One can guess that election time is around the corner when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians start to warn that Taiwan could risk losing its diplomatic allies if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) becomes the governing party.
Such was the case in the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election, when then-KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pledged to adopt “flexible diplomacy” to end the nation’s diplomatic isolation and what he termed “pointless ‘scorched-earth diplomacy’ employed by the DPP,” which he described as “amateurish, capricious, dogmatic and based on brinkmanship.”
Similar rhetoric was sounded during Ma’s re-election campaign for the 2012 presidential election as he trumpeted his foreign policy of “modus vivendi” having promoted cross-strait peace and Beijing not stealing Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
In a case of deja vu, earlier this week, Presidential Office spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) warned against the resurgence of diplomatic war with China, saying that a resumption of the DPP’s “scorched-earth diplomacy” would pose “an enormous risk to the ties across the Taiwan Strait and to our international relations and seriously undermine the peace and prosperity that has developed in the Taiwan Strait over the past seven-and-a-half years.”
Echoing Chen’s remarks, KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) — worrying that a victory for DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in next month’s presidential election could destabilize cross-strait ties — on Monday claimed that 18 of Taiwan’s 22 diplomatic allies have been lining up outside Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to establish diplomatic ties
Stepping up the rhetoric, Ma on Tuesday said that Taiwan lost six diplomatic allies under the previous DPP administration, whereas he consolidated diplomatic ties with allies since taking office in 2008, with the exception of losing the Gambia to China in 2013.
However, one has to ask: Has China really dropped its aggression and malice toward Taiwan while the KMT has been the governing party?
The answer is obvious: No.
The truth is that Ma’s so-called “cross-strait peace” is superficial, because Beijing has never renounced the use of force to achieve its goal of annexing Taiwan.
China’s enacting of the “Anti-Secession” Law shows nothing but malice and threatens peace.
China’s intentions are evidenced by the more than 1,600 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan along its eastern seaboard.
China’s ill intentions are made obvious by footage of its war games that showed drills featuring People’s Liberation Army troops maneuvering toward a five-story building with a tower resembling Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building.
In other words, what Ma has been touting as his diplomatic achievements are really more to Beijing’s credit than his.
No saber-rattling remarks have been necessary from China because the KMT has seemingly taken it upon itself to work on Beijing’s behalf, intimidating Taiwanese with talk, such as Alex Tsai’s.
Playing the “resurgence-of-diplomatic-war-with-China card” to frighten the public might have worked for the KMT before, but do Ma and Alex Tsai really take Taiwanese for fools and think they would fall for the same tricks again?
Rather than engaging in its old habit of intimidating people, the KMT would be well advised to put its resources toward the presentation of a concrete platform to convince voters that it deserves another four years in the Presidential Office.
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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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