It would be difficult these days to ignore all the grumbling about how "messy" the road to next year's legislative and presidential elections has become. And with election time just around the corner, those voices are bound to become even louder.
It has not, indeed, been a pretty picture. The electoral painting so far consists of precious few strokes of originality, several blotches of character assassination and equal daubs of sheer stupidity, gallons of promises, layer upon layer of empty rhetoric and swaths of unused canvas. Moreover, the two principal artists who have worked on the project have not been given the same amount of paint, which has resulted in an imbalanced artwork, with far more blue than green.
We've also seen the machinations to rig (or refashion, depending on one's view) the Central Election Commission in the hopes of avoiding a deplorable historical truth, accusations of platforms stolen, repetition ad nauseam of a supposedly sagging economy, the "one vote" versus "two vote" war of attrition and the UN referendum, joined at the hip by its Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-hatched evil twin.
Throughout all this we have had the probes into alleged corruption and the Democratic Progressive Party's asinine proposal yesterday that the immediate relatives of those responsible for the 228 Incident be legally accountable to the victims' families -- all cynical efforts that only the long dead would fail to associate with the elections. Ugly indeed.
But before you start planning something other than a visit to the polling booth on election day, think of this: Are elections elsewhere -- in countries where elections are actually possible -- any better? A brief survey should enlighten us.
In the democracy of democracies, US President George W. Bush, who lost the 2000 election by any reasonable measure, has been in the White House for seven long years. Across the Florida Strait, Cuban President Fidel Castro, who likes to call Cuban elections "the most democratic in the world," is not even directly elected by citizens.
Populists, meanwhile, like to boast of popularity levels that are so laughable as to be equaled only by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's -- and that was at gunpoint. Hugo Chavez has sought (but seems to have failed and will likely blame the US) to become president for life, while Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose term is up, is trying to devise a way to stay in power. In Pakistan, meanwhile, Pervez Musharraf has been dismembering democracy one judge at a time in preparation for elections, the outcome of which is known by all.
Closer to home, the Philippine president cannot even leave the country without fearing she might not be president when she returns. Thailand, for its part, has had so many coups we've lost count, while in Hong Kong, despite pro-democracy Anson Chan's (
The truth is that democracy is a cacophony and the inherent freedoms it guarantees allow individuals to exploit and contort and distort. Imperfect though it is, Taiwan's democracy works, and when you weigh it against the many other democracies and quasi-democracies of this world, it doesn't fare too badly. Transfer of power has occurred peacefully, the military is safely under civilian control and will not take to the streets whenever the president leaves the country.
And anyone who would propose becoming president for life would be laughed out of town so fast that he or she would have no choice but to flee to China or any other country whose political system makes a travesty of democracy.
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
US President Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on eight countries. As Taiwan, a key hub for semiconductor manufacturing, is among them, the policy would significantly affect the country. In response, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) dispatched two officials to the US for negotiations, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) board of directors convened its first-ever meeting in the US. Those developments highlight how the US’ unstable trade policies are posing a growing threat to Taiwan. Can the US truly gain an advantage in chip manufacturing by reversing trade liberalization? Is it realistic to
Last week, 24 Republican representatives in the US Congress proposed a resolution calling for US President Donald Trump’s administration to abandon the US’ “one China” policy, calling it outdated, counterproductive and not reflective of reality, and to restore official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, enter bilateral free-trade agreement negotiations and support its entry into international organizations. That is an exciting and inspiring development. To help the US government and other nations further understand that Taiwan is not a part of China, that those “one China” policies are contrary to the fact that the two countries across the Taiwan Strait are independent and
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