Upon taking office as president in 1988, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) appointed former chief of the general staff and minister of national defense Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) as premier, sparking fears of military interference in the government. Hau later stepped down after he was found to have been holding military meetings at the Executive Yuan despite his position as premier.
It is generally believed that Hau’s appointment as premier was a politically calculated move to take away his clout over the military. Likewise, Lee’s decision to replace then-premier Lee Huan (李煥) with Hau was viewed as a politically motivated move.
In a way, politics is all about nimble maneuvering: Politicians are valued for their resourcefulness when they effectively employ tactics that suit their purposes. That was how politics worked when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dominated the nation.
When Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) assumed the presidency in 2000, he appointed then-minister of national defense Tang Fei (唐飛) as premier. Tang was a retired air force general and had served as chief of the general staff, in addition to being defense minister.
Some viewed the appointment as a clever move to help the minority government gain further control over the military and stabilize the political situation following the transition of power to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
However, Tang stepped down after discord between him and Chen over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project. After all, he was a longstanding member of the KMT. His departure caused some political instability, and it seemed there had been a transition of power in name only.
The KMT’s decades-long party-state rule has left many problems in Taiwanese politics, frustrating those seeking change. The party bureaucracy and the party-state ideology the KMT has inculcated in the military are still causing problems today.
Since 2008, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) allowed the KMT to operate in a way that is unusual for a democratic country, as the party stuck to its old ways. Ma was merciless when he had a chance to settle old scores with officials from the Chen administration. He exploited the judicial system for his own political interests. Not even Chen could escape his claws: Chen was punished for being president when the position should have gone to a KMT politician.
Ma attacked his political enemies by calling them corrupt, while hiding behind a facade of honesty that he built for himself, although the public never really believed it.
As President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pushed for judicial reform, her nominees for Judicial Yuan president and vice president met with criticism and objections. While this is the second time a party other than the KMT has been elected to rule Taiwan, Tsai’s recruitment choices are far from refreshing.
Tsai has been accused of allowing too many KMT members to remain in government, amid concern that this could give the KMT an opportunity to take all the credit while leaving the ruling party to shoulder all the blame for any policy missteps.
Why has creating a multiparty system been so difficult? Did the DPP’s landslide victory in the January presidential and legislative elections not indicate that Taiwanese are yearning for something different from the KMT’s troubling rule? Should the allocation of responsibility not change as the ruling party changes?
A lot more is expected of Tsai than what was expected of Chen, since she is governing with a legislative majority and full control over many local governments. A new vision cannot originate from old people in an old political system: There must be change.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday last week held a debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty. The issue of the retention or abolition of the death penalty often involves the conceptual aspects of social values and even religious philosophies. As it is written in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, the government’s policy is often a choice between the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods, and it is impossible to be perfect. Today’s controversy over the retention or abolition of the death penalty can be viewed in the same way. UNACCEPTABLE Viewing the
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused