After a recent TV campaign blitz launched by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) re-election campaign office featuring the Republic of China (ROC) national flag, one cannot help but wonder whether Ma’s campaign staff are deranged or are simply assuming for some unknown reason that Taiwanese will not remember Ma’s track record on the national flag.
One TV ad released by Ma’s campaign office focused on the passion Taiwanese feel for the flag and the nation, while another thanked anyone who had ever waved an ROC flag, praising their patriotism and calling them the true guardians of the nation’s dignity.
Unfortunately for Ma, while he may see nothing ironic about holding himself up as a defender of Taiwanese dignity, the two TV ads remind people of the way the ROC flag has been trampled on during his three years in office.
Ma’s crimes against the flag can be traced back even further.
As Taipei mayor he urged soccer fans not to display ROC national flags at Taipei City’s Zhongshan Soccer Stadium when it hosted the 2001 Asian Women’s Soccer Championship.
Even if people have trouble remembering that far back, they are unlikely to have forgotten how in 2005 Ma instructed the Taipei City Government — then co-sponsor of the Asian Judo Championship and the International Auto Gymkhana — to dissuade fans from bringing national flags to competition venues.
Ma’s love of the flag has been no more in evidence since he became president in May 2008.
Indeed, images of policemen forcefuly removing ROC flags when Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited in November that year are a defining moment of Ma’s presidency for many.
If not that incident, then how about the way ROC national flags were removed along the route the day the two giant pandas sent as a gift by China arrived in Taiwan and made their way from the airport to the Taipei Zoo.
Here is another example: Less than a year ago, spectators attending a basketball game between Taiwan University All-Stars and China’s Tianjin Polytechnic University at Kainan University in Taoyuan, were “asked” to take down a 1m high ROC flag.
Perhaps we should applaud Ma’s boldness and take it as a case of “better late than never” now that he and his campaign team are publicly encouraging Taiwanese to wave ROC flags as an expression of patriotism.
However, as neither ad bothers to apologize for Ma’s record of banning the display of ROC flags, the public has every right to be suspicious about this sudden embrace of the flag as a patriotic symbol, less than four months before a presidential election.
However heart-warming and uplifting these TV ads might be, ignoring Ma’s history of flag abuse in the face of Chinese pressure might make for a good ad, but the willingness to cynically edit history for political ends is simply unbecoming to a vibrant democracy and indicative of a mind-set that Taiwanese must reject outright.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS