ARATS’ shady connections
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is ready to talk about corruption and violence with the opposition party. The latest events show that this is not such a bad idea, with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) the victim of an assault by pro-China gangsters.
Huang Ju-yi (黃如意), a suspected gangster, threatened Wang and admitted that Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), vice chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), was his friend.
In a few days Taiwanese leaders will meet ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林). Huang’s statement shows that Chen’s subordinate, Zhang, has close relations to gangsters.
So maybe it is not such a bad idea to talk about corruption and violence. Before Ma shakes hands with Chen, he should tell Taiwanese how concerned he is about the connections between gangsters and Chinese politicians and the violence and threats by pro-Chinese gangsters against a Taiwanese politician.
Before Ma strikes any deal with Chinese officials, he should let them know how ardent a fighter against corruption and violence he is and that he can’t be on the side of those who may be gangsters’ friends.
Hanna Shen
Taipei
In stores near you
In your insightful editorial on Tuesday (“Mao’s odd (and worrying) comeback,” Oct. 28, page 8), it was mentioned that images of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) are now appearing here and there around China, from Chongqing Medical University’s 20m high statue of Mao to large portraits of him at various Beijing sites during the Olympics. It is indeed an odd comeback for such a man.
I wonder if your editorial writer is aware that local 7-Eleven stores in Taiwan are now selling cute figurine dolls of Mao made by an outfit called Dong Jui International. Who in Taiwan would buy such dolls and why?
I didn’t see any dolls of Adolf Hitler on the counter.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi
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
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,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS