Since the new legislative session has begun, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has several legislative items it ought to take care of. Instead, it is trying to ram specific legislation through. The past few months have provided many examples.
First is the KMT’s rush to prioritize reducing the years of residency required for Chinese spouses to naturalize from six to four. The KMT refers to these spouses as “mainlander spouses.”
There are many Chinese in their 50s and 60s who go to Japan on language-study visas. After they start their “studies,” they immediately rush to hospitals. Many of them have cancer, kidney or liver issues requiring dialysis treatment. The sky-high price tags of name-brand pharmaceuticals leads to cost-sharing among such Chinese living in Japan. Extensive treatment costs an annual average of about ￥1.64 million (US$10,811). They only need to pay ￥600,000.
The remainder is picked up by Japanese taxpayers. There was an absurd case where 12 Chinese listed the same residence on their Japanese health insurance cards — the residence was a tiny two-bedroom flat. They used family dependency ties to add one another to health insurance cards. Japan’s medical insurance system is quickly being subsumed and gamed.
Chinese are foreigners in Japan, but the KMT sees Chinese spouses as if they were Republic of China citizens.
It is natural that Chinese spouses who follow their Taiwanese spouses here would be considered family dependents and ultimately become Taiwanese nationals — but not their extended families.
Not only would Taiwan’s system be dragged down by such an influx, but China would ultimately use this method to “overwhelm the border” to “unite” with Taiwan.
Even if the residency requirements for Chinese spouses are not shortened, such a denouement would come to a head sooner or later. Not long after the start of the new legislative session, KMT legislators fell over one another to get to the podium to submit their bill. What is their motive? Does their bill benefit Taiwan’s national economy and well-being?
An online survey by pan-blue camp media outlet TVBS showed that more than 80 percent of respondents oppose shortening the residency requirements for Chinese spouses. Only about 10 percent were in favor. With the responses so heavily opposed to the KMT’s position, the KMT ought not to go against the public. Is it unwilling to disobey the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)?
A second example is the discussion of absentee voting.
The KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party are actively promoting absentee voting from within China, and they are pointing to the US’ absentee voting system as their model. There is nothing wrong with comparing Taiwan with the US, but the two parties really ought to fight for the mutual establishment of Chinese and Taiwanese embassies in each other’s countries. Taiwanese could be like Americans in China: All they would have to do is go to a Taiwanese embassy or consulate there and cast our ballots. How would that be? If the two parties want to go ahead with absentee voting from China, then this is something they ought to try. Otherwise, having absentee voting within an autocratic country that does not have elections or voting seems like nothing more than an argument in bad faith.
Further, KMT legislators suddenly demanded that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pay an official visit and review troops stationed on Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) as a means of declaring sovereignty over it before the end of her second presidential term. This is hubris, pure and simple. Does Itu Aba not have Taiwanese troops stationed there? What is the issue with sovereignty over the territory?
The KMT still denies Taiwan’s independence, sovereignty and self-determination. Why is it now all of a sudden demanding that Taiwan “show” its sovereignty over the island? This is absurd.
There are multiple potential flashpoints in the South China Sea and the pan-blue camp blames the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for “imperiling the nation with war.” The pan-blue camp often accuses the pan-green camp of “provoking” China, but it is choosing to strike a sensitive nerve prior to president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration.
KMT Legislator-at-large Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), who has been accused of leaking military secrets, said that if Tsai does not go, then she would go herself on May 20. They want Tsai to fly there on May 16, mere days before Lai takes office. If Ma is so bothered by Lai’s inauguration, perhaps she should go abroad on vacation instead of being such an insufferable nuisance.
There are several matters that the KMT ought to deal with, but which it is loath to touch. It has been restrained by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for more than a year and China’s next steps are unclear, so why has the KMT not spoken up?
Following Hong Kong’s amendment of Article 23 in the Basic Law, which governs the territory, several countries have voiced opposition. The UK’s foreign minister went even further in his criticism:
First, conditions are becoming much more difficult for many people living, working and doing business in Hong Kong.
Second, the freedoms of speech and assembly and free media have been continuously eroded.
Third, the new law is undermining the enforcement of Hong Kong’s binding international obligations.
Only the KMT, sitting in an independent Taiwan, has not said anything. The name “China” is in the party’s name after all.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) returned to his “motherland” on April Fool’s Day to meet with the CCP. Would he be willing to raise these issues with the CCP? Maybe it would be better if he asked those in the “motherland” when they plan to democratize.
Perhaps they could move the KMT back over to China and have them compete with the CCP in open and fair elections.
Lee Hsiao-feng is a professor emeritus of the Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture at the National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Tim Smith
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