James Soong and his People’s First Party (PFP) have gone from KMT splinter group, to KMT junior coalition partner, to almost another footnote of history. Yet in 2016 Soong may be the dark horse that changes everything, again.
Every time I mention that I am from an indigenous tribe in Taiwan, I realize: the outside world really doesn’t know much about us. So who are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan?
The political unity of the waishengren base is becoming a thing of the past. Most of the third generation have practically assimilated, and they call themselves Taiwanese. Few of the fourth generation will identify as waishengren at all.
If Lin I-hsiung and Hsu Hsin-liang set down DPP’s conflict between idealism and pragmatism in the early days, then which path did the DPP eventually walk? Which former chairman’s vision has the DPP accomplished?
Although Taiwan is barred from entering the United Nations, Taiwan’s indigenous groups have participated in the UN’s Indigenous Peoples Forum to be part of the discourse on indigenous rights and welfare worldwide.
In Taipei and Delhi, Ko Wen-je and Arvind Kejriwal both campaigned for mayor on platforms of clean governance, fighting corruption, and bringing power back to ordinary citizens by participatory democracy and greater transparency.