When Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) was president of Taiwan, he introduced a policy called “innovation and protection of Taiwan” in response to the political situation at the time. Writing about the Kaohsiung Incident in Biographical Literature magazine, Ruan Da-ren (阮大仁), who had close connections with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), made some interesting revelations. Apparently, when the incident broke out, Chiang’s Taiwanese staff were sickened by what was happening. There was one voice among them, that of Hsieh Tung-min (謝東閔), the first Taiwanese to serve as vice president, who suggested “the firing squad for the lot of ’em.”
Ruan also quoted China Times Group founder Yu Chi-chung (余紀忠) as saying: “Look, it’s not that we are not using Taiwanese people, it’s that we are using the wrong people.”
Basically, you had the exiled KMT government monopolizing the top spots, with a smattering of Taiwanese providing the requisite window dressing. The only difference between the people appointed by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, was that the latter surrounded himself with the second generation of personnel that came here from China. They were a bunch of yes-men who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, try to represent the Taiwanese perspective. It’s no surprise they were “using the wrong people.”
Does any of this sound familiar? The moment President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) got into power, he employed a bunch of Taiwanese and, no matter how senior or important they were, they had all seen better days, a bunch of fawners who answered to his every beck and call.
Ma has inherited his party’s thuggish nature and sees the law as a means to get what he wants. Like Chinese emperors in the past, his instinct is to get rid of officials who served the previous dynasty and whose outsider status gives him cause to doubt their loyalty. Any Taiwanese he has appointed have been for the chop. In what way is this fair or just?
Ma is in it for himself and his cronies. KMT legislators were under orders to force through the Local Government Act (地方制度法), and now he wants an economic cooperation agreement to be signed, binding Taiwan to China. You’ve got officials of Taiwanese nationality carping on about not signing and, as the economy goes down the drain overnight, you have KMT legislators absolving themselves of all responsibility for oversight. And as this is going on, no one gives a damn about how unpopular the policy is.
Chiang Ching-kuo may well have used the wrong Taiwanese people, but at least he stood up against the Chinese communists: He knew where his loyalties lay. Ma doesn’t have any natural affinity with the Taiwanese; the only thing he knows how to do is cling to defeatist policies that are going to ruin the country, with a troupe of Taiwanese cheerleaders egging him on to sell the country down the river, the sooner the better. If this is the way he is going to go about running the country, it’s no surprise the worm is starting to turn.
When Chiang Kai-shek and his son ruled the country with an iron fist, the Taiwanese had to play ball. If they didn’t want to throw in their lot with the KMT, they were pretty much setting themselves up as political dissidents. Since Taiwan became a democracy, however, it has been easier for people with different opinions. Ma and his party might not identify with Taiwan, but that doesn’t mean Taiwanese politicians should go along with the betrayal of their country, ignoring their own conscience.
For over a year the KMT has been getting clobbered in the polls and Ma’s popularity rating has plunged. Policy failings are to blame, as well as the fact that the KMT has finally been found out. But it is also because it has been “using the wrong people.” The electorate is making the KMT pay. But that is democracy for you.
James Wang is a journalist based in Washington.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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