We can be grateful that not everybody has a boss like Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (
As well he might. The mass protest outside the Presidential Office triggered by Lien's speech has put the KMT stalwart between a rock and a hard place: On one side, as governor of the capital, it's Ma's job to secure public safety; on the other hand, standing in the way of the KMT's party apparatus could lead to a confrontation the mayor is not ready for.
Exactly what kind of trouble he is in became clear when Taipei Deputy Mayor Ou Chin-der (
Four years ago the protest problem was solved more directly -- police used water cannon to cool tempers and disperse the crowd.
Ma knows that the same tactic now would be disastrous for him. With his eye on the KMT's presidential nod in 2008, the mayor does not want to blast his core support down Ketagelen Boulevard live on TV.
Further, a removal of the protesters would put him at loggerheads with Lien, who is using the vocal support as a bargaining chip in the game he's playing with the country's democracy. To send this leverage home would not put Ma in his boss's good books.
So the Taipei mayor has delved into his bag of emergency powers and declared the protest legal, an act that normally would require notification a week in advance.
But despite this flexibility over the protest, in the past week Ma has seemed less like the obsequious employee Lien has leaned hard on for support over the years.
While Lien stood side by side with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
All this makes it look as if the mayor is distancing himself from the top brass, and by extension the protesters camped outside the Presidential Office. This will be put to the test in today's rally.
Ma has already said he would take part in the rally that he himself gave permission for, but it remains to be seen how visible he will be. To march arm in arm with Lien and Soong would mean he has thrown his lot in with those who are trying to circumvent democracy.
A less conspicuous presence would leave Ma with a greater number of options once the election dust has settled.
But Ma will need to show more backbone than was on display when he tried to offload his city administration's responsibility for the protesters onto the central government if he wants to lead a pan-blue offensive in 2008.
After war with China and 40 years of authoritarian rule, the KMT's structure has hardened to the consistency of concrete. For Ma to bring about real change would require nothing short of a mini-revolution that would irrevocably tear the party apart.
But unless someone like Ma achieves this and forms a viable opposition to the KMT's flotsam, the party will disappear without a trace and democracy will be dealt a critical blow.
Lien is the captain of a disintegrating KMT, and he will go down with his ship; Ma can still make it to the lifeboat.
Andy Morton is a copy editor at the Taipei Times.
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced that recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) have been approved, and that a recall vote would take place on July 26. Of the recall motions against 35 KMT legislators, 31 were reviewed by the CEC after they exceeded the second-phase signature thresholds. Twenty-four were approved, five were asked to submit additional signatures to make up for invalid ones and two are still being reviewed. The mass recall vote targeting so many lawmakers at once is unprecedented in Taiwan’s political history. If the KMT loses more
Taiwan’s unconditional support “for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India to safeguard national security and fight terrorist forces that cross borders to attack innocent civilians” marked a monumental shift in the relationship between Taipei and New Delhi. At a time when the Indian government sent several delegations of parliament members to convey to the rest of the world Pakistan’s role in sponsoring terrorism against India, Taiwan became one of the few nations that unequivocally supported India’s military operation, “Sindhoor.” Sure, this change in bilateral ties did not happen in a vacuum. Over the past decade,
RSS