- 台灣媒體的負面影響導致偏差的政治思想
- 民粹主義煽動民族情懷迎領政治風潮
- 臺灣政治及憲法體制的問題有助於台灣政治的惡化
Taiwan’s politics and government have been praised as one of the most successful in transforming from autocracy to democracy. Yet after almost 30 years of transformation, politics in Taiwan are still plagued by an unscrupulous press, populism, and outdated laws. To not confront these problems is to greatly weaken the foundation of being a mature and vigorous democracy.
Problems with the press
The press in Taiwan is flawed in many ways. Problems range from hostile foreign influence, a lack of international reporting, and a lack of sympathy, to simple mistakes such as spelling errors and poor fact checking among reporters. All of this is causing a loss of public trust, which harms both the people and the media.
In order to fix these problems, Taiwan needs more independent, public, and trusted media outlets like Taiwan Public Television, and The Reporter. These papers are not known as mainstream media, but they give a wider range of reports for the audience than others do. By having more opinions on air and on paper, people can learn different aspects of issues to help them get a better picture of the truth.
The rise of Populism and Nationalism
Populism and nationalism are a dangerous growing trend around the world. From Britain’s Brexit to Donald Trump being elected as President of the US, populism has been affecting polls worldwide. This trend is also seen in Taiwan’s 2018 local election where Han Guo-yu (韓國瑜) was elected as mayor of Kaohsiung.
Places heavily influenced by populism might take terrible opinions that could include racial discrimination and undiscussed thoughts into law and policy. This will harm the people and dig deepening gaps between different individuals. What’s worse is that populism may also come with nationalism, which at its extreme is the most dangerous range of thoughts a normal political system could have.
Systemic issues
Democracies such as Taiwan are facing huge obstacles, where the system may not effectively solve social issues such as income gaps and environmental crises. People are in pain and want to change their situations by their own hands which increases the growth of populism. The government should make changes to help in order to prevent populism and nationalism from becoming overgrown.
The Constitution
All of this is why Taiwan needs to change its laws. Taiwan’s constitution, which is called the Constitution of the Republic of China, is built to operate as a larger land based state where racial and political diversity differs more greatly than in Taiwan. This may cause major corrections of constitution to be extremely difficult.
To change this may be the most fundamental, and also the hardest way to correct Taiwan’s politics. As changing the constitution to keep up with current trends may lead to unnecessary conflict with China, doing so in the wrong way may worsen the current situation.
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All things considered, Taiwan’s politics are broken but fixable. Altering the system will take years of hard work and the government’s attention. By stepping out of our comfort zone we can truly know what’s wrong and what should be done, then Taiwan could finally be a healthy and praiseworthy democracy.
Hi Carson,
Glad to see people your age realizing the fact that Taiwan’s or in this case when you mentioned in the “The Constitution” part that Republic of China’s politics is flawed. The problem as you stated is true, the constitution does not efficiently run or protect the people of Taiwan. It is definitely meant for the large piece of land called China. Unfortunately this will not change as long as the Chinese (Nationalists/KMT) feel that ROC is the rightful government for both China and Taiwan. The politics of populism and nationalism isn’t even for Taiwan or Taiwanese, but rather for the China and Chinese people ironically. In your statement that nationalism is bad, well nationalism is good if we even have a nationalistic thought (Taiwan). Most of the nationalistic thought is for ROC and China. As Taiwanese we are fooled into the whole ROC nationalism is Taiwan nationalism. Instead this is where we we are brainwashed to think this which will lead to KMT and Chinese Nationalism surviving in Taiwan.
The only way anything changes in Taiwan is to get rid of the (Republic of) Chinese government and its mindset. It needs to be redone as Taiwan and Taiwanese mindset. It needs to be run as Taiwan not a province in the greater Republic of China. We don’t need 113 members in our legislative Yuan. I mean US’s senate has 100 members and they run a country that is many times of Taiwan.
Everything will change if we dont use the ROC mindset. Unfortunately like you mentioned we have China and our comfort zone to go against which isn’t easy to get by.