KMT and ‘silent majority’
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has delivered an interesting interpretation of the term “silent majority.” When former US president Richard Nixon used the term “the great silent majority,” he was hoping the US middle class would support his faltering Vietnam War policy. Still, he was at least referring to the silence of people still living.
In the 19th century, Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle used the term, but had a different meaning, as the “silent majority” actually referred to dead people: the voiceless, indefensible people who have made up the majority of human history. They exist only on tombstones and in history as a silent but palpable presence.
When the KMT allegedly forges dead people’s signatures for recall petitions targeting elected officials of the Democratic Progressive Party, it has achieved something truly outstanding, quite literally awakening the “silent majority.” While other parties are trying to win the support of young people, the KMT is crossing the line between life and death to collect signatures from beyond the grave.
The living are hard to control, while the dead are fully compliant.
Rather than keeping in touch with public opinion, the KMT has sought support from those incapable of retracting their endorsement.
Politically, this is a genius move. It coheres with the KMT’s tradition of allowing a debate to be domineered by a nonexistent authority. It has proved that it understands the true meaning of the “silent majority” by putting the theory into practice.
When the dead can sign recall petitions and vote, how much weight do the living have in the recall campaigns?
Perhaps the KMT itself has long become part of the silent departed, but has neglected to inform the bereaved.
Lee Chih-yang
Taipei
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.