If evidence was needed of how poorly Taiwan’s legislature works, Wednesday’s legislative review and approval of Executive Yuan-nominated Central Election Commission (CEC) members would be a good place to start.
On the surface, the review process appears to be a good idea. The Executive Yuan nominates CEC members based on experience, political acumen and character, and a panel of legislators led by a committee chairperson reviews the nominees before deciding whether they should be appointed.
Granting permission for somebody to become a CEC member is an important decision, because these people have power over Taiwanese elections and could essentially shape Taiwanese democracy.
In the review process, lawmakers are meant to grill candidates on their political views, their character and their ethics. If they are unsuitable and, for example, hold an allegiance to any particular political party or harbor authoritarian views, they should be rejected outright. This needs to be established in the review.
Wednesday’s review went nothing like that. Instead, it was a farce on the level of political satire. The writers of Everyone Talks Nonsense (全民大悶鍋) couldn’t have thought up a better script.
The review process had barely started when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Jen-shu (黃仁杼) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) noticed that one of the nominees was missing. Apparently, incumbent CEC member Chai Song-lin (柴松林), who was up for review, did not show up because he was, in fact, overseas. This angered legislators across party lines, but they could not agree on whether to postpone the review or keep going, so KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), who was convening the meeting, called a 10-minute break for negotiations.
Huang Chao-shun then disappeared and didn’t return for 50 minutes. After offering an absurd excuse for her extended absence, she reconvened the meeting. However, when DPP legislators protested, she called another recess, which lasted until lunchtime. By that time, the DPP legislators had quit the review in frustration, but that didn’t stop the meeting reconvening after lunch, with the remaining KMT legislators approving all five CEC nominees, even the absent Chai.
Three of the nominees were incumbents, while the other two were picked by an Executive Yuan under Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) that shows little neutrality in political matters. Those incumbents were responsible for the CEC blocking multiple requests by the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union to put the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) to a referendum. Without the referendum, Taiwan’s public had no say over a cross-strait agreement that is paving the way to economic unification.
The same CEC had also decided to move next year’s presidential election forward two months, which would give President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) if he is voted out, four months to meddle in state affairs before having to vacate the Presidential Office.
To all intents and purposes, the CEC appears loyal to the Ma administration. Furthermore, it seems willing to bend the rules to rig the game in Ma’s favor. The legislative review committee is the last bastion of hope for public officials to fix this situation.
That is why it is so disappointing to see CEC officials take up their positions without even having to answer basic questions about their character, mainly because KMT and DPP legislators can’t agree on anything, even what to do when political nominees disrespect the legislature.
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