What a coincidence that just a few days before today’s 28th anniversary of the death of Carnegie Mellon University Statistics professor Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), new evidence about the case should suddenly come to light.
Chen’s body was found on the campus of National Taiwan University on July 3, 1981, a day after he was taken away by Taiwan Garrison Command staff for questioning about his pro-democracy activities in the US.
At the time, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authorities claimed Chen’s death was either suicide or an accident, but his family and others have long maintained that the former KMT government murdered him because of his political ideals. No real investigation into Chen’s death has ever been carried out and the truth remains a mystery.
Along with other unsolved White Terror era murders, such as the brutal killings of the family of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) in 1980, the death of Chen is a dark chapter in Taiwan’s history.
In the ensuing period, the Chen and Lin cases have become part of a macabre political circus, with DPP politicians occasionally bringing them up, only for the KMT to accuse them of exploiting the issue for electoral gain.
And while this may be true, the very fact that neither of these cases has ever been solved is the reason that the DPP is able to continue doing so.
While it is also true that during its eight years in power the DPP mostly talked of transitional justice and did not do enough to probe such cases, it is more plausible to believe that these files have long been hidden away and are only now seeing the light of day so they can help the present administration achieve certain aims.
Indeed, the discovery of the new files comes just three months after Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) instructed prosecutors to set up a team to re-investigate Chen’s death and other cases.
Their discovery is all the more interesting because during past investigations, authorities had repeatedly said a written statement made by Chen and audiotapes of his interrogation had disappeared.
But Chen’s interrogation records were reportedly found by officials of the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office in the National Archives a few days ago. This begs the question that if the files were so easy to locate, why didn’t earlier probes uncover them?
Given his past 228 Massacre-related efforts, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made no secret of the fact that he sees himself as the KMT’s “angel of reconciliation.” Any new light shed on such cases could help him cement this position.
But those who hope that one day someone will be brought to justice for these crimes will be disappointed, as doing so would undoubtedly compromise a number of senior KMT and military officials.
So unless the KMT has a major change of heart, the present circus will continue and the families of the victims will have to bear more shallow, half-hearted, stage-managed attempts at reconciliation.
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
RSS