Bravo to Presidential Office Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) for rebutting former German defense minister Rainer Eppleman, the latest in a chorus of international observers who suggested that Taiwan should cancel its UN referendums.
The referendums should go forward because they are the result of popular petitions that cleared the long application process and their inherent value should be applauded, not bemoaned or condemned.
From US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte to Eppleman and others who represent the many nations that adhere to a "one China" policy, Beijing's disapproval of the referendum seems sufficient grounds to put democracy on hold. Small wonder so few believe US intervention in Iraq has nearly as much to do with democratization as with economic and military self-interest.
It's time for representatives of democratic nations to adhere to the democratic principles they tout consistently -- not merely when convenient. For a people to express their opinion by means of a referendum is a basic right.
UN membership can be blocked by China in the UN Security Council in the near term, but Taiwanese deserve to be heard. In the long term, steps like this help nurture democracy, something the US and Germany will need to uphold if they intend to regain moral authority in international relations.
William Cooper
Richmond, Virginia
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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