Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential nominee Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has said that her party is “not that malign,” it is simply “clumsy” and has done “good things,” although it “has not communicated them well.”
Hung’s words reveal that the KMT is once again back to playing rotten tricks: The party clearly knows it is both rotten and malign, but wants to evade the major issues and simply call itself “clumsy.”
The KMT has nothing to sell, it can only admit it is clumsy and call the opposition “malign.” The party is trying to sound a compassionate note with the electorate, but President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has already used this trick to create the false dichotomy of a clumsy president or a “bad egg.” In reality Ma is no fool, yet he absolutely is a bad egg.
The narcissistic Ma clearly believes he is being clever by rushing through changes to the high-school curriculum guidelines before he leaves office next year. It is a return to party-state brainwashing, for the purpose of facilitating a handover to China and its supporters. The curriculum is designed to intensify the antagonism between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, to assist Beijing in its meddling in next year’s elections. This is the malign act of a malign individual.
Ma’s nefarious scheme is an illegal abuse of authority; he is determined to force it through come what may. Despite Ma’s famously thick skin, even he could not provide a logical explanation that accords with democratic principles. It shows that the KMT is both rotten and malign. Ma has taken a large step toward consigning his party to the dustbin of history.
The opposition to the guideline changes has highlighted Ma’s anti-democratic approach. The president’s fellow travelers are political hatchet men who do not care about the students and whose specialty it is to push for rapid unification. They are thick-skinned people with sharp tongues who say anything, and among them are a few people with a past in organized crime. By ignoring the suggestions of KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) while embracing the opposition to democracy and public justice among a few fanatics, Ma is destroying the KMT.
Hung, the so-called “Little Red Pepper,” says that the KMT will not engage in propaganda and that it is at a disadvantage in the media, but this is in fact just an expression of the dictatorial mindset of Ma, which makes him use a group of hired guns who turn right and wrong on its head and specialize in shifting focus from important issues, making it much more difficult to cover up all of the KMT’s ugliness. Today’s media workers have all suffered through the KMT’s obscurantist educational policies, and as the shameless Ma gang is trying to forcefully take the nation back in time, the party’s position in the media will only continue to deteriorate.
Education lies at the core of social reform movements, and high-school students’ opposition to the opaque curriculum changes have made people aware of Ma’s and his gang’s treachery and abuse of power. It has also irritated and upset adults who have suffered through the KMT-directed obscurantist education. It is this public awakening that will sweep the KMT onto the dust pile of history.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Edward Jones and Perry Svensson
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS