Stating the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) shares close historical links with Taiwan, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Sunday that the party would soon present a detailed position paper which will emphasize the party's bonds with Taiwan and hence dispel allegations that the KMT is an "alien regime."
Given the massive problems that the new party chairman has in revamping the 111-year-old KMT's image -- convincing people that its kleptomania has been cured, for example -- it is puzzling that he thought the best place to start was in the distortion and fabrication of history. Or, then again, perhaps not, given Ma's well-known problems with the truth.
According to Ma's remarks to the Central Review Committee -- whose membership is comprised mainly of the party old guard -- the party historically has been a friend of Taiwan because KMT founder Sun Yat-sen (
Actually anyone with a knowledge of the history of those times knows that it was Japan, not Taiwan, which was the main base of activity of the revolutionary movement.
It is also worth noting that when Lin Hsien-tang (
Taiwan was abandoned by the KMT to sort out its own problems.
In another attempt to emphasize Sun's connection with Taiwan, Ma mentioned how Sun, who then was strapped for funds under the rule of military strong-man Yuan Shih-kai (
And of course whatever Taiwanese sympathy there may have been for Sun at the turn of the last century, this has nothing to do with supporting the brutal instrument of Chiang Kai-shek's (
Actually the link is even more tenuous. The history of the KMT can be traced back to the Society for Regenerating China (
Ma went on also to say that "the KMT is not a foreign regime and that its demand to restore Taiwan during the War of Resistance [World War II] suggests the KMT harbored a pro-localization spirit."
This remark is Ma at his most mendacious. Other than a handful of Taiwanese such as Lien Chen-tung (
There is nothing wrong with the idea of the KMT having a "Taiwan discourse," and beginning to talk about history -- something the party has long neglected. But Ma's treatment of it shows that this is a subject on which the KMT cannot be trusted. Generations of dictatorship suppressing the truth has resulted in the KMT believing its own lies. Perhaps even Ma doesn't know the truth.
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