When asked whether independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was an ally of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) before the Taipei mayoral nomination in January last year, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said Ko should first clarify his “Taiwanese values.”
At the time, Ko answered that his “Taiwanese values” referred to universal values such as democracy, freedom, human rights and sovereignty. Tsai and DPP politicians seemed to be dissatisfied with that answer. Later, many politicians began to express their view of “Taiwanese values,” and they mostly referred to the same universal values.
Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, even said bluntly that “Taiwanese values” is an empty phrase, and that if the DPP keeps stressing it, the party would stand to lose more than it gained and face a major defeat.
Not long ago, Ko began to fire back by asking Tsai to define her “Taiwanese values.” Tsai replied that they have been concretely realized in the policies of the DPP, especially in her recent statements against Beijing’s “one country, two systems” model and her policy against extraditions to China.
Ko said he did not understand what Tsai meant, and, using the government’s public housing policy as an example, said it was laughable to call that a Taiwanese value. Tsai has not yet come up with a more sophisticated response, and some argue that she owes Ko an apology.
First of all, what is a value? It is not only an ideal, but also an insistence on and commitment to that ideal, as one would rather sacrifice one’s own interests for it. Democracy, for instance, is an ideal, but it would not become a value unless one is willing to commit to or even make sacrifices for democracy. Otherwise, the term is nothing but an empty noun.
When Tsai asked Ko to clarify his “Taiwanese values” before last year’s mayoral nomination, she was asking him: Faced with China’s oppression, how can Taiwan safeguard its democracy and sovereignty, and what is your cross-strait policy or attitude?
Ko’s reply, filled with empty ideals such as democracy, freedom and other so-called universal values, did not satisfy the public, because anyone can come up with such an answer. Without concrete actions, ideals would never turn into values.
When Ko laughed at Tsai explaining her “Taiwanese values” with her opposition to “one country, two systems” and Hong Kong’s extradition bill, he showed that he does not understand the meaning of values.
“One country, two systems” is Chinese oppression of Taiwan, and the goal is unification. Taiwan always proclaims itself a free, democratic, independent and sovereign state. Surely remaining silent in the face of China’s threat and oppression, makes freedom, democracy and sovereignty empty phrases.
When Ko says Tsai opposes “one country, two systems” to curry favor with voters, he makes it clear that he is unwilling to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy and sovereignty by offending China. For him, perhaps interests are far more important than values when dealing with Beijing.
Ko does not have values, and he uses interests to measure people with values. If he cannot clarify this mix-up of values with interests, he would be a very dangerous national leader.
Of course, values can be manifested in national policies. If Taiwan launched a national housing policy that implemented housing justice, that would embody a value of the Taiwanese public — justice. Housing justice would then no longer be an empty universal value existing in name only — it would become a concrete and vivid Taiwanese value.
Lii Ding-tzann is a retired professor in the Graduate School of Sociology at National Tsing Hua University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS