A sad day for democracy
It has been reported that Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) suggested that cities and counties controlled by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) boycott the referendum proposed by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Apparently the KMT believes that, as a major political party, it can compel members who are elected officials to disobey laws with which it disagrees (as opposed to those declared void by legal process).
This is indeed a sad day for democracy in Taiwan. It is the kind of thing that would happen in a one-party system, such as China's, but not in a democracy.
The rule of law governs democracies, not the rule of tyranny. Citizens and workers can express their opinions and can carry out boycotts. Elected officials must do their jobs according to the law, or they will be dismissed or impeached. The only means by which elected officials can address a law with which they do not agree is to follow the legal procedures to have the law changed, whether by legal challenge in court or by amendment or other legal process, or to have its enforcement stayed until its legality has been determined.
To suggest that all KMT officials should simply refuse to obey the law, and boycott a validly called election (or referendum), calls for anarchy. That would also be a sad day for democracy.
I am shocked that a man considered a prime candidate to become president would call for such a lawless measure. What measure of a man is it if he cannot resist the voice of corruption and tyranny, even if it is whispered to him by his colleague, the man in charge? Can he not resist that which he knows is corrupt and wrong?
No one is above the law -- neither KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
If the court were to declare the referendum void, the KMT would be the first to call for the president to desist, but until then it should respect the president's right by law to call for the referendum. That is how democracy works. It is no
surprise that a party which struggled to contain its often terrible oppression for five decades still doesn't get it.
What does it portend for Taiwan if the KMT believes it can simply ignore laws it does not like? Does it mean that if Lien is elected president, he would simply disregard laws he does not agree with? What if the legislature passes a law he doesn't like? Will he just ignore it? Will he enter into agreements with China that he is not authorized to enter into merely because he believes he can disregard laws he does not like?
How a party in opposition behaves is a very good baro-meter of how that party will behave if it is elected.
After five decades of abusive tyranny, and a scant four years in opposition, now faced with the challenges of political disagreements, the KMT is advocating anarchy,
or lawlessness.
What can that possibly mean for the future of Taiwan? And what would happen if the KMT passes laws that the people don't like?
You can be sure if Lien becomes president, the KMT would be the first to jail every single person who disagreed with its policies, in particular those who voice their objections in public, probably
starting with the former president and vice president -- the common indicators of dictatorial power, the tendency to silence the opposition by incarceration. This is the way tyrants behave in a dictatorship.
And the KMT is showing its hand in how it deals with the referendum -- dictatorial and imperious, encouraging anarchy and lawlessness.
Remember that. If Taiwan returns the KMT to power, the people will have no one to blame but themselves for the loss of their freedom and democracy.
It will be a sad day for democracy in Taiwan. And for the world.
Lee Long-hwa
New York
Learning the hard way
When are the people of Taiwan going to learn that most of the world does not care about what is right or what the truth is. The only way to protect yourselves is to acquire the knowledge and the ability to produce top-of-the-line warships, fighters and other weaponry.
America will not help you because your market is not as big as China's. Nor do you have something we need and can not get somewhere else.
Keith Fritzsch
Woodbridge, New Jersey
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS