The Formosa Alliance is to hold a public rally in Taipei tomorrow. It is not intended to be a demonstration or parade, but it seems to have sent the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) leadership into a tizzy.
The party has forbidden its officials from participating and has prohibited its candidates from taking photographs with the alliance’s campaign car. Any violator is to be disciplined.
This is the first time the DPP has ever imposed such restrictions. It has never banned its members from contacting, socializing, having their pictures taken with or eating with groups affiliated with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or even Chinese Communist Party personnel.
It seems that the alliance is the sole exception. People might wonder what taboo the alliance has violated to incur such treatment.
The rally was organized to show opposition to Chinese annexation and promote referendums on independence and the nation’s participation in the UN.
These proposals were already set out in the Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation published in 1964, and are the ultimate objective for which the DPP was established in the first place.
The largest difference in opinion is likely coming from DPP decisionmakers’ preoccupation with maintaining the Republic of China’s form of government and its adherence to the cross-strait “status quo,” while ruling out referendums on drafting a new constitution, on independence and establishing a new nation.
It is truly astonishing to see the party take foe for friend while regarding an ally as its archenemy.
The DPP holds the presidency and has a legislative majority — why would it not invite the alliance’s leadership to negotiate face-to-face and search for a consensus in pursuit of higher ideals?
Haggling over every ounce for the upcoming elections is shortsighted and childish. If the DPP wants to abandon its tragically heroic spirit, then what are its former fervent supporters — including this author — to do?
A friend of mine, who works in the party’s upper echelons, has told me that I might be being used.
I have been watching the actions of the DPP since it assumed the reins of government; I have looked askance at its fecklessness and sluggishness. If someone chooses to join forces with others who have the same vision, how can you say that they are being “used”?
Who knows how many people originally had no intention to participate in the rally, but have decided to join to protest the DPP?
Rally participants need to bear in mind that lambasting others for “having political ambition” or “just wanting to be president” is not the only way to protest — expressing encouragement and praise is more constructive than verbal assault or throwing mud.
The public wishes to see more people of higher ideals and with more knowledge, competence and ambition take part in politics and run for president.
Having watched the performance of the DPP’s leadership, many people have become deeply worried about the party and the nation’s future.
Peng Ming-min is a former presidential adviser.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
We are used to hearing that whenever something happens, it means Taiwan is about to fall to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot change the color of his socks without China experts claiming it means an invasion is imminent. So, it is no surprise that what happened in Venezuela over the weekend triggered the knee-jerk reaction of saying that Taiwan is next. That is not an opinion on whether US President Donald Trump was right to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the way he did or if it is good for Venezuela and the world. There are other, more qualified
This should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting. For 2025, stoking regional and global fear was a major goal for the CCP and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA), following on Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Little Red Book admonition, “We must be ruthless to our enemies; we must overpower and annihilate them.” But on Dec. 17, 2025, the Trump Administration demonstrated direct defiance of CCP terror with its record US$11.1 billion arms
China’s recent aggressive military posture around Taiwan simply reflects the truth that China is a millennium behind, as Kobe City Councilor Norihiro Uehata has commented. While democratic countries work for peace, prosperity and progress, authoritarian countries such as Russia and China only care about territorial expansion, superpower status and world dominance, while their people suffer. Two millennia ago, the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (孟子) would have advised Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that “people are the most important, state is lesser, and the ruler is the least important.” In fact, the reverse order is causing the great depression in China right now,
As technological change sweeps across the world, the focus of education has undergone an inevitable shift toward artificial intelligence (AI) and digital learning. However, the HundrED Global Collection 2026 report has a message that Taiwanese society and education policymakers would do well to reflect on. In the age of AI, the scarcest resource in education is not advanced computing power, but people; and the most urgent global educational crisis is not technological backwardness, but teacher well-being and retention. Covering 52 countries, the report from HundrED, a Finnish nonprofit that reviews and compiles innovative solutions in education from around the world, highlights a
RSS