Newly elected legislators reported to the Legislative Yuan on Feb. 1 and held their first official meeting on Tuesday, but its disoriented state has highlighted new legislators’ inexperience.
The legislative election last month resulted in none of the major political parties holding more than half of the total 113 seats — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won 52, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won 51, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) won eight, and two independent seats are held by KMT-friendly legislators. This means that negotiations between parties would be crucial to passing legislation.
With KMT legislator-at-large Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) becoming the new legislative speaker, 54 of the 113 seats are also taken by newcomers, with 34 from the KMT, leading to an unpredictable future for the legislature. Despite this, many political observers held a positive outlook, saying that new voices could bring a fresh atmosphere to the legislature.
However, the run-up to Tuesday’s meeting suggests that the KMT and TPP caucuses are unfamiliar with the Legislative Yuan’s procedural rules. KMT caucus convener Fu Kun-chi on Feb. 7 issued a press release petitioning for an extraordinary meeting for Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to report on Feb. 17 regarding cimbuterol found in pork in Taichung — despite political parties’ agreement on Feb. 5 to have the first meeting on Tuesday.
Citing the Constitution on the holding of biannual legislative sessions between February and May and between September and December, and extraordinary sessions being called at other times, the DPP caucus questioned why the KMT would call an extraordinary session during an official session period.
The KMT caucus on Feb. 15 urged Han to hold consultations the next day regarding Chen. Han’s office refused, saying that consultations would be held a day prior to the previously agreed opening meeting. Recognizing his ignorance of the law and legislative procedure, Fu on Feb. 17 appeared to shift the blame by saying that the press release was a “typographical error” made by a party worker, who would be punished.
Confusion continued on Monday last week as the TPP caucus rejected the KMT’s proposal to have Chen’s food safety report a day later, but sent an urgent notice later the same day to the DPP and KMT caucuses asking them to attend negotiations in less than an hour. Negotiations failed as the notice was too short.
The KMT caucus’ legislators also proposed a change to the meeting agenda early on Tuesday, asking Chen to make a food safety report before his general policy address, but withdrew the proposal two hours later, saying that it supported the TPP’s proposal.
The first meeting on Tuesday opened in a chaos, as the KMT staged a boycott of Chen’s general policy address by swarming the podium. Pushing and yelling occurred when a new DPP legislator tried to snatch new KMT Legislator Lo Chih-chiang’s (羅智強) microphone.
Responding to the turmoil, Han called for a 10-minute break and urged lawmakers to “consider policies rationally” and “maintain order in the chamber” before resuming the session. The food safety report on Friday was also disrupted by Han a few times, asking for “mutual respect among legislators and government officials” to share the 15-minute Q&A time, as a few new KMT legislators refused to let Chen speak.
It is understandable that new legislators would want to prove their worth and raise their profile, but as lawmakers, legislators should first familiarize themselves with the Constitution, laws and legislative procedures.
The new legislative caucuses and legislators must also put their political stunts aside and step up their game. They should focus on more pressing issues or important bills concerning the public, such as monitoring the widespread tainted chili powder instead of the seemingly isolated case of tainted pork, rather than getting caught up in trivial political debates on basic procedural rules and letting voters’ expectations down.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS