Anyone familiar with Chinese history or who has read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms knows that the greatest way to defeat an opponent is to divide it and conquer it.
Moving from the battlefield to politics, the same principle applies, and the best way to ensure defeat is to provide one’s opponent with the opportunity to create divisions and exploit weaknesses. When divisions exist and are so serious as to threaten the stability of a fighting force, an opponent need not fight to the fullest of its abilities to ensure victory; all it has to do is aim repeatedly for the chink in the armor until victory is achieved.
Saturday’s “anti-Ma, anti-China” demonstration will be an important test for the pan-green camp and its ability to present a united front in the face of a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government that has repeatedly undermined, by design and incompetence, the stability and viability of Taiwan as a sovereign state.
The rally will be a venue for Taiwanese who disagree with the approach of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to peacemaking with China, which has been carried out in haste and, in many aspects, without the consent of the people. In this respect, the demonstration should set colors aside and embrace pan-blue supporters who voted for Ma, but who disagree with his pro-China policies.
But all this could come to nothing if the demonstrating camp allows itself to be fractured and fails to coalesce into a unified political force.
At the source of the division that threatens the stability of the pan-green camp is former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), whose alleged money-laundering has prompted pan-green supporters to distance themselves from him. Many, in fact, have opposed Chen’s participation in Saturday’s event.
Given the seriousness of the situation that faces the nation, it is no time for disunity in the pan-green camp, let alone for assumptions of guilt before a court verdict has been rendered. Whatever Chen may or may not have done with the “state affairs funds” and other money from state coffers, the fact remains that his is an unwavering voice for Taiwan’s right to exist as an independent country and that his administration made tremendous accomplishments in developing Taiwanese consciousness. For this alone, Chen should be allowed to participate.
Still — and he has already said he would do so — Chen must avoid the temptation to seize the spotlight (admittedly not an easy feat in his case) and, if he shows up, will have to do so as an ordinary citizen.
A low-key Chen on Saturday, added to respect by all for his right to participate, would do pan-green unity tremendous good and inoculate the opposition against KMT and Chinese Communist Party attempts to force open a wedge and break it once and for all.
The task at hand is formidable and if Taiwanese are to succeed, they must put small differences, egos and grudges aside and push in the same direction. Any deviation will only make it easier for the Ma administration to ignore the criticism directed at it and to press on with policies that put the survival of the nation on the sacrificial altar.
Taiwan cannot afford to go the way of the defeated in the Three Kingdoms.
An outrageous dismissal of the exemplary Taiwanese fight against COVID-19 has been perpetrated by the EU. There is no excuse. I presume that everyone who reads the Taipei Times knows that the EU has excluded Taiwan from its so-called “safe list,” which permits citizens unhindered travel to and from the countries of the EU. As the EU does not feel that it needs to explain the character of this exclusive list, perhaps we should examine it ourselves in some detail. There are 14 nations on the list that have been chosen as safe countries of origin and safe countries of destination for
Filmmakers in Taiwan used to struggle when it came to telling a story that could resonate internationally. Things started to change when the 2017 drama series The Teenage Psychic (通靈少女), a collaboration between HBO Asia and Taiwanese Public Television Service (PTS), became a huge hit not just locally, but also internationally. The coming-of-age story was adapted from the 2013 PTS-produced short film The Busy Young Psychic (神算). Entirely filmed in Taiwan, the Mandarin-language series even made it on HBO’s streaming platforms in the US. It is proof that a well-told Taiwanese story can absolutely win the hearts and minds of hard-to-please
Drugged with sedatives, handcuffed and wearing a bright orange prison tunic, British fraud investigator and former journalist Peter Humphrey was escorted by warders into an interrogation room filled with reporters, locked inside a steel cage and fastened to a metal “tiger chair.” Humphrey recalls: “I was completely surrounded by officers, dazed, manacled and with cameras pointing at me through the bars. I was fighting for my life like a caged animal. It was horrifying.” Footage from the interrogation was later artfully edited to give the appearance of a confession and broadcast on Chinese state media. While this might sound like an
The US House of Representatives on July 1 passed by unanimous consent a bipartisan bill that would penalize Chinese officials who implement Beijing’s new national security legislation in Hong Kong, as well as banks that do business with them. The following day, the US Senate unanimously passed the bill, which was later sent to the White House, where it awaits US President Donald Trump’s signature. The bill does not spell out what the sanctions would look like and Trump has yet to sign it into law, but Reuters on Thursday last week reported that five major Chinese state lenders are considering
RSS