Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has irked politicians who favor Taiwanese independence with remarks this week.
On Wednesday, Ko, speaking about national defense and military recruitment, said: “The children and grandchildren of those who advocate Taiwanese independence are all hiding in the US or New Zealand, so they are liars.”
On Thursday, in response to comments by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) that many of those who contributed a lot to the nation’s democracy were banned from returning to Taiwan by the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, Ko said: “The blacklist was canceled many years ago.”
Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times
“I feel disgusted at seeing someone whose family emigrated to New Zealand, but they still organize Taiwanese-independence fundraising banquets in Taiwan every year,” he said.
Tsai Hsin-yueh (蔡心岳), son of late Taiwanese-independence advocate Tsai You-chuan (蔡有全), wrote on Facebook that his father rejected political asylum and was imprisoned under the authoritarian regime.
Tsai Hsin-yueh himself returned to Taiwan to serve compulsory military service after graduating from university in the US, so he despises Ko for seeking political gain by insulting people who love Taiwan, he said.
National Chengchi University professor of Taiwanese literature Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明) wrote on Facebook that Ko’s comments were “cruel and heartless.”
Chen had been on the blacklist and lived in exile for 15 years before he could return to Taiwan in 1989, he said, adding that later his family was forced to leave and only allowed to return in 1992.
In related news, Ko, who is also chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party, said in a radio interview on Wednesday that Social Democratic Party (SDP) convener Fan Yun’s (范雲) listing as a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator-at-large nominee suggests that she has been “bought” by the DPP as part of an “execution strategy” to eliminate the SDP.
Fan said that she cannot be bought.
She was approached by a go-between from Ko’s campaign team before the mayoral elections in 2014 and last year who asked if she wanted to run as a deputy mayor of Taipei for Ko, but she refused on the grounds that the SDP’s core beliefs about national sovereignty and gender equality differ from Ko’s, Fan said.
Ko on Thursday said that “being bought means being bought, what is there to discuss?”
“You [Fan] cannot even remain in your party,” he said.
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