Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) is used to his old position as legislative speaker — a position that allowed him to avoid controversial issues by saying that he had to maintain neutrality with relation to the legislative agenda.
However, as a legislator-at-large, he has a completely different role to fill, which means that he can no longer sit around all day saying nothing.
In the current legislative session, transitional justice and the return of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) ill-gotten assets are two hotly-debated issues.
Some KMT members have been finding all kinds of excuses to oppose legislation regulating the return of party assets, but Wang has maintained his aloof attitude and avoided involvement in the fray.
Wang has three choices: He can pretend to be deaf and dumb and say nothing; he can act against his conscience and chime in with the other KMT thugs and say that the party assets issue has already been dealt with, while making nonsensical comparisons with some organization that does not belong to the KMT to “prove” that the pan-green camp is no better than the pan-blue camp; or he could be fair and just and demand that the KMT return its assets to the public.
Wang does not dare side with the public and call for the return of the party assets, nor is he willing to act against his conscience and help the KMT keep its assets. He is even more afraid of blaming the KMT, because that might result in his expulsion from the party and even end his position as a legislator-at-large. He has therefore chosen to neither speak up for what is right nor to testify falsely on account of the party and its assets.
He could of course say that those who criticize him for not standing on the side of the public are trying to hurt the relationship between him and the public, that those who say that he is afraid to take the side of the public and demand the return of the party assets are sowing discord between him and the party, or that those criticizing him for doing nothing in the legislature are trying to destroy his relationship with the other legislators.
However, using fact to separate truth from falsehood and evaluating the performance of public personalities is precisely the kind of “discord sowing” that is the responsibility of the media.
Wang does not dare to represent public opinion, nor is he thick-skinned enough to represent the opinion of his corruption-laden party. As this old man spends his days in the legislature, seeing the energy of the young generation as they are working hard to bring about reform, he should be ashamed of himself.
Does he still understand the meaning of the word “justice?”
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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