The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) propaganda machine is exploiting a misconception born from lazy thinking that many no longer question.
This is the misconception that the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) China policy is simply to oppose anything related to China.
The DPP conducted a survey on this very topic, and discovered that 40 percent of respondents thought that this was the case.
Given Taiwan’s divided, even polarized political scene, these findings should really come as no surprise, regardless of whether these perceptions have any basis in reality.
The DPP should not worry too much about it, and certainly should not just let the KMT get away with what it is doing with China.
Despite the fact that it is fully aware that the DPP has never opposed the idea of reconciliation or exchanges with China, the KMT still insists on misrepresenting the DPP and labeling it as being unreasonable. However, after all these years of trying to muddy the waters, only 40 percent of respondents to a survey believe the KMT’s stance.
This suggests that the majority of the people in this country can tell the difference between the truth and the misrepresentation of the truth.
China harbors ill will toward Taiwan, and wants to annex it by way of the “one China” framework. The DPP represents Taiwanese awareness, and refuses to accept the “one China” framework. It stands to reason that it will oppose any tricks or measures it deems detrimental to Taiwanese sovereignty, unlike the KMT or its supporters that are willing to concede anything to China.
The Mainland Affairs Council commissioned National Chengchi University to conduct a major survey, which found that 86.6 percent of people advocated the maintenance of the “status quo,” in its broad sense.
Evidently, accepting any measures that would alter Taiwan’s current circumstances is not what the public wants.
Rather, it is the KMT — the party that constantly kowtows to China, and does not prioritize Taiwan — that should be worried by the results of this study.
The party’s leaders should be ashamed of themselves, for it was the KMT itself, when led by former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), that was the party opposed to China on all points, that accused any Taiwanese that had any contact with China of spying for the enemy.
Nowadays, the new KMT leadership is not only investing in the enemy, they are also encouraging the home-grown political party to vie with it in investing in the enemy: to turn its back on its own countrymen and orchestrate the destruction of its own country.
This latest generation of KMT diehards do not care about who has Taiwan’s best interests at heart when choosing whom they comport with, and side with China more for nationalistic reasons than any other. They accept everything to do with China, while rejecting anything related to Japan.
When the movie Kano started playing in movie theaters around the nation, showing the public an aspect of Taiwan’s history they had not seen before, the KMT reacted strongly.
China bears ill will toward Taiwan, wanting to annex it, and yet the KMT never opposes China.
Japan has absolutely no intention to do such a thing, and yet the KMT opposes anything to do with Japan. Its members are blind to the truth, to sense and to reason.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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