So Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
As the "official" bagman for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Yesterday saw another piece of mendacity from Wang, which cannot go without comment, when he told a group of supporters in Kaohsiung that he would be able to end the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) manipulation of ethnic bias in elections.
The problem with this statement is that it is not the DPP which manipulated ethnic bias but the pan-blue camp. When the KMT arrived here from China it had a simple policy of excluding Taiwanese from power. When it realized that it would have to fill its thinning ranks with some Taiwanese, it adopted the age-old tactic of imperialism from the Romans to the British: divide and rule.
The main opposition to the KMT's monopoly of power came from the Hoklo-speaking gentry, outraged at their exclusion from power on "their" island as well as the iniquities of the land-reform compensation system. The KMT was able to counter Hoklo demands for majority rule by manipulating ethnic difference to its advantage. Basically it intimated to Mainlanders that the Hoklo were ungrateful savages who would push them into the sea should the KMT ever lose power -- an opinion the vast majority retain to this day, hence their post-presidential election trauma.
It also suggested to the Hakka that majority rule meant rule by the Hoklo, which, given three centuries of Hoklo-Hakka rivalry, would likely be detrimental to Hakka interests. Much the same pitch was made to the Aborigines for whom there was little love lost toward Hoklo or Hakka. The KMT's clever strategy was to make the native minorities believe that they would be very much worse off under majority rule, and only the KMT could guarantee some sort of level playing field between the different ethnicities.
Such a strategy gave the KMT a lockhold on between 30 and 35 percent of the electorate, and in communities which, because of their more tightly knit nature, were actually rather more easy to mobilize than the Hoklo themselves, the KMT only needed the support of one in four. This it managed to do by playing the "class" card.
It was central to the alien KMT's ideology, and the cultural indoctrination that succeeded "retrocession" that everything Taiwanese was crass and its own imposed culture was superior. Aspirational Taiwanese were encouraged to identify with the KMT's "metropolitan" and see anything rooted in a specifically Taiwanese identity as backward. Many of them did and do, resulting in wide middle-class Hoklo support for the KMT. It is, of course, false consciousness, in the Marxian sense, but none the less powerful for that.
This KMT strategy worked well in the past and still does, though it is fraying a little at the cuffs. Every election campaign sees the KMT criticize the DPP for ethnic campaigning, not because the DPP has been doing anything of the sort, but really as a message to remind the minority voters of the "threat" majority rule might pose. It's a dirty little tactic, but then the KMT is a dirty little party.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS