What’s so great about quitting the party?

Writer: Huang Qi Ta

Oriental Daily, July 17, 2016

DAP “Superman” Hew Kuan Yau, who is known for his sharp tongue, may have forgotten that  how much you say depends on how much evidence you have,  an important principle of historians. He made a hasty posting on his Facebook that South China Sea belongs to China and attracted strong rebuts from fans who are fearless of him. He ran into trouble.

May be he realized that public views on social media would affect DAP’s reputation and thus, he chose to quit DAP. It is interesting that Hew has become the first politician in the country who got into trouble because of the South China Sea tribunal’s verdict.

Ordinary DAP members may not fully understand the whole procedure of quitting from a party. Hew announced that he was quitting from the party on the net. Does it meet the requirement of DAP’s entire quitting procedure? Maybe only those in the party are in the know.

On the other hand, it shows up the serious loopholes in DAP’s party regulations if it is so simple to quit. More importantly, quitting from the party does not equal to quitting from politics. Henceforth, Hew may not be a DAP member but this does not stop him from campaigning for DAP as a faithful party supporter.

By taking a step backward, he has gained greater space. Is he going to use his gift of the gap and make more blatant remarks? Let’s wait and see.

As a matter of fact, there is a difference between quitting from the party and making an apology. As a history student, Hew quitted to show that he was responsible for his remark. Maybe he realized that there was no historic evidence to prove that South China Sea belongs to China. Otherwise, he would have every reason to fight to the end.

He made the decision to quit from the party may to a certain extent reflect that he had made certain mistake. If you scrutinize his quitting announcement, there was no mention of the key issue as how he had concluded that South China Sea belongs to China.

Those who understand a bit of history would know that except for Zheng He’s expeditions, China had since the Ming and Qing dynasties practiced a closed-door policy. As such, if Hew, who is a History graduate, can present new evidence to prove the claims by the Chinese authorities that South China Sea has all along belonged to China; it could be an academic breakthrough. We have high expectations as this could be used as new evidence by Communist China to appeal against the verdict.

It is a pity that the theories of hawkish politicians in the US and the rightists in Japan have been presented to imply that China is the victim with good intention. Still, there is no evidence to show the ownership of South China Sea.

It could be that our freedom of expression has been restricted for a long time that the Facebook is now treated as the only important battlefield for politicians. From Hew’s quitting, we should actually take note of problems existing in reality.

Hew, in his Facebook posting, says South China Sea belongs to China and he also says that one should not be anti-China just because one is anti-Communist. He was serious in calling all those who disagree that South China Sea belongs to China as a group of ignorant and prejudiced anti-Communist people.

However, what he has said may also be used against him as it is suspicious that he is pro-China and pro-Communist.  Does it also mean that even how wise a person is, he still errs.