An Ode To Bear Guy

This is Bear Guy's world. We just live in it.

I could write some hard-nosed political post about, oh I don't know, Liz Truss visiting Taiwan or potential vice-presidential candidates or the fact that I unfortunately think Hou You-yih is likely to win in 2024 or...something. But I don't want to. 

Instead, I want to talk about Bear Guy. 

This isn't even the sum total of my Bear Guy pictures. Somewhere I have one of Bear Guy holding a sign supporting Lee Ming-che in English and at least one from a marriage equality rally.

I don't know Bear Guy's identity. I'm even using "guy" in a fairly gender-neutral way: I don't know their gender, either. It might be more than one person -- there's also a tiger-themed Guy with the same type of homemade signs and specific goggles. But truly, I think they are one of the best things about Taiwan. 

For those who don't know, Bear Guy is a Taipei-based person who would show up to a wide array of generally progressive, pan-green protests and rallies in a distinctive yet slightly scruffy full bear costume. The costume didn't seem to indicate any specific political commentary; it wasn't Winnie the Pooh enough to poke fun at Xi Jinping (although other people showing up in Pooh costumes is not unheard of), and it wasn't the right color or style to be a Formosan black bear. 

Even on the hottest days they would wear the full outfit, faux fur and all. I could barely take the heat on the day of the Lee Ming-che protest years ago, or some of the protests in support of Hong Kong; Bear Guy seemed fine. Occasionally someone who appeared to be a friend or associate of Bear Guy would show up in a full Pink Panther costume, but that was not a given. They were also there for labor protests and marriage equality, though I don't think I ever saw them at an election rally. They seemed to stick to concepts, not candidates. Idealism, not political parties.

He's so ubiquitous, though, that I wondered if some fictional version of him would make an appearance in a protest scene in Wave Makers, the Netflix hit drama about Taiwanese political party workers. So far, nothing.

                     

Is Tiger Guy the same person as Bear Guy? I think so -- I've seen the yellow bear head on the tiger outfit before.

However, there's been an unfortunate dearth of Bear Guy in the public eye and in my life these past few years. There are still protests and rallies -- large ones like Pride and the typical Labor Day protests, as well as smaller ones for migrant workers' rights, weed legalization and a variety of other issues. When COVID hit, however, I began avoiding most large public gatherings. Besides, it feels like there just haven't been as many. I left Pride 2022 early as the rain was just too much and most of my friends also wanted to bail (I was also diabetic but didn't know it yet, and more tired than usual). I haven't seen Bear Guy in person or in photos since the back-to-back Black Lives Matter and pro-Hong Kong rallies of 2019. 

Why, exactly, do I hold Bear Guy in such high esteem? What makes them "one of the best things about Taiwan"? 

Well, whomever this person is, they clearly care enough about social issues to not only show up, but prepare and don a whole costume when doing so. They endure what must be a fair amount of discomfort for their own private reasons: perhaps they want to participate but don't want to be identified, and this is a fun way of ensuring their anonymity. Maybe they are indeed making a statement -- that who you are doesn't matter as long as you care enough to be present. Maybe this is just their weird sense of humor. 

But as far as I know, Bear Guy isn't trying to be famous. If they have a social media presence, I'm unaware of it (if you know of an Instagram account I can follow or something, I absolutely will, so let me know). They're just Bear Guy being Bear Guy. I love that, and I love to see how Taiwan so often defies stereotypes of Asian societies being staid, buttoned-down, no fun, with no sense of humor. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down" and all. There are occasionally echoes of that in Taiwan -- some local bosses can be nightmares and difficult families are a global phenomenon). It's just not like that, or at least not totally: there is space in Taiwanese culture for Bear Guy to do their thing, and it's all good. 


                      


Besides, I understand that there are always eccentric folks showing up to protests around the world. And I can't possibly know what goes on in every other country. But I am unaware of any other civic culture in which public protests play a key role that has one individual who shows up in a funky costume to every single thing, to the point where people like me notice it and start keeping an eye out for them. Perhaps I'm wrong, but to me, the existence of Bear Guy is an "only in Taiwan" thing.

I also love that no one seems bothered about Bear Guy's identity. I, too, have no desire to (quite literally) unmask them. That's great too -- as Brendan once noted, "maybe people are just happy to let Bear Guy be Bear Guy." 

I couldn't agree more. Rock on, Bear Guy, and I hope to see you again soon.

Don't You Forget About Me?

My great-grandmother Verjine and her three brothers, around the time when their father was dragged away by Turkish soldiers and never heard from again. All they were trying to do was leave Smyrna.

Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day came and went on April 24th, and despite my best intentions, I couldn't write a thing. I tried to pen something article-like, thinkpiecey, memoirish. But no matter how much I called the black dog of fate, he would not come.

So instead I'll just ditch all the prose about what Armenians might think and feel on this day get on with what I really want to say: 

Restorative justice, international recognition, a meaningful apology -- these things matter. But what really upsets me every year on this date is the way that Turkey and a handful of its allies go balls-out posting ahistorical trash and victim-blaming Armenians, and the way that this rhetoric is alive and well today. Not just from Turkey, but deployed by China against dissidents and perceived "separatists". It terrifies me that seeing the exact same language and tactics portend fresh death.

Every year, there's also a small chorus of spectators to this show who ask whether Armenia shouldn't just get over it, pursue peace with Turkey today, let the past be the past. 

There's historical precedent for this: the Treaty of Lausanne was one big fat Letting Turkey Get Away With It, all because Turkey threw a temper tantrum. Of course, that temper tantrum turned into a war. 

Okay, but so what? Well, if we Let Turkey Get Away With It, we continue to tacitly condone a blueprint for anyone so inclined to commit atrocities and Get Away With It. And if there's a decent chance that the world will decide to ignore your genocide "for international peace and stability" or "we can't do anything about their domestic turmoil" or some such, then exactly what is stopping governments who are so inclined to just...well, commit genocide?

I'm not being hyperbolic here: I don't know if that oft-cited Hitler quote asking "who...speaks today of the Armenians?" is apocryphal (though it's probably real), but there's no way he wasn't aware of the genocide and the implications of Turkey's impunity. 

But let's talk about what's happening right now. Every year without fail, the Turkish government puts out some horrifying press release denying the genocide, without ever explicitly naming the accusations against it. 

I'm especially irritated by the part where Turkey says it does not need to be lectured about its own history by anyone. Bitch, that's my history too. I'll talk about it all I like.

This isn't new. Even before 1915, Abdul Hamid II was denying the Hamidian massacres while simultaneously making excuses for them:

In a rare interview, granted to a representative of the London Times, he declared that the reports of Armenian massacres were 'gross exaggerations.' To the mild inquiries of the English and French Ambassadors, the Sultan's Ministers replied politely, or sometimes not so politely, that the situation of the Armenians was an 'internal matter', and that, in any event, it had resulted from Armenian provocation."

If you realized that, without context, you might have mistaken all this for some Chinese wolf warrior lying about the Uyghur genocide or threatening Taiwan, congratulations. You've got the point.

And if you're wondering how an event they deny perpetrating at all could have also been "provoked", well, lies don't need internal logic. They just need to get pesky foreign countries off your back about all those crimes against humanity. Making sense is a nice-to-have, but it's not a need-to-have.

Back then, all of this -- the side-by-side denial and justification of massacres, the debate about whether Armenians deserved to not be killed en masse, was called the Armenian Question.

You know, kind of like how China and assorted bloviators refer to the Taiwan Question today. As though the words themselves weren't dehumanizing. Even people who should be smart enough to know better sign off on this sort of language as though the humanity of Taiwanese people -- of any people -- is a fucking question. As though this construct has any merit at all.

It is not, and it does not, Bonnie.

This sort of language is a precursor to genocide. 

Turkey's various allies help out -- not just through overt genocide denial, but in making it sound like it was committed by Armenians against Turks:

I cannot stress this enough. China is using the same sort of manipulative language that Turkey employs in its genocide denial when it insists that Hong Kong dissidents are "secessionists" for being unhappy that they didn't get the autonomy through 2047 that they were promised. (Some actually are secessionists, but they're not wrong.) It isn't that different when it calls Taiwanese whom they have never governed "separatists" who will be sent to re-education camps -- you know, the same way Turkey called Armenians "separatists" and then sent them to die in the desert.

Turkey continues to tell the world that recognizing the Armenian genocide is a "mistake". China tells the world to look away from its harassment of Taiwan -- apparently said harassment is fine, but challenging it is a "provocative activity". 

China is, in other words, creating pretexts.

Sometimes, they're post-texts. The Uyghurs whom they themselves terrorize are "terrorists",  and anyone who speaks up merely "interferes in China's internal affairs". The Uyghur genocide, of course, has already begun. China's lies terrorized Turkey into silence, even after the Premier League Genocide Denier itself had called it a genocide! This is some Circle of Life shit, except, you know, the opposite of that.

Anyway, this is already getting longer than I want it to be.

When people say victims of past atrocities and their descendants should leave such things "in the past", move on, focus on a contemporary peace, they miss the point. Not only is it wrong to lecture victims on the point at which they should be "over it" for your convenience, but it's not really about the past at all. It's not even about the future. It's about right now.

When I read sad testimonials and historical discussions about the Armenian Genocide, which are common around April 24th, I'm struck by how much the tactics and language employed back then continue to be employed not only by Turkey in its ongoing genocide denial, but by other countries looking to Get Away With It just as Turkey did.

Often, they do. In what way is China meaningfully hurting from its genocide of the Uyghurs? To what extent is it incentivized to stop? Or to leave Taiwan alone, never engaging in the slaughter it so frequently promises? The answer is not at all. Even people who want to deter China still treat Taiwan like a "question"!

China does these things -- it follows the same blueprint -- because we've learned so little. They're doing it because they can Get Away With It. 

This is what April 24th means to me. This is why it matters. Not because of the past, but right now. I'm less concerned with what happened a hundred years ago than the fact that China is using the same playbook, inventing the pretext now for a genocide in Taiwan.

In 1915, Turkey was able to exterminate Armenians from Anatolia. The world knew, but when Turkey told them to shut up and do nothing, they obliged. When Turkey insisted it never happened -- or that it did, but the "Armenian Question" was an "internal matter" and "provoked" by "terrorists", most countries tacitly accepted this. It took until 2021 for the United States to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Today, China is erasing Uyghurs and their culture from East Turkestan. The world knows, but China tells them to shut up and do nothing, and that's exactly what they do. They insist it's not happening, or an "internal matter", or stopping "terrorists", and most countries are tacitly allowing it.

What year will it be when China decides it can invade Taiwan and ship anyone who resists off to a death camp? How much time do we have before calling Taiwanese "separatists" and the "Taiwan Question" an "internal matter" turns into labeling them "terrorists"? Will telling the world to shut up and do nothing work yet again?

Turkey wants you to forget. Don't. China doesn't want you to notice that they're using the same tactics, the same rhetorical flourishes. Notice.

Armenians were never a question, but they were a warning. And the Taiwan Question is not real -- it's a pretext.

In Taiwan and Hong Kong, subversion is contextual

I read an interesting piece in Hong Kong Free Press today, about Hong Kong residents mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The pull quote did indeed pull:

A business executive who gave her surname So admitted that Elizabeth II’s death had made her nostalgic and that she felt “less of a connection” with China’s Communist Party leaders in Beijing. “I only realised how good it was after I lost it,” she said, referring to the city since its handover.

An 80-year-old retiree, who gave his surname Poon, was holding a bunch of red lilies and spoke bluntly. “In the past we had human rights, equality before the law, and protections in many aspects,” he said.

“But now, I would not comment on the present, I dare not.”

This sort of thing catches my eye, because in my echo chamber, it's socially acceptable to mock, criticize and deride the royal family and feel nothing -- except perhaps pleasure -- at the death of a queen. I don't particularly disagree: I'm no monarchist and I do not believe some people are naturally born to higher stations than others. 

What would likely be less well-received is expressing sadness, condolences or fondness for a dead monarch and her family. I haven't expressed anything like this because I'm neither sad nor fond, but it feels like subversion to consider saying anything like it around my own friends. I know I sound like a "conservatism is the real subversion!" right-wing shock jock here, but bear with me. 

Of course, I'm aware that there are other social circles and echo chambers where the opposite is true, and there are people who suffered under British imperialism, and who don't appreciate being tone-policed for their lack of solemnity or grief.

I know in my gut, however, that there is a whole range of possible feeling about some events that don't boil down neatly to "White Supremacy and Exploitation" or "God Bless the Noble Queen".

How do I know this? 

Because I live in Taiwan, where people sometimes express nostalgia for the Japanese colonial era, even though it was exactly what the name implies: colonial. Taiwanese as second-class citizens, no human rights to speak of, cultural brainwashing disguised as "education", freedom of speech allowed to a degree or banned depending on whether the central government was feeling benevolent that year. 

One only feels "nostalgic" for an era like that if the era that came after it was even worse. 

You can see it in Hong Kong now: who would mourn the end of a foreign colonial power on your land, which did not grant Hong Kong anything like democracy? Who would have complex feelings about the death of that foreign colonizer's queen? 

Anyone who realizes that the current era is worse, it turns out. Which is to say many, if not most, Hong Kongers. Beyond news about absurd prosecutions under the National Security Law, you can see it in the demographics: just about anyone who can leave is doing so, or trying.

To the rest of the world, this might look like colonizer bootlicking. In fact, more than once I've seen it called that: Hong Kongers who miss the old British system and imply they do not care for their new, more local masters are called all sorts of names. Taiwanese who point out that the Japanese era looks pleasant in comparison to the KMT brutality that followed are similarly called brainwashed, colonizer-loving, kissing their own chains.

I assure you the opposite is true. Just because a new colonial master is more local (say, the CCP or KMT) does not make them better. In fact, they're likely to be worse, as few around the world want to call this colonialism what it is, when the colonizers and colonized "look the same". The international community mostly looking the other way -- "hooray, they're decolonized now, China will definitely be better for Hong Kong because they're all Chinese, so good luck"? This opens up whole new horizons for brutality! 

The same thing happens when either Taiwan or Hong Kong express more hope in countries like the United States, or want more connections with the international community (including the US and UK) than China. Don't they know these countries are the Great Satans, the Imperializers Supreme, the Bad Guys? Hong Kongers and Taiwanese are mocked for turning to the 'evil' West rather than embracing Chinese regional hegemony. 

Yes, it's leftists who do the most mocking. And when you tune out all the obviously paid trolls, a rather large proportion of them are Westerners (some white, some not) mocking Asians for being realistic about the horrors of CCP rule. 

In the end, this produces a set of opinions that look like bootlicking to your average Western leftist (or even progressive or naive liberal), but are actually subversive, hewing to the principles of the non-tankie left -- freedom, justice, human rights -- if not their most common modes of expression.

Indeed, I have friends who are not white and not monarchists, yet currently have complicated feelings about the death of Queen Elizabeth II, likely for exactly these reasons.

I think it's better to recognize and understand that, rather than dismiss any sort of sentimentality, say, the British monarchy, as an exercise in White supremacy or Medieval notions of nobles and subjects. It runs at times a little too close to Western liberals and leftists once again telling some Asians how to feel. 

"If you're anti-imperialist, you should oppose this" isn't wrong, per se; it is actually how I feel about the monarchy and a great deal of US and UK foreign policy. To someone in Hong Kong or Taiwan, however, it might sound rather like how the CCP wants them to feel. It's not the same as "you are obligated to hate those foreigners and their colonial structures in order to prove you are a true Chinese and embrace our colonial structures instead!" But on the surface, it's not far off. Refusing to buy into it at all is, in that sense, a form of subversion.

Taiwanese who express an interest in Japanese culture aren't brainwashed colonial subjects. It's part of Taiwanese history, and frankly a somewhat brighter part than the KMT's White Terror, if only in comparison. Hong Kongers who express nostalgia for the British colonial years aren't Western bootlickers. Neither is right-wing, "CIA", a "color revolution", "imperialist" or "colonizer-loving" for wanting the same access to human rights and democratic norms that Westerners, including the leftists who mock them, enjoy. That's true however imperfectly they are applied or accessed in the West.

Here, too, I understand the impulse of those Western leftists. I was raised in a liberal home (90s liberal, so still pretty problematic by today's standards), went to college and only really saw "colonialism and exploitation" through models of what we had done to the rest of the world. Imperialism was something white people did, colonizers were always "foreign" and you could tell because they looked different. "Decolonization" looked a lot like handing Hong Kong "back" to China or the US getting its nose out of Asian affairs. I had only a vague concept of the CCP's evils (I was young during Tiananmen Square, but I remember), and no concept of Taiwanese pro-democracy activism.

I had absolutely no context for someone saying "mourning the past is not a crime" as a way of pointing out that in their supposedly "decolonized" current society, mourning the past is absolutely a crime -- and shouldn't be.

In other words, Queen Elizabeth II is just one tableau onto which people, including Hong Kongers, expressing our own perspectives and emotions, but the result is a kind of funhouse mirror because that canvas is not remotely blank. It's not even flat. Whatever is expressed is about the queen, but also not about her at all. 

To us, the monarchy looks like a big fat cog in a system of class-based oppression. It's hard to wrap one's head around it taking on another quite opposite meaning in a different context: a yearning for freedom, or at least the simulacrum of it that was lost.

It would have been easy to fall into that same "America always bad, China must be better" trap, because I lacked context. There is a pre-2006 me who simply had no frame of reference for this particular type of subversion: for mourning a dead queen not because you love being a subject, but because the current government is so much worse. For looking further afield because your regional neighbor is a huge asshole who wants to subjugate and slaughter you. For nostalgia as resistance against a narrative pushed on society by more recent colonizers. 

Now, that context is clear. I hope you see it too.

Every missile pointed at my house proves that Kishore Mahbubani is wrong.

I read Kishore Mahbubani's genocide denialist, anti-Taiwan garbage so you don't have to.

Before I start, I just want to note that the author of the piece that just defiled my eyes is also the author of a book titled -- and I am not shitting you -- Can Asians Think? 

My husband picked it up at a used bookstore and hated it (because, duh), and the guy before him had scribbled a single word on one of the pages: wanker.

I never finished it to find out if Asians could, indeed, think, because who needs a book to answer a question like that? However, I can now honestly say that while Asians can think, Singaporean wanker Kishore Mahbubani is not exactly the greatest example of this.

Anyway, let's get started.

I was planning to take a week or two off blogging because I've been so busy with online teacher training, but this article in the National Interest is just begging to have some feces flung at it, so here we are I guess. 

I've waded through the whole thing so if you care about Taiwan, East Turkestan, Hong Kong, Tibet or any part of Asia outside of China and also want to keep your blood pressure in check, you don't have to.

If President Joe Biden were to propose to China an economic deal that would benefit the American economy (and American workers) and also benefit China, China would enthusiastically embrace such a deal.

Probably, but Mahbubani implies it might actually a good idea to propose such a deal, with a country that is actively committing genocide and threatening America's strategic partners, like Taiwan. I would consider such a deal to be akin to agreeing to work with the Nazis.

Second, China is not a threat to American security. China isn’t threatening a military invasion of America (and its armed forces are an ocean away); or a nuclear strike on America (with its nuclear warheads being one-fifteenth the size of America’s). China is also not threatening American military supremacy in regions like the Middle East. Indeed, China isn’t even the enemy of American defense budgets.

It's interesting that he mentions the Middle East, but leaves out the Pacific. By actively threatening Taiwan, salami-slicing the South China Sea (pissing off Vietnam and the Philippines), fighting with India, claiming the Senkakus and eyeing the Ryukyus, supporting the Myanmar junta, China absolutely is shuffling closer to a move toward dominance in the Pacific and the rest of Asia. The US might not do much about Myanmar, but they do care about that island chain. Either Mahbubani doesn't realize this, or he does and is deliberately omitting it. 

If Haines is right in saying that China is a threat to America’s security, the logical conclusion would be that China would be happy to see a reduction in America’s defense budget, America’s aircraft carriers, jet fighters, naval bases. Actually, China would be unhappy. Chinese strategic planners are absolutely thrilled that America is wasting so much money fighting unnecessary wars as well as maintaining a huge and bloated defense budget that weakens America’s competitive edge in more critical areas, like education and research and development.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of the US's massive defense budget. Friends have said it's necessary to maintain sufficient military supremacy to, say, protect Taiwan. I'm not a military analyst, I don't know, but ideologically speaking I don't care for it. However, Mahbubani is wrong. 

Mostly China is happy the US fights unnecessary wars because they offer a convenient palette with which to paint the Taiwan situation, making it look like the US standing against a potential invasion would be just another "unnecessary war" that we'd be better off staying out of.

Finally, Haines says that China is a threat to American “values across a range of issues.” This statement would be true if China were either threatening to export its ideology to America or threatening to undermine the electoral process in America. Neither is happening.

Have you asked any Chinese, Uighur, Tibetan or Hong Konger in the US whose families in China have been threatened (which also happens in other countries) if they believe that's true? Any of those groups, or any Taiwanese who's had to fight to have their issues platformed on university campuses with Confucius Institutes? Have you asked any of the airlines who changed their designations of Taiwan/Taipei to "China" at China's behest? Because I bet you they'd say the attempt to import CCP values to the US is very obviously a thing. 

The first misconception is that since China is run by a communist party, it must, like the former Soviet Union, be on a campaign to prove that communism is superior to democracy....Yet Americans also believe in empirical evidence. That evidence shows that China has stopped supporting fellow communist parties for decades.

That's because China isn't communist (neither am I, so don't come at me). Of course the CCP, despite its name, doesn't care about exporting communism. It cares about exporting the values of acknowledging China's global supremacy. This is easier to do if a country is, in fact, a dictatorship, but that's not a prerequisite.

If you think they are not trying to export CCP values, however, you are wrong. It hasn't hit America yet, but it's happening elsewhere.

I'm not pissed at China because they're "trying to export communism". I doubt it would work if they were. I'm pissed at China because they have fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house.

China’s real mission is to rejuvenate Chinese civilization, not waste time exporting communist ideology. 

It's really interesting that he chose to use these words. It's the exact phrase -- "rejuvenate Chinese civilization" -- that the CCP tends to approve of in translation. Anyone paying half a bit of attention knows what "rejuvenate Chinese civilization" means: destroy Uighur and Tibetan culture. Force authoritarianism on Hong Kong. Invade and subjugate Taiwan. Basically, do a lot of shitty things to a lot of people who either do not want them, do not consider themselves Chinese, or both. Do you support this, Kishore? Really? The violent subjugation of millions? 真的？

Plus, rejuvenate from what? Their own fuck-ups from about 1945 on? Because the "century of humiliation" was a long time ago (despite how frequently the Chinese government brings it up). There's more to rejuvenate from thanks to the Great Leap Forward than the Opium Wars.

If they're indeed still trying to "rejuvenate" from the late 180os, or even the domestic postwar mess they themselves created, doesn't that indicate that the CCP has failed rather than succeeded?

The second misconception is that when China becomes the number one economic power in the world, replacing America, it will, like America, go on a universalizing mission and export the Chinese “model,” just as America exported the American “model.” Here’s a perfect example of America’s total ignorance of its adversary. The most basic fact that Americans should know about the Chinese people is that they do not believe that anybody can be a Chinese in the way that Americans believe that anybody can be an American. The Chinese believe, quite simply, that only Chinese can be Chinese. And they would be puzzled if anybody else tried to become Chinese.

Two things. First, one need not "be Chinese" to import "the Chinese model", this is a non-sequitur. They seem quite happy to support a similar model in Myanmar, without ever thinking the people crushed by the junta are Chinese. 

Second, while it's true that by and large "Chineseness" is not an identity one can just take on the way one can immigrate to America and be "American", the CCP does have an objective of assimilation. Tibetans and Uighurs aren't Chinese under the most commonly understood construct of "Chineseness", and I don't think either group considers itself Chinese, but the CCP sure does seem eager to crush and assimiliate them -- to the point of literal genocide. 

And they are quite eager to insist that anyone they say is Chinese...is. This extends to millions of citizens of foreign countries who are, say, Swedish or Australian. They'll even abduct them on foreign soil, as they did with Swedish citizen Gui Minhai in Thailand.

They double down on Taiwanese being Chinese, even though the vast majority Taiwanese don't identify that way. So it sure does look from my Taipei apartment that China does think that people who are not Chinese can be -- must be -- Chinese. 

Actually, if the truth be told, Beijing doesn’t give a fig whether a country is a democracy or autocracy. It only cares whether it can work effectively with a given country. 

It sure does seem to care that Taiwan remains a democracy, Kishore. And doesn't seem keen to work with it so much as subjugate it.

Hence, if the birthplace of Western democracy, Greece, decides to join the Belt and Road Initiative and welcome Chinese investment in its Port of Piraeus, China doesn’t care whether Greece is a democracy or not.

It's interesting that you mention Greece -- far away -- but ignore Taiwan. And CCP support of the junta in Myanmar. And although it's technically part of China, the desire for democracy among Hong Kongers. Are you unaware that China is deeply unpopular across Asia, among its own neighbors? 

You might call yourself a "friend of America" earlier in the piece, but you are no friend of Asia.

Step three would be to reverse all the steps that the Trump administration took in the trade war with China. Why reverse them? They didn’t weaken the Chinese economy. Indeed, they may have damaged America’s economy instead.

They probably did damage America's economy more than China's, but we don't actually know that because there's no such thing as wholly reliable data from China. Besides, why would you want to work with a country that commits genocide? (I realize the US does just that with other countries, and even aids them -- including aiding the pummeling of Yemen and the Israeli treatment of Palestine, but ideally it wouldn't do so anywhere.)

 

Step four would be to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement which former President Barack Obama had wisely initiated to ensure that the East Asian economic ecosystem, the largest one in the world, would not be centered on China. Step five would be to match the Chinese punch-for-punch by signing free trade agreements with every country or region that China has signed with. For example, one important arena for U.S.-China competition will be Southeast Asia, where there are still major reservoirs of goodwill towards America among its 700 million people. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) matters. In 2000, Japan’s combined gross national product was eight times larger than ASEAN’s combined GDP. By 2019, it was only 1.6 times larger. By 2030, ASEAN’s economy will be bigger than Japan’s. Hence, America should immediately sign a free trade agreement with ASEAN.

I'm including this because it's the first paragraph in a long string of garbage that I actually sort of agree with.  I don't think "free trade" is necessarily a fix for everything, but neither do I demonize it (as I said, I'm not a communist). It would be smart for the US to strengthen ties with the parts of Asia that are not China, period. Whether free trade is the best vehicle for this is a spin-off discussion of that.

But, is it not super weird that he completely ignores Taiwan, the country that would benefit most from stronger ties with the US? 

This is, probably, the most important point that American strategic planners should reflect on: at the end of the day, the outcome of the geopolitical contest between America and China will not be determined by the number of aircraft carriers or nuclear weapons. Instead, it will be determined by which society is doing a better job at taking care of its bottom fifty percent. As of now, China is leading by a mile....

Um...is it though?

Instead of tripping over myself to talk about why I don't think this is true, here's a tweet from an economist I think has the right of this issue:

There are plenty of countries in the world that do a better job at taking care of the poor, the working class, and the middle class than America does.

China is not one of those countries.

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) July 31, 2021

I'll also add that while poorly regulated capitalism put America's bottom fifty percent where they are, that Chinese state control of the economy (not quite communism -- state capitalism) is what dragged most of China into poverty, and far worse poverty at that. Should we give the CCP a medal for attempting -- badly -- to pull people out of poverty that they themselves put into poverty?

There are four parts to this critical piece of advice: a country that knows what it wants (1), coping successfully with its internal problems (2) and global responsibilities (3), and which has a spiritual vitality (4). Vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, America was ahead on all four counts. Today, vis-à-vis China, America is behind on all four counts.

Look, America doesn't have much of a moral high ground. It's been awhile since we committed all-out genocide on our own land, although we have done so. We've not exactly been a moral compass on genocides abroad, to put it lightly.

But how can you look at the genocide of the Uighurs and threats to subjugate Taiwan and support for the mass repression and death in Myanmar, and call that "spiritual vitality", "dealing successfully with internal problems" and "global responsibility"? 

The government actively encourages their own people to say it's fine to massacre all Taiwanese as long as they take the island. Does that sound spiritually vital or globally responsible to you? They solve "internal problems" through gulags. Does that sound like a good method?

If so, what the everloving fuck is wrong with you?

Yet, Biden would be crucified politically if he were to lift trade sanctions against China that have harmed American businesses and farmers. The Biden administration will need strong political cover if it wants to rebalance relations with China and strive to achieve a more normal relationship with China, devoid of self-defeating tariffs and sanctions.

Okay, but why would you want to rebalance relations with a country that commits literal genocide and is threatening to invade and subjugate another important strategic partner?

Kennan’s wise advice, stated above, also emphasized that America should be mindful of the impression that America creates “among the peoples of the world.”

Right. So we should stand against genocide and subjugation. Meaning we should not be kind to China. That would be a good impression to make. One I could get behind.

America can now use the same empirical test to see whether the “peoples of the world” support America over China. Unfortunately, unlike the Soviet Union, China has not invaded or occupied any neighboring state.

You think the use of present perfect saves you, Kishore, but it doesn't. Your use of "complex" to weasel your way out of any sort of moral accountability for your stance signals what we're about to read.

Also, the world doesn't quite favor China as much as you want to make it seem.

Regardless, I'd like to say hello from Taipei, where I am pissed at China because they are threatening to invade the country I call home, a neighboring state. They have missiles pointed at my house. They want to massacre my friends. Does Taiwan not exist to you? Is it too inconvenient for your argument? Apparently so:

Nonetheless, America has accused China of behaving “aggressively” in three territories: Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. The issues involved in each of the three are different. Indeed, they are complex. However, most American commentaries make a simple black and white case that China’s actions in these three territories are wrong and, as a result, the “world” disapproves of China’s actions in these areas.

First, Taiwan is not a territory of the PRC. So now we know where you stand -- you are a filthy subjugationist. You honestly think a military invasion of Taiwan would be acceptable?

Fuck you, Kishore. Just...fuck you. I don't have better words. 

Fuck you. 凸

Second, I'm writing this as I'm reading it, but I hope to any gods in heaven that he is not about to launch into a defense of the genocide of the Uighurs or subjugation of Hong Kong.

Let's find out together! 

Whenever any American uses the phrase which suggests the “world disapproves of China,” they should say privately to themselves this phrase: “1.5 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, 1.4 billion Africans, 600 million Latin Americans, 500 million Buddhists (or the vast majority of the world’s population) disapproves of China’s actions. By using this phrase, instead of “the world,” they would see clearly that they have made an empirically false statement. Most countries in the world do not support American criticisms of China in either Hong Kong or Xinjiang. As indicated above, there is an empirically verifiable way for America to determine whether the “world” supports American criticism of China’s actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, or Taiwan. America could table a resolution on any of three issues in the UN General Assembly. If it were to do so, America would find itself in the same situation as the Soviet Union in the Cold War. It would struggle to get thirty to forty countries out of 193 countries to support its point of view.

First, oh my god, you actually are weinering your way out of denouncing actual literal genocide in Xinjiang, repression in Hong Kong and an invasion of Taiwan by both-sidesing the issue, as if these things are acceptable if most of the world is willing to turn a blind eye. Seriously, fuck you.

I thought you were saying that the US should  be mindful of the "impression" it creates.

Doesn't that logically mean it should create the impression that it won't stand for genocide just because other countries are willing to ignore it? I know we haven't got a solid track record here, but it's high time we changed that, rather than adding to our past misdeeds.

Besides, the governments of those countries in the UN aren't willing to stand against these horrors not because they're not morally wrong, but because of all that fat Chinese investment in their countries. It's equivocation to say that the world is turning to China for financial reasons, but then that China's actions are not necessarily morally wrong because the world won't vote in the UN to say they are, when that is precisely because of those financial incentives. They are not the same thing, and you know they're not.

As for the people, most people who don't care about these things either live very far away and are preoccupied with their own issues; this is human nature. Others are simply unaware. But let's not substitute the actions of governments represented in the UN for beliefs of people. They don't exactly map, and you know that. 

Plus, I can think of one country that is not in the UN that should be. I live there, and China has its fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house. But you seem to think it would be fine for China to massacre this country's citizens the way it massacres its own. 

In theory, if China was suppressing its Muslims, the most outraged community would be the fifty-seven countries that are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

So you really are engaging in genocide denial. Great. You're also a filthy genocide denier. There is something so absolutely slimy and disgusting about implying a genocide doesn't exist if an insufficient number of people oppose it.

I note that Mahbubani doesn't go into any of the actual evidence that there is indeed a genocide. Of course he doesn't, that would destroy his argument that China is a normal nation just trying to help its people, not engaging in crimes against humanity. Rather, he dismisses it as probably not real because the world isn't doing enough to stop it. 

That is not an argument. If you think it is, go back to school.

Besides, I don't think you have to be Muslim to stand against the genocide of Muslims.

Yet not one Muslim country supported America or the West on Xinjiang. In response to the statement by the twenty-three countries condemning China, fifty-four countries backed a counter-statement defending China’s actions in Xinjiang.

Did we not just discuss China throwing fat stacks around the world? The Muslim world has been a big beneficiary of all this cash (well, the wealthiest have been, the debt traps tend to screw everyone else), but that just makes China as bad as the US on ethical foreign policy. It doesn't mean that the genocide isn't real. Just because the rest of Africa didn't do anything about the genocide in Rwanda in the '90s doesn't mean it didn't happen. Please stop conflating money and morals, and please stop pretending that genocide can be ethically acceptable if enough people are willing to turn a blind eye to it.

Let me show you what this argument actually is: until 1941 the US was -- or claimed to be -- uninterested in getting involved in the war in Europe. Newspapers in the 1930s had praised or defended Hitler for quite some time before that. By Mahbubani's logic, the Holocaust was therefore morally acceptable until the very moment the world decided it was not, and in fact it could be argued was not happening until the world realized it was. You could argue that the Armenian genocide didn't happen because nobody did much to stop it. Come on. Even infants have more object permanence than this absolute trashfire of a case. 

The real issue here is not the merits of the case on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. The real issue is the stark difference between America’s standing in the world vis-à-vis its primary competitor in the Cold War, namely the Soviet Union, and its standing in the world vis-à-vis China. 

Why do I suspect you're only saying that because you know that on the merits of these issues, you lose?

Most countries want to have good relations with America. Yet most countries also want to have good relations with China. Hence, if any American administration, driven by domestic political pressures, steps up its geopolitical contest with China, it will find itself relatively isolated internationally. Few countries would enthusiastically support America in this contest.

Trying to keep yourself at an academic remove from essentially greenlighting genocide and the invasion and subjugation of a democracy is not a good look, Kishore. 

It's becoming clearer, in fact, that more countries are seeing the ethical impossibility of dealing with the CCP. From the investment deal with Europe tanking to Japanese officials finally saying that Taiwan mattered to them, to everyone else who stands to lose if Taiwan falls, I actually do think the US could find allies in this if the situation became desperate. 

And who would make it that desperate? China.

Bet you won't say that, though. 

The European countries, especially France and Germany, are among America’s closest allies. Yet they too will be ambivalent about joining any American crusade against China, even though they share some American concerns about China’s behavior.

There's truth in that, but you keep trying to tie it to some argument that therefore we shouldn't do anything for Taiwan, Hong Kong or Xinjiang. That these actions on the part of the CCP are acceptable because they've essentially bribed the world into not caring. Or that if most of the world doesn't care, it's okay to simply pretend something is not morally wrong. 

I would not have wanted you around in the late 1930s, because you probably would have been on Team Appeasement.

If geopolitics is also about geography, China’s investment in Africa is a geopolitical gift to Europe as it reduces African migration to Europe. An old adage says that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Wait, why would it bad to have more Africans in Europe? I'd say Europe might benefit from more open immigration policies. What are you implying?

Besides, Chinese investment in Africa isn't all rosy, and don't you yourself call for "nuanced understandings"? Shouldn't this be one of them? I'm all for international cooperation and investment and assistance to marginalized groups and nations, and I admit the West doesn't have the best track record of offering aid with good terms attached. But the answer to that isn't to just let China offer even worse terms. It's to offer better ones.

Iran also demonstrates how China plays a long-term game of chess (or more accurately, the Chinese game of wei qi) while America plays checkers. 

Okay, but that -- and a lot of the "the Chinese think" language in this piece -- sure feels Orientalizing. From an Asian. Weird. 

Indeed, exactly fifty years ago, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited China. He raised many issues with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai only raised one: Taiwan. Why? Americans have forgotten the century of humiliation China suffered from 1842 to 1949. The Chinese haven’t.

They might, if the CCP didn't keep bringing it up. And why do they keep bringing it up? Because it suits their political agenda. 

Also, if Henry Kissinger did something regarding China, you can be reasonably sure it was the wrong move.

The separation of Taiwan from the homeland represents the last living legacy of this century of humiliation. 

Only because the CCP says it does.

And you don't seem to care what the Taiwanese think. Do their opinions about their own country matter to you at all, Kishore?

The PRC has never ruled Taiwan and this "separation" is of a country that was joined, under another government and not all that strongly, for about 4 years. Before that, Taiwan was a colony of Japan, and before that, a colony of an entirely different Chinese government. For most of those centuries, only about a third of it was actually controlled by Qing colonizers. Regardless, the transition from empire to aspiring (though failing) democracy to state capitalist dictatorship does matter. This "inalienable part of China" line of thinking is a fabricated one, tailored to suit the CCP's political agenda.

You seem to have bought the line that Taiwan is inalienably part of China. Do you even care that most Taiwanese haven't? Why do China's views on Taiwan matter more than Taiwanese views about their own country?

Hence, it would be foolhardy for any Chinese leader not to work out extreme options if America walks away any further from the One China policy. China will look for a suitable “Achilles’ heel” in America. As I document in my book, Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, the role of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency is one area of vulnerability. This issue is complicated. Yet there’s no doubt that America’s standing in the world will fall sharply if the U.S. dollar loses its global reserve currency status.

Again with the academic remove to obscure the fact that you are essentially endorsing wiping a thriving democracy that does not want to be a part of China and will face mass persecution and massacre (yes, massacre) off the map. 

It would also be foolhardy for China to invade Taiwan, but you don't seem too concerned about how unwise a move it would be.

God, you're worse than Kissinger and I still cannot wait until that eldritch horror exits this world.

Many Americans will not be daunted by this prospect. Since many Americans tend to have a black and white view of the world, where they believe they represent right over wrong, or good over evil, they will console themselves by saying that America is carrying out a noble global mission of defending freedom, democracy, and human rights against an evil, authoritarian, despotic regime, which is oppressing its own people. 

Sure, okay, but in this case there actually is a right and a wrong. In this case, despite the "complexity" of the issues, the ethical path actually is clear. 

To pretend it's not and mock those who say it is is, again, to hide behind both-sidesist garbage.

In any case I am "not daunted by" the prospect of fighting for what's right not because my view of the world is black and white, but because China has fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house.

This brief representation may seem to be a caricature of American views. However, it’s not unfair in suggesting that many Americans, including thoughtful Americans, have a black and white view of the relationships between America and China.

No. 

I have a black and white view of the fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house.

 

It will not be long before China becomes equally stigmatized as another “evil empire.”

It already is an "evil empire". It's not wrong to call a thing by its name.

It is committing atrocities across multiple territories, most of which it has no supportable claim to (East Turkestan and Tibet should not be part of China) and is threatening to invade the democracy next door.  By advising that we ignore this, you are advising that we continue America's own ethical void.

Yet most countries in the world just see China for what it is: a normal country.

"Normal countries" do not commit genocide and threaten to invade their neighbors, you absolute turnip.

 

Americans may wish to dismiss these growing signals of respect for China just as opportunistic moves by countries that just want to benefit from the Chinese economy.

Yes. That's pretty much what it is. We're talking about governments here, not people, and governments can be swayed just as easily by morally-void money stacks, if not more so.

Before falling into a smug attitude of moral superiority, Americans should consider the possibility that the rest of the world is capable of arriving at a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of China.

It's not moral superiority. I want them to remove their fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house.

Anyway, the word "nuanced" (along with "complex" and "rejuvenate" and "national humiliation") is another keyword showing someone's drunk Xi Jinping's juice.

How about this instead: it's possible to have a nuanced understanding of China as a place, set of interrelated cultures, people and history, but see in very stark terms that the CCP is in fact evil, and it's not "jejune" to point this out.

Or this: any "nuanced" understanding of the situation requires also understanding the Taiwanese perspective, among others such as Uighur, Hong Konger and Tibetan perspectives. Namely, that Taiwan is self-governing, does not want to be a part of China, and it is wrong to invade neighboring states. If you call for "nuance" but all you offer is CCP talking points, then the one lacking that nuance is you.

Yet, even as China has become more powerful, it continues to embrace the Western-originated, rules-based order generated by the UN Charter and the UN family of institutions. Anyone who doubts this should read the UN Charter again. Its principles support China.

China is on the Security Council. Of course its principles support China. The UN's "principles" include being utterly useless, and turning a blind eye to invasion, apartheid and genocide. The UN should not be the basis for your ethical code, ever. 

And it has not embraced the "rules-based order" so much as tried to use it to its advantage by keeping Taiwan out.

Equally importantly, China is creating a stable and well-ordered society that is significantly improving the lives of 1.4 billion people.

I don't think the ones in jail in Hong Kong or in death camps in East Turkestan have had their lives improved. But they're inconvenient to your argument so once again you ignore them.

A peer-reviewed, credible academic study done by the Harvard Kennedy School has documented and explained how support for the Chinese government has gone up from 86 percent in 2003 to 93 percent in 2016.

I've read the study and while I'll admit it has a veneer of credibility and is peer-reviewed, that doesn't change the fact that real political research can't actually be done in China. What Chinese citizen would tell a bunch of foreign researchers what they really think of their government?

Besides, a few generations of government control of messaging all the way through school is likely to achieve such results. How and whether one can actually have and express an opinion is transmitted to new generations very differently in China -- for political reasons, not cultural ones. That the operation has likely been successful does not give the government moral cover. 

And it doesn't remove the fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house. 

President Xi Jinping is a man of few words.

Yeah, and most of them seem to be defending genocide and subjugation. You seem okay with that.

I hope he becomes a man of zero words, as soon as possible. 

“China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you.”

Unless you're Taiwanese (or caught in a BRI debt trap).

 

Most countries in the world would agree with the spirit of Xi’s statement.

Sure, but he intends to do all of those things to Taiwan. Maybe listen to Taiwan, where people know the cake is a lie?

As long as China takes care of its people and doesn’t disrupt the world order...

And dismantle the fucking missiles pointed at my fucking house, perhaps?

...the rest of the world will be able to get along with China.

I'd rather they stood with Taiwan and against, you know, genocide.

Truly, this article is so bad -- from the slimiest kind of genocide denial to the outright dismissal of any sort of Taiwanese perspective -- that if I ever have to read anything like it again I might have a fucking stroke. 

Everything is Calm in the Meatspace

From an exhibit at the Japanese Naval Guest House (日本海軍招待所) near Shi-da

I want to start in an optimistic place. 

Through everything American citizens have endured in this absolute slog of a presidential election, I’ve taken heart that people who are a part of my daily life in Taipei have expressed clear-headed, thoughtful views on events in the USA. At work, in my social life and running errands — say, chatting with the medical technician while getting electro-therapy on a problematic knee — people seem to agree. Some good things have happened for Taiwan under Trump, though mostly not through him, and in general he brings instability and mendacity to the table, and not much more. Big picture, some good things have happened in US-Taiwan relations in the last four years, but both countries are better off with someone who can competently lead. Taiwan certainly benefits more from a stable US. Trump’s highly inconsistent bloviating (one second calling Xi a “good friend” and the next banning a few apps) doesn’t make up for this, as an unstable US can’t really advocate for Taiwan effectively. 

Those are my words, but they’re echoed in different ways from people I know in the real world, most of whom are just average people. This gives me heart that plenty of people in Taiwan are thoughtful enough not to be taken in by the exact sort of fake news maelstrom that they so forcefully rejected when the Han Kuo-yu campaign attempted something similar, just because it’s coming from the US. 

I need that heart, because I have to say that online, the situation looks a lot more dire. 

Many people I’ve friended on social media, only a few of whom I know in real life, have gone from liberals and left-leaning people who support Taiwan and otherwise seem to have a high degree of digital literacy to spreaders of the exact sort of rhetoric they rejected less than a year ago. More than one has bought into the unsubstantiated belief that there was significant fraud in the US election (it’s unlikely; voter fraud is rare and there is no credible evidence for it in this case). 

Facebook groups once full of people I agreed with on Taiwan issues have become clearinghouses for right-wing pro-Trump posts. These come with not just fake news dumps, including the idea that Joe Biden is more in bed with China than Trump, when Trump’s China ties are provable and there isn’t any verifiable evidence for similar Biden ties. At least one of the Hunter Biden stories was entirely fabricated but achieved wide circulation in Asia. The most obvious example is Freddy Lim’s Chang Group 昶社團, though there are others. Apple Daily is the clearest example of the media amplifying and legitimizing highly questionable pro-Trump narratives in Taiwan, and they seem to have found a home in deep green or non-affiliated pro-Taiwan Taiwanese. These include the self-identified progressive and politically engaged online commentariat. 

Right now, the way pro-Trump drumbeats are repeated in these groups honestly reminds me of that part of Snow Crash where people had their brainstems hacked and seemingly randomly started repeating Ancient Sumerian or something. Of course, it turned out not to be random, and this isn’t either. 

Every time I come across this, I have to remind myself that in the meatspace, I interact every day with people who haven’t bought into this. It reminds me that social media tends to amplify more extreme voices, and that while some of them have come to these beliefs sincerely (if uncritically), there are a fair number of intentional bad actors, paid trolls and bots pushing this narrative. If there are bots attacking AIT, they surely exist elsewhere, too. 

Some of the arguments even sound familiar. “But the Democrats started the KKK!” shouts one Taiwanese commentator, just as unaware of the Great Realignment as the Americans who say the same thing. “But the Democrats cut ties with Taiwan!” says another, when that shift was started by Republicans, and when it happened, the cut ties were with the “Republic of China”, then still a military dictatorship that looked further from democratization than the People’s Republic of China. Honestly if I’d bet on which country would liberalize first in 1976, I would have lost a lot of money. “But who signed the Taiwan Travel Act and TAIPEI Act?” another asks, giving Trump credit for bipartisan legislation with bipartisan sponsorship that representatives from both parties voted for unanimously. A president can’t realistically veto that kind of thing. “But...China Joe the Pedophile!” many say, sounding exactly like Republicans in the US and basing it on just as little evidence, a party whose platforms they — the online so-called progressives — would never support in Taiwan. 

Of course, they ignore the provable Trump ties to China and dozens of rape allegations against Trump, one of which is set to go to court. It's not even clear to me why people think Biden was China's candidate. My money is on the CCP supporting Trump while pretending not to, because instability in the US is good for China, and they know it. So far, current headlines seem to be proving me right.

Let’s be clear: few people saying these things actually believe that Trump genuinely cares about Taiwan. Even people I disagree with profoundly on Trump don’t go so far as to say that his administration’s support of Taiwan comes from a place of real concern. One thing we can all agree on is that it’s all a game to them. 

Back to the meatspace, because talking about this too much stings on a deeply personal level. Since the election and presumptive Biden victory, in real life people have expressed relief, either that Trump lost or at least that it’s over. My medical tech offered congratulations as she stuck electrodes to my knee. Students expressed relief that they wouldn’t have to listen to a guy who sounds so “stupid” any longer. 

I had hoped it might stem the tide online. It’s over, so I'd hoped we could turn our collective efforts to pushing him to keep his word on the “stronger ties” with Taiwan that he talked about. Regardless of who our preferred candidate was, we can all agree this is the best way forward now, right?

Apparently not. I’ve had to cut loose several people who are now buying into the whole “election fraud” narrative, insisting on dragging out a dead presidency based on zero evidence. Even now, so many many Taiwanese I thought I respected or at least broadly agreed with have gotten on the Trump Express that it would be enough to make me question my own sense of logic, if not for the Taiwanese people I talk to in the real world, who also see it for the crazy train it is. 

 

On one hand, I understand that many politically engaged Taiwanese who want the best for their country remember how they’ve been shafted by Democrats. One official visit to Taiwan and a few anti-China remarks must surely seem like a breath of fresh air, and all those other scandals are far away. I get it. There is a deep desire and need for more international recognition, better treatment, more allies both official and unofficial. 

I want those things too, but also for the country of my citizenship to be competently run by someone who is not a rapist. The best way to achieve that, in my view, is to hold Biden accountable. It’s over anyway. 

But it still stings to spend years of my life advocating for the best possible leadership for Taiwan — pro-independence, as liberal as possible — and then see so many people in Taiwan who share those views want my country to be run by a rapist and a fascist. If they didn’t actually care about social issues I could kind of understand, but many of them are avowed progressives, and do care about these things in Taiwan. 

To me, if you believe in progressive values, you believe in them for everyone, not just yourself. I would not advocate that Taiwan be abandoned if it would be better for the US, because Taiwanese citizens deserves the same rights and freedoms I do, and we all deserve open, tolerant societies. If you’re fine with supporting reactionary politicians elsewhere, then how does that jive with those progressive values?

The lack of leadership from progressive Taiwanese thought leaders also bothers me. A few well-placed words from respected voices might have helped stem this tide, but they’ve been mostly silent as far as I can tell. I understand the government not taking an official position; Taiwan needs to work with the winner, period. I understand, say, Freddy Lim not taking a position (though if his views expressed in Metal Politics Taiwan are still true, he’s no Trump supporter). I understand that it is difficult to tell your own supporters to cut it out; it could undermine your base. 

What I don’t understand is how he and the moderators allowed that group — again, one among many — to become a constant stream of fake news. Could they have let people express opinions and frustrations freely, but drawn the line at blatant misinformation?

At the end, I may need to cut individuals loose. I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal calmly with anyone who thinks that Rapist Hitler is a good leader for the country where my family lives, or who is unconcerned about a leader that has callously allowed nearly a quarter of a million Americans to die when they didn't have to. I have no quarter for those who still believe had the election ‘stolen’ from him rather than being rejected because he is, you know, Rapist Hitler who is responsible for up to 240,000 unnecessary deaths in less than a year.

Despite this, we must remember that the cause is still just. Drew Pavlou said this about Hong Kong, and he’s absolutely right: 

The attitude of the left on Hong Kong makes me furious. They see desperate people holding Trump flags and immediately dismiss them all as racist reactionaries. Stop and reflect for a second why HKers felt desperate enough to turn toward a man who called Xi a “great friend.” 

HKers suffer under a brutal police state, and for the most part, the left have ignored them. Tankies attack HKers out of support for Chinese authoritarianism and liberals ignore HKers out of a mistaken belief that criticizing the Chinese state serves racist anti-China narratives.

I consider myself a leftist. My Christian faith underpins my concern for social justice and human dignity. But I take the world as it is rather than how I would like it to be. That means patiently building solidarity with HKers, even when we disagree on matters like Trump.

It means putting to one side considerations of left and right, putting to one side utopian ideals about ideological purity, and simply being there for HKers and raising my voice for them at this time of suffering.

And others have taken an anti-CCP, anti-Trump view as well, like artist Badiucao. The same holds true for the Taiwan cause. 

People I interact with online as well as in real life are generally on this side, as well. 

I’ve also seen a lot of US liberals and leftists (sigh) take aim at, say, the Hong Kong movement, insisting they must be right-wingers because they are turning to Trump or hoping the US will help solve their problems (something I don’t think is actually true; I don’t think many Hong Kongers think the US will solve this issue; they mostly just want international support.)

The thing is, the Western left was doing this long before Trump came along — screaming quite rightly about issues that affected them, but being quite fine with ignoring the fight for the same things in Hong Kong and Taiwan, because it all sounded so “anti-China”. It was easy to paint them as horrible “capitalists” because they oppose a regime that claims to be “communist”. And it was easy for Democrats to ignore them because while they may be slightly better on social issues in the US, they care just as little about similar social movements abroad. 

How profoundly have liberals ignored Taiwan that Taiwanese are supporting a man who compared their country to the insignificant tip of a pen?

So, I can see on some level why people sick of being treated this way would turn to the first person who said something critical about China, even though he didn’t appear to genuinely care so much as he wanted to start a strongman fight.

However, Taiwanese de jure independence is absolutely worth continuing to fight for, even if many of its strongest supporters have veered very weirdly into pro-Trump territory. Yes to Taiwan, resist the CCP, reject Trump. Biden’s not great but he’s gotten better on Taiwan, and now our job is to hold him accountable.

I doubt I can change their minds and I have limited capacity to try — I wouldn’t expect them to take a foreign resident of Taiwan particularly seriously. However, I will not abandon a cause I believe in just because some voices within it are pushing deeply problematic narratives about the US election. I might have to cull social media and unfollow or leave online groups, but I’ll still be there, in the meatspace, on the street if I have to, hobbling along on my bum knee for the cause of Taiwan.