Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday condemned controversial remarks Shih Hsin University professor Wang Hsiao-po (王曉波) made regarding the 228 Massacre and said Wang has added insult to injury for families whose loved ones were killed in the tragedy.
Wang, who was also the convener of the Ministry of Education’s controversial curriculum adjustment task force, said on Friday that the killing of 20,000 people by former president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Nationalist military in the 228 Massacre was “a small case” compared with the 400,000 killed during Chiang’s purges in China.
“Everybody is born as a mother’s child. When a person does not respect life, but only uses death tolls to measure how big a historical tragedy was, how then are we to conduct a dialogue with a person like this?” Su said yesterday.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
“People should impose sanctions against such remarks, which add insult to injury, or a government that allows people to make such remarks unscrupulously,” he added.
Separately yesterday, Taiwan 228 Care Association Chairman Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) also criticized Wang’s remarks, saying that he should be condemned for talking about the 228 Massacre from the perspective of China’s history, a stance that entirely disregards Taiwanese, who suffered under arbitrary arrests and killing sprees during the tragedy.
According to Wang, Chiang started killing his opponents in China, not in Taiwan, adding that the Chinese government estimated Chiang had put to death more than 400,000 people during the “communist purges” in China in the 1920s.
“Families of Taiwan’s 228 [Massacre] victims said the total [number of] people killed by the KMT troops was about 20,000. So when you compare 400,000 with 20,000, what we have here is a small case,” Wang said, adding that the 228 Incident was not a conflict between Taiwanese and Mainlanders, but of oppressed people rising up against oppressors.
In response, Wang yesterday said his remarks had been taken out of context.
Wang said he made the remarks mainly to emphasize that the 228 Massacre was a conflict between oppressed people and their oppressors.
At the time of the massacre there were separate mass uprisings in 13 provinces in China, he said, adding that it suggested that people stood in conflict with their governments over issues of corruption, not ethnicity.
Wang also rebutted allegations that he was siding with Chiang’s actions.
He said that by pointing out that Chiang killed 400,000 people in China, in addition to what in comparison was “a small case” of 20,000 people killed in the 228 Massacre, he was in fact speaking on behalf of the Taiwanese victims, who added more sins to those which Chiang had committed.
“Chiang killed my mother and jailed my father, I am the one who abominates him most,” Wang said.
Wang’s mother was executed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the White Terror era on charges of sedition.
Additional reporting by Tseng Wei-chen
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique