According to a recent opinion poll, the Taiwanese people believe democratic reforms are the most praiseworthy achievement of Lee Teng-hui's
Sixty-five percent of respondents were satisfied with Chen Shui-bian's
In terms of their democratic mandate, both Lee and Chen enjoy a high status in the eyes of the Taiwanese people. However, Lee's strong approval rating for his democratic reforms stands in stark contrast to the disputes he has faced within the KMT for the way he has led his party. This also attests to a "bizarreness" about Lee's leadership style -- whereby a not-so-democratic party chairman accomplished the democratization of Taiwan as a whole. Meanwhile, as an opposition figure, Chen's contribution to Taiwan's democratization is beyond doubt.
The public see both Lee and Chen as capable and decisive when it comes to the hot potato of cross-strait relations. Hence, in the context of democratic reforms and cross-strait relations, Chen is qualified to carry on Lee's legacy as a national leader.
However, the public expects Chen to do better than Lee in cleaning up "black gold" politics. The urgency of this expectation far exceeds that of improving or making a breakthrough on the cross-strait situation.
In my opinion, the Taiwanese people have given similar grades to the two presidents, but their expectations about them are different. This political inheritance can be seen as mutually complementary.
More importantly, wherever Lee has performed brilliantly, Chen must perform even better. Chen must also accomplish the things Lee has failed to do. These are the expectations of the Taiwanese populace on the eve of the May 20 inauguration.
Michael Hsiao is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the Academia Sinica.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and