Relatives of victims of the Martial Law era speak at an event organized by the Transitional Justice Commission in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times

The Transitional Justice Commission yesterday presented a sixth batch of declassified Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) records at a forum in Taipei, with the contents showing abuse of power and violations of human rights extending up until the year 2000.

Few would argue that the US is the world’s most powerful country. Elections elsewhere, whether Cabinet reshuffles or presidential elections, do not command the scrutiny that US elections do. The fight for the US presidency not only has nations around the world watching, but has their citizens on the edge of their seats.

China has just completed the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee in Beijing but, despite that China aspires to replace the US in global importance, the proceedings drew little attention, short of a minor interest in whether the lifelong tenure of the party chairman was to be entered into the constitution.

Taiwan New Constitution Foundation executive director Lin Yi-cheng, right, speaks at a forum in Taipei yesterday as foundation director Huang Di-ying, center, and Kung Kwo-wei, chairman of Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of Latin American Studies, left, look on.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

Experts at a forum organized by the Taiwan New Constitution Foundation in Taipei yesterday compared constitutional reform efforts in Chile and Taiwan, saying that the Legislative Yuan’s newly formed committee on the issue would “accomplish nothing.”