Politicians often appear to speak in a vacuum, uttering promises and platitudes at odds with reality, no more so than during election campaigns.
This was again highlighted this week by a Facebook posting in which Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate, voiced full support for a refugee law to help pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, while criticizing President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for not doing more to help those seeking to flee the territory.
Han appeared to be piggybacking on criticism last weekend by Hong Kong Baptist University Students’ Union president Keith Fong (方仲賢) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which he said lacked measures to support Hong Kong protesters and appeared to be just using the blood of Hong Kongers to get votes.
Han echoed Fong on Tuesday, saying that Tsai was just using the Hong Kong unrest as a campaign “tool,” but was undercut that evening when Fong retracted and apologized for his initial tweet, saying that he had not meant to criticize the Taiwanese government, but to stress that Hong Kong and Taiwan need to work together to fight against communist totalitarianism.
The student leader wrapped up his apology by saying that he hoped Taiwanese “can elect a president who truly represents Taiwan. After all, Taiwan has experienced the KMT’s long-term iron-handed rule, and its martyrs have proved … that democracy does not come easily.”
Han appeared to have missed that update, as on Thursday he criticized the DPP for “being coy” about pushing through a refugee law, calling it “a main dish that should be put on the table” and declaring “human rights are the essence of democracy and democracy is an extension of human rights.”
The irony of a KMT member, much less its presidential candidate, lecturing the DPP on human rights being a core ingredient of democracy was a vivid reminder not only of just how removed the KMT is from the reality of modern-day Taiwan, but of its distorted vision of its party history.
Han is also patently ignoring the fact that the KMT has had plenty of chances to pass a refugee bill, both when it was in power and when it held a legislative majority as the opposition party.
The Ministry of the Interior first submitted a draft refugee act in 2005, when the DPP held the presidency and the KMT controlled the Legislative Yuan, but it failed to pass, as did a subsequent version pushed by the Mainland Affairs Council in early 2008.
On Dec. 31, 2009, the then-KMT Cabinet approved a draft refugee law, but it languished in the legislature.
In 2013, a new version was proposed by lawmakers across party lines and referred to a committee for review, but never made it back to the floor for passage.
The KMT blocked a later bid to pass a refugee bill, as it did after the Tsai administration took office and in July 2016 proposed a version of the 2005 draft.
The sticking points with all of these attempts over the years has been how to define a refugee and how to handle potential asylum requests from Chinese citizens, residents of Hong Kong and Macau, and Tibetans, as under the Republic of China Constitution, such people cannot be considered foreigners.
Yet the Tsai administration and the DPP cannot escape some blame, and its top officials are being disingenuous when they say that current laws could cover Hong Kongers and Macanese seeking refuge in Taiwan — such statements are as removed from reality as the KMT’s.
Absent a true refugee law, with the requisite administrative, regulatory and statutory support and infrastructure, asylum seekers are left stranded, dependent on civic groups and non-governmental organizations for legal and financial help to stay in Taiwan on a short-term basis.
That is not a true offer of help, but an invitation to despair.
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