During his visit to Taiwan last week, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) witnessed the signing of the first-ever memorandum of understanding on health cooperation between the nations, opening a new chapter in Taiwan-US relations after Washington severed official diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979.
Overall, Taiwan-US relations are being normalized, and it would seem as if the resumption of formal diplomatic ties is but a matter of time. Most Taiwanese are pleased to see bilateral relations improve.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) claims to have an international outlook, but the party’s hostility toward Azar and the US during his visit was astonishing. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said Azar was not familiar with cross-strait relations, adding that the memorandum was simply empty talk from the US.
Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良), minister of health and welfare during Ma’s presidency, even wrote an op-ed asking Azar to resign for his poor handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.
KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said there are no permanent friends or enemies in the international community, only permanent interests, and that in light of the treacherous relationship between the US, China and Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration should be more careful in its foreign policy dealings.
Most stunning of all, the KMT’s Blue Sky Action Alliance on Monday last week staged a protest against the Ministry of Health and Welfare for exempting Azar’s delegation from the 14-day quarantine requirement.
Protesters held placards and shouted: “Pandemic prevention standards should be consistent. The American virus is coming.”
No matter what excuses they make, the older, middle-aged and younger generations of the KMT are no longer able to hide their innate friendliness to China, opposition to the US and hostility to Taiwan.
In truth, the KMT is the least qualified to oppose the US’ political force. Without US support, the KMT — and even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — would possibly have been eliminated by Japan when it retreated to southeast China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
After the victory in 1945, former president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) administration returned to its then-capital, Nanjing. Despite Washington’s endorsement, the corrupt KMT regime was defeated by the CCP in just four years. If the US had not sent aircraft and vessels to assist the KMT, it would have been impossible for the nationalist government to relocate to Taiwan in 1949, where it extended its rule.
The KMT often boasts that it protected Taiwan from being turned “red” by the communists, without mentioning the military protection and economic aid the US provided under the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty.
During the era of Chiang and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), Ma and other top KMT officials wanted Taiwanese to fight communists and restore their nation to them while sending their own families to the US, where they gained US citizenship and protection.
For a long time, the KMT was favored and protected by the US, but today it is making threatening gestures in its opposition to Washington. In its ungratefulness, the party is burning all its bridges, behavior that would bitterly disappoint anyone.
Based on the remarks against Azar by Ma, Yaung, Johnny Chiang and the young protesters, it is little wonder that US-based Chinese writer Cao Changqing (曹長青) has said that the worst Chinese people are in Taiwan.
John Yu is a civil servant.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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