The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) efforts to amend the Organic Law of the Central Election Commission (CEC) (中央選舉委員會組織) shows that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) is correct in his view that "the two-step voting format that pan-blue cities and counties propose using for the Jan. 12 legislative elections" is illegal.
It seems the KMT first tried to ignore the law and publicly claimed is was law-abiding in its electoral schemes. But when faced with threats of enforcement of the law, it switched tactics and now seeks to change the law.
Though the KMT will not admit it, this tactical change underscores its agreement with the fact that the law gives the CEC control over local election commissions. So the only way for it to get its way is to force a change in the makeup of the CEC.
Though it claims that the CEC is biased, the change it seeks indicates its preference for a biased CEC, as long as it is in the pan-blue camp's advantage. It provides further evidence that its own commissioners would not be neutral.
The behavior of the KMT leadership over voting procedures truly shows their antipathy toward democracy. Those in the KMT who genuinely support democracy must put pressure on the party elite to accept the CEC ruling.
But they haven't done so. What are they afraid of?
Anyone who supports democracy should embrace the principle that every citizen's opinion matters and has equal dignity. He or she would say: "If my own party's policy position or candidate is voted against, so be it. The people have spoken. I will abide by the results and work to persuade people in the next election."
One who embraces democracy does not seek to buy or manipulate votes, or manipulate laws to make it easier to commit electoral fraud.
It should be obvious that a one-step voting procedure will guard against fraud and help preserve a secret ballot. If the KMT were serious about its desire for a referendum, it would not matter if the referendum were given out at the same time as the election ballots.
Instead, its opposition has unveiled the fact that it couldn't care less about its referendum and only proposed it to sabotage the efforts of the Democratic Progressive Party.
In a democracy, the end does not justify the means. Rather, it is appropriate means that give legitimacy to the ends.
Joel Linton
Taipei
In Chinese author Lu Xun’s (魯迅) novella The True Story of Ah Q (阿Q正傳) — one of the earliest works of modern Chinese fiction, first serialized in 1921 — the story’s hapless protagonist, Ah Q (阿Q), is a poor itinerant worker from China’s peasant class, living during the part-feudal, part-colonial dying embers of the Qing Dynasty. Ah Q is a feeble and psychologically flawed individual who bullies the meek and cowers before the powerful. Despised and regularly mocked by villagers, after every episode of public ridicule and failure, Ah Q consoles himself that he has won a “spiritual victory.” Utterly
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would render the company’s plants inoperable, and that such a war would produce “no winners.” Not only would Taiwan’s economy be destroyed in a cross-strait conflict, but the impact “would go well beyond semiconductors, and would bring about the destruction of the world’s rules-based order and totally change the geopolitical landscape,” Liu said in the interview, according to the Central News Agency. Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands wrote on June 24: “A major war over Taiwan could create global economic
Washington’s official position on US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is that nothing has changed: The US government says it is maintaining its “one China” policy, that Pelosi is free to arrange international trips with congressional delegations independent of the government and that she is not the first US official to visit Taiwan even this year. Yet there is no denying that the fact and the optics of the second-in-line to the US presidency speaking with lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan about inter-parliamentary discussions and learning from each other as equals are hugely significant, as were
Amid a fervor in the global media, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her congressional delegation made a high-profile visit to Taipei. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) awarded a state honor to her at the Presidential Office. Evidently, the occasion took on the aspect of an inter-state relationship between the US and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, despite no mutual state recognition between the two. Beijing furiously condemned Pelosi’s visit in advance, with military drills in the waters surrounding coastal China to check the move. Pelosi is a well-known China hawk, and second in the line of succession to