President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday last week spoke at the opening of the Ching-kuo Chi-hai Cultural Park (經國七海文化園區) and the Chiang Ching-kuo Presidential Library in Taipei.
Despite drawing criticism from all sides for doing so, she was able to kill five birds with one stone.
The first was in the grace and generosity she displayed. Tsai spoke positively about Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) staunchly anti-communist stance, highlighting the ridiculousness of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) position of working with the Chinese Communist Party.
This was a slap in the face to pan-blue camp leaders such as former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), former KMT vice chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), who were in the audience and must have felt uncomfortable.
The gesture was also good for national unity, making Tsai look like a president for all Taiwanese, no matter their political views.
A My-Formosa.com poll showed that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has an approval rating of 46.3 percent, compared with a 23.7 percent approval and 63 percent disapproval rating for the KMT.
Tsai showed grace in her capacity as DPP chairperson to enter the library built to honor Chiang. Can anyone imagine Chu walking into the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation and Memorial Museum, built in honor of democracy advocate Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕)?
Nobody is happier than Beijing to see a divided Taiwan, and Tsai has shown herself to be the first to offer an olive branch to her political rivals.
No politician is perfect, and that is certainly true for Chiang. Taiwanese cannot, and should not, forgive or forget his connection to the deaths of democracy advocate Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) and the mother and twin daughters of former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), or his role in the Kaohsiung Incident trials.
Tsai did not seek to absolve Chiang of his sins. She only recognized his anti-communist stance. In no way should her words be seen as a betrayal of the DPP’s long-held position on Chiang’s autocratic regime.
Second, she showed true grit and self-assurance by walking into the deep-blue lair, where anyone present could make a scene, or even put her personal safety at risk.
Her self-assuredness was in no small part due to her party’s victories last month with the failure of the four referendum proposals and DPP Legislator Lin Ching-yi’s (林靜儀) win in Taichung’s second district legislative by-election.
Third, Tsai has placed the cat firmly among the pigeons in the KMT camp, causing internal turmoil in a party petrified that she, having commandeered the Republic of China (ROC), is going to run off with Chiang, a symbol of the KMT’s glory days.
It is no wonder that former TVBS news anchor Lee Yen-chiou (李艷秋) said: “If even Chiang Ching-kuo has become one of the DPP’s assets, what does the KMT have left?”
This has really hit the pan-blue camp where it hurts.
Fourth, Tsai’s appearance at the park’s opening ceremony shows that she has consolidated her power. Naturally, there are those within the DPP who will criticize her for speaking at the event, but she will hopefully be able to leverage her high level of support — she has a 54 percent approval rating and 53 percent confidence rating, the My-Formosa.com poll showed — to persuade the pro-independence camp and opponents within her party to trust her.
Finally, she might win over moderate blue voters, more of whom view Chiang positively than negatively. If you do not enter the tiger’s lair, how will you steal the cubs?
The KMT often says it holds Chiang in high esteem, but this has become little more than a slogan, as it has essentially abandoned his core values, and it is Tsai who is standing up to the Chinese communists.
The blame lies at the feet of Ma, who during his presidency promised to steer clear of the topics of unification, independence and defense, and since then has gone from “not speaking of unification” to “not ruling unification out.”
Fan Shih-ping is a professor in National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of East Asian Studies.
Translated by Paul Cooper
There are moments in history when America has turned its back on its principles and withdrawn from past commitments in service of higher goals. For example, US-Soviet Cold War competition compelled America to make a range of deals with unsavory and undemocratic figures across Latin America and Africa in service of geostrategic aims. The United States overlooked mass atrocities against the Bengali population in modern-day Bangladesh in the early 1970s in service of its tilt toward Pakistan, a relationship the Nixon administration deemed critical to its larger aims in developing relations with China. Then, of course, America switched diplomatic recognition
The international women’s soccer match between Taiwan and New Zealand at the Kaohsiung Nanzih Football Stadium, scheduled for Tuesday last week, was canceled at the last minute amid safety concerns over poor field conditions raised by the visiting team. The Football Ferns, as New Zealand’s women’s soccer team are known, had arrived in Taiwan one week earlier to prepare and soon raised their concerns. Efforts were made to improve the field, but the replacement patches of grass could not grow fast enough. The Football Ferns canceled the closed-door training match and then days later, the main event against Team Taiwan. The safety
The National Immigration Agency on Tuesday said it had notified some naturalized citizens from China that they still had to renounce their People’s Republic of China (PRC) citizenship. They must provide proof that they have canceled their household registration in China within three months of the receipt of the notice. If they do not, the agency said it would cancel their household registration in Taiwan. Chinese are required to give up their PRC citizenship and household registration to become Republic of China (ROC) nationals, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. He was referring to Article 9-1 of the Act
Strategic thinker Carl von Clausewitz has said that “war is politics by other means,” while investment guru Warren Buffett has said that “tariffs are an act of war.” Both aphorisms apply to China, which has long been engaged in a multifront political, economic and informational war against the US and the rest of the West. Kinetically also, China has launched the early stages of actual global conflict with its threats and aggressive moves against Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, and its support for North Korea’s reckless actions against South Korea that could reignite the Korean War. Former US presidents Barack Obama