Democracy at peril
The great 19th-century US poet Walt Whitman said that “[Democracy] is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.”
He famously noted that the history of democracy could not be written because democracy (as he knew it) was not yet properly built.
It seems arguable that the Jan. 6 event at the US Capitol has proved him right. What is happening in the US might not be surprising. No human process is pure; it is a mix of good and evil, justice and injustice, egotism and altruism, rationality and unreason.
The oppressed minorities are still in the process of self-liberation, and the oppressors or those who have benefited from their oppressive forebears are defending their inherited privilege.
The question is how strong the apparent progressive, liberal, humanitarian force is. At this moment, it appears that such a force is not strong enough to counter the opposing party in the US.
For example, Trump’s supporters, followers or sycophants are unlikely to sideline him, and the US Senate is unlikely to convict him after an impeachment, before or after he leaves office.
Upon watching TV news reporting on that day, a devout Christian friend told me the following story: “God is educating humanity to become what God intends it to become — a community of mutually respectful and loving individuals. God found humanity He created so recalcitrant that He had to send His Son to the world to teach humans with His self-sacrifice for them.”
This is a unique story, if not history.
However, this kind of view seems to neither sound convincing nor provide hope to those who believe that history has amply demonstrated that God is aloof, or indifferent to, human affairs.
A question close to many American hearts remains: From the early third decade of the 21st century, what will be the fate of US democracy?
A bold prediction might be as follows: Given the widening gap between the rich and the poor, continuing discrimination against minorities, religious and nationalist intolerance, and political figures who corrupt laws and give a bad name to democratic politics, US democracy might not survive indefinitely.
US democracy can slit its own throat or quietly take its own life in the act of “democide.”
I hope that history to be written will prove this dire prediction wrong. And I will toast to that.
Yeomin Yoon
New Jersey
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan. For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US
RSS