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
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