From Reuters
Ok, I know the Taiwan’s presidential election has ended and Ma Ying-jeou has won, but I still want to respond to the influence of Taiwanese expatriates in the election, which has already been reported before the election. In one article, it is mentioned that Taiwanese businessmen in China (referred to as theTaishang in the article) had been trying to avoid the victory of Tsai Ing-wen, who advocates formal independence of Taiwan, by urging their compatriots in China to return to Taiwan and to vote for the “Beijing-friendly” Ma Ying-jeou. The article says that besides exhortation, these Taishang executives had even arranged discounted plane tickets and holidays for their employees, so the latter can return home to vote. Their actions are confirmed when after the election one article suggests that “the Ma camp counted on the support of an estimated 200,000 China-based Taiwanese businesspeople and their relatives who returned home to vote”.
In my opinion, the votes of these Taiwanese expatriates suggest the problematic identification of citizens in this globalized world. First, should these expatriates be counted as citizens? How to determine whether they deserve a citizen’s right to vote when their contribution to Taiwan is marginal or at best ambiguous? Second, if these expatriates are considered citizens, is it legitimate for them to vote primarily based on their economic interests, but not other interests such as the health, social, cultural, and civic ones, which will all affect Taiwan and its resident citizens? Meanwhile, the fact that these expatriates have been exposed to information provided (and censored) by the Chinese government suggests that their judgments about what is good for themselves and Taiwan may have been swayed. Consequently, the democratic ideal which describes citizens as a check on the government appears to be unfulfilled because the accountability of the sources of their information is debatable. In sum, all these questions raise doubt about whether citizenship is merely defined by a passport or their contribution to the states and their knowledge about their and state’s interests.
Tags: No Comments.
