Print

Mail

wiki links

May Chin's campaign misses the real threat

Amid the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) divide-and-conquer campaign against Taiwan, some Taiwanese politicians are following the CCP's lead, whether consciously or otherwise.

One of these politicians is the former actress and incumbent independent legislator May Chin (高金素梅). Recently she led some people in a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York against the mistreatment of indigenous peoples in Taiwan during the Japanese era.

Their protest was not reported by any of the major US media outlets, and the UN refused to send someone to accept the letter the demonstrators wanted to hand over. Only CCP-friendly media outlets in the US and Beijing's communist newspaper covered the story as if a major scoop had fallen in their laps.

Not long ago, Chin applied for admission to the CCP's Central University for Nationalities in Beijing. In the eyes of the Beijing dictators, this "yearning for the motherland" has increased her value to the CCP's "united front" -- its time-honored divide-and-conquer tactics.

Bai Yansong (白岩松), a show host on China Central Television (CCTV), a CCP mouthpiece, even traveled all the way to Taipei to interview Chin. During the interview, she made references to "us minorities" in every second sentence. The CCP's propaganda outlets made it sound as if this popularly elected legislator from Taiwan was a representative from Tibet or Xinjiang to China's National People's Congress.

When she talked about herself, the word "legislator" was placed in quotation marks to emphasize that Taiwan's "legislators" aren't really legislators -- with no complaint from Chin.

Taiwan was ruled by Japan, and during World War II, the Japanese slaughtered many innocent Taiwanese. This, of course, is historical fact, and should be morally condemned. But today, Beijing is deliberately fanning anti-Japanese sentiment in China, so the repeated requests that Japan apologize for its World War II atrocities are not an attempt to serve justice.

What's more, Beijing is not at all qualified to make such requests. During 56 years of Communist rule, the CCP may have killed as many as 80 million Chinese. This slaughter still goes on today. According to international human rights groups, executions in China last year made up 90 percent of all the world's executions.

In the many interviews with Chin, however, we have heard no condemnations, nor have we seen her show any concern for Chinese women's human rights.

Democratic Japan has not deployed a single missile aimed at Taiwan, nor does it intend to annex Taiwan. Instead, Tokyo has made an unambiguous declaration that the Taiwan Strait's security is a common strategic objective that it shares with the US. Next to the US, Japan is the biggest power protecting the security of Taiwan.

Public opinion polls show that 81 percent of the Japanese people support UN membership for Taiwan. Chin, however, continues to protest against Japan's past actions, although she never protests against the CCP's military threats against Taiwan or the pressure it applies on Taiwan in the international community.

The CCP's purpose for opposing Japan is to stir up nationalist sentiment to protect its hold on power. Chin's anti-Japanese stance pleases Beijing -- its embassy in Japan supports her, the Taiwan Affairs Office praises her, and CCP media laud her. A representative of the CCP propaganda department branch at the Central University for Nationalities even informed the media that Chin had been accepted by the school. I wonder what performance Chin will put on after she graduates from the CCP's elite brainwashing university.

Cao Changqing is a writer based in the US.

Translated by Perry Svensson
This story has been viewed 1201 times.