Let's send the KMT to a nice farm upstate

from here

So, lots of articles since the election on the resounding defeat of the KMT, not only in elected office but as the clear loser in the current cultural zeitgeist. The KMT doesn't understand Taiwan, hasn't sufficiently 'Taiwanized', is trying and failing to imitate the Sunflower movement, is looking to rebrand itself to the youth...but what's to become of it? Why is it holding onto an anti-Taiwanese culture rhetoric that isn't working and is deeply out of touch with Taiwanese civil society? Can it reform itself? Is it or isn't it a 'monolith'?

(It isn't - no political party is, with very few exceptions. But I don't see how it matters if its various non-monolithic elements are still mostly either crappy or ridiculous).

At the heart of some, but not all, of these narratives is a worry that the KMT is doomed, that they will not successfully navigate the changed political and cultural landscape of Taiwan, in which their fusty old 'we are all Chinese / Three Principles of the People / we are the ones qualified to run Taiwan, not you provincials' values no longer have traction. Many - again, not all - of these articles seem to take it as a given that it would be a fundamentally good thing for the KMT to reform, to "Taiwanize", to finally divest itself of its authoritarian past.

I would like to make the argument, however, that it might not necessarily be a good thing - or at least, that it wouldn't be a bad thing - if the KMT really did sputter and die, and that perhaps Taiwan would be better off with an erstwhile, rather than active, Chinese Nationalist party.

Here's the thing - I do understand that it would be a political mess for most countries to rid themselves of every political party with an unsavory past. The US would have to shut down the Democratic and  Republican parties. (Though again I'm not so sure it would be a bad idea to do so in the long run. An America free of these two entrenched establishment powerhouse parties might end up in a better place). I do understand the impulse to hope for the KMT to atone for its past crimes, as for the time being it's not going anywhere. Better an atoned party in the system than one that can't quite move on from its dictatorial past, I guess.

But wouldn't it be better yet if a party that was the core leadership of a mass-murdering dictatorship in living memory, that people don't call genocidal on what I would say is a semantic technicality (though let's not get into that argument again), did cease to exist? Why is the best case scenario for a reformed KMT, rather than a non-existent KMT?

I do take a very hard line view on this, because my family survived the Armenian genocide in Turkey. I view such crimes - the mass murder of the KMT among them - to be unforgivable. People ask "what does the KMT need to do to be treated as a legitimate party in today's political system? When will people stop bringing up the past and look at who they are today? What do they need to do to prove they are not the same party that they once were?"

(Not kidding, I've seen several people ask this in more or less these words).

I would say - there is nothing they can do. There is no forgiveness. There is no way to absolve yourself of mass murder. There is no way to absolve yourself of dictatorship. If a party engaged in these crimes, why should they be forgiven? Why should they be given another chance in a democratic nation? What have they done to deserve it? The government recognizes the crimes committed against the people and even has a holiday and two museums to commemorate it (though they are trying to shut one down), but the KMT as a party has never adequately apologized for its actions - nor am I sure the KMT ever could adequately apologize. They have not adequately released records from that era, they have not adequately made reparations to families, they have not adequately owned up to what they've done. Transitional justice in this regard has not been done. They still have the same old attitude of "well that was in the past, you'd best forget it and by the way, don't forget to vote for us, also please don't take away all of the assets we stole from you".

There simply is no forgiveness for something like the White Terror, so I don't see any reason why one should heed the "the past is the past, the KMT is different now" calls for tolerance. I am not tolerant of Armenian genocide apologists or deniers, so I see no reason to be tolerant of the party that in living memory committed mass murder among other crimes against the people in Taiwan. There is quite literally nothing they can do to remove that stain, nor should there be. As far as I'm concerned, if you perpetrate a crime against society on that scale, there is no going back, you do not deserve to exist or be any sort of political or ruling force.

What's more, why should we hope that they reform themselves from being the party of stolen assets which they fight against returning?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of compulsory party education and attempted brainwashing?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party that had the chance to keep Taiwan in the UN as a non-security council participant, and screwed the country by not doing so?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of trying to wipe out Taiwanese language and culture and replace it, in great cultural imperialist fashion, with Chinese nationalism and Mandarin?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of unapologetic and continued revisionist history?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of destroying and then ignoring Taiwan's economy until they couldn't anymore, rebuilding what they wrecked and then claiming credit for the "Taiwan miracle"?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of the 'we are the only true qualified rulers of Taiwan' attitude and all the condescension it implies?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of the rich, pro-China, powerful and nepotistic?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party of eventual unification?

Why should we hope they reform themselves from being the party that blocks transitional justice at every turn?

Why does it matter if they "reform themselves" successfully? They are a stained party with a stained past. Why would it be such a bad thing if they simply ceased to exist? Why does one need to even consider forgiveness? Why do we need to let them 'move on' from their 'authoritarian past'? They are their authoritarian past, there is no divorcing the two.

In short, fuck the KMT.

I don't hope they reform themselves. I hope they die (as a party, obviously I don't want individual people to die). I was not affected by the White Terror, but as an Armenian I can feel quite clearly how insulting it is to imply that those who were terrorized or who had loved ones terrorized by the KMT should now accept the 'new', 'improved' party. There is no reason why they should have to do so. There is no reason why they should be told by others that they are no longer allowed to have their views colored by the past. In the words of a friend, it is deeply offensive to tell a victim when they must stop being a victim, if they feel atonement has not been made, or can never be made.

Obviously, an outright ban on the KMT wouldn't go over well. People do, for some reason, vote for them. There are some good people in their ranks (I suppose). While I wouldn't be opposed to banning a party that literally committed mass murder, I'm not sure it's a politically viable solution. They do have a (shrinking) support base, still.

Instead, let's just stop wringing our hands over "what's to be done about the KMT? Can they bounce back from this"? They probably will, someday, anyway, despite the wishful thinking I'm about to unleash below. Let's forget about making the KMT viable and see if maybe that support base continues to shrink, and if the KMT disappears because it just can't keep up with the rapid cultural and political changes in modern Taiwan.

Maybe the KMT won't have to be banned - maybe it will fracture and dissolve and eventually off itself.

Why on earth would we need to be upset about that? If people stop voting for a party and the party therefore ceases to exist, why is that necessarily a bad thing?

I don't mean to imply, by the way, that the DPP should be left as the sole major party in Taiwan. That would also be a terrible way forward. I don't even like the DPP very much! Instead, why not let a new party step in - not People First (James Soong has also done unforgivable things) but something like it - and fill the needs of broadly 'conservative' voters. I may not be a conservative but I recognize some people are, and they need people to represent them, after all. A party without a murderous, brutally dictatorial past, perhaps?

Hell, why not let Taiwan evolve into a KMT-less multi-party democracy? Would that really be so bad?

In short, who cares what's best for the KMT? We should be asking what's best for Taiwan, and would it not potentially be best for Taiwan not to have a KMT at all, and to evolve into a non-binary democracy where the political views of all voters can potentially, broadly, be met in a variety of candidates?

tl;dr - I just don't care if the KMT crashes and burns. I don't mean that I want a one-party DPP-run state, just that I want more non-KMT party options to fill that void. So let's stop worrying, 'k?

It's time to send the nationalists to a nice farm upstate. Don't do it with bans. Do it with votes.

Reasonability

Another positive thing I'd like to say about the elections is how reasonable it all was. I don't just mean the subdued campaigns - nary a screaming siren political truck drove my by house and posters and flags were sedate and much fewer in number than in previous elections - but Taiwan as a whole.

Here is my dark secret: I have friends who are blue (shhh, don't tell anyone)*. I disagree quite strongly with them.  With most, we just don't talk about it. I have my strong beliefs, they have theirs, and I'll express mine but stop short of insisting that others must agree (even if I think they should, because of course I believe I'm right - I wouldn't have a belief if I didn't think it was the right one, but they could say the same).

With some - one especially - well, we do talk about it. We disagree strongly. Well, in some ways not so strongly: the main difference is that she's focused on what the election means for the economy and stock market, and while I agree that's important, my ideological beliefs about Taiwan as a nation and my feelings of under the surface rage at any political group that has not  apologized for mass murders it engaged in trump that (plus, I don't really think the KMT is all that great for the economy, but that's a different debate). As an Armenian whose ancestors survived a genocide that the Turkish government still has not apologized for, that's not something I can forgive or ignore in any group. You could say it's in my blood.

What matters, though, is not that we disagree. It's that we disagree, and we can talk about it - even heatedly, but never insultingly - and we can still be friends.

I can't do that back home. I'm actually not against "conservatives" in the classic small-government, fiscally conservative sense, although I'm not convinced of their economic arguments. The position itself does not offend me and I am happy to discuss it. Although I disagree with libertarian economic platforms, again the idea doesn't offend me.

What I can't condone is what a vote for the Republicans also stands for: a vote for homophobia, to some extent for racism (although that's an issue that is hidden deep inside Republican economic platforms and is too intangible to prove fundamentally without wading into a political correctness landmine), and for restriction of women's rights. A vote for basing American laws on "Christian"** morals that not every American shares. I certainly don't. I feel this way to such an extent that I really can't have a civil discussion about these issues with a non-moderate Republican. I can't respect someone who endorses homophobia or says "America is a Christian nation" when it isn't, or who uses perfectly good words such as "liberal", "socialist" and "feminist" as insults. I just can't. Those views are abhorrent to me. Even if a person votes Republican based on economic principles, they're still casting a vote for the party that holds all the disgusting views above.***

To the same extent, I can't condone what a vote for the KMT stands for ("it's OK to commit crimes against humanity and not apologize for them!"). The difference is that in Taiwan, I can talk about it. People can talk about it...mostly. I see more green-blue dialogue than Republican-Democrat. I see more green-blue friendships and relationships (I couldn't possibly date a Republican back home, but I know plenty of green-leaning Taiwanese who have blue-leaning partners). I see people mostly getting along. The flashpoints are the exceptions, and society as a whole can mostly deal with them.

And I can talk about this. As someone who is fairly deep green, to someone who is fairly deep blue. We know not to insult each other: I may dislike the KMT, but I don't dislike her. I may not respect Ma Ying-jiu, but I do respect her. It can't, and shouldn't, ever be personal (although the White Terror thing really hits a nerve with me due to aforementioned family history).

The difference, I believe, is the fact that the US has increasingly veered towards social issues in its civil discourse, even though polls show that people care about the economy and vote on that rather than social issues. I do vote based on social issues, but I do so as a reasonably successful and very lucky, privileged American who had most of the right breaks. I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I'd grown up at the ass end of the system. Deep down we Democrats and those Republicans hate each other because it's all about worldviews and morals - gay rights, women's rights, religion, what makes a real family, when does life begin and how is it that all men are created equal but don't have an equal shot at life?

There is some of that in KMT-DPP political discourse but it doesn't cut quite so deeply. A Taiwanese feminist activist could vote for either party and feel she did the right thing (although I personally feel that the DPP is a better bet for women). A proponent of gay rights could do the same. Religion doesn't even come into it, as I believe is right. The debates aren't about these issues. The one social issue that gets play is national identity, and even that seems to have reached a "let's agree to disagree" sort of detente.

A very intelligent friend of mine said that Taiwan is much better now: "four years ago you would hear something like 外省豬回中國 or 無知南部人****. It's better this time indeed." And I agree - it is better. Things are improving. The two sides ran a reasonably civilized campaign - as much as can be expected from politics - and the overall outcome was one of a mature society, not two angry sides growling at each other. I admire that.

These days, if you throw out either of the above insults you'll get shushed, not cheered on. You can state your views but few will encourage you to just hurl invective with no underlying message. Which is as it should be.

Of course, there are always outliers. There are always a few shouters rather than talkers, in any society. The difference is that in America they seem to have taken over our discourse, whereas in Taiwan they're being told to shoosh so people can get on with the business of electing a leader. They can say what they want, but few will them seriously. Even within the campaign - attacks against Tsai Ying-wen didn't seem to stick ("she's not really Hakka" got shouted down, so did "she's a lesbian!") and while people joke about Ma Ying-jiu, generally the underlying message is that he's weak and ineffective.

So I look at my home country and I see "elitist", "liberal", "lamestream media", "feminist", "socialist", "terrorist" all used as though they carry the same register. Since when is a "liberal" the same as a "terrorist"? Since a bunch of angry people decided it was. I hear personal insults, attacks, people who believe things like 'if you don't see it my way, then you're just an idiot'.  This is not shushed. This is not put in its proper place at the extreme ends. This is what makes it on TV or gets talked about online. And this is sad.

Back to Taiwan, and sure, people disagree strongly. Someone might think another person's opinion is wrong, but the insults don't come. It would be rare to actually believe that because someone disagrees with you, that they're an idiot. I disagree strongly with my dark blue friend, but she is certainly not an idiot.

I don't feel we Americans grant each other the same respect.

I admire that in Taiwan, people seem to be able to see the difference between a belief and a whole person.

I wish I saw more of that back home. Then again, I also wish the beliefs we were debating weren't ones that are tied so strongly to social values. I wish we could all agree that gay people are people too and deserve equal rights, or that women are, indeed, able to make decisions about their bodies, and get on with the business of debating the economy and foreign policy.

In this way, I could say that America has a lot to learn from Taiwan.



*I am joking, but you knew that

**As someone who is not Christian but was raised Protestant, I don't actually think that a lot of what these guys say is "Christian" really is at all. I don't think Jesus would have condoned banning gay marriage or contraception, or possibly even abortion, and definitely not tax breaks on the wealthy while the poor went without. But, that's what they say. A different debate, again.

***I know, I know, I should respect all views but I just can't do that when someone makes up a bunch of lies about the "sacred bond of marriage" to disguise homophobia or thinks he knows better than I do what I should do with my own body. NO.

**** translation: "Foreign-born (Chinese) pigs go back to China" and "Ignorant southerners".

More Fearsome Than Tigers

Once every few months I hear some FOTD* kid braying about how "democracy won't work in China!" and all sorts of meh meh meh. No doubt because one of his professors in some lecture on politics and culture he attended two years ago brought it up as a question - I should know, because my professors did that all the time - and that's the position he took.

On the surface it seems PC: it seems like the person saying it is trying to incorporate China's current domestic issues and cultural background into the mix, which makes that person sound really in touch or with it or thoughtful. Which is great, except half the time the people saying it have never been to China (and if you've been to Taiwan, no, you've never been to China so don't even) or have been there, and have turned into that special brand of expat who is brainwashed into believing ridiculous things (they're the ones you can hear on the streets of Beijing faffing on about how great China is, how we're too hard on their undemocratic but very efficient government - but you have to admit, they get stuff done! - defending the One China fallacy, taking untenable positions regarding China's environmental problems (but it's the West that buys all the goods that China produces in those factories!), its sexism (that's just the culture! Accept it or go home) and human rights (you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet).*

Yeah yeah, different people have different opinions and maybe I shouldn't come down on them so hard, but as I see it, they're wrong. End of. They can believe what they like, and I can think they're ridiculous and blog about it, and they can leave comments which I can either refute or not publish (if the comments are rude and attack-y rather than thoughtful), and everyone's happy and exercising their freedoms in civic debate.

The "China can't be a democracy" blather is a popular one, and here I am (yay! you can all relax now, haha) to give you a point-by-point rundown of why it's bullshit.

"China can't be a democracy because democracy won't work with Chinese culture the way it does with Western culture."


Wrong. First, while Taiwan is not China, Taiwan does have a strong Chinese cultural influence - and what's important is that that influence stems from pre-Communist days and still carries a lot of traditional Chinese beliefs that were eradicated or greatly cut back during the Cultural Revolution. Taiwan is a democracy. A strong, functioning democracy that, well, yeah OK, sometimes they hit each other or spit on one another and there's vote buying and such but generally the system works and is fair. If Taiwan, while not actually China, provides an acceptable stand-in for how democracy would work in the context of Chinese culture....and it works just fine, thanks. Hong Kong actually is a part of China, although you could argue cultural distinction there, too, and while not a full-fledged democracy there's no reason to believe that democracy wouldn't work there.

Looking at other countries in East Asia, culturally they're not as similar to China, but there are a lot of shared traits (especially when you look at the influence of Confucian thought in Korea). They're all functioning democracies. They all have problems, but there's no government on Earth with the possible exception of Bhutan that doesn't.

Looking at some aspects of Confucian thought, by the way, it does make room for democracy. The Mandate of Heaven is something that can be taken away by unruly, unhappy masses. It was considered acceptable for dynasties to fall - this to me sounds like a cultural tic that would allow for democracy. Confucius also once said "惡政猛於虎", or "a tyrannical government is more fearsome than tigers". This does not sound like a philosophy that is 100% opposed to democracy. I don't even think I need to go into why Daoism and democracy work just fine.

"But those countries are small. China's too big to be a democracy!"


Yes, it has a big population, but so does India - and India, while a bit crazy, has a democracy that could generally be described as functioning. In ways I don't quite understand, and more than a little corrupt, but functioning. In its way. Yes, it covers huge tracts of land, but so do Canada, the USA and Brazil - and they're all democracies. Indonesia, too.

OK, there's one other obvious country that bears mentioning. It's true that Russia is mostly a democracy in name only, in that narrow definition of democracy in which - to quote Brendan - "there's an election and whoever gets the most votes wins".

Taiwan's got a relatively small population but it's extremely dense, which puts it in the running. And let's not forget Bangladesh. Poor, densely packed...and a democracy.

"But China is too diverse. You can't govern that different a population with democracy. You need stronger central rule."


Let's leave aside my strong belief that Tibet and Xinjiang (Uighur territory) should be granted either true autonomy (what the CCP offers now is not real autonomy) or independence.

I'd argue the opposite - that the only way to govern a large, diverse country is  through democracy, so different groups can have their say and, one hopes anyway, through the process of  inclusion feel less marginalized. I realize this is quite the utopian viewpoint but hey, seems to work in Canada. The USA is a more contentious issue. It is possible to demarginalize minorities and historically oppressed groups through democracy. It seems possible to do that with autocracy, but it never seems to actually work out that way.

I'd also say "let's look back at that list above". America is huge and diverse, both racially and culturally.   Brazil's pretty diverse, with all sorts of  native populations. India is the poster child for linguistic and cultural diversity - we may think of them all as "Indians" but come on. Go to India for awhile and tell me what you think then. Singapore, while small, is extraordinarily diverse. Indonesia's got some diversity going on - any island nation that huge would. Every single one of these countries have made democracy work.

"But China is still developing and democratic reform can only come with economic gains!"


This is the first statement I do give some credence to - it's true that moving from the Third World to the first does tend to have a democratizing effect on nations and one can't discount the effect of economics on politics.

That said, China is approaching, development-wise, the spot Taiwan was in when it underwent its transition to democracy. You could say the same for South Korea (although they might have been farther along - I'm not an economist and I am estimating here). As above, Bangladesh is massively poor, and yet a democracy.  India is lagging behind China - although doing very well in its own right - and it's a democracy.

"But the people don't want democracy. If they did, they'd demand it."


Ask the people who were at Tiananmen Square - if they're still alive - what they think of that one.

Hell, go to China and ask almost anyone, provided you're friends enough that they'll speak honestly with you and they're not one of the rapidly decreasing number of Chinese brainwashed in schools to believe their government is infallible (this belief tends to deflate the minute you get to know someone well enough to learn what they really think). You'll hear a different story. A democratic revolution against a party so ensconced in and obsessed with power as the CCP is not an easy fight to win. It wasn't easy for the Arab Spring countries, and it will be even harder in China. One shouldn't have to die for democracy: it's a human right to have a say in how you are governed. I can understand why someone might not want to actually die for it, even if they sincerely wish they had it.

"But a Chinese democracy would be so much less efficient than the current government. That's why India hasn't caught up to China."


Again, interesting belief, worth exploring, but ultimately wrong.

Well, not 100% wrong, it's true that democracy tends to be inefficient and that the CCP can get what it wants done more quickly (and bloodily). That tends to happen when you have a blatant disregard for citizens' rights, the health of your populace or, well, basically anything other than the path you've decided is the way forward.

First, considering that they built a dam on an earthquake fault, that roads fall apart, government-built factories fall apart, pollutants are sprayed into the countryside, the food supply is basically horrific, the water is undrinkable, you can't even be guaranteed you'll be able to keep land you own and you definitely won't be paid fairly if the government takes it, people suffer so much in Gansu that it's rendered a huge percentage of the population mentally disabled, and the horrible concrete tile-covered boxes that get built are very dodgy indeed - I don't even want to know how lacking the safety standards are - I wouldn't call the government that efficient. If it were, it would have done something about its constant environmental degradation and the air wouldn't be gray and sooty even in the countryside (I lived in semi-rural China and I got bronchial pneumonia twice in one year. The mountains in the distance were obscured by an unmoving haze of horrible smoky blech, even on sunny days).

Awhile back you'll remember that a section of road on the way to Keelung in Taiwan was buried under a landslide, and a few people died. I remember in that article reading that it was a surprise, as all manner of testing had been done on the hillside to ensure that it was a safe place to build a road. In China, the government would have sent an official, who'd point at a random hillside and say "build it there". "But..." "I said build it there." "OK."

I also question this deep need for better efficiency when it comes at the cost of human  and civil rights. Would you really trade freedom of speech for getting giant skyscrapers built a little faster?  Would you trade land rights for a superhighway built more quickly? Does a government that feels the need to restrict the rights and actions of its people deserve the adjective "efficient", or just "cruel"? I'd say that if the grease that oils your gears to make things go faster is actually blood, then it's not a good trade at all.


*fresh outta the dorms

What Scares Me, and What Gives Me Hope, Part I

Yes, this does concern China and to a lesser extent Taiwan - I'm just going to take my sweet time getting there!

We've all been watching as governments across the Arab world have either fallen or begun to teeter, and hopefully have absorbed several lessons from it.

I include Iran in "the Arab world" even though I realize they are not strictly defined as "Arab", by the way.

The first thought that came to my head when Tunisia fell and Egypt followed was simple - "you can't force democracy. People come into it on their own". If you read my blog regularly at all, you've surely guessed by now that I'm a die-hard liberal who never supported the Iraq war. I don't think in this moment of hindsight that I need to defend that view by stating the obvious. I'm surprised it isn't being said more - that it hasn't become a cliche in the way that "have an adult conversation" has regarding budget deficits. It is painfully evident that our military, top-down, "Pappa knows what's best" attempts at bringing democracy and freedom to the Middle East failed, and that grass roots desire for change has triumphed.

Frankly, I'm not sure why this isn't talked about more - is it just too obvious to say out loud?

This was its own cliche years ago when we lefties originally protested the war (I went to an actual protest, and then because I didn't want to be too much of a stereotype, got a giant Starbucks latte) - "you can't force democracy". "Going into Iraq and taking down their regime for them will never work. Saddam sucks, but the Iraqi people have to want to get rid of him themselves". Even I admit that it all sounded a bit hippie-dippy: because of course if people truly want democracy they'll risk their lives to fight for it. Yeah right. It is a fact of life that while people do generally value democracy, they value their families and personal relationships, not to mention lives, more. I'm not sure anyone who said the above actually believed at the time that the Iraqis would, in fact, oust Saddam on their own.

Things change now, and I don't know about you, but if we'd never invaded Iraq, I could certainly envision a mob of angry Iraqis not unlike those in Tunis, Tahrir Square, Tehran, Bahrain and Tripoli storming downtown Baghdad and demanding change. It sounded hippie-dippy, but it turned out to be not far from the truth.

The second thing I have taken away from this is the driving home of the point that the basic rights of freedom and self-determination are not inherently "Western" even if they came from Greece (arguably the birthplace of much of our Western culture). India has had a messy but functional democracy for over half a century - I get the feeling that at the top the votes are accurate: all the election corruption seems to be on a more local level, Taiwan, Korea and Japan have frisky but working democracies, as do many other nations, and yet "democracy" can't seem to shake its reputation as a "Western import".

When we were sending in troops to cram it down the throat of a nation, it sure played the role with gusto: what could be more of a "Western import" than a democracy that the USA decided to force on another country? It cemented the idea of Western-style government as 'evil' and 'foreign' to many, all a part of our sinister American plans for world domination (mwahahahahaha).

Now that the Arab world is on fire (both literally and non-) not unlike the European revolutions of 1848 from a desire for self-determination brought on for the people and by the people, it doesn't seem so "Western" anymore, does it. It sounds more "human".

Finally, what I'm getting from this is a small but slowly growing hope that these non-Western homegrown revolutions will slowly creep their way over to Asia. Tiananmen was a failure (both in the immediate sense and the hindsight sense), but if it did anything at all, it was to open up a tiny fissure in the defensive wall of the CCP. There are still Tiananmen deniers in China, but I daresay that more Chinese than not have an inkling as to what happened. My own experience in China generally confirmed the idea that many Chinese will publicly "support" or at least not criticize the government, but privately their feelings are very different. It might not be revealed at the drop of a hat, but it's there.

I'm reminded of an anecdote from my last days in China, back in 2003. My boss, M. Huang, had a younger brother (they were pre-One Child Policy). He was the much-desired boy child of her family, and if you know anything about old-skool Chinese culture, you know that back in the day (and to some extent today, regardless of what Hanna Rosin says) sons were prized well above daughters. As a result, Q. Huang was raised to be spoiled, difficult and entitled. I strongly disliked him - he had misogynistic ideas about the role of women in society, made fun of fat people, smoked indoors while we were trying to eat (when we ate at work), tried to impose his views on people, had a "job" at the school but never did anything and was generally an ass.

My town (Zunyi) had a river running through it, with a bridge and cemented embankment (ah, China). The embankment was a gathering place for locals - it was the least polluted part of town and not far from the relatively attractive new Old City (the Old City was oldest part of town but had been re-developed as a tourist area as it had some intact buildings of Communist historical significance, so it was the newest part of town - hence the New Old City). Cart vendors selling beer, tea and snacks began to congregate there much in the way that they do in some areas of urban Taiwan, and it became the de facto town bar, with the cheapest beer imaginable.

At my going away party, we all went out to dinner and then some of us went down to the river bank to hang out at the "bar". Q. came with us, which I wasn't pleased with, but I was also already a little tipsy so I figured it didn't matter.

I changed my mind about Q. that night - not entirely, mind you, he was still a sexist ass - but he proceeded to get hammered and tell the only people he felt he could trust to tell exactly what he thought of the Chinese Communist Party.

Q. had been studying in Beijing in 1989 and went to Tiananmen with his friends to join the protests - none of them wanted the Communists to stay in power. My bad Chinese and Q.'s drunkenness made the middle of the story a little unclear, but Q. started to cry (alcohol, the great fermenter of emotions!) - the only time I ever saw a man in China cry and by the end of the tale, he was standing in a doorway spattered with his friend's blood. The friend had been shot in the face.

Why connect that story to the current narrative of the Arab revolutions? To show that the dissent and dissatisfaction is there in China, and I do hope that the tales of other non-Western oppressive countries toppling so many autocrats in such a short time will eventually wind its way eastward. China is already censoring search results pertaining to the Middle East (apparently at one point searches for "Egypt" brought up no results - yeah, because the Internet doesn't have any info on Egypt. Yuh-huh). They're clearly concerned.

For what it's worth, I'd like to see Myanmar fall, too.

What we can certainly take away from this regarding China is that revolutions have a better chance of success when they've got bottom-up support and are not instigated from abroad.

Neither America nor any other country or body can push China towards democratic reform - we all know that. It's bloody obvious. What gives me hope is that the Arab revolutions have shown that it is not as impossible as previously thought.

Soon, I'll write up Part II: What Scares Me

One Hundred and One Flowers

(Disclaimer: the rant below is directed at the Communist Party of China, not the people of China nor Chinese culture. Just in case someone decides to get all wonky on me.)

As if you needed one, here's another reminder of why Taiwan is better than China, and you - whoever you may be - are better off living in Taiwan than China:

In China, Would-Be Protesters Pay a Price

China promised an outlet for protesters and free speech during the Olympics. We all remember - we should remember - how that went down when those elderly ladies attempted to bag a permit to do so. They ended up detained, in jail, and unable to protest:

Two women from Beijing in their late 70s, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, were sentenced to a year of reeducation in a labor camp for protesting their forced eviction from their homes in 2001; the sentence was reduced and later rescinded, but the women said in an interview that they are being closely monitored by local police and that cameras have been installed outside their homes.

Tang Xuecheng, an entrepreneur in his 40s who had gone to Beijing to protest the government's seizure of his mining company, was detained by local officials and sent to a "mental hospital for mental health assessment," according to a public security official in his home town in Chenzhou city in Hunan province. Tang was released several months later.

Zhong Ruihua, 62, and nine others from the industrial city of Liuzhou who tried to petition against property seizures were arrested and have been charged with disturbing the public order. Zhang Qiuping, Zhong Ruihua's youngest daughter, saw her mother for the first time since August on Feb. 23, during her trial.

And now this...

In the end, official reports show, China never approved a single protest application -- despite its repeated pledges to improve its human rights record when it won the bid to host the Games. Some would-be applicants were taken away by force by security officials and held in hotels to prevent them from filing the paperwork. Others were scared away by warnings that they could face "difficulties" if they went through with their applications.

Why didn't this get more media attention when it was happening? Why isn't it getting more media attention now? It's toward the bottom of the Washington Post website although the page marker is fairly front-and-center in the print edition.

Why did people expect any different from China? The government is made up of liars and fascists. I am so tired of blog posts, commentators and even politicians explaining away China's disdain for human rights. I am nauseous about people who apologize for their horrific, oppressive regime. I am sick at heart that the realpolitik of the day (I'm looking at you, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. I had some faith in you) overrides the freedom, liberty and basic rights of millions - no, billions of people.

It is sick. Tear-running, face-reddening, blood-racing, black-moodening sick.

Ji has spent the past eight months in various states of arrest and detention. In January, he was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum penalty allowed, on charges of faking official seals on documents he filed on behalf of his clients. Ji is appealing.

We all learned in History class about Mao's "100 Flowers" period where intellectuals were encouraged to speak out; and then were subsequently detained, investigated, interrogated, jailed and at times executed. It doesn't take a genius to see that the charges are faked, and that Ji, like others, is being detained because he dared to admit he'd like to protest against the power-gobblers who run his government. History is again repeating itself.

It's happening again and there just isn't enough rage out there. There isn't enough desire to do good. There aren't enough good people and those that exist are doing nothing in the name of national debt, geopolitical interests and profit margins. It actually makes my fingers shake - literally shake - to see a world so blithe to the national interest and defense of a functioning (if at times eccentric), prosperous, good country like Taiwan - yes, country, you Commie bastards - silently enabling Big Red across the strait to wreak its worst crimes against humanity.

There is a reason why the Falun Dafa protests where Chinese tourists are near. There is a reason why the National Democracy Memorial Hall is awash with Tibetan freedom activists. There is a reason why "terrorism" on the part of the Uighurs is seen as such a threat, and Uighurs across Xinjiang deeply despise the Chinese autocracy with a righteous venom. (I don't call it terrorism, by the way. Most "terrorist" claims are false, and those that are real should be considered freedom fighting. My great-grandfather was an Armenian freedom fighter against the wave Turkish genocide in 1915 so my own family lore knows this as a well-trodden story).

There is a reason why I left China a few years ago, after a year of teaching there. Nevermind that the water was so acidic that it rotted my teeth (I now have three crowns). Nevermind that the air was so grey that I could barely breathe, that I got bronchial pneumonia twice from the pollution and dirt (and don't say I'm weak; I've lived in India and I was fine there), that you can't trust the food supply or that the CCP is obviously corrupt and makes only the most superficial of gestures to hide it. Nevermind that despite being equal under the law, women are treated in an infuriatingly sexist manner - even in the cities. I left because I couldn't stand the lack of freedom. I couldn't stand that my boss was worried enough about my many trips to the hilltop temple - only because it was the only attractive and authentically old place in town, not because I was going all Buddhist - that he'd ask me not to go so often lest I attract the attention of the police. It bothered me when I told my local friend that I was disappointed with the lack of civil uprising, she 'shooshed' me. It stuck like a pin in flesh when the boss's brother - a man I didn't even really care for as a person - broke down in tears after drinking a few too many and told us about how he saw his best friend get shot in the face by police at Tiananmen Square, and the police had insisted later that they had done no such thing (if they had done no such thing, why was he dead? They couldn't, and didn't bother to, answer that). It stung that I couldn't access basic websites such as Blogspot, Google, Hotmail (at times), the Washington Post, the New York Times...most of those are available now, although some only are because they censored their content. They aided and abetted evil (Google, I'm looking at you). It bit, knowing that everything on TV and in the newspapers was propaganda trash. You couldn't get your hands on a fact - an honest-to-god fact - to save your life.

Then the government wonders why it faces so much scrutiny? Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore, asks why people laud India's development but abhor China's? India is free, or mostly so. China is emphatically not. The Chinese government is not facing nearly enough scrutiny. If that makes them uncomfortable, well, tough.

There is a reason why so many who are wronged by China, or see others being wronged by China, revile their government like a fang stuck in their hearts.

Because - not to put too fine a point on it - the Chinese government sucks and they need to be deposed. NOW. I don't care if that "hurts the feelings of the Chinese people" (which it doesn't). I'm sick of playground diplomacy and bratty tactics. "You want to meet with the Dalai Lama? Waaaah! Nooo! You hurt my feeelings!"

Only 77 applications were officially filed. Even so, all but three were subsequently withdrawn, the state-run New China News Agency said, after authorities "satisfactorily addressed" petitioners' concerns.

Yeah, right. Satisfactorily my lilly-white arse. They were bullied and pushed into withdrawing them. Then the state lied about it the way they lied about TiananmenAnd what about the thousands - hundreds of thousands - who would like to file such a petition but are afraid to do so, for exactly the reasons why the applicants of three non-withdrawn petitions have been harassed.

Why is this OK? Why do we live in a world where this is OK? Why is a situation allowed to exist where a free and functional country like Taiwan- exactly the sort of system the US has lied about trying to foster around the world and exactly the sort of country China should aim to emulate - is pushed aside in the name of "pragmatism"?

Before you get all realistic on me, I submit that it doesn't have to be this way. The USA insisted on having its way in Iraq and it still has enough sway with China - our economic crisis is their economic crisis, after all, and their trade profits are our trade deficits - to tell it to stop. Just...stop.

Panama - Panama, for crying out loud - recognizes Taiwan. Let me repeat that again. Panama. They have a nifty canal, if you recall. That canal is enough of a counterweight against their rebuttal of Chinese governmental deathmongering, and yet the entire might of the USA, as weakened as it might be, isn't? Come on.

Instead, we get the optimists of China, the best and the brightest that that grey, bleak political wasteland has to offer, being stomped down with a fury that the rest of the world should not tolerate:

But at his core, Ji was an optimist and believed that change was possible from within the system. He decided he would learn the letter of the law so that he could help laobaixing, or ordinary people, deal with their grievances. He took on cases for free and lived on 3 yuan, less than 50 cents, a day....

When Ji went to Beijing in August armed with carefully prepared documents about a dozen local cases -- including one about a man who died in detention and others about illegal land seizures -- he was convinced that because China had passed a law allowing him to file a protest application, nothing bad could come of it.

He had recently been evicted from his home office in Fuzhou on suspicion of trying to incite people to petition in Beijing, friends said, but even then he didn't waver from his conviction that China's central government would keep its promises to allow public dissent during the Games, according to his sisters and friends.

If the USA and the EU got together and said "Hey China - stop it. Now. Be nice to Tibet and Xinjiang, let Taiwan decide its own fate, stop stealing the property of the poor for the good of the rich and for goodness sake, stop arresting and killing people"...guess what? China would stop it. They'd have to.

No, I am not wrong.

Yes, we on the 'free', liberal democratic end of the spectrum, the end that Francis Fukuyama once called the final destination of human civilization, do have the power to make it end. We don't even need to fire a bullet.

"Everything is fine here, please don't worry! Please believe that I only have done good rather than brought harm to our people and country. I will win the lawsuit in the end," Ji wrote.

His sister Ji Qiaozhuang said she has been surprised and disappointed by how he has been treated because he has never advocated controversial positions such as the end of one-party rule.

"He's not a revolutionary, a young man with anti-government feelings," she said. "He's an old man who just wants to help others. China needs people like him to progress."

Indeed. It's too bad that the Chinese government refuses to recognize that. They'll need to if they want to become the sort of country they can become and should become. A country like Taiwan.

While evil is allowed to exist, why do good 'men' do nothing?