The real-world consequences of US-China "Great Power" thinking

As usual, China-Taiwan commentators not from or based in Taiwan sound like sad old hamburger waiters prattling on about sauces.

It's not often that I write a whole post based on one fantastically stupid tweet, but here we are on this warm Sunday morning. 

Supporters of Taiwan have been more vocal in recent years, pushing back on the trope that conflict "over Taiwan" would fundamentally be a US-China issue, that the entire war scenario would be the outcome of a rivalry between these two nations. 

This is obviously wrong: Taiwan isn't some piece of land being fought over, it's a country full of people who have their own lives, thoughts, beliefs and desires. Those beliefs and desires are central to the issue, not some side discussion.

At its core, this is the China-Taiwan conflict: China insists on annexing Taiwan, but Taiwan will never accept being part of China. China will accept no other resolution. Taiwan will never cede itself, will never choose peaceful unification. They know what life is like under CCP rule; regardless, most Taiwanese don't think of themselves as Chinese, aren't governed by China and don't want to be part of China. There's no alternative, no compromise. How can there be, given the total lack of respect China has for both agreements and democracy? 

This is the heart of it: not the US, not some "Great Game", not a rivalry between two countries or two military buildups. And no, the desire of the Taiwanese people to continue to govern themselves is not some US psyops campaign. It's organic and began in Taiwan.

China wants Taiwan but Taiwan does not want to be part of China. That's it. Taiwan is right and China is wrong, because all Taiwan wants is to govern itself in peace, whereas China is a brutal dictatorship willing to start a war. China's demands are top-down: they come from the CCP. In Taiwan, the people don't want to be part of China. It's not the same, it's not US-driven, and this matters.

There is one peaceful resolution, then: China must be deterred.

Enter the stupid tweet: 

Striking that some think talking about destroying TSMC in a Taiwan war is too hot.

US bases and territory - and possibly the homeland - would very likely be under direct attack.

Nuclear weapons would be on the table. China gets it. That’s why it’s in nuclear breakout. 1/

— Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby) May 6, 2023

This is what happens when you do, in fact, lose sight of the fundamentals of this conflict and think of everything in terms of the US, or the US vs. China. That every outcome is a result of something the US or China does, and not the will of Taiwan or simply what happens in wartime.

The basic assumption here is that in the event of China invading Taiwan that someone might actively blow up TSMC, wreaking havoc on global chip supply and multiple technology sectors.

China probably wouldn't do this, as they want that sweet, sweet tech. But the US probably wouldn't either, as TSMC's chips are central to the global economy. I don't think Taiwanese military forces would do this, because the country wants to be able to recover post-war. Besides, it would not be necessary.

TSMC has said rather openly that their own fabs would be "inoperable" if China invaded Taiwan. Here's the full quote: 

"Nobody can control TSMC by force. If you take a military force or invasion, you will render TSMC factories non-operable.  Because this is a sophisticated manufacturing facility, it depends on the real-time connection with the outside world. With Europe, with Japan, with the US. From materials to chemicals to spare parts to engineering software diagnosis. It's everybody's effort to make this factory operable. So if you take it over by force, it can no longer be operable."

They themselves have also said that chips are not as important as, well, democracy:

"Had there been a war in Taiwan, probably the chip is not the most important thing we should worry about. Because [after this invasion] is the destruction of the world rule-based order, the geopolitical landscape would totally change."

This is not something one side would do intentionally to harm the other, not a strategy US would employ to fight China -- it is simply what would happen if war broke out. It is not related to attacks "on the homeland" or "US bases". 

This has real-world consequences. Once we start talking about TSMC's destruction as though it's something the US would do, people freak out at the "hot war" scenarios of the US, perhaps even call it provocative or unnecessarily aggressive. Support for standing with Taiwan erodes, perhaps this is felt in the electoral realm and we choose governments that will abandon Taiwan to China, all because we think our own involvement would involve "destroying" TSMC, when that was never, and could never be, on the table.

I thought for awhile about whether TSMC would wreck itself in the advent of war. Perhaps, but I don't think so: they wouldn't have to. The operation TSMC runs is so sophisticated, so high-tech, that it would survive neither physical threats -- bombs, fires -- nor a disruption in global supply chain logistics.

Liu says it himself: this isn't a simple factory we're talking about. It's not something anyone could build. If anyone in China had the ability to do what TSMC does, they would already be doing it. That's true for anyone in the world: if they could, they would, and they're not because they can't.

A lot of commentators underestimate or misunderstand the level of sophistication at the design, machine and systems level required to make chips this advanced. They seem to think it's just mechanical arms stamping out chips. That a clean room is just really well-swept. That employees lose days of sleep to handle the tiniest issues because Asians are just extremely hardworking, not because the "tiniest issue" could cost millions of dollars (TSMC managers want a good night's sleep just like everyone else; they're not excited by those 2am calls). 

Thus they don't understand that those machines require constant, careful maintenance, constant supplies of all sorts of weird chemicals and elements not only in the chips themselves but for the etching process. In a war, the gas wouldn't make it to Taiwan, let alone the fabs, and the workers wouldn't either. It would be days, if not hours, before the whole thing went -- for lack of a more accurate term -- tits up. 

Nobody needs to "destroy" or bomb anything. It would just be. It would be an inevitable by-product of war. 

This is what Mark Liu was trying to tell us, and this is what we clearly didn't hear in our haze of "US vs. China, big rivalry, oh no!" 

Mark Liu's words are carefully chosen -- retired founder Morris Chang would not have made him his successor if they weren't -- and there's really no room for discussion on things like "People in Taiwan have earned their democratic system and they want to choose their way of life", that China will "think twice" on the consumer market chip supply disruption they themselves would experience, and an invasion would be "lose-lose-lose".

It matters that this is coming from the head of a company that is neither 'blue' nor 'green'. TSMC stays out of domestic politics in that way, unlike, say, Foxconn's founder Terry Gou. I don't know which way either Morris Chang or Mark Liu lean, and I'm not sure it matters. Both the KMT and DPP have tried to tap Chang for public roles -- or at least it's speculated that they have -- and the company has donated to both parties (as of 2009, they donated somewhat more to the KMT but I don't know what the numbers are now). 

However, it does matter that the consistent message from TSMC is that they want to do business, and war is bad for business (if you're, say, a communist who hates business, fine, but you're probably posting about it on social media using a device that uses a TSMC chip.) 

It also matters that their bottom line on Taiwan differs from Terry "sell it all to China for cash" Gou: Chang has said Taiwan should be a part of the developed world's "friendshoring" -- that is, countries that aren't China -- and Liu is quite clear that Taiwan is Taiwan, and they absolutely do not work with the Chinese military (unlike Foxconn, of which I'm deeply suspicious). This is not a company that will throw its hands up and hand its tech over to China.

If China insists on annexing Taiwan, that means war as is no possibility of Taiwan peacefully accepting subjugation that they do not want. Regardless of US actions, that would render TSMC inoperable. Thus, there is truly only one solution that avoids a global tech sector catastrophe: China must be deterred. 

Taiwan could get what it wants peacefully, if China could indeed be deterred. All it wants is what it already has: sovereignty from the PRC, self-governance. A continuation, and perhaps a recognition of the facts as they currently sit. 

This is not a warning to the US to "not provoke China", as some have taken it. The problem (for once) is not the US, it's that China wants something it cannot have. It's a warning to China, not from the US but from the biggest player in the Taiwanese private sector, to leave Taiwan alone for their own good as much as anyone else's. 

The US isn't going to destroy TSMC because that would happen anyway, as a result of Chinese actions. We must not base our opinions on how to support Taiwan on fairy tales and fabrications.

China is raising tensions all by itself, threatening war all on its own. It would be doing that without the US around, because the core of the conflict sits in Asia. They're not responding to the US, they're mad that Taiwan isn't interested in being ruled by them, and Taiwan is not wrong to want to remain independent.

This is not a discussion of whether the US should or should not bomb TSMC if China invades, because that's stupid. Don't be stupid. 

If China invades, TSMC won't need to be bombed by anyone, because it won't survive the war. The chairman has said that obliquely. There's no hidden meaning, no chiaroscuro of possible outcomes. If China starts a war, this will happen. If that will impact the global economy -- and it will -- then China must be deterred. 

Good reporting centers Taiwanese agency

Taking a bit of a risk with my weird graphic, but I like it. 

I don't think of the Economist as an accurate source of news on Taiwan. They report on Taiwan with some frequency, but in terms of relative merits to flaws, their articles are at best middle-of-the-road. At worst, they're unequivocally terrible. Occasionally, the magazine puts out something surprisingly good on Taiwan, but don't ask me for an example from the past right now as I can't think of one.

One of the chief problems with their Taiwan coverage hounds other publications as well: their disturbing tendency to deny Taiwan any agency in its own narrative. Stories ostensibly about Taiwan might barely reference what's actually going on there; to a reader who doesn't actively consider what they're reading, they might come away with the vague, unsettling impression that Taiwan is a barren rock that other countries fight over, just a piece of land to be won or lost. 

It would be easy from this sort of writing to assume Taiwan doesn't have any people living on it at all. 

Great powers fight over it, threats are levied against it, claims are made on its territory, but Taiwan might as well be Olive Oyl (thanks to a friend for that analogy) -- standing their whimpering in the general vicinity of the muscle men who want to possess her but with no apparent personality of her own. Whatever Taiwan itself wants is apparently not relevant to its own story or future. 

I don't know why reporters do this. I would imagine at least some of them have actually been to Taiwan, met and talked to Taiwanese people. They can't possibly think Taiwan is merely some trophy to be won or lost, a square on a chessboard that, if it could express itself, wouldn't have anything to say. They can't possibly believe that the views of Taiwanese people exist only as reflections of whatever China or the US want them to think.

And yet, this is how they write. It is simply bad reporting and in any other context, I daresay it would be more robustly called out as the racism that it is. 

With this in mind, two articles appeared recently in The Economist that show the effect better reporting can have on disseminating global understanding of Taiwan. I'd like to compare them, to elucidate what can be considered good writing on Taiwan, and differentiate it from the crap.

"America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan", which appeared in the Storm Warning brief with no byline, is pretty bad, though not wholly irredeemable. "Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat" by Alice Su is far superior. 

You can tell by the titles: the former foregrounds the US and China, implying that they are making similar or parallel moves regarding Taiwan, although this is not the case. China is preparing to start a war in Taiwan. The US is preparing for the possibility of having to help Taiwan defend itself. Taiwan may as well be an inanimate pawn in this headline, a battered toy for two cats who've got the zoomies to tussle over. 

The latter references Taiwan in the first word rather than the last, and immediately references something about it. The US and China don't even appear in it. "Vital" can mean something like vibrant, or lively -- but it can also mean crucial or (strategically) important. Both are true, and I'd argue the more human definition is just as meaningful as the geostrategic one.

Of course, writers don't typically get final say over the titles of published articles. The Storm Warning article might have been mauled by some squash-brained editor who didn't know better, but have solid content. 

This was not the case. The article is just as bad as the headline implies. Here's how it starts: 

Their faces smeared in green and black, some with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles on their packs, the men of “Darkside”—the 3rd battalion of America’s 4th marine regiment—boarded a pair of Sea Stallion helicopters and clattered away into the nearby jungle. Their commanders followed in more choppers carrying ultralight vehicles and communications gear. Anything superfluous was left behind. No big screens for video links of the sort used in Iraq and Afghanistan: to avoid detection, the marines must make sure their communications blend into the background just as surely as their camouflage blends into the tropical greenery. The goal of the exercise: to disperse around an unnamed island, link up with friendly “green” allies and repel an amphibious invasion by “red” forces. 

All I can say is woof. I can't fault the writing style, as the delayed lede allows for creative scene-setting that draws the reader in. But come on! We've got all this big macho US army energy, references to Iraq and Afghanistan, Taiwan as an "unnamed" island. I understand why all these narrative choices were made, but the cumulative effect is not one of a real island full of real people whose choices are at the center of it all, but two massive military industrial complexes itching to go at it.

I hate defending the US and will do so as rarely as possible, but just by the facts, the US is not planning to invade Taiwan as they did Iraq or Afghanistan. That would be China's intention. 

I know the opening doesn't say this, and does not really criticize US military involvement in Taiwan -- in fact, I get the sense the author supports it -- but it does draw an implicit connection, and I fear this is what readers will take away.

Compare that to the opening of Su's piece:

When Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, announced the extension of military conscription in December 2022, she called it an “incomparably difficult decision”. Taiwan’s young were previously subject to only four months of conscription. Starting from 2024, they will serve a year each, with improved training. “No one wants war,” she said. “But peace will not fall from the sky.” Taiwan must prepare for war, she added, to prevent it.

Without hesitation, the article dips into the situation in Taiwan, providing crucial context about the decisions Taiwan is making and why. Readers get the immediate sense that Taiwan is defined not just by its land but its people, and they have a government and thoughts and feelings and choices and lives. The reader is invited to consider Taiwan for its own sake, and what it might feel like to be in Taiwan with this huge threat looming over you. 

The following paragraphs follow up on this, and the focus does not shift from Taiwan until the third paragraph. 

To be clear, I don't agree with everything Su says here. She calls Taiwan "numb to China's threat" (which is not true) and asks "whether" Taiwan is willing to defend itself. People aren't numb, they're tired and worried and don't want to fret themselves into migraines and insomnia every day, so they compartmentalize it in order to live normally. It's exhausting to spend each day wondering at what point in the future your neighbor's going to press the button on those missiles he's got pointed at you.

I don't think Taiwan has "no consensus on who they are", either. Most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese; the vast majority who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese prioritize Taiwanese identity. Most say they are willing to defend their country, and most consider Taiwan's current status to be sufficient qualification to be considered independent. There is virtually no support for immediate unification and not very much for eventual unification, either. Most don't want a war, which is probably the main reason why they say they prefer "the status quo". Of course, I can't be sure, this is just a feeling based on anecdotal observation.  Frozen Garlic discusses this in his redux of the relevant poll; I suggest you read it.

Anyway, that sure sounds like a string of consensuses to me! Exactly what kind of country Taiwan is, and how it will defend itself against China, are still relevant questions and ongoing debates. Whether it is a country and whether it should unify with China, however? Though there will always be dissenters, those questions seem fairly settled.

That said, for the purposes of comparing two journalistic approaches to Taiwan, these are the nitpicks of a crotchety old git who has the diabeetus and puts ice cubes in her tea. I shake my cane at you! But truly, Su's article is pretty good. It takes every opportunity to foreground Taiwan and Taiwanese agency, and thus implies to the reader that this is a place that matters, these are people not too different from you, and they matter. It shows the reader that Taiwan has its own internal workings, can make its own decisions, and has its own views on China's aggression. 

This implies that the possibility of war is not because two superpowers are bored and feel like duking it out over some rock. It's because China wants to annex Taiwan, and the Taiwanese do not want this. 

Taiwan has agency, and that agency not only matters but is at the core of the conflict: Taiwan is unwilling to do what China demands, and China wants to take their agency away. How would you feel if someone wanted to annex your land, murder your kid for attending a protest, tell you that you don't get a say?

Without it being made explicit, this sort of story asks the reader to consider these questions, perhaps subconsciously. This rings clear throughout Su's piece, even as I may disagree on the details. 

In fact, after a few more paragraphs we get this gem, which I consider the nut graf but probably isn't:

As Chinese pressure on Taiwan grows, the Taiwanese look for the world’s support. Taiwan stands “at the vanguard of the global defence of democracy”, Ms Tsai has said. To let it go under would be a devastating step towards the might-is-right world that both Mr Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin seem to favour.

Instead of starting off with what's happening in the Taiwan/China/US Torment Nexus (protip: don't create the Torment Nexus) to Iraq and Afghanistan, two places where the US screwed up massively, it chiefly describes Taiwan's critical juncture to the resistance against Putin's war in Ukraine. This is the better analogy. 

To be fair, the Storm Warning piece does this too, and compares Xi's irredentism to Putin's. I support this, because it's true. But compare one of their typical paragraphs: 

America, meanwhile, is sending more military trainers to Taiwan. The Taiwanese government recently increased mandatory military service from four months to a year. Prominent congressmen have urged President Joe Biden to learn from Russia’s attack on Ukraine and give Taiwan all the weapons it may need before an invasion, not after one has started. Adding to the sense of impending crisis are America’s efforts to throttle China’s tech industry and Mr Xi’s growing friendliness with Russia.

With one from Su's piece: 

Taiwan has not made up its mind how or even whether to defend itself. It is at once the “most dangerous place in the world” yet numb to China’s threat. Only since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has serious debate about a possible Chinese invasion become normal. That is in part because China’s Communist Party is engaged in an information war designed to sow confusion. It also reflects Taiwan’s tortuous history and politics.

One frames the Ukraine conflict mostly in terms of what the US and China think about it. The other uses it to help the reader understand Taiwan's internal workings.

When it can finally turn its gaze from the US and its Big Tank Energy, it talks about what China claims and how it acts vis-à-vis Taiwan: 

China’s Communist leaders have claimed Taiwan since Nationalist forces fled to it after losing a civil war in 1949. America has long pledged to help the island defend itself. But in recent years, on both sides, rhetoric and preparations have grown more fevered. China’s forces often practise island landings. Its warships and fighter jets routinely cross the “median line” (in effect Taiwan’s maritime boundary) and harass military ships and planes of America and its allies. After Nancy Pelosi, at the time the Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, visited Taiwan last year, China fired missiles towards it.

These are all important details, but shifting focus from the US, everything is now centered around China. The two countries' preparations are "fevered", there are warships and fighter jets and and rhetoric and missiles and some other kind of ships and Nancy Pelosi. 

What there isn't? Anything Taiwan might think or want or even an acknowledgement that 23.5 million people maybe have a role to play and a lot at stake. 

It gets worse. Later on, if you're still reading this Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-sized article (Brendan's joke about that book: "it takes as long to read as it took to happen"), you get this: 

Given the appalling consequences, would America and China really go to war? Chinese officials say their preferred option is still peaceful unification, and deny there is any timetable for an attack.

OKAY, but Taiwan is never going to accept or choose peaceful unification because they see how badly the Chinese government treats its own citizens, including but not limited to Hong Kong, Tibet and East Turkestan! That "peaceful unification" is not possible, that Taiwan has an opinion on this, that the world has to lie to China to prevent invasion (for now) isn't mentioned -- only that China claims it wants peace. That China knows Taiwan will never choose unification, and yet has not renounced the use of force, should tell you everything about what China wants: war. If they didn't, they'd commit to no war, because it is very easy to not invade your neighbor. 

What's more, this paragraph not only never explores how Taiwan feels about the "appalling cost of war" even though they'd be the most affected, it also implies that China might choose to back off from invasion because it would be bad for Taiwan, some of their troops, and the global economy. LOL. Do you think China cares? I don't.

Worse yet, the wording outright states that all this horror would be caused by "the US and China [going] to war", not China starting a war. 

It continues like this; I read and read, and everything was US, China, US, China, war, war, invasion, imminent war. In many paragraphs Taiwan wasn't even mentioned even though this is where the war would take place! You don't get any meaningful engagement with Taiwan's potential actions until a paragraph somewhere in the potbellied middle of this extremely long piece.

Is it a counter to China's claims, which appear near the top? Perhaps some insight into what is happening in Taiwan right now as they face this threat? Nope. It's more guns and bombs and artillery and rockets:  

Taiwan’s strategy, meanwhile, is to thwart China’s initial landing or prevent it from bringing enough troops. Taiwanese forces would block ports and beaches with sea mines, submerged ships and other obstacles. Backed by surviving aircraft and naval vessels, they would strike China’s approaching force with missiles and pound disembarking Chinese troops with artillery and rockets. Some PLA texts suggest that Taiwan has underwater pipelines off its beaches that could release flammable liquid. Some of its outlying islands are protected by remote-controlled guns.

The fact that Taiwan's extremely justified refusal to be annexed by China (and China's inability to accept this) is at the core of this conflict is simply not worth mentioning, apparently. It's just Anger McRagersons chucking rockets at each other thousands of miles away. The visuals here imply little islands out in the ocean whose primary feature is guns. The implication? This war is stupid, everyone sucks, and the US should stay out of it. If Taiwan falls, so what? It's some random island in the middle of nowhere, it can't be of any importance. I don't want another Iraq or Afghanistan! 

Nevermind that US assistance to Taiwan could be one of the most crucial obstacles standing between Taiwan's subjugation by China, much as the world's support of Ukraine helps Ukraine stave off Russia each day. 

Surely readers know Taiwan has people; some might even realize that the population of Taiwan rivals Australia (and how would you feel if Australia were invaded by a hostile foreign dictatorship?). To the writers, however, it may as well be a fortress stuffed with incendiaries and nothing more. 

I do understand the point of all this -- it's not meant to be a human story, it's intended to be focused on  military tactics. I don't think the article is totally without merit. The various war scenarios provide useful information regarding what a war in Taiwan might actually look like, for readers who don't know. There are worthwhile details about military readiness sprinkled throughout. However, the overall effect is one of BAM BOOM BOOM BANG KAPOW by two big armies over some pile of rocks.

Perhaps we need these sorts of stories. People should be able to learn about what the US is doing abroad, and what it's facing. Isn't there a way to tell that story without ignoring Taiwan almost completely, though? 

Su takes a more holistic approach. She continues with the Ukraine analogies and makes the case for Taiwan both from a global economic and internal perspective: 

Taiwan also has outsize importance in the world economy. A conflict over Taiwan would do a lot more damage even than Russia’s war on Ukraine. Taiwan makes more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones to guided missiles, and 90% of the most advanced sort. Rhodium Group, a research outfit, estimates that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could cost the world economy more than $2trn.

Taiwan’s leaders know that neither strong democracy nor economic importance is enough. The Ukraine war has taught them that a small country bullied by a bigger neighbour must demonstrate that it has the will to resist. Fight back, and there is more chance that the world will come to your aid. But Taiwan is not ready to fight.

The Storm Warning piece also references the global economy in a very similar paragraph, but never ties it in or brings it back to Taiwan. The best you ever get is this: 

A war game by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, another American think-tank, found that under its “base scenario” Taiwanese, American and Japanese forces typically severed PLA supply lines after about ten days, stranding some 30,000 Chinese troops on the island. Taiwan survived as an autonomous entity, but was left with no electricity or basic services. America and Japan suffered, too, losing 382 aircraft and 43 ships, including two American aircraft-carriers. China lost 155 planes and 138 ships.

Even in a paragraph about the aftermath and cost of war, Taiwan gets one sentence. Then it's back to what America and China lose. 

While the Storm Warning piece ostensibly about Taiwan never gets any better about actually including Taiwan in the narrative, it's in the warp and weft of Su's work. 

This is what we need more of. Even the military-focused stories should spend more time considering Taiwan's own perspective and role, and what Taiwan has to lose. This is how we get readers to actually see what war would mean, and consider that it wouldn't happen to a place, but to people. 

Of course, one can argue that the Economist published both because the angles are so different: one focuses on Taiwan, the other on the US and China. Three players in one drawn-out story. I can understand that, but taken on its own, the Storm Warning piece is almost comical in how actively it ignores Taiwan. The Economist has a paywall, not everyone reads every article (many can't), and there's no way to make a social media post with two fully-displayed link headers. Good intentions or not, the Storm Warning piece on its own erases Taiwan.

Do we really need these US-China Go Boom-Boom pieces? Arguably yes, but they lack crucial context. Could the useful military and war scenario information be included in something a little less dismissive of Taiwan itself? Perhaps stories like tome in this Storm Watch might at least attempt to include the Taiwanese perspective, or even question whether China is right to claim Taiwan, or their "peaceful unification" talk is possible or meaningful?

Then, beyond how many different types of Big Guns and Ships and Rockets the US and China can chuck at each other, readers might understand that this is a country full of people and they play a crucial role in their own story. 

In other words, in a story theoretically about Taiwan, at least some of the focus should actually be on Taiwan.

The anti-war position, and what I no longer hear

                  

I'm not here to start a war with China. This should be obvious. My anti-war position ought not to be considered unconventional, and yet it so often is.

What do I mean? Well, to me, the only sensible anti-war position for Taiwan is to porcupine itself into an undesirable conquest for China -- call it "avoiding war by preparing for war" if you want, but I consider it to be "making the attack that China has fixated on seem as untenable and costly as possible".

This is especially vital when it's become apparent that there is no diplomatic solution acceptable to both China and Taiwan. China will only accept complete authority over Taiwan. Taiwan will never accept any Chinese authority over its sovereignty. There's no middle ground; one side isn't going to get what they want and if we care at all about democratic norms and human rights, that side must be China.

It also means engaging with the international community through any channels that present themselves. This means engagement with the much-reviled United States and normalizing visits from high-level officials. 

It means noticing the difference in China's tone when it's an official visitor they assume the world won't care about, vs. Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi's visit didn't antagonize China: China chose to act aggrievèd when they could have simply...not. If China got poked in the eye, then they picked up the stick and did it to themselves.

It means doing these things even as China whorls and wails and fustigates in anguish that the world would dare to disagree with them that Taiwan is not, indeed, their territory.

If anything deters China from an attempt at brutal annexation, it will be these steps. Preparation, international solidarity, normalization of Taiwan's status (including through unofficial channels), standing firm as the shills and quislings crackle and wail in despair. 

Don't back down, do prepare yourselves, don't let China decide the shape of the fight because they will certainly red-line you into a corner: this is the anti-war position. 

What's the pro-war position -- the support for a series of events that will certainly lead to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? Appeasing the CPC. Respecting every red line it throws down as sacrosanct. Moving away from international engagement because it's always a "move likely to anger China", not challenging China's attempt to dominate the discourse and lexis of how the world talks about Taiwan ("split in 1949" and "reunification" reporters, I am indeed looking right at you.) Taiwan not preparing itself because that "raises tensions". Insisting that Taiwan's current sovereignty does not constitute independence, when it absolutely does.

This is often cloaked in the language of "engaging China" or "diplomatic solutions" It's called the "anti-war" position, but it's the opposite. It's really just appeasement -- letting China draw its lines wherever it wants like a sugared-up kid with an Etch-a-Sketch and a bad attitude. Telling Taiwan to make itself metaphorically smaller as the lines cut closer, because keeping what it already has also "raises tensions". And somehow, someway, that's read as Taiwan's fault. 

You want a bloody subjugation of Taiwan? Because all that appeasement is exactly how you get it.

All that said, imagine my utter lack of surprise when people -- and this has happened more than once -- shoot back that people like me, with the true anti-war position, are encouraging the war machine over a conflict we won't be fighting, in a nation we won't be defending. 

There's an easy parry for me, personally: it's wrong. I fully intend to stay and defend Taiwan. I'm not sure how, as I'm not much of a fighter, but surely volunteers will be needed to grow sweet potatoes, make Molotovs and do basic nursing. 

But there's a more difficult moral divide here that I'm not sure gets explored enough: the whole insult -- you want to plunge Taiwan into war when you won't be around to fight that war -- begs the question. It assumes that people like me (pro-Taiwan long-term foreigners) generally advocate for war.

But we don't. 

Appeasement is far more likely to lead to that conflict than deterrence. Appeasement is quite literally easing China's way toward invasion. We know this because China, not the US or Taiwan, will start that war when they feel that victory is achievable. Why make it easier for the CPC?

I might not feel this way if a diplomatic solution existed, but none does. So either China is deterred, or there is a war. I prefer that China be deterred: the anti-war position.

There's a third problem, too: deciding to stay and fight or escape is morally fraught. Less so for me -- I don't have children I'd need to get to safety, and my loved ones in the US are well cared-for. But I do worry about how I would be able to afford to live in a war-torn land where I am not a citizen, presumably when my job's just been blown up. I don't have local relatives to help out. I do have friends, but they'll have their own stresses. And it is a rather larger commitment than most people realize: pledging to defend a country that doesn't offer most long-termers dual nationality, which it readily extends to ROC citizens.

And yet, I've said I'll fight, and I stick by that. Perhaps it's wise to stop judging others, though: they have their own moral compasses, and you don't know their circumstances. 

It doesn't do anyone any good to get finger-waggy at long-termers in Taiwan as though it's assumed we'll all run. You don't know what life circumstances are guiding everyone's decisions.

Finally, when long-termers in Taiwan say they believe in international engagement (yes, including with some dodgy people), a strong defense and an understanding that the only way to win the CCP's "red line temper tantrum" games is not to play them, they are echoing the Taiwanese government line. 

I hope you believe that Taiwan can govern itself competently and has the intelligence on the Chinese government that it needs to make these kinds of decisions. So, when foreigners in Taiwan say that China is the aggressor, scoffs at diplomacy, and cannot be trusted, there's a reason for it. We've been living through what that attitude looks like.

We may not be echoing analysts in other countries who have some blinkered ideas about the power of diplomacy with a genocidal dictatorship, but we are echoing stance of the Tsai administration, and the majority of Taiwanese who do say they'll fight. This may not be a reliable indicator of who would actually be on the front lines, but it is a decent gauge of the extent to which Taiwanese people do not want to simply hand their country to China or compromise on their sovereignty.

With all this in mind, I've decided that I simply do not hear this any longer. You want to say I wouldn't fight for Taiwan? Or that any long-termer wouldn't, and thus forfeits the right to an opinion you don't like (but which happens to be in line with the Taiwanese government stance)? 

I think that's stupid, but I won't tell you what you can and can't say.

Yet I'm not interested in hearing it. I expect writing this won't stop people from holding silly opinions, but they're gonna 左耳進右耳出, and that's that. 

The Chinese invasion question should not be a binary

Regardless of what the future holds, preparedness is smarter than complacency.

There's been renewed interest recently in the question of whether China will invade Taiwan. That's not particularly interesting in itself; this debate pops up every few years, people duke it out, and we go back to living our lives. But what has caught my eye is how binary the whole conversation seems to be: either China will invade or it won't. 

I wince at this rhetoric, even if on that spectrum I fall closer to the will end than the won't. I also see that the wills are, in fact, talking more about likelihood and preparedness than actually beating the war drum. The wont's seem to think the situation is concerning but ultimately not dire, and more a projection of US fear than reality.

So, it also worries me that the won'ts seem to be getting more press and are painting the wills as warmongers who think Chinese boats are coming next week, when they're not and they don't. I don't think the two sides are equally problematic, to be honest.

Regardless, the whole debate is pointless.

Both sides seem to think the other is doing Beijing's work for it. "Stop fearmongering that an invasion is coming because Beijing's entire goal is to drum up just that fear" and "failing to take Beijing seriously just helps them prepare for an invasion while we're all on a picnic" lines are two sides of the same coin. 

But there are a whole host of more important issues that more people should be taking seriously outside that binary.

Worry more about the overall likelihood than the timeline

First, that China probably is intending to invade -- not tomorrow, next week or even next year, but someday and likely within our lifetimes. The reason why there's so much uncertainty is that not even they are sure when it will happen. There is active intentionality if not a clear timeline, and they'll do it whenever they feel they need to, and think they can.

It's likely that China is intending to subjugate Taiwan but is planning on mostly unconventional warfare: through cyber-attacks aimed at destabilizing the government and economy. The painful truth is that they're already behind most current attacks, so there's ample evidence they will continue and even escalate in the future.

The 'now' matters more than hypotheticals

It doesn't matter whether China is actively planning an invasion with a clear timeline and capacity agenda. They are engaged in massive military buildup, aggression in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan. Therefore the will they/won't they talk is pointless: we should take their current actions seriously in their own right. Their future plans matter less than the fact that they are a bully now, they are aggressive now, and they are trying to claim the world hegemony title now. 

And if you hate US hegemony, oh boy wait 'till you see what China as top dog would be like.

Therefore, whether China actually invades or not, Taiwan and its allies need to be very clear that any attempt to invade will be catastrophic. The only way we can be fairly sure they won't is through deterrence. This means not undermining Taiwan's confidence in itself -- for deterrence to be successful, there needs to be a clear willingness to fight back. It also means ensuring that Taiwan is valuable enough to the world that others will come to its assistance.

Military invasion may be a future issue, but the increase in military aggression, the cyberattacks noted above and some very serious espionage cases that in at least one instance posed a direct threat to President Tsai's life are all pressing issues now.

but China's ability to terrify enough Taiwanese voters and possible international allies into going against their own interests is an issue now. This is where you get weird outcomes like voting against asking the IOC to let Taiwan compete as "Taiwan" even though no one likes "Chinese Taipei", blaming Taiwan for the end of Chinese tourism even though that was Beijing's decision, or turning the whole issue around and pointing at the DPP as troublemakers "angering" China when in fact China's the one choosing to throw strategic fits.

Invasion or not, China is still a huge problem

The main issue isn't necessarily figuring out how active China's invasion plans are, but that we have no idea because nobody knows anything about China. The lack of transparency, in and of itself, is reason enough to be concerned. In countries with deep systemic issues (which is all of them) the key difference is whether we know about them or not. In more transparent societies, the issues are known, debated, protested, and although it's an agonizingly slow process with almost as many steps back as forward, the tools exist to shed light on problems and work to solve them. None of that exists in China, so rather than worry about "what they're going to do", we should simply be worried about the fact that we can't possibly know.

Incidentally, you can tell that this is the case because there are still ignorant people out there who deny the existence of the Uyghur genocide, but nobody denies the existence of the situation at the US border. The closest we get are Republicans who acknowledge the situation but don't think it's a problem. This is because we have the tools to quickly and accurately know what's happening at the US border; uncovering genocide in East Turkestan has required more digging.

Whether China 'can' invade is not the point

It doesn't matter whether an invasion of Taiwan is a good idea, or whether China has the capacity to follow through. 

As a friend said on Twitter, Xi Jinping is clearly high on his own supply, and that makes Supreme Leader Winnie the Pooh a bad news bear indeed. And when you get someone that cracked up at the top, with that much power, you get situations where subordinates who know better will still say and do what they need to (literally) keep their heads from rolling. That could mean an ill-advised invasion of Taiwan, and the "when" and "if" matter less than the fact that the conditions are there, and they are roiling. 

On a related, terrifying note: it may be currently to Taiwan's benefit that China keeps misjudging how its actions will be received, such as the pineapple import ban or the end of Chinese tourism in Taiwan. However, that China doesn't seem to be aware, or to care, how its actions reverberate -- they genuinely don't seem to understand how deep Taiwanese identity runs, for instance -- means that they don't care about international reactions and may be badly misjudging how quickly they can subjugate Taiwanese people. That's what happens when you smoke your own crack, and don't think this scenario hasn't played out before. 

Tellingly, China doesn't care what the world thinks. Its "wolf warriors" exist to pump up nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens; they were never to convince anyone else of China's rightness. It makes deflated attempts at soft power, but they aren't very good because the people at the top don't care much if they fall flat. The shitty rap videos don't need to be good; the people who finance them just need to report that they exist. 

And if a country has a leader whose lackeys will do anything to please him and doesn't care what anyone else thinks, then the will they/won't they talk on invading Taiwan is completely pointless. 

Why? Because that situation is scary right now.

When someone tells you who they are...

What does all this mean? Frankly, whether or not China has concrete plans to invade matter less than their signaling a clear intention to do so at some point. That signal is being sent now, so we should take it seriously...now.

These are all things we should be more worried about than a will or a won't -- a binary question better suited to a sitcom romance. But the fact is that these simplified perspectives generate good headlines that publications love to run. 

I said in the beginning that I lean more on the will than the won't side, however. Let me offer an explanation. You know that old saying -- when someone tells you who they are, believe them?

China is telling us who they are. There is plenty of evidence that they're willing to fight a war to subjugate Taiwan; the CCP has literally said exactly that. There is nothing underpinning the claim that it's mostly hot air; the best one can do is show that it might not happen particularly soon. Yet even that is unclear. 

So it makes sense to take China at their word. It makes sense to talk about Taiwan's willingness to fight. We should be preparing for all of this -- and for any and all contingencies. Preparing sends a signal which may or may not act as a deterrent, and also ensures that, well, we are prepared. Whether China will or won't invade matters less than the fact that it's still a threat, and the answer to that is never complacency.

I'm not worried that a harder line will simply inflame them more. They're already planning for this. They won't attack because they've been provoked; they'll attack because they want to and think they can. 

And it's not necessary to be a will to believe Taiwan should be prepared. All you need to understand is that China is scary now, and that's a clear and present danger in its own right.

The wills hope they're wrong

I understand the desire not to buy any of this, however. One sleeps easier at night thinking it's not a real danger. It gives one room to say that we should focus entirely on domestic issues (a position I'd love to agree with, but cannot -- China isn't the only issue but right now, it's still the primary one). 

It allows one to ignore all of the ways listed above, short of outright invasion, in which China is still a threat. That means not having to deal with complexity. So tempting! It means not having to wrestle with the righteousness of fighting for Taiwan for its own sake, versus the fact that the world doesn't have a great track record of getting involved in virtuous fights and Taiwan will indeed need to make itself valuable to the world if the world is going to support it. That feels gross; it feels realpolitik. It's hard to merge it with one's ideals. I've struggled with it too. 

And, of course the won'ts have every reason to desire that their predictions be correct. The wills very much hope they are wrong. 

It doesn't matter, though. Will or won't matter less than intention, and I don't have to believe that China will invade to believe that we should understand their intentions. The future matters, but not as much as the present. They matter less than all of the horrible things the CCP stands for and the fact that Beijing is an enemy we don't and can't understand: they are intentionally opaque. 

The CCP is a threat now. They are engaging in aggression and espionage that threaten the core of Taiwan's democracy now, and their crackpottery and opacity are creating problems now. 

They've told us who they are. We should believe them.

Officially on hiatus - enjoy some links!

I've been clear on Lao Ren Cha's Facebook page that I'm unable to update regularly as I clear the home stretch of dissertation writing, but never really made it official here.

So, it's official. Expect very little (if anything) from me until the dissertation is behind me. At the latest that will be September, but I might find time for a few posts while I'm waiting for draft feedback or as I finish up final edits.

Until then, here are some links to work by others that I have enjoyed. I've already linked much of it on the Facebook page, but not here as I don't do weekly links. Some of it is recent, some less recent but of lasting value. If you're plugged in to news and commentary about Taiwan, you've probably come across much of it before, but consider this a shout-out to some of my favorite work on Taiwan. 


Taipei's homeless are few but desperate - Cindy Chang

Can Tsai Ing-wen avoid the second-term curse? - Kharis Templeman

Recent changes in national identity - Nathan Batto

Why Taiwan continues to fear an invasion (the title isn't great but the article is good) -  Fang-Yu Chen, Austin Wang, Charles K.S. Wu and Yao-Yuan Yeh

It's time for Taiwan to confront its ethnic discrimination issues - Hilton Yip

Metalhead Politics - a new podcast by Emily Y. Wu and Freddy Lim (new episode out July 1)

Island Utopia - Catherine Chou

Knit Together  (this is an older post but one I think about frequently as I consider what it's like to live far away from my own family, and the ongoing process of working through losing my mom in late 2014) - Katherine Alexander 

Taiwan's status is a geopolitical absurdity - Chris Horton

The Island the Left Neglected - Jeffrey Ngo (now outside the paywall on Dissent Magazine)

The Status Quo is Independence - Michael Turton (not new, but makes some key points)

The WHO Ignores Taiwan. The World Pays the Price. - Wilfred Chan

Taiwan's human rights miracle does not extend to its Southeast Asian foreign workers - Nick Aspinwall (also not new, but I keep it on hand)

Oh yes, and if you're still wondering about the KMT soap opera that helped Han Kuo-yu rise and fall (I mean other than his having been bought by the PRC at some point), of all the Taiwan Report podcasts, this is the one to listen to. - Donovan Smith

This is an old piece about local radio stations in southern Taiwan being co-opted by pro-China entities, but something about the story being told here sticks in my head. It's a small, personal story that has some truly ominous portent. - Voicettank

This is very old, but I like to keep a copy on hand every time someone insists that the flurry of treaties and declaration during and after WWII settled the status of Taiwan as a 'part of China'. They did not, and Chai Bhoon Kheng explains why.

* * *

Alright, that's it from me. I have a few drafts that I may or may not publish (one needs a clearer focus and the other is quite personal, so I'm holding off on both). Hopefully, however, by the time you hear from me again in any meaningful way, I'll have successfully completed graduate school.

Catch you on the other side! 

How To Choose A Side

This is about us against them. 



After yesterday’s horrifying events in Hong Kong, I spent a fair amount of time on my couch bawling. The day before, police had terrorized shopping malls, beating people up randomly - some of whom were just shopping. Yesterday, the police ramped up their campaign of brutality by shooting at unarmed protesters (including hitting one in the abdomen with a live round), trying to mow protesters down on a motorbike and thanking protesters for coming out “so they could shoot at them” and laid siege to the CUHK campus for no discernible reason. 



In addition, protesters themselves had set on fire a man who was arguing with them after an extended dispute. From the video, which you absolutely should not watch, they were not defending themselves as it was one man against several of them. The man is in critical condition (as was the teenager who was shot in the chest by police). 



I cried not only for Hong Kong, but because earlier that day I had walked through my neighborhood in the late afternoon. It was balmy and breezy. Young lovers canoodled on an old bench in my courtyard. Retirees and their care workers and dogs loitered at picnic tables under the broad umbrellas. Outside my complex, a woman helped her elderly father walk slowly down the footpath, under the hanging vines from an old tree in a sidewalk planting patch. Two construction workers joked on break. 

A group of pedestrians tapped their smartphones waiting for the light to change, a decorative cement compass showing the four cardinal directions was embedded in the footpath behind them. An MRT train whizzed by on the tracks overhead. 

And all I could think was "these streets could be on fire in just a few months”. 



Listening to BBC World Service that evening, the reporter interviewed both activist leader Joshua Wong as well as an anti-protest legislator. 

Wong, as with everyone I’ve heard comment on this tragic event (with one unfortunate counter-example) emphasized that neither he nor other activists and organizers approved of what was done to the man who argued with demonstrators. They not only refused to condone such actions, they actively condemned them. And they are right to do so - it was a stupid, useless move that will cost them local and international sympathy and make people question how ‘peaceful’ these protesters really are. There is no benefit in it - it was something done out of pure rage. The rage itself is justified, but the actions taken as a result are not. 

Even as Wong decried police actions yesterday and in previous weeks and months, he was very clear about this. That the man was ‘wrong’ doesn’t matter - it shouldn't have to be said that never acceptable to set someone on fire. 



The thing is, I haven’t really heard anyone on the protesters’ side defend what those individuals did. This is one of the very few times that the protesters attacked without needing to, rather than fighting in self-defense or going after the police who are going after them (which at this point I think might be justified given the widespread police brutality). In each case where this has happened - protesters and their allies have engaged in long public discussions of whether such actions were right or wrong, and even apologized publicly in one case. 



Looking at the other side, they don’t extend the same courtesy. Following Joshua Wong, the pro-China legislator - I didn’t catch her name - spent her entire interview time ranting about the violent, radical “rioters” and really hammered home that they’d set a man on fire. Her criticism is justified, but she refused to do the simple, humane thing that Joshua Wong had done and admit that her ‘side’ had committed numerous brutal acts as well - including being implicated in the death of protester Chan Tsz-lok among the crimes named above. To her, all police action was justifiable; none of it consisted of mindless brutalization. 

Wong acknowledged the humanity of the man attacked by protesters and condemned such treatment of the movement’s opponents. The lawmaker would not do the same - they’re all just mindless rioters and they have what’s coming to them so we can “keep the peace”. One imagines she thinks that Beijing’s oppressive peace is not only preferable to today’s Hong Kong, but that it’s desirable in its own right as well. She cannot see that - or why - so many of her fellow Hong Kongers disagree. 



Carrie Lam’s press conference followed a similar rationale: the protesters are violent, their demands have gone beyond a call for democracy (except they haven’t, because democracy has not been promised), they are the “enemy of the people" and will be “stopped”. Stopped for what? I have to ask. Stopped so Hong Kong can lose what really matters - its freedom? They will destroy this city, she said - as though allowing China to swallow it whole isn't another form of destruction. 



And that is the difference between us and them. 

We make mistakes. We have overly-aggressive and radical elements. We’re not even close to perfect. But we step back, we acknowledge our wrongs, we engage in discussion of our motives and actions, we’re willing to criticize and even condemn our own (which, by the way, is why it's also so hard to organize our own. It’s not that we’re wrong; that’s just the nature of the double-edged sword of self-criticism.) We evaluate our means vis-a-vis our ends. The difference isn’t that we’re angels and they’re demons - it’s that we’re all flawed, but at least our flaws are not systematic and planned, and we admit it and try to do better. 



Them? They engage not in one-off mistakes, but systematic brutalization and murder. Their goal is to deny Hong Kong the rights and freedoms they currently have, let alone any hope for democracy. You can’t look at those videos of police actions and see otherwise, so they must be aware of this, but they won’t admit it. They don't discuss it, and they certainly don’t apologize for it. 



And that’s a big part of why they are wrong and we are right. Period. There are not two sides here. There never have been. 



These events hold some important lessons for Taiwan, too. 



This wave is coming for us. Don’t pretend it isn’t - China is hell-bent on annexation, and while they may not succeed, they will attempt it in some form. It may not be full-scale invasion, but then Hong Kong didn't experience that either and look where they are. There is no such thing as peaceful unification, which means there will be protests. Those protests may turn violent, especially if we have elected a government that is more likely to excuse police violence. 

We need to prepare and organize now. 

We need to clarify our means and our ends now, too. It's imperative to make a commitment to peaceful protest, with fighting in self-defense only. Hong Kong balks at the notion of violent protest; non-participatory Taiwanese are likely to react similarly, if not more conservatively because the fight will seem at a greater distance, with China across the water holding no official sovereignty over Taiwan. Culturally, I also suspect Taiwan is in a place in its history that doesn’t look kindly on violent protests, even though it has a history of rebellions, many of which were violent. As the tsunami rolls in, we need to figuratively seek higher ground. 



It's also important to remember that despite our best efforts, such things may occur. We need to be ready to condemn them even as we stand together. We need to be ready for the ‘other side’ to condemn us even as they refuse to admit their own brutality, even if it is more systemic, more widespread, more hateful, and in the service of a totalitarian, anti-liberty goal. 



Finally, as we accept that this is coming for us, we need to make some hard personal calculations. Do we stay or go? If we stay, do we join the fight? A lot of people are going to have to decide to risk their lives to stay and fight if we have any chance of weathering this. A lot of us are going to have to risk our lives only to be maligned by ‘them’ as ‘violent rioters’. 



We're already at us vs. them, though I’m not always sure who will fall on what side. Hong Kong is learning what makes a side the right one, and what the risks really are. It's learning what it means to dig in and fight. 

Taiwan's going to have to learn that too, and soon. 

Nobody should need a personal "refugee fund" to feel safe in a developed democracy

Hey Taiwan residents - both foreign and local - do you have a refugee fund?

That is, personal savings or some other safety net that you are preparing in the event that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan forces you to leave?

I do. I don't want to leave, and would not do so unless I absolutely had to - we're not talking "the invasion is coming soon", we're talking "my house just got bombed, people are dying and I have nowhere to go." And I only mean that in the event that I am not a citizen: I don't owe my life to a country that won't even give me a passport. If I had obtained Taiwanese citizenship by that point, however, that's a different obligation and I would stay and fight.
The money I have set aside could be used as a down payment on property. If I don't need it, it will be part of my retirement fund. I could use it to pay off my student loans. There are a million other things I could do with it, but I may need it for this purpose and don't feel safe not having it available, so here we are. 

Of course I'm very privileged that I'd even be able to leave (a lot of locals would not be) and that the money is there, but here's the thing.

I should not need to set aside money specifically for my escape from a free and developed democracy due to a highly possible invasion by a hostile foreign power. Nobody should have to.

Not in a country that actively wants to exist in peace, and has no desire to start any wars with any other nation. 

I should not need to wonder, quite pragmatically, whether the rest of the world will tolerate a brutal dictatorship violently annexing the world's 22nd largest economy, one of the US's top trading partners, with a population comparable to that of Australia which is free, basically well-run and friendly to other nations. I should not need to consider whether my decision to stay or go - and the money I need to do that - may well hinge on whether that help comes. 

I'm reasonably sure all of my friends in Taiwan - local and foreign - can understand this.

I am not sure at all that my friends abroad do, though. I'm not sure especially if people I know in the US, Europe, Japan (all developed countries/regions, a group in which Taiwan also qualifies) and beyond are aware of what it's like to have a practical, non-insane notion that they might have 30 days' notice that their life and livelihood as they know it is about to be over. Where "getting out" and losing everything would be the better outcome, and how many more people (again, the population of Australia) might not even have that option.

So I still hear things like "oh but you don't want US help, it'd be just like Iraq or Syria, they'd wreck the place!" or "I don't want your city to become another Fallujah."

Do they understand that it is China who would turn Taipei into an East Asian Fallujah? 

And that their and their governments' wishy-washy response to Chinese threats against Taiwan are a part of why I need to have this fund at all? 

That they think they support peace, but in fact they'd leave us (foreign residents and Taiwanese both) to run or die in war? Do they understand what it would be like for Taiwan to be forcibly annexed by China? Do they understand that giving in and just surrendering to authoritarian rule - and the loss of very real and important freedom and human rights - is not an option? That there is no One Country, Two Systems?

Over the past few years I've come to realize that while at heart I want to be a dove, I can't. Sure, I agree that the US is a neo-imperialist murder machine. Fine. We suck. I won't even argue that we don't. We've done so much harm in the world.

But Taiwan is not Iraq. It's not Syria, it's not Iran or Afghanistan or Central America. It's just not. It's not even comparable. It has its own military and simply needs assistance (or the promise of it, to keep China from attempting an invasion). It has its own successful democratic government and rule of law (I mean...basically. Taiwan does okay.) There'd be no democracy-building or post-war occupation needed. It just needs friends. Big friends, who can tell the bully to back off.

So, y'know, I don't give a crap anymore about anyone's "but the US is evil!" I just don't. Y'all are not wrong, but it simply does not matter. China wants to wreck this country, not the US. China's the invader and (authoritarian) government-builder, not the US. China will turn their guns and bombs on Taiwanese, not the US.

And if you're not the one who has all those missiles pointed at them, you're not the one with lots of friends who could lose everything (including their lives), or lose everything yourself, and you're not the one actively building a refugee fund to escape an otherwise peaceful, developed and friendly country, then you can take all that "but the US is evil!" and shove it. This is a real world situation where we don't exactly have the luxury of choice in who stands by us. There isn't a "better option". There just...isn't.

Unless you think a friendly, open and vibrant democracy being swallowed by a massive dictatorship and losing all access to human rights is totally fine, or that having a refugee fund when living in said open democratic nation is normal.

It's not normal. My refugee fund should not have to exist. Please understand this. 

You can't force patriotism, so stop blaming Taiwanese for not caring enough about the ROC

The National Interest has some of the best journalism on Taiwan out there (among media sources not dedicated to Taiwan, that is). So as expected, this piece on the questionable capabilities of the Taiwanese military to fend off a Chinese invasion was quite strong - mostly.

I absolutely believe Minnick's concerns are founded, even though for my own sanity I must also believe President Tsai when she says that Taiwan can fend off the first wave of attack, a belief which is widely held. I also have to believe that aid would come after this point (though of course I can't say this with confidence) - again for my own sanity. Not just for the country that is my home, but because my own life as I know it would be over. 

But this point struck me, and I can't let it go without saying something: 


Public lethargy and a lack of confidence in the military has drained the armed forces of manpower and morale. And it is this lethargy, along with the unwillingness of Taiwan’s political elites to communicate this imminent threat to the public, that must be addressed.

Taiwan’s military wants to procure big-ticket items from the United States, but at the same time it has been forced to reduce conscription and training due to funding issues and an apathetic civilian population....

Part of the problem is conscription and a decline in patriotism.

This isn't the first time I've heard that Taiwan is facing a military recruitment problem because of a lack of "patriotism." Concerns that neither training nor pay are particularly good, pensions have been cut, that it's widely seen as a difficult working environment and that military service obligations are to be borne with annoyance if they can't be outright avoided are all valid.

But kvetching about a lack of patriotism?

Dudes, you did this to yourselves. 

I don't mean the Taiwanese in general. I don't even necessarily mean the military specifically. I mean all you people who whine about how Taiwan shouldn't change its name unilaterally, and be very cautious about altering or scrapping juridicial documents like the constitution and symbols like its flag and national anthem (both of which are very China/ROC/KMT-oriented). And all of you who say these symbols are "small differences" and to harp on them is "narcissism". You may be Western or Taiwanese, based in Taiwan or abroad, but all of you and the government you have convinced to retain the name and general governmental structure of the "Republic of China" can look squarely at your own damn selves if you want to know why Taiwanese don't feel particularly patriotic.

Those names and symbols do actually matter, and it shows in how little they inspire the Taiwanese populace.

Why should the average Taiwanese person feel great love for the Republic of China? Especially if that person lived through the worst years of the horrors that uninvited colonial government inflicted on Taiwan, how could there be any great welling of pride when seeing that white sun on a blue sky, that party symbol of the KMT on the national flag? How could the eyes of most Taiwanese well up when they hear their national anthem which references their "party" (the KMT) and is therefore an explicit callback to the era of dictatorship and mass murder? And what kind of dummy do you have to be to expect otherwise?

At best, you'll get deep ambivalence - after all, if the ROC flag is the one people know abroad and it differentiates them from the PRC, that's something - and you should be grateful for even that.  It's hardly deserved. Feeling some form of conflicted happiness to see that flag or the name "Republic of China" used by international organizations is a kindness - a generous offering. Calling it paltry or insufficient is an insult.

Telling Taiwanese that they ought to feel patriotic fervor for the government that once oppressed them, and its symbols, because they can't realistically get rid of them right now? The same symbols that were (and are) used to try to erase their own Taiwanese identity? When members of the party that introduced those symbols (and that oppression) call disagreement "separatism", threaten people who disagree with death, and seem to care more about China than Taiwan? That's messed up.

Even for those who don't hate the ROC and its symbols, it's a confusing message. We have to fight for Taiwan - or, err, the ROC - um, which claims to be China, but we have to fight against China as the ROC for the future of Taiwan...uh, here, look at this flag that has one political party's symbol on it, which is from China and seeks to supplant your sense of Taiwaneseness, which we're preparing for war against...as China...for your country, Taiwan. 

Yeah, okay. That'll win those youth over!

The ROC is a system on life support. It's around because of the threat of war if Taiwan were to dismantle it, and perhaps a small (but rich and influential) class of people who still think it is a government worth keeping around. It's around because the allies Taiwan hopes for in the event of war tell Taiwan it has to be this way so as not to "anger China".

That's a recipe for declining patriotism; who, beyond that core of diehard ROC fans, could summon up much more feeling for it than one feels for their annual gynecological exam? (Or for the guys, whatever it is you get examined every year that is important to do but uncomfortable.) Necessary for continued health, but not exactly inspirational. 

Like an ice-cold speculum, the white sun on a blue field and everything it stands for just does not engender the sort of emotional connection to a place, system governance and set of social values that underlie an urge to join the military.

So for the military to be pushing that same old "ROC! ROC! Let's fight for the ROC!" patriotic blargle...yeah, it's not going to work. They could try harder, they could make it swisher, they could give their recruitment drives higher production values. They could just plain offer better pay, benefits and working conditions. But if the population is not too keen on the ROC, all but the latter is just not going to work.

Or, worse than an ice-cold speculum, it is about as inspirational as this, um, "song" trying appeal to supporters of Wu Dun-yih.

Please don't come in at this point blaming the Taiwan independence activists for this state of affairs. Yes, it's true that in social conditions where most people think of themselves as "Taiwanese" and the country they live in as "Taiwan", to say that "Taiwan can never be 'free' with the ROC around" makes it more difficult for people who love Taiwan to feel great patriotism when Taiwan is called the ROC. 

But...

a.) They're right, even if that truth is neither convenient nor realistic (and deeply confusing to people who don't know Taiwan well, so please stop saying it to them - just stick to the digestible "Taiwan is already independent and they just want to stay that way" and let's not air our dirty laundry in front of the white people, 'kay?)

b.) The average Taiwanese person thinks the hardcore independence activists are a bit nutty, even if they fundamentally agree with the message. From my experience, your average person who doesn't follow politics too deeply does want Taiwan to maintain its autonomy but they think the folks to take to the streets all the time are...going overboard. So their message probably isn't the reason for the greater societal apathy.

c.) This outcome was inevitable. Anyone with eyes and ears can see that the ROC is waning, it's propped-up, it's nothing to feel great emotion for (and was frankly never that great, even when it was the government of China). It's just natural not to feel particularly moved by symbols that are pushed on you and disconnected with how you actually feel about your country and society. 

If the Taiwanese military wants to build a sense of patriotism that will lead to wider recruitment, Minnick is right that it first needs to communicate the true depth and nature of the threat to the public. Folks calling for better careers in the military are likewise correct.

But they also have to quit pretending that the old ROC rah-rah can work. It can't. It's dead.

I know most of the military leans blue and that the ROC's name can't be safely officially changed right now, but the youth are Taiwanese, not Republic of Chinese. Naturally independent. They'd probably fight for that, but you have to couch the message in terms of the country and society they know, not what the government is forced to say at the higher levels.

That is, appeal to the desire to fight for Taiwan, and stop leaning on symbols that, if they don't inspire bitterness and emnity over the ROC's dictatorial and murderous past, are simply dead.