Politicians have once again underestimated the voters' wisdom. The pan-green camp tried to win support from the so-called "median voters" by means of a TV campaign ad featuring the national anthem. Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
These actions and pronouncements violate the long-running political platforms of the respective parties' candidates. They will also cause their traditional supporters to abandon them.
The national anthem basically represents the KMT's soul at its inception as a revolutionary party by Sun Yat-sen (
Since the DPP came to power, the pan-blue camp has invariably put an "ideology" tag on all DPP policies. They view all government measures based on Taiwanese self-awareness as ideology-obsessed -- a neat trick, given their own Great China ideology. They take their pro-China stance for granted.
Over time, all views and government measures carried out in the name of "Taiwan" are labeled as "ideological." People naturally generate an illusion about "median voters" believing that they are a group of anti-Taiwan, pro-China people uninterested in political issues and concerned only about economic issues. Chen's national anthem ad fell into this trap and he didn't know about it.
On the other hand, the KMT has ganged up with its splinter group, the PFP, in a bid to regain power. Since its split with former president Lee Teng-hui (
But illusions cannot deceive people. Baptized by a long period of vicious partisan wrangling, voters have gotten smarter. They will not be easily manipulated by partisan propaganda. Voters can see through Wang's old game -- moving between the blue and green camps to gain maximum political benefits for himself. It is becoming clearer that Wang has no core political beliefs himself -- except for his own personal power. Wang is merely jockeying for position, siding with the blue camp while also toadying to the green camp. He is no Lee. He is merely an opportunist politician.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
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