The ROC fantasy
July 25 was a remarkable day for Taiwan. The legislature passed the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例). It launched the legal process of reviewing Taiwan’s sad history since the end of World War II. Taiwanese are finally on the right track, but there is still a long way to go.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) military occupied Taiwan under General Douglas MacArthur’s General Order No. 1. On Sept. 2, 1945, it confiscated all Japanese governmental and private properties in Taiwan. It also shipped Formosan resources to fund its fight in the Chinese Civil War, massacred Taiwanese, depreciated the currency by a 40,000 to 1 ratio, imposed White Terror over the islands, enforced the longest martial law in the world, brainwashed islanders to be Chinese, favored followers with its ill-gotten properties and tax money, and divided people into tiers of “high-class Chinese” and “low-class Taiwanese.”
The most controversial issue of the KMT, a Chinese political party, but enjoying Taiwanese benefits, is that it long manipulated and controlled Taiwan by double standards. It favored and bribed its diehard supporters using unfair profits, such as the notorious 18 percent preferential interest rate. It drained the national treasury, transferring assets into party coffers and then into members’ pockets.
Who paid for all these? Guess what, just the 18 percent preferential interest rate alone sets Taiwan back by NT$82.4 billion (US$2.6 billion) each year. The KMT steals taxpayers’ money to line its own personal bank accounts. It is outrageous.
Unfortunately, the KMT totally denies it.
KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has said that the Democratic Progressive Party wants to destroy her party and its morale, so the KMT must act with even more bravery and vigorous resolve. She alleged the ill-gotten assets bill has destroyed rule of law in Taiwan and upended fair competition between political parties.
What a joke, give me a break. On the contrary, the KMT’s ill-gotten assets have completely destroyed fair competition in Taiwanese elections.
There is a well-known saying in Taiwan: “There is no master of elections, just buy it and you will get it.”
It is how the KMT ran elections in the past — until the Taipei mayoral election in 2014, when the KMT was completely knocked down by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Surprisingly, the KMT voluntarily offered to translate the ill-gotten assets bill into English and send it to international organizations such as Freedom House and the World Society for Human Rights, asking for help to identify KMT assets overseas, while telling the world that passage of the act violated the rule of law.
Well, the world is more than welcome to examine KMT wrongdoing in Taiwan since the end of World War II, including how KMT Overseas Working Committee leaders invested in businesses under their personal names and party assets became their personal assets.
Aside from ill-gotten assets, the KMT seriously abused Taiwanese identity. After 71 years of brainwashing, most Taiwanese believe Taiwan is the Republic of China (ROC) and the ROC is Taiwan.
But what is the ROC? Under the ROC Constitution, it is China, and its territory covers China and Mongolia without Taiwan. Internationally, the ROC was replaced by the People’s Republic of China and expelled from the UN under UN Resolution 2758 on Oct. 25, 1971.
The US stopped recognizing the ROC under the Taiwan Relations Act, effective on Jan. 1, 1979. So, what is Taiwan or the ROC today?
On Aug. 30, 2007, then-US National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Dennis Wilder said: “Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a state in the international community. The position of the United States government is that the ROC — Republic of China — is an issue that is undecided, and it has been left undecided, as you know, for many, many years.”
Well, the advice when most needed is least heeded, faithful words offend the ears and good medicine tastes bitter. After the KMT was defeated, we see clearly that Taiwanese can be their own masters, but if they keep indulging in the fantasy of the ROC, then Taiwan will never be a sovereign nation.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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