Since Myanmar’s general election in November last year, the Burmese military had refused to rule out a coup if its complaints about election fraud were not addressed. In a series of predawn raids in Naypyidaw on Monday, soldiers detained Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Burmese President Win Myint, along with other National League for Democracy (NLD) party leaders.
Soon after, the military announced that it was imposing a one-year state of emergency, making Burmese Vice President Myint Swe acting president, who then handed power to Senior General Aung Hlaing. The news shook the world.
Myanmar’s democratization process began on Aug. 8, 1988, with the 8888 uprising, about the same time as in Taiwan, where things started happening after the lifting of martial law on July 14, 1987. Several decades later, there is a vast difference in the outcome of the movements in the two countries.
While Myanmar is back under military control and the Burmese public continues to struggle with poverty, Taiwan has completed its transition to democracy and per capita income has exceeded US$30,000, while the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic prevention record is the envy of the world, while Germany is lobbying the Ministry of Economic Affairs to help address a chip shortage in its auto industry, thanks to the status of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar to care for her ailing mother in 1988, and joined the 8888 movement. The protests were suppressed and Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest, where she remained until 2010. In 2012, she led the NLD’s successful bid in the 2012 parliamentary by-elections, winning 43 of 45 vacant seats. In 2015, she led the party to a landslide victory, winning 86 percent of the seats.
Despite its hold on government power, the NLD has been unable to rid itself of military control from behind the scenes. Beginning in 2016, Myanmar became mired in accusations of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya ethnic group in Rakhine State, the seeds of which were sown during British colonial rule and then exacerbated by the military.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s image was severely damaged, and there were calls to revoke the Nobel Peace Prize and human rights awards she had received.
The NLD won another landslide victory in last year’s general election, but the military claimed that there was massive vote fraud and demanded that the election be invalidated. When the request was rejected by the Burmese Union Election Commission, the military staged a coup, taking Myanmar back to square one.
The collapse of Myanmar’s democratization process follows the failure of the Arab Spring democratization movements in north Africa, once again showing the difficulty of democratization and highlighting the exceptional achievement of Taiwan’s quiet revolution.
Taiwan’s democratic achievement under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is a miracle from an international perspective. Democracy developed almost without Taiwanese noticing it, and it was just taken for granted that every country would become democratic.
However, in most cases democracy is either the result of bloody battles or a cyclical state in a constant revolution.
Compared with Myanmar, Taiwan has been fortunate. If Taiwanese do not want to squander the heritage of Lee, all should value democracy and work together to further deepen and consolidate it, and use democratic procedures to resolve disagreements and move forward in unity.
Tommy Lin is president of the Formosa Republican Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS