The View from Taiwan blog has an in-depth look at Ma's inaugural presidential speech.
Do take a look.
Honestly, I'm still unhappy about the KMT in general, though clearly the DPP dropped the ball in all sorts of ways. Ma's just starting out, though, so I guess all I can do is wait and see.
I do have to point out one little piece of the English translation of Ma's speech:
"Dr. Sun Yat-sen's dream for a constitutional democracy was not realized on the Chinese mainland, but today it has taken root, blossomed and borne fruit in Taiwan."
Interesting. Well, my wise old grandpa (he was a lifelong teacher of history -- I guess my apple didn't fall far from his tree) used to say that Sun Yat-sen was the only person both mainland Chinese and Taiwanese could agree on was a Good Guy.
Aside from that, I find Ma going back to Sun to be rather a gloss over nitty-gritty real history. Yes, today there is a vibrant (if still young and growing) democracy in Taiwan, and we should all be supporting it. BUT that democracy didn't just appear magically out of thin air. People had to work hard to develop it -- after 50 years of one-party rule and martial law by . . . the old KMT. Ummm, yeah.
1 comment:
Until the DPP became an actual power I had always thought that the struggle between Taiwan and China simply the result of two Communist nationalist sects with to many ways available to kill their fellow citizens.
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