Taiwan, Once Again the Nation Depends on its Citizens and not its President

Wednesday October 19, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan is currently hosting an LPGA tournament, and it seems that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is insisting that the nation not fly its national flag at the golf course. Since it was flying, one Chinese golfer packed her bags and went home. Poor thing. A second PRC golfer had dual citizenship so she played under her second country.

At the Olympics, Taiwan has to go under the insulting Chinese Taipei Olympic flag, but the LPGA is not an Olympic event. Of course the PRC in its efforts to belittle Taiwan is trying to extend the Olympic rule to anything else; a similar incident happened at a film festival in Japan.

Where is Taiwan's President Mr. (I try to please everyone) Ma Ying-joke through all this? Hiding in the closet again. The government no doubt tried to get the golf course to be the bad guys and suggested that the golf course be the ones to want to take the flag down. This is an election year and so Ma while he does not want to offend Beijing, also does not want to appear to be doing his normal kowtow to Beijing. So the task fell on them and the committee sponsoring the event.

If the president had what is colloquially called LP, he could have saved everyone the trouble with the issues and said this is our country and this is not the Olympics; instead once again, the Taiwan citizens had to stand up for their country while the President disappeared into the woodwork. A citizen paid the appropriate fee. Stay tuned for more.