Sat, Dec 02, 2006 page8

• Editorial: Whose womb is it anyway?

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  Numskulls of all political persuasions have been letting sexism and provincialism get the better of them in recent weeks.

  But the seeds were planted with President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) ill-advised attack on then independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) in 2000 for being the parent of a child with US citizenship. Beware, Chen warned, Taiwan does not want a president with an American child.

  It has taken six years, but finally Chen has learned a lesson on milking jingoism in a country where the public largely interprets dual nationality as a method of advancing the prospects of the child and the family. A high proportion of Taiwanese have dual nationality, and no doubt a still larger number would secure foreign citizenship for their children if they could.

  The real issue for Chen should never have been the nationality of a child per se, but whether the attainment of that nationality was subsidized by funny money, and whether male children would use dual nationality to avoid military service.

  The pan-blue camp has leapt at the chance to embarrass Chen at the prospect of his son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚) giving birth to their first child in the US. And although it appears that this will no longer be the case, this trivial affair has exposed some distasteful attitudes in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which for so long has to struggled to match its deeds with socially progressive rhetoric.

  The pan-blue camp is not really interested in the rights and wrongs of where a baby should be born -- Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has an American child, as do many others in his party -- but it is interested in making life for the Chen family as uncomfortable as possible. That includes calling on Chen Chih-chung and Huang to return to Taiwan to give birth.

  On the DPP side, former legislator and faction leader Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) on Tuesday demonstrated why he richly deserved to be kicked out of the legislature by his Taipei City electorate with an idiotic statement that the president's "promise" should be honored by his son and daughter-in-law. The question Tuan needs to answer is why anyone should be interested in the opinion of a person who scores less than 6 percent of the vote in a democratic election.

  On Monday, failed DPP Taipei County commissioner candidate Luo Wen-chia (羅文嘉), speaking -- ironically enough -- to an audience in Boston, came out with the mantra that will please those who think the sins of the children should be visited upon their parents: "National leaders are obligated to apply higher standards to themselves and their families."

  There, but for the grace of God, go most of the DPP caucus. No wonder some think that childless, partner-less Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) might be a good presidential candidate.

  The moral yoking of children to their parents reflects a mindset that will take some time to change, it seems. All parties here have jumped to belittle the freedom of children -- not to mention women, as some feminist groups have complained.

  A long time ago, peerless Chinese writer Lu Xun (魯迅) attacked the Chinese variety of filial piety as a backward concept that demeaned and damaged children. How he might smirk at the thought of modern and supposedly democratically enlightened Taiwanese lecturing women on the geography of birth.
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