For all its vaunted intrinsic value, democracy means that its outcomes cannot please everybody. Such was the case on Saturday, when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
But the end of the world is not upon us. Unlike what the more alarmist among us have argued, a KMT "return" to power is not coterminous with "death of democracy," nor does it mean that Taiwan is half a strait closer to being swallowed by China.
There are two principal reasons for this.
First, except for a small minority, the 7.6 million people who voted for Ma did so as Taiwanese and chose the KMT because they believed his campaign promises to improve the economy and defuse tensions with China. Those votes were cast with the hope that a KMT win would benefit them and Taiwan -- no one else. Voting is not an act of selflessness; when Americans vote for a candidate, they are not voting to, say, please Canada or Mexico. They think of themselves, their jobs, security and the future of their children. Taiwan is no different. While the outcome may please Beijing, Taiwanese did not vote to make China happy.
Second, those on the losing side of the aisle have not disappeared and their voices haven't suddenly been silenced. Despite Ma's big win, he and the members of his government will need to heed the fact that more than 5.4 million Taiwanese did not vote for them. If they ever forget that, they'll be in serious trouble, perhaps even earlier than four years from now.
Not for many years will the voice of the people have been as important as it will be when Ma assumes the presidency on May 20. Now that the legislative and the executive branches are under KMT control, the onus will be on them to deliver on the promises of accountable leadership they made during the campaign.
The KMT victory does not mean, as some have suggested, that the devil incarnate will step into office. In fact, in the past months Ma has increasingly sounded like a leader for Taiwanese and his party has some good people in it who can be counted on to put the interest of the nation first. These people must be encouraged.
Simultaneously, as Ma steps onto the international scene, he must be brought back into line if he is ever seen to be departing from his promises to serve the interests of Taiwan, and every effort must be made to ensure that the rotten elements in the KMT -- who are easily identifiable -- do not manipulate their victory to serve interests other than those of Taiwan.
Saturday's result was not a return to the authoritarian era, because democracy is now part of the nation's fabric -- and Ma must learn to navigate that environment. But democracy implies work. Hard work. And it imposes responsibilities that go far beyond showing up at the voting station on election day.
Ma won, so let's give him a chance to prove himself. But we'll be watching -- all of us.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS