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It’s the Ma medicine
show: Roll up, roll up!
By James Wang 王景弘
From what we have seen recently, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) appears to be even
more treacherous and slippery than former chairman of the Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) and former — and failed — presidential candidate Lien Chan (連戰).
Both are prize contenders in political calculation, entirely lacking in
sincerity.
In 2002, on a visit to Washington, Lien said: “We are all Chinese, period.” He
said period. Period means period. Full stop. End of discussion. No “ifs,” no
“buts,” no qualification of any kind.
Had he been a little more astute, he could have said something like, “from my
father’s line, I am Taiwanese, but from my mother’s, and from my birthplace, I
am Chinese.”
It would have been no word of a lie, either. His father, Lien Chen-tung (連震東),
rose through the ranks of the KMT under former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石)
and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to become interior minister. He was of
Taiwanese origin, although he never saw himself as Taiwanese, saying instead
that he was Chinese.
In so doing, he dragged us all down.
While Ma gives the impression of being up front, there is generally more going
on than meets the eye.
He is a member of the extreme right-wing Anti--Communist Patriotic Alliance, but
for “anti-communist” read “anti-independence.” He identifies with Taiwan so that
he can take on the pro-independence faction.
When he was campaigning to become Taipei mayor, he bit the bullet and claimed he
was a “new Taiwanese,” but he did not like being called Taiwanese after he was
elected.
During the presidential election campaign of 2008, Ma, mindful of the concerns
of voters who identified with Taiwan, parried the question of who he was at that
time, saying only that he would be Taiwanese even after he was cremated.
Rhetoric like this is just too much, referring to the situation after death to
con people out of their votes, and afterwards to work to make everyone in the
country “Chinese.”
Well, it looks like conning season is once more upon us, with Ma nicely cloaked
in three different guises — identity, lineage and nationality — each one aimed
at a specific audience.
For you, sir, I am Taiwanese. For you, madam, I will be a descendant of the
Chinese race. And for you? Why, I am Chinese, of course.
Actually, Ma has more masks to produce than these three.
To overseas Taiwanese living in the US, he can say he is the father of an
American and that he has a green card, which he never applied to invalidate.
Born in Hong Kong, he can also say he is a British colonial subject and that his
very name bears witness to the fact. “Ying” (英) is the Chinese character used
for Britain.
If you are going to claim you are Taiwanese, Chinese, American, Aboriginal,
ethnic Han or ethnic Manchurian, you have to be sincere and natural about it. It
should be a matter of pride to say so and only then does it really mean
anything.
National leaders are not cut from the same cloth as the type of person who would
just regurgitate cooked up stories straight out of party-state textbooks
exclusively for the political capital it affords.
That type of person is more suited to traveling from town to town flogging dodgy
miracle cures from the back of a caravan. We are bearing witness to Ma and the
medicine show.
James Wang is a political commentator.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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