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A disgraceful act

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-23 07:43

It is appalling that a scholar from the Chinese mainland was brutally attacked by a mob in Taiwan on Tuesday morning.

The fact that Zhang Mingqing, dean of journalism at Xiamen University, was shoved to his fall while visiting a well-known Confucius temple in the south of the island makes it even more disgraceful.

It simply cannot be part of the ideology of a political party to instigate a handful of extremists to use violence against a scholar. It is especially unbelievable that this could happen to one who was invited by a Taiwan university of the arts on an academic trip.

A scholar arguing with a soldier is a traditional metaphor to describe a situation where violence dominates a debate. Yet, that happens nowhere but in chaotic situations. In an orderly society, the only possible association between a scholar and violence that we can imagine is the scholar encountering bandits or violent robbers.

Extremists are indeed similar to such people. The only difference is that they take to violent means not for cash or property but for the propagation of their ideas that can never be supported by reason.

Chinese sage Confucius is well known for emphasizing decorum and etiquette, which, according to him, are marks of a civilized society.

To assault a scholar at a Confucius temple is not just uncivilized. It is a grotesque evidence of how unscrupulous and brazen the handful of extremists could be in demonstrating their enmity against the increasingly close cooperation and exchange across the Taiwan Straits.

The fact that someone from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) instigated the incident suggests that this party's advocacy for "Taiwan independence" is becoming increasingly unpopular with the majority of people on the island. They have no scruples even about using violence in order to stop normal academic exchanges across the Straits.

Cooperation and exchange across the Straits is irreversible. The increasingly popular charter flights across the Straits during traditional festivals and the opening of the island for regular tourists from the mainland are a sign of this trend.

Behind this trend is the fact that people across the Straits benefit from closer contacts between each other. And such contacts reduce the tension on both sides.

The closer the cooperation and exchange are between people across the Straits, the more they realize that enmity and confrontation will be detrimental to the interests of people on both sides.

But for proponents of "Taiwan independence," this is not a happy augury. The improvements in cross-Straits ties make it more and more difficult for them to gain ground for their proposition. And that is no wonder because their campaign only serves the interests of a handful of politicians but is against the general interest of people across the Straits.

Their desperate attempt to incite a mob to physically attack a scholar from the mainland cannot help their unjustifiable cause.

(China Daily 10/23/2008 page9)