Taiwan has an unworkable political system.
The Constitution that provides the basis for this government has lasted for 60 years simply because it has been irrelevant. Dictators do not allow their power to be fettered by laws.
Chiang Kai-shek (
Since the dark era of Chiang and his police state, Taiwan has made the first steps toward democracy, but the success of this experiment is far from assured. Given the lack of interest among the nation's political establishment in engaging in a discourse about the nature of Taiwan's democracy, there is cause for much concern.
Earlier this week, for instance, police summoned two professors because for the past few weeks they had been giving speeches criticizing the president and the major parties at CKS Memorial Hall in Taipei.
The police claimed that it was not the content of the speeches that attracted their attention, but rather the fact that the two had allegedly violated the Assembly and Parade Law (
Article 14 of the Constitution says: "The people shall have the freedom of assembly and association."
Except that they don't, because later in the Constitution, Article 23 states "All the freedoms and rights enumerated in the preceding Article shall not be restricted by law except by such as may be necessary to prevent infringement upon the freedoms of other persons, to avert an imminent crisis, to maintain social order or to advance public welfare."
In short, all of the rights enumerated in the Constitution are "guaranteed," so long as the government wants you to have them. Whenever it is necessary to "maintain social order" or "avert an imminent crisis" then any civil rights you think you're entitled to will last as long as a candle flame in a typhoon.
This is why, during the authoritarian period, the government could institute laws such as the Assembly and Parade Law in the first place, while maintaining the fiction that Taiwan was a democracy.
"Sure," people say, "but now things have changed."
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has lost its grip on power. Taiwan is a democracy now. No one is arrested for advocating independence, or for forming a political party anymore.
Which is true. For now.
Yet all of the mechanisms of authoritarianism are still in place.
Why is that? Why haven't our leaders and our intelligentsia made an issue of this? Is it because they don't want Taiwan to be too democratic? Do they want the individual's rights to be forever subordinate to the rights of the state?
Some argue that resistance to the idea that individual rights are inalienable is the influence of Confucianism, of collectivism or of elitism. Such arguments are based on the belief that "isms" make Taiwanese fundamentally different from other people that have experimented with democracy, such as Americans, the French and the British.
Such narrow ideas -- that Oriental despotism is the preferred method of governance for non-Western states -- reek of racism and ignorance. In actuality, Taiwan's elite is so caught up with personalities and partisanship that it cannot discuss principles of governance.
So it is left to the people to ask the important questions: What are the fundamental principles that Taiwanese want their government to uphold? What lines must be drawn between the government and the people?
But most important: Having at last secured their liberty, how can Taiwanese keep it?
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS