During former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) time in office, writing a new constitution and rectifying the nation’s name were the lofty goals of the pro-localization camp. Since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008, the wind has gone out of these calls and now Ma and his clique are instead working hard to promote Taiwan’s alien Constitution by trying to firmly bring the nation into the “one China” constitutional framework.
Writing a new constitution and rectifying the nation’s name are the rights of a people, but after shedding the status of being colonized by the Japanese and then being brainwashed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government into believing that they are Chinese, Taiwanese have been unwilling or unable to change the “Chinese” Constitution that has been forced on them. The reason for this is that the KMT keeps threatening that doing so would cause China to use military force against Taiwan and because it treats its legislators and the voters that support it as obedient crooks.
Now Ma cares even less about his pledge that Taiwanese will be allowed to decide the nation’s future as he single-mindedly directs all his efforts toward integrating Taiwan with China and uses Taiwan’s alien Constitution to put pressure on the public by relying on the document to prove his lies and justify his dependence on China. Using an anachronistic Constitution to try to turn back history is yet another way of raping the people of Taiwan.
The pro-localization camp is working to bring about a constitution that respects realities and the people’s choice and that lays a foundation for the normal development of Taiwan. Ma and his clique, on the other hand, are working for a constitution that brainwashes the people and forces their national identification, thus depriving the public of their right to choose by making the integration of Taiwan with China the only alternative.
The mindset of Ma and his clique as they pursue their constitution does not differ in the slightest from the mindset of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) when he first seized Taiwan.
Chiang wanted to annex Taiwan and integrate it with China, while remolding the “Japanized” Taiwanese, making them Chinese.
Ma also wants to integrate Taiwan with China and remold all Taiwanese, both “New Taiwanese” and old, to make them Chinese. By using fairy tales as he makes his case for “one China,” Ma is humiliated abroad and has to resort to obscurantism domestically. His goal is to create a situation in which Beijing can claim that Taiwan is a part of China.
In their failing efforts to improve the economy, Ma and his clique have proved that they are inept as they resort to ideology and work for an empty constitution. They are using radical KMT activists — unhappy to be Taiwanese, but unwilling to move back to their “mother country” — to push through their unreasonable agenda by defiantly advancing a neocolonial education system and demanding that textbooks comply with the “spirit” of an empty constitution.
Ma is combining the roles of intellectuals and the media with China’s dictatorial system, turning both intellectuals and media outlets into lackeys of the Chinese government. If intellectuals willingly corrupt themselves, they will only facilitate a dictatorial and inept tyranny that will corrupt the whole nation.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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