Doctor, Heal Thyself

Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of Taiwan's main independence party, recently explained why her party was opposed to the recent visit to Taiwan by China's negotiator, Chen Yunlin.  In response, Dr. William Fang of Taiwan's China Post offered a rebuttal, titled ironically enough, "Tsai's unintelligent, ridiculous and paradoxical comments." 

Ironic, because -- yeah, you guessed it -- the good doctor disproves Tsai's arguments with a few unintelligent, ridiculous and paradoxical comments of his own.  Fang quotes Tsai thusly:

"But unfortunately . . . now, all national flags of the Republic of China [Taiwan] in the Grand Hotel [in Taipei] have been folded up [in order to appease the visiting envoy from China]."  This the Ma administration has humiliated this country, Tsai concluded.

. . . we must bluntly remind Tsai that her party has never paid due respect to the national flag of the ROC, therefore, she has absolutely no right and justification to blame the Ma administration for not displaying flags at the Grand Hotel where Chen [Yunlin] will stay (if it does [sic] happen as she said).  Indeed, Tsai's motive on the flag issue ought to be questioned.  [emphasis added]

Whoa, whoa -- let's start with Fang's parenthetical statement, in which he expresses doubt about Tsai's allegations concerning the removal of Taiwanese flags at the Grand Hotel.  One wonders whether Fang even bothers to read his own newspaper, because it was only a day earlier when the China Post featured an above-the-fold picture on the front page with the following caption (skip down to the underlined section):

(Above)  Concertina-wired chevaux de-rise [sic] in front of the Grand Hotel in Taipei.  The barricade was set up yesterday to fend off protesting crowds who may get close to Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait, and his 60-member delegation.  They are scheduled to arrivesing [sic] the envoy.  Taiwan's president urged those opposed to a top Chinese envoy's visit to keep their protests peaceful, less than two weeks after demonstators attacked another representative from Beijing.  (Left)  A Taiwanese man unfurls a national [Taiwanese] flag outside Taipei's Grand Hotel Sunday as Taipei gets ready to welcome the first visit by the top Chinese envoy, Chen Yunlin in Taipei.  The hotel, where Chen is to stay during his visit starting Monday, has removed from its perimeter all the national flags to avoid embarrassing the envoy . . . [emphasis added]

If Fang maintains that Tsai is lying about the incident, then he must also logically hold that his own newspaper lied about the very same thing to its readers.  So which is it, Fang?  Are they both lying, or they both telling the truth? 

Tick-tock, tick-tock . . .

But Fang's main point with this is that Tsai is being hypocritical.  Tsai's party never paid "due respect" to Taiwan's flag, so therefore it has no right to point fingers when the KMT does likewise.  Which is right up there with admitting that yes, I may be grossly obese, but that physician has no right to tell me to lose weight, 'cause he's kinda fat, too.  (And furthermore, I'd rather stuff my face full of twinkies and die of a massive coronary rather than take advice from some hypocrite in a white lab coat!)

Wisdom from the brow of Pallas Athene, this ain't.  What Fang forgets is that the truth's the truth, whether spoken by saint, sinner OR hypocrite. Tsai's party may very well be hypocritical here * (although see my footnotes as for why I think this is a bad rap).  But that doesn't invalidate Tsai's point, namely, that Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party has just pissed on their own country's flag. 

The corollary to the truth being the truth would have to be that a lie told by a liar is always a lie.  Speaking of liars, does anybody remember this "sincere promise" Ma Ying-jeou made when he was running for president?

If elected next year, Ma said he would not allow China to demand that the country cover national flags . . . during cross-strait exchange events in Taiwan.

You've gotta admit, it was a nice campaign slogan to fool the rubes.

And finally, one of Fang's ancillary arguments against Tsai is that it's irrelevant how the negotiator from China addresses Taiwan's president.  The president is the president, no matter HOW he's addressed.  "Mister" Ma or "President" Ma or whatever the envoy wants to call him -- the differences are largely semantic.

Taking Fang at his word, I now dub Taiwan's KMT president "Buttmunch-in-Chief" Ma Ying-jeou.  Nine in ten KMT supporters agree, he's the right man for the orifice!

President Ma, Buttmunch Ma -- Pot-tay-to, Pot-tah-to, right?

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*  Are members of Taiwan's main independence party hypocritical about the ROC flag?  Certainly, a number of them probably prefer some other flag to the one the country has now.  But when push comes to shove, does that mean they're prohibited from defending a flag they consider to be less-than-ideal?

By the same token, it's a common occurance that a man's girlfriend might not be quite as pretty as he would like.  Someone calls her plug-ugly though, and he rises to her defense. 

And that happens whether someone of Doc Fang's ilk thinks he's got the "right" to do so or not.