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Chameleon Ma thinks
he can fool Taiwanese
By Chen Shan-jung 陳杉榮
Pity President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). He has been a busy little beaver over the
past few days, running around and shamelessly changing guises to suit his ends.
He embarked upon this chameleon spree in his bid to strike down legislative
speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平). He already sees himself as emperor, with the
legislature at his beck and call. Having laid his hands on a Special
Investigation Division (SID) surveillance report on alleged illegal lobbying
involving Wang and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming
(柯建銘), he has decided to go for the jugular.
From emperor he morphed into president, approving Wang’s vacation in Malaysia,
where Wang was to host his daughter’s wedding. He then sat back and waited,
biding his time until Wang was well out of the country before he pounced,
blindsiding him with an SID press conference. Trap sprung, he feigned shock and
regret at Wang’s alleged abuse of power, but his basic intention of ridding
himself of Wang was quite clear.
Taiwanese are not “bumbling” fools, and it was instantly apparent that this was
all one big set-up. The three collateral victims of Ma’s attempt to kill several
birds with one stone — former justice minister Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), Taiwan High
Prosecutors’ Office Head Prosecutor Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) and Lin Shiow-tao
(林秀濤), the prosecutor in charge of Ker’s original breach of trust case —
immediately issued clarifications, refuting the SID’s frame-up. The opposition
also cried foul, berating the illegal use of surveillance and the re-emergence
of the imperial-era secret police.
Seeing his abortive attempt flounder, the chameleon president shifted into
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman mode, ordering Wang — whose vacation he
had some time ago approved as president — to return without delay. This rather
harsh, even sacrilegious, treatment was rightly met with disdain among the
public.
His sights now locked on his adversary, Ma moved to the next stage, changing
clothes once more to call a press conference as president. Imagining himself as
a supreme court judge, he proceeded to give an Oscar-winning performance,
holding aloft the incriminating evidence handed him by the Supreme Prosecutors’
Office, acting as judge, jury and executioner for a man who has yet to appear in
court to answer the charges.
If this is not a performance, then what is? If these are not the actions of a
dictator, what actions are?
Ma is a democratically elected president, but he also doubles as the chairman of
the ruling party, keeping an iron grip on his underlings. He is simultaneously
playing Xiandi (獻帝), hapless last emperor of the Han, and the ruthlessly
ambitious Cao Cao (曹操), Xiandi’s puppet master. He is using SID’s illegal
surveillance data to destroy a powerful feudal lord whom he does not trust.
Ma might be able to fool one person, or perhaps several, but he certainly cannot
fool everyone.
If he does not desist from the behavior of allowing the abuse of surveillance to
violate human rights, of attacking his political rivals and fawning to Beijing,
he is not qualified to speak of honor. It was Ma, after all, who first crossed
the red line.
In the 1920s the KMT forces in China embarked upon the Northern Expedition to
end the rule of local warlords. One warlord, Wu Peifu (吳佩孚), apparently berated
another, Duan Qirui (段祺瑞), and his words could well be aimed at Ma.
“When a country is so vast, can one man have it all? With such plenitude in
frontier officials, can one party own them all? When the people are so many, can
one man whip them all?” Wu asked.
Chen Shan-jung is a reporter for the Liberty Times.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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