Beginners on trial
Taiwan’s new government, one year on
“BLISS was it in that dawn to be alive,” wrote William Wordsworth of the French revolution. In Taiwan, one year ago on May 20th, a less tumultuous transfer of power produced similar sentiments, at least among many voters. Out went the Kuomintang (KMT), the party that had ruled Taiwan, until recent years often brutally, since the end of Japanese colonialism in 1945. In came the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a new bunch of democratising idealists determined to sweep corrupt politics into history.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Beginners on trial”
From the May 19th 2001 edition
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