Get Your Independences Straight

I'm done with intentionally obfuscatory discourse

Because I'm super fun at parties, I want to have a little rant about rhetorical lack of clarity and why it plays right
into the hands of CCP trolls, tankies and little pinks. 

The central problem: one can hear from multiple sides some sort of call for Taiwan to "be independent" or "declare independence", or call Taiwan some version of "not fully independent", usually in relation to some threat or snotty baby tantrum from China. Case in point:

“People tend to interpret his position as leaning towards unification. But in his tenure, even until today, he didn’t say anything about unification — or at least he didn’t propose any road map for unification,” Lu (Yeh-chung, an NCCU professor) said.

Rather, Lu said, Ma’s remarks demonstrate his preference for Taiwan’s status quo — neither fully independent nor fully united with the mainland.

First, Lu is wrong: Ma has talked about unification -- he specifically said "don't support independence, don't reject unification" in 2018. Does the good professor think we have such short memories? 

That aside, my question is simple: what on our beautiful green Earth does "neither fully independent nor fully united with the mainland" mean? Does Lu think that the government of the People's Republic of China has some sort of control over Taiwan? Not fully independent from what?

If we're talking about China, there are perhaps a dozen centenarians who still insist that "China" must and can only mean The Republic of China (on Taiwan), plus approximately three of their grandchildren and a couple of old white dudes who actually believe tedious reiterations of this opinion.

Of course, that's slight hyperbole, but it becomes less so every year.

Everybody else conceptualizes that as the People's Republic of China, period. If you say "China" and not "The Republic of China", no meaningful percentage of people think of the government in Taiwan. Even if you do say "The Republic of China", assuming the listener doesn't simply assume you misspoke and meant the People's Republic, it's more common to consider that a weird historical anomaly than actually China. 

And if we're talking about the country that just about everyone imagines when hearing the word "China", then I'd really love for one of these "if Taiwan were to become independent" or "Taiwan doesn't have full independence" commentators to please, for the love of sweet zombie Jesus, tell me what the hell that is supposed to mean.

Taiwan is already independent from that China. If that's what you mean, what exactly would Taiwan declare independence from? So again -- independent from what? How can anyone claim with a straight face that Taiwan isn't independent from the country the entire world associates with "China", when that country has no control over and no governance of Taiwan?

The common retort is some word salad along the lines of "well it's the Republic of China, so it also claims to be China". 

Even if that were true (it's not, and hasn't been for decades), that is not what most people think of at the word "independence". It's not even what the speaker meant in the first place, because again, these bad takes always come in the middle of a conversation about China. You know, the China you just thought of when you read the word "China".

They meant the PRC when they started bloviating, they know they meant the PRC, and switching out China for the government on Taiwan the second they're challenged on that is disingenuous and dishonest. It's not even obtuse, because I think they're fully aware of what they're doing. They expend so much verbiage on China's reaction, China's anger, China's position, China's threats, and they and everyone else know they mean China. 

Even our friend Professor Lu above spoke of Taiwan "not being fully independent" in the same sentence as "the mainland", even though "the mainland" (that is, China -- "the mainland" is not the name of a country) does not control Taiwan at all. There is no way this vaguery is sincere. It's clear obfuscation.

Then they reference Taiwan not having independence, and suddenly, it's a different China they are talking about, because intoning that Taiwan is somehow governed by the PRC is simply not justifiable, and they know it. It's a third-rate magic trick, a rabbit pulled out of a hat except everyone knows the hat as a false bottom. Abracafuckingdabra! 

All this is is a way to keep the old discourse about "Taiwan independence" on life support, as though Taiwan does not already have independence. Why? Well, it's so stupid that I don't even know why, but here's a good guess: they don't want to just admit that the PRC doesn't control Taiwan and never has, because that would probably lead to admitting that it has no claim, and never should get Taiwan. Or they're so balls-deep in outdated rhetoric that they just can't admit they've been wrong since at least 1996. 

Perhaps they think this wording projects an image of centrism and moderation, when it all it really does is announce "hello, I'm so out of touch that my opinion was last meaningful when the Macarena was a hit song!" 

Or, worst of all, they either don't care about Taiwan and just want the issue to go away (for them -- for Taiwanese this attitude on a global scale means lots of people will be slaughtered), or they actually think Taiwan should be a part of China, but know they can't reasonably defend this view. The China Is Taiwan, It's Just Tankie Vibes, Man remix. 

Independence from the Republic of China -- that is, changing the framework of the government that currently runs Taiwan's archipelago -- is a valid concern. The ROC system, the name, the constitution: it's got to go. Taiwan would be better served by a government tailored to its own needs, not one constructed with the notion of ruling that huge chunk of land on the continent. 

But, again, that is simply not what most people mean when they talk about independence. Yes, some deep green activists mean this, and I agree with them. The ROC has got to go. When they say "we are pro-independence", they are always clear that they mean a domestic form of independence, a throwing off of the ROC colonial framework. Crucially, they are almost always talking to other Taiwanese people,  usually in Taiwan. That is the context which allows their audience to understand what they mean. 

They might say Taiwan needs to openly declare this, but a declaration is different from already having something: you might elope and announce it to everyone later, but the fact is, you got married when you eloped, not when you told the world. Taiwan doesn't "become independent" when it announces as much. It became independent when it started fully governing itself, and stopped any active claim to that big country on the continent that we all consider "China", if not before. 1949, 1996 or 2005 (when the National Assembly was dissolved) -- take your pick, they're all well in the past. 

What's more, if these opinionators need to make the rhetorical switch from the PRC to the ROC when discussing Taiwan's "lack" of independence, often without clarifying unless pushed, then they already know that the PRC and ROC are two separate entities. They may not have fully internalized the fact that Taiwan does not want to be part of China, and hasn't claimed otherwise in decades, but they know this. The ROC and the PRC are not the same governments, and it's deceitful to refer to them interchangeably as "China". Either there is only one China -- the PRC, which does not include Taiwan -- or there are two, but even if there are two, they are not the same thing, and the commentariat absolutely knows this, even if they can't admit it. 

Finally, this sort of disingenuousness both assumes and forces discourse on Taiwan's relationship to the ROC to only exist in relation to the PRC. It implies that Taiwan deciding of its own accord to amend its own constitution is somehow related to PRC governance, when it is and should be an internal discussion. The same is true for name rectification (from the country to the airline) or other frameworks that ought to be modified or abolished to better meet Taiwan's needs. While some of these changes are tangentially related to China, the connection is not direct: the government of the PRC has no say at all in the governance of Taiwan.

To make Taiwan's potential choices seem more intertwined with China than they are -- that any action Taiwan takes is fundamentally in relation to the PRC, and cannot exist apart from that as a choice made by a self-governing people -- is to lend credence to China's ridiculous claims on Taiwan, and its subsequent manufactured anger and hissy fits.

The imprecision and its harmful intentionality infuriate me. It's not ignorance, it's purposeful obfuscation, and it must be treated as such. These people are not interested in learning about Taiwan; their objective is to harm Taiwan's international stature and waste your goddamn time.

So let me say it again: if you're talking about China and you mean the PRC -- which just about everyone does -- then it lacks integrity to say Taiwan "isn't independent" from "China", only to switch "China" to the ROC when called out. Stop it. Serious people do not do this. 

Be precise: do you genuinely think is Taiwan not independent from the PRC? If so, please justify this. In what way does the PRC control Taiwan? What would change about Taiwan's governance right now if it were to declare independence from the PRC -- anything at all?

Or do you think "Taiwan independence" means "from the ROC framework"? If so, why did you (most likely) bring it up in a discussion about Taiwan's relationship with the PRC? Did you think your audience wouldn't notice? 

And if you do mean "the ROC", start there. No backsies, no switcheroos. 

However, I would ask that the well-meaning activists and supporters (including myself) who want to see the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan please consider their audience. Are you talking to potential allies abroad who might not realize that your "independence" doesn't mean "from the PRC"? If so, you're likely to confuse them with talk of Taiwan "not having independence", as they imagine that independence to be from China. That is, their conception of China, which isn't the ROC at all. It might be well-intentioned but it's likely to backfire, as it portrays Taiwan as some sort of separatist "renegade province". It's a lot harder to support that than a sovereign nation that already governs itself and has never been governed by the big bully next door claiming it. 

What can no longer be tolerated, however, are all the commentators who aren't concerned with ROC colonialism and instead use linguistic deception to make Taiwan appear less sovereign than it is.