I was watching the TV news over supper a few days ago when I saw Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members marching in a demonstration, holding a banner that proclaimed: “Oppose the party state.” The sight of such a slogan from the KMT made me burst out laughing and spray rice all over the table.
To see this political organization, which for so long did not distinguish between party and state or between the national treasury and its own coffers, now wanting to “oppose the party state” was as absurd as seeing brothelkeepers opposing the sex trade or die-hard gamblers saying “no” to betting.
Does the KMT really “oppose the party state”? If so, then why does it resist when the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee tells it to give the “party assets” that it embezzled from the state back to the national treasury?
If the KMT really “opposes the party state,” then it should also answer the following questions:
Can we please stop using the KMT party anthem as a “national anthem” and designate a real national anthem in its place?
Can we replace the “national emblem,” which is really an extension of the KMT’s party emblem, with a new one, to avoid confusion between the two nearly identical symbols?
Can we take the KMT’s “blue sky and white sun” party flag out of the “blue sky, white sun and red earth” “national flag” and replace it with a national flag that does not fail to distinguish between party and state?
Could we stop singing about “the army established at Whampoa” in the army anthem?
The army that was established at Whampoa [Huangpu District (黃埔) of Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong Province] was the KMT’s army, not a national army.
As for the navy anthem’s call to “win glory for the blue sky and white sun flag,” can that be changed, too, given that the blue sky and white sun flag is the KMT party flag?
The navy is paid for out of the national budget, so what should it strive to win glory for — the nation or the KMT?
Could we also change the wording of the Anthem of the Whampoa Military Academy (黃埔軍校校歌), which still serves as the anthem of the Republic of China Military Academy in Kaohsiung’s Fengshan District (鳳山), which proclaims: “The party flag flying high, this is revolutionary Whampoa”?
Why should the anthem of the national military academy, which is paid for out of the national budget — not that of the KMT — be full of praise for “the party flag flying high”?
If the KMT has really come round to “opposing the party state,” as it claims, how can it tolerate such lyrics in the academy’s anthem?
If the KMT’s replies to any or all of the above questions are in the negative, then it should stop claiming to “oppose the party state,” because it is nothing but a fraud.
Lee Hsiao-feng is an honorary professor of National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Julian Clegg
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
RSS