Aren’t You Embarrassed to Still Call Yourself the Democratic Progressive Party?

 Aren’t You Embarrassed to Still Call Yourself the Democratic Progressive Party?

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 7, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

April 7, "Freedom of Speech Day" was created by President Tsai Ing-wen in memory of Cheng Nan-jung, who self-immolated in seeking 100% freedom of speech. This year marks the 30^th anniversary of Cheng Nan-jung 's self-immolation; the DPP government, on the one hand, commemorated "Freedom of Speech Day," while on the other, it aggressively, consistently, and systematically oppressed freedom of speech, becoming a joke in the history of Taiwan's democratic development; "freedom of speech" has become the biggest fake news.

The DPP government has accelerated its oppression of freedom of speech because of electoral defeat, thus assigning the blame to fake news and disinformation. However, fake news and disinformation absolutely did not start today. And the value of freedom of speech is to allow disputes to become elucidated through debates in the market of ideas, while accountability of speech should be one’s own burden. In cases of tort, it belonged to the arena of judicial adjudication, and political forces are not allowed to intervene. In fact, the history of democratic development of mankind is precisely a history countering the government's oppression and intervention in the freedom of speech and of the press.

Since President Tsai Ing-wen took office over two years ago, she has shown contempt for due process, considering the opposition party, the military, civil servants and public school teachers as "dissidents," attacking them with approaches of brusque struggles, having only the party’s will and no public opinion towards many vital public policies concerning the operations of small and medium businesses and the livelihoods of the grassroots, eliciting social backlashes a number of times. Frankly speaking, if the tactics of restricting freedom of the press were useful, then the Republic of China would still be governed up to the present by the authoritarian KMT of yesteryear. Many elders of the Dangwai (outside of the KMT party) lambasted authoritarianism, and now that the DPP is in power, however, it has been striving to emulate authoritarianism. The DPP has been exerting so much strength to oppress the freedom of the press, isn’t it embarrassed to still call itself the Democratic Progressive Party?

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