The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been touting the farce of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) visit to kowtow to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), presenting his “great” contributions.
To be fair, Ma’s greatest accomplishment was finally removing all semblance of a smiling and clean-cut disguise, revealing his true colors as a betrayer of the nation.
Xi rendered Ma little more than a pawn in a game of chess. Ma has openly betrayed former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), the nation’s allies, democracy and all Taiwanese.
Amid a new cold war between the opposing camps of democracy and that of dictators and authoritarians, Ma has chosen to stand with the latter — with the likes of Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Most lamentably, Ma’s degradation has filled Xi with glee, yet his servility has also been mocked as “lacking any influence whatsoever.” KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) refuses to accept this valuable lesson, instead tripping over himself to dispatch KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) to the US to put out diplomatic fires, while vaingloriously mocking the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for “being incapable” of accepting China’s conditions for “dialogue.”
Ma used his tears and sobs to raise his clout, but shedding tears for Chiang Kai-shek while ignoring the man’s dying testament to “resolutely hold to the democratic front” by throwing himself into Xi’s communist camp is a complete betrayal of Chiang Kai-shek’s hope to “retake the mainland,” and a repudiation of the US-led democratic camp upon which Taiwan’s security guarantees rely.
In 1982, Ma began to make a name for himself by serving at the side of Chiang Kai-shek’s son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo. However, that year marked a low point for the KMT’s resolve and spirit.
Beijing took advantage of a publicly announced letter written to Chiang junior by Liao Chengzhi (廖承志) — a core CCP member and the son of assassinated KMT founder and anti-Qing revolutionary Liao Chung-kai (廖仲愷) — offering amnesty from the CCP for KMT members who wished to return to China in an attempt to butter up nostalgic KMT party-state officials.
Liao Chengzhi tried manipulating the old memories of his and Chiang Ching-kuo’s friendship from their youth, wanting his “younger brother Ching-kuo” to think twice about the request, “to fulfill one’s destiny as brothers, and let bygones be bygones.”
Chiang Ching-kuo ignored Liao Chengzhi, and Chiang Kai-shek’s wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡), leaning on her status as a seasoned veteran of political machinations, angrily rebuked Liao’s use of “fulfilling the filial ambitions of your elders” in an attempt to persuade her stepson to “make a complete change of heart and return to the motherland for the sake of your ancestors, settle into a simple life of indifference toward worldly affairs and renounce your views, living out the rest of your days in peace and tranquility.”
Ma has taken up the phrase “fulfilling one’s destiny,” throwing himself into Xi’s arms. Using Soong’s admonishment of Liao Chengzhi’s letter to chide Ma would be highly apropos.
Xi found a pawn in Ma and has proverbially ordered him to dig three chasms to jump over to show his loyalty — and jump he has.
Ma denies Taiwan’s status as a nation, and he is opposed to the talks held between the US, Japan and the Philippines. In worshiping the first Chinese emperor, he is always trying to smuggle the “one China” falsehood into Taiwan.
Ma ascending the Great Wall alongside CCP core party members, together belting out Second Sino-Japanese War-era military songs such as the Ballad of the Great Wall, all the while shedding tears, is utterly hypocritical and revolting.
He would not dare to belt out the KMT’s version of the ballad that they refashioned after their exile to Taiwan, which contains the excoriating lyrics: “Starting with Zhu De [朱德] and Mao Zedong’s [毛澤東] national betrayal, raping and pillaging as they caused hardship, their immoral liquidation of those who opposed them, casting out flesh and blood, and abandoning fathers and mothers to die.”
Instead, Ma vowed to “destroy China’s great traitors,” — implying Taiwanese.
Thousands of years ago during the Qin Dynasty, Lady Meng Jiang (孟姜女) shed tears of lamentation on the Great Wall as she watched her courtier husband working in forced labor on it — tears which bore opposition to a despotic imperial regime and a profound love for her husband.
In stark contrast, Ma’s tears shed on the Great Wall show nothing more than capitulation to a despotic regime and a betrayal of the nation’s allies and the “Chinese Nationalist Party.”
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Tim Smith
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