The two-day conference on the woes of Hong Kong organized by Taiwan Advocates over the weekend told the well-informed nothing new. The erosion of the independence of the civil service and the rule of law, the manipulation of the territory's justice system, its economic recession -- which has been almost continuous since the handover from British rule -- and now the threats to the basic freedoms of speech and assembly and the ludicrously enhanced police powers of search contained in the Article 23 legislation are well known -- at least to those who pay attention.
It would, however, have been nice to see the conference get the message across about the slow motion train wreck that is post-handover Hong Kong to a wider audience and we assume that this was supposed to be its intention. It is interesting to note that, despite there being an utter dearth of news on Saturday, the pro-China mass circulation morning papers, the United Daily News and the China Times,both managed to lead their front pages with something else.
The former chose the "education ministers take blame for reform problem" story (we thought the story worthy of a small corner downpage on a slow day) while the China Times decided to shock us all with the astounding news that greasy food is harmful to health. An interesting strategy: if you don't like the main news item of the day, ignore it. But the government, the DPP and groups like Taiwan Advocates have to realize that they cannot rely on the substantially weaker pro-green media to wake Taiwanese up about Hong Kong. They are anyway largely preaching to the converted. Since opening to China, the "benefits" of a better political and closer economic relationship are likely to be cornerstones of the pan-blue presidential campaign strategy, it is up to the government and the DPP to make sure that everyone is well aware of just how little Hong Kong has benefited from the same closer ties.
It was interesting to see KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
determination seems somewhat contradictory.
But then the problem, at least for the time being, is not what Lien will do if he wins power, but rather to prevent him from winning power in the first place. And it has to be said of the weekend conference that while the discussion of benighted Hong Kong's affairs was interesting, former president Lee Teng-hui's (
The blue-camp leaders do not belong in the presidential palace, they belong in jail. Whatever the demerits of the DPP in terms of its lack of direction and its general fumbling, the party does not have blood on its hands. The KMT can bathe in gore. So, getting away from discussion of Hong Kong, "one China" and the like, here is another theme for the upcoming election which we only hope will be played up as big as possible. It is this: Do Taiwanese really want the murderers back in the ministries?
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
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