Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) was not the nation’s founding father, and statutes stipulating that the president and lawmakers must salute Sun’s portrait at inauguration ceremonies and legislative sessions should be nullified to end the party-state dogma indoctrinated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), academics said yesterday.
At a Taipei news conference, Taiwan Association of University Professors board director Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said that Sun, who died in 1925, was “used” as the nation’s founding father by then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in 1940 to strengthen his rule over the KMT’s faltering regime in China.
“Why must we submit to the KMT’s will, and not the other way around?” Chen asked.
He said that the term guofu (國父, founding father) was coined by a warlord who addressed Sun that way in an elegiac couplet which he presented to Sun at his funeral, and asked if anyone would take Chinese elegiacal writing — which he said is usually exaggerated — seriously.
“If Sun were alive today, he would be perplexed to hear people call him guofu. In a way, he is also victim of all the criticism we have hurled at him,” Chen said.
Chen said that he was a “victim” of Sun’s doctrines, because, along with all Taiwanese his age, he was educated to stand at attention whenever his teachers or parents brought up the term guofu and could only continue with their business after they were given the instruction: “At ease.”
People his age were made to study Sun’s teachings and to write essays about him for their college entrance exams, he said.
“I wrote a lot of fawny essays about Sun, but it was not until I was old enough to figure out the truth that I realize how wrong my essays were,” he said.
Taiwan, as a republic, should break away from the authoritarian brainwashing in the form of a provisionally announced founding father, so that democratic values can be realized, Chen said.
National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of Taiwan History director Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元) said there were several individuals that were influential in the revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty — for example Yuan Shikai (袁世凱), who controlled Qing’s forces, and Qing Dynasty revolutionaries Huang Xin (黃興) and Zhang Taiyan (章太炎) — and Sun was but one of them, Hsueh said.
Although Sun founded the Society for Regenerating China (興中會), Yeung Ku-wan (楊衢雲), rather than Sun, was its first leader, Hsueh said.
Similarly, it did not evolve into the later-founded the Tongmenghui (同盟會), which led the revolution to victory, as the Tongmenghui was founded by a coalition of revolutionary organizations, he said.
The transitional phase between the Tongmenghui and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which Sun founded, was even more complex, as the KMT was formed by even more wings and many of Sun’s colleagues at Tongmenghui refused to join, he said.
“To understand Sun’s role in the founding of the nation, these historic events must first be put into perspective,” he said.
Although it is written in history books that Sun led 11 revolutions before the Qing Dynasty was toppled, he was overseas when the revolution broke out and he only learned about it later, Hsueh said. “I think that is an important fact.”
“You can plaster your bedroom with posters of the movie stars, singers and athletes you like. However, imposing an idol on the citizenry is unacceptable in a democracy,” association secretary-general Shiu Wen-tang (許文堂) said.
Association chairman Peter Chang (張信堂) said that although president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday spoke against Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kao Chih-peng’s (高志鵬) proposal to abolish practices to salute Sun’s portraits, the association would continue to monitor Tsai’s administration by working with other civic groups until amendments to end such practices are pushed through.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The cosponsors of a new US sanctions package targeting Russia on Thursday briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation and said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions regarding Taiwan. The bill backed by US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations such as China and India, which account for about 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade, the bankroll of much of its war effort. Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press
INTEL: China’s ships are mapping strategic ocean floors, including near Guam, which could aid undersea cable targeting and have military applications, a report said China’s oceanographic survey and research ships are collecting data in the Indo-Pacific region — possibly to aid submarine navigation, detect or map undersea cables, and lay naval mines — activities that could have military applications in a conflict with Taiwan or the US, a New York Times report said. The article, titled “China Surveys Seabeds Where Naval Rivals May One Day Clash,” was written by Chris Buckley and published on Thursday. Starboard Maritime Intelligence data revealed that Chinese research ships last year repeatedly scanned the ocean floor east of Taiwan’s maritime border, and about 400km east and west of Guam; “waters that
RSS