How fitting that former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-teh (
Fitting, because anyone who still believes a word uttered by this wholly discredited figure after last year's events is a complete and utter fool.
Foolish to believe the word of a man who broke so many of the promises he made last time around.
A man that vowed to endure pain, hardship and suffering to stay outside the Presidential Office until Chen stepped down, but who after just a few hours of protesting was whisked off in a chauffeur-driven car for a meal at a fancy restaurant and a shower at a luxury hotel.
A man who on Dec. 5 began a self-imposed exile in his apartment -- again vowing to stay there until Chen stepped down -- but just a few weeks later made a trip to the US.
A man who has never properly explained the source of, or what happened to, the NT$110 million (US$3.3 million) he received in donations ahead of the original campaign.
A man who claimed to be fighting for a better society, but who took to the stage with known gangsters, convicted tax evaders and various other criminal figures.
And a man whose sole campaign premise was based on "fighting corruption," but who showed an incredibly selective attitude when it came to choosing the type of corruption he wanted to fight.
Only complete fools would believe Shih and the reasons he gave on Sunday for the decision to resuscitate his failed campaign; namely that he was worried that Chen would break his promise and refuse to step down if first lady Wu Shu-jen (
Let's hope Shih doesn't manage to fool Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (
Indeed, it was Ma who ended up looking like a fool when Taipei residents eventually became so fed up with the disruption caused by Shih's ridiculous movement that the mayor's popularity began to slide.
But while Shih is willing to take everyone else for fools, he himself is not a complete fool. When he spoke on Sunday about creating a "third force" in Taiwanese politics, he made it clear that he would not run in the year-end legislative elections. This is not surprising following his disastrous performance in 2002, when he stood for Kaohsiung mayor and received just 8,750 votes.
It will be interesting to see this time around -- in an election year -- if any pan-blue politicians are foolish enough to pin their stripes on Shih's "anti-corruption" post, especially after People First Party Chairman James Soong (
But the biggest fools of all will be anybody who believes Shih's revived campaign is anything but a partisan attempt to harm the pan-green camp's chances in the upcoming legislative and presidential elections. Why else would Shih rail against an incriminated president, but say nothing about the possibility of an indicted man succeeding him?
No doubt a minority of pan-blue diehards, Chen-haters and the free lunch crowd will be foolish enough to join forces with Shih once more.
But surely no one else is willing to be fooled again?
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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