The strong cold front that swept across Taiwan last week was not enough to stop people from attending a forum organized by the Taiwan Thinktank. As for so many other Taiwanese, the cold weather was of little importance compared with their worries about whether Taiwan’s democracy will make it through its severe winter.
The forum brought together professors who have devoted most of their lives to the struggle for democracy, chairpersons of political opposition parties who have been fighting against the one-party state, young academics who rarely participate in activities outside of their classrooms, research rooms or conference rooms, and students too young to remember the authoritarian system. They all agreed that the results of the legislative and presidential elections held early last year indeed have resulted in democratic regression in Taiwan.
The only contribution that China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) made to Taiwan was probably the fact that his visit alerted many people to how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in just seven months has paralyzed the nation’s legislative supervision, let police brutality run amok and impaired the independence of the judiciary.
Any of this was unimaginable during the past eight years. It is even less acceptable to see that the government’s arrogance and unscrupulous behavior may have sprung from its landslide victories in democratic elections, and that it is this that has given the government the boldness to use the state apparatus to oppress human rights in Taiwan and externally to use the KMT-Chinese Communist Party platform to erode the nation’s sovereignty.
While the purpose of a transfer of political power is to consolidate human rights and sovereignty, the KMT-led government has done the exact opposite.
As it managed to secure a two-thirds majority in the legislative elections and win more than 50 percent of the vote in the presidential election, it is hard to challenge its democratic legitimacy. It is precisely this that is the source of our worries.
We first thought Taiwan’s democracy was on the road to irreversible progress since 2000, but we have now painfully come to realize two things. Many aspects of Taiwan’s democratic reforms are incomplete.
Old systems and mindsets that were not abandoned over the past eight years have staged a rapid comeback.
We have also come to realize that we cannot rely on victories in democratic elections alone to put us on the road toward democratic transformation.
This is a mistake that the Democratic Progressive Party, the former ruling party and now biggest opposition party, must recognize, and it is the party’s unshakable responsibility to resolve the consequences of this mistake.
Although elections certainly play an important role in democracy, only by insisting on democratic reforms and the development of human rights can we help Taiwan consolidate its democratic foundation.
All Taiwanese concerned over the nation’s future must have the courage to take action in the face of Taiwan’s democratic regression. Carrying out democratic reforms is not a dinner party.
Although Taiwanese democracy is suffering through a severe winter, we should unite various social forces and equip ourselves with knowledge.
Only then can we generate a force capable of bringing public attention to Taiwan’s democratic crisis and preventing the government from continuing to violate human rights so that we can put Taiwanese democracy back on the right track.
Michael Hsiao is director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies at Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
Two weeks ago, Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) raised hackles in Taiwan by posting to her 2.6 million Instagram followers that she was visiting “Taipei, China.” Yeoh’s post continues a long-standing trend of Chinese propaganda that spreads disinformation about Taiwan’s political status and geography, aimed at deceiving the world into supporting its illegitimate claims to Taiwan, which is not and has never been part of China. Taiwan must respond to this blatant act of cognitive warfare. Failure to respond merely cedes ground to China to continue its efforts to conquer Taiwan in the global consciousness to justify an invasion. Taiwan’s government
This month’s news that Taiwan ranks as Asia’s happiest place according to this year’s World Happiness Report deserves both celebration and reflection. Moving up from 31st to 27th globally and surpassing Singapore as Asia’s happiness leader is gratifying, but the true significance lies deeper than these statistics. As a society at the crossroads of Eastern tradition and Western influence, Taiwan embodies a distinctive approach to happiness worth examining more closely. The report highlights Taiwan’s exceptional habit of sharing meals — 10.1 shared meals out of 14 weekly opportunities, ranking eighth globally. This practice is not merely about food, but represents something more
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
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