Recent news reports have shown an interesting contrast. As President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) seeks re-election, big company bosses have been praising him and encouraging people to vote for him. The scene at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is very different, as ordinary people line up to hand in piggy banks stuffed full of cash donations to support DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) presidential campaign.
These contrasting scenes highlight the class division between the two parties and mark the key issue at stake in January’s presidential and legislative elections — social justice.
For many years, the question of independence for Taiwan or unification with China has been the principal issue in Taiwan’s elections, not just at the national level, but even for town and county council candidates.
Ma claims stable relations across the Taiwan Strait as a key policy achievement of his administration, and he keeps attacking Tsai’s cross-strait policies as being too vague. Tsai has stuck to her “Taiwan consensus” and avoided getting dragged into a war of words over cross-strait issues. The KMT’s assault has failed to make much of an impact and cross-strait issues are not playing the essential role in this election that they have in the past.
Meanwhile, questions of social justice have been brought to the fore worldwide, from the revolutions in Arab and North African nations to the Occupy movement in the US and Europe and demonstrations against social inequality provoked by the European debt crisis. Now this wave of protest has finally reached the shores of Taiwan.
Questions about livelihood and social class have never been favorite topics for mainstream parties and politicians in Taiwan, who talk about them only when pressured to do so. However, the two main parties do clearly differ in their social class makeup. The KMT has always been close to big business, so its policies naturally tend to favor the interests of the wealthy and corporations. The DPP was born out of the middle and lower classes, and gets most of its support from the middle class and small businesses, so its policies tend to prioritize the needs of the less advantaged.
During the second presidential debate, Ma presented plenty of figures to illustrate his achievements in office. As impressive as the numbers sounded, they barely register in most people’s lives. Much more familiar and moving for the general public were Tsai’s stories of her encounters with people at the grassroots level.
The election is still three weeks away and we cannot be sure who will win the presidency. However, what is clear is that various controversies that have cropped up, such as the legal status of DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) Pingtung farmhouse, the NT$215 million (US$7.15 million) cost of the government-sponsored rock musical Dreamers (夢想家), Tsai’s involvement in the TaiMed biotechnology company, Ma’s alleged acceptance of a political donation from the Fubon financial group, and so on, will soon be forgotten. What will be remembered is that this election has been centered on issues of social justice.
It is not just a contest between Ma and Tsai — with People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) trailing far behind. It is a battle between the KMT and the DPP, the bourgeoisie and the middle/lower classes, one of the world’s richest political parties and one that relies on piggy banks, dollar bills and the ballot paper.
The choice voters make will influence Taiwan for a long time to come.
As Taiwan is facing global crises from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is again time to take stock. In terms of public health, Taiwan has made it through the COVID-19 challenge quite well. By combining masking, vaccinations and border controls, it has achieved a sufficiently protective herd immunity and is expected to end quarantine requirements for incoming travelers by the end of the summer. What about Ukraine? Here, Taiwan must assess four key players in its region. The first is Russia, which must be seen as a developing enemy. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Ukraine declared
During an online keynote speech on June 12, Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) said that when he was premier, he already knew that the Yun Feng (雲峰, Cloud Peak) medium-range supersonic land-attack cruise missile developed in Taiwan could reach Beijing. If Beijing were to attack Taiwan, Taipei would respond by firing the missiles and China would regret its aggression, he said. You’s comments were met by immediate criticism from political commentator Lai Yueh-tchienn (賴岳謙), who said that the Cloud Peak relied on guidance from the US’ Global Positioning System (GPS) to find its target. If war broke out in the Taiwan Strait,
China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was launched on Friday. With a total displacement of more than 80,000 tonnes, the vessel is the largest of China’s three aircraft carriers. According to reports, the Fujian is about 300m long and 78m across at its widest point. It is conventionally powered, with a maximum speed of about 30 knots (55.6kph) and can carry 60 aircraft — including about 40 fighter jets, helicopters and airborne early warning and control aircraft. The deck of the carrier is equipped with an electromagnetic catapult system, which can speed up the take-off and landing of fighter jets. Once it
Two awards for contribution to the study of Sinology were announced on Monday. The first was for British art historian Jessica Rawson, named this year’s winner of the Tang Prize in Sinology. The Tang Prize was established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑). The second was for Slovenian Sinologist Jana Rosker, who won the Taiwan-France Cultural Award — established by the Ministry of Culture and the Institut de France’s Academy of Moral and Political Sciences — for her work introducing Taiwanese philosophy to Europe. Rosker said that Taiwan has integrated Western philosophy and Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism into a
RSS