Another issue has been added to the long list of things that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) cannot agree on -- whether to pick up their referendum ballots.
On Tuesday, PFP Chairman James Soong (
No law will be broken if a person does not vote in the referendum, but it is a civic duty and a precious opportunity to ensure that the people's voice can be heard.
Politicians and government officials who oppose this, such as Soong and PFP lawmakers who plan to ape their leader, set very bad examples for a young democracy.
As for Lien, Ma and other KMT members who are playing hard-to-get on the issue, well, they are just laughable. But this is no joke. It should be a matter of pride and joy for every citizen that this country is about to reach a democratic milestone with the holding of this referendum. Not only are Lien and Ma in fact indefensibly opposed to the referendum, they dare not admit to this for fear of incurring public scorn.
It is hard to respect people who can be so evasive, so cowardly -- yet this is merely another example of the KMT's dispiriting ambiguity on critical matters of principle, another example of which was its refusal to participate in referendum debates with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The KMT apparently feels it has much to resent over this referendum, and some members, particularly Ma, have not been shy in courting the media in the past, so why not use the debates to explain their reasons for opposing it? At least they would earn some respect that way.
Instead, pro-blue-camp talk-show hosts, such as Li Ao (
Ma tried to explain that the KMT's refusal to take part in the debates was not an attack on referendums per se, just the March 20 referendum.
But that still does not explain why the KMT is unwilling to join the debates. Jaw, for his part, is also opposed to the upcoming referendum, but he's almost salivating at the prospect of taking on the DPP.
The fundamental reason for the KMT equivocating on the referendum appears to be concern about being labeled "anti-democratic" and "anti-referendum." This wishy-washy, ambiguous behavior is nothing new. In fact, the pan-blue camp has behaved this way with respect to other major policy issues, especially sovereignty -- witness Lien's opening statement in last Saturday's debate proposing to put sovereignty issues aside.
In the end, however, there is only one question that matters: Can Lien Chan be entrusted with the future of a country whose very democratic processes he detests?
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) is to accede to the presidency this month at a time when the international order is in its greatest flux in three decades. Lai must navigate the ship of state through the choppy waters of an assertive China that is refusing to play by the rules, challenging the territorial claims of multiple nations and increasing its pressure on Taiwan. It is widely held in democratic capitals that Taiwan is important to the maintenance and survival of the liberal international order. Taiwan is strategically located, hemming China’s People’s Liberation Army inside the first island chain, preventing it from