Sat, Jul 12, 2008 page8

• Johnny Neihu's News Watch: You know you’re really one of us

  • By Johnny Neihu 強尼內湖
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  Can you just imagine my amusement at the very thought of it? President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is coming under sustained and personal attack within weeks of taking office, and the most damaging attacks of all are coming from his own people in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

  A Neihu News Network article on Wednesday drew a sublime picture of one critic: former Control Yuan president Wang Tso-yung (王作榮).

  Wang is not a happy man. He says the Cabinet should be reshuffled and the premier replaced if necessary … but enough politics. He wants Ma to suffer personally.

  “‘On the surface he’s all smiles and giggles, he’s handsome, he’s cute. But in reality he wants to be the boss: Whatever he says goes. This is the approach of a little tyrant, which is to say everyone has to act according to what he thinks; everyone exists for his benefit.’”

  Wang then accused Ma of abandoning the party that nurtured him by wanting to be a “president for all people” who dares to select his own people for the executive.

  “‘Be it former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) or Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) or President Ma Ying-jeou, none of the three has or had a concept of the dual leadership system; with all three you have to do what they say.’”

  And there’s a conspiracy afoot to usurp the Constitution, too, dear reader.

  “‘Ma has a close aide in his inner circle who wants to dictate the separate responsibilities of the Presidential Office, the [KMT], the government and even individuals’” ... but having said this, Wang refused to identify anyone.

  And what accounts for this little tyrant syndrome, this stubborn unwillingness to heed others’ counsel, the report asks?

  Well, says Wang, obviously because Ma was an only son in a lower middle class family surrounded by sisters; he grew up as the “special boy” and was showered with affection: “Doted on by his parents, cherished by his sisters, indulged and given full rein, this produced an abnormal attitude and behavior of not considering other people’s difficulties or feelings,” the report quoted Wang as saying.

  Wang knows that good breeding is important. In his autobiography Unrealized Ambitions (壯志未酬), he claims direct descent from the Yellow Emperor via a prince of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in the 6th century BC. And unlike the luckless Ma, Wang had nine brothers and sisters. Thank goodness three of them survived infancy, eh? Especially the younger brother, Wang Tso-feng (王作富), otherwise with nothing but sisters around him, goodness knows how he would have turned out.

  But hang on, the old bugger isn’t finished yet.

  “‘If you want social harmony, if you want ethnic integration, you don’t go apologizing on 228 Memorial Day, you don’t appoint people outside the KMT to government posts, you don’t “long stay” [in the countryside to see how the rustic half lives] and you don’t exclude KMT members or Mainlanders. All of this is just a show for an election.’”

  The Presidential Office’s reaction to Wang’s backstabbing diatribe?

  “‘Thank you to the former president of the Control Yuan for his counsel ... We have listened to what he said.’”

  Does bitter irony give you a high, dear reader? Wang is not your regular angry-as-hell, spittle-spraying retired hardline Mainlander of pedigree with an ax to grind and swing. This Hubei native and economist/academic/author/civil servant is the guy who convinced a reluctant country bumpkin by the name of Lee Teng-hui to join the KMT way back in the 1950s and pushed his political career forward. This, of course, set the ball rolling that led to Lee eviscerating the “one China” ideology and autocratic governance from which Wang’s own career had profited so handsomely.

  Ooooh, I bet that hurt. Right where it hurts the most.

  But I think we should be grateful as long as Wang is able to keep spraying that spittle. Who else would demand that former deputy premier Chiu I-jen (邱義仁) and former minister of foreign affairs James Huang (黃志芳) commit suicide over the Papua New Guinea funds scandal?

  Wang may be dismissed as an old nutter by some, but his outbursts remind me all too much of Ma Ying-jeou’s late father, who threatened to kill himself if Ma ran for the KMT chairmanship.

  So what’s going on here? What is it about contemporary politics that transforms stately old timers in the pan-blue camp into musty, ear-splitting boors?

  Note the difference, if you will: Unhappy old-timers in the pan-green camp tend to pout and suck up to the nearest monied KMT official. But the blue-camp’s soon-to-be-senile Chinese ultrapatriots explode like cluster bombs, maiming targets green and blue as well as anyone unlucky to be in the area at the time. There is no mercy, and everyone is a viable target: your best friend, your protege, your president, even your own child.

  Wang’s theory of Ma’s arrested development is strange. If Ma’s father was so doting, why did he threaten to top himself when his son was on the verge of a sensational victory in the KMT chairmanship election? Or did he stop loving him at a critical juncture because he wasn’t macho enough ... say when Junior decided not to have the Hsichih trio executed when he was justice minister?

  Maybe it was because Daddy knew Junior didn’t have anywhere near the necessary sociopathy to restore the Republic of China to its former, fleeting glory.

  I reckon Ma has more balls than he gets credit for. The problem with the Great Jogger is that it’s not clear if he knows who his real friends are.

  So brace yourself, faithful reader, because now I will go out on a limb.

  Ma’s genuine friends — the ones he needs to start mobilizing — are the decent, everyday folk who quietly get on with their everyday lives but deep inside support Taiwanese independence with a commitment as unshakeable as it is understated.

  No, really.

  Let’s face it. By the time Ma has finished this four-year term, the kickback crew in the KMT legislative caucus and the “one China” circle jerkers at party headquarters will be so thoroughly pissed off with their golden boy that we will likely see a challenger emerge for the party nomination for president in 2012.

  When that happens, who else is there for Ma to turn to other than the 40 percent bedrock of DPP voters plus the 10 percent-plus swing voters that can’t stand China stooges?

  And Ma should be comforted in the knowledge that if and when he turns to the voter base of his former political rivals, it will accept him with open arms (it helps that the DPP will have no credible alternative). Deep down these guys have always felt that Ma was waiting to burst out of his party’s spiritual cross-strait jacket and become the leader of a modern Taiwanese nation.

  And these are the ones who will stick by him no matter what happens to the economy.

  Let’s face it, all Ma has to say is “My party spent eight years in opposition denigrating this country and insulting its hardworking people ... well, the party is over. Stand up for your country or shut up, or better still, get out” — and the greens will go wild.

  You know it to be true. Like Wang said: Ma is cute, handsome and not afraid to giggle. And now that Ma is acting tyrannically, well, he’s simply following the script for a president of the Republic of China. But who is the victim? The pan-blue camp, if you believe what its footsoldiers say.

  All that remains is for Ma to finally come out of the closet.

  To my left I see a farmer sheltering under a bamboo hat. Behind me is the owner of a small business that manufactures parts that end up on conveyor belts in microchip factories. To my right is a bunch of schoolkids, friends whose ethnic identities are invisible to all but their own little group. And sitting in front of me is a bunch of old ladies of wildly different backgrounds who come together every weekend to volunteer at the local hospital.

  Mr President, your people are out here, on the other side of the door, waiting for you to stride out to fulfill your destiny!

  Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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