There is a general consensus among Taiwan watchers that next month’s presidential election will be pivotal for the country’s future.
Consequently, hopes have been high for presidential campaigns that provide substance on topics such as relations with China, the economy and a number of environmental issues.
Sadly for all involved, the party that from the onset had insisted it would run a “clean” and “responsible” campaign has failed to abide by its commitment and has chosen instead to turn to the past — the distant past, in some cases — as it attempts to tarnish the image of its resurgent opponent.
It is little wonder that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) would say over the weekend that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), having no accomplishments to show for in its nearly four years in office, had chosen instead to launch an all-out attack on her and her party.
Whether the KMT has anything to boast about is a matter of opinion, but one thing that is beyond debate is the fact that the party seems to be panicking amid signs that the DPP could very well win next month’s elections, something that had seemed impossible only a few years ago.
How else could we explain a presidential campaign that, rather than look to the future, would launch into what can only be described as an infantile attack on DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) wife, Hung Heng-chu (洪恆珠), for attending a party where male strippers and cross-dressers provided entertainment — nearly a decade ago?
KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅), who masterminded the attack on Hung, is running for a legislative seat in Greater Kaohsiung. The self-proclaimed “king of lawsuits” never shies from shooting from the hip to undermine his opponents, but it is difficult to see how such a strategy could possibly help him get elected. Rather than make proposals on how to improve the lives of his would-be constituents, Chiu went on the offensive, using the media as a pulpit by which to tarnish the DPP’s image at every opportunity.
This begs the question whether Chiu is a rogue KMT candidate or has been unleashed with his party’s — and ultimately Ma’s — blessing. Either way, this reflects badly on Ma’s re-election campaign, highlighting desperation or the president’s inability to control his foot soldiers.
As if what adults do behind closed doors were not enough for the KMT, it has now rehashed an old controversy over Tsai’s role in the creation of Yu Chang Biologics Co. Why it waited so long before going public with accusations that Tsai profited illegally from the company — barely one month before the elections — can only mean one thing: The KMT is growing desperate and will grasp at anything to achieve its ends. Realizing that its repeated attempts to drag Tsai down because of her associations with former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were paying few dividends, the KMT had to find something else.
Farmhouses, strippers and now Tsai’s role in Yu Chang are the result of that desperation, each of which failed utterly to address the issues and challenges facing the nation. Such levels of baseness have not gone unnoticed, with even media that are characteristically inclined toward the KMT, such as the China Post, crying foul over what is turning into a risible, if not scandalous, campaign.
And of course, Chiu has acted as the attack dog in all three instances. With such clowns involving themselves in the electoral campaign, who could blame those in China who have shown interest in the election’s proceedings for being cynical about the virtues of democracy?
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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