A politician and academics yesterday criticized KMT leaders for comparing Afghanistan to Taiwan, asking whether the KMT had forgotten that it fled China and committed atrocities in Taiwan during the White Terror era.
“It was nauseating for me to hear the KMT using what is happening in Afghanistan to mock Taiwanese,” independent Taipei City Councilor Lin Ying-Meng (林穎孟) wrote on Facebook yesterday. “Actually, if it had not fled to Taiwan, the KMT would have been totally wiped out by Chinese communist troops.”
“KMT leaders really have no shame,” she said. “They exploit the tragic events in which Afghan people have suffered death and devastation, with a self-indulgent attitude ... to taunt Taiwanese. Most of the public are disgusted by their remarks, but the KMT’s people believe they are the conquering heroes.”
When the KMT fled to Taiwan, it prolonged the Chinese Civil War, she said, adding: “It is the KMT who brought the war they were engaged in to Taiwan.”
It is a perversion of history to claim that the KMT was safeguarding Taiwan, Lin said.
“When they arrived in Taiwan, they committed atrocities and massacred Taiwanese. Then the KMT imposed a fascist dictatorship on Taiwan,” she said.
Tsai Tung-chieh (蔡東杰), a professor of international relations at National Chung Hsing University said that comparing Taiwan to Afghanistan, “is too simplistic, and lacks logic. It might be valid, if the US was withdrawing all American troops from around the world, or Taiwan-US relations were going downhill.”
“Yet right now, the US still has many troops and bases ... around the world, and Washington is likely to reinforce its military presence in Asia-Pacific region, in the post-Afghanistan war era. Therefore Taiwan would benefit ... as the US pivots to the Asia-Pacific to preserve regional security,” Tsai said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
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