This Taiwan "explainer" masters the art of "technically true, but what are you implying?"

Lots of windows, but nothing inside

Recently, the Economist posted a video "explaining" the Taiwan/China situation. While just a 3.5 minutes long, it's astounding how much this short video, backgrounded by creepy History Channel Aliens music, gets so very wrong. 

Taiwan’s sovereignty has been disputed for centuries. Though the island sees itself as independent, China insists it is part of the People’s Republic.

An attempt to take Taiwan by force could ignite war between America and China.

Read more: https://t.co/9oRkEXbbfX pic.twitter.com/2IxBBg0rNx

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 16, 2022

Without preamble, let's take a look.

The video starts with a Chinese perspective, starting listeners who may not know much about the issue with just one side's take. Although it's clear that this is China's view, it introduces the topic with words like "renegade province" and "reunification". The professor (Steve Tsang) delivering it is also quite clear that this is China's perspective, and he's not wrong about that -- but it feels unbalanced to introduce the video with just China's current beliefs, but not Taiwan's. 

Following that short quote with the government position (which is the mainstream general consensus) in Taiwan would have balanced this out. While the video goes on to talk about democratization and a shift in cultural affiliation, it never actually states outright that polling data in Taiwan clearly show most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, the majority who identify as both Chinese and Taiwanese prioritize Taiwanese identity, and most Taiwanese consider the status quo to sufficiently meet the requirements to be considered an independent country. 

All of these things are true, and ignored in favor of a lengthy discussion on the CCP and KMT positions on the matter. 

Let's dive deeper into a few quotes from the various speakers:

"At the end of the Second World War, Taiwan was handed back to the Republic of China" (emphasis theirs)

How is this possible? The Republic of China did not exist when Taiwan was ceded to Japan. Notably, the entirety of Taiwan had only been controlled by the Qing for about a dozen years; for most of their 200-year "rule" of Taiwan, they only held the western third of the island.

Regardless, you cannot hand "back" a territory to a government that did not exist when the territory was ceded. 

I could add other nitpicks to this -- the fact that the status of Japan in Taiwan wasn't actually settled until the early 1950s, not the end of World War II; the question of whether any legally binding treaties support the legitimacy of the Republic of China on Taiwan; the difference between a government and an occupying force; what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has to say about it; that giving Taiwanese ROC citizenship is not the same as naming the ROC as the legitimate government; and that even the KMT at the time recognized that it didn't have great legal standing to actually take Taiwan. 

But they're beside the point -- the simple truth is that you cannot hand something "back" to a government that did not exist when the thing was given away by a different government.

"By 1949, Mao's Red Army had swept to victory, deposing Chiang Kai-shek's military dictatorship, forcing the former leader and about 1.2 million of his anti-communist supporters to retreat to Taiwan."

This is technically correct, but it maintains an iron grip on a Chinese view of Taiwan -- Taiwan from the perspective of a retreating army from China -- and completely ignores what Taiwan itself was going through at this time. 

This take makes it sound like Taiwan didn't have any people, and the Nationalists arrived on a barren island devoid of people to set up a nation. In such a view, the people who already called Taiwan home in 1945 are erased. This video implies that 1.2 million people came to Taiwan and just did, y'know, whatever. It's not like there were any locals to oppose them, nothing happened on February 28, 1947! 

The fact is that 1.2 million people increased Taiwan's population by a great deal, but they were still the minority. The majority of Taiwanese already living here deserve to be considered in historical views like these.

This erasure is common in older literature from Taiwan, by the way. Pai Hsien-yung, Lung Ying-tai and even the beloved Sanmao have engaged in it to some degree.

"Everyone on both sides agreed that there was one country called 'China'. They just disagreed what it was."

They most certainly did not! The only way this is true is if you consider the views of two dictatorships to be the sum total of the views of "everyone" on "both sides". I don't think that way and you shouldn't either: "everyone" includes all people, and in the mid-20th century, nobody asked Taiwanese people what they thought. There is plenty of proof that not all Taiwanese agreed that there was one country called 'China' at that time. Many, but not all.

The view of a recently-landed dictatorship that has no regard at all for the wishes of the people on the island it's retreated to -- and in fact massacres them for asking for even slightly better governance -- does not represent the views of "everyone", period.


"As economic growth surged on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan and China let down their barriers."

These "technically true, but" statements are so interesting. Yes, economic growth surged in both countries but at different rates; China was in the doldrums of Cultural Revolution (and still recovering from the Great Leap Forward) when Taiwan's economic miracle began. China's economic advancement happened later, and far more unequally: eastern China jumped ahead, leaving behind the rest of the country as well as deep wealth inequities. China is now a bigger economy than Taiwan, but Taiwan is the more advanced economy overall, with greater wealth equality, purchasing power and GDP per capita.

The two sides did "let down" some barriers under Ma Ying-jeou, but for China this was a means to an end: unification. Ma was in on that plan, a unificationist to the core (though a closeted one for awhile). Taiwanese were literally sold a bill of goods: the promise of economic benefits without political ramifications. 

The benefits never materialized -- the various agreements didn't do much for the Taiwanese economy, if anything hollowing out the job market as work was siphoned off to China -- and the political ramifications soon became clear. More on that below.

"Cultural divisions between Taiwan and the mainland deepened."

The resulting backlash was far more than a "deepening of cultural divisions". It was a pushback by Taiwanese of what, exactly, the Ma administration was aiming to do to Taiwan: render it economically dependent on China so as to make unification inevitable. 

It's fortunate that this happened, as the economic effects of continuing with the Ma Ying-jeou vision would have been disastrous for Taiwan. 

What does it really mean to say that "cultural divisions deepened"? This makes it sound like Taiwan and China were naturally culturally similar until democratization, at which point they naturally began to diverge. While divergence did accelerate in that time, this is not quite right. When the Nationalists arrived in 1945, unlike commentators today who seem to assume that Taiwan simply was a Chinese society returned to Chinese hands, they understood that centuries of Qing neglect as a "backwater" and a half-century of attentive, albeit repressive, Japanese rule had created in Taiwan a society that was not quite "Chinese" despite the ancestral roots of most of its inhabitants. When Sun Yat-sen visited Taiwan before 1945, he viewed it as Japanese. Even Mao did not initially envision a Communist "liberation" of Taiwan as something that would come from China, but rather something Taiwan should do for itself. 

Given all this, in 1945, the KMT did everything in its power to destroy Japanese cultural memory in Taiwan and replace it with Chinese nationalism. They tore down temples and other structures, defaced buildings and pushed Mandarin Chinese, then a foreign language in Taiwan, on the population. They turned Taiwan culturally Chinese by force. 

Is it really a "deepening of cultural differences" if Taiwan, after decades of this treatment, woke up and realized it had a unique history and heritage that diverged significantly from China's? 

I don't think it's true that cultural differences "deepened". they were merely uncovered. It was a Taiwanese society finally able to speak for itself. 

"Despite claims that it wanted a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, in 2005 China passed an anti-secession law authorizing the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence."

Why the use of "reunification" here? Not only did the ROC not exist when Taiwan was ceded by Japan, but the People's Republic of China has never controlled Taiwan. How is a "reunification" possible between two sides that have never been united? 

This part is not terrible -- it does make it clear that China poses a threat -- but it still centers a Chinese viewpoint and puts some of the responsibility for possible war on "Taiwan independence", where it doesn't belong. Taiwan is already independent; it has everything an independent country needs to govern itself, and it indeed governs itself. It's China that threatens to upend this.

This take also ignores the road the DPP is currently trying to take: one where a formal declaration of independence is not necessary, because Taiwan is already independent. 

The Taiwanese view is offered far later on in the video, with this:

 
"The more that China shows its teeth and shows it's not willing to tolerate even a semi-democracy in a place like Hong Kong, the more that the Taiwanese people think, what kind of promise of autonomy makes any sense of us?" / "They simply will not accept the prospect of being part of a very hard authoritarian Leninist political system, whatever the economic benefits."

It really is interesting how the technically-true parts and the questionable assumptions meld together to weave a problematic narrative. There is nothing incorrect in the statement, but it leaves the listener to assume quite a bit that is not necessarily true. 

First, while it's true that Chinese treatment of Hong Kong has noticeably dampened support for any sort of "unification" agreement that would include "autonomy" (essentially, One Country Two Systems), the fact is that enthusiasm for this model was on the downswing long before the tragedy of Hong Kong took place. People identifying as solely Taiwanese surpassed those who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese in 2008 -- the year pro-unification Ma Ying-jeou was elected. The 2014 Sunflower Movement gained popular support in Taiwan just before Hong Kong experienced the Umbrella Revolution. President Tsai was elected before the 2019 Hong Kong protests. 

It is safe to say that One Country Two Systems was a dead idea in Taiwan, supported by few, well before Hong Kong's downward spiral. Watching Hong Kong surely hardened or underlined that view, but the consensus already existed.

As for the "economic benefits" of unification with China, the lack of meaningful economic growth under Ma Ying-jeou shows that there likely would not be much. If anything, it would hurt the Taiwanese economy to be joined to China's. Think about it: a manufacturing base that isn't wholly trusted by the world despite so many consumer goods being made there; the CCP's certain desire that Taiwan not be too prosperous so it won't feel able to break free again; the way jobs in Taiwan were suctioned off to China where labor is cheaper after even slightly closer relations; the idea that unifying with a country with more poverty, fewer social services (it's true!), less equality and lower GDP per capital would somehow make Taiwan wealthier.

How could anyone look at all that and say that unification with China would be economically beneficial to Taiwan? 

"It should be impossible to imagine this not ending peacefully, but it is also impossible to imagine this Chinese government allowing Taiwan to drift away."

Admittedly, it took me awhile to parse this statement. I've said before that for every person that asks how Taiwan could possibly become formally independent from China, they should also ask how Taiwan could possibly integrate peacefully and harmoniously into China. It can't. That's not possible. They should ask themselves whether voluntary unification is possible. It's not -- forget "remote chances" -- it's not going to happen. This trend has only pointed one way since democratization and it's not the way that leads to Taiwanese suddenly deciding China is great. 

To his credit, this person does seem to pose the issue as one between a war toward annexation or China releasing its claim on Taiwan. And it's true: China deciding not to start a war is the main (well, only) way to avoid a war. 

It's just a weird way to put it.

"Is America still able to deter China? That's now in real doubt."

Again, this is technically true, but it elides so much and implies that the facts of the issue are not quite what they are. First, it ignores the existence of a Taiwanese military, but Taiwan does indeed have one. It ignores the assertion by President Tsai that Taiwan could hold off the first wave of Chinese attack, which I believe. (She diplomatically avoids the likelihood that assistance would be needed after that first wave).

Yes, US support for Taiwan -- among support from other countries -- helps deter China. But this ignores the fact that Taiwan would fight regardless of US help, and implies that the US is the one stirring up this conflict by angering China. The "see, the US is really the problem here!"  absolutely love this line of reasoning. The video doesn't go quite that far but gives them plenty of fodder for their gish-galloping arguments. 

The opposite is true: China is stirring up this conflict because it wants something it cannot have and does not deserve --  Taiwan.

By the way, I made a video too. I think mine is better:

I made a slightly improved (better timing) version of my Explainer — is #Taiwan part of China?

(No.) pic.twitter.com/YvwbsKlp8K

— Appeasement doesn’t work 🇺🇦🐅 (@laorenchanna) April 17, 2022

Insider testimony: Asian Boss frustrated they couldn't find Taiwanese with their desired viewpoints, causing local video producer to "nope out"

Since my last post regarding the Asian Boss video "What do Taiwanese think of China?", I've been able to speak to someone who almost got involved in the project, only to pull out because he didn't want to be a "propaganda shill" and felt the work was "journalistically unethical". 

Here's a summary: Asian Boss didn't just decide to seek out a pro-KMT viewpoint and present that as a street interview. They did all of the filming but felt that the video had too many "green" (pro-Taiwan, wary of China) viewpoints, so they wanted another blue viewpoint "to give a balanced view". They didn't want just any deep blue perspective: they wanted it to be filmed in an area where young people hang out, and implied he wanted a younger-looking person to deliver this opinion. They did not want to spend any more time filming people that didn't have the opinion they were looking for, but rather to "pre-screen" interviewees and reject anyone who didn't have the desired political views.

In the end, it was too hard to find someone like that, so they went with 柴Sean你說, the Youtuber mentioned in the last post. 

How do I know all of this? I spoke with Christopher K. Young, the independent video producer they originally spoke to about obtaining such footage. He agreed to let me publish his story, with his name, to clarify exactly what happened with that video. 

Christopher is the admin of the Filmmaking: Taiwan Facebook group where one of the founders of Asian Boss first posted the request to film "an interview" on December 2nd. As he films with the requested equipment and can outsource projects to his own people, he also messaged the poster to discuss the project -- a field camera and reporter to "hit the streets for 5-6 hours" to get the desired interview.

 
Talent was suggested and a rate agreed upon, but there were caveats. Much of the rest of the conversation took place on a call. 

"I wasn’t just to hit the streets and take interviews. I was to only accept interviews with pro blue opinions. I told him I felt that was journalistically unethical and was going to put my reporter in the position of having to engage people in needless confrontation," Christopher told me. 

The person from Asian Boss said they already had "a bevy of green interviews and desired some blue interviews to give a balanced viewpoint," in Christopher's words.

Specifically, Christopher -- or the reporter he was going to send -- was being asked to pre-screen interviewees because they didn't want to pay for field time recording interviews they felt they couldn't use.

Christopher then suggested pre-arranged interviews, as asking a reporter to stand on the street asking passerby for interviews but saying they're no longer interested upon hearing the interviewees are green is "asking for a fight". 

Which is indeed true. Could you imagine standing on a street in any Taiwanese city (even Miaoli!) asking for vox pops on Taiwanese views of China but turning away anyone who offered up a viewpoint that wasn't pro-KMT or pro-China enough? 

They were asking for even more trouble given their other desired parameters for this interview. "I told him I could see if I could find such an interview in an oldies park or something," Christopher said, "but he’d heard of 西門 [Ximen, a popular LGBT-friendly area where Taiwanese youth might hang out] and wanted us to go there."

Again, can you imagine going to Young Gay Bar Central and saying 'hey I'd like some street interviews but only if you support the KMT'? Beyond the confrontations that would certainly ensue, could you imagine how bad that would look for you, and how unlikely success would be?

Asian Boss insisted, again in Christopher's words, that it "had to look like a street interview", at which point he turned down the project. 

"I noped out," he said.

"I told him I could tag the videos that have the opinions he was looking for, I can understand that, but that if no blue opinions could be found, that such would be representative of what Taiwan looked like from a political standpoint, especially considering the demographic he wanted me to mine," Christopher continued. 

That said, the decision not to work together was not entirely one-sided. " If I’m being completely fair, the decision to not work with one another was mutual," Christopher said.

"Ahead of the last call that we had, he claimed he was giving thought to his methodology and I therefore was on standby to see if how they were going to approach the video was going to align with my views on a journalistically ethical, or at least conversationally unconfrontational, interview process."

In my opinion, Christopher is exactly correct: if you go out and interview younger people, and what you get are mostly green-leaning opinions, then that's simply what people think. It would still be anecdotal, but without doing methodologically sound research with a sufficient sample size, it would be as close as a street reporter could possibly get to the truth. The consensus. The balance. 

Injecting something different into those results -- something you have to search for, even post on Dcard to beg for -- is manipulative. It's not balance: it's a false narrative positing that these views are more common among younger people than they actually are. 

"He and I were both clear that he was going to have to dig deep to find a young blue opinion and I was to make it look like a street interview, which I wasn’t okay with, so I passed," Christopher added. 

At that point, Asian Boss told him they were going to with the Youtuber they'd found, but would still like to hire his reporter to do the filming. He connected them and then removed himself from the situation.

When discussing this arrangement, Christopher added: "I even expressed to [my reporter] my doubts that things...were going to work out, and wanted to confirm whether or not she wanted to work with them on their own....I didn’t want it to cost her a paycheck based on adherence to my personal principles."

Presumably, that interview took place as 柴Sean你說 was indeed interviewed and the video came out as planned.

It was indeed shot outdoors and perhaps could have passed for an interview of a random pedestrian in a park, but it seems the reporter did their job too well, offering a higher-quality visual product than the other street interviews. 

That said, if something about the Youtuber stood out, it wasn't just that it was a better video, shot in good light at a flattering angle. His views truly are outside the mainstream, and he seemed all too ready to discuss them in eloquent detail. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't come prepared with a PowerPoint.

Now, you know how it happened. There's even some inkling as to why. What people actually think -- the general consensus among Taiwanese, especially the youth -- isn't "balanced" enough for Asian Boss. Instead, they feel the need to project a false narrative of what views are common or mainstream among this demographic and the populace in general. 

You can tell they were constructing that story themselves by some of their translations. For example,  Daniel Ku notes in his reaction video, they translate "unification" (統一) as "reunification", when that's not actually what the term means. 

In short, they didn't like that the spectrum of views they found in Taiwan leaned greener than they'd like, so they 'added' blueness to create the story they wanted to tell.

The story they wanted to tell. The viewpoint they wanted to disseminate. The spectrum, the range, the balance of views of average Taiwanese? That was all right there on the street for them to find. They rejected it in favor of their preferred narrative.

Asian Boss had two ethical choices here: go for a 'spectrum' regardless of how popular each view is and do clips from pre-arranged interviews, or do a true vox pop, where what you get is what you get. Doing the former would have required finding someone as fringe green as the Youtuber they found was blue. (Notably, they never tried to find such a person.)

Recruiting a dude because a vox pop didn't return your preferred story and presenting him as something he's not? Not cool. It stood out so much that I wonder if the people who ultimately approved the final product were even aware of how outside the mainstream their plant was.

Perhaps when you're getting high on your own supply of feel-good "balance", you don't recognize when you've gone so far off course that you've actually portrayed something inaccurate?

Christopher ended with this: "He sounded a lot like the speaker in the beginning of the video each time. Big platitudes about how balanced they want to be, that they hope their truth-seeking can in some way help avert war between the two countries...in each instance he was, in my opinion, telegraphing how unacceptable he knew their approach was going to sound."

That video was not an "accurate pulse" of what "ordinary people" think. It was not a neutral report of what they found when they "hit the streets of Taipei". 

And it was not the story Taiwanese actually want to tell -- at least not the ones they found by canvassing the streets. It was Asian Boss's sandcastle. 

Their story. Not Taiwan's.

Yes, Asian Boss planted a deep blue Youtuber and pretended he was a 'man on the street' -- and I want to know why.

Indeed they are.

Update 1/12/22: I talked to the person they were going to hire to do this interview, except he "noped out" when it became clear he was being asked to do something journalistically unethical.

Asian Boss, a YouTube channel that mostly does “vox pop” street interviews of people they say they’ve approached in public, recently came to Taiwan to ask what Taiwanese think of China.

Leaving aside the fact that not even Asian Boss seems to care what Taiwanese think outside of their opinions on China, at least this marks their first serious foray into Taiwan. Or rather, Taipei. They apparently don't have the resources to cover multiple cities.

They film across Asia, sometimes tackling difficult subjects such as the Myanmar coup or the Hong Kong protests, and sometimes doing softball man-on-the-street interviews along the lines of what does the ideal Chinese man look like or what’s fashionable in Taiwan right now. They also do occasional sit-down interviews of specific people of interest to viewers: a model from Myanmar, an American porn star in Japan, the inventor of bubble tea in Taiwan, a defected North Korean spy and more.

Other than the Hong Kong interview, their videos in China come across as far 'softer' than their work anywhere else -- it's all very surface-level, and can kind of feel like folksy Propaganda Lite. If you want to know what's happening in Uyghur detention camps, Asian Boss is not the place to look. 

It's important, I suppose, to humanize people who have to live under a dehumanizing regime, but it sure does make the CCP look better than it is, especially when it comes to mass surveillance. Chances are that if they really went for meaty stories, they wouldn't be allowed to film there at all.

This was the third time they've come to Taiwan that I could find: the other two were the bubble tea and fashion videos -- nothing hard-hitting.

I’m not here to body-slam Asian Boss or chase them out of the country. I don't know what their intentions were. However, a few things seemed off to me as I watched. Then, something I consider a bombshell — a huge problem that undermines the credibility of this particular video and Asian Boss’s reporting model in general. 

The short of it? They planted an interview with a fairly well-known deep blue Youtuber and presented it as a “vox pop” interview, just someone they approached on the street. 

For those who don't know, "deep blue" means very pro-KMT, generally favoring Chinese identity, closer ties with China and eventual unification with China. Some say that should be China as the ROC, but red/blues exist too -- people who would accept unification with the PRC. They are quite rare, however. 

"Deep green" means very pro-DPP, though there are a constellation of small parties and independent legislators that formed independently of the DPP who hold similar views. This side generally favors Taiwanese identity, sovereignty and (eventually) independence. They don't hate China, they're just not interested in being part of it. Most want to hold off on declaring formal independence, though some want it immediately and believe the existence of the ROC on Taiwan is a form of colonization. 

I'm far more sympathetic to the greens -- as I see it Taiwan is already independent, so any formal declarations, if they are needed, can wait until peace is assured -- but my personal views don't matter much. 

The video starts out saying that this video takes “the accurate pulse of the public” with the voices of "ordinary people". This can't possibly be true, as they're gathering anecdotes -- fluffy human interest stuff. It's not data. It's not bad in and of itself,  but it's not an accurate pulse of anything. We have actual research for that.





They then stress that they have no political affiliation, and get started. 

I wasn't the only one who noticed that one interviewee stood out. Something was just off about him -- he had extreme views but that wasn't it. His interview seemed...different. Guess which one?

The other interviewees seem to have truly been filmed under ‘street’ conditions, with noise, bad lighting, masks and foggy glasses, passers-by and the occasional sub-optimal angles. 

The Youtuber in question, on the other hand, was interviewed in a tree-lined park, with excellent lighting, at a 'good' angle with no mask. Nobody walked by. It was as though a space had been cleared for him. He sported a tan or light brown jacket and spoke without hesitation.

This man had views that are far outside the mainstream in Taiwan. Of course, there are people who agree with him, but might be quiet about their views because they know they’re not popular. However, his comments about Taiwan being a “province under the Republic of China”, Xi Jinping being a “calm man” can only be described as deep blue, if not fringe. He's also wrong about a lot of things, but that could be a post in itself.

I originally assumed the best. I figured that this is someone they happened to approach in that time and place, he happened to be well-spoken and ready to expound on his views, and he happened to be the living embodiment of a deep-blue eyeroll. Okay. Some people do feel that way. It’s possible. I think he's ridiculous but he has the right to his opinion. 

Then, someone I know did a simple thing: he typed “Asian Boss Taiwan” into Facebook search, and guess what came up?

The guy in the tan jacket, posting on Facebook about his interview. He’s a modestly successful YouTuber named Sean (柴Sean你說) with over 110,000 subscribers, with lovely content like “if Taiwanese want independence, why don’t they join the military?”, “Taiwanese now identify differently because of the way they are educated under the DPP” and “let’s not trash on Yen Ching-piao’s son, the bad stuff is all his father’s doing”. From the comments, he appears to have a lot of viewers in China. Someone on the side is commenting in Simplified Chinese that Mainland viewers don't care about the abuse of DPP legislator Kao Chia-yu:

His Facebook page is also straight cringe, no chaser -- taking swipes at the residents of Wanhua for no good reason, and calling COVID the "Wanhua Virus":

Update: soon after I initially published this, I was sent this link to a post on Dcard, where someone was asking how to find people with "deep blue views" for a "foreign Youtube channel". They'd done the interviews and felt it was pretty balanced -- they were explicitly asked to provide a "balance" of views -- but they asked him to find someone who represented that deep blue cohort. 

There's a link to a Google form from Asian Boss, and some replies saying he should go talk to old people.

That's more than a little suspicious.

It's also very strange because they asked this person to go find someone with deep blue views, but not deep green ones. There's nothing in the entire video that I'd call fringe or far out of the mainstream. Why just one side? Isn't that unbalanced?

There is a deep green fringe: the "declare independence now" types, the ones who wave "End ROC Colonization of Taiwan" flags. Yes, I happen to sympathize with them far more than the deep blue fringe, but I recognize they're not mainstream. If you want a "balanced" video, why would you include only the deep blue fringe, but not the deep green?

They weren't represented anywhere in this video, so in addition to not being a "vox pop" video, it's not actually "balanced", either -- if that's what you're going for.

I had thought he seemed a little suspiciously well-prepared and ready to present, though I wonder if someone as well-spoken and well-presented  -- good lighting, great angles, pleasant backdrop --  on the other end of the spectrum, closer to my own views, would have stood out as much to me. We all have our biases, so perhaps not. But I like to think the differences in how he was taped alone tingled a lot of people's spidey senses.

On his Facebook post, Sean said he thought it was going to be in English but they ended up doing it in Chinese — that’s interesting, as it implies they think using Asian languages makes the interviews more authentic. (It can, if interviewees are more comfortable in those languages, but it’s not a stand-in for authenticity). Then he himself asked if it was truly okay to interview him and pretend he was just someone off the street — no links to his YouTube channel, no introduction of who he was. 

Can they really do that? He mused. 

To be honest, from an ethical perspective, they can’t — or at least, they shouldn’t. If you say you are doing "man on the street" interviews, the only proper way forward is to stick to that -- you can't plant people and pretend you found them randomly.

It's amusing, though, that Sean, a comparatively small-time Youtuber, was handed a platform that reaches millions, including lots of Westerners. He had a golden opportunity to construct a narrative where his voice is closer to the center, represents the views of many Taiwanese, or is otherwise not a fringe perspective. All he had to do was not post about the fact that this interview was obviously set up, and I doubt we ever would have found him. Either he didn't think about that, or he did but figured he'd never be caught by anyone who mattered.

Perhaps that's still true. How many people are going to watch that video compared to those who will read this post?

It's also interesting that he agreed to talk to Asian Boss, allowing them to set up this lie that he represents a common set of viewpoints, and when doing so discussed how the media twists narratives to suit their own goals -- all while helping the media twist a narrative! 

That said, I might disagree with every opinion he has, but at least he pointed out that it's not great to seek out a Youtuber and then pass him off as some random pedestrian. Sean seems to have more of a moral code regarding this than Asian Boss! 

It seemed like he got more airtime than the others, too, but I'd have to go back and count the seconds -- perhaps it just seemed that way because this is so painful to watch.

What Asian Boss did here was wrong. It is a lie to say you approached people on the street to see what ordinary folks think regardless of knowledge level, but then plant someone you sought out in your video, to make it seem like extreme views such as his are more popular than they actually are.

That’s a propaganda tactic. A lie. It’s what you do when you want to push a certain narrative, but want it to seem grassroots. It’s unacceptable. 

If you can't find someone with these views in the wild, by approaching people on the street, then that's a sign they aren't particularly common views.

The world isn't a both-sides deal. In Taiwan there is a general consensus, a mainstream. The 'real' videos depict that, the plant distorts it. People want to think Taiwan conforms to their idea that there are a wide range of equally popular and valid views and perspectives, but that's just not the case: the consensus in Taiwan is that, well, Taiwan is Taiwan.

If you do street interviews, you'll get people who lean a but bluer than that, but ultimately it'll snap back to that consensus. Being honest about that is good reporting. 

Wedging such out-of-the-mainstream beliefs in anyway by seeking someone out and then presenting that person as just some guy you found is not. It's manipulation, bordering on misinformation. At the very least, it misleads the viewers.

I reached out to Asian Boss on Twitter and via their website to see if they’d answer a few questions about this, but received no response. 

As I see it, if you want to interview someone like this, you can, but there’s only one appropriate path: move away from the “ordinary people on the street” interview setup and state plainly that you’ve gathered representatives from all segments of the Taiwanese political spectrum. You have to actually do that, though: in addition to moderate voices, you have to find someone as far-out deep green as Sean is deep blue. The closest person in this video was the young man in glasses, and frankly, his views aren't fringe. They're pretty normal.

Then you show that video without subterfuge: we gathered these people because they represent specific things. We did not find them randomly. 

Doing it as they did not only sells a lie to the audience about how they find these views, but how common each view is in the wild. The fact is, you won’t find many people like Sean on the street, because his views are fairly rare. Presenting him as someone you ran into at the park makes it seem like there are a lot more Seans out there than there really are. Filming him mask less, in fantastic light with great angles and backdrops furthers the lie that he is an authoritative voice for what many Taiwanese think. 

Wrong. Everyone knows that. The thing is, they don't care, and you can't force them to.

It moves away from “we looked around and this is what we found” and turns into a constructed narrative. You cannot ethically create the latter and sell it as the former. 

It also skews where the “center” of Taiwanese views on China truly is. If you interview a deep blue YouTuber but have no deep green balance, the “middle” seems more blue than it really is. The actual center is closer to “we don’t want to be part of the PRC and don’t want a war" -- it's not "in fact Taiwanese are Chinese". However, that’s not what comes across in this video. 

Even his own YouTube subscribers commented on his appearance in Asian Boss: 

It does appear that Sean was the only plant, however. Everyone else truly comes across as a ‘vox pop’, and one of the founders of Asian Boss posted recently in the Working in Taiwan Facebook group, asking for students to help them approach people in the street. That video is supposed to have been filmed today, so I'm curious what they'll come out with.

The post implies that they aren’t a “team” of reporters but instead find local helpers for one-off videos. However, it also means they probably do usually approach people on the street. Sean might have been a one-off. A single plant. 

But if they do, in fact, approach people on the street, why plant Sean in there? Why present him as someone you just 'found' when that's not true? Why try to construct a narrative that his views are part of a spectrum of beliefs in Taiwan that you might find in the wild?

Wrong according to you, buddy. But if the people do choose that one day, it will probably be because they can do so without the threat of war from "calm" Xi Jinping!

I have other questions, too. Why do two videos on anti-feminism in South Korea, but no videos (that I can find) talking to Korean feminists? Why present yourself as a “startup” when you’ve been around for almost a decade? Why delete many of your older videos? (Some of the older ones are pretty bad, such as this drawn-out, unfunny prank asking white people their opinions about untrue facts about Asia. Maybe that’s why they deleted others -- dump the low-quality stuff as you grow your brand.) 

They do try to do good as well, however, and seem to get involved in local or personal causes beyond just reporting on them. 

It would be great if Asian Boss could take a look at how they’re producing content now, with an eye toward any ethical issues that could cause them to lose credibility. Be clear about what you’re doing and what it can accomplish. That you are offering anecdotes, not data. If you are interviewing personalities, you need to say so. You can’t present them as people you found on the street. 

At that point, I would welcome more videos from them about Taiwan. Right now, though, I have a lot of questions and very few answers. What's the deal, Asian Boss? Are you ever going to offer an explanation?

There's a good reaction video, too. Useful for the extra context, as well as a way to see the original if Asian Boss realizes their mistake and deletes the original:

alrighty! I've spent every single day for the past week trying to edit this video on my crappy 2014 PC that lagged just by moving the mouse or reviewing footage that I'm editing lol but here it is. My reaction to @asianbossmedia 's recent video on Taiwan. https://t.co/UYrICFru2k

— Daniel Ku 顧仲文 🇹🇼🇨🇦 (@danzwku) January 9, 2022

 

Well NCCU's Election Study Center says about 70% of them do, and you don't get to be the dictator who tells them they can't.

Bad Facts on the Radio

I don't take much pleasure in completely tearing apart an episode of ICRT's Taiwan This Week, which I listen to most of the time (it depends on the guests). I was tipped off, however, that this week's episode turned into a vector for disinformation -- much of which I've already dealt with -- and felt like I had to give it a listen and say something.

Friends, it is dire. (This may not appear correctly with people on phones, you might also be able to get to Taiwan This Week by scrolling here or through your podcast app. The episode in question is Golf But No Swimming).

Bad enough that I'm surprised Gavin didn't intervene to correct some of those points.

I'm a little angry. Just so you know.

Let's deal with all of the bad takes and straight up misinformation as they come along.

"A mishmash or mismatch of science -- packed MRTs but you can't go to the beach"

Frankly, it's true that it probably is safer to go to the beach than be on a crowded MRT, but no, this is not bad science. You can't wear a mask the entire time you are at the beach (try going into the water with one -- weird, huh?) and the Delta variant is so highly contagious that this is a problem. Ralph is also correct when he responds by pointing out that beaches aren't highly regulated: you can't really stop all people from disobeying the rules at all beaches. 

The MRT, however, is an essential service. People still need it, so it makes sense that that would remain open, but beaches would be closed.

If matching up the science matters (and yes, it does), restaurants and cinemas are more dangerous than beaches as they're indoors, and one should still avoid them. However, relaxing the restrictions on restaurants as long as they follow certain protocols can help avoid a catastrophic series of restaurant closures and economic turmoil. That's not true for the beaches.

In other words, it's not a "mishmash", it's a series of decisions based on what is essential to either people's lives or the economy. In that light, you may not agree with every choice the government makes. I certainly don't, I say open up the outdoors where masks are possible (yes to hiking trails, tracks etc., probably no to beaches and playgrounds -- city parks are already mostly open, just not sheltered seating areas within them), but not cinemas or restaurants. Do allow outdoor dining. However, the government's choices have some kind of logic behind them. It's reasonable to disagree, but it is not random or inexplicable.


"They're saying China interfered but they're offering no proof of that. We know the real story here, and what will get us to that 60% level is the government's hope hope that the locally vaccines will be approved for use very quickly, and that's why they were slow in purchasing. They didn't want to get stuck spending a lot of money on foreign manufactured vaccines which are a lot more money than the locally-made product, so they didn't move quickly to buy, and other countries did sign contracts and were able to buy vaccines. We all know that's what happened."

Did TVBS hire an English-speaking talking head? Because this is what it sounds like.

First, the Taiwanese government was not slow to purchase vaccines -- the only data anyone's been able to show on this is when the contracts were signed, not when negotiations for those contracts began. And it seems to me from the timing of those contracts that the Taiwanese government started to attempt to buy foreign vaccines as soon as it was able. What's more, they bought millions of doses. So what are you even talking about?

They don't need to prove that China interfered, because China itself is providing plenty of proof. Every few days or weeks, depending on the news cycle, some CCP-approved drivel comes out about how Taiwan must buy BNT from a Shanghai Fosun, and that's why they can't buy from BNT directly. China openly says so! What more proof do you need that China is interfering in the purchase of that particular vaccine?

In fact, it's easy to prove this, as Fosun refuses to apply to the Taiwan FDA to distribute German-made vaccines, and yet keeps squealing about how it has the rights to the Taiwan market. They keep saying they want to sell to Taiwan, but won't take the government-mandated steps to actually apply to do so. And yet, they are willing to negotiate with pro-China Terry Gou.

What more proof do you need? Taiwan doesn't need to give it to you, because China already has.

By the way, from my knowledge of how these sorts of negotiations work -- which is more than you'd expect as I've worked with people at relevant pharmaceutical companies -- knowing that your negotiations had been interfered with and having hard evidence of that are two different things. It's not like the Taiwanese government would have access to a phone call between a Chinese state actor and a BNT executive aggressively incentivizing BNT not to sell to Taiwan. But, they'd know through various contacts and channels that that is, in fact, what took place. 

What on earth makes anyone think China wouldn't do that? Of course they would! They pull this crap on Taiwan all the time. So it's a bit disingenuous to just not believe the government when they say they had thought they'd reached an agreement with BNT, only to have it fall apart on BNT's side at the last minute, and it's fairly clear why that would happen.

To that end, there's also no proof that Taiwan pulled out of the negotiations because the doses were "too expensive" (it's possible the earlier negotiations via third party companies did, but it's unlikely a direct government-to-manufacturer negotiation would). There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that BNT was the one who scuppered the deal. 

And why would they do that? Why would you blame Taiwan for it?

For the other vaccines, Taiwan actually did order a huge amount, so it's clearly not about money. However, they seem to be receiving them slowly due to the global shortage. That's not Taiwan's fault.

This is true for every country except the US, which has enough to go around. It's just plain fake news to make it sound like the rest of the world is getting vaccinated while Taiwan is not. Most countries one might reasonably compare to Taiwan do indeed have higher vaccination rates, but those countries didn't have to deal with China blocking their access to vaccines. Even those countries, however, are struggling to get to even 50% of the population with at least one dose:

Friends of mine from Europe to Canada to Australia are talking about how they're still waiting their turn, or have only gotten one dose -- it's not that different from Taiwan.

Here is what we should all know: Taiwan did its best to purchase foreign vaccines, but the government made two accurate predictions: first, that there would be a global shortage. This is true. Second, that due to such a shortage and Chinese pressure, they would also need to develop a local vaccine to meet its goals. This is also true.

It's also not fair to make it sound like Taiwan needed those donations for financial reasons. They needed them because the foreign vaccines they did purchase -- millions of doses! -- were slow to be delivered, and an outbreak was making that situation critical. In the meantime, China and the KMT were using that gap between outbreak and vaccine delivery to pump as much fake news into Taiwan civic discourse as they could. It had nothing to do with money, so please don't imply that was the case. 

If anything, it was also a series of political moves aimed at showing China that the US and Japan do in fact take Taiwan seriously and will step in to assist this country.

There's nothing nefarious about it, unless you get your hot takes from pan-blue political talk shows.

"There's a public perception that [the Chinese vaccine] an inferior product...on the off-chance that it were to be approved because it's been proven safe and effective in other countries so there's a lack of a medical or scientific justification to prohibit it, by the time that happens it's sufficiently far enough into the future that other vaccines will be available to Taiwan."

This is actually fairly true: Taiwanese don't want the Chinese vaccine. But the fact is that even if it were proven "safe and effective", it doesn't matter as drugs made in China are banned in Taiwan. So that would require an entire law change. 

However, it's highly inconclusive that it is indeed safe and effective (to be fair, Ralph does not say it is proven). As I've written before, data on the Chinese vaccines are highly inconclusive.

 

"When you go back, you have to do a wicked quarantine. My understanding is it's every person per room. Even children in their young teens need to sit in their own room, I don't know how they're going to do that, without any human contact except someone in a face shield who delivers meals."

The fact that the quarantine is strictly enforced now is true, but the rest is false.

There was a big swirl of fake news about this in certain circles where people were screeching about how their children would be "taken from them" and forced to quarantine separately. It sure caused many clutchings of pearls. Brand-name pearls, too! 

From my post on the issue:

[The article and press release imply] that parents may have to pay for the quarantine of children over age 12, but it says nothing about them being quarantined separately. 

This is preposterous on its face. Think about it: do you honestly believe the Taiwanese government would require that 13-year-olds quarantine separately from their parents? Is there any evidence beyond one poorly-worded article that there were ever official rules stating this?

Because this is still getting traction, however, someone called 1922 and their answer was a very clear "obviously not". Children 18 and under can quarantine with parents (I don't know if they are required to, or if you'd be allowed to arrange a separate room for your 16-year-old who will probably be just fine without you. I don't think it matters.) 

 

Please stop spreading this. It is fake and, well, surprising that people still believe it.

"I think the government wants to avoid or limit the amount of discussion about why aren't there more vaccines available in Taiwan so they're imposing the quarantine requirement on people who are returning who are vaccinated. You can debate whether the science justifies or necessitates that, but it certainly will put a downward pressure on the take-up rate to do this...it's going to be one more factor people are going to consider and...will decide it's not worth the hassle. So you have fewer people walking around Taiwan talking about 'I went to Guam and you didn't, I got vaccinated and you didn't, so by imposing these restrictions, even if they might not be necessary, you reduce the number of people who are going to do it, and you maintain some fairness in Taiwan society....as ridiculous as all of this might sound."

This is only half-true. The government is not doing this to "limit discussion of why there aren't more vaccines in Taiwan", because literally everybody is talking about that. They couldn't limit it if they tried. 

Yes, the science does back it up: vaccinated people can still be carriers and we still don't know how well each vaccine works against the Delta variant. Families can infect each other at different times, especially if one is an asymptomatic carrier. 

But that the government wants to deter travel is true. Just not for the reasons Ralph is suggesting. Rather, travel is a huge vector for infection spread, so the government doesn't want you to do it. Frankly, it's good that it's working. It makes sense to deter people from traveling. That didn't stop the pearl-clutchers from crying about these unexpected return quarantine expenses because they chose to gamble on non-essential summer trips, however. 

Additionally, to travel one needs a PCR test, and most hospitals won't or can't turn away self-paid PCR requests. That means lines are long, as are wait times, and medical professionals are tired and overworked. A doctor friend of mine said just the other day that the staff at her hospital is sick and tired of privileged ABCs coming in demanding tests for non-essential travel, when people with more immediate needs require those tests as well. (If it makes you feel better, the hospital staff absolutely do ensure those with a true need get both the test and result quickly, and the Taiwanese with US passports hoping to fly out at their leisure are indeed expected to wait.) It's a strain on the system, and smart to deter this for public health reasons, not to quash discussion. 

Seriously, do you guys honestly think the Tsai administration is composed of monsters out for their own self-interest, ready to let Taiwan burn as long as they get their way? If so, I am sure you could both get spots on 中天's Youtube channel as talking heads. Right now you sound like you're perfect for the job.


"It's mind-boggling that Taiwan is scrambling to get this [vaccination effort] together."

I'm sorry, but I don't find it to be nearly as incompetent as Ross is making it sound. It's true that some older people are struggling with the technology, but ultimately, anecdotally, people I know are ensuring their parents get registered and vaccinated or are signing up themselves if they're in a priority group without nearly the same amount of confusion as in the early days of the US program. 

I remember my brother-in-law in the US pointing out that for his parents (my in-laws), it was a fairly straightforward process to sign up and go get vaccinated. He, however, had to wait months just to hear about whether he would be able to sign up, with absolutely no notification or clarification from the government. Now, of course, anyone can because the US is flush with vaccines, but that was what it was like in the early months. It's like people have selective amnesia about this. 

For me, I was one of the lucky self-payers, and got my first dose before the program was shut down. (That program, by the way, was a very smart way to ensure those vaccines got used back when people thought there was no rush and didn't want AZ). I was given an appointment for my 2nd dose. That was cancelled due to changing recommendations on when to get the 2nd dose, and a new appointment was texted to me soon after. I'll be going in on the 22nd, and NTUH arranged it all without a hitch. 

I'm sorry, but I just don't see the incompetence or the scramble. I wouldn't call the vaccine rollout perfect, but it's not the shambling mess they're making it out to be. 

"The Taiwan government perhaps rather passively and unknowingly, they just never figured this shit out. They just...quarantines and tracing and border controls were gonna solve this until the very end of COVID. They were always talking at a higher level: when this is over we're gonna open the borders, when this is over...they were always talking as if this was never gonna hit Taiwan. So they never prepared for it."

Oh, shut up man.

Most countries that did see a big outbreak would be thrilled if they'd been able to contain it the way Taiwan has. If they "never figured this shit out", then how did Taiwan crush the outbreak it did have faster and I would say more effectively than just about anywhere else (except, perhaps, New Zealand)?

Taiwan has also done a better job of contact tracing than the US, and Taiwan locks down when it has numbers that the US thinks are good enough to open back up with. If any given county had the number of daily cases Taiwan had at the peak of its outbreak, they'd celebrate and re-open everything -- in fact, many are doing just that.

And yet, people seem to think Taiwan's handling of the outbreak has been poor. It has not. It's unfortunate that it happened and no government is perfect, but we crushed it a lot faster than just about every other country.

I stole these graphs from a Facebook friend (you know who you are) who used the same Our World in Data site that I linked to above. As you can see, it's not even close. Yes, Taiwan had an outbreak. Yes, poor rule enforcement was part of it. The government made some mistakes. But, it's still not close. Does this look passive to you?

As my friend pointed out, the only hard choice is New Zealand. Would you want the lower overall case spike of New Zealand, or the months of security of zero cases in Taiwan? It's hard to say.

* * * 

I'm going to be honest, this is where I stopped listening, because there's only so many bad takes I can handle. I don't know if the rest of the program was filled with more bad analysis, and I don't care to know. 

All I can say is, do better next time. Some of the assertions in this episode are just a trashfire of stinky hot takes. Some are straight-up disinformation: literally fake news. That's not okay. 

And if you really dislike Taiwan so much that you want to make it look like it's a bumbling mess, governed by bellends, "passive" and "can't get its shit together", refusing to see the obvious fact of Chinese attacks on Taiwan over its outbreak and the vaccine issue, then maybe look at the data before you go on ICRT and bloviate like you run the KMT Twitter account or something.

Don't buy into manufactured outrage about "Taiwan independence"

We sit on your claws and we laugh.

A few days ago, White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs Kurt Campbell was asked how much "love" (for Taiwan) was "too much love" in an extremely leading question from the Asia Policy Institute (at about the 50:00 mark).  

Campbell said he was going to speak carefully about it due to the "sensitivities" involved (the sensitivities being almost entirely on the Chinese side, along with their KMT puppets), but then...didn't speak carefully. In the context of a fairly strong answer that was more of a challenge to Beijing than a rebuke to Taiwan, he dropped that the US supports a "strong unofficial relationship" with Taiwan but does "not support Taiwan independence". 

The rest of this answer is worth examining and we will get to that, but first I want to note how the KMT as well as some media outlets -- both Chinese state propaganda and real journalists -- pounced on "does not support Taiwan independence". KMT chair Johnny Chiang used this as an opportunity to say that "Taiwan independence is a path that leads nowhere" and blamed "increased tensions" between Taiwan and China on the Tsai administration, rather than China.

Quoted at length because Focus Taiwan makes its material inaccessible after a few months:

Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), chairman of Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), said Wednesday it is not feasible for Taiwan to seek independence, as it would be a futile effort.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government should recognize that the pursuit of Taiwan independence is a "path that leads to nowhere," Chiang said in a Facebook post, citing an American official's comments on the subject earlier this week....

With regard to cross-Taiwan Strait relations, Chiang said the DPP government should try to resume dialogue with Beijing, which has suspended official contact with Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the independence-leaning DPP took office in 2016.

Chiang said that because of the Tsai administration's policies, tensions have increased between Taipei and Beijing, resulting in regional instability.

This sounds like blaming sexual assault on "what she was wearing" rather than the actual perpetrator, or telling an abused spouse that they "must have done something to make him so angry". Which is not surprising, coming from a party that has still not fully atoned for brutalizing Taiwan for decades.

I know Johnny needs to show that his half-assed leadership of the KMT is in fact him using his whole ass, but these remarks are literally just a repetition of the CCP's position. If he is trying to convince anyone that the KMT is anything other than the pro-China party whose main platform seems to be forcing Chinese identity on Taiwan and doing Beijing's bidding, he's failing. In fact, I suspect his spirit has been broken for awhile. 

In other words, Chinese state media and the KMT reacted to this as though "does not support independence" was another way of saying "supports unification", which of course is not the case. 

I don't know what Campbell's intention was in making that remark, but my best guess is that he wanted to clarify that the US isn't intending to extend diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, while still warning China against aggression and supporting Taiwan's right not to be subjugated by China. If I'm right, he did not word it very well, but it's simply a continuation of current US policy, not a newsworthy change.

(This is not to say I agree with the policy: I would like to see full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan as Taiwan. That, however, is another issue.)

The international media jumped on it as well, with Nikkei Asia posting a mostly-reasonable article with a clickbait headline: 

The article itself mentions China's increasingly aggressive tactics in the context of Asia as a whole and that Campbell also stressed Taiwan's right to "live in peace", but leaves out key components of that same quote: that any move by China to destabilize that peace would be "catastrophic", and that other allies such as Japan were also worried about China's increased aggression and destabilization tactics. 

As such, it sounded more like the Asia Nikkei writer was cribbing South China Morning Post (a de facto CCP propaganda outlet) or the Global Times (a de jure CCP propaganda outlet) than writing real news.

As the Tsai administration has not actually shown any intention of declaring de jure independence this is a warning to China, not Taiwan, but you wouldn't know that from reading this article or listening to the KMT. 

Fortunately, other news outlets such as The Guardian and The Independent got it right:

Still others didn't seem to report on it at all (these are the only major media outlets I can find which covered the story, all others seem to be Taiwan-based or Chinese state media). 

However, the decontextualized pull-quote stirred up a "US doesn't support Taiwan" frenzy in Taiwan and China, making it sound like the US supports Taiwan not being independent. This is -- as with my last post -- exactly how disinformation works. A nugget of something real is blown up or twisted into something not quite right, then that is twisted into the most incendiary form possible. That very straw man doesn't need much of a spark to start a massive blaze turns into "the news" and people believe it like it's true.

But, again, think about it logically: Taiwan is already independent. Independence is not some future thing that one can support or oppose. It's the fact of what Taiwan is, right now. Does Canada need to declare independence? Argentina? Botswana? No. So why would Taiwan?

In fact, Tsai has already said it: "Taiwan is an independent country, and its name is the Republic of China." Every element of this is true: Taiwan is independent, it meets all the criteria to be a country, and as of this moment, its official name is the Republic of China.

Did China attack at that statement? No. Did the US pull their support? No -- they've strengthened it. So how could the US "not support independence"? 

So what is it that the US opposes exactly -- the fact of Taiwanese independence (clearly not true as they still maintain unofficial ties and sell Taiwan weapons), or a formal declaration of it? Clearly the latter.

Given the fact that Taiwan is already a sovereign state separate from the government almost everyone recognizes as China, in the context of the rest of Campbell's comments and US policy generally, what he clearly meant is that the US does not support Taiwan declaring that fact formally (Tsai's words a year or so ago weren't a formal declaration of anything).

It was poorly worded, but at its core it was a reiteration of what US policy has been for awhile: to support Taiwan's de facto independence while cautioning it against declaring de jure independence. And the DPP seems to be in agreement that this need not happen for Taiwan to, well, simply be independent which it already is.

So why is this news? It's not on the DPP's agenda, but the CCP and KMT are making it sound like it is.

The Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated this following Campbell's remarks and the 么八吵 screeching that ensued from the KMT and CCP: 

“ROC Taiwan is a sovereign nation, not part of the PRC; that is a fact as well as the ‘status quo,’” she said.

The government has been cautiously handling cross-strait relations based on a steady and practical attitude, while defending its liberal democracy and striving for more opportunities to participate in international affairs, Ou said.

Basically, it's a big fat nothingburger. 

Soon after, the US clarified its stance, reaffirming that it emphasizes peace in the Taiwan Strait, and that the warning is to China. 

Quoted at length yet again:

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday reiterated that the use of force by any party to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait will be a "profound mistake."

In a news briefing, Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, cited U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as saying: "It would be a profound mistake by any party to try and remake that status quo with the use of force."

He did not mention China, but the statement was seen as a veiled message aimed at Beijing. China has said it wants peaceful reunification, but it has not renounced the use of force to reunify, and has threatened to crush attempts to achieve formal independence for Taiwan or interference by foreign countries.

Price's remarks were made after Kurt Campbell, the U.S. White House coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said earlier this week that any Chinese move against Taiwan will be catastrophic and the Biden administration is sending a clear message of deterrence against China's aggression.

In other words, nothing has changed. 

How could it be anything other than a warning to China, not Taiwan? Taiwan does want peace. It wants to peacefully exist as the country it already is, and it would even be preferable, if possible, to have good relations with China on a nation-to-nation basis. That is, for China to stop threatening war and respect Taiwan. The Tsai administration has been clear on this since the beginning.

So when Johnny "But I'm using my whole ass!" Chiang tries to re-frame it as some sort of warning to the DPP, he's showing the KMT's true colors: marionettes that dance to the CCP's tune. In fact, the Global Times even praised Chiang's response (yes, I linked it, but you don't need to click). 

And that's just it: Taiwan doesn't need to declare independence! There is literally nothing to see here!

This has been the Tsai administration's strategy for awhile: ensuring Taiwan's current sovereignty and dignity as it governs itself apart from China, and ignoring the manufactured problem of whether Taiwan needs a formal declaration of what is already the case. Fundamentally, this is a pro-independence strategy. 

US support for Taiwan is not dangerous. Taiwan's continued independence is not dangerous. You know what is dangerous?

Assuming that every Taiwan independence supporter believes a "declaration" of independence is necessary, and absent it, one must not "support independence". That makes "independence" sound like some sort of extreme position that could "start a war" (it won't be -- China will be the one to start the war), rather than a simple recognition of what is true, and the mainstream consensus in Taiwan: that Taiwanese people identify as Taiwanese, not Chinese, and that they want to keep the sovereignty that they already have. 

In fact, asserting this -- independence for Taiwan must mean a provocative formal declaration -- amounts to taking one's cues from CCP propaganda. It serves to sideline, not support, independence. 

It's not just KMTers and Chinese state media that do this. Older DPPers buy into it as well, which sets a bad precedent (and also implies, at least to me, that Chen-era heavyweights and New Tide faction members should not and cannot be the party's future). 

From those zealous archivers, Focus Taiwan:

Taiwan has to face the reality that the decision on whether to officially declare independence cannot be made by Taiwanese alone given the possible reaction of China and United States opposition, ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) said Sunday....

However, Chou also said the ultimate policy goal for the DPP is to push for Taiwan independence and the goal is clearly stated in the party charter....

Nevertheless, Chiou stressed that "now is not an appropriate time" to declare Taiwan independence.

Can we please just not consider people like Chiou to be the thought leaders on what it means for Taiwan to be independent? 

Again, Taiwanese independence exists now. It does not need to be declared. Nobody with any real power is considering a formal declaration; in fact, nobody in power seems to think it is necessary (which, again, it is not).

So it does not matter if "now is an appropriate time". Nobody who really matters was discussing whether it was. Why is Chiou helping the KMT and CCP in building this absolutely massive straw man, implying Tsai is considering moves that she clearly isn't, and that the US doesn't support these non-existent moves?

Of course, Taiwan not only needs to maintain its current independence from China. It also needs to shed the ROC colonial structure that binds it, which can be considered another form of "independence". Someday, when it is more possible to do so, Taiwan would do well to shed ROC identity, amend the constitution and change the name and flag of the country. That time need not be now. 

However, when people think of "Taiwanese independence", most don't think of freedom from the ROC. They think of separate governance from the PRC. When those who aren't well-versed in Taiwanese affairs hear that the US is "against" independence, or it is implied that independence must somehow be declared, as though Taiwan is already under some sort of PRC governance and "independence" would change that, it's easy to classify Taiwan as somehow "separatist" -- a word with a mostly negative connotation in the international media -- when that is simply not the case. 

So please, let's all just stop. Let's stop pretending independence from the PRC is not a reality. Let's stop pretending that independence requires a formal declaration. Let's stop pretending it is an extreme or fringe viewpoint. The current status quo is Taiwan's sovereignty from the PRC, period. It is pretty mainstream. It's only sensitive because China makes it sensitive. It's not scary, or dangerous.

Treating it any other way is playing the CCP's game, confusing the world about whether Taiwan is a part of their China or not (it's not).

Let's also stop confusing the issues of independence from the PRC (already a fact) with shedding the ROC colonial structure (yet to be achieved, but not the same as "independence" as it is most practically defined.)

And let's stop pretending even peaceful unification with China is possible under any circumstances. It is not.

It creates inflammatory media cycles that never needed to happen, and only confuse international readers more. 

To put it another way: Taiwan independence won't cause tensions to magically be enrisen-ified. Taiwan is already independent.

Deal with it.