Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Young voters must learn to discern

Yang Tsung-li楊宗澧

The generation born or raised after the lifting of martial law in 1987 was the first to experience democratization and enjoy the initial fruits of Taiwan’s freedom. Many of the generation following those who witnessed martial law lifted are now high-school and college students. The political background in which they grew up was the second eight-year governance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Taiwan’s democracy has issues that need to be addressed in each generation, but the social environment of this latest voting-age generation is freer and more open. If they take universal values such as democracy, freedom and human rights for granted, then they are testing Taiwan’s democratic resilience and putting these staples at risk.

Independence is already ‘status quo’

Taipei Times

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate and New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) has called on his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) counterpart, William Lai (賴清德), to abandon his party’s Taiwanese independence platform.

Hou’s remarks follow an article published in the Nov. 30 issue of Foreign Affairs by three US-China relations academics: Bonnie Glaser, Jessica Chen Weiss and Thomas Christensen. They suggested that the US emphasize opposition to any unilateral changes in the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait, and that if Lai wins the election, he should consider freezing the Taiwanese independence clause.

KMT miscalculates again

Taipei Times Editorial

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has a good reason to avoid a split vote against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in next month’s presidential election. It has been here before and last time things did not go well.

Taiwan had its second direct presidential election in 2000 and the nation’s first ever transition of political power, with the KMT in opposition for the first time.

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was ushered in with less than 40 percent of the vote, only marginally ahead of James Soong (宋楚瑜), the candidate of the then-newly formed People First Party (PFP), who got almost 37 percent. The KMT’s candidate, former premier Lien Chan (連戰), was third with just over 23 percent.

Taiwan remains Asia’s only ‘open’ country, report says

Taipei Times

Taiwan remains the only country in Asia with an “open” civic space for the fifth consecutive year, the Civicus Monitor said in a report released yesterday.

The People Power Under Attack 2023 report named Taiwan as one of only 37 open countries or territories out of 198 globally, and the only one in Asia.

Compiled by Civicus — a global alliance of civil society organizations dedicated to bolstering civil action — the ranking compiled annually since 2017 measures the state of freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression around the world.

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