The Love and Peace Foundation held a book launch yesterday to introduce a book promoting democracy in China authored by foundation president Eric Teng (鄧文聰), who is also the chairman of Singfor Life Insurance Co.
Inspired by former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) words “Development is the absolute principle,” Teng named his book — which calls for China’s democratization — Democracy is the Absolute Principle.
In the book, Teng said that countries or regions with Chinese culture as their social base, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, hold democracy at the core of the “Chinese dream,” adding that all huaren (華人, people of Chinese ethnicity) have a responsibility to assist “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” an idea that has been greatly championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Photo: CNA
“Xi once likened democracy to shoes, saying that what fits the West does not necessarily fit the East. I agree, but I would say we could still learn from their textures, patterns and creativity,” Teng said.
From Western democracies to the newly democratized countries, Teng’s book discusses various types of governments and concludes with a chapter on a possible way for China to make a transition to the political system — the development of “a pilot zone for democracy with Chinese characteristics.”
The idea came from the existing economic pilot zones in China, Teng said, adding that “a gradual process” in China’s possible democratization was very important.
Teng said the democratic system is the only way to maintain cross-strait peace and to unite all Chinese societies. He said he is also keen on introducing the notion of a civilization-based Chinese nation, which he said would be different from the “race and blood-based” nation-states that developed in the West and were exported.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) were among the invited guests at the book launch.
Wang praised Taiwan’s peaceful political transition over the past 15 years and the recent student-led protest, saying that while there are “negative aspects to it that need be criticized, there are also positive sides to it that we can reflect upon.”
Hsieh said the democratic institution can descend into formalism and congressmen detached from the public will.
“These [problems] can be countered by social movements,” Hsieh said.
The foundation, begun in 2011, aims to “build a new civilization in Chinese societies, promote cross-strait mutual understanding, care about democratic development of and exchanges between the two sides and maintain an eternal cross-strait and world peace.”
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