Democratic sabotage
The blue and white camps have come together five times to block the Executive Yuan’s proposed budgets. Together with legislation to expand the powers of their own branch of government, this deliberate dysfunction is a long-term strategy to chip away at our democratic system. It is reminiscent of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s classic quote: “They lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying anyway.”
The blue and white camps are taking advantage of democratic loopholes, endlessly blocking budgets from passing, leading to the government’s inability to function normally. They are chipping away at the development of our national defense, basic infrastructure and resources for the general welfare. This not only delays progress, but could also provide opportunities for China to infiltrate our government.
Public awareness helps to protect our democracy. The 2014 Sunflower movement and the 1990 Wild Lily student movement were successful wake-up calls for public consciousness. They were aimed not only at blocking harmful policies, but also promoting Taiwan’s democratic reform. If civil society is unable to respond in time, the blue-white coalition’s strategy could leave the door wide open for outside forces to intervene.
China’s influence is evident in the blue and white camps’ activities to block budget increases. This would lead to shortfalls in resources for national security and social welfare, threatening our security and stability. On the international stage, it could also give rise to doubts about our internal governance, further impacting the outside world’s faith in Taiwan.
The two camps’ concerted manipulations have, since their inception, been preordained as a “feast of falsehoods.” This is not mere political theater. These are highly coordinated movements based on deception that are meant to cut away at our lines of defense and throw the public mood into disarray. No doubt, they know exactly what kind of consequences could result from their actions, yet they continue to ignore reality and maintain their manipulation of our political system. They also believe that they can keep up these falsehoods and false equivalences without the public fighting back.
We cannot just sit by and wait while everything crumbles around us. We must find the courage to stand up and use social movements to break through the fake visages. This does not just mean mobilizing for future votes, nor is this only for the sake of the current government. It is to protect our homeland and to guard our flame of democracy from being extinguished.
These politicians are afraid of civic power. Their hope is for the public to grow idle and indolent, or become exhausted by all of their games and shenanigans. Taiwanese have never easily bowed down to authoritarians. The blue-white camp cannot keep up their charades forever. The jig has to end sometime. We can use movements and marches to strike back, and use the truth to sweep away the miasma and fog of their falsehoods, thereby keeping us and our nation’s future safe.
Shih Li
Tainan
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