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Official's pro-China claim causes uproar in Taiwan
By DEBWU,Associated Press Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18
TAIPEI, Taiwan - President Ma Ying-jeou's efforts to build a diverse communal coalition have taken a hit after an official was alleged to have called Taiwan's majority population "primitive" and suggested China should use force to seize the island.
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The affair is a huge embarrassment to Ma, who has worked hard to unite Taiwan's fractious communal groups to support his ambitious China engagement program, despite continuing Chinese threats to take over democratic Taiwan by force.
While it is unlikely to delay the program's implementation _ it still enjoys strong support _ it could cost Ma's party votes in this year's local elections, as so-called "native Taiwanese" return to the communally conscious _ and anti-China _ opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party.
The affair burst into the limelight late last week when Kuo Kuan-ying of Taiwan's representative office in Toronto admitted he described himself in a newspaper essay as a "superior mainlander" _ a politically charged reference to the 2 million people who came to the island in 1949 after the Chinese civil war and dominated its institutions for the next 50 years.
Amid growing local outrage, Kuo denied more serious charges of referring to the majority population of native Taiwanese as "primitives," and writing that "China should use force to take over" Taiwan, even though the island "was not qualified" to unite with Beijing.
Lawmakers identified with the interests of native Taiwanese have led the public criticism against Kuo. They say a pen name he is known to have used was on an essay that contained those inflammatory anti-Taiwan, pro-China statements.
Ma, whose parents were born in China, is particularly vulnerable on that issue, because he is struggling against a widespread perception that many mainlanders favor unity with China. Taiwan split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949, and has been self-governing ever since.
Relations between mainlanders and native Taiwanese _ people whose ancestors came to the island from China in the 17th and 18th centuries _ have long delineated a crucial political fault line on Taiwan. Native Taiwanese struggled hard against the pro-mainlander policies of Chiang Kai-shek and son Chiang Ching-kuo until 1987 when they were finally able to form a political party of their own.
That party came to power in Taiwan's second free presidential elections in 2000, but was soundly defeated by Ma's Nationalists eight years later. A major advantage for Ma, who took office 10 months ago, was his success in shedding the Nationalists' exclusive mainlander image and adopting a more bi-communal personna in its place.
The lawmakers are demanding that Kuo be stripped of his job at the Government Information Office _ rather than his actual punishment of being demoted and transferred back to Taipei.
Even rival lawmakers from the ruling Nationalist Party _ long identified with mainlander interests _ say Kuo's punishment is not enough.
"It is unreasonable that the government is not sanctioning him more severely," said Tsao Erh-chang.
National Taipei University political scientist Hou Han-jyun said Monday that Kuo's relatively light punishment was "stirring up communal hatred" and that the matter "needs quick government intervention."
Political commentator Chung Nien-huang said, "Kuo Kuan-ying simply said what Ma and (his government) are really thinking _ that they are superior mainlanders."
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