On Friday, a second legislative motion to recall President Chen Shui-bian (
The question is: What next?
Other than a genuine coup, only two strategies for forcing Chen from office have not been tried -- one is a nationwide strike and the other is a vote of no confidence against Premier Su Tseng-chang (
But Chen would not be the direct victim of either strategy. The victims of the former would be the economy and every worker, while the victims of the latter would be Su and the legislature -- pan-green and pan-blue lawmakers alike -- which would be dissolved prematurely if the president opted for fresh elections.
The sole purpose for adopting the two strategies and impinging upon so many innocent people is to make Chen look bad.
This is a president who has just over a year of his term left. This pan-blue-camp bloody-mindedness defies common sense and has forfeited all sense of proportion.
It was never likely that much popular support would fall behind a nationwide strike. And if the average person is unlikely to support a mass protest, then what can be meaningfully said about the mandate carried by the provocateurs?
The same applies to the threatened vote of no-confidence against the premier. While People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
Why is Soong still pushing for the vote when the chances of success are so low? The answer is the same to the question of why the legislature should attempt to recall a president when it never had the numbers: to show the pan-blue support base that certain figures remain committed to a line of politics that not only excoriates Chen, but also casts aspersions against opposition rivals.
The problem is that the longer the public endures this shadow boxing, the more likely it will respond through a backlash against opposition leaders. This can already be sensed in the waning support for former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-teh's (
The campaign is clearly losing momentum and morale after dragging on for so long without the hoped-for result of a humiliated president packing his bags and fleeing the country -- and without even the prospect of a result.
It will not likely recover momentum and morale until prosecutors announce their decision over whether to indict suspects connected to the presidential special allowance. But it might just be that by this time opposition strategists will have dumped Shih and have started thinking about things more pressing, such as the Taipei and Kaohsiung elections at the end of this year and the next legislative elections that will leave half of the current pack of jokers without a job.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
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