President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was sworn into office for his second term on May 20, raising the curtain on the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) long-term rule. As the most significant milestone over the past half-century in Taiwan's history, Chen's inauguration marks the watershed between the ending of an outsider regime and consolidation of a newly rising democratic power.
The process of the new filling in for the old is hardly smooth. Especially in pace with Taiwan's silent revolution, the state-party institution of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that had held on to power more than five decades is unlikely to crumble overnight. Although the KMT candidates were defeated in democratic elections, the party's past rule still emboldens the crestfallen to defy justice, truth, the rule of law and proceedings of democracy.
The remnant force now clings to a vain hope of overturning the election results. If their plan of overturning the results is aborted, they might mobilize to the last drop of their energy and spare not even the destruction of enemy and self alike. This is the mindset of the KMT that gives rise to chaos -- from the 2000 recall bill to the 2004 coup, to today's grouchy pan-blue camp that apparently thinks "If I can't be the star, then I will smash the stage."
Such unscrupulous bullying may have found justification during the past martial law rule. Yet this becomes grotesque in a democratized Taiwan. KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
To wrestle with Chen, Lien announced a merger proposal to unite the KMT and People First Party (PFP) on May 19. The merger bill put forth by Lien was co-signed by almost all party vice chairpersons. Lien put the bill on hold for the KMT representatives to rule in it and sent a personal message to Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Isn't Lien's abduction of the pan-blue camp by his faith the cause of the strife between the ruling and opposition parties, the spilt relations between ethnic groups, the political turmoil and the dichotomized identification since the pan-blue camp's defeat in the 2000 presidential election?
The most important element in democratization and modernization is to demystify. Taiwan has walked from autocracy to democracy step by step. Only the ghost of Lien lingers on. Since Lien has shown his ghastly face, the people will give him the ax, if not the KMT itself.
Chin Heng-wei is editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly. TRANSLATED BY WANG HSIAO-WEN
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
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
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs