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
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
RSS