Creating Historical Divergences on the One Hand While Seeking a Path for Reconciliation on the Other

 Creating Historical Divergences on the One Hand While Seeking a Path for Reconciliation on the Other

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

April 27, 2017

 Translation of an Except

Two months ago, Tsai Ying-wen attended the 70th anniversary commemoration of the February 28 Incident (2-28), pointing out that the goal of transformational justice was reconciliation and that reconciliation must be erected on the basis of the truth. The problem is that the DPP launched a massive, all-encompassing battlefield for transformational justice, and made a unilateral explanation of justice, while allowing the pursuit of transformational justice to morph into struggle. Using political stand and ideology to tailor history, not only failed to find the truth, but rather deepened even more misunderstandings and hatred.

The various historical views introduced by the DPP have decided that its transformational justice will be destined to lack "tolerance," much less will it help Taiwan to find a path to reconciliation from its divergent history. Most apparent is the Taiwan independence historical view. The Taiwan independence historical view not only refuses to have any political or legal linkages with Mainland China, it also exerts all efforts to disassociate itself from the historical and cultural China. From the disputes over history textbook guidelines, to a series of conflicts over “de-Sinicization” and “de-Chiang Kai-shek” movements, this is the fundamental reason.

From the DPP's 2-28 history that was deliberately plucked out of its many ramifications, we saw many local elites who became victims, but could not see the victims of other provinces in Taiwan. While at the same time blaming Chiang Kai-shek for dispatching reinforcements to Taiwan, it did not consider the background of the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists. Similarly, denigrating the KMT as an alien regime and a government in exile, it did not mention the KMT’s contributions to help Taiwan's economy take off.

The second is the mentality of colonial historical views. Taiwan has been liberated from Japanese colonial rule for more than 70 years; however, while the colonialists left, the mentality of the "colonized" has not been emancipated, the DPP is willing to continue its self-imposed colonialism. From the perspective of the aborigines, the DPP's transformational justice cannot shake off the "Han Chinese historical view." And from the historical perspective of the Hakkas, it is full of the historical view of "Minnan (southern Fujian)." The DPP can pursue illicit party assets from the KMT, but it is utterly impossible for the aborigines to seek the return of their traditional lands, much less to restore historical justice of their oppression by the Japanese colonialists and the Han Chinese.

Tsai Ying-wen has been in office for nearly a year, and society has been mired in cycles of divisions and reprisals, while the country has been torn by hatred. President Tsai's speeches, written by youthful literati, are filled with warm and florid rhetoric, while we cannot see any beautiful scenery of "tolerance, sharing and generosity" in the political arena. How is the Tsai government going to find the way of reconciliation and the path to peace amid the historical views of its own making?

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