KMT’s puppy love for Taiwan
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has many members who love Taiwan only when they are running for office. They even try to speak Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka or Aboriginal languages. Some of them also kiss the ground, kneel in front of voters, and burst into tears. They are political candidates and professional actors combined.
While running for Taipei mayor, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) used the term “New Taiwanese,” offered by then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), and won the election. In a guide to Taipei prepared by his city government, foreign visitors were warned that Mainlander Taiwanese would feel offended if they were called Taiwanese.
In a presidential election, Ma claimed he loved Taiwan and would die to become Taiwanese ash.
He pledged that the future of Taiwan would be decided by the 23 million Taiwanese. Under the Ma administration, “one China” has been his policy with China and there have been no attempts to apply for UN membership for Taiwan. To Ma, the name “Chinese Taipei” is okay; and so is “Taiwan, China.” The Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan are at an all-time high in number and threaten destruction, while the average salary is at a 16-year low.
Ma appointed Wu Se-hua (吳思華, meaning “I am thinking of China”) as minister of education to defend the illegal “micro adjustments” of high-school textbooks aimed at de-Taiwanization.
When People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) was running for office as a KMT member, he said in Taiwanese that his wife was Taiwanese. However, his statement was misunderstood as that his wife cursed Taiwanese to death — because of the incorrect tone he used for one word.
The KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has Formosa and Taiwan is our name as her campaign songs. However, she wants to deepen the so-called “1992 consensus” guideline to “one China, same interpretation.”
She has complained that micro-adjustments of high-school textbooks that omit the 228 Incident and the White Terror do not go far enough.
Voters should wake up after so many elections and two recent mass protests by students (mostly college students in the Sunflower movement last year, and mostly high-school and middle-school students in the “micro-adjustment” protests this year).
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
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