Taipei, Sept. 29 (CNA) The ongoing anti-president protest and the so-called "red ocean" sit-in led by veteran politician Shih Ming-teh is reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, an exiled Chinese democracy activist said Friday.
"It hurt me so bad [when I saw the protest] ... I wonder which way Taiwan is heading toward: peace and stability or hatred and violence?" said Cao Changqing, a Chinese democracy advocate and political commentator now living in New York.
"And it shocked me that there are so many similarities between the two activities," Cao said in a seminar organized by Taiwan Society Herald, a media watch group.
Both the current protest and the Cultural Revolution, which was launched by then-Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 to regain control of the party, replaced the rule of law with moral standards. And morality is a vague word, said Cao, who was a grade school student when the Revolution broke out and experienced it
firsthand.
Morality is important, Cao said, but "it takes the soft power of morality and the hard power of the law to create a well-functioning nation."
They both replaced the system with mass movements as well, resorting to "taking to the streets" instead of the power of votes, he added.
The third similarity is that both activities advocated the power of public opinion, but an irresponsible one.
"The bottom line is that people's freedom of speech and assembly cannot impede others' freedom of political preference. That is what democracy means," he said.
Additionally, Taiwan's media of today look just like China's propaganda media in the days of the Revolution, advocating hatred and violence, Cao said.
"Taiwan is now at a crossroads. But at the end of the day, I'm still confident of Taiwan's democracy and the final choice of Taiwan's people, because Taiwan is already a democratic country," Cao said.