In a conversation with a senior police officer in London, Queen Elizabeth II bluntly said that Chinese officials were “very rude” during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to the UK. That must be quite an embarrassment for a nation claiming to be a “state of courtesy and righteousness” that is establishing Confucius Institutes around the world.
However, the queen was late to catch on: The rudeness displayed by Chinese officials during their visit to the UK pales in comparison with their brutality in dealing with democracy.
China is opposed to democracy and disrespects its own people. After seeing Taiwanese freely electing a new government, Xi spat curses at Taiwan’s government, threatening that “the earth will move and the mountains will shake” in the Taiwan Strait if Taipei does not accept the so-called “1992 consensus” that locks Taiwan into the “one China” framework.
Apart from the threats from Chinese authorities, even Chinese media sing the same tune, threatening Taiwanese in the vulgar vernacular of common street thugs. The uncivilized behavior of some Chinese is 100 or 1,000 times worse than their ignorant violations of diplomatic etiquette in London.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which relocated from China to Taiwan almost seven decades ago, is just as absurd.
After having been ruled by a succession of foreign regimes, Taiwan has finally established a democratic system that allows the public to elect its own government and decide the direction of the nation.
However, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) suppressed democracy through brutal means during his eight years in the Presidential Office and used China’s threats to Taiwan to force Taiwanese to accept the fabricated “1992 consensus.”
The KMT has been just as anti-democratic as Beijing. China criticized the US’ Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, saying that people cannot subsist on human rights, while not long ago, former premier Simon Chang (張善政) challenged the incoming government, asking how many percentage points GDP could be increased through transitional justice. They are sharing the same ideology and look down on human rights and social justice.
Taiwanese politics has always been an entanglement of foreign and local forces. Although the nation has undergone three power transitions, it has yet to look into the accountability of the past foreign regime for causing injustice through coercion.
The KMT regime even copied the Lincoln Memorial in Washington by building the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei to commemorate former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
A few months before stepping down, Ma also abused his power by naming the Presidential Office Building’s auditorium “Ching-kuo Hall” after former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
The younger Chiang was known for his “three noes” policy against the Chinese communists: no contact, no negotiation and no compromise. It is ironic that Ma commemorates his mentor on the one hand and on the other cooperates with Xi against Taiwan.
It seems that both the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party are saying one thing but doing another. Not only do they act rudely, they are oppressing democracy in the extreme.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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