Undeterred by the waves of protests against his pet pact, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) remains resolute about pushing the controversial cross-strait service trade pact through the legislature, reaffirming on Wednesday his determination that the pact must pass the legislature by June and that the Executive Yuan must ratify it by then.
As a national leader with an embarrassing 9 percent approval rating, Ma nonetheless finds the confidence within to go against mainstream public opinion, such as that depicted in a recent poll by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research that found 73.7 percent of respondents supported a line-by-line review of the proposed pact.
In the most serious challenge to Ma’s China policy so far, a group of protesters, mostly students, have occupied the Legislative Yuan since Tuesday evening, demonstrating against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers for what protesters say is reneging on a promise to conduct a clause-by-clause review of the contentious pact.
The students, in a tense standoff with police, yesterday issued an ultimatum, threatening “further action” if Ma does not respond to their demands by noon today.
However, at press time last night, Ma remained unresponsive to the students’ call.
Ma often touts democracy as the nation’s greatest achievement. He has repeatedly trumpeted himself as the defender of the Constitution and lectured officials on respecting and implementing constitutional governance. However, how is it democratic and respectful to the Constitution and the rule of law when he is seemingly transforming democracy into dictatorship by breaching the principle of the separation of powers through threats to legislators, such as demanding that KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) must have the pact clear the legislative floor?
Ma’s action is a clear case of executive power encroaching on legislative power.
If Ma is wise, however, he would, in a timely fashion, take the students’ call as an invitation and meet with them to hear their concerns. By doing so, he would not only demonstrate a level of class befitting a president, but also set a good example while living up to his self-anointed title of the “people’s president” (全民總統), one who opens his ears and listens to Taiwanese.
During the Wild Lilies (野百合學運) student movement in 1991, then-premier Lee Huan (李煥) visited with students and then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) also met the student representatives to hear their concerns.
Until as recently as last week, Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, was urging his Cabinet ministers to go on political talk shows to promote the government’s report card, which he said has a lot of good policies that are not well-known to the public.
If he believes what he preaches, a great opportunity for the president to conduct a genuine dialogue with the students has arrived. However, Ma chose to completely ignore the students’ call.
Given how he once responded so swiftly to media reports that a long-time female supporter had lost her admiration for him that he flew to Hualien to pay her a special visit, resulting in her saying the president was back on her list of idols, Ma’s lack of of response to the students’ appeal is disturbing. It once again confirms underlying suspicions that the president has selective hearing — that he hears Beijing’s impatient drumbeat for the passage of the pact, but not the voices, concerns and worries of Taiwanese.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to