Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition.
The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions, the party poured fuel on the fire, deflecting blame and accusing President William Lai (賴清德) of running a dictatorship. Ironically, its response has only underlined Taiwanese disgust for the party’s actions over the past year, adding further fuel to the recall campaigns.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said Sung’s action was merely “the use of irony against the DPP’s vicious dictatorship,” while further inflaming tensions by branding the DPP “green communists” intent on silencing all opposition.
It was only in the face of significant criticism from domestic and especially foreign sources — with the German Institute Taipei saying it was “shocked” to see the use of Nazi symbolism for political aims and Israeli Representative to Taiwan Maya Yaron posting a video expressing horror at the use of such political symbols — that Chu changed his tone.
“Fascist and Nazi dictatorships are universally condemned, as are communist dictatorships, all of which the KMT firmly opposes,” he said later, seeking not only to protect the KMT’s image, but also to burnish its “anti-communist” credentials in the face of growing public anger over its perceived pro-China actions.
As Huang Wei-ping (黃惟冰) wrote of Chu in an op-ed published on Thursday in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times), it is astonishing that a well-educated intellectual and chairman of a major party in Taiwan chose not to definitively draw a line between Sung’s actions and his party.
As many commentators have pointed out, it was not the first time the KMT has invoked Nazi imagery in a deeply inappropriate way. During the presidential election in 2004, the party took out a full-page newspaper advertisement showing a picture of Adolf Hitler in a Nazi uniform with the words: “Change the President, End A-bian’s [former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁)] Dictatorship.” While it apologized to the Jewish community, it did not do so to Chen.
Underlying the KMT’s grotesque portrayals of the DPP as dictators is the deeper reality of a party unable to come to terms with a Taiwanese electorate that has little interest in its pro-China ideology. In today’s Taiwan, policies that seek to protect its sovereignty in the face of Beijing’s threats are not “green communism” — they are mainstream democratic choices.
Asked about his actions drawing international condemnation, Sung said: “This is China, it is not a foreign land,” showing not only a complete lack of contrition and blatant disrespect toward other countries, but also, by calling the nation “China,” highlighted just how out of touch the KMT often is with mainstream Taiwanese society.
Keelung City Councilor Jiho Chang (張之豪) wrote on social media that Sung is “one of the 3.2 percent in Taiwan who self-identify as Chinese... He represents a fringe, troubled political minority — not Taiwan.”
So long as the KMT continues to pander to fringes, while promoting unpopular policies perceived as harming Taiwan, it will face strong resistance from mainstream society — a reality reflected in the widespread support for the recall campaigns targeting its legislators. The driving force behind these campaigns is not “DPP authoritarianism,” but widespread frustration with the KMT’s deference to Beijing and its role in obstructing efforts to build a unified domestic front against Chinese aggression.
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