The generation born or raised after the lifting of martial law in 1987 was the first to experience democratization and enjoy the initial fruits of Taiwan’s freedom. Many of the generation following those who witnessed martial law lifted are now high-school and college students. The political background in which they grew up was the second eight-year governance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Taiwan’s democracy has issues that need to be addressed in each generation, but the social environment of this latest voting-age generation is freer and more open. If they take universal values such as democracy, freedom and human rights for granted, then they are testing Taiwan’s democratic resilience and putting these staples at risk.
Politics has become increasingly vulgar, populist and beholden to celebrity worship, and the eyeballs come before the brain. The more often Internet celebrities and politicians grab the attention of people on social media, the more they get to shape this generation’s political ideas and attitudes.
Thus, slogans such as “blue and green are equally bad” and even “taking down the DPP” have become dumbed-down slogans used to criticize politics, making withdrawal of Taiwan’s democratic assets easy, and such dumbing-down is not going to stop until democracy is bankrupted.
If young people, including teenagers are the “democratic trust fund babies” following Taiwan’s democratization, then what we ought to worry about is whether Taiwan’s democracy would be a case of “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” after next month’s presidential and legislative elections.
Faced with the crisis of democracy being gutted or bankrupt, the elections, like a national shareholders’ meeting, would determine how Taiwan’s democracy could sustainably operate.
There is still more than a month left until the elections, and we still have a chance to explain to the younger generation how to invest in Taiwan’s democracy.
Just as there are risks in financial investment and management, in the market of democracy, what kind of candidates and political parties you invest in and whether your voting judgement is correct determines whether the democracy you live in continues to thrive independently or be subordinated and dominated.
Yang Tsung-li is a political staff member.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of