Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
If the KMT's chairman emeritus wishes to tie his party to the Butchers of Beijing and their PLA stormtroopers, that can certainly be arranged.
Welcome back to Taiwan, Lien Chan. Not everyone has a good time at Tiananmen Square, but you enjoyed yourself.
And that's the important thing.
i-1
…and ready for a thrashing in Taiwan's January presidential election
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) campaign team yesterday said that Hung would return to her normal schedule today, ending the “temporary break from daily campaign activities” she announced late on Wednesday night.
[…]
[But even] KMT spokesperson Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) mocked [her recent Buddhist-related Facebook] post, saying, without specifically referring to Hung, “[are we going to have] a union of religion and state now?”
Evidence her own party has stopped lampooning her behind her back, and does it now directly to her face.
Get thee to a nunnery: KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu goes to ground, placing her ill-fought campaign on hiatus.
When I first heard of Hung's bid, I regarded her warily. She wasn't one of the KMT's heavyweights – but then again, Bill Clinton wasn't a Democratic heavyweight back in '92. And, similar to Clinton, there was something admirable in her willingness to throw her hat into the ring against near-overwhelming odds.
But within a week or two, she astonished everyone by stating that she couldn't rightly say that the Republic of China actually existed.
A baffling admission, from one wishing to be president of that supposedly non-existent country!
Since then, her campaign has descended into a clown show – her 15% approval rating testifies to that. Apparently, a sharp tongue ≠ political smarts.
Look, it was always going to be an uphill battle for the KMT after the misrule of President Ma Ying-jeou. A competent Kuomintang candidate might have managed a close (but face-saving) loss. Who knows what a brilliant one might have done?
If there's any lesson in all of this, it's that competitive party primaries are indispensable for discovering who party nominees truly are. Because had Hung Hsiu-chu been tested in debate with other KMT presidential hopefuls, her gaffes would have been made and pounced upon.
And she would have been quickly winnowed from the field.
