Manipulators use shootings
At about 10pm on Wednesday last week a firearm was fired several times in Beimen District (北門), Tainan. The shooting, in which no one was hurt, appears to have arisen from a dispute between rival solar power contractors. However, it comes at a sensitive time in the run-up to next year’s presidential and legislative elections. Consequently, people with ulterior motives are trying to use the incident to stir up public opinion. It looks very much like a repeat of the “88-bullets shooting” that took place in Tainan’s Syuejia District (學甲) on Nov. 10 last year. In both cases, certain interest groups have sought to make false but plausible accusations to influence people’s voting intentions.
The “88-bullets shooting,” which took place in Tainan shortly before last year’s local elections, sent a shockwave of public opinion across Taiwan, with commentators claiming that there had been a breakdown of law and order and a string of shootings under the governance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The result of the elections was the DPP was kicked out of office in many counties and cities, although the DPP’s Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) was narrowly re-elected as mayor of Tainan.
After the election, the “88-bullets shooting” case was solved, and the main instigator turned out to be Wang Wen-tsung (王文宗), who was one of the major “vote captains” of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Tainan. This revelation showed that the pre-election hullabaloo was a case of a thief shouting “stop thief!”
Now there has been another shooting incident in the run-up to elections. The police have a fair idea about who was involved and have arrested a number of suspects. Nonetheless, influencers in the media and online forums have again been trying to stir up public opinion and rekindle last year’s anger to make political capital. Biased judgements by keyboard warriors pretending to be experts are the wrong approach, and this kind of kangaroo court flies in the face of fairness and justice.
Crime and safety indexes published by the Numbero global database rank Taiwan and its cities third-best in the world in terms of their low crime rate. This is in line with statistics published by the National Police Administration, which show that Taiwan’s crime rate has been falling for seven years in a row and 98.27 percent of cases are solved. These figures show that the rule of law is well established in Taiwan.
As a Tainan resident, I am keen to gain a deeper understanding, so I searched for more information regarding police activities. There were 48 shootings in six metropolitan cities last year, of which only six took place in Tainan. This shows that Tainan’s law-and-order situation does not adversely compare with other major cities. The tide of political opinion stirred up by the “88-bullets shooting” mostly accused the ruling DPP of corruption, tolerance of crime and collusion with vested interests. The occasional use of firearms in anger has led to certain cities being labeled “the city of bullets.”
Historically speaking, shootings that have taken place soon before elections have often been falsely attributed and used to manipulate public opinion. As regards last week’s shooting in Beimen, voters would be wise to adopt the three principles of rationality, pragmatism and science by seeking evidence with a scientific attitude, reviewing the available information and thinking rationally about what actually caused the incident. We can have faith that the police would reveal the truth of the matter.
Bu Mou
Tainan
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