When president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Tuesday reiterated her resolution to carry out “transitional justice” through legislation and the establishment of an independent committee, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had just announced a plan to rename a Presidential Office Building hall after Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), the nation’s last authoritarian ruler.
That might seem ironic, but it demonstrates — along with the outgoing ruling party’s united front against the incoming administration’s idea of transitional justice, calling it a “political vendetta” — that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) tactics are less about absurdity and more about ignorance, or feigning it.