Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

VP Vincent Siew Bows Out, Saving Face for Himself, the KMT and Ma

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

It has been an accepted fact in Taiwan for the past months that Vincent Siew would not be Ma Ying-jeou's Vice-Presidential running mate in the upcoming 2012 elections. In 2008, Siew had been brought onto Ma's ticket as added value; he helped Ma to keep ties with the old guard Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and he was to give the people economic confidence that Ma's 6-3-3 promise would be a slam dunk affair. His added value dissipated after the elections and Siew was relegated to a minor role. It wasn't necessarily his fault, but it was clear he had no cachet for Ma in 2012. It was either bow out or be dumped.

Referendum laws are in dire need of amendment

Hsu Yung-ming 徐永明

The Penghu gambling referendum on Sept. 26, 2009, is the only referendum that has been passed since the legislature enacted the Referendum Act (公民投票法) in 2003, even though for all practical purposes this particular referendum is not actually applicable to the act. This is an ironic outcome, especially in light of the fact that, at the same time, a social movement launched a referendum demanding that the government renegotiate a beef trade deal with the US. The referendum proposal was eventually killed by the excessively high threshold in the second stage of petitioning, while the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was annihilated in the review process by the Cabinet’s Referendum Commission. Time and again, it has been proven that the Referendum Act is a dead end.

Philippine protest is laughable now

Taipei Times Editorial

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday lodged a “strong protest” with the Philippines over a ruling in its Court of Appeals which, citing the “one China” policy, upheld the Philippine Bureau of Immigration’s decision to deport 14 Taiwanese fraud suspects to China.

Aside from sending the protest via telegraph to Manila, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said he had on Monday told Philippine Representative to Taiwan Antonio Basilio that “the ruling was unacceptable to Taiwan,” warning that “we will not exclude any possible measures of protest.” So the foreign minister shows that he can talk tough. But how seriously does the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government think the Philippine government will take Taiwan’s complaint in light of the previous objection lodged by the foreign ministry, which ended with Taiwan wimping out?

Ma’s rights promises do not reflect actuality

Chen Mei-chin 陳美津

In a recent celebration in Greater Tainan to mark the third anniversary of his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) gave a speech in which he touted “human rights” as one of the three major achievements of his presidency. The other two were “sovereignty” and “environmental rights.” However, Ma’s rhetoric is clearly not backed by facts. Aside from signing two UN Human Rights Covenants into law, a token move, Ma’s presidency has no record of advancing human rights at home or abroad.

To the contrary, Ma’s presidency has been marred by incidents in which officials tried to restrict freedoms of expression and assembly. The incident where police beat up demonstrators and confiscated national flags and forcibly closed a record shop for playing Taiwanese folk music when Chinese official Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited Taiwan in November 2008 is still vivid in people’s memories.

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