Shen Rongqin's International Perspective" Micro Knowledge: The Lie of Caning in the Referendum

◎ Shen Rongqin

The caning referendum was a lie from start to finish:

1. Singapore’s public security is better than Taiwan ❌

This is a long-propagated false impression, and the fact is that Taiwan’s security is better than Singapore’s (as in the 2026 Global Security Index, Taiwan ranks 4th globally and Singapore ranks 11th).

According to NUMBEO data, Taiwan ranks 4th and Singapore 11th in the 2026 Global Security Index. (Extracted from NUMBEO)

2. Caning improves public security in Singapore ❌

This is also a myth that has been propagated for a long time, and the fact is that even Singapore's own research has not found that caning can improve law and order.

Please read on...

3. Caning should be subject to a referendum ❌

There are three reasons:

▪️ Using caning will violate the two conventions that Taiwan has adopted.

▪️ There are many conditions for caning in various countries (such as age, gender, health conditions, crime, punishment, under what circumstances alternatives to caning can be used, etc.), which require legislative regulation rather than a referendum on right or wrong.

For example, why, according to Lan Ying, does Ke Wenzhe need not be caned for corruption, nor can a legislator be caned for embezzling assistant fees, nor can a general be caned for violating national loyalty, nor can he be caned for becoming a spy for the Chinese Communist Party? How to determine the boundary between whipping and non-whipping?

▪️ The Blue and White majority in the Legislature believes that in order to solve the problems of violations of the two conventions and the various conditions of caning, it must be through legislative changes, rather than a referendum that consumes a lot of money and resources, which can be solved once and for all.

At the end of August, the Central Election Commission rejected the "referendum on legalizing caning" promoted by the blue camp, but the blue camp did not give up. Kuomintang League Secretary-General Xu Yuzhen (right) and legislator Hong Mengkai (left) recently announced that a "draft to amend some provisions of the criminal law" will be proposed in the new session to promote "caning into law." (File photo)

(The author is an associate professor at York University, Canada)

This article is reprinted from Shen Rongqin’s Facebook with permission