“The Devil Talk”: Hidden Ghosts Created by Deep Suspicions of a "Fighting-Cock Premier"

 “The Devil Talk”: Hidden Ghosts Created by Deep Suspicions of a "Fighting-Cock Premier"

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

October 28, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Hong Kong suspect Chan Tong-kai was willing to surrender himself in Taiwan, nevertheless Taiwan was raising a rainstorm, with ramifications abounding. As the media reported that lawyers of the Lee and Li had gone to Hong Kong to contact Chan Tong-kai, Premier Su Tseng-chang immediately went on the offensive, accusing Ma Ying-jeou’s close friend-lawyer of having been to Hong Kong to extricate the Hong Kong government from the predicament of the protests and demonstration over the amendment bill to the Fugitive Offenders Ordinance. Then, Ma Ying-jeou expressed sympathy to the family of the murder victim, while choking up when speaking, and then pastor Peter Koon, who is also a delegate to the Beijing National People’s Consultative Conference, served as a “go-between" the KMT echoed subsequently. Thus Su concluded that "focused by the mirror exposing evils, the devil and the devils within the devils appeared one by one."

An august Premier accused a former president of being a devil in a manner unbecoming of a premier; this requires no further discussion. Lamentably, Premier Su behaved beneath his dignity, yet he thought he was right, seeking humiliation while being elated. In the beginning of the year, after having lost in the mayoral election in New Taipei City, Su was about to assume the premiership, he showed the airs of his high office to the victors in last year’s local elections everywhere. Su played the role of “captain of the smear Han brigade"; with the might of the entire Cabinet, he clubbed his political rivals, as if he could not manifest the airs of his office without using tough language. No wonder the Blue camp has dubbed him "fighting-cock Premier."

Premier Su and a majority of Cabinet members have all studied law, nevertheless, they do not respect the professionalism of law, all the time calculating their own political interests and engaging in machinations to attack their opponents. Lin Yu-hsiung, an authority on criminal law at National Taiwan University, spoke well when he said that the Cabinet ministers used "Hong Konger to be tried by Hong Kong" and “jus sanguinis” to repeatedly twist jurisprudence; how could such kind of Cabinet ministers face their own professionalism and colleagues? When judicial professionalism confronts politics and repeatedly "flip-flops", how could Taiwan talk with others about rule of law and defending sovereignty?

Obviously, a simple repatriation case in the criminal justice system, the Tsai government nevertheless evades by meticulous calculations of a "conspiracy theory" and in the end finds it difficult to wind up even after flip-flopping several times. Obviously a policy decision subject to public scrutiny, Su Tseng-chang nevertheless wanted to catapult it to "devil talk" with a witch doctor dance; not only the entire population felt astonished and bewildered, it elicited condemnations of over 100 human rights delegates from many countries that Taiwan was still implementing death sentences. Could we say that this kind of Premier was fit for his office? 

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