A dispute over whether or not to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War is raging within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) and the Chinese-language United Daily News have joined forces in criticizing former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) visit to China to attend a military parade. However, the reasons they are using to denounce Lien contradict their previous attacks on former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) when he said Japan was his motherland.
This is a classic example of a party in decline. Tired, spent and fading, the KMT’s last resort is to commandeer history and in the process descend into sniping at each other.
The KMT has threatened to revoke Lee’s privileges as a former president, because as a former national leader he cannot call Japan his motherland in the same way an ordinary citizen can. The same argument was made by the United Daily News, which claimed Lien is a retired vice president and therefore cannot say he is visiting China in the capacity of an ordinary citizen.
So a former president cannot be an ordinary citizen. How is it, then, that a president can not only support other politicians’ election campaigns as an individual, he is actually commended for being able to separate his public and private spheres? This makes no sense.
Hau believes it was the KMT’s National Revolutionary Army (NRA) that fought against Japan, not the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and definitely not the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Since only the NRA, which fought against Japan in World War II, can commemorate World War II, Taiwanese have less of a right to commemorate the victory than the PLA, which at least fought a guerrilla war with Japan. If the KMT thinks that the Eighth Route Army cannot take the credit for fighting against Japan, why does the KMT think that it is wrong for Lee to say Taiwanese did not fight against Japan in World War II, so Taiwanese should not commemorate it?
Furthermore, who among the nation’s current military personnel has fought against Japan? Who among the nation’s current government officials has fought against Japan? If the answer is no one, then who has the right to commemorate the victory? The KMT’s ultimate weapon is to claim that it is a historical fact that the Republic of China (ROC) government led the war against Japanese aggression from 1937 to 1945. Hence, whoever rules the ROC government should, in theory, have the right to commemorate the victory.
However, who did the ROC government lead? Chinese, of course. Who is leading Chinese now? The People’s Republic of China (PRC). So, if Chinese want to commemorate the war, and if the commemoration is not conducted by the PRC, then who should do it? The ROC?
There is only one reason for Taiwanese, who did not fight against Japan during the war and are currently ruled by the ROC, to commemorate the victory, and that is for the KMT to monopolize history. Or, more specifically, to let Hau and his dwindling posse monopolize the history of World War II.
This is all they have left. Their vote is collapsing in Taiwan, so they have to capitalize on the past and their own interpretation of the war to monopolize voters, and thereby maintain their hold on the ROC.
This was why they closed ranks against Lee. When that led nowhere, they turned their sights on Lien. They are angry at Lien for having the audacity to expose the truth that it was the Chinese who fought against Japan, and that the ROC government does not govern China.
Shih Chih-yu is a professor of political science at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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