Election junkies: China Policy Institute blog run by Jon Sullivan will be hosting a special issue on Taiwan and the elections. The line-up looks fabulous. And trawl through the previous posts of Frozen Garlic, there's some great stuff there.
Lien Chan, Honorary KMT Chairman for Life, father of Sean Lien, current KMT candidate for Mayor of Taipei, has spoken (in Chinese)(Taipei Times) on the election, attacking Ko in no uncertain terms. He's so wonderful. He should really speak at KMT campaign events across the nation. Not for nothing did a sharp friend of mine describe the Lien clan as Lee Teng-hui's gift to the DPP....
The elder Lien delivered us his undying wisdom....
“Ever since the KMT lost power in 2000, [then-president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration] started implementing a series of ‘de-Sinicization’ policies, forcing children at the age of 11 or 12 to receive non-Sinicized education,” Lien Chan said in his speech.De-Sinicization is KMT code for Chen Shui-bian's policies of removing markers of KMT colonialism in Taiwan. Whenever you see it used to describe Chen or Lee Teng-hui, you know you're looking at KMT propaganda. Lien is especially classic in attributing the internet and media comments to de-Sinicization. That is a significant advance over the usual complaints about de-Sinicization.
“We were saddened to see Chinese ethics, traditional morality and history being twisted to such an extent. As for those children who grew up being fed erroneous ideas, they are now in their 20s or 30s and may have different occupations, such as in the media or Internet sectors,” he added. “As you can all see, we [myself and my son] have fallen victim to distorted comments online and in the media that have unnerved our society.”
He went on to deliver a couple of more blasts at his son's opponent, Ko Wen-je:
He then took aim at Ko, saying that as the third-generation descendant of a man who served the Japanese colonial government, Ko had received “imperialization” education and therefore dismisses everything pertaining to “Zhonghua culture” (中華文化), including its values and history.At another venue he added:
“I absolutely cannot stand the thought of having someone whose grandfather changed his surname to a Japanese one during the Japanese colonial era as mayor of Taipei. He [Ko] calls himself a commoner and us the privileged few, but I call him a ‘bastard,’” he said.Labeling Ko anti-China, under control of the pro-independence forces, and Japanese, is the KMT way of trying to get the deep Blue pro-KMT crowd to come out. I doubt it will work; when your candidate's nickname is "God pig" after the pigs fattened for religious sacrifice in local religious traditions, it's going to be uphill sledding.
Lien also took a slap at the Sunflower Movement:
“Because of the poorly revised textbooks, these students think they can publicly declare that they are not Chinese. They have the entire day to do nothing except surf the Internet and form something akin to an online army that propagates malicious rumors,” Lien Chan said. “It was all their [the Sunflower participants’] doing.”Not a word of this needed to be said, a not a word of it will impress outside of the deep Blue voters. It wouldn't be surprising if this cost Sean Lien votes, especially from a public that is hungry to hear about bread and butter issues and which reveres the Sunflowers. Indeed, if they had treated Sean Lien as a traditional candidate who would spread around construction money, serve the public, and so on, they might have been better off...
Today's TVBS poll had Ko up by 13 over Lien. The KMT and its deep Blue supporters are feeling deeply threatened, not only by the short-term possibilities of the election, but also by the long-term trends. The young in Taiwan are completely unmoved by the KMT's faux Chinese identity and are busily working out their own Taiwan identity. That is why current KMT mayor Hau's elder father, former Premier Hau Pei-tsun, came out the other day to (hilariously) declare that Ko's election would mean the end of the ROC. They feel in their bones the turning of a page of history, and are reacting accordingly....
Ko update: On the Facebook of Ko's wife, a highly perceptive and educated woman, people are warning her and her husband to watch out. She posted a pic of the thank-you card the Liens had sent Ko after he had operated on Sean Lien, and said that they had given him a bottle of liquor which cost $400 but which they had purchased on sale at $160....
UPDATE: A commenter below observes:
She did so only after Sean Lien's mother claimed at a rally one day earlier (Nov 15) that Ko was not among the four doctors who treated Sean Lien for his gunshot wound, implying Ko was lying about having treated Lien.Thanks, I didn't know who had said it. The other comments are good too, don't miss them.
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5 comments:
Poor old papa Chan. It seems he is still steaming over the pastings Chen handed him in back-to-back presidential elections. And now his utterly untalented son is facing the same fate at the hands of the traitorous Ko. Democracy is such a bitch for those born to rule the KMT's Taiwan Chinatown.
Lien's stab at the Ko family for adopting a Japanese surname is particularly a loaded swipe that carries with it generations of baggage.
When the KMT first arrived on Taiwan, they viewed the Taiwanese as morally degraded traitors to the race for having been colonized by the Japanese (and having colonized so goddamned well). They used the degree in which the Taiwanese cooperated as the pretext for establishing a new social order in which the mainlanders (who fought Japanese aggression) were revered for their "unwavering resolve" to die rather than bow down to the "dwarf slaves". The Taiwanese in their lack were in need of moral re-education and blocked from economic and social mobility within the party state.
The Lien family were regarded as "half-mountain" people; Chinese Nationalist loyalists who were used to help an alien regime take control of Taiwan for their own colonial exploitation.
Lien's swipe rings of the bad old days when ethnicity was introduced into Taiwan's political discourse. It was not introduced as an invention of the DPP, but rather, it was introduced by people like Lien to secure an empire on the backs and bodies of Taiwanese people.
>>Ko's wife, a highly perceptive and educated woman<<
To be exact, she (Dr. Chen Pei-chi) herself, like her husband Ko, is a medical doctor (pediatrician), graduated from the well-respected NTU Medical School.
"She posted a pic of the thank-you card the Liens had sent Ko after he had operated on Sean Lien",
She did so only after Sean Lien's mother claimed at a rally one day earlier (Nov 15) that Ko was not among the four doctors who treated Sean Lien for his gunshot wound, implying Ko was lying about having treated Lien.
Re: “We were saddened to see Chinese ethics, traditional morality and history being twisted to such an extent." I think he meant to say "twisted Chinese ethics" ie. pilferage of state assets, bribery, endless tainted food scandals, land expropriation to benefit developer friends to enable graft etc...
When the race is over, Ko should send the Lien family and gift and thank-you note for their invaluable help during the campaign.
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