Chinese extraterritorial laws prove there can be no peace under "one China"

Beijing has adopted a new set of 'guidelines' that allow the Chinese government to try and convict Taiwan independence advocates in absentia, according to Xinhua. 

I advise you to read the entire thing -- the English translation is entirely comprehensible, and I relied on it as I do not read Simplified characters -- but it's even more insane than it seems on the surface. And frankly, that's saying a lot. 

Commentary so far has zeroed in on the inclusion of the death penalty for some "separatists", although the part about "deprivation of political rights" gave me a chuckle, because it's not like the People's Republic allows its citizens to access any true political rights: 

Those who cause particularly serious harm to the state and the people and whose circumstances are particularly heinous may be sentenced to death. Active participants shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years. Other participants shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, controlled release, or deprivation of political rights.

 

The range of "crimes" that can incur anything from a prison sentence to death are extremely vague: 

The guidelines also detailed what is considered crimes worthy of punishment, including promoting Taiwan’s de jure independence, advocating the nation’s entry into international organizations whose memberships are limited to sovereign states, engaging in official exchanges and military contacts abroad, and conspiring to create “two Chinas,” or “one China, one Taiwan,” in the international community.

They also include taking advantage of one’s authority in education, culture, history and the media to “distort or falsify facts about Taiwan’s historical links to China,” and “suppressing” parties, groups or individuals that promote peaceful cross-strait relations and “reunification” with China, as well as “other acts that seek to separate Taiwan from China.”

 

This is obviously off the rails, so much so that I barely even need to write about it. But what makes it even crazier, at least to me, is the assumption that if tried in absentia, defendants would actually believe it possible enough to get a fair trial in China that they'd send a defense team or appeal the verdict: 

In cases where the People's Court tries in absentia the crimes of "Taiwan independence" diehards who split the country or incited secession, the defendant has the right to entrust or have a close relative entrust one or two defense lawyers on his behalf. If the entrustment is made abroad, the authorization shall be notarized and authenticated in accordance with relevant regulations...

When the people's court tries in absentia a case of a "Taiwan independence" diehard splitting the country or inciting secession, it shall deliver the verdict to the defendant, his or her immediate family members, and the defense counsel. If the defendant or his or her immediate family members are dissatisfied with the verdict, they have the right to appeal to the people's court at the next higher level. The defense counsel may appeal with the consent of the defendant or his or her immediate family members.

 

I didn't know that the CCP was considering a career in stand-up comedy, but anyway, what does this actually mean? 

First, it attempts to silence Taiwan activists or those who'd be inclined to agree with them, mostly in Taiwan, but perhaps beyond it as well. It's meant to scare two types of people: pro-independence Taiwanese, and public figures anywhere in the world who might have reason to go to China in the future. For those in Taiwan, the PRC is essentially saying "we know we can't do anything to you now, but annexation is inevitable, and once that happens you're toast -- even if your activism ceases the moment we take control." 

In fact, it could be taken further than that: they're not just enacting Hong Kong-style repression in advance. They're making it easier to draw up a list of names now, so that if (when?) they do invade, they'll be able to snatch them that much more quickly. It's easier to keep people from escaping if you know who you want to punish in advance. 

Just as a little side note, there's a history of this in my own family. My great-grandfather was an Armenian fedayi, a fighter in the Turkish-Armenian war of 1920. Apparently he was quite the sniper. He moved to Athens and married soon after, but left on the eve of WWII. It wasn't just a general sense of danger: apparently the Nazis looked into things like, oh, say, whether you had a history of armed resistance. My great-grandfather did. The whole family fled.

That's the point I want to really drive home: every once in awhile some wrongo dongo gets it in their head that there can be peace if we just give China what it wants. It's better than a war, right?

But this is not possible. China's "peace" means hunting down and murdering activists, including friends of mine. For supporters who perhaps don't take an active role, it can mean worry for the rest of your life that something you said in erstwhile democratic Taiwan might come back to haunt you, costing you your job, your freedom or your life. 

I've heard people say it's not such a big deal to lose basic freedoms, that it's better than perishing under bombs and guns. Now imagine you surrender those freedoms to escape the guns, only to find your friend shot because he said something five years ago that your new masters don't like. Imagine they start asking you questions, and under duress you admit you attended a few protests, maybe voted for the DPP. Maybe you get shot too. 

Let's say you want to leave, but you can't, because you're associated with people whose names were on a list before the first PLA soldier's boots touched Taiwanese soil. They can take everything from you, including your life. 

That's how it will be, and it's not peace. There can never be peace under "one China". I can say right now that if China takes Taiwan, I have friends who will be murdered under this law. That is simply not peace. 

I could have said all of this a year ago, two years ago -- it's always been true. It's just that now they've made it more official. 

In theory, this could include me. I don't think I'm important enough to be noticed, but the danger is not zero. 

This also effectively bars anyone who's spoken for Taiwan from ever going to China, even if they don't intend to engage in any pro-Taiwan speech while there. You'd think it'd be easy to avoid going to China, and certainly the most prominent activists are banned. But Taiwanese companies do send employees to China on business. Now it's not safe to go, even if your work requires it, if you've made so much as a passing comment online, from Taiwan or anywhere else where access to freedom of speech is protected. 

This isn't a new notion for China, which convicted and imprisoned Lee Ming-che for five years, over his actions in Taiwan, where everything he wrote was fully legal.

In fact, the least scary thing about this is that the Chinese government has been detaining and kidnapping people, putting them through kangaroo courts if they're lucky, without a set of regulations to make it official. This is just paperwork; it's always been the case in practice. Beijing has likely already been keeping a list of people who'll be up against the wall if their annexation bid succeeds; this would just make more efficient. Killing sprees run so much more smoothly if the victims have already been convicted in absentia! 

As these regulations apply to anyone, not only Chinese nationals and Taiwanese whom Beijing insists are Chinese, they potentially affect any journalist, writer, academic, artist or public figure from anywhere in the world. As the Taipei Times source noted: 

Noting that US President Joe Biden has said he does not rule out using military force to defend Taiwan if China unilaterally tries to change the “status quo” across the Strait, they asked: “Does the CCP dare punish him?”

 

We could get more ridiculous with this: could Katy Perry be put on trial in absentia? Enes Kanter? Jensen Huang? John Oliver? Any foreign journalist who has simply reported that Taiwan is self-governed and polls show it wishes to stay that way? Researchers at Acasdemia Sinica who consistently publish polls showing Taiwanese don't consider themselves Chinese? 

How many pro-Taiwan people will look at their business travel needs and decide it's better to stay silent? Perhaps not all, but possibly some. How many of those fence-sitters who say they do believe that Taiwan isn't China but "want peace" or think China taking over is "inevitable" are going to decide it's better to just be quiet? If it's so "inevitable", they're toast, right?

Finally and perhaps most obviously, it silences anyone in China who thinks Taiwan deserves recognition of its current sovereignty, or at least attempts to. The regulations don't differentiate by citizenship, so this could be anyone -- Chinese citizens who were perhaps willing to say that Taiwan doesn't necessarily need to be "reunified", Taiwanese living or working in China, and even foreign residents in China who use VPNs to access the real Internet. I doubt they'd bother going after most such people, though they might pick off one or two Taiwanese in China to set an example. 

If we're really going to dive into what this could mean, trial in absentia does imply a warrant, and will generally result in a verdict. Although it's unlikely, at least theoretically this could embolden China to start issuing warrants or hounding Taiwan activists just as they do Hong Kong exiles. It's not just the National Security Law "in advance", it could well be attempting to promulgate the most chilling provisions immediately.

Outside of both China and Taiwan, attempts to arrest Tawian activists based on such a conviction in absentia would most likely but not necessarily be rebuffed, rendering a whole host of countries friendly to China now dangerous for anyone who's ever advocated for recognition of Taiwan's sovereignty. Although I haven't had much time to consider it, off the top of my head, I'd be worried about parts of Southeast Asia -- say, Cambodia, which has warm ties with the PRC, or Thailand, where Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong was detained and publisher Gui Minhai kidnapped.

If I were being super thirsty, I could ask you guys which countries you think Taiwan activists might get detained or kidnapped from. Where are you afraid to go now? Leave your top choice in the comments below, and don't forget to smash that subscribe button!

(Do I even have a subscribe button? Doubt it.)

The Great Game Was A Great Idea

The face of every analyst if China invades Taiwan

 By Thadtaniel McDorpington III

The world has changed. Over the past decade, we have witnessed a distinct shift toward a renewed competition between the great powers. The bipolar struggle between the U.S. and China is the new Great Game of the 21st century. In fact, when it comes to Taiwan, the only two countries which matter are the U.S. and China: Taiwan is merely the piece of land they are fighting over.

In my previous work, I noted that the best way to ensure peace between the U.S. and China was for the U.S. to appease China. Expanding on that notion, the best way forward for averting war in East Asia is to treat it the way colonizing powers treated Central Asia in the 19th century -- that is, the Great Game. As we can see from Central Asia today, nothing bad resulted from that. Thus, it is an excellent framework to use in 2024 when discussing Taiwan. 

As today's rivalry over Taiwan is exclusively a Great Powers issue, I am unaware of whether Taiwan has people living on it or not. It is a place on a map whose strategic position is of interest to the U.S. but close to China, which has created a flashpoint. They also produce semiconductor chips there, but it is unclear who produces them. The U.S. needs those chips, but China wants to control their production, and that is the biggest dispute driving the issue. 

Taiwan must belong to someone, but debate rages regarding who exactly that is. The U.S.? China? Some other power or group of people as yet to be identified? The world may never know. 

Thus, if we wish for peace in East Asia, the most obvious solution is to work with China. As they are surely sincere negotiation partners who are open to a variety of outcomes, not just the outcome they demand, we must provide them with assurances. Perhaps we might even convince them that Taiwan could someday choose to be oppressed by them -- wouldn't that be something! 

And you never know: some people like the taste of hard leather. We should simply encourage those elements who prefer boots to be spit-cleaned for an outcome that is...well, not war exactly. Backing people whose end goal is dictatorship has never gone wrong.

All that really matters, after all, is avoiding war. Other concepts, like human rights and self-determination, are, shall we say, flexible. Besides, Taiwan is not a Great Power and therefore not inhabited by any humans worth speaking of, so who would even benefit from those human rights?

The best way to avoid war, of course, is to reassure Beijing that the U.S. will not fight one. As with Britain and Russia playing a rather violent chess game across Asia, China only wants Taiwan to spite the U.S. If the U.S. backs down, surely China will back down on Taiwan! Even if they don't, is it really in the U.S.'s interest to fight a war over some rocks? 

The logic is perfect: if China faces no opposition, from the U.S. or globally, on Taiwan, and is in fact assured that nobody outside Taiwan wishes to fight a war over it, China will realize that the path to conquering Taiwan is too easy, and thus not take it. 

If they do try to take it, then Taiwan, which may be a place where real people live, should defend itself. If it can't defend itself, then China should be allowed to annex it. What happens after that is nobody's business, and if there is a uprising in Taiwan that China has to put down violently through a series of genocides, we can register our shock by insisting we had no idea any of that would happen and how unfortunate it is, as we do nothing.

That's how international law and basic ethics are meant to work, and thus form the foundation of the Great Game. In some cases we even fund the genocides so they happen faster, but I do not specifically recommend it in this instance. Rather, inveighing against China after the fact while taking no specific action is sufficient for us to continue to believe we are good people with reasonable foresight.

Another option is to give Beijing everything else it wants in the hopes that it will be distracted from Taiwan. Surely they will not use our good-faith negotiation and offers of commodities and chip access to take more time building an ever-stronger military that they will use to conquer Taiwan regardless of all of the gifts we bestow upon them. There's certainly no precedent for that, nor any precedent of a country trying to control one of its smaller neighbors by interfering in its self-governance, calling resistance to that interference "separatism" and "color revolution", threatening to invade said neighbor, and then doing so. As that has never ever happened before, it definitely won't happen agai---I mean it won't happen.

It simply makes sense: tensions are raised over Taiwan. As nobody could possibly know who raised them, the U.S. must to everything in its power to keep China happy. Just as it is a well-known fact that respecting rules set by an abuser will undoubtedly cause the abuse to stop, we should respect all of China's red lines until we can figure out where these tensions come from. 

If the U.S. gives China everything it asks for and reassure them that we do not want a war, the situation over Taiwan may remain tense. That is acceptable, as I do not personally know anyone whom it would affect. In fact, I do not believe it would affect anyone at all, as it would not be a problem for the U.S. specifically. This is the normal way of things, and in the Great Game, Taiwan, which may not actually be inhabited, must accept that it will exist forever in a tense situation in which its neighbor threatens a violent annexation, and its possible allies equivocate on their support. 

The Hou/Ko/(Ma) embroilment

The photo suits the post and you already know why

Two days ago, Donovan Smith wrote a fantastic column on Ma Ying-jeou's entrée into the weird "will they or won't they" situation between the KMT's Hou You-yih and the TPP's personality cult leader, Ko Wen-je. 

I'd actually missed this when it happened; I've been pulling odd hours at my many workplaces, because I've had a few career things (not bad things, as it turns out) shift in recent weeks. So, I've been a bad blogger and bad Taiwan politics follower. 

In fact, I'd thought the possibility of cooperation between Hou and Ko had long passed. I am fairly sure the DPP doesn't think there will be a joint Hou-Ko ticket, either. The two parties both keep dancing around the issue, and it sure seems like they've mostly wanted the attention the speculation is bringing -- as opposed to Lai's almost absurdly boring campaign -- more than they actually want to cooperate. Campaign ads have shown different deputies in the background for each, and it just didn't look very likely that one would subordinate himself to the other. 

Though, if I had to guess, I'd say Hou would be more willing to surrender to Ko than the other way around. He seems like that kind of person: not strong of character, certainly lacking an ethical compass, but generally willing to lie low and not say much. Not ruffle any feathers he doesn't need to (and even some he possibly does). Ko likes to...just sort of do what he wants, which may present a problem for cooperation and in the election generally.

That, however, is just my opinion.

As you might expect, both sides have put forth methods of determining who should lead the ticket that favor themselves. Ko's proposal makes it more likely that he'd get the presidential slot, Hou's obviously favors Hou. You can read more about it in Donovan's article; I don't need to repeat what he's already said. 

Then Ma Ying-jeou entered the fray, saying he supported "purely opinion based polling" to determine who might lead such a ticket. That was rightly described as a bombshell, because Ma is a KMT stalwart. Ko generally leads in the polls, not the KMT's own Hou. (Of course Ma would never come right out and say "I support Ko over Hou").

The KMT reaction to this has been...mixed.

Ma Ying-jeou's Enemy For Life Wang Jin-pyng -- a man I don't like, but I can admire that he doesn't lie supine for Ma -- has come out and said that he supports a joint ticket where Hou leads and Ko takes the vise presidential slot, but Hou, Ma and the KMT should "think twice" before using opinion polling to cantilever Ko to the top of the ticket. He cited the backlash in the south (where rural KMT supporters would probably go for Hou but not accept Ko), that it would split the KMT, and that KMT officials wouldn't necessarily know which authority figure to follow. And you know, KMT officials always need an authority figure to follow. 

Wang also pointed out that Ko is someone who does whatever he wants; he wouldn't necessarily accept sloppy seconds, but as a presidential nominee he wouldn't necessarily listen to others. (That's not an exact quote, it's an interpretation of comments he's made). 

On the other hand, Han Kuo-yu has expressed support for basically whatever Ma wants. My only surprise here is that what Han Kuo-yu thinks still matters. I kid -- a little. Yet, he does still have a support base.

KMT Chairman Eric Chu's response seems more ambivalent, but nobody really cares what Chu thinks, least of all the KMT. (Again, I'm joking...kinda. He actually does seem to have political chops, well-hidden behind an aggressively Milquetoast façade).  

Hou has said he "will not give up hope" in the face of such cooperation and he hopes the result will "meet everyone's expectations", which sounds like a very Hou, and very Taiwanese, thing to say. The two sides will talk tomorrow in a meeting that will be attended by Ma Ying-jeou, and take place at the (barf) Ma Ying-jeou Cultural and Educational Foundation. A place that sounds like my personal idea of hell...but anyway. 

Clearly, Ma is trying to force this union and seems to be willing to go to great lengths to do so. He's got his fingers all up in this thing.

I'm hardly an expert, but here you are reading this so please enjoy some wild speculation about why this might be. Why would a blue-from-birth KMTer like Ma pivot to Ko and get his weird bald minion to go along with it? 

First, I've said basically forever that KMT Chairman Eric Chu, along with Hou You-yih and honestly much of the KMT, are basically Ma Ying-jeou's puppets (傀儡). I'm not the only one who's said this, either. Friends have disagreed, pointing out that they come from different factions within the KMT. 

When it comes to Ma, however, I'm truly not sure that matters: he just wants to control everyone regardless of faction. Certainly Ma doesn't seem to like Hou very much, but beyond that I don't think being in different factions changes Ma's desire for continued influence. He'll control whomever he has to control to push through his pro-China, pro-unification agenda, no matter how unpopular it is with the public. Hou doesn't seem particularly able to push back, which is why the KMT campaign honestly feels like some sort of Ma-era zombie awakening -- part II of a particularly bad horror movie. 

Thus, the simple explanation would be that Ma wants two things: power for himself, and to defeat the DPP. Okay, three things: he's also a dirty unificationist.

It's been widely reported that Liou Chao-hsuan -- I don't think that's the romanization he prefers but let's go with it -- Ma's former premier, is the "driving force" behind the whole idea. I don't buy this for even a second: it reeks of Ma's dirty fingers. Liou is a feint. A ruse. A decoy. 

And if Ko on top is the ticket most likely to defeat the DPP, Ma might just decide he loves power more than he loves party loyalty.

Ma's own chances of having a say over national policy, and of Taiwan moving in a more pro-China direction, are better if the DPP loses by any means necessary. Quite possibly, he would have preferred to control Hou at the top. Sensing that might not be possible, he's just as willing to do Ko a favor, get him to the top, and thus be 'owed'. 

This is probably not the entire explanation, but I doubt it's entirely untrue, either. 

There is likely some factional infighting going on. There always is, with the KMT. (The DPP seems to have somewhat beaten back their own factional struggles, for now). Perhaps Ma thinks he can supercede all of the squabbling factions by using his power and influence to crown Ko, a man entirely outside such factional struggles. Certainly the deep blues who follow Ma don't care for the more 'local' Hou, and I doubt Hou cares much for them, either. 

I suspect that if this is the case, Ma doesn't know what he's getting into with Ko, a man who is happy to take the support given to him but never pay it back. 

You know, like he did with the Sunflower zeitgeist that helped him get elected in Taipei. 

Considering the way he's treated the Sunflowers since, it surprises me that he seems to be the 'youth candidate'. Quite literally, but why tho? He's not young and doesn't represent their interests. All he has to offer is that he's not from one of the stodgy older parties; being "not those other guys" with no clear notion of why he's better shouldn't be enough. 

Regardless, I am not entirely sure that Ko will feel obligated to submit to Ma even if Ma does propel him to the top of the ticket. I'm also not sure Ma understands that, because he doesn't seem to realize there are people he can't control. Certainly he wants to shove unification down the throats of a Taiwanese public that does not want it. 

                       


I'm sure Donovan will cover the factional angle in more depth; I'll leave him to it. It's not my area of expertise. 

I also can't help but think there's a China angle here. I know it's kind of lazy to take every little thing that happens in Taiwanese politics and say "yeah that's China's meddling", but sometimes it really is China's meddling! 

The biggest potential winners in a Ko-Hou ticket (as opposed to a Hou-Ko ticket) are Ko, Ma, and possibly Han Kuo-yu. Why Han? Because Wang Jin-pyng is probably right that the rural south isn't going to take kindly to such a ticket, and they'll need to bring out all the Han stans to win back that vote. That will help Han tidy up the reputation he marred a bit when he lost the 2020 election by such a humiliating margin.

You'd think Han's reputation would have been marred by the time he literally killed a guy well before losing an election, then losing the election he'd previously won, but whatever. Ma will certainly give his weird little minion some kind of treat for it. 

When I think of those three men, I think of Chinese backing. Do I even need to cite the notion that Ma is cooperating with the CCP? I mean, he doesn't try to hide it. If there's one thing Ma likely wants more than his own power and influence, it's for the CCP to get its tentacles into the brains of Taiwanese youth. 

It's been speculated quite a bit that Han Kuo-yu's weird (I'm sorry, that guy is weird, everything about him is weird, I will never stop saying this) return to power was due in great part to Chinese funding. I mean, is it even really 'speculated' anymore? Perhaps there was also a factional angle -- there always seems to be -- but more likely than not it came down mostly to a CCP-backed effort. They saw in him a pro-China, Trump-like dullard whom they'd barely have to control because he was already in bed with them.

As for Ko, it's been speculated that he's long since switched from green to light blue to (potentially) red. He was recently seen campaigning with New Party (and dirty unificationist) Chiu Yi, a man Ko once called "like a CCP nominee". Chiu Yi is almost too red for the KMT, but here he is actively supporting Ko, hosting "fan meetings", the works. 

If you think the support of one guy doesn't say much, I disagree. The support of this one particular guy says a lot. This is the dude who said that Taiwan independence activists deserve to be "beheaded"! Ko has also been seen associating with Terry Gou. You know, the Foxconn founder, rich asshole and presidential nominee nobody really cares about. Terry Gou, who is so relentlessly pro-China that it's almost comical. 

There's a lot more I could say here. There are still questions about Ko's comments regarding China ("we're all one family"), his family's investments in China, and his actions while attending events in China. He's even come out and said China wants him to run for president! 

If we take for granted that China is interfering in this election because they try to interfere in every Taiwanese election, and we note that the people (and one weird minion) at the forefront of this push for a Ko-topped ticket are all either suspected or outright known to be in China's pocket, then it's not a big leap to think this whole rigmarole is a China-backed push to get someone it can control in power. 

That Ma wants power too is almost secondary, in this case. He's happy to be the CCP's slimy bootlicker regardless. 

I'm not convinced these three options exist independently of each other. Ma wanting power and a defeat of Lai, factional struggles within the KMT and funding, disinformation and other election manhandling by China all seem to co-exist in every other election. Why not this one?

Potentially, the only difference regarding the 2024 election is that Ko has turned from a potential 'youth candidate' who could take the light blue/don't like Hou and light green/don't like Lai votes into a straight-up CCP agent, with known CCP agent Ma Ying-jeou at his back. And perhaps the incentives -- power, money, the usual -- from China are getting sweeter. 

Which Taiwanese party offers the best chance for peace? (Not the KMT)

Here's a random picture from Hyderabad because I have somewhere to be and haven't got time to be messing around with photos

Lord forgive me, but I'm gonna pull a Tom Friedman and start with a taxi anecdote. 

If I have work at 9am, I usually take a taxi because I simply cannot with the morning rush hour. Sometimes, we talk politics, and I've heard all sorts of opinions, from the standard-issue to the positively bizarre. This morning, my driver was a middle-aged woman from Tainan with big hair and a bright green skirt who insisted that Taiwan was indeed independent, but there was no need to keep "saying we're independent" because it "upsets the mainland."  She insisted that she wants "peace" and that Taiwan is very small so “there's nothing we can do." 

Crucially, she seemed to think that people calling for Taiwan independence simply should not do so. Not because Taiwan isn't independent, but because it puts Taiwan in danger. 

We didn't exchange views on specific political parties, but her views are fairly consistent with the KMT's current campaign platform: that they're the party of no war, not declaring independence and improved dialogue with China. The only real difference between her views and the KMT platform is that the KMT fundamentally does not believe that Taiwan is independent of China. 

As she talked -- and mostly, I just let her talk -- it occurred to me that a lot of people are still judging presidential candidates based not on their actual platforms, but on some weird fantasy of what they believe those platforms to be.

For example, I've heard people still say they fear that DPP candidate Lai Ching-te will "go for independence" or that the DPP is dangerous because they will "declare independence" if they win again.

Others believe that the KMT only favor "improved dialogue" with China for the purposes of averting war; they'll insist that the party won't sell out Taiwan's sovereignty despite the fact that China's preconditions for dialogue -- that Taiwan recognize that there is "one China" and that this China includes Taiwan" -- do exactly that. 

The first is based on a semi-reasonable deduction from DPP party philosophy. They do, indeed, favor an independent Taiwan. The second is based on zero evidence. Such people are taking the KMT at their word that all they want is "dialogue", without considering their fundamental orientation to unification. 

But why take the KMT at their word, while insisting the DPP has some sort of ulterior motive or secret plan to pivot toward a formal declaration of independence when they've been quite clear that they don't intend to do so?

It not only feels a bit unfair to deduce that Lai is being dishonest about the DPP's intentions if they win the presidency again but to take Hou's word as bond, it also assumes that there is a bigger difference between what the two parties are saying than I suspect actually exists.

No, really. Hear me out.

And yes, I'm leaving out Ko Wen-je and Terry Gou because I don't want to talk about Ko, and Gou isn't worth my time. 

If we take Lai and Hou's platforms as they are presented, here is what they say they want: 

The DPP has consistently said it does, in fact, want dialogue with China, and they do not intend to declare independence. 

The KMT also says it wants dialogue with China, and does not intend to declare independence. 

I have no reason to doubt either party is lying, so whether you vote for Lai or Hou, you're getting a party that welcomes discussions with China, and won't declare independence. (I happen to know for a fact that while the DPP does, of course, envision a future of globally-recognized sovereignty as an entity independent of the PRC, there is no current intention to 'declare independence'. There's no ruse, no secret agenda). 

That, in my opinion, is where the similarities end. The DPP's reasoning is that they'd be happy to speak with envoys from another country, as long as Taiwan isn't forced to abrogate its sovereignty to do so. There's no need to declare independence, as Taiwan is already independent. No other country feels the need to put out such a statement. Why should Taiwan?

The KMT is staking their presidential bid on that dialogue with China. The key difference, of course, is that they're perfectly willing to denigrate Taiwan's sovereignty in order to do so. They'll agree to just about anything -- that there is one China as per the (fabricated) 1992 Consensus, that Taiwan's a part of it, whatever the CCP want them to say about "brothers" (兄弟) or "one family" (一家人).

Their reasoning is less overt; they won't come out and say that they consider Taiwan a part of China, but their stances don't make any sense unless you take it as a given. If any party has a secret or poorly-clarified agenda, it's the KMT. They know perfectly well that their pro-unification orientation is not popular with the public. 

In other words, when greens point out that the KMT is willing to sell out Taiwan, they're not wrong. When blues say the DPP are secretly gunning for formal independence even if it means war, they're full of crap. 

Yes, I'm biased. But come on...I'm also not wrong.

Perhaps my dislike for the KMT is causing me to notice it more, but it feels like, as usual, there's a double standard at play with the two parties. The KMT can screw up royally but "well, you know, they've always been that way." They don't even need to make meaningful changes! Their fundamental philosophy regarding Taiwan's status is laughably out of touch with the public but "but Taiwanese like to change out the ruling party" (true enough, I just wish one of the two biggest options wasn't so awful). The KMT can slaughter the defense budget, but the DPP gets blamed for Taiwan's lack of military preparedness.

The KMT can all but say they'd sell out Taiwan, but people will still believe they only want "dialogue". The KMT can have a barely-concealed desire to make Taiwan as 'Chinese' as possible, but somehow people think the DPP are the ones who are hiding their true intentions. 

Frankly, I'm sick of it. 

Okay, you might say, but which party will actually prevent war?

Honestly? The KMT may be running on a "no war" platform, but it's most likely the DPP. 

What do you think is more likely to dissuade China from attacking? A party that will kowtow to the CCP's every demand but perhaps not agree to true unification with the PRC (because the public would never accept it)? Or the party that will do what they can for Taiwan's defensive capabilities and court support from other countries, making the country less of an appealing target? 

Let's say the KMT wins, Hou lets Xi give him a good old-fashioned rawdog, but crucially doesn't actually set a timetable for unification because he knows it would result in mass riots and essentially ruin the KMT's chances for future electoral wins, if not their very existence as a party. China realizes they're not going to actually get a peacefully-unified Taiwan out of the KMT, at least not anytime soon. 

In fact, I suspect China already knows this, unless they've believed their own lies that Taiwan's desire for sovereignty is some top-down DPP invention and not the general public consensus. 

Let's say that the KMT pivoting Taiwan toward China alienates those who might have previously supported its cause -- if you're going to vote in the party that wants unification, why should we support your fight for de jure independence? Domestically, Taiwan's defensive readiness is in shambles because the KMT doesn't actually think Taiwan should need to defend itself. 

What do you think China is going to do? Say "oh well, we tried, good luck in your future endeavors, Taiwan?" 

No, they're going to attack. Not because they have to, but because the KMT will have made it easy.

On the other hand, what do you think will happen when Lai steers the same course as Tsai: cultivating a sense of existing independence for Taiwan, growing global support, rendering the question of a declaration moot as there is no need to declare what is obviously true? 

China will refuse to meet with him for sure. It will look like a more dangerous path, and China will see to that with increase war games and military exercises, various economic coercions, perhaps some financial or cybersecurity sabotage, you know...blah blah blah, the usual. Insist that the 'troublesome' DPP is bringing it on Taiwan, when in fact China is deciding to engage in this. 

They won't do that to Hou. At first, Hou will seem like the candidate for peace, because the random sanctions, military drills and fighter jet excursions will stop. For a time, at least. 

But you know what else is more likely to happen? CCP top brass will look at the costs to a bloody war that Taiwan has purposely built up, from its own defenses to international support, and decide that continuing to rattle the saber is smarter, for the time being, than actually attacking. 

That's not ideal, but it's also not war exactly. 

So if you want peace, don't support the guy that will make it easy for China to start a war when it doesn't get what it wants. 

Because it won't get what it wants -- not ever, because the Taiwanese public is unlikely to pivot toward desiring unification or any kind of strong Chinese identity -- so Taiwan's only option is to make it a bad decision to grab.

Doing Nothing Wrong

From The Armenians of Musa Dagh (1919-1939) by V. Shemmassian

The man at the top right resembles my great-grandfather, but it's hard to tell 

This is going to start out like a post focused on the Armenian Genocide; I promise that it is related to Taiwan, and there is a point. But I'm going to do this my way -- that is, the long way -- and I only ask that you bear with me, if you like. 

***

Generations ago, two contradictory narratives came out of late Ottoman Turkey surrounding the ongoing massacre of Armenians under Sultan Abdul Hamid II. One was spoken about among diplomats and travelers, discussed in salons across the Western world: a paranoid Armenophobe Sultan was allowing Armenians to be attacked and slaughtered across Anatolia and even in Istanbul. Sometimes these attacks came with a pretext ("revolutionary activity" or "separatists"), sometimes not. 

Of course, these worried people made sympathetic noises but took few if any concrete actions to actually help the Armenians.

It's not an uncommon belief that the Armenian Genocide began and ended around 1915, that it came like a wave, and then receded. This is not true: the Hamidian massacres began in the late 19th century, ebbing and flowing and continuing into the early Turkish republic until at least 1922. 

Despite being called the "loyal" millet, or minority community, Armenians, among others, were second-class citizens. Possession of weapons was more heavily restricted, taxes were higher, and legal rights fewer. 

In this narrative, the Armenians had done nothing at all; they were prosperous in banking and commerce and living happily under Ottoman rule until one day, the crazy Sultan decided to exterminate them, and that bloody legacy was perpetuated by the Young Turks. (To be clear, it is well-documented that Abdul Hamid II suffered from mental health problems later in life and was paranoid specifically about Armenians). 

Of course, the Ottoman state narrative was wildly different: this was an "internal" matter, an "exaggeration" of events or a "provocation" by Armenian separatists and terrorists. 

If you think this sounds quite a bit like the way China spins its own stories about Taiwan, as well as actual parts of China such as Tibet, East Turkestan and Hong Kong -- exactly. But that's obvious; all governments lie, but authoritarian states are both the biggest and worst liars. It's not even my main point. 

To hear the Armenians tell it, they were loyal to the Sultan, while still celebrating the advent of the Turkish republic, presumably at its nascent stage when they believed it might result in fewer massacres, not a tsunami of fresh killings. Few were revolutionaries; none were trying to topple or break away from the state. We weren't separatists, they said. All we ever wanted was equality and justice. 

To hear the Turkish side, they were indeed separatists engaging in terrorist acts, and had to be stopped. Of course, this narrative always stops short of genocide: we had to stop them, we were provoked into the massacres that you are exaggerating and also that we did not commit. 

Frankly, the Turkish government continues to embarrass itself by perpetuating this narrative.

One of these narratives is obviously false. Let's leave aside the fact that I had ancestors in the death camps and not all of them survived, that my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, children at the time, barely survived the 1909 massacres and my great-great grandfather was murdered in Smyrna by Turkish troops as the 1922 fire raged. Plenty of documentation attests to the truth of the events, the official narrative makes no sense, and anecdotal accounts fill out the picture. From Michael Arlen's Passage to Ararat: 

In the fall of 1895, a group of German and Swiss schoolteachers were traveling through eastern Turkey. They passed a village where not a soul appeared to be alive. "A terrible plague," explained the guide. The schoolteachers saw blood on the walls of houses, and a village square where jackals and vultures still fed off the unburied dead. 

It's easy to assume that therefore, the Armenian story must be unimpeachable. The loyal millet, living peacefully under the imperial yoke, never engaged in the activities of which the Ottomans -- and later the Young Turks -- accused them. If this is true, the Armenians did nothing. 

The thing is, this isn't quite right. They didn't do nothing. 

The Turkish story may be embarrassingly stupid, but the issue with the Armenian narrative is that it glosses over the most important point: that they did nothing wrong. 

Why exactly is this a problem? First, it makes it easy for Turkey to defend their position: if there were no Armenian revolutionaries, how do you explain all the Armenian revolutionaries? 

Because they existed. That, too, is well-documented.

The main groups were the Dashnaksutiun (the Dashnaks) and the Hunchakyan Kusaktsutyun (the Hunchaks). The Dashnaks are known in English as the ARF, or Armenian Revolutionary Federation -- emphasis mine. Both groups were at least nominally socialist or social democratic; the Dashnaks perhaps less so, whereas the Hunchaks were more overtly Marxist. The two groups began as a united front, with the Hunchaks splitting off over ideological differences: if you think leftists like to get into big, fractous spats with each other rather than fighting their common enemy, then I would like to welcome you to join the People's Front of Judea, not those apostates running the Judean People's Front.

Fun fact #1: both parties still exist. Fun fact #2: my great-grandfather Mihran was a Dashnak and fedayi (resistance fighter) in the 1920-21 war for Armenian independence. I admire that a lot; I do hope that if the time ever comes for me to stand up for what is right despite immediate physical danger, I will do so. 

Theoretically, the Dashnaks were more reform-minded, wanting to better the position of Armenians within a larger Turkish state, whereas the Hunchaks advocated a breakaway Armenian state. The Dashnaks worked with the Young Turks to overthrow Abdul Hamid II, and the two groups worked together up until the 1909 massacres, which were promulgated by the new Turkish government (the Sultan had just been removed from power by this revolution) against Armenians, primarily but not limited to Adana, near my great-grandmother's hometown of Tarsus.

That is to say, these groups did consist of separatists and revolutionaries. Not every Armenian was a member; I'd gather most weren't. However, it's historically inaccurate to claim that they meant no harm to the Ottoman government. Some absolutely did. I do not believe this was wrong; for a time, they shared the same goal as the Young Turks, who are now celebrated in Turkey. Clearly, the Turkish government doesn't think opposing the Sultan was "wrong" either, as long as it was Turks doing it. 

Let's look at a specific example: one side says that the 1894 massacre of Armenians at Sasun was "unprovoked", the other says it was provoked because Armenians refused to pay taxes. The truth is that the Hunchaks indeed encouraged them to stop paying, because the taxes levied on Armenians were unequal and unfair, and the whole situation was a lot more complicated than a protest over taxation.

Without getting into the local, factional violence, there were indeed Armenians calling for reforms that directly threatened the state. Throughout, the Dashnaks and Hunchaks did indeed use revolutionary tactics to resist Ottoman oppression. Some of these forces were at play in Sasun; they emerged again during the bank occupation in Istanbul, which precipitated further massacres.

That's not doing nothing. But I generally support resisting murderous dictators. I am in favor of protesting unfair taxation and tribute. If the regional or central government is sending in troops to specifically punish you for refusing to be exploited by the other people they sent in to harass you, you should fight back against both the local perpetrators and the central government. 

That's not "doing nothing", it's doing nothing wrong. 

While I don't think separatism is always the best way to solve political problems -- sometimes it is, sometimes it just creates more problems -- I understand why Armenians at the time might have thought it a good solution. They were being treated like dirt; prosperity was gained not through privilege but adversity. Under those conditions, especially in the sociopolitical environment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wouldn't you also want to advocate for either reform or independence? 

To ignore this and insist that they lived their lives placidly oppressed is not only to give official Turkish accounts credibility that they do not deserve, but also to flatten the story. It perpetuates the myth of the "perfect victim": do we really want to imply that only some genocide victims are worth recognition and compassion? Do we really believe that the only argument against mass murder is to say the victims didn't resist their murderers? Or that "separatism" is an excuse for genocide? Do we really want to erase the agency of targeted groups to resist?

It is ethical and right to stand up against injustice. It is correct to push for equality, and if the government lording over you won't give it to you, you either have to change the government, or rid yourself of it. 

Whether you are independent like Taiwan and requiring only international recognition, or a part of some larger oppressive state and seek to break free, you are not required to accept second-class status up until the point that the state begins murdering you, never daring to set off a bomb or stage a protest. This should not and cannot be the threshold for deciding who is and is not a true victim. 

I hope you've followed me this far, and see how this connects not only to Taiwan, and every other group fighting CCP oppression. 

To hear the Chinese government tell it, Taiwan (and the US) are relentless provocateurs; their story veers between insisting most Taiwanese understand that their ultimate destiny is to be "reunified" as good Han subjects under the rejuvenated Chinese nation but are misled by a minority of "splittists" or the United States, and screeching that Taiwanese "separatists" are the instigators wholly responsible for Beijing's continued threats of violence. It's an internal matter, they say. You're exaggerating, China would most prefer a "peaceful" resolution but, you know, those pesky separatists! It's their fault that we may be forced to wage war, followed by brutal re-education camps. 

They do the same in East Turkestan and just about anywhere else that suffers under CCP repression. Like the Turkish government, they claim that Uyghur terrorists forced them to open the concentration camps that they also claim don't exist. You're exaggerating, they repeat. Those are vocational schools aimed at helping Uyghurs, not jailing them. Except we had to open them because of all the terrorists, and we had to forcibly detain people sent there. But you're exaggerating. 

If that fails, we're admonished not to worry ourselves over a far-off genocide because apparently genocide is acceptable if it's an "internal matter". 

Certainly I don't condone violent acts against civilians, but if we're talking about which side has killed more people, it would be the CCP. I may not be a fan of bus or subway bombs, but I have all the empathy in the world for people fighting the systemic erasure of their identity and culture. Such erasure never works, it always leads to violence, and the CCP started it. 

It forces us to consider the ethics of actions within a given context: Ottomans sending in troops to harass Armenians was wrong; Armenians occupying a bank with pistols and explosives was not wrong, per se. The American South wanting to secede because they wanted to continue the institution of slavery was wrong; East Turkestan wanting to cleave itself from its murderers to end a cultural genocide is not wrong.

I could draw out similar scenarios in Tibet and Hong Kong, but I think the point is clear.

This may seem obvious, but I don't think it is. When we portray the bad guys (and the Chinese government is unequivocally the villain here) as going after people who did nothing at all, the next step in that thought sequence is to consider "something" to be worse than "nothing".  As in, compassion comes more readily if they weren't revolutionary, or separatist; but if they were,  some might think the consequences are justified. But they actually did set off subway bombs! They did occupy a bank! They did resist police officers! They did plot to assassinate the Sultan! They actually are separatists!

Then it becomes "bad" to be a separatist or revolutionary. Those words sure sound so scary on the news! But again, if the government you're fomenting a revolution against is oppressing you and others, being a revolutionary is not wrong. 

Think of it this way: how much easier is it to advocate that the Chinese government should stop disappearing poor innocent Uyghurs who were just minding their own business? Compare that to persuading others that, yes, in fact there was and is resistance to Chinese rule in East Turkestan; that yes, there are Uyghur "separatists" by the basic definition; that resistance occasionally turns violent; but that Chinese oppression in East Turkestan is still unjustified and if the CCP can't do better (and it can't), perhaps East Turkestan actually should be independent. 

The same is true in Taiwan, although there are no thorny questions of civilian attacks to contend with and unlike East Turkestan, Hong Kong and Tibet, it is not legally a part of the People's Republic of China no matter how much the CCP screams otherwise (if it is, show me the binding international treaty or accepted convention that says so. It doesn't exist).

It's so easy to say that Taiwan has done nothing at all, but that's not true. Taiwan's done quite a lot: first and foremost, it democratized and in spite of Chinese missile tests, stayed that way. War is a deeply unpopular notion, but most do intend to defend their country against China if necessary. When China gets its hackles up about "separatists" we may roll our eyes, but most Taiwanese do not want to be a part of China. A large number -- likely a majority, depending on how you define the issue -- are indeed "separatists" by China's definition. The problem is not the desire for continued sovereignty, but China's definition.  

Taiwan does seek international recognition, even when doing so "angers" China. They do identify primarily as Taiwanese, which China cannot abide. They do reject China's conditions for "peace", which begin with the so-called 1992 Consensus and end with accepting annexation without a fight. They don't give up and accept second-class international status; it may be forced upon them, but you'll always encounter resistance (even if they're just online comments reminding, say, a sporting organization that "Chinese Taipei" is bullshit and everyone knows it).

In everything from calling Taiwan an "independent country (named the Republic of China)", changing the passports, cultivating ties with the US and other countries and any number of small actions, Taiwan tests where China's red lines are.

They do this because those red lines are unjust and do not deserve respect. Taiwan is right to resist them, reject fabricated agreements from decades ago, turn down Beijing's poisoned offer of "peace". 

That's not nothing. It's exercising agency in a thousand small ways: it's nothing wrong. 

By China's definition, Taiwan actually is provoking China. That's not doing nothing. It's just doing nothing wrong: again, the problem here is China's definition.

If we don't believe that, then the logical conclusion is to insist that such "provocations" are wrong simply because China does not like them: that is, giving credibility to the abuser in this messed-up relationship. It's to say that Taiwan should clamp itself down and do less, do nothing. Let itself be a victim. Never raise its voice. Accept ever-decreasing space in the international community, let its autonomy be chipped away.

The ways in which Taiwan's story and agency are being flattened in international media are not exactly the same as Armenia's a century ago. People then either seemed to believe that Armenians were hapless, agency-less victims, or that they deserved what they got for being separatists and revolutionaries. 

In Taiwan's case, the danger lies in portrayals of the country as some unpopulated rock fought over by the United States and China, as though the people of Taiwan haven't made their own decisions about their sovereignty and self-governance. Taiwan's very real desire to remain separate from the People's Republic of China is the entire reason why the conflict exists at all. 

China is indeed threatening Taiwan because of what it deems to be "separatism", not US "provocations" --   it is the will and agency of the people of Taiwan that is central to the issue. Chinese painting of Taiwan's views as US-created constructs is a lie, because they know they don't have a strong argument against the truth: that Taiwan itself wants continued sovereignty, and it has that fundamental right of self-determination.

If it melted away, and Taiwan placidly announced that would do anything at all for peace, including meeting China's demands, there would be no conflict. That will never happen, which may mean war. To steal from a great artist of my parents' generation, Taiwan would do anything for peace, but it won't do that. 

This does not mean -- it cannot mean -- that Taiwan's will and agency are wrong. They are not. 

Taiwanese don't act like Dashnaks or Hunchaks; they don't need to, because the would-be oppressor they fight does not control them. Someday, it might be necessary: while some might submit, others will certainly resist. I hope that day never comes, but if it does, I'll support them. Hell, I might be making Molotovs or growing sweet potatoes for the resistance fighters. After all, they'd be right. 

Nobody desires a Syria-like situation in Taiwan, but that's the most likely outcome if China "successfully" annexes Taiwan. Still, Taiwan will be right, and China will be wrong.

Wanting equality, justice, freedom and human rights is fundamentally ethically sound. That may be revolutionary; in some cases it may be tantamount to separatism. Fine, I say. Let it be revolutionary, let it be separatism if it must. It's our job to understand this, and not rob people facing an oppressor of either agency or compassion, when indeed they deserve both. 

What is a country? Part II: Fighting the Gish Gallop

A tour group from China snaps pictures of Liberty Leading the People

In my last post on this topic, I chose to combat disinformation that Taiwan is not a country by clarifying all the ways that it is. Not just because we want it to be so, but because international conventions do, in fact, light a pathway toward recognized Taiwan statehood. 

Since the last post was about all the arguments for Taiwan as a nation, in this post I want to address all the (very poor) arguments against it, which so often get flung at Taiwan advocates like a hail of bonobo feces, for daring to take principled stances supporting the nation's essential nation-ness.

If you ignore it, you risk all that disinformation influencing reasonable onlookers who mistake quantity for quality ("well all these Chinese people say Taiwan is Chinese, so there's probably something to that!")

But if you do fight back, it really is like trying to swim in the feces tsunami. Or fight a thousand-headed hydra bursting from Twitter's wine-dark sea. Except the hydra is made of bonobo feces. Please just let me have this metaphor.

This is intentional: it's called gish galloping. The unending pummeling of poorly-considered arguments that are easily refuted, but there are so many flying around that you can't ever get to the end of it all. It tires you out and makes no visible impact. 

Because it's difficult to know what to do about this, I put together a list of the most common monkeyturds that get flung around in this kind of gish galloping. That is, all the bad arguments against Taiwan statehood that we hear again and again, changing with the seasons or the news cycle and sometimes resurfacing, all because someone in a United Front Work Department office made a decision about what their botmasters and gormless trolls are going to argue about for awhile, until the Western tankies pick it up while checking Twitter while drinking $8 pourovers and pass it on.

So let's hop on the bonobo feces train! 

"International law" says Taiwan is a part of China.

Of course, there is no such law. There is not a single binding international treaty that gives Taiwan to the People's Republic of China, but there are theories based on treaties or conventions that provide some guidance. You can read about those in my previous post on the topic. But "international law says Taiwan is Chinese" is simply not true. 

How do I know? Well, name the law, if you can. Show it to me. Is it binding? Does it apply to Taiwan specifically? Was it consented to by all parties involved, including the Taiwanese people?

Bet not.


"The UN says Taiwan is part of China!" 

Some insist it's due to UN resolutions on which government represents 'China' -- but if Taiwan is not a part of China, then of course it doesn't matter if it doesn't represent China at the UN! 

Not only does it not matter, but citing the UN as the final authority on Taiwan statehood fundamentally misrepresents what that organization does. It does not mint new states, and never has. Did no countries exist before some countries decided to found it? Did the People's Republic of China blink into existence in the 1970s? Did the Republic of China stop existing in 1949 when it lost the war, or the day it lost UN recognition? 

Let's keep it going. In 1993 the UN used its warlock-like powers to create the concept of Monaco. A Google search says Monaco's been A Thing since 1297, was officially recognized in 1861 and its constitution dates from 1911, but according to this logic, none of that matters — it wasn't a country at all until the 1990s. Switzerland was clearly neutral in previous wars not due to any principled stance, but apparently because it didn't exist until 2002. 

Taiwan doesn't already represent itself in that organization only because, decades ago, it was run by an incompetent, undemocratic and frankly foreign dictatorship that had no care for Taiwan's own interests -- Taiwan could have been Taiwan. A different, better future had been possible, but the KMT robbed Taiwan of that option, along with so much else. 

Regardless, other countries can and do engage in relations with Taiwan, both officially (in a few cases) and unofficially. That meets one criteria for statehood under the Montevideo Convention, and the others are met as well.

The UN not giving Taiwan a seat doesn't change that, so clearly the UN doesn't get to decide whether or not Taiwan is sovereign.


"Other countries have One China policies!"

This argument conveniently forgets that the vast majority of those policies merely maintain that one government represents China, and acknowledge that China claims Taiwan. Most if not all of them leave room for an independent Taiwan that does not represent China.

Their policies are not the same as China's "One China Principle" -- an idea which no major power has agreed to verbatim.

Besides, it's really odd for so-called anti-imperialists to point to, say, US or UK policy as the final word on another country's international status. That feels pretty imperialist to me.

Some will say that the US also acknowledges that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China” (in the Shanghai Communique, often misattrinbuted to the Taiwan Relations Act). 

Which was true, if you're talking about a dictatorship in the late 1970s that didn't represent the Taiwanese people, and which no longer exists. Now, Taiwanese don't see themselves that way, and nobody asked them in the 1970s when that policy was penned, rendering the wording somewhat irrelevant. The people on one side of the Taiwan Strait (mostly) no longer maintain that they are “Chinese”, and certainly not that “Taiwan is a part of China”. Acknowledging ‘both sides’ maintain a certain belief is just what it implies: an acknowledgement of what other parties believe. That’s it. Regardless, it becomes meaningless the moment one side no longer believes it. 

"Taiwan hasn't declared independence!"

Who would it declare independence from? China? You mean the PRC? It is already independent of that. The ROC? That's a name change and some constitutional reform, two issues that countries usually handle internally. In and of themselves they do not constitute a “declaration of independence’. They don’t need to, as Taiwan is already independent.

I don't go around declaring "I am Jenna!" as some sort of prerequisite for being Jenna. There's no application you fill out. There's no form. There's no DBC -- Department of Becoming a Country -- to which you submit paperwork. 

So I struggle to understand what 'declare independence' even means regarding Taiwan. Is Taiwan sovereign and fully autonomous now? Yes? Then tell me -- Taiwan should declare independence from whom?

(Don't worry, if your answer was "the ROC!", we'll get to that shortly.)

"No countries recognize Taiwan!"

Oh, but some actually do -- the ROC has a few diplomatic allies. As we saw in the last post, however, this isn't what makes a country. Every one of those allies could abandon Taiwan, and it would still be a country. When it comes to diplomacy, all Taiwan needs to meet the criteria for an independent nation is the ability to enter into relations with other countries, which it has, and has exercised. 

"But they recognize the ROC, not Taiwan as a country!" Yes, and I bet every single person making those claims is aware that the ROC as a sovereign entity from China is functionally nearly identical to Taiwan in the same role. (Not exactly the same: changes will eventually be necessary, but it's close enough for now). 

If China would allow any country to recognize both China and Taiwan as distinct entities, many if not most would immediately do so.

It doesn't really matter though: the Montevideo Convention does not stipulate that relations with other states have to be official diplomatic ones, or even that they have to be entered into -- merely that it is possible for that state to do so.

"But it's in the ROC Constitution! Taiwan itself thinks it's part of China!"

I've read the constitution, and it never explicitly claims current PRC  territory. The closest you get is Article 4, which states that the boundaries of the ROC are its existing boundaries and "shall not be altered except by a resolution of the national assembly."  Cool, but it never states what those borders actually are. The National Assembly no longer exists, so either way this is article is either tautological ("the borders are what they are") or dead law. 

Right now, those de facto borders are Taiwan and its outlying islands. There's a mention of Mongolia and Tibet in Article 26, but it's linked to the erstwhile National Assembly, so again...dead law.

Besides, the additional articles to the constitution were very clearly described by Lee Teng-hui as a "two-state solution". Perhaps the constitution is difficult to amend, but new ideas can be agglomerated; for all intents and purposes, Taiwan dropped any claim it once had to PRC territory in the early 1990s. Not even a fabricated '1992 Consensus' about 'one China' (which was not a consensus: even the KMT admits the two sides did not actually agree) can un-jigger Lee's brilliant jiggery.

Some will say this issue is still "controversial" in Taiwan. I say it's not: Taiwan being separate from 'China' is a mainstream position, whether you consider it independence or the status quo. 


"What about the 1992 Consensus?"

You mean that meeting in 1992 in which the two sides didn't agree? And the legitimacy of the Taiwan side is deeply questionable as it was at the end of the dictatorship and of questionable diplomatic merit? Yeah, no. No actual Taiwanese were consulted about what should happen at these meetings, and if I'm remembering correctly, the delegates were from the KMT, not diplomats.

But it doesn't matter! They didn't reach an agreement! “We didn’t agree” is the opposite of a “consensus”. What the KMT came away believing was not the same as what the PRC believed as those meetings ended. It was by definition not a consensus at all. (Interestingly, KMT chairperson Eric Chu basically admits this in an entertainingly awful video). This is why the actual term was made up much later: because there was no consensus. History books published around 1999 -- before the consensus was fabricated -- don't mention the 1992 Consensus. Of course they don't, as it didn't exist yet.

"Taiwan's not independent because the ROC is a colonizer!"

This one's tough, because I actually agree with it. The ROC on Taiwan is a colonizing entity that lost a war in the country it came from, and it should be reformed out of existence in favor of a Republic of Taiwan (or any name that voters agree on) with an appropriate constitution.

However, just as we commonly refer to the PRC as 'China', the idea of 'independence' to the general international public means 'not a part of China' -- that is, the PRC. 

Saying "Taiwan isn't independent because of ROC colonialism" just sounds like "Taiwan isn't independent" to people who don't follow these issues. It also hands ammunition to tankies, little pinks and the paid botmasters of the United Front Work Department, who love to go on and on about how Taiwan isn't independent because of the ROC. To untrained ears, it sounds like the same point. It's a bit of an own goal: why harm our own cause by making it more confusing to international audiences?

Issues of names, flags and constitutional changes are typically internal matters. Czechia and Eswatini made those choices domestically. Countries amend their constitutions and change flags all the time: there's no international body to appeal to in order to do this. So rather than giving ammunition to tankies, let's perhaps agree it needs to happen, but it's an internal matter.

Functionally, the country I live in now, regardless of its imperfect constitution and weird name, is a country. People commonly call it Taiwan. That's the fact on the ground. Claiming it's "not a country" is basically telling people to ignore the observable world.

"It's been part of China since ancient times!" 

No, it hasn't. Most of Taiwanese history has been Indigenous history, period.

The western third of Taiwan -- not very much at all -- was controlled by China from the late 17th to the late 19th centuries. For much of that, China was fairly clear that they either didn't want Taiwan (Shi Lang had to convince the emperor to keep it), or treated it as a "defensive hedge", a "ball of mud beyond civilization". That is, not really part of China. You might even say they treated it like a colony.

China only began to claim all of Taiwan in the late 19th century, though it never effectively governed that final two-thirds. As late as the 1870s, one simply could not say that the Qing actually ruled most of Taiwan. 

The most generous amount of time one might apportion in which the same government ruled both China and Taiwan might be a decade or two: perhaps short period before it became a Japanese colony in 1895, and from 1945-1949.

By historical timelines, China's claim on Taiwan is as limp as an overcooked noodle.


"But the turn away from Chinese heritage is DPP brainwashing!" 

I've already covered this and the answer is womp womp, you are wrong.

Taiwanese attitudes changed no matter who was in power, and in fact changed more under the KMT than the DPP. The biggest spike was around democratization -- and an election in which the KMT won the presidency. 

Democracy and freedom of speech -- the ability to say what you really think -- caused Taiwanese to start saying what they really thought. I'm sorry it doesn't line up with your Great Chinese Culture Embedded in Ancestral DNA worldview, but that's how it is. 


"But the US stoked Taiwan independence separatism to sell weapons and encourage conflict for their benefit!" 

Wrong again bucko. Seems like you got a little bonobo feces stuck in your ears. Read this and clean it out.

Taiwan home rule has been an idea floating around since at least the 1920s, when the US would have no reason to care, or attempt to start a conflict. It persisted, and grew thanks to KMT brutality (provably so, as you can see by the rise of Taiwanese democracy activists who trace their roots back to the 228 Massacre, approved by Chiang Kai-shek and meted out by Chen Yi). In fact, it was probably a notion as early as 1895, or before that, though the evidence is less clear. 

Many of those early Taiwanese independence activists were leftists (but not necessarily pro-CCP), some were openly Marxist. Why would the US court them at that point in history? There are conservative independence activists now -- they tend to be older and rather stuck in the 1970s regarding other attitudes -- but it was a movement inspired by liberal thought, and to some degree, in some groups, Marxist thought. 

Pinning this on "the US" isn't only a logic sinkhole, it also denies Taiwanese agency. Do they really need Big Daddy America doing their thinking for them? Are they incapable of critical thought without the CIA spoonfeeding revolutionary sentiment?

Of course not. That's ludicrous.

"The ROC is evil because the Nationalists were the capitalist bad guys who pushed separatism on Taiwan!"

Yep, the KMT sucked pretty hard. No disagreement there. Guess what, they still do! The great news is that they're no longer in power, and they're not really associated with the idea of Taiwanese independence: quite the opposite. To blame the KMT for Taiwanese independence activism is frankly offensive. They're the ones who executed those same activists, often without trial. Taiwan independence advocates by and large can't stand the KMT. It's absolutely strange to act like they're one and the same.

If you honestly think that "Taiwanese independence activists" and "the KMT" are natural partners, feel free to read any of the links in this post. It will disavow you of that notion very quickly.

“You’ll understand that Taiwan is Chinese if you just read about the issue!” 

This only matters insofar as the Pink Floyd guy decided he was a late-blooming Sinologist. I have read up on the issue — in fact, Brendan and I read every general history of Taiwan available in English and compared them. I’ve read plenty of books that discuss specific areas of Taiwanese history. 

What have I learned from “reading about the issue”? That Taiwan isn’t Chinese and arguably never really has been. 

As Brendan likes to say, Taiwan advocates actually want you to read more about Taiwan. People who think annexation is an acceptable outcome might say “read more”, but they don’t expect you actually will. They want you to listen to them, not read further. I’ve never seen them recommend, say, a book. I’ve just recommended about 20. Please read them. 

“But it’s the only way to peace! Taiwan independence is destabilizing!”

The opposite is true. Taiwan will never consent to be annexed by China, and simply wants to maintain the sovereignty it already enjoys. There is no peaceful resolution that ends with Taiwan as a part of China, because Taiwan will always fight back, at least as long as the current Chinese government is in power (but likely after that as well — and I do believe the CCP will eventually fall.) That is an assured path to war. It’s unlikely to be a short war, though it may fall out of the news cycle as the ongoing violence will be within Taiwan. 

I don’t want that, and you probably don’t either.

So if you want to avoid that war, advocate China not attacking Taiwan. It is very easy to not invade one’s neighbor (a lesson Russia might’ve done well to learn). Doing so is a choice, not an imperative, and it’s a choice China can choose not to make. China’s choices are not inevitabilities dropped from the heavens. Their threats are not immutable. Their anger and their red lines and temper tantrums? These are choices, and should be treated as such. 

That’s the path to peace. So the outcome most likely to avoid war is one in which Taiwan remains separate from China. 

Got any more?

I'm happy to expand this post with more gish gallops, strawmen, goalpost moving or other tactics that little pinks use to make life on social media unbearable if you care about an issue. Let me know, and if I get some good responses I'll add them to the post.