The fallout from the mass recalls and the referendum on restarting the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant continues to monopolize the news. The general consensus is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been bloodied and found wanting, and is in need of reflection and a course correction if it is to avoid electoral defeat. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not emerged unscathed, either, but has the opportunity of making a relatively clean break. That depends on who the party on Oct. 18 picks to replace outgoing KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫).
What is certain is that, with the dust settling after the last of the recall elections last week, the political equation has changed, and the parties need to rethink their approaches.
On this page, US-based accountant Mike Chang (張昭仁) criticizes the DPP for its failure to get up to speed on social media to influence online debate, while physician Chen Jun-kuang (陳俊光) anticipates the need for more strategic maneuvering by the DPP if it wants to have a say in the direction of the country. Political commentator Martin Oei (黃世澤) writes of a more fundamental need for change in Taiwan, to bolster the sense of national cohesion and shared purpose. He takes that argument back to the time of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) of the KMT, the first Taiwan-born president, who was an advocate of localization and moving away from the Chinese cultural sphere.
Oei refers to Lee’s concept of “spiritual reform” as a way to promote identification with Taiwan. It seems like a good idea, but in Taiwan, things are never that simple.
Lee’s efforts to steer the nation toward a more “local” orientation were cited by Taipei First Girls’ High School Chinese literature teacher Alice Ou (區桂芝) during a controversial interview broadcast on March 17. Conducted in Beijing, the interview was for the English-language Chinese government-broadcaster China Global Television Network program First Voice (先聲奪人) in an episode titled “From resistance to revision? How Taiwan textbooks alter WWII history.” Host Liu Xin (劉欣) guided the narrative from what Ou presented as Lee’s bias toward a Japanese version of history to the “desinicization” agenda of educational reform under then-minister of education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) during then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration to the “separatist agenda” under President William Lai (賴清德).
Liu eked out a story about the willful negligence of Taiwanese authorities, who were hollowing out moral education for young people, confusing them about their origins and cutting Taiwanese off from mainstream Chinese culture. The interview ended when Liu had what she wanted — to equate Lai with separatism and the potential of war. It painted a tragic account of young Taiwanese being denied the chance to form their own moral compass, as if access to Chinese classical texts was the only possible channel to achieve that. Broadcast in English, with subtitles provided for Ou’s responses, it was tailored to an international audience, as Liu made clear throughout.
Ou also got what she wanted, to express her genuinely felt frustrations about the way she saw things going in Taiwan, while Liu got to craft her own message, with nobody to present an opposing side, of course.
National identity in Taiwan is nuanced and complex. The question is not how to bolster national identity, the problem remains how to find one. Those who control the messaging can exploit this.
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