Taiwanese people cannot be easily fooled. Over the last few days, as I asked people about the Pachang Creek
Did anyone really expect that after 50 years of the KMT being in power that everything would change in just two months? If the new government had worked such a miracle, it would deserve a Nobel prize for politics and should be sending people to Africa or Latin America to show countries there how to work such an amazing turn around.
More amazing, though, is how easy it has been for the KMT, the NP and the PFP to forget who they are and where they come from. Most of the people in these parties belong or used to belong to the old guard of the KMT. They were the ones who shaped the political and social environment of this island, its strengths and its weaknesses over the past 50 years. Some are still nostalgic about the old good days.
The bureaucratic red tape and lack of coordination shown in the Pachang Creek tragedy is not something new. I have seen similar mishaps since I arrived in Taiwan -- when rescuing people stranded in the mountains (I am an amateur climber) and in the aftermath of the 921 earthquake.
The Pachang Creek tragedy should make it clear just how hard and long a road the new government must travel until we see some real changes. What happened, for the most part, was the result of the dark heritage of the KMT regime.
The responsibility of the new government is to speed up reform, to show the citizens of the ROC that what happened in Pachang Creek will never happened again, to ensure that what our taxes pay for (army and police equipment and salaries) is returned to us in the form of a professional rescue service whenever requested,whether it is over 2,500m above sea level or not.
This administration must demonstrate -- on all levels -- that this is a government for the people, by the people and with the people.
Our society still faces a lot of questions, a lot of "whys?" left unanswered from the decades of KMT rule. Some were left unanswered for security reasons, some were the result of Confucian traditions (the "I know it is not right, but that is the way the government did it for years, and so we have to too" mentality.)
Why do we need to get permission from the National Police Administration to climb mountains over 3000m, when the Constitution provides freedom of movement on ROC territory? Because a long time ago some politicians were afraid counter-revolutionary activities might be held in the mountains and so they forbade access. Eventually access was granted, but only if you had a pass (a mountain entrance permit) -- a situation that remains today.
Why do Taiwanese need to ask for a reentry permit to return to their motherland? Because it was a good way to for the Chiang regime to keep out unwanted Taiwanese -- and the government has simply kept this rule.
Why are people being held in detention in police precincts still beaten to obtain confessions? Why is the Lincoln Mansions tragedy still a tragedy? Why does the military keep its procurement matters so secret? Why -- in the wake of the 921 earthquake, after so much rescue equipment was bought and with so many "learning experiences" -- did four people drown after waiting so long for help?
The responsibility of this government is to provide all the necessary financial help to the families of the deceased.
The responsibility of this government is to turn a dream into reality in four years time -- so that after the birth of the so-called "New Taiwanese," a true "New Taiwanese Society" will also emerge, whose only link with the past is memory, the wisdom and pride of knowing its own history, and not a disgusting inheritance of old unanswered questions.
Francisco Carin Garcia is a freelance writer.
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in San Francisco on Tuesday last week said if she had not met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), she would have been “just a plain” and “even negligible” KMT chairperson, bluntly signaling the role she is playing in her visit to the US — Beijing’s messenger from Taiwan. Cheng and her delegation arrived in the US on Monday last week for a two-week visit across five major cities. Her party said the group is scheduled to meet with US lawmakers, officials, policy experts and businesspeople. Before departing, Cheng said her trip
In 1935, the German Reich led by the National Socialist Party officially created the Nuremberg Race Laws, a “legal cage”, for German Jews, stripping them of citizenship, criminalizing their personal relationships, barring them from public life, and transforming them into stateless subjects and isolating them from the rest of society. Similarly, in March 2026, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) National People’s Congress adopted the “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” law, which represents the most significant shift in Chinese domestic governance since the era of Mao Zedong (毛澤東). Ostensibly designed as domestic legislation to manage China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups,
RSS