Ever since former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was recalled last year, “Han fans,” as well as the KMT hierarchy, have made pro-Taiwan lawmakers their enemy No. 1, and Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) has been on top of that list (“Recall part of ‘generational war’: expert,” Oct. 19, page 3).
Chen has always been one of Han’s harshest critics, and Han fans have vowed revenge.
Former legislators Yen Kuan-hen (顏寬恆) and Yen Ching-piao (顏清標), being such sore losers, were not amused about losing to Chen democratically and have amassed significant resources backed by the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to remove him — a display of bad sportsmanship.
Yang Wen-yuan (楊文元) — who voted for Chen in January last year, but said he regrets doing so — initiated the recall campaign.
Yang said that Chen has neglected his constituency, behaved outrageously in the legislature and on social media, and supported the government’s decision to lift a ban on the importation of pork containing residue of the feed additive ractopamine.
The carpet-bombing smear campaign against Chen by KMT/CCP-leaning media is beyond fair and reasonable reporting. Many pro-Chen voices have been silenced by social media bans as they fight back against those who spread untruths.
If the KMT gets its way, it will inflict further unrest by stalling the legislature at the expense of taxpayers. This type of disruption has already been recognized internationally, not least by former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
The recall attempt is also an issue of national security, as Chen is a member of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. If he is recalled, the committee would be open to a possible KMT majority, which could then stall defense funding, diplomatic relationships, and lead to state secrets and sensitive military matters getting into the wrong hands.
The CCP has plenty to gain from ousting Chen, as it needs its cronies in pro-CCP parties to gain an upper hand by humiliating those who favor Taiwanese independence, with Chen and Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) on the top of the list.
The CCP’s media mouthpiece, China Central Television, has even broadcast current affairs programs with blatant instructions on how to remove Chen and Lim from the legislature.
The baton is now in the hands of voters in Taichung’s second electoral district. They must choose between keeping a well-intentioned, high-performing legislator in his job, or being bullied into submission to keep the old days of a corrupt establishment running their racket in “Gotham City.”
Voters need to realize that their choice might have far wider implications and consequences than living in fear of local mafia coercion. Their choice might be felt all the way to foreign relations and national security concerns, which might shape the nation’s future.
Why should people outside Taiwan be concerned with this recall vote? We should be highly concerned, as the CCP is using the same tactics worldwide to bolster its narrative as it eyes invasions and seeks to corrupt democracies.
Should the Chen recall be successful, China is likely to use the same methods on any politician it dislikes in other countries that it is trying to infiltrate, opening the Pandora’s box of invasion without a single bullet or missile fired. This is to make the international community more vulnerable to Chinese threats among nations that fear an escalation to war.
James Chen was born in Taiwan and now lives in Australia.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Delegation-level visits between the two countries have become an integral part of transformed relations between India and the US. Therefore, the visit by a bipartisan group of seven US lawmakers, led by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul to India from June 16 to Thursday last week would have largely gone unnoticed in India and abroad. However, the US delegation’s four-day visit to India assumed huge importance this time, because of the meeting between the US lawmakers and the Dalai Lama. This in turn brings us to the focal question: How and to what extent