Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) was on Monday last week invited to give a talk to students of Soochow University, but her responses to questions raised by students and lecturers became a controversial incident and sparked public discussion over the following days.
The student association of the university’s Department of Political Science, which hosted the event, on Saturday issued a statement urging people to stop “doxxing,” harassing and attacking the students who raised questions at the event, and called for rational discussion of the talk.
Criticism should be directed at viewpoints, opinions or policies, not students, they said, adding that representatives of political parties having open public debates and rational dialogues would be more valuable than doxxing, ridiculing or labeling people, and more in line with public discourse ethics that the political science department values.
Cheng not only avoided incisive questions by responding with irrelevant issues or ultimately dismissing the question, but also reproached students by saying “you should not ask this question,” “do not be provocative,” “you all raise bad questions,” and “these questions are not up to the level and attitude of what I expect from a university.”
She also called an associate professor “brainless” and labeled him as “clearly a follower of ‘San-min-zi’ media,” a label that some pan-blue supporters use for three local media outlets they say lean toward the pan-green camp.
The KMT Youth Department called the event a “political mouthpiece” and “personalized political theater” for a lecturer, even though the lecturer only raised his questions at the end of the 20-minute question-and-answer session of the two-hour talk.
When the associate professor, Chen Fang-yu (陳方隅), posted on social media to clarify his questions, adding historical and factual information to back it up, his post was flooded with personal attacks on him and his family, without any rational discussion.
A closer look at the incident showed that the students’ questions were clear and objective, such as: “If you say Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator [as she said in an interview with a German broadcaster last month], but call President William Lai [賴清德] a dictator [as she mentioned in many public events and interviews], can you tell us how you define ‘dictatorship’?”
The student who asked that question posted about their experience on Threads, saying they are “not a supporter of any political party, but only a Taiwanese” who cares about politics, but the decade-old political party’s chairperson decided to label them as “brainless,” so they hoped Taiwanese would stop fueling societal polarization for political gain.
While Cheng insulted and scorned the students for raising questions that failed “her expectations,” she might be surprised to learn that her answers were also not up to most people’s expectations of a “qualified politician” in a democratic society, particularly as the head of Taiwan’s largest opposition party. Her answers revealed her prejudiced and condescending attitude, and her incapability (or intentional unwillingess) to explain, discuss and defend the KMT’s position and policies on important public issues.
She might have expected unquestioning acceptance like that from politically apathetic supporters, and she might be used to using one-sided propaganda and the labeling approach — intentionally presenting only information or viewpoints favorable to her or the KMT, leaving out facts, downplaying inconvenient truths, reframing issues ideologically, and fueling political polarization by simplifying complex issues and labeling people to mark them as “others” — but students are not as “brainless” as she assumed, and they understand the rules of public discourse.
As an activist in student movements against the then-KMT’s authoritarian regime during her university years, Cheng should know that university campuses are traditionally hubs for open debate, critical thinking and the clash of diverse viewpoints. However, she chose to stigmatize students and had a disrespectful attitude, which only led people to think that her question dodging was because the KMT’s stance and policies cannot stand up to public scrutiny.
Cheng on Saturday finally admitted that she anticipates a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the first half of next year, but denied speculations that the KMT agreed to certain preconditions for the meeting to take place.
Deliberately avoiding public scrutiny, and asking for unquestioning faith in the KMT and the Chinese government (despite its continuously hostile activities toward Taiwan), as Cheng demonstrated at the university talk and KMT legislators show by constantly refusing substantive deliberations on bills, should no longer be tolerated and Taiwanese should bravely stand up like the students to protect the nation’s democracy.
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