What is Tsai Ying-wen Up To in Grabbing Control of the General Association of Chinese Cultural?

  What is Tsai Ying-wen Up To in Grabbing Control of the General Association of Chinese Cultural?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

March 14, 2017

Translation of an Except

After an all-out effort, President Tsai Ying-wen finally grabbed the General Association of Chinese Culture (GACC), successfully getting elected as president of the association, and massively arranging Green camp hordes to occupy important positions. As the government has had a firm grip on vast resources, why has the Tsai government been spending so much time and effort to grab a private sector organization? What is the purpose? The public have been watching. Is the GACC led by Tsai Ying-wen going to enrich culture, or is it only utilizing it to fulfill its goal of "De-Sinicization"?

After having grabbed the GACC, now everyone is waiting to see what the next step Tsai is going to take. Initially the DPP's version is that it will use the General Association to promote cross-Strait cultural exchanges; however, after taking over as president of the General Association, Tsai has stressed elevating Taiwan's cultural strength, enhancing international exchanges, while cross-Strait exchanges, on the other hand, have been relegated to being secondary. It is no surprise, the outside world is full of speculation that Tsai government’s main objective is to "De-Sinicize" the General Association.

In fact, if the Tsai government intends to promote cross-Strait exchanges, the ball is in her court and in her hands, so why does need the General Association? When Tsai Ing-wen made such a deployment, the aim, of course, was to change the essence of the General Association. As a consequence, in the future the hue of "Chinese" in the name of the General Association of Chinese Culture will be diluted or even eliminated. This we are afraid, will be an inevitable trend. As to the so-called "promoting cross-Strait cultural exchanges" blah, blah, blah is probably only a smoke bomb for the government; no real programs have been considered.

After grabbing the General Association, besides arranging jobs for a string of good friends and cronies, in reality, it is a "wasteful to spit out but lacking in flavor," i.e., it serves no other purpose if not to De-Sinicize the General Association. But grapping it with such bad manners, it cannot but expose Tsai herself to public scrutiny; everybody is waiting to see how she leads the organization. Will this become the first myth of the “Emperor’s new clothes” to be debunked?

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