The pan-blue camp was on the defensive last week after a research fellow of the Academia Sinica, Wu Nai-teh (
For far too long it has been an orthodoxy in Taiwan -- the result, like so many orthodoxies here, of the blue camp's need to cover up its fascistic suppression of democratic tendencies and four decades of human-rights abuse -- that Chiang was the instigator of democratic reform.
This is rubbish. Chiang was a former secret policeman with possibly more blood on his hands than more notorious and universally reviled figures such as Ferdinand Marcos. His one aim, after his father was justifiably kicked out of China, was to make sure that Taiwan could survive as a haven for his refugee clique and everything he ever did was calculated to that end, be it the jailing or murdering of Taiwanese democracy activists, the co-opting of those Taiwanese prepared to collaborate with his criminal regime, strengthening Taiwan's economy or lifting martial law.
The latter, usually cited as the proof of Chiang's democratic tendencies was in fact a panicky reaction to the overthrow of Marcos the year before in 1986. Chiang realized that the KMT's rabid anti-communism for which the Chiang dynasty had received so much support from the US -- and which had supplied them with a convenient label for Taiwanese democracy activists that allowed the activists to be imprisoned or liquidated without US complaint -- was no longer enough. In the new age of human-rights awareness, Chiang had at least to pretend to care, especially after having just outraged US opinion by having a personal critic murdered on US soil in 1984 -- Henry Liu (江南).
Due to the 13 years of KMT government after Chiang's's death and the reactionary pro-blue camp nature of Taiwan's media, a proper understanding of Chiang Ching-kuo has not filtered down to the public at large. He is still thought of much as he tried to project himself at the time -- an affable father figure prepared to listen to the little man's complaints. The kind of bright light Wu shone on Chiang's murky past needs to be far better known.
This is important because there is no doubt that the blue camp wants to use this mistaken impression of Chiang among voters as part of their election campaign. They have dissociated themselves completely from Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and everything -- including democratization -- that he stood for in his 13 years in office. Given that the inept and stupid Lien Chan (連戰) and the devious and crooked James Soong are poster boys for nothing but failure and political opportunism, where is the alliance to turn for its symbol? Evidently to Chiang, whom apolitical middle-of-the-road voters tend to associate with the economic prosperity of the 1970s and 1980s, rather then the thuggery of the Kaohsiung Incident, the Taiwan garrison command and extra-judicial killings.
The blue camp does not want its icon sullied, so it rose to Wu's criticism with a rabidness that Chiang himself would have sanctioned. Naturally, one of the most vociferous defenders of the reputation of "Mr. Ching-kuo" as the KMT so obsequiously likes to call him, is his bastard son, the legislator John Chang (
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
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