Dissident hears echoes of Cultural Revolution

Chinese dissident and writer Cao Changqing (曹長青) yesterday said he was worried that Taiwan would become mired in hatred and disorder as a result of the ongoing campaign against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Cao said that there were many similarities between the anti-Chen campaign launched by former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) and China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

Cao made the remarks at a forum hosted in Taipei by the media watchdog group Taiwan Society Herald (previously referred to as the "Bugle Society" in Taipei Times reports).

Cao, who experienced firsthand the cruelty of the Cultural Revolution as a young man, said that he had a sense of deja vu when seeing the anti-Chen campaign being waged in Taipei.

"It was a brutal age for China. It was an age full of hatred, anger and anxiety. I feel sad to see the `red' trend reappear in Taiwan," Cao said. "What I see in this anti-Chen campaign is that a handful of people are taking advantage of the masses to attain their political aims and destroy their political enemies, which is very similar to the Cultural Revolution."

Cao said that there were five ways in which the anti-Chen campaign echoed the Cultural Revolution.

First, the campaign was attempting to replace the rule of law with moral judgment and second, it was attempting to use mass movements instead of institutional reform to tackle problems.

Third, Cao said, the anti-Chen campaign was smearing its enemies with irresponsible accusations.

The campaign was convicting people in the court of public opinion, and employing the powerful influence of the mass media to create a "false majority," Cao said.

Noting that Chen was democratically elected as Taiwan's president with 6.4 million votes, Cao argued that Chen should be ousted through democratic procedures if, as Shih alleges, he is found to be corrupt.

"I think the pan-blue camp should take advantage of its legislative majority to revise the recall laws," Cao said. "It is unreasonable for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to let the second recall motion -- which is doomed to fail -- be proposed in the legislature, yet still block the arms bill."

Lu Shih-hsiang (盧世祥), chief executive of the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence, who was also present at the forum as a panelist, echoed Cao's views, saying that the unprofessional news media was helping prop up the anti-Chen campaign with round the clock news coverage.

"No wonder some people say that the headquarters of the anti-Chen movement is not on Ketagalan Boulevard, but within some news stations," Lu said.

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