The recent irrational behavior displayed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members protesting the name change of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall was truly appalling. (KMT's name change fight opens rift, May 28, page 2). It was more like a fight among rogue people.
More puzzling, however, was a question posed by KMT Legislator Kuo Su-Chun (郭素春), who said, "Now that we have a memorial to democracy, does that mean democracy is dead, too?" ("KMT supports plan to rename street," May 24, page 4). Kuo apparently has a hard time making the connection between those people who sacrificed their lives for democratic principles and naming a memorial hall to honor them.
However, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) idea of renaming a section of Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building the "Anti-Corruption Democracy Square" was a good idea ("City strikes back in name-change game," May 23, page 1). All the people of Taiwan, not just KMT members, should support the plan.
Hau, however, should recruit a group of artists to paint a large picture on the renamed square depicting corrupt people -- especially KMT members under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) -- looting the national treasury while countless onlookers shout at them to stop looting and return the stolen goods to the people.
Anyone walking on the square will be reminded of the KMT's illegally obtained assets. Perhaps this could hasten the return of the stolen assets to the treasury.
Honesty and democracy are universal values, yet KMT members have proven unable to clean their own house, whether under the leadership of former chairmen Lien Chan (連戰) or Ma Ying-yeou (馬英九) or under Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). An "Anti-Corruption Monument" to stress the importance of integrity would remind everyone that the KMT itself has shown little integrity.
The Taipei City Government should create an "Anti-Corruption Park" where statues of corrupt people could be erected for visitors to judge or examine their wrongdoings.
It is very difficult to fathom why KMT members often think they have nothing to do with corruption, even when the whole world has known for decades that the KMT was and still is the most corrupt political party in the world.
As US General George Marshall, quoted in Sterling Seagrave's book The Soong Dynasty, once said: "Mao's greatest asset was the Chiang regime's dismal corruption."
Still don't get it? Well read your history, please.
Kris Liao
San Francisco, California
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
RSS