The China Post news staff
Earlier, over stiff opposition from Hau, the four giant Chinese characters, "Da Zhong Zhi Zheng," were removed from the main arch of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Dec. 7. The memorial hall has been renamed by the Chen Shui-bian administration the "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall," and the characters replaced by another four characters, "Zhi Yu Guang Zhang," meaning "Liberty Square."
The whole issue over the memorial hall, which has dragged on for several months, centers on the loud assertion by the "pan-green" people led by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that the hall is dedicated to the late President Chiang Kai-shek, a "dictator," who, they claim, "slaughtered thousands of native Taiwanese." For many "pan-blue" supporters, however, Chiang was a national hero, who had defeated warlords, united China, defeated Japan in World War II and made great contributions to the modernization and democratization of Taiwan.
In order to rename and restructure the memorial hall as they wish to cater to "deep blue" followers, the DPP administration first downgraded the status of the hall by an executive order, thus taking it out of the hands of the Legislative Yuan where the opposition holds a majority and putting it under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan.
The Taipei City Government countered by designating the memorial hall a municipal cultural heritage, making it punishable by law for anyone who attempts to change its appearance and contents.
Later, the Council for Cultural Affairs under the Executive Yuan designated the hall as a national cultural heritage site, wresting control of the hall from the Taipei City Government. All these maneuvers led to a sharp confrontation between central and local authorities. During the clashes several people, including reporters, were wounded, some seriously.
Having realized the gravity of the situation, Ma urged his supporters to exercise restraint so they would not play into the hands of the DPP, which will likely benefit from any chaos and violence.
As everyone knows, the Chen administration has few achievements to show for the past seven years, and therefore, it cannot but resort to political tricks to divert public attention from its poor performance. They have been throwing out one hot issue after another and behaving with more and greater absurdities as poll times draw near. In doing so, they intend to constantly grab media headlines, thus blockading most of the news about whatever "beef" the opposition can offer in the election campaign.
In this sense, Ma is wise in calling for his followers not to dance under the baton of the DPP and keep cool to avoid any extreme behavior. But Ma must make sure that his cooling-off strategy accentuates the unlawfulness and violence-prone mentality of the ruling DPP, in sharp contrast with the kind of decency and rationality demonstrated by the pan-blue people, which should attract a large portion of moderate "middle-of-the-road" voters. The Ma camp should try to learn from the DPP in playing the "pathetic card" by portraying itself as the weak being bullied by savage hoodlums.
However, pan-blue leaders should be urged to do the following:
1. They should not retreat too much to stimulate the perception of weakness, causing voters to doubt their ability to stand against adversity in ruling the country. Hence, Hau did the right thing in deciding to bring the controversy over the memorial hall to court for legal settlement.
2. They should make sure that everything they do is on solid legal grounds. For example, the party center of the KMT has vowed to pass the organic law governing the Central Election Commission (CEC), which requires that commission members be appointed in proportion to the popular support each political party receives. This suggestion has been reportedly opposed, not only by some KMT lawmakers but also by Vincent Siew, the KMT's vice presidential candidate. Since there is the problem of constitutionality with regard to this proposal, the KMT-led opposition may have to think of other and better ways to rectify the situation in which the present CEC is dominated by pan-green members who have been accused of making decisions concerning election procedures favorable to the DPP.
3. The KMT must strive to strengthen its propaganda work to correct the public perception created mostly by media reports that any political feud has been described as a "vicious struggle between the two parties (the DPP and the KMT)," without stressing which party is the initiator or which should bear the greater blame. This kind of confusion is often unfair to the opposition.