Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said yesterday that the Tiananmen Square Massacre, “temporarily obstructed the forward march of [China] mainland,” but that nation then “came back to the path of reform and opening-up after a short while due to the unstoppable trend of modernization for the zhonghua minzu [Chinese nation].”
In a Facebook post concerning the June 4, 1989, massacre, Hung said that every year on the anniversary of the incident she gets a “special feeling.”
“This incident is certainly a mishap and a tragedy. From a long-term historical perspective, 6/4 did temporarily obstruct the mainland’s advance, but since the modernization of the zhonghua minzu is an unstoppable trend, the mainland returned once again to the road of reform and opening up... and has grown rapidly in the past 20 years,” Hung said.
Hung wrote that although she is “not particularly in sync with many of my mainland friends,” her view is that those who participated in the event “contributed greatly to what [China] has achieved with reform and opening up.”
“Regardless of the differences in the views we might have of them, they all reflected a kind of astuteness of the time and a willingness to actively participate in the event. I think it is exactly this willingness that has made Chinese society quickly swing back to the right track of openness,” she wrote.
“Just think about it. Are the calls for democracy and rule of law made by those elites who participated in the June 4 event not exactly what [China] is now heading toward?” she wrote.
Hung also related the KMT to the idea of the Chinese nation.
“Putting aside the clashes in the past [between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT], is the effort the KMT has made in Taiwan not also aimed at finding a better way to democracy and liberty for the children of zhonghua minzu?”
She called for a life full of “tolerance” and “respect” for all “Chinese children.”
“We have seen that the societies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are walking toward this ideal. Since [China] has shown — different from before — its ability to be tolerant, could it then consider granting a more tolerant handling of this historical wound?” Hung wrote.
Former KMT spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) said “fury” is the only emotion he felt after reading Hung’s post.
He accused Hung of writing the post “with the tone of a lackey” who “begs for tolerance from the oppressor and the dictator.”
Yang also lambasted Hung for her “distorted understanding” of the historical connection between the crackdown and reform, claiming that hope for real, comprehensive reforms had all but been destroyed by the incident.
“So in Hung’s mind, China is now on the path to democracy and rule of law under communist rule —— so the only problem remaining for Hung is to have the rulers ‘tolerate’ those June 4 elites for them to ‘participate’ and to have the chance to ‘sacrifice’ themselves in order to contribute to the Chinese nation,” Yang said.
“In the end, this is how a belief in historical truth and universal values is being trumped by Hung’s nationalistic longing as one of the ‘Chinese children,’” Yang said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS