Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, no matter how great or how small, really hate to admit defeat.
It is a trait that they have displayed for more than six decades, starting with the claim that they did not lose the Chinese Civil War, but simply retreated to Taiwan so the Republic of China government could regroup and “reclaim the mainland” one day.
The vainglorious mindset has been on full display this week after the Taipei District Court on Tuesday ordered former minister of finance Christina Liu (劉憶如) to pay Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) compensation for defaming her during the 2102 presidential election campaign.
Liu, who was then head of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, said that Tsai had broken the law with her investment in TaiMed Biologics after she became the firm’s chairperson in late 2007, four months after stepping down as vice premier — and Liu was joined by a Greek chorus of KMT politicians in heaping vituperation upon Tsai, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and many KMT lawmakers.
A judicial investigation into the allegations three years ago found no irregularities and now Liu has been found guilty of damaging Tsai’s reputation, yet the KMT acts as if the allegations, which were clearly a political hack job from the start, had merit.
Liu has said she would appeal the ruling, and she and other KMT members have yet to show even a hint of recognition that they were in the wrong.
The Presidential Office tut-tutted that the TaiMed case centered on political integrity and that “someone should clarify whether there had been an issue of failing to avoid conflicts of interest,” a refrain echoed by Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who is to go to court next year to face a similar lawsuit filed by Tsai.
However, the icing on the cake came in comments from KMT lawmakers, with the caucus saying there was still a question of political and moral flaws despite the absence of a judicial ruling, and KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) claiming the only reason Tsai was not “found culpable” was that the nation lacks pertinent regulations — revolving-door laws do not restrict the actions of premiers and vice premiers.
The idea of anyone in the KMT, but especially its caucus — whose lawmakers in the not-so-distant past were known to lobby the government and state-run banks on behalf of businesses they had interests in, and who fought tooth and nail for years against efforts to pass effective sunshine laws — trying to stake out the high ground to lecture about political/moral flaws or holes in sunshine legislation shows what a surreal world Taiwanese politics inhabits.
Even worse, KMT politicos also have yet to admit that their broadsides against Tsai also harmed the nation’s fledgling biotechnology industry — a sector that Ma since his re-election has frequently promoted as part of national industrial development plans.
Prominent scientists and researchers in late 2011 found themselves sucked into the imbroglio surrounding Tsai and TaiMed and investors became leery of putting money into the sector, yet KMT politicians insist that they were and are only concerned with Tsai’s actions. They appear totally ignorant of the collateral damage the nation suffered from their antics and continue to demand that Tsai apologize for her actions, even though she did nothing that legally merits an apology.
Wu this week said that a person afraid of making apologies “is not qualified to run for president.”
Despite the many KMT politicians who have resigned — or were pushed — from their posts over the years to take responsibility for policy failures, the party has an abject fear of admitting its errors. That is why many Taiwanese dream of expanding Wu’s concept into one that states “a party that cannot apologize is not qualified to run a nation.”
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