Protest nails Lai's true colors to the mast: China Daily editorial

Amid the growing accusations of regressive actions by Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party authorities, a groundswell of opposition has emerged across Taiwan island, decrying their authoritarian tendencies and their eroding of democratic principles.

An event in Taipei on Saturday served as a platform for this chorus of dissent to gain volume, as several civic groups united to protest against the Lai authorities and their actions, and warn of their deliberate undermining of the fragile cross-Strait peace.

Despite the drizzling rain in the afternoon that day, more than 200,000 people gathered around Lai's office building, demonstrating against the "green authoritarianism" of the DPP leader — the main color of the DPP flag being green — and calling for "Lai Ching-te out".

The protest stripped bare the "democracy" fiction that Lai has painstakingly created since he took office on May 20 as a lie. Speakers at the event issued a stark warning about the perils of the DPP, decrying its erosion of democratic principles, its deliberate provocations of the Chinese mainland and blind reliance on external forces, cautioning that such actions could extinguish any hope for tranquility on the island and across the Taiwan Strait.

Despite Lai's assertions that he is serving the interests of the Taiwan people, the secessionist-minded DPP leader has been colluding with external forces to put the DPP's "secessionist cause" above the future well-being of the island, and the party's narrow interest above the overall interests of the island's 23 million residents.

To buy the United States' support for his cause, the island, under his authorities, has paid tremendous amounts of money for earlier-generation US arms and sacrificed its backbone industries and star enterprises to help the US administration in its efforts to hold back the tide of the Chinese mainland's development. By disrupting cross-Strait trade and subjecting industrial goods to punitive US tariffs, Lai has inflicted hardships on the island's farmers, workers and small businesses. The resultant economic strain, coupled with stagnant wages and escalating living costs, paints a grim picture of the toll exacted on the populace by the DPP's shortsighted political maneuvers.

In the face of the strong pushback on the island against these moves, the Lai authorities unveiled a series of tough measures in March to purge dissent. Claiming the island to be "a sovereign democratic state", the DPP authorities empowered themselves to "clean" anyone questioning their policy as a threat to "democracy" or an accomplice of the Chinese mainland — which Lai called a "hostile foreign force" — and vowed to build "non-red" supply chains.

The haste with which the Lai authorities have tried to blame the protest on the opposition Kuomintang party and suggest that the protesters should go to Beijing to air their views only serves to expose that it is the Lai authorities' surrendering of Taiwan's economic interests to the US and their strangling of the island's society that has prompted Taiwan residents to take to the street.

That Lai claimed in a speech on the same day of the protest that Taiwan has the power and willingness to help the US revitalize its manufacturing industry in some sectors to play its due part to help "Make America Great Again" further exposes his true colors as a US puppet.

Born in a miner's family and growing up along with the island's fast rise as a vibrant economy from the 1960s to the 1990s, Lai should be well aware that the prosperity of Taiwan lies in its close connections with the mainland, which is its leading market and trading partner.

In a pertinent conclusion to the gathering, the protesters called for a steadfast defense of democracy and the rule of law on the island in the face of the DPP's encroaching authoritarianism, warning of the potential for widespread victimization by the DPP authorities of those that truly work for the future of Taiwan if unchecked. As a leader of the protest said, Lai is the biggest crisis facing Taiwan's democracy. In their eagerness to sever the island's connections with its motherland, the Lai authorities are treading a dangerous and dead-end path.