There are those within the pan-green camp who are willing to give the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) the benefit of the doubt and who refuse to buy into the belief that it is bent on selling out Taiwan to China. However, every now and then the Ma government does things that make it very difficult to remain patient with it.
The latest incident involves the return to Taiwan, after 17 years in exile, of former Bamboo Union leader Chang An-le (張安樂) on Saturday. After checking through immigration, the most-wanted criminal emerged from the airport, handcuffed and escorted by police, smirking like a conqueror.
By some inexplicable agreement or oversight, Chang — also known as the “White Wolf” — was hiding his handcuffs with a pamphlet advocating his plans for the “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan and China.
Awaiting him at the airport were hundreds of thugs and the racist invertebrate Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), who surely found more reason to celebrate after Chang was released on bail later the same day.
Based on those events, it seems it is acceptable for police to rough up and deny the rights of peaceful protesters in Miaoli, or for the security apparatus to monitor and harass student leaders such as Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), but when it comes to a gangster who played a role in the 1984 murder of Henry Liu (劉宜良), a journalist in California, the justice system treats him with utmost deference.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), jailed for corruption, was denied bail and medical parole because he purportedly constituted a flight risk, but Chang was a free man within hours, free to visit a temple the very next day and to generate more publicity for his political machinations.
It is said that Chang, who obtained two degrees while serving a 15-year jail sentence in the US on drug charges, may be the most educated of Taiwan’s gangsters, but the policies of his Unionist Party, which he founded while in China, confirm that he has not learned a thing about democracy and Taiwan.
What he advocates appeals to less than 10 percent of the overall population and he does so at a time when China under President Xi Jinping (習近平) is showing every indication that it is shifting toward a more Maoist line — the very opposite of developments that could encourage more Taiwanese to consider, at some point, some form of political settlement across the Taiwan Strait.
More likely, Chang’s return means that intimidation, if not violence, will play a greater role in politics.
We had a brief preview of the shape of things to come in 2009 when the disgraced Kuo had to be pulled back to Taiwan after it was discovered that he had used his position at the representative office in Toronto to publish hateful tracts under a pseudonym. It was Chang’s goons who turned up en masse at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to protect and whisk him away, whereupon he embarked on his own, behind-the-scenes efforts to foster unification with China.
Meanwhile, commenting on Saturday’s debacle, all that Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) could muster was the promise that the government would do better in future, which can only lead us to wonder whether the Ma administration is preparing to welcome other delinquents and miscreants back to the country.
What a bloody disgrace.
How much longer are we willing to listen to the platitudes of government officials who constantly promise to do better in future?
Heads need to roll on this one and every effort should be made to ensure that criminals such as Chang — who in fact could very well be regarded as a foreign agent by now — are locked away in a damp cell for a long time.
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US
I still remember the first time I heard about the possibility of an invasion by China. I was six years old. I thought war was coming and hid in my bed, scared. After 18 years, the invasion news tastes like a sandwich I eat every morning. As a Gen Z Taiwanese student who has witnessed China’s harassment for more than 20 years, I want to share my opinion on China. Every generation goes through different events. I have seen not only the norms of China’s constant presence, but also the Sunflower movement, wars and people fighting over peace or equality,