When Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) was sworn in last week, she said something insightful, although she might not have been aware of its effect or implications.
“Taiwan does not belong only to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but to the entire population of the Republic of China (ROC),” she said.
She has it right if she means no party could claim to represent the nation.
Setting aside the nuance underlying Hung’s “ROC,” the nationals of the ROC are undeniably and exclusively those who are also referred to as Taiwanese and this being the case, why would Hung not agree to the proposition that Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese and its fate should be determined by them? If she does, then she agrees with an essential part of what is generally called the DPP’s “Taiwanese independence” party platform.
On the other hand, it is curious that Hung uttered the remark in the first place, when the DPP, to our knowledge, has never claimed possession of Taiwan. Hung seems to be implying that the right to interpret or shape Taiwan’s “national identity” cannot be monopolized by the DPP.
Hung’s belief that the Taiwanese national identity has become what it is through DPP manipulation of the education system and “brainwashing” when it was in power is understandable, if we are familiar with Hung’s party and its history of authoritarian control of the national narrative and the information in school textbooks. After all, the KMT’s machinations were successful, and Taiwanese in the past prided themselves on being Chinese and had nostalgic and sentimental attachments to the “greatness” of China.
The fact is, the DPP administration was not the initiator of “Taiwanization.” The process started well before 2000, the year the DPP first won the presidency. If former president and KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is someone who the party wishes to disavow, former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) certainly is not. Chiang was the one who foresaw the fate of the party if it failed to “localize” and proclaimed himself Taiwanese — and Chinese. His appointment of Lee as his successor was no doubt part of this drive toward localization.
It was democratization that pushed Chiang to finally lift Martial Law; it was democratization that necessitated the switch from inculcating myths to teaching what is true about this land and what happened to the people who live on it. If the DPP had failed to win power in 2000, the progression could have been slowed, but it would not have been reversed.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday — the anniversary of Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) death — referred to the toppling and defacing of the late dictator’s statues.
While it is OK to criticize Chiang Kai-shek, his contribution to Taiwan should not be negated, he said.
“Chiang [Kai-shek] and his deeds deserve a fair and rational appraisal,” he said, which is true.
However, that would first require a leveling of the playing field: The last thing a democratic country needs is statues in schools and an imposing memorial hall dedicated to an autocrat. Not to mention that the cost of maintaining the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is financially subsidized by public money.
The KMT has a tradition of paying tribute to Chiang Kai-shek at his mausoleum in Taoyuan. The Chinese term used by the party — and knowingly or unknowingly by the public and the media — for this act is ye ling, which means paying homage to the burial place of an emperor or someone of that rank.
Maybe the party can start with dispensing with the term ye ling and make the first tiny step toward keeping up with a democratizing Taiwan.
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
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