A group of 17 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, “Fu-istas,” led by KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), had rushed to Beijing on a so-called “public service trip,” and for party “highlights.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arranged for them to meet Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧) to “pay homage.”
The Fu-istas answered their summons. Of course, they would prostrate themselves and wholly obey their orders. They dared not ignore the call or show up late.
More damaging is that Fu does not seem to care about his Hualien County constituency. The county is still reeling from the massive earthquake that struck on April 3. Survivors still lack a safe place to land back on their feet.
What did Fu and company do instead? They went to Beijing to gallivant with the CCP.
As the KMT’s party whip, Fu and his team of pan-blue legislators, including New Taipei City Legislator Chang Chi-lun (張智倫), infamous for passing pro-China legislation in less than a minute during bill readings, traveled to Beijing.
Perhaps we could switch out the Mandarin Chinese homophone gong for “business,” as in “business itinerary,” for the gong in the word “shared,” or “communist” in reference to the CCP, since this trip is not being done for Taiwan’s sake, but rather to align with the CCP’s “shared itinerary” for annexing Taiwan.
As for Fu’s statement that he is “not responsible for anything,” he is certainly not being “responsible” for Taiwan, let alone Hualien.
Who exactly is he being responsible for? Well, the glaringly obvious answer is China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
As the fourth-ranking member within the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, Wang is the architect of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “Taiwan edition of ‘one country, two systems,’” and the brains behind Beijing’s plan to annex Taiwan militarily. He has three goals when it comes to these 17 Fu-istas “paying homage.”
First, before president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, the CCP wants to closely monitor pro-Beijing forces in Taiwan. Wang’s mission for them is to obstruct Lai’s policies by making them dead on arrival.
Second, the trade war between China and the US has raised the stakes to an all-out competition in areas such as the economy, diplomacy and security. The CCP is using the Fu-istas to sow distrust in Taiwanese society toward, and create distance from, the US to prevent Taiwan from growing closer to the US.
Third, the most direct action they have taken is elevating the tier in which the KMT can “pay homage,” from visiting China’s lower-ranking Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) to the higher-ranking Wang.
Since February, Beijing has encouraged the Fu-istas to act like rats destabilizing walls by chewing holes anywhere they can to sow strife and create pandemonium in Taiwan.
Beijing wants the Fu-istas to be “successful” in making it hard for Taiwan to progress even an inch. We can see from the Fu-istas that their faces are beaming with pride and self-satisfaction.
They have sold out Taiwan. They do not care about the pain and toil of the earthquake victims in Hualien, nor are they ashamed of their brazenness.
US CIA Director William Burns said recently that Xi is intent on taking Taiwan. We can see this through Wang’s summoning of the Fu-istas to Beijing.
This is one of the toxic tricks up Xi’s sleeves. By summoning the Fu-istas to act as pro-Beijing warriors, the CCP seeks to turn them into a cudgel against the KMT, and in turn transform the KMT into a cudgel, with the addition of the white camp led by the Taiwan People’s Party, to control Taiwan’s legislature, thus taking control of Taiwan through “official” means.
The 17 Fu-istas are less than one-third of the KMT legislators, yet they have hijacked the party, which is rapidly becoming a retinue of CCP henchmen, while KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and former KMT vice-presidential candidate Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) stand off to the side, looking on with arms folded.
At this critical juncture, the white camp has not matured (or abstained from voting), and the Fu-white alliance is forcing through harmful legislation no matter the cost. The pan-green camp led by the Democratic Progressive Party is busy arranging the ranking of its seats, but to what end?
What next? Would there even be a “next?”
Hu Wen-huei is a veteran journalist.
Translated by Tim Smith
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