Former Toronto-based Government Information Office official Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) returned to Taiwan on Tuesday amid clashes between Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters and Kuo’s friends at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. This farce should stop here.
The Kuo incident is simple. He asserted in his blog entries: “Daiwan [歹丸, a mandarin homophone for the Hoklo pronunciation of “Taiwan” that means “wicked pill”] has reached a dead-end. There is no turning back and all that remains is armed liberation followed by dictatorship.”
“After securing Taiwan by force, there must be no political freedom. Many years must be spent suppressing and eliminating the opposition and ideological reform must be carried out to thoroughly remove the cancer,” he wrote.
Someone with such opinions of course is not suitable to be a civil servant, especially not in an overseas managerial position. This is also the consensus reached between the pan-green and pan-blue camps since the scandal surfaced.
With Kuo dismissed from office, he is now considered a civilian, entitled to freedom of speech and the right to appeal. Whatever he says and however arrogant he may be, there is no need to further delve into the issue.
Frankly speaking, Kuo is merely an advocate of immediate unification with China who lost his job because he was caught red-handed. He refused to reveal his online pseudonym because he knew it was inappropriate for public servants to make such statements and because he did not want to lose his high-paying government job. Now he has lost his job and become a hero for the Republic of China Patriots Association (中華愛國同心會).
However, no matter what he decides to do next, Kuo has been stripped of his civil servant status and consequentially has the right to say what he dared not say before as well as the right to advocate unification between Taiwan and China. He can even establish his own political party.
Kuo’s comments have angered pan-green supporters. Some suggested that he be arrested and some sued him for inciting rebellion and treason, while others will try to sue him for ethnic discrimination. But since Article 100 of the Criminal Code was amended so that only people attempting to overturn the government using violence and intimidation can be charged with sedition, no one has been charged for expressing their opinion.
It is even less necessary to accuse Kuo of ethnic discrimination. In Taiwan, everyone is ethnically biased to some extent. A study conducted by Academia Sinica shows that even now, many Mainlanders and ethnic Taiwanese still will not let their daughters marry Hakka because they are “stingy.” Many ethnic Taiwanese and Hakka believe Mainlander husbands are less chauvinist, and Hakka women in particular prefer marrying Mainlanders. Very few Mainlanders, ethnic Taiwanese or Hakka want their daughters to marry Aborigines.
I hope these biases will disappear forever, but the division into in-groups and out-groups is meant to strengthen self-identity and always gives rise to in-group prejudice. Even elementary school students tend to think they are better than those in other classes. If we want to keep prejudice and discrimination in check by legal punishment, we all would likely break the law unknowingly. This is why the proposed ethnic equality act must not be passed.
We have lost a Toronto-based official and gained one more open supporter of immediate unification. So what? Does Taiwan really need to fear one additional single individual or political party supporting unification with China?
Liang Wen-chieh is deputy director of the New Society for Taiwan.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under