It is ironic that yesterday, at the end of the week of the Chen-Soong 10-point consensus, President Chen Shui-bian (
The cunning of triangulation is that it leaves the betrayed with nowhere to go. In its devastating, yet effective cynicism it assumes that party faithful who feel betrayed will nevertheless continue to support the party if only because the alternatives are appalling. Clinton therefore could betray black voters knowing that the chance of them voting Republican was slim. Chen has decided that he can betray the greens because they are highly unlikely to vote blue to show their disapproval.
There is also with Chen the issue of his own legacy; he does not want his presidency to be seen as eight wasted years, so he is prepared to sup with the devil himself if it will gild his lackluster record.
Chen is, as Winston Churchill said of Clement Atlee, "a modest little man with a lot to be modest about." And if signing the sellout with People First Party Chairman James Soong (
The question Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters now have to ask themselves is where do they go from here. The anger over the "10-point betrayal" as it should henceforth be called, is palpable, so much so that some even say Chen should somehow be impeached. After all, he is in the Presidential Office under false pretenses, having chopped up and burned every plank of his re-election platform on the fire of "inter-party reconciliation."
Certainly Chen deserves to be tossed ignominiously out of office. But then what? Chen might be an apostate but at least, as the Americans would say, he is our apostate. Surely nobody prefers Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
In answering this question it is at least important to know how much of Chen's sellout is backed by the DPP. There are of course toadies who will call it a move of subtle wisdom. But the rank and file have to be as bitterly disillusioned as we are. What happened to their party? How did it get hijacked by the appeasers, by those who have buried their sense of justice under self-serving expediency? How the DPP might return to its roots and to some kind of moral rectitude is something needing serious thought.
Should we turn to the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), then? The problem with the TSU is, however, that it entirely dependent on former president Lee Teng-hui's (
What we perhaps need is another organization, outside political parties and electoral politics, which can unite greens behind a coherent ideology and which can serve as a check on both green apostasy and rising blue assertiveness, a grassroots civic organization which can be above party politics and yet can articulate Taiwanese nationalism in a way that parties cannot ignore, rather as the Christian Coalition operates in US politics. If readers will forgive us the mixture of doctrinal metaphors, Taiwanese nationalism needs its Church Militant now more than ever.
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Art and cultural events are key for a city’s cultivation of soft power and international image, and how politicians engage with them often defines their success. Representative to Austria Liu Suan-yung’s (劉玄詠) conducting performance and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen’s (盧秀燕) show of drumming and the Tainan Jazz Festival demonstrate different outcomes when politics meet culture. While a thoughtful and professional engagement can heighten an event’s status and cultural value, indulging in political theater runs the risk of undermining trust and its reception. During a National Day reception celebration in Austria on Oct. 8, Liu, who was formerly director of the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
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