To force former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to surrender power, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promoted the slogan the "transition of generations" to suggest that both Lien and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) should retire.
But do Lien, Soong and Ma really belong to different generations? Of course not. All of them are sons of high-level government officials -- the so-called second generation of the KMT's foreign regime. They were all promoted by former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), and all maintain the "legitimate authority" of the KMT. They belong to the same generation.
From this perspective, we can clearly see why the 64-year-old Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) -- 55-year-old Ma's party rival -- has been excluded from this generation: Their ancestry and ethnicity matter more than their age. Although Wang has devoted his entire life to the KMT, he was unable to inherit the mantle for party rule in the face of Ma's blood ties with the party.
Ma has become the pan-blue camp's "savior." The foreign regime wants him to win the 2008 presidential election, and put the KMT back in power. Why else would he have said that his party will "restore" Taiwan at a ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the Anti-Japanese War. He said: "The Republic of China [ROC] defeated Japan in the past with both willpower and bravery. The KMT has to restore Taiwan again with this spirit."
Isn't it funny? In Ma's eyes, Japan and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are exactly the same. Only the KMT's rule of Taiwan is the unchangeable truth. Isn't he taking Taiwan as the property of his party?
A foreign regime cannot tolerate the ruled gaining power, for it cannot tolerate the transformation of its slaves into masters. This is why Ma is attempting to rewrite Taiwan's history.
Ma is making a great effort to reconstruct the historical relationship between the KMT and Taiwan to highlight the party's ownership of Taiwan's sovereignty. Isn't this similar to his claim of restoring Taiwan? The reconstruction and restoration claims show that he has taken Taiwan and the Taiwanese people as his party's property. His attempt to win the 2008 election is to place the Taiwanese people under his party's rule again.
Ma at one point cited a proverb about thanking the tree when we eat its fruit. He criticized President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) government for not thanking the "tree" (the KMT) while eating its fruit. Using this logic, isn't it despicable of the DPP to hack at the KMT tree by investigating its party assets or the White Terror era after enjoying its fruit? Isn't Ma's party pitiful under such circumstances? The tears in his eyes when he made the criticism were not surprising at all; his reaction matched this logic completely.
If the KMT really is not a foreign regime, why should Ma try so hard to connect the party to the island? It only shows more clearly that Taiwan is Taiwan, and the KMT is the KMT. Otherwise, why should he try to connect them by reconstructing history?
The reality is that Taiwan's history has its own continuity. We cannot take it out of context, nor can we reconstruct it.
Ma's statement was not able to erase the memory of former president Chiang Kai-shek's (
Are the Taiwanese people really that stupid? Will they fall for Ma's words after being fooled for 50 years? Obviously, he has underestimated Taiwan and its people.
Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of the Contemporary Monthly magazine.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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