Recently a group of pro-green academics launched a signature drive demanding President Chen Shui-bian's (
The unambiguous truth of the matter is that what truly threatens Taiwan's democracy is not the corruption scandals surrounding the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which also occur in many other countries and should simply be dealt with in accordance with the law. Rather, the danger is from a scheme orchestrated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to dissolve the pan-green camp and foment chaos in Taiwan in order to destroy the democratic regime led by the DPP.
Democracy means that people have the right to choose. Today, China is using its missiles to prevent the Taiwanese people from choosing their national title, flag and anthem. The KMT uses its massive party assets, the media advantage remaining from the KMT-led dictatorship and its camp's majority in the legislature to do exactly what the CCP is doing -- which is making sure that Taiwan doesn't change its national title or write a new Constitution.
A true idealist works for the public's right to free choice and protects the rule of law and democratic procedure. A true idealist does not take advantage of a political storm to vent his or her individual anger over unevenly divided political spoils.
Over the past few years, the KMT and the People First Party (PFP) have taken it on themselves to decide that the assassination attempt against Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
Using a signature drive to express a political opinion is acceptable, but these so-called academics are asking that a democratically elected president step down. This reveals a lack of basic political common sense.
Not only that, their behavior also runs counter to the norms of democratic nations. In fact, this pretentious signature drive is taking place on the Internet, so there is no way to verify how many people have actually joined. Isn't it preposterous to think that a popularly elected president would step down as a result of such a signature drive? What is the fundamental difference between these academics, who have launched a public campaign to oust the president, and the pan-blue camp -- which tried and failed to recall the president?
Some of those who initiated the signature drive opposed the KMT in the past, but that does not mean that they truly understand democracy. After all, the CCP also opposed the KMT. Those who have been persecuted are not necessarily more right than those who once persecuted them. In his book The Farewell Party, Milan Kundera says that the saddest discovery of his life was that those who have been persecuted are no better than their persecutors, and that he could easily imagine them changing roles.
Cao Changqing is a freelance writer based in the US.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers