The gap between urban and rural incomes and the growing disparity between rich and poor is viewed by the Chinese government as a major factor in the growing social unrest that has threatened the stability of the one-party state. In response to this problem, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
In 2004, China's National People's Congress (NPC) amended the Constitution to stipulate that "legally obtained private property of the citizens shall not be violated," a move viewed by many observers as a major step toward privatization. However, just when the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) were about to convene, Beijing decided to shelve the draft law on property rights, thereby bringing to a halt the legislative process related to property and real-estate ownership. The draft law was initiated 10 years ago and was repeatedly debated in recent meetings of the NPC. The contents of the draft law have also been revised a number of times over the past four years.
The draft law, which aims to protect private property ownership, could have been a milestone in China's drive to build a viable legal system. Unfortunately, some leftist academics recently wrote a letter to the NPC, arguing that the draft law violated the spirit of a socialist Constitution. Bowing to the pressure, Chinese leaders let the reform fizzle.
Over the years China has been attempting to build what it calls "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Since the reign of former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (
China's development is unevenly distributed, with rich coastal cities and an impoverished hinterland. It is home to 750 million farmers, and agricultural issues are a major headache. If farmers do not have secure ownership rights over their land and assured ownership of their harvest, their motivation to increase production will be low. This is the root of China's problem. Since farmers do not own their land, economic liberalization has led to rampant government corruption in which agricultural land has been forcibly arrogated or urban dwellings demolished by government officials. This is the cause of many of the 70,000 to 80,000 demonstrations every year that plague China.
Taiwan's own agricultural reform began with the April 14, 1949, rent reduction and "land to the tiller" movement, in which agricultural reform was used to support industrial reform. Whether from an economic or social perspective, this was a hugely impactful policy.
China is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, and regulatory conflicts are likely to be a future bottleneck. The security of private property fuels the fundamental spirit of a free economy, and the rule of law is the basis of its operation. The fact that China has retreated back along the road to reform has led its people to doubt the government's commitment to economic development. The fact that reform continues to be delayed has made the gatherings of the NPC and CPPCC, which might otherwise have been historic events, no more than the usual political get-together.
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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