The nations of East Asia and Alaska are important to each other in many ways. People from Alaska, in the US, have watched Taiwan make its transition to democracy and develop into a full-fledged free and democratic nation.
During last year’s presidential and legislative elections, an observer mission was organized by the International Committee for Fair Elections in Taiwan (ICFET), an international group of 19 academics from eight countries. The group concluded that while the elections were free, they were also partly unfair, as the playing field was not level, and stacked in favor of the ruling party.
Through appropriate checks and balances, the people in Taiwan can hopefully ensure that the 2016 elections will be free and fair.
While during the past 25 years Taiwan has made great progress toward democracy, there remain sharp differences about the overall direction of the country, as well as the quality of the judicial and legislative systems.
Hopefully, the new year will bring renewed efforts to bring about much-needed judicial and legislative reforms.
The judicial system still has some characteristics inherited from the martial law period. Many in the legal community have advocated judicial reform, but too often there is built-in inertia.
On the legislative side there is too often a stalemate due to the long-standing political divide.
It is time for new and charismatic leaders to come to the fore, who can bridge the political divide and bring about a political reconciliation in Taiwan.
To state the situation clearly: It is of no use to try to bring about a rapprochement across the Taiwan Strait if there is no political consensus within Taiwan.
First there needs to be a broad-based agreement among the Taiwanese about the future direction of their country. Only then can there be a unified approach that will lead to long-term stability, within Taiwan as well as across the Strait.
There is another key requirement that will need to be fulfilled in order to bring about an internal political reconciliation in Taiwan: a medical parole for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
According to recent reports from Taiwan, he is suffering from serious physical and mental ailments brought about by the deplorable conditions under which he was detained.
Whatever his misdeeds, he did not deserve to be treated in this way. He was a key leader in Taiwan’s transition to democracy, and is seen by many in the pro-democracy camp as a symbolic figure who helped bring about an end to more than five decades of one-party rule in Taiwan.
A medical parole on humanitarian grounds would help start a healing process designed to bring about more social and political unity in the country.
The political divide can only be bridged if both sides of the political spectrum move forward toward a Taiwan consensus in which all parties agree that Taiwan’s future lies in being a vibrant democracy that is a free and full member of the international family of nations.
Frank Murkowski is a former governor of Alaska (2002 to 2006) and spent 22 years in the US Senate.
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named US Representative Mike Waltz, a vocal supporter of arms sales to Taiwan who has called China an “existential threat,” as his national security advisor, and on Thursday named US Senator Marco Rubio, founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China — a global, cross-party alliance to address the challenges that China poses to the rules-based order — as his secretary of state. Trump’s appointments, including US Representative Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, who has been a strong supporter of Taiwan in the US Congress, and Robert Lighthizer as US trade
Following the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, last month, media outlets circulated familiar narratives about Russia and China’s plans to dethrone the US dollar and build a BRICS-led global order. Each summit brings renewed buzz about a BRICS cross-border payment system designed to replace the SWIFT payment system, allowing members to trade without using US dollars. Articles often highlight the appeal of this concept to BRICS members — bypassing sanctions, reducing US dollar dependence and escaping US influence. They say that, if widely adopted, the US dollar could lose its global currency status. However, none of these articles provide
On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng. Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked
RSS