Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) continues to imitate Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) political stance by saying that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family.”
Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), one of the student leaders of the 2014 Sunflower movement, said in an op-ed in the British publication The Diplomat: “Ko’s accommodation of Beijing has not assuaged its assertiveness toward Taiwan in any way. Rather, it has given Beijing more leverage to infiltrate Taiwan’s domestic political debates and signaled a reincarnation of the KMT’s [Chinese Nationalist Party] past approach.”
Ko’s Internet army attacked the article, with some even labeling Lin a “pro-Taiwanese independence dog” (台獨狗).
Ko’s opportunistic defense of Taiwan and China being “one family” and “a community of shared destiny” prompted Lin to write: “As a rising political force, Ko’s tendency to embrace ‘one China’ has introduced a complicating factor into Taiwan’s future trajectory... Neglecting the fact that ‘the two sides of the Strait are one family’ serves as a core concept of Beijing which traps Taiwan in an endless cycle of independence-unification debates will not help us to transcend domestic divergence.”
Compared with New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), a political hypocrite, and NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who told Ko to “eat shit” for supporting the “one family” claim, but then flip-flopped on the issue, the clear and resolute attitude that Lin — a young Taiwanese of the new era — holds toward Taiwanese identity is quite significant.
Lin not only criticized Ko and slapped the NPP in the face, but also clearly delineated between choosing Taiwan and choosing China in the Nov. 24 nine-in-one municipal elections.
Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智), Taipei mayoral candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, has also demanded to be told the difference between Ko’s “one family” and the KMT’s so-called “1992 consensus.”
Ko brags that he has left a deep “imprint” on the under-30 generation, believing that young people forgive him and support his mistaken position. For this reason, he continues to play the blue-green card to attract young voters dissatisfied with politics and to distinguish himself from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who steadfastly refuses to recognize the “1992 consensus,” by supporting Xi’s invasive “one family” stance.
Since bowing to China politically, Ko has won praise from Beijing, as well as China’s political groups and media, but he is shredding Taiwanese values, confusing the national identity and inciting conflict.
Shocking all of Taiwan, the Sunflower movement — civil disobedience that went beyond the blue-green divide — was launched by young Taiwanese against then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pro-China policies and the “1992 consensus” of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party.
By contrast, Ko has been manipulating opposition between the blue and green camps and their divergence on national identity until he has fallen in line with former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰), People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), Ma and their “one China” policy.
Lin became the target of a broad offensive by Ko’s Internet army shortly after his article was published, but Ko did not respond until two days later, using his same sly way of answering factual criticism with meaningless responses.
The values of the Sunflower movement are clearly punching holes in Ko’s deceitful “one family” campaign, his way of charming the younger generation.
Chen Tsai-neng is a doctoral student at National Chung Hsing University’s Graduate Institute of International Politics.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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