The de-Sinicization policy that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government carried out after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost power in 2000 instilled a “wrong mode of thinking” in the younger generation that has turned them into people who spread distorted messages online or in newspapers that destabilize society, former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) said yesterday, before hurling a string of criticisms at independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Lien made the remarks at the founding ceremony of a support group for his son, KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), whose main opponent in the Nov. 29 election is Ko.
“Ever since the KMT lost power in 2000, [then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration] started implementing a series of ‘de-Sinicization’ policies, forcing children at the age of 11 or 12 to receive non-Sinicized education,” Lien Chan said in his speech.
Photo: CNA
“We were saddened to see Chinese ethics, traditional morality and history being twisted to such an extent. As for those children who grew up being fed erroneous ideas, they are now in their 20s or 30s and may have different occupations, such as in the media or Internet sectors,” he added. “As you can all see, we [myself and my son] have fallen victim to distorted comments online and in the media that have unnerved our society.”
He then took aim at Ko, saying that as the third-generation descendant of a man who served the Japanese colonial government, Ko had received “imperialization” education and therefore dismisses everything pertaining to “Zhonghua culture” (中華文化), including its values and history.
“Also, the non-partisan alliance Ko has been pushing is simply an aggregation of Taiwanese independence advocates … who are in essence controlled and manipulated by the DPP,” Lien Chan said.
Lien Chan continued his attack on Ko at another event, a meeting held by the Alliance of Anti-Independence Chinese (中國人反獨護國大同盟).
“I absolutely cannot stand the thought of having someone whose grandfather changed his surname to a Japanese one during the Japanese colonial era as mayor of Taipei. He [Ko] calls himself a commoner and us the privileged few. What a bastard,” he said.
The former vice president then described Ko as a narrow-minded person filled with hatred, arrogance and discrimination, and he urged Taipei residents to use their ballots to hand the independent a “miserable” defeat.
Turning to the Sunflower movement that erupted in March against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement, the 78-year-old said that while some of the nation’s youngsters are well-bred, socially connected and received a good education, others base their moral judgements solely on de-Sinicized textbooks, like those students who “caused troubles” during the movement.
“Because of the poorly revised textbooks, these students think they can publicly declare that they are not Chinese. They have the entire day to do nothing except surf the Internet and form something akin to an online army that propagates malicious rumors,” Lien Chan said. “It was all their [the Sunflower participants’] doing.”
Meanwhile, Ko expressed shock at Lien Chan’s remarks.
“He [Lien Chan] said I am the descendant of an official? My father was an elementary-school teacher,” Ko said, adding he was born in 1959 and “educated in the school system of the Republic of China, all the way from elementary school to university.”
DPP spokesperson Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said that the remarks about Sunflower protesters shows that the former vice president’s ideas go against the global tide of democracy, and are unlikely to benefit his son’s campaign.
The Taiwan Citizen Union’s youth volunteer group convener, Syu Wei-ting (許韋婷), dismissed Lien Chan’s comments about young people.
“People from older generations, not the younger ones, should be the ones taking responsibility for many of the problems [Lien Chan said are] causing ‘chaos’ in Taiwan right now,” Syu said.
“Young people’s use of media and Internet tools has only revealed existing problems, not created new ones,” Syu said. “In addition, when we were growing up, we still devoted some of our studies to the history and geography of China, learning a vast amount of information that is completely unrelated to our homeland.”
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin and Lii Wen
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS