There was a time when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration could console themselves with at least one perceived advantage over the Democratic Progressive Party: their cross-strait policy.
That KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) managed to squander even that advantage away explains why the KMT now appears it would stop at nothing to annul her candidacy.
The fundamental weakness of Hung’s campaign is her radical pro-unification ideology, which has prompted the top echelons of the Presidential Office, the KMT and “elders” with the pan-blue camp to unite in calls for her to withdraw from the presidential race.
If she were allowed to continue, Hung’s cross-strait platform — a mess for which Hung has only herself to blame — would doom not only her campaign, but also those of KMT legislative candidates.
A KMT rout from the legislature would be the kind of nightmare scenario in which the party’s continued existence would not be guaranteed. Yet Hung apparently remains oblivious to the disaster she has created.
Therefore, KMT leaders have in recent days demonstrated considerable resolve in neutralizing Hung, running roughshod over procedural niceties, as well as public opinion.
The KMT Central Standing Committee on Wednedsay unanimously passed a resolution to call an extraordinary party congress to deliberate a proposal to replace her.
Although the KMT headquarters’ drastic methods prompted criticism, Hung’s stubborn and unthinking refusal to confront the matter has left the KMT no choice — “whatever the costs, Hung must go.”
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) voiced the discontent of grassroots members when he panned her cross-strait policy as out of touch with mainstream public opinion.
However, Hung brushed Chu off and blithely attributed the public furor over her China policy comments to “flawed communication.”
Ultimately, Hung’s self-righteous belief in her role as a champion of “truth,” and her indifference to the survival of KMT legislative candidates, are the reasons the KMT has “collectively disidentified” with Hung.
Hung’s cross-strait stance relies heavily on the ideas of Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), an academic with strong pro-unification views; crucially, Hung’s China policy discourse goes above and beyond Ma’s.
After Hung heedlessly crossed the Ma government’s “China-policy red line,” Ma had no choice but to sever his support for Hung.
A pan-blue camp politician once said that if, for the sake of argument, one concedes that the KMT is “pro-China,” then in comparison with the KMT, Chang and his ilk are “just red.” Left unchecked, the “red tide” from Hung’s campaign would crush the KMT as surely as it has crushed Hung.
Translated by staff writer Jonathan Chin
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching