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Hopefully, the great nation will be magnanimous | Albert Leung

蘋果日報 2021/03/09 09:25


Art is art, academia is academia, music is music, and fruits are fruits? Let’s not involve politics in everything? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Do you believe that trading will bring you profits? No, no, no. The east wind is nasty, and happy sentiments are weak.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) suddenly suspended the import of 40,000 tons of pineapples, and the first reaction of Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang was, “Let’s not be overly political.” In the last Cross-Strait Forum, the CCP already treated the KMT like a bunch of beggars. Global Times Hu Xijin was the first one to jump forth to slap their faces, saying, “If China really wants to mess with Taiwan’s economy, there are plenty of ways to do so and Taiwan would be crushed to the ground.”
Indeed, “if wants to mess with” is the future tense while " messing with” is the progressive tense. Will it just be a case of pineapples only? A KOL also declared war in wolf-warrior style, indicating that this is “a policy to impoverish Taiwan,” with java apples, custard apples, pomelo and so on to follow.
Most of the pineapple production areas are in counties and cities governed by the pan-green coalition. This is a killer tactic to first give the ruling party a hard time as Hu Xijin commented, “Let’s see what the Democratic Progressive Party (DDP) can do now.” When the mainland imported pineapples, it already planted a pineapple bomb for next year’s county mayor election, so it has just been triggered early, which is not a bad thing. At least the trilogy of “using the economy to pressure the government into action,” namely, “nurturing, trapping, and slaughtering,” is enough to arouse those people who pretended to be deaf and asleep after enjoying their “free lunch.” It is not too late to wake up to reality. Fruits, like eggs, cannot all be put in one basket. When exports are severely skewed, the fate of the economy becomes controlled by others, which is a dysfunctional relationship. This is a necessary part of good common sense.
Normal trade is all about the equivalent exchange, where the buyer and seller are on an equal footing. However, for the CCP, its common pet phrase of “measures in favor of Taiwan” was to buy this and that from you, sometimes regardless of whether it is usable or not, saying it was to give you concessions. In the process of “fattening” you up, your appetite has grown, and you can no longer be satisfied with any less. When you have been “trapped,” given the economic and trade cage has become too large, even if you want to find another buyer, it is not a matter of a day or two. After you have become a captive, it is only at the right time when you are “caught off guard” that you are “slaughtered” and warned of the effect of being disobedient.
Wolf-warrior number one Hu Xijin lambasted Taiwan’s ruling party for waging political confrontation across the Taiwan Strait while demanding that China’s measures in favor of Taiwan only increase and not reduce. He criticized, “How can there be such logic in the world? Yes, there is no logic like that of the CCP in the world. I buy your fruits as alms. If you want to continue to exchange fruits for a mouthful of rice, you will have to fall on your knees and grovel while accepting the peaceful reunification and the new general knowledge of the “1992 Consensus” of “one country, two systems.”
Jaw Shaw-kong, who jumped from the New Party to the KMT and announced his intention to run for the president, said, “China is relatively larger, so it should be magnanimous most of the time.” He called on the Xi regime to spare the Taiwanese farmers. That was well said, exactly as it is: you are a big man, I am a little man who does not want to starve to death, and I beg on my knees that you continue to buy from Taiwan. Hoping that the great nation is magnanimous, just like a child who made a mistake and begs for forgiveness from the petty abbot.
What exactly did you do wrong? For this foolish child, the most wrong is claiming “brotherhood” with the mainland starting from 2008, and ultimately exporting 45% of its total volumes to the mainland. This abnormal surplus that does not show solemn respect for self-improvement to enhance its international competitiveness can only be compliant with the appetite of the wolf-warriors.
Hong Kong people are no stranger to this. After the implementation of the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS) for mainlanders to come to the city, the surge of visitors brought huge amounts of businesses to drugstores and rents have increased year after year, then the tourists all stopped coming, leaving you to rot. As mainland capital ceased to come, the Hang Seng Index has gone haywire.
(Albert Leung is an award-winning lyricist and writer.)
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