With less than two weeks to the presidential election, now is a good time to revisit an assessment by political scientist Pei Minxin (裴敏欣) of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace before the 2004 election.
Pei voiced concern that Taiwan might become an illiberal democracy as a result of political infighting and ethnic conflict and lose international support.
Four years have passed and the division of authority in Taiwan's democratic politics appears to have clear differences to Pei's predictions. Confronted with the pan-blue camp's recapturing of an absolute majority in the legislature, the pan-green camp has warned strongly against the return to single-party rule and advocated the continuance of a political party "for the Taiwanese."
As one of the countries that democratized during the third wave of democratization, we should give careful consideration to the political risks inherent in the slow and chaotic process of consolidating democracy.
Since 1996, the World Bank has compiled the Worldwide Governance Indicators for 212 countries or territories. The indicators are: "Voice and Accountability," "Political Stability and Absence of Violence," "Government Effectiveness," "Regulatory Quality," "Rule of Law" and "Control of Corruption."
Compared with 1996, Taiwan has seen a sharp drop in its rankings in control of corruption and political stability. Its performance in terms of rule of law, accountability and regulatory quality also showed signs of regression. The country only rated well in government effectiveness.
The decline in control of corruption and political stability represents increasing political risk. This not only results in obstruction and possible damage to the economy in terms of foreign investment, but also loss of public confidence in the effectiveness and superiority of the democratic system. This is reflected in several aspects.
First, drastic changes in administrative policies: for instance, the building of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Policy flip-flopping has caused enormous losses in real economic value and setbacks to rational debate.
Second, ethnic issues continue to be employed as a tactic and mobilizing strategy by politicians to achieve their ends. Take the discussion of the 228 Incident for example: Reflection on its seriousness is dominated by the rise and fall of political forces and has resulted in missed opportunities to effect transitional justice.
Third, government wavering on cross-strait relations has obstructed development of Taiwan's politics and economy. Take the three links and the recognition of Chinese educational qualifications, for instance: a conservative and passive cross-strait policy has only given people a vague or erroneous perception of China's rise and development. The government lags behind the public's vision, but the public is forced to sustain the results of erroneous political decisions.
Taiwan is a newly developed democracy. Subjectively, it would be highly unlikely for the Taiwanese public to accept another authoritarian regime or dictatorial politics. Yet corruption and the failure of the rule of law could seriously hurt public confidence in the democratic system.
We should cast our vote for a president who can facilitate the consolidation of democracy and is capable of effectively lowering political risk. This president will not be the "leader" of Taiwan-ese democracy, but rather a law-abiding and honest citizen who has the vision and is willing to use the authority granted to him through the system to achieve it.
Jackson Yeh is a research assistant at the Center for Contemporary China at National Tsing Hua University.
TRANSLATED BY ANGELA HONG
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
The arrest in France of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has brought into sharp focus one of the major conflicts of our age. On one hand, we want privacy in our digital lives, which is why we like the kind of end-to-end encryption Telegram promises. On the other, we want the government to be able to stamp out repugnant online activities — such as child pornography or terrorist plotting. The reality is that we cannot have our cake and eat it, too. Durov last month was charged with complicity in crimes taking place on the app, including distributing child pornography,
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers
RSS