Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suffered a colossal defeat in the Jan. 11 presidential and legislative elections. However, instead of reflecting on its “innumerable failings,” such as sexism, dissemination of fake news and a pro-China stance, it has focused on policies that it believes led to its loss — including cross-strait discourse.

As a young Taiwanese undergraduate student of political science, I would like to tell KMT members: You have got it all wrong.

There have been a host of incidents involving Taiwanese celebrities making comments that have been perceived as attempts to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese market, but never has an incident sparked outrage as much as the one last week surrounding singer Christine Fan (范瑋琪). She used a barrage of derogatory epithets to describe Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) after the government banned exports of surgical masks for a month amid fears of a local 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak.