Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) recently traveled to Japan on campaign business for next month’s special municipality elections.
While there he said: “When Japan pursued a more open policy in the Meiji Restoration, having emerged from years of being diplomatically closed off from the rest of the world, it ushered in a Golden Age. With the upcoming special municipality elections [in Taiwan], the Taiwanese are given the clear choice between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP], between being more open or closing ourselves off.”
This must have struck anyone familiar with modern Japanese history as somewhat odd.
How could King actually use the Meiji Restoration to compare the two sides? It is true that the Meiji Restoration played a significant part in Japan’s transformation.
However, the government at the time wanted to move away from Asian influence — by which they meant China and Chinese culture, dominant at the time — and embrace “the European Powers,” meaning the West, including the US.
In other words, prior to that point in time, Japan had been locked into an Asian cultural world dominated by China, and had fallen behind as a result.
But during the Meiji Restoration, Japanese officials wanted to become more involved in the wider world, giving the country a chance to catch up with the great powers of the time.
Look at the path currently adopted by the various green-camp parties in Taiwan. If you are going to use the Meiji metaphor, you could say that it is they who are more interested in extracting the country from Asian influence and becoming more involved with the West, rejecting the influence — political, economic and cultural — of China and those countries that follow.
The KMT, on the other hand is trying to bring Taiwan closer to China, which is precisely what its China-leaning policies and agreements such such as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) will do, politically and economically. Its goal is eventual unification with China.
Japan’s success is a vindication of the policies now being championed by the DPP and other green parties. It is the same bold road that Japan struck out on during the Meiji Restoration.
It is entirely different from the KMT’s policy of regression. The ECFA is to be followed by closer cultural assimilation with China. There is little doubt that this is the KMT’s intention. It is quite clearly, explicitly and intentionally heading in the diametrically opposite direction taken by Japan during the Meiji Restoration.
The choice between the KMT and DPP, then, is the choice between dependence on China and involvement with the rest of the world.
When the KMT says “China is the window to the rest of the world,” it sounds like the party has a point, that the proposition is at least arguable.
However, when we stop and think for a second, what becomes apparent is that no other nation is relying on China to engage with the rest of the world.
The argument simply does not hold water. They are using the slogan to secure their objective of making Taiwan a part of China. I ask you, Taiwan ... is this what you want?
King’s poorly conceived metaphor, delivered in Japan, actually highlights the regressive nature of the KMT’s policy. It also demonstrates his superficial grasp of Japanese history.
Huang Tien-lin is a former national policy adviser to the president.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS