The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party, holding a majority in the legislature, have continued to mess with our country’s Constitution and governance, pushing through huge budget cuts and bills that would undermine the country’s development.
The KMT caucus proposed slashing NT$77,000 (US$2,350) and freezing NT$70 million of the Ministry of Education’s Youth Development Administration’s budget. They said it was because Cosmopolitan Culture Action Taichung, a civic group subsidized by the youth agency, takes part in social movements.
This is no longer a legitimate act of oversight of the administration by the legislature. The opposition lawmakers are using the budget review as a tool to exercise political suppression, threatening Taiwan’s democracy and civil society.
The KMT caucus uses the right to review the budget as a tool of suppression, which goes against the principle of separation of powers. Under a democratic system, an administration, a legislature and a judiciary each performs its own function and has the power to check the other two, creating a balance between the three separate powers of the state.
However, the KMT interferes in the administration’s budget planning and execution by accusing the administration of subsidizing a civil organization that takes part in social movements. This is a breach of the separation of powers principle. The purpose of budget review is to ensure public funds are used appropriately, but not to be used as a means of political persecution.
What the KMT legislators are doing is undermining the development of civil society and freedom of speech. Civil groups’ participation in public affairs and their expression of opinion are the cornerstones of a democratic society.
The KMT is using the budget freeze as a means to suppress organizations that participate in public affairs. This does not only affect the operation of community organizations, but also threatens freedom of speech and assembly, creating a chilling effect in civil society.
Furthermore, the budget freeze they proposed is disproportionate. They proposed freezing NT$70 million of the budget just because the ministry gave a NT$77,000 subsidy to a civic group. This is against the principle of proportionality. This is simply a demonstration of a regression of democratic values and an authoritarian mentality.
Taiwan has gone through years of democratization progress. The flourishing development of civil society and the pluralistic expression of views indicate social progress.
The KMT’s manipulation of the budget review represents an erosion of the core values of democracy and a reflection that our country is still haunted by its authoritarian past.
This would not only impede civil groups’ operations, but would also discourage young people from taking part in public affairs, causing a long-term adverse impact on the development of democracy in Taiwan.
The legislature should exercise its right to review the government’s budget only to oversee the administration and to ensure proper use of public resources, but not to suppress dissent or silence civil society.
The KMT’s proposal to freeze the Youth Development Administration’s budget deviates from the spirit of democracy and should be strongly condemned.
I hope legislators from other political parties could safeguard democratic values, refuse to use budget review as a tool of political suppression, and protect pluralism and freedom in Taiwan’s civil society.
Edwin Yang is an associate professor at the College of International Studies and Social Sciences of National Taiwan Normal University.
Translated by Fion Khan
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
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
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS