Ever since Taiwan held its first direct presidential election in 1996, there has been no democratic backsliding or public knavery of sharing political spoils for over a quarter of a century. Unfortunately, this has just occurred out of the blue in this year’s campaign.
Funnily enough, it all started when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) nominated a presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), that even the party did not think could win January’s election, and is now proposing that its candidate should form a political alliance with another party for a chance to vie for the top job. The unfathomable move has the public marveling at the party’s questionable judgement and ludicrous strategy.
Due to both parties’ uncompromising positions, the KMT has been subjected to the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) humiliating and affronting behavior without daring to utter a complaint. This has provoked TPP Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) into making aggravating remarks like: “Without me, Hou has zero chance of winning” or “While I am here thinking about how to take down Vice President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), they are thinking about how to take me down.”
The latter remark seems like a rant, but is actually a strategic move to criticize the KMT’s image. It is most pathetic that the humiliated party chose to suck it up and turn the other cheek and allow the TPP to walk all over it.
As party members started cajoling Hou to make a move, Hou finally broke his silence with the remark: “My dad was a butcher. He always said that you have to be willing to give the customer a larger slice so that they would come back again and again,” which was a tactless and improper simile that suggests that once the “deal” is done, the KMT would yield more seats and powerful positions to the TPP.
In other words, allocating political gains is akin to slicing up a hunk of meat, and while the KMT gets the lion’s share, voters are nothing but the chopping block, with no meat or bone to gain from it.
As hopes of collaboration dwindle by the moment, the KMT is now accusing the TPP of refusing to cooperate. It is comical how the KMT is trying to shirk responsibility before the deal even falls through, almost as if it has worked itself into rage out of embarrassment.
Has the KMT forgotten that it is the culprit and the one that landed itself in this quagmire in the first place?
The Chinese Tang Dynasty tale, The Governor of Nanke, depicts Chunyu Fen (淳于棼), who was dismissed after offending his general and drank himself to sleep under a huge ash tree. In a dream, he married the daughter of the Great Kingdom of Ashendon and became the governor of Nanke, achieving success in love and his career. Unfortunately, he found that all had been a dream when he awoke from his slumber, thus giving birth to the Chinese idiom “Dreaming of Nanke” (南柯一夢) to describe such an illusory dream or fantasy of grandeur, despite the emptiness of materialistic life.
In terms of the “blue-white alliance,” the KMT’s initiative was built on taking down the DPP, while the TPP is using the opportunity to inch itself closer to the throne. Both parties fail to respect independent voters and have turned Taiwanese politics into a hodgepodge of crass manipulation and ugly spoils. The alliance could turn out to be less an illusory dream and more of a revolting and never-ending soap opera that Taiwanese are forced to sit through.
Fang Fu-chuan is an international trader.
Translated by Rita Wang
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