In accordance with the government’s announcement in February, the name plaque at the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall will be removed by the end of this month and replaced with the old one bearing the name “Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.”
At the time of the announcement, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the government would gauge public opinion on the controversy, including the fate of the “Liberty Square” inscription and whether the four-character inscription dazhong zhizheng (大中至正) should be reinstated at the hall entrance.
Those who took Ma on his word on the memorial hall have been disappointed yet again.
Shortly after his big win in the presidential election in March last year, Ma said “the renaming of the hall is not a pressing matter” when asked by reporters what he would do about the memorial hall after taking office.
Less than three months into his presidency, however, the Executive Yuan withdrew from the legislature a proposal submitted by the former Democratic Progressive Party administration that proposed abolishing the Organic Statute of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (中正紀念堂組織條例).
This was followed by a motion passed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature in January demanding that the Ministry of Education “quickly remove the name plaque of the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall and reinstate the name plaque for the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in its original location.”
So much for saying that the memorial hall issue was “not a pressing matter.”
Ma’s unkept promise to gauge public opinion on the renaming of the hall is set to trigger more disillusionment.
Commissioned by the Ministry of Education, three public forums were hosted by Shih Hsin University last month to discuss issues related to the hall.
Each of the three was conducted behind closed doors, during which a total of eight or 10 academics, experts and historians were invited to share their views on what the government should do about the “Liberty Square” inscription and other matters relating to the hall.
While the government was quick to pat itself on the back for “making an effort to seek a consensus,” the fact of the matter is that these so-called “public forums” simply aired the opinions of a select few.
The way these forums were conducted and the failure to facilitate broader public dialogue and engagement show the administration’s lack of commitment to democratic principles and betray an arrogant attitude. It holds the public in contempt.
The Ma government needs to understand that democracy is not just about holding elections, but also involving and respecting the voices of the public on issues of national and social importance.
If a government fails to honor that commitment, then “democracy” becomes a cynical slogan.
As China’s economy was meant to drive global economic growth this year, its dramatic slowdown is sounding alarm bells across the world, with economists and experts criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for his unwillingness or inability to respond to the nation’s myriad mounting crises. The Wall Street Journal reported that investors have been calling on Beijing to take bolder steps to boost output — especially by promoting consumer spending — but Xi has deep-rooted philosophical objections to Western-style consumption-driven growth, seeing it as wasteful and at odds with his goal of making China a world-leading industrial and technological powerhouse, and
For Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the military conquest of Taiwan is an absolute requirement for the CCP’s much more fantastic ambition: control over our solar system. Controlling Taiwan will allow the CCP to dominate the First Island Chain and to better neutralize the Philippines, decreasing the threat to the most important People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) space base, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island. Satellite and manned space launches from the Jiuquan and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers regularly pass close to Taiwan, which is also a very serious threat to the PLA,
During a news conference in Vietnam on Sept. 10, a reporter asked US President Joe Biden about the possibility of China invading Taiwan. Biden replied that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is too busy handling major domestic economic problems to launch an invasion of Taiwan. On Wednesday last week, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office published a document outlining 21 measures to make the Chinese-controlled Fujian Province into a demonstration zone for relations with Taiwan. The planned measures would expand favorable treatment for Taiwanese people and companies, and seek to attract people from Taiwan to buy property and seek employment in Fujian.
More than 100 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) vessels and aircraft were detected making incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Sunday and Monday, the Ministry of National Defense reported on Monday. The ministry responded to the incursions by calling on China to “immediately stop such destructive unilateral actions,” saying that Beijing’s actions could “easily lead to a sharp escalation in tensions and worsen regional security.” Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the unusually high number of incursions over such a short time was likely Beijing’s response to efforts