Chuang Kuo-rong (莊國榮), former Ministry of Education secretary-general, said yesterday he would show his penitence for insulting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his family by staging a hunger strike in front of the Presidential Office starting July 1.
Chuang caused a storm of controversy during the presidential campaign in March, when he used a profanity to imply Ma’s late father had a salacious relationship with his goddaughter.
When then Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) suffered a landslide defeat, some people blamed Chuang and his caustic remarks for turning voters away. Chuang resigned from the ministry and has since returned to his post as assistant professor at National Chengchi University (NCCU).
However, the school decided on Thursday not to renew his contract, saying his behavior during the election period had disgraced the institution.
“There was no need for the school to use such superficial standards to rob someone of their right to work,” he told a press conference yesterday.
Mocking Ma as the “emperor,” Chuang said: “I thought it was permissible to criticize a president of a democratic country, but I didn’t know that Taiwan’s presidents such as Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石), Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Ma were semi-deities, like the Japanese royal family.”
Given which, he said he decided to make his apology by staging a hunger strike starting next month, until Ma and his family forgave him.
Upon learning of his plans, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators yesterday ridiculed Chuang, telling him not to act irrationally if he wanted to return to the educational field.
“I think Chuang should go see a psychiatrist and get some counseling,” KMT Leigslator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) said when asked for comment.
KMT legislators Chiu Yi (邱毅) and Justin Chou (周守訓) both said that Chuang was damaging his career prospects.
“If he continues making a fool out of himself like this, I am afraid that he will say goodbye to his teaching career,” Chiu said.
In related news, another pan-green official might be forced to terminate his teaching post at NCCU, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported yesterday.
Taiwan representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who taught at NCCU’s Institute of International Relations prior to his governmental post, was rumored to have been rejected by the school when he applied to return to the institute, the report said.
Wu tendered his resignation on May 20 upon the inauguration of the KMT administration.
The Liberty Times report said that Wu’s application was approved two out of three times by the school review committee, but was rejected at the final review.
The institute denied that the school had rejected Wu’s application but rather, that it had decided to withdraw Wu’s application because someone on the committee had informed the institute that Wu was not eligible to resume his teaching post, because he had not published any academic papers in the last five years as required by the school, the report said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
MILITARY BOOST: The procurement was planned after Washington recommended that Taiwan increase its stock of air defense missiles, a defense official said yesterday Taiwan is planning to order an additional four PAC-3 MSE systems and up to 500 missiles in response to an increasing number of missile sites on China’s east coast, a defense official said yesterday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the proposed order would be placed using the defense procurement special budget, adding that about NT$1 trillion (US$32,88 billion) has been allocated for the budget. The proposed acquisition would include launchers, missiles, and a lower tier air and missile defense radar system, they said The procurement was planned after the US military recommended that Taiwan increase
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
TWO HEAVYWEIGHTS: Trump and Xi respect each other, are in a unique position to do something great, and they want to do that together, the US envoy to China said The administration of US President Donald Trump has told Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) “we don’t want any coercion, but we want [the Taiwan dispute] resolved peacefully,” US ambassador to China David Perdue said in a TV interview on Thursday. Trump “has said very clearly, we are not changing the ‘one China’ policy, we are going to adhere to the Taiwan Relations Act, the three communiques and the ‘six assurances’ that were done under [former US president Ronald] Reagan,” Perdue told Joe Kernen, cohost of CNBC’s Squawk Box. The act, the Three Joint Communiques and the “six assurances” are guidelines for Washington
DEEPENING TIES: The two are boosting cooperation in response to China’s coercive actions and have signed MOUs on search-and-rescue and anti-smuggling efforts Taiwan and Japan are moving to normalize joint coast guard training and considering the inclusion of other allies, the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. Both nations’ coast guards in June sent vessels to the seas south of the Sakishima Islands to conduct joint training, the report said, adding that it was the second joint maritime training exercise since the nations severed formal diplomatic ties in September 1972. Japan dispatched the Nagoya Coast Guard’s Mizuho, a 134m, 6,000-tonne patrol vessel which can carry a helicopter, while the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sent the 126m, 4,000-tonne Yunlin, one of its largest vessels, the report
RSS