President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) statement commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre yesterday received a mixed reaction from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) condemned it outright.
KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) was not pleased.
“President Ma’s attitude toward the June 4 Incident should not have changed after he became president,” he said. “He should have urged China to improve its human rights conditions in a more formal way.”
KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) urged the public to be understanding because it was up to China to decide whether to address the injustice of the incident and that it would be difficult for Ma to influence China.
KMT Legislator Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) said it was a “pity” that Ma did not highlight human rights violations in China, but nonetheless defended Ma, saying that his position on the issue had been consistent.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said a DPP caucus proposal to call on China to apologize for its military crackdown on civilians was awaiting cross-party negotiation.
When asked for comment on the 20th anniversary of the massacre, Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said the government was concerned about the issue from the viewpoint of human rights.
Su said that countries identified as having poor human rights records should endeavor to make improvements in this regard.
In response to a question about why the language in Ma’s statement was toned down compared with that of previous years, Su said Ma had been consistent in showing concern for human rights.
“It’s unnecessary to take some of [Ma’s] remarks out of context and make it an issue,” he said.
At a separate setting yesterday, DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said Ma’s words would only “rub salt into the wounds” of the tragedy, accusing Ma of “moral decay” for not condemning the injustice of two decades ago.
“The statement does not make any mention of solidarity or request to reverse the verdicts about the June 4 Incident,” Cheng said. “Contrary to all democratic countries that have made redressing the massacre an urgent issue on this day, Ma does not even bother to demand that China disclose the truth or apologize for the brutality.”
Cheng said Ma’s statement only praised China for its reforms over the last 20 years without touching on the violent crackdown. The content of Ma’s message, Cheng said, was almost a carbon copy of what the Chinese government has been asserting whenever the press asks about the incident.
Ma sacrificed Taiwan’s integrity in exchange for sitting at the negotiating table with Beijing, Cheng said, calling Ma a “moral dwarf” who cheated the public when he vowed to seek justice for the student demonstrators, adding that he did so purely to woo voters.
Meanwhile, speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce reception yesterday, American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young said that while the world and the US commemorates the tragedy of the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square demonstration, it was also important to emphasize how far Taiwan had come in its own democratic process in the last two decades.
Young said Taiwan had come an incredible distance in building a vibrant democracy with the emergence of a free press, an independent judicial system and active non-governmental organization involvement.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
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