Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy.
This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture.
About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of Chinese.
In his novel The True Story of Ah-Q, the protagonist, Ah-Q (阿Q), is constantly bowing and kneeling before Master Zhao (趙太爺), while acting domineering toward the character of the “little nun.”
It is a reminder of how Chinese, steeped in the history of totalitarianism and social hierarchy, have cultivated this social malaise and toxic habit of “one must save face by the end of one’s life, even if one is a slave.”
Taiwan is a democracy, acknowledged and celebrated by the world. The People’s Republic of China (PRC), ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is a totalitarian dictatorship similar to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Since late April last year, Fu and other KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers — apparently under the CCP’s direction — have been trying to expand the Legislative Yuan’s powers, stifling the Constitutional Court’s judicial independence and redirecting funds from the central government to local government coffers, while cutting away at Taiwan’s development, all the while creating antagonism and opposition between the public and state employees, such as police officers, teachers and civil servants, as well as fanning the flames of ethnic rivalry.
They are doing this to overturn the nation’s democratic and constitutional order, as well as social stability.
This kowtowing to dictators aims to turn Taiwanese into the character of the “little nun,” bullied into a toxic servile spirit.
Taiwanese can see all of this clearly.
In 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) used Hong Kong police, CCP agents, Hong Kong exiles, the pro-China Legislative Council members and People’s Liberation Army units stationed in the territory to consign former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) “one country, two systems” to the dustbin of history, throttling Hong Kongers’ freedoms.
It is little wonder that top pan-blue camp figures, such as former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Fu — who has a majority hold on the legislature — and Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), as well as members of the TPP, would rather align themselves with China’s “one China” principle and sophistries that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to China,” and that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family,” and obediently follow and welcome the dictatorial CCP’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, while trying to dismantle Taiwan’s democracy and force it to become a part of China.
Taiwanese see all of this clearly.
When Ma, Chu, Han, Fu, KMT legislators Chen Yu-chen (陳玉珍), Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), and independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅) act as obedient slaves to a Chinese master, by forcing through several controversial bills in the legislature that would harm Taiwanese, assaulting Democratic Progressive Party legislators and installing steel wire on top of the walls enclosing the legislature, these bad lawmakers are acting like Lu Xun’s protagonist.
Fu and other KMT lawmakers are afraid to face a Taiwanese public that is ready to implement a mass recall against them. Chu, who is trying to oppose and recall DPP legislators in retaliation, shied away from having a showdown with the Executive Yuan.
We should concentrate on the historic abyss of China’s dictatorships and authoritarianism.
The KMT and the TPP see the CCP as a Master Zhao figure, to be exalted and worshiped, and are unwilling to engage as representatives for their legitimate masters, their democratic constituencies.
This mask of enjoying being masters in Taiwan’s democracy while still hiding their conformity to bone-deep “Chinese dictatorial tendencies” harms Taiwan’s democracy. Taiwanese must see through to this deeper level.
Chen Tsai-neng is a doctoral candidate at National Chung Hsing University’s Graduate Institute of International Politics.
Translated by Tim Smith
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