Nothing emphasizes the deadlock in Taiwanese politics better than the stalled ‘Arms bill’. This is a proposal for a special budget to buy arms from the US, which has been in limbo for nearly the whole of Chen Shui-bian’s five year reign. Despite the fact that the arms purchase was originally requested by the KMT, and is strongly supported by the president, the bill has not even been discussed yet by the legislature. Until this week. On the 42nd attempt by the government to get this bill heard by the legislature, they succeeded – by waiting until the KMT weren’t watching:
Taipei, Dec. 20 (CNA) “Pan-green” camp legislators pulled a fast one on their opposition “pan-blue alliance” colleagues at the Legislative Yuan’s Procedures Committee Tuesday by calling for a snap vote on the long-stalled arms purchase bill when some opposition legislators were away at another meeting.
At around noon time, when only five “pan-blue alliance” lawmakers were present at the meeting, one of the 12 lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), which form the “pan-green” camp, proposed a vote whether to put on the legislative agenda the arms bill and the review of the president’s nominations for Control Yuan members.
Committee chairman William C.T. Lai of the DPP ruled that a vote be held immediately to decide on DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung’s proposal. By 12: 30 p.m., the committee had voted 12-5 to put the two matters on the legislature’s meeting agenda, leaving the five “pan-blue alliance” legislators in a daze.
Another triumph for democracy? Or another childish move in Taiwan’s ever-puerile government? What happens next is wholly predictable:
The KMT will spend two days bitching about how it’s unfair that the DPP abused their 30-minutes of majority rule, after which the arms bill will be conclusively voted down in the legislature’s plenary session on Friday.
Presumably all pan-Blue lawmakers will now be issued with colostomy bags to make sure the DPP can’t sneakily pass any laws while they’ve nipped out to the toilet.
Maybe Richard Bush will get wind of this and come back to bash the blues upside the head again. One can only hope…
Maybe. But i’ve got a horrible feeling that the pan-Blues will be digging their heels in even harder after this.
How could the “pan-blue alliance” dig their heels in deeper? Unless you mean dig them into someone’s face….
I get a kick out of the people over the blue line who keep saying that the weapons, or some of them, were rejected by the people in the referendum. These people are certified idiots. The referendum as invalidated by the fact that the required 50 percent did not participate. Therefore, whatever the vote was, it was tossed out. HOWEVER, if one were to use it as a huge motherfucker of a sample size for a poll, then the fact that over 90 percent of those who did vote (around 45 percent) voted YES to the following:
— “The people of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities?”
— “Would you agree that our government should engage in negotiation with mainland China on the establishment of a peace and stability framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples of both sides?”
I hate the way this site has no formatting….
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