President Lai's remark on 'impurities' draws criticism

Taipei, June 25 (CNA) President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) analogy comparing the defense of democracy to forging a sword by hammering "impurities" out of the iron drew criticism from opposition politicians on Wednesday.

In his second of "10 Talks on the Country" held in Taoyuan, which are centered on the theme of "unity," Lai called on people to "oppose the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)" and "safeguard Taiwan."

Lai said "continuous elections and recall votes" were the way to channel public opinion. His remarks were seen as alluding to recent, unprecedented mass recall efforts seeking to remove opposition Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers and the suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) from office, which could shift the balance of power in favor of Lai's Democratic Progressive Party.

"Just like striking iron or forging a sword -- you must keep hammering to drive out all the impurities, until all that's left is an iron will to defend our sovereignty and safeguard our democracy," he said.

Commenting on the speech, New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) of the KMT said unity should be about tolerance and moving forward hand in hand, rather than treating elected lawmakers as "impurities" that needed to be "hammered out."

Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), lawmaker and chairman of the smaller opposition Taiwan People's Party (TPP) called Lai's words "chilling."

Huang said Taiwanese are masters of the nation and should not be regarded as "impurities" by the president, and he hoped the words were misspoken and not Lai's true sentiments, urging Lai to clarify and apologize.

In response to the criticism, Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) called on politicians to refrain from over-interpreting Lai's words.

She said Lai's speech was about forging an iron will to defend Taiwan and strengthening national unity.

Kuo said the result of this refining process would be a united front made up of supporters of the Republic of China (ROC) who oppose the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as well as those who identify as Taiwanese.

(By Kuo Chien-shen, Sunrise Huang, Wen Kuei-hsiang, Sean Lin and Wu Kuan-hsien)

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