On Wednesday, President Chen Shui-bian (
Only a day earlier Chen had indicated during a DPP Central Standing Committee meeting that "one country on each side [of the Taiwan Strait]" and "national referendums" are the central spirits of the party. Of course, who can forget there is the presidential election coming up next March. While no one doubts that Chen's comments on Wednesday are important components of his campaign platform, some people are confused about how "one country on each side" and "direct links before the end of next year" -- two seemingly conflicting concepts -- can accommodate each other?
Co-convener of the KMT-PFP alliance's publicity panel Su Chi (
So, the question then becomes what could possibly change China's mind between now and the end of next year? The answer is the re-election of Chen. In view of Beijing's stubborn insistence on the issue, that is of course only a possibility and not a sure thing. But, that possibility won't even exist with the election of the pan-blue candidates -- KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
With "one country on each side" as the main theme of his campaign platform, Chen's re-election would send a strong message to Beijing about what the people of Taiwan really think about the "one China" principle. This is what some people, including Chen, believe could change Beijing's mind, or at least stop it from making acceptance of its "one China" principle a precondition for negotiations.
Interestingly, although the pan-blue camp continues to criticize Chen's cross-strait policies, it has decided to focus its campaign platform on domestic issues. This is due to the fact that domestic issues are the Chen administration's biggest vulnerability and the pan-blue camp's realization that it is treading on a very thin line in terms of public appeals by adopting such a meek and self-demeaning stance in the cross-strait relationship. While people prefer positive and constructive cross-strait relationships, they also cannot help but find political parties that roll over to each and every command and wish of Beijing
repulsive.
The pan-blues will find out pretty soon that their plan to shy away from discussion about the cross-strait relationship and sovereignty issues in the presidential campaign simply won't work. This is not only because the DPP won't let it, but also because these issues are on the top of the people's priority list. To achieve a mutually beneficial and stable relationship with China and at the same time not compromise Taiwan's sovereignty is a tough job. At the very least Chen has accomplished the latter. As for the former, cooperation from Beijing will be
required.
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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