Taiwan ill-served by Ma
Repeatedly before the January election, I wrote letters to the editor, warning people not to vote for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). My letters were never published.
Now the common working Taiwanese will pay the price. The rich get richer and poverty for many is inevitable. The rich, of course, do not care whether Ma will give Taiwan to China — including the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rich. They would love to take advantage of the low wages that would result.
For young people, it will be impossible to buy a house or an apartment, because prices are controlled by the rich. And, of course, rich Chinese are in the market for those properties.
The large and medium-sized companies have so much money and property that the children of the owners never have to work, because they are already multimillionaires and most of them are lazy. So investments are not made and industry stays as it is, subcontracting for others, as it was 100 years ago.
A good example is England, once a country with a large car industry, thinking they were invincible. What do they have now? Nothing, only problems. Now they are talking about investing, but it is too late.
Taiwan will go the same way, but then again, who cares? If Taiwan becomes a real province of China, nothing will change.
Taiwanese are too nice, they accept everything their leaders tell them to do, they take all the rubbish they make them do, never question them, never ask why.
With a good government and good education, Taiwan could have been like South Korea or even Japan, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), with its stupid and unrealistic ideas about unification, has constantly destroyed those opportunities.
Even a blind person could have seen which way Ma is going, but people voted him in for a second term, believing all the rubbish he promised. Now they regret it, but too late, as usual.
It is also the fault of the DPP, which never really took a stand against corruption. It is common knowledge that most politicians are corrupt in almost every country, but one must make a stand against that. So the DPP should have ended any relationship with former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) after his conviction for corruption.
There are still many good, hard-working young people in Taiwan, and Taiwan is a very beautiful, peace-loving country, so stop calling it the Republic of China or Chinese Taipei, and start calling it Taiwan or Formosa. Be proud of your country, fight for your freedom and rights.
Never allow Taiwan to become part of China, you will all be second-class citizens.
For me, it is easy: I am old and a foreigner, with a company here in Taiwan, and I love it. I work with very nice, smart, hard-working young people, and together we do good business.
However, I can leave any time, as will Ma (to the US, he still has his green card), once he has completed his work and handed Taiwan to China, but Taiwanese will not be allowed to go anywhere, like people in China.
Remember Ma’s T-shirt: “I am a ROC’er.” He really meant: “I am a Chinese.”
Well, I would like to be a Taiwanese.
Gert Floor
Qingshui, Greater Taichung
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