In January, five opposition legislators representing the five major electoral districts in Hong Kong resigned, triggering special elections scheduled for May 16. Frustrated by the lack of democratic development and interference from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong’s political affairs, the opposition parties are hoping to turn the special by-election into a de facto referendum on democratic reform.
Beijing condemned the resignations, describing the planned referendum as a challenge to its authority. Most of the parties with ties to the CCP — such as the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the Liberal Party and the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions — have let it be known they will boycott the elections.
Beijing turned up the rhetoric at the weekend, when Peng Qinghua (彭清華), head of China’s liaison office in the territory, suggested to Hong Kong delegates on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing that the referendum plan somehow threatens social stability.
“This is a total violation of mainstream public opinion, which demands stability, harmony and development,” he said.
Former Hong Kong legislator Rita Fan (范徐麗泰), who is now a member of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, has called the referendum campaign a “farce” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
It is ironic that Peng chose to apply the same language used in China to justify a lack of democracy — “stability, harmony and development” — to a rich and stable enclave of 7 million people. While a case could be made that such a focus is necessary when a country is still developing — and there is no doubt that, for the most part, China remains a developing country — this rationalization can hardly be applied to Hong Kong.
Equally ironic is that Beijing and the parties it backs in Hong Kong presume to somehow know “mainstream public opinion” before a referendum has been held, preferring to deride as “farce” and boycott a tool that would allow them to truly gauge public opinion.
Hong Kong has a mature enough political system for its people to know what they want. Beijing does not want such ideas to be aired publicly, not because it knows what’s best for Hong Kong residents, but because it considers those ideas dangerous. It’s not that Beijing fears chaos would erupt if universal suffrage were introduced in Hong Kong. What it fears is “contamination,” that once given voice such ideas — or demand for them — would spread like a brushfire into China proper. It wants to keep the democratic genie safely in the bottle.
This sends an important signal to Taiwan at a time when President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is seeking to foster closer relations across the Taiwan Strait.
China is not changing to accommodate Hong Kong, as many believed it would pre-1997, and it is increasingly difficult to imagine it would behave any differently with Taiwan.
Hong Kong legislators and their continuing endeavor to bring into being a fully democratic and just Hong Kong in the face of threats and interference from Beijing should be applauded and fully supported.
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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