Challenge and Change in East Asia: Taiwan’s Year of Stress

With the memory of the trauma of the March 2004 presidential election gradually fading and a new Legislative Yuan being sworn in on February 1, 2005, Taiwan’s young democracy has just begun to pull itself out of the worst political turmoil since the island became democratized. The deep acrimony surrounding the last presidential election has left Taiwan’s democracy with a permanent scar. The society was deeply divided over the outcomes of the election as well as the story behind the bizarre shooting incident. The frenzy and extraordinary circumstances under which this election took place revealed many worrisome trends, some of which have deeper roots in the political soil and will thus continue to afflict Taiwan’s fragile democracy and erode the political elite’s commitment to due process and fundamental democratic values.