Wang Hao Time" Lai Han's speech, making judgments

◎ Wang Hao

At the 2015 Double Ten Conference, the speeches of Lai Qingde (middle) and Han Guoyu (2nd from left) presented two completely different political patterns. (File photo)

At the same National Day conference, the speeches of Lai Qingde and Han Guoyu presented two completely different political patterns. Starting from the perspective of democracy, national defense, economics and the international situation, Lai emphasized the right of the Taiwanese people to determine the future, and also proposed specific directions for strengthening defense resilience and maintaining peace. Although his discussion has a political stance, it still uses the president's high degree of handling national security and international responsibilities, and the pattern is relatively complete.

Han Kuo-yu's proposal that "Taiwan is safe, the people are prosperous, and long live democracy" could have become a cross-party consensus. However, as the Legislative Yuan and the Chairman of the National Day Convention, he criticized the general recall in his speech, accused the Executive Yuan of not countersigning, and even deepened the confrontation with language such as "fake democracy, real dictatorship." It is inevitable that people will question whether he is presiding over the national celebration or continuing the attack and defense of the political party.

Of course, criticism of the government is allowed in a democratic society, and Congress also has the responsibility to supervise administration, but national celebrations require cohesion, not bringing constitutional disputes to the stage. In particular, the Speaker of the National Assembly should maintain the dignity of the system and act as a coordinator instead of becoming a loudspeaker for conflicts between political parties.

Lai Ching-te's speech may not be without controversy, but it can put Taiwan in the context of a democratic world and regional security; Han Kuo-yu's speech focuses more on emotional mobilization and political accusations. Comparing the two, who has the higher level of national leadership is indeed a matter of judgment.

The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council criticized President Lai Ching-te’s Double Ten speech on Facebook. (Extracted from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council Facebook)

(The author is a current affairs commentator)

This article is reprinted from Wang Hao’s Facebook with permission