Ann Kao is ‘Ko Wen-je 2.0’
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Ann Kao (高虹安), the party’s Hsinchu mayoral candidate, recently made a comment widely regarded as being arrogant and condescending to the night school of Chung Hua University, which is in Hsinchu City.
Kao subsequently apologized for her remarks, but it was quite apparent that she had been given little choice but to do so. Her wording and manner convinced nobody that her apology was sincere or heartfelt.
Kao considers herself a topflight student, and is proud of the fact that she studied at elite schools such as Taipei First Girls’ High School and National Taiwan University (NTU), going on to obtain a doctorate overseas.
However, her emotional intelligence and the attitude she has taken while dealing with this problem goes to show that a higher education and graduation from the nation’s most prestigious university does not necessarily bear any relationship to one’s ability to deal with issues in public life.
Neither Pingtung County Commissioner Pan Men-an (潘孟安) nor Chiayi County Commissioner Weng Chang-liang (翁章梁), who ranked first and second respectively in a CommonWealth Magazine poll conducted this year of local government heads in Taiwan, graduated from NTU. Need we say more?
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) often boasts of having an IQ of 157 and that he was a professor at NTU, daring anyone to take him on in a contest of erudition. Yet he has the rather unfortunate honor of coming last in an opinion poll of the 22 local governments’ heads for three years running.
There is a reason that many people feel that Kao is “Ko 2.0.” Both fit the mold of the classic arrogant elitist politician, who believe they are the cat’s whiskers and yet often fall short when they are put to the test. They prefer to prevaricate and cast aspersions on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to distract attention from their own failings.
The plagiarism allegations against Kao were made by Chinese-language media outlet Mirror Media, but she could not summon the courage to take the publication to task, preferring instead to accuse the DPP of political manipulation.
It surprises nobody that Kao has become associated with the divisive, hateful meme of referring to DPP supporters as a kind of “Taliban,” pronouncing the middle syllable like the Chinese word for “green.”
She is just like Ko, who knows full well that the majority of Taiwanese are against the Chinese communists and are unhappy with the Chinese military’s continued intimidation of Taiwan, but still insists on speaking of “one family on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
She even used a rather strange metaphor for Taiwan-US-China relations, suggesting that Taiwan is like “a robber attempting to rob a bank, but failing to notice there are a lot of cops waiting outside.”
The advantage of democratic elections is that candidates need to be put to the test by the electorate. Kao has not handled this situation very deftly at all, and it makes one wonder how she will cope with more serious situations if she is elected mayor.
Then there is Ko, who views the governing party as his enemy, but is quite content to cozy up to Beijing — which has ambitions to annex Taiwan — and who consistently places last in local government performance ratings yet has the presidency in his sights. If he cannot govern a city, how would he govern the nation?
Chiu Ping-chin
Taipei
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