Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A report released by US rights watchdog Freedom House on Monday said that although many Taiwanese are in favor of improving economic and trade ties with China, critics believe the government has made concessions on sovereignty, that cross-strait policies have developed too quickly and that the process lacks transparency.

On Jan. 12, the Washington-based Freedom House released the political rights and civil liberties scores for its Freedom in the World 2010 survey. Taiwan’s political rights rating improved from 2 to 1, but its civil liberties rating dropped from 1 to 2.

Shortly after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power in May 2008, the nation’s netizens came up with a new definition for the Chinese character huang (騜) to describe the new president. This amusing combination of the characters for “horse” (馬, Ma’s surname) and “emperor” (皇), actually seeks to make a serious point, by highlighting Ma’s seemingly absolute power, based on his Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) control of the executive branch and its majority in the legislature.

While some may find the reappropriation of this character silly, it nevertheless reflects netizens’ lingering concerns about one-man rule and the idea that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”