President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) comments on Tuesday that war would not break out in the Taiwan Strait during his term in office were as puzzling as they were pointless.
Pointless because, given Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) well-publicized position of “eventual unification,” there is little chance of conflict occurring during his term. Add to this Ma’s repeated articulation of his “three noes” policy — no unification, no independence and no use of force during his presidency — and his words this week add nothing new to the equation.
The comments were puzzling considering the audience Ma chose for his address. Only he can explain why he unveiled this “new” premise before senior military officials — people who spend their entire working life planning and preparing for the possibility of war. Telling the military’s top brass that they can effectively stand down for the next four to eight years leaves them with little to motivate their troops.
It is quite coincidental that Ma made his speech during a week when the military suffered two tragic accidents. One would be justified in asking what kind of message this sends to the families of the pilots killed in this week’s air force crashes. Did their loved ones sacrifice their lives for nothing?
Ma may have been trying to soothe Beijing’s nerves following the US government’s decision on Oct. 3 to release US$6.5 billion in weapons systems to Taiwan after years of delays. The move — though widely expected — provoked the hackneyed “strong condemnation” from Chinese officials.
Reassurances that Taiwan is still acquiring weapons but has no plans to use them could also be Ma’s latest attempt at paving the way for his much-touted cross-strait “peace agreement.”
Since his inauguration in May, Ma has focused all his efforts on pandering to China, trashing Taiwan’s sovereignty in the process, and up until now he has nothing to show in return. Beijing has not shown Taiwan one ounce of goodwill and even refuses to apologize for its toxic food. Are Ma and the KMT too naive to realize that Beijing is simply biding its time while providing them enough rope with which to hang themselves?
In the nearly 60 years since the end of the Chinese civil war, China has not budged one inch on its position that Taiwan will eventually become part of the People’s Republic.
If Ma thinks that Beijing will put pen to paper on a peace agreement before it gets Taiwan as the prize, then he is kidding himself. No amount of woolly language or catchy slogans will change this.
Another possibility is that this week’s bluster was aimed at a wider audience. Ma and his advisers have proven extremely adept at manipulating the international media to present him as a messianic cross-strait “peacemaker,” and this may be just the latest part of this campaign.
Whatever the reason for his comments, Ma should remember he is not alone in desiring peace. Most Taiwanese want a peaceful settlement to the cross-strait issue, but as countless polls and Ma’s plunging popularity show, they do not want to sacrifice Taiwan’s sovereignty and hand the nation on a platter to Beijing in order to obtain it.
This is why people voted for Ma in the first place. It is a pity that it has taken him such a short time to forget it.
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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