The mentality of deep-blue voters “resembled the Klu Klux Klan,” business tycoon Robert Tsao (曹興誠) said yesterday, following accusations from film director Liu Chia-chang (劉家昌) that he “brought shame on [his] ancestors.”
Liu on Sunday wrote on Facebook that Tsao advocates independence, after the United Microelectronics Corp founder earlier this month attended a campaign rally for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中).
“Although you recovered your ROC [Republic of China] citizenship after returning from Singapore, you still help the green independents by guarding their flank,” Liu wrote. “I remind you from the perspective of the ROC that ... you should not insult the nation.”
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
“Chairman Tsao, no one cares if you do not want to be Chinese except you bring shame on the Tsao family’s ancestors. The ROC does not lose anything if you stop being a citizen,” he wrote, adding that his preferred candidate would lose against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安).
“When Chiang Wan-an is elected, you people will know the power of ROC citizens. People who had enough will stand up to you,” Liu continued.
Tsao said Liu’s “rant” showed that the KMT base has a “mental problem.”
Liu’s belief that ROC citizenship is defined by allegiance to the KMT shows that a sense of superiority prevails among the party’s base, Tsao wrote in an article on the Chinese-language Web site High-On.
“The argument sounds like the Klan from the southern US made up of white people who ‘had enough’ after black people — their former slaves and inferiors — got political power,” Tsao wrote.
The Chinese Communist Party treats ordinary Chinese as inferior, Tsao wrote, citing Beijing’s “zero COVID-19” policy.
When the KMT was in power in Taiwan, it acted similarly, Tsao said, citing its treatment of independence advocates before Taiwan became a democracy.
The KMT treated Taiwanese as inferior based on the assumptions that they were influenced by foreign forces based in the US and Japan, and that they were corrupted by Western democratic thought, he said.
However, Taiwanese started making demands to be their own masters, he said.
Taiwanese have a high degree of consensus that Taiwan should be independent and that its political system should be republican, he said, adding that the nation has pursued those goals since Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) became president in 1996, he said.
“The increase in the number of independent states to 195 countries today from 60 countries in 1945 shows that civilization trends toward nations becoming independent,” he said. “If a person wants to reunite [the British empire], they are definitely insane.”
The democratization of Taiwan is being opposed by the “mental patients who are viciously calling for the extermination of people who support Taiwanese independence just like the Klan,” he said.
“I urge Liu and his friends to reflect on their anti-independence beliefs and get on the right side of history,” he said.
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