A lot of print real estate has been devoted to the legislator-at-large lists announced by the different political parties.
The nominations of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) and retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) have proved particularly controversial, as have the words of former Taiwan Provincial Government secretary for foreign affairs Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英).
They were all part of the high drama of China’s “united front” activity against Taiwan.
Kuo’s objectives in aiding and abetting the Chinese communists is to openly and brazenly exploit democratic mechanisms to blaspheme Taiwan’s democracy, saying that he intends to “represent the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] to monitor the elections of Taiwan Province.”
His words were meant to appeal to sympathetic elements within Taiwan, but also to provoke a reaction.
What does the Democratic Progressive Party government propose to do about it?
People colluding with the CCP in this way clearly do not answer to the KMT, as their words and actions are not done with consideration of how they are going to benefit or harm the KMT.
Chiu, who took up the banner of the New Party in the aftermath of the KMT at-large nominee list controversy, tried to undercut the party’s presidential candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), by claiming that Han had secretly sent him a message of encouragement on social media.
Just prior to this, the Han camp had singled Chiu out, saying that if he were not replaced, it would have an adverse effect on the KMT’s campaign for the Jan. 11 elections.
Wu, for his part, does not seem fazed by the fuss surrounding his nomination, and appears indifferent that he could be a fly in the KMT ointment; perhaps he cannot see how he differs from the other fare offered up by the KMT.
Then there is Kuo, who aspires to “represent the CCP,” pandering to Beijing on the other side of the Taiwan Strait while political parties in Taiwan “play house” over here.
Why exactly have these three individuals — one of whom wishes to enter the legislature and draw a legislator’s salary; one who already receives a lieutenant general’s pension; another who holds tightly to his own public servant’s pension; and all of whom are eating and clothing themselves at the nation’s expense, and are benefiting from the national health service — not just hoofed it over to China, since they have already made the ideological jump and capitulated to the communists anyway?
The answer is actually simple: They know the score perfectly well; the CCP holds anyone who so readily betrays their country and seeks glory overseas with contempt.
Perhaps it would be informative to take an article published on the CCP-run People’s Daily Web site as an admonishment to these individual’s treasonous aspirations.
The article talked of what standard the CCP applied to the various generals in the KMT who have abandoned their country. It certainly was not based upon their glory earned on the battlefield; it was their moral character.
It is ironic that the CCP would judge anything based upon moral character, but there you have it.
The next question is: What kind of person does someone need to be for even the CCP to look on you with contempt?
In a fundamental way, the Chinese communists have long been clear and open about the fact that they regard only a handful of the people who served under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) as being of any worth whatsoever, and that the vast majority of those fell during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
For the communists, those that were left were mostly capitulators and surrender monkeys.
If that were not harsh enough, the communists further divide these people into another five categories. The lowest of these — and the one with the most people, accounting for more than half of the entire group — are those who from the very start had nothing to do with the CCP, and who opted right at the last moment to swap sides and become turncoats to their own cause, to “serve Qin (秦) in the morning and Chu (楚) in the evening.”
The Chinese communists described this category as “the most contemptible.” This is what the CCP thinks of the KMT.
In the 70 years since the KMT was banished to Taiwan, the first generation of KMT members that came here have gradually been reduced to zero. Individuals like Chiu, who were born in Taiwan, remain nevertheless — in Beijing’s eyes — as the leftover dregs of Chiang’s followers.
It would be difficult for this to be articulated more clearly than Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) did in a 2017 speech commemorating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army, when he called the KMT “reactionaries,” who “betrayed the revolution and the people.”
The CCP views KMT members in Taiwan now as the inheritors of the mantle of treasonous reactionaries, and now this second generation, blind to the sins of their fathers, are trying to claw their way back to power by offering their services as representatives of those they previously took to be their enemy.
They seem to think that they can serve Taiwan up on a plate and somehow, by virtue of this second treason, come under the wing of the very group they betrayed.
This is no story of a prodigal son; this is the story of a sworn enemy coming to the door, begging for mercy after their army is routed, an abandoned dog on the street, its tail between its legs, whimpering for a new master.
There really is no need for Taiwanese to criticize this second generation of the KMT, for the words the CCP has used to admonish anyone in their party says it all succinctly enough.
They are saying that, yes, it is true that a talented person chooses a patron of integrity, just as the bird chooses the tree on which to build its nest, but this has to happen at the outset, not only as a response to crisis.
To betray your master and look for a new patron when the going gets tough is both cowardly and treasonous.
Furthermore, for these low defectors to brag about their betrayal only lowers the moral standards of the Chinese-speaking nation.
This act is abhorrent in the extreme.
When the KMT fields people of this ilk, the best response for the Taiwanese electorate is to consign the party that nominated them and anyone that colludes with them to oblivion at the ballot box.
What is the point of a KMT that no longer opposes the Chinese communists, or a New Party that supports the implementation of “one country, two systems” in Taiwan?
Tzou Jiing-wen is the editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).
Translated by Paul Cooper
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