The administration of President Chen Shui-bian (
It is widely believed that the Kaohsiung MRT scandal and the involvement of former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Che-nan (
After all, Chen and the DPP were elected into office on a promise to stamp out the "black gold" politics that dogged successive Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governments. Voters supported the DPP for the first time because they perceived party members to be "real" people who had endured hardship over the years while working their way up the political ladder from the grassroots. They believed that politicians from such humble backgrounds could best understand their hopes and aspirations.
However, within a few short years of the DPP's rise to power, allegations of corruption and scandals within the party began to leave the public disillusioned, not to mention the often exaggerated media depictions of the lavish lifestyles being led by some among the new elite of rich and powerful DPP members. Unsurprisingly, the general public began to feel distant from those in power. The humble backgrounds of the politicians that used to inspire a sense of endearment now seemed to confirm that politicians are all the same once they get their hands on power.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Executive Yuan last week adopted a regulation that requires all appointed officials to have their property and assets placed into trust after they take up political posts. This new regulation goes one level higher than existing rules, which only require political administrators to declare their assets and property.
In addition, officials at the Presidential Office, including the president himself -- although it is not required by the new regulation -- will also place their assets into trust. The president had already begun to do so in 2004.
While the move is clearly a step in the right direction, the reform efforts should not stop here. The DPP desperately needs to rediscover its core ideals and values. A political party should not consist of a group of people who help each other obtain power and then share the rewards of that power among themselves. They should be people united in the conviction of achieving common goals for the good of the nation. Some members of the DPP should ask themselves what the reasons were that prompted them to join politics in the first place.
President Chen's recent speech concerning the abolition of the National Unification Council and unification guidelines, joining the UN under the name "Taiwan" and holding a referendum on a new constitution are refreshing ideas designed to put the DPP's core values back in the public eye.
The right to self-determination and sovereignty -- these are the core values of the DPP. People may have different opinions within the party on how to accomplish these goals, but there should be no debate over the goals themselves. The DPP needs to rediscover a sense of unity based around these common goals. Political bickering and struggles within the party should be replaced by rational discussion and debate. Otherwise, with all the infighting and division within the party, it will be hard for the public and other observers to see how the DPP differs from the nation's other political parties.
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
RSS