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Ma's youth corps set to produce dictators

After taking over as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been intensely engaged in the organization of a KMT youth corps. The leadership of this youth corps is to be made up of the sons of former top KMT officials in an obvious attempt to use this "princeling party" to restore their power.

The establishment of such an organization is totally preposterous. In a democratic country, a political party is just that, and there should be no such "reserves." In the US, it would be inconceivable that the Democratic or Republican party would organize a youth corps. It takes a dictatorial party to set up that kind of organization, as exemplified by the Chinese Communist Party's Communist Youth League of China, the KMT's Three Principles of the People Youth Group -- which became the China Youth Corps after the KMT's move to Taiwan -- and the Hitler Youth and the SS in Nazi Germany.

Why is it that only dictatorial parties set up this kind of organization? Because the purpose -- besides providing new blood for a party aimed at despotism -- is to take advantage of the ease of communication between young people of the same age and the ease of creating enthusiasm over ideological issues among youth, thereby undertaking a process of ideological brainwashing. Only dictators need to resort to such methods. Democratic parties that are open to the possibility of relinquishing their hold on power rely on mature governance and policymaking rather than ideological fanaticism to maintain or regain power.

With the KMT's despotic past still fresh in our minds and its dictatorial image still deeply imprinted in our hearts, the party should avoid setting up this kind of organization, if only to avoid suspicion. But the KMT is being loud in promoting its plan. According to the US-based Chinese-language newspaper World Journal, Ma has even said that he hopes the youth corps will produce a new Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

Who is Hu, apart from being China's president? According to the US magazine Parade, Hu ranks sixth on a list of the world's 10 biggest dictators. When the KMT, which claims to be a democratic party, expresses hope that its youth corps will create a future national leader, it should not use Hu as an example. Hu is the leader of a dictatorship aiming several hundred missiles at Taiwan. When making this kind of comparison, Ma could just as well be saying that he hopes that the KMT's youth corps will produce another Hitler.

Earlier on, Ma even said that in the future there would be nothing wrong with an alumnus of Peking University or Renmin University becoming chairperson of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, while a graduate of National Taiwan University or National Tsing Hua University could become the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO).

The problem with Ma's statement is not that he lends recognition to Chinese degrees, but that he is totally indifferent to the brainwashing that constitutes education in China, and that he acknowledges the TAO, an organization whose ultimate mission is to swallow Taiwan. In his recent interview with Newsweek, he even said that "For our party, the eventual goal is reunification."

Why did Ma use Hu to describe a future KMT presidential candidate? Why was he so friendly toward the TAO? Why did he opt for "reunification" as his party's eventual goal, rather than respecting voters' right to choose and considering people's happiness? Apart from the fact that Ma has not emerged from under the shadow of one-man dictatorial rule, his words also reveal what the KMT expects from a prospective presidential candidate.

Cao Changqing is a Chinese dissident and writer based in the US.

TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON AND LIN YA-TI
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