investigation of high-level government corruption. The process ultimately led to the demise of prime minister Paul Martin's Liberal government. Regardless of whether the new Conservative government was the best thing for Canada, the country was mature enough to rid itself of elements whose presence was harmful to its democracy.
Taiwan should follow that example and ensure that allegations of corruption involving the upper echelons of government are fully explored. The prosecutors' decision to appeal the ruling on former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
As long as doubts continue to linger about a candidate, no self-respecting democracy would allow that person to run for office. A democracy can only be functional when the choices given voters are individuals who are held accountable and who are flushed out if they are not worthy of our confidence.
If Taiwan wants to lose its luster and moral authority in the eyes of the world, it could do no worse than to bring a crook to power.
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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