Print

Mail

wiki links

Ma quotes French president on love of nation

"They are French people because they chose to fight alongside people living in that land for a better life ... Why can't we do as the French?"

Ma Ying-jeou, KMT presidential candidate

Home is "the place where family bones lie," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday while talking about his love for Taiwan and his identification with the country.

The former KMT chairman was born in Hong Kong in 1950 to parents who were post-war immigrants from China.

His father is buried in Taipei.

Talking about the idea of "Taiwan identity," Ma cited a speech titled "Who are the French?" made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy during his presidential election campaign earlier in this year.

In his speech, Sarkozy said that "What makes us French is not only that we were born in France but also that we choose to stay in France."

Sarkozy is the son of a Hungarian immigrant father and his mother is the daughter of a Greek immigrant.

Sarkozy's family "was not born in France but decided to stay in that country because they love France and the people who live there," Ma said.

"They are French people because they chose to fight alongside people living in that land for a better life," Ma said.

"Why can't we do as the French?" Ma asked, in reference to longstanding disagreements between weishengren (外省人) -- people who immigrated from China near the end of the Civil War, along with their descendants -- and the benshengren (本省人), who came to Taiwan from China hundreds of years ago.

The Republic of China government has existed in Taiwan for 57 years since its relocation by the KMT administration in 1949, Ma said, citing a local poet who wrote: "Homeland is where a man has stayed for long."
This story has been viewed 1395 times.