Where does the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) sense of entitlement — its belief that it should hold power throughout the nation, at all levels of government — come from? Is it from its glowing record?
Looking at the popularity of its representatives at city and county government levels, it becomes evident that their administrations are consistently rated near the bottom. The KMT mayoral candidates for Taipei and Keelung are harping on about change and transformation, as if their own party had not been responsible for the situation in those cities.
Where does it come from?
The most fundamental — and preposterous — reason is that the KMT believes that the Republic of China (ROC) is its own. What happened to the opening couplet of the ROC national anthem, in which it establishes the aim of the party to be the “Three Principles of the People?”
Even now, the KMT claims the ROC belongs to it, to govern as it sees fit. The party believes that the ROC would founder with any other party at the helm. It is always seeking to indoctrinate its members to see others — and other parties — as the enemy, and it refuses to accept that the history of China has moved on, or that the party itself has been changed by history.
Now the KMT mayoral candidates for Taipei and Greater Taichung are in trouble, the party is coming out with the dubious logic that the ROC itself is in danger if a non-KMT candidate is elected. In Taipei, when independent mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that he is standing for Taipei mayor in the ROC, his KMT rival Sean Lien (連勝文) retorted that Ko does not believe in the ROC and asked him exactly what he meant when he referred to the ROC.
It was hardly surprising that somebody answered him: “I would like to see you talk about the ROC when you are standing in front of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平).”
There was no response.
The ROC was overthrown by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China in 1949 when the former was under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), but continued to survive in Taiwan after it was grafted into the nation by the KMT.
Since then, the KMT — this foreign-power-in-exile — has thrust its legacy on people from other parties who were pushing for the introduction of democracy. Every time an election comes around, they shout until they are red in the face in defense of the ROC.
Twenty years ago, New Party cofounder Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), then-Taipei mayor Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲) — representing the KMT — and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) tussled for the position of Taipei mayor in a hard-fought campaign. Chen emerged victorious, and yet the ROC in Taiwan failed to crumble. It was the KMT who, when it lost its hold on the central government in 2000, went begging to Beijing, until its big beasts fell like flies at the feet of the communists.
In the recent APEC summit in Beijing, special envoy former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) cut a lonely figure, even more so than Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), as it was not even clear exactly what he was representing.
What does the rallying cry: “Do your own bit to save your own nation” (自己的國家自己救) mean to him? The meaning seems quite apparent to me. It is time for the KMT to step aside and be replaced by those who have hopes and dreams for the nation and who are willing to work to save it.
The work can begin with small steps. First, the local elections. Then the legislature. On to the presidential election. Taiwan has a hope only if it can effect structural change in how it is governed.
Lee Min-yung is a poet.
Translated by Paul Cooper
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
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
RSS