For the past few days, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been broadcasting its plans for a large-scale rally this Sunday to call the government's attention to the need to improve living standards.
Striking a graceful pose in front of the cameras, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
A look at the KMT chairman's own house, however, reveals just how empty his remarks were.
The very moment Ma spoke of the need for the party to go all out and hit the streets to demand that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government improve its game, a large chunk of his own people who have sweated years or even decades working for the party were struggling after being forced into early retirement owing to the party's "financial problems."
According to KMT union leader Liu Chien-song (
In spite of all these problems, the party still insists on organizing the rally, which costs an estimated NT$10 million (US$308,000).
It seems as if KMT officials, while zealous in their enthusiasm to stage the march to vent their anger against Chen, are all too blind to their own party staff's woes.
KMT Spokesman Cheng Li-wen (
Based on these party officials' remarks, is the party suggesting that while everybody needs to strive to improve their livelihoods, this does not include KMT staff members? Or have they simply failed to tell their fellow party staff members in plain language that "all KMT staff members should tighten their belts and help Ma strive for the presidency?"
Either way, the question that follows is if Ma can't even take good care of his own party members' livelihoods, how can he prove that he can work for the betterment of all Taiwanese?
When Beijing recently ran crying to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, saying that the People's Republic of China had long replaced the Republic of China, China had effectively nullified the KMT's precious "1992 consensus," in which "each side has its own interpretation of the `one China' policy." After that slap in the face, one would think that holding a rally against China would be a more justifiable cause for the KMT. Holding the rally would also help the KMT's plight if it does not wish to be upstaged by the pan-green camp, which will hold a demonstration next Saturday to voice its indignation against China's continuous deployment of missiles against Taiwan.
Should the KMT continue to stay mum on China's actions and persist with its irrational attacks on the Chen administration, then Ma, who is scheduled to visit the US next month, will surely face more interviewers like Stephen Sackur and risk seeing himself being placed in an awkward and embarrassing spot again.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS