While praising Taiwan’s achievements in democracy, academics and politicians from abroad said at a conference in Taipei yesterday that Taiwan’s democracy still faced challenges — such as in transitional justice and cross-strait relations.
More than 30 academics, researchers and politicians from the US, the UK, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan attended a conference co-hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) and National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) to discuss East Asia topics, including culture, history and politics.
Democracy and human rights in Taiwan were on the agenda.
“Taiwan has achieved much as the first democracy in the [ethnic] Chinese world. We Koreans are all very amazed that Taiwan could accomplish such a political achievement after its economic one,” Chung Jey-moon, a former South Korean parliament member, told the conference. “As long as the people is [sic] determined, democracy would be in place sooner or later, and that’s what happened in Taiwan.”
While agreeing with Chung, Jang Sung-min, former secretary for the Information and Policy Monitoring Office in South Korea, said Taiwan’s democracy still needed “reinforcement” and had challenges to overcome — including realizing transitional justice and resolving issues in cross-strait relations.
Taking South Korea’s democratic transition as an example, Jang said finding out the truth about a country’s authoritarian past was an important step in helping its democracy take root.
But differently from other countries making democratic transitions, Taiwan has to take care of its relationship with China, which poses a threat to its democracy, he said.
NTNU Department of East Asia Culture and Development director Tsai Chang-yan (蔡昌言), who doubles up as the deputy executive director of the TFD, agreed.
“With increased cross-strait economic exchanges and an increased number of Taiwanese businesses investing in China, I wonder if business activities will have an impact of some Taiwanese businessmen’s national loyalty?” Tsai asked.
Meanwhile, Jang said that disadvantaged groups are not always well taken care of in Taiwan.
“I think creating policies to take care of them [the disadvantaged groups] and creating an environment that is friendly to the disadvantaged is also something important for a democracy,” Jang said.
Missouri State University political science professor Dennis Hickey said that with China emerging as a new power, however, the strategic importance of Taiwan has decreased in the eyes of US policymakers.
“But the US still values Taiwan’s democracy,” he said.
However, Hickey also said there were negative sides to Taiwan’s democracy.
“I think some media organizations are just too out of control,” he said.
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