Counting missiles
Regarding your Nov. 7 front page story on the unlikely chance of any major breakthroughs during US President Barack Obama’s upcoming trip to China (“Breakthroughs unlikely on Obama’s China trip: expert”), I am amused at the level of low expectations expressed by experts at this conference on Obama’s Asia policy — especially the expert who suggested that Obama might ask China to cut down the number of missiles aimed at Taiwan.
No wonder he didn’t want to identify himself: It’s ridiculous even to discuss a number.
Imagine if former US president Ronald Reagan had stood by the Berlin Wall and declared to then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, “Let’s make a deal. Pretty please, tear down 15 percent of this wall!” If Obama is serious about earning his prematurely awarded and thus far undeserved Nobel Peace Prize, then he should demand that China remove all of those missiles.
CARL CHIANG
Richmond, California
Proper ECFA debate needed
Former Presidential Office secretary-general Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) and former Cabinet secretary-general Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) make a cogent case for a referendum on the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) in their editorial (“The crucial place of a democracy’s referendum,” Nov. 7, page 8).
The parallels with the British debate over referendums on membership of the eurozone and the Lisbon Treaty in the last five to 10 years are instructive. Here, EU skeptics have argued for referendums on similar “democratic” grounds, but no doubt also based on the assumption that a largely EU-skeptic electorate will vote their way — an assumption shared by the opponents of an ECFA, who also happen to demand a referendum on similar “democratic” grounds
However, the claim that a referendum is somehow an exercise in the purest form of democracy is questionable.
In both the British and Taiwanese cases, a referendum would reduce highly complex issues into a simple yes/no question. The arguments would be based on two views, both of which are equally valid, but which a referendum would put into direct conflict: the economic view versus the political view.
As in Britain, opponents would argue against the referendum from a political viewpoint, while those in favor would argue from an economic viewpoint. This would be all the worse in Taiwan, where the current government is under the delusion that politics and the economy are “separate,” and where the ECFA process lacks any transparency. Thus, the “debate” would consist of people arguing past each other, rather than debating with each other, and an electorate who’ll vote for the most part on predetermined partisan lines anyway.
Rather than an exercise in informed democratic consent, referendums often degenerate into a divisive, media-fueled shouting match, rarely offering illumination or insight. They are as such to be used sparingly. Rather, the Democratic Progressive Party, for example, should clearly set out in detail how it will deal with an ECFA should it come about, and how it would deal with the issues that prompted the proposals for an ECFA in the first place.
PAUL DEACON
Kaohsiung City
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