Taiwan is a “bright spot” of democracy in a world becoming steadily less democratic, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said on Sunday, before warning about its fragility in the face of autocratic adversity.
In the “Last Look” segment of his weekly TV show Fareed Zakaria GPS, the anchor cited examples ranging from successful elections to unrestricted Internet access to illustrate “Taiwan’s thriving democracy.”
By contrast, he began the five-minute segment by highlighting what Hoover Institution senior fellow Larry Diamond calls a “democratic recession,” in which the world has lost more democracies than it has gained over the past five years.
Photo: Reuters
“But amidst all this backsliding, there is one bright spot: Taiwan,” Zakaria said, citing last year’s Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
That ranked Taiwan No. 11 globally and No. 1 in Asia after jumping 20 places from the previous year — more than any other nation — due to its successful COVID-19 policies, which avoided the tough restrictions seen elsewhere.
The score was also boosted by Taiwan’s “astonishing” 75 percent turnout in last year’s presidential election, Zakaria said.
He contrasted former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) swift concession with “another 2020 election,” in a jab at former US president Donald Trump’s refusal to concede later the same year.
“The success of this election is a testament to the strength of Taiwan’s democracy,” which only began electing lawmakers in 1992, Zakaria said.
“Over the last 10 years, power has been increasingly consolidated in the hands of the people,” with soaring engagement online and offline, he said.
Through digital democracy, citizens have the tools to engage directly with the government, while Freedom House ranks Taiwan’s Internet freedom higher than even the US and Germany, he said.
Zakaria cited the 2014 Sunflower movement, which successfully halted the proposed cross-strait service trade agreement after protesters spent almost 23 days occupying the legislative chamber.
Taiwan’s COVID-19 response then “boosted trust in the government even further,” he said.
Zakaria compared Taiwan’s approximately 16,000 cases of COVID-19 with Australia’s 99,000 cases, despite their similar populations and geographies.
“But for all its achievements, this democracy is conditional,” he said.
“Though self-governing, Taiwan is not technically a sovereign state,” he said, citing Chinese interference in elections and its intimidation.
Taiwanese have watched anxiously as Beijing has eroded “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, a system it hoped to impose on Taiwan, Zakaria said, referencing a poll that 88.2 percent of Taiwanese reject such an arrangement.
“As the protest movement fell and as China asserts control over Hong Kong every month, it is a bleak reminder to Taiwan and to [US] President [Joe] Biden that democracy at the mercy of an authoritarian behemoth is fragile at best,” he said.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS