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.
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
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
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