It is everyone’s duty to protect the country. No one is an outsider. Of course, it is the same for political parties. People should make an effort to educate themselves. The government should also support and work with people to restore normalcy in the country. Our country is ours to save.
Our country is facing external threats. Chinese warplanes have made constant incursions around Taiwan. A Chinese-owned cargo vessel allegedly damaged an undersea cable near Taiwan’s northeastern coast earlier this month. In October last year, three Taiwanese members of the I-Kuan Tao (一貫道) religious group were arrested in China.
Our country has also been infiltrated from within. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers, acting as agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are as ferocious as pit bull terriers. They use their legislative power to override the government.
They amended a law to allocate more funding for local governments rather than the central government, leaving the general budget in jeopardy. They passed a bill on pension reform for police to raise the maximum income replacement ratio. They proposed changes to the Chinese spouse law to reduce the period required to obtain Taiwanese citizenship. They raised the threshold to recall elected officials. They proposed budget cuts for national defense. There are countless examples of their attempts to destroy our country.
People have come forward — 3,000 teachers, indigenous youth in Hualien County and the younger generation who grew up in the military dependents’ villages in Taichung. Numerous Taiwanese are furious. Their passion has been ignited.
We, as masters of the country, must exercise our right to recall. Recalling KMT legislators is necessary to prevent Taiwan from being annihilated by the CCP. It is the only way to protect our country. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party is duty-bound to spare no effort to support the mass recall movement.
Recalling KMT legislators has become a national movement. A single spark can start a prairie fire. KMT and TPP lawmakers are plunging the country into chaos by pushing through draconian laws in the legislature. Their vicious acts would only encourage the public to take part in the recall petition.
Residents of Hualien County residents are not afraid of KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), a longtime “King of Hualien.” Other cities and counties would only see more seething discontent.
The DPP government should support civic groups that organize the recall movement by allowing civil servants to provide assistance at mobile stations and service centers to help people sign recall petitions.
My patriotic friends and I cannot join the petition, as we do not have KMT legislators in our electoral districts. Neither do residents in Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Pingtung. This does not make us love Taiwan less than anyone else. We willcontribute our money and labor to supporting the mobile stations, thereby transforming this mass recall movement into something historic and to be proud of within Taiwan’s democratic movement.
Lin Chin-kuo is a business manager at a technology company.
Translated by Fion Khan
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