Data and Lore (a COVID-19 story)

Does this mean...I'm Wesley?

I had always imagined that, living on an island, I'd feel trapped if disaster struck. There are no borders to cross, only open sea. I know it's not a reasonable worry: land borders can also be treacherous, but knowing your only options are a plane or a boat (and probably not even a boat) rather than a truck, car or your own two feet can honestly induce claustrophobia.

So, while the world around us seems like it's collapsing, I'm surprised by how wrong I was in predicting my own feelings about island life in a global catastrophe. Thanks to Taiwan's pre-emptive, centrally-planned and intelligent response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel like I'm living in an island of safety, calm and normalcy in a world gone mad.

I am not terribly concerned that Taiwan will be felled by COVID itself. Even if there is a spike in cases, the time the country bought itself through a strong, early and professional response will be priceless: it is time Taiwan has had to prepare for that potentiality, and considering how they've treated the issue so far, we can be fairly sure they've been using it wisely. 

People are doing their part too - for every anecdote I hear about someone not practicing good pandemic hygiene, I see 20 people who do.

Of course, my confidence extends only to health. I worry quite a bit about the economic backlash. We have enough savings to weather a brief storm, or even a somewhat-prolonged quarantine, but what about an interminable economic crisis? A lot of my clients are businesses, and when the economic crash really hits, the first thing they're going to cut is English training. My teacher training work might see an uptick, but it's honestly hard to say.

Let's not think too much about that, though. There is literally nothing I can do about it except spend less on non-essentials. Once it was clear that climate change was real, I never expected the second half of my life to be easy anyway.

So, what has Taiwan been doing right? I won't write out a whole list because there are lots of places where you can read about that: see here, here, here and here. Suffice it to say, a large component of Taiwan's response has been data collection and public regulation. Most notably, for certain people quarantines are mandatory, and everyone that person had been in contact with might also be asked (or required) to quarantine. Quarantined individuals have their phones tracked and are notified if the government can see there is a violation. The CDC calls them every day (though this is a lot friendlier than it sounds). Isolated people report their temperature online once a day. All face mask production lines were bought up (in essence, expropriated) by the government, and masks are now rationed. Huge amounts of personal health data - including masks purchased - is tracked on National Health Insurance cards. Some public transportation, including all Kuo-kuang buses and all airport MRT trains - require face masks.

This gives the government a massive amount of data to work with, which has some fantastic benefits. There is an app (which is a bit difficult for foreigners to use) that can track which pharmacies will have masks, how many, and when. Apparently one can now pre-order masks. Potential disease vectors are swiftly located and locked down to prevent transmission.

Watching the news from the US right now, where the response seems to be to run out in the street screaming and flailing one's arms, it sure feels like they could learn a lot from the way Taiwan has handled this, starting with universal health coverage.

On the other hand, I have to wonder how much of this Americans would realistically put up with. The scale of data collection really is astounding. If you are identified as a risk, you lose a lot of personal freedom - both in terms of data privacy and freedom of movement. It is, to be honest, a lot to ask.

This is the point at which a different writer might start waxing rhapsodic about Confucian societies and collectivism and the people are more willing to submit to authority because 5,000 years or...something like that.

I won't.

This is a country where people set their sights on overthrowing a dictatorship and succeeded. Where protests are practically a hobby and producing protest gear a side hustle for many. Where your average person would be pretty upset if they couldn't day drink under their favorite temple awning (or in front of their favorite convenience store). Where an entire generation of people under 40 defied their elders by voting for same-sex marriage. There's no Confucian about it and I'm sick of the trope.

Instead, I'll say this: as an American, I'm fine with the level of intrusion into my personal life and willing to give up the data. I suspect - though don't know - that most Taiwanese are too. Not because of some 'different, exotic Asian values' fake East-West divide (a divide that online trolls really seem to push, which is how you know it's fake).

Rather, most Taiwanese are okay with Big Government  right now because this particular circumstance is a true emergency, because they know that this particular data is useful and important for a centrally-coordinated response to work, and because they trust this particular government. 

While we can heave a sigh of relief that this government was re-elected (for a peek into how a Han administration would have handled it, you need only look at Trump's non-response), unfortunately, this perspective doesn't offer many solutions for what to do when you don't trust the government. I don't often agree with libertarians but they're right about this: you only want the government to have as much power as you'd be comfortable with them having if you didn't trust the people in charge, because eventually, someone you don't trust will get elected.

In other words, I'll give this information (and power) to Tsai Ing-wen. I would never be happy to give it to Donald Trump. Or Han Kuo-yu. Would you want either of them at the helm of a government that has just taken sole control of key medical supplies? Would you want either of their administrations insisting they had the right to track your location?

All that data, though, has kept Taiwan feeling more like a cozy ark on a rising flood, rather than a prison from which there is no escape. And perhaps, considering that dictatorship existed in Taiwan in living memory so they know the difference between authoritarianism and a centrally-planned response, maybe we should take their word for it that government data collection for this purpose is acceptable?

So what's happening beyond the rough seas? Between many Western countries' totally botched responses - including a massive failure to test leading to rapid, undetected community transmission - and China's repeated cover-ups and lack of reliable data, there is fertile soil for misinformation and fake narratives to take root.

I had opined, when this all began, that such an obvious and self-evidential failure and clear, documentable cover-up on the part of the CCP might just offer up a silver lining: that the CCP itself would fall. That the systemic failure would be so inescapable that they would not be able to control the narrative. I figured it would be so undeniably true to anyone with working brain that China did not "buy time" for the world, but rather that the CCP's initial cover-up is what caused the disease to go pandemic in the first place, that something would possibly - maybe - give to loosen the grip of that brutal dictatorship on a country that absolutely deserves better.

For a brief period, it seemed that the world might just hold the Chinese government to account for this, or at least report clearly on who was to blame  - not China or the Chinese people, but the CCP.

But even before the US botched its response by completely failing to prepare, one could watch the narrative change almost in real time.

First, the media started saying that China "bought time" for the rest of the world, how its "decisive" and "bold"  response - note the adjectives used instead of the more appropriate draconian and inhumane - saved lives, how it "acted quickly"  (see here, here, here, here and here).

I thought when I hate-read these pieces that, yes, dragging screaming people into their homes and boarding the doors is, I suppose, bold in a sense. But are we really all pretending that the initial cover-up which is directly responsible for the pandemic going global in the first place just...never happened? Are we truly allowing COVID-19's origin story to be re-written so easily?

I'm not the only one who's noticed, fortunately.

Watching 🇨🇳 mishandling COVID19 disappearing down the memory hole is quite something. Arresting doctors, ignoring warnings, suppressing information during the provincial party congress. Weeks of inaction. All vanishing and replaced with 🇨🇳 decisiveness and success. https://t.co/X8IOi4kBTD

— mhar4 須平心再想。 (@mhar4) March 14, 2020

Of course, it's difficult to argue now that the US or Europe could have done better, as they have now both failed so spectacularly. The difference, of course, is that in a liberal democracy you can say so without getting shot, and theoretically can put better people in office next time.

I can empathize, however, with people whose governments did too little thinking that maybe the government that did too much - and now claims that cases are in decline - had the right of it. Even if that sentiment ignores the facts. Even if you are in essence saying "it would be acceptable to drag my screaming neighbor into their house, padlock the door and walk away with the key. It would be acceptable to do that to me, too."

These are the same people who think it's un-American to even ask them not to gather in crowds. Do they think China couldn't possibly be as bad as it actually is, or that it's OK to do that to others but "it would never happen to me" or...do they just use the cognitive dissonance like a white noise machine to help them sleep at night? I truly don't know.

Neither of these are good! 

It doesn't help that the facts are hard to come by. It's honestly surprising to me how many people understand that the US has no idea how many COVID-19 cases currently exist within its borders, but actually believe the numbers from China, despite China's clear history of lying about them. Now people are saying cases in China are on the decline, but can we really trust that, when nothing the CCP has said since the initial cover-up can be trusted? I don't, and you shouldn't either.

The CCP understands this better than anything: in the absence of trustworthy data, you can make up your own lore.

While all of this has been going on, there's been an ongoing discussion of whether calling COVID-19 "Wuhan Pneumonia" or anything relating to its place of origin is racist, as these viruses can originate anywhere. I don't know that changing a disease's name can really combat racism, but it almost doesn't matter. I'm not qualified to say whether referring to Wuhan in the disease's name is, indeed, racist - totally not my lane. I don't use it - it's too long and seems unnecessary. Holding the CCP to account and not treating people in racist ways both seem like more important things to worry about than exercising my 'right' to call a disease by a common name.

 But I will note that in Taiwan it's called 武漢肺炎 (that is, Wuhan Pneumonia) in Mandarin. It's slightly amusing to me that the CCP insists that Taiwan is a part of China, but also that calling COVID-19 "Wuhan Pneumonia" is racist...against Chinese. By that logic, Chinese people are racist against themselves.

Anyway, I've noticed a particularly bit of nasty ret-conning on the English front too.

I support a general push not to stigmatize people by using place names in disease names going forward, but there seem to be a lot of gullible people who now think we've never called diseases that in the past, so "Wuhan Pneumonia" is a unique example of racism on this front. Of course, those same people will still use disease names like Ebola, Nipah, Zika, Marburg and MERS.

Don't laugh - I saw someone arguing that "we've never named diseases after places!" under a chart that included all of the above. So I suppose I consider users of the term "Wuhan Pneumonia" exactly as racist as I would consider users of the terms "Ebola" and "MERS".

It's been disconcerting to watch how the CCP propaganda machine has taken advantage of this confusion.

First, insisting that its response was appropriate and effective. Then, trying to tell the world (and their own people) that we should be grateful. Then, getting behind a call to label everyone saying "Wuhan Pneumonia" racist moving to a general call not to "blame China" (which, of course, runs in tandem with labeling all blaming of the CCP "blaming China" and therefore "racist"). And now, we've got CCP officials spreading rumors that the virus did not originate in China at all.

I still don't intend to call COVID-19 "Wuhan Pneumonia", but I do note that it's a lot easier to convince idiots outside the Chinese-speaking world that COVID-19 did not come from China if everyone's afraid of being called racist for discussing how it absolutely did.

And so from an undifferentiated mess of information - most of which is unreliable as China's numbers can't be trusted - we have a myth of CCP "decisiveness" saving the world. Lore spun from literally nothing into a narrative that credible people actually believe.

I had hoped that cold, hard data would carry the day. That it would be clear what works (a response like Taiwan's) and what doesn't (running around screaming like a hemorrhaging goat like the US). How draconian, inhumane methods like China's are not necessary if there is initial transparency and swift action. I had hoped that this clarity would lead to much-needed changes in how governments operate around the world, from an end to CCP tyranny to drastic changes in the US's broken system.

Instead, it seems that between data and lore, the latter can pose as the former because most people can't tell the difference.

We will all pay the price for it.

The KMT's hard red turn *really* isn't as weird as you think: Part II

This is one of those photos that doesn't have a direct relationship to the post...except I think evocatively, that it does. 

In my last post on KMT-CCP synchronicity, I dove into the KMT's Leninist roots to show that their 'origin story' does not differ that much from the CCP. The short of it is that their early party structure (Leninist), philosophy (Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles), overarching ideals (that they are a "Chinese" government and that includes Taiwan) and general approach to governance (authoritarianism disguised as "political tutelage" by a caretaking "vanguard party") are all so similar to the CCP's approach to governance that one should not be surprised that the two parties are now working together to push the annexation of Taiwan to China. 

But, I approached a few key issues which were left unanswered. Namely: 


What about the stark ideological contrast regarding Marxism? 

How do you account for the different approaches to 'Chinese culture' between the two parties?

The KMT is - in theory at least - a competing party in a democratic system. Do all the old authoritarian beliefs still apply?


Let's address those now. 

Marxism

This one is easy - the CCP still claims to hold Communist ideology, but even a cursory, non-expert observation of how China works shows that the party's guiding ethos are not Marxist at all. It's not just that China has barely any social welfare system - just try accessing good medical care if you're not rich - but that the CCP has figured out that it's just as good to control the 'owners' of private enterprise, rather than actually run various enterprises themselves. If anything, it's better! Other people do the hard work of actually running companies, but the Party can decide who succeeds in establishing large firms based on their connections and Party loyalty. And because they can be arrested at any time for 'corruption' or controlled through national subsidies and contracts or just quiet threats delivered through a tightly-woven network, you don't lose any power.

I don't think this paper is particularly special, but it is an example of how the general academic consensus is that China is closer to 'state capitalist' than any kind of Marxist or Communist ideology. And here's another one. They're not very exciting.

The workers, you say? Those people that the CCP has sworn to protect? What of them? Without offering any of the benefits of Marxism - say, job security, access to basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter and health care - the CCP is quite able to exercise all of the downsides of Marxism (state control of everything you are permitted to do) as it pleases.

What, did you think the CCP would actually give 'the workers' any sort of power? But that would force them to give up power themselves!

State capitalism, as they love to say in China, is a win-win situation! For dictators and their friends, that is.

With actual Marxism gone, there's really not much left to distinguish the strongman KMT from the strongman CCP. And you're a fool if you think the KMT isn't aware that their one ideological rift with their former adversaries no longer exists in anything but name. 


Chinese Culture

The last few times I went to China, I was treated to lovely feasts of traditional Chinese fare in restaurants decked out in traditional Chinese decor. The first one used traditional woodcarving as a design point, inserting traditionally-carved pieces into more modern wooden walls and dividers. The other one was in a shopping mall, but featured an entire miniature stream teeming with goldfish, with a little Chinese-style bridge over it, which one crossed to go from the reception area to the dining area. The dining room was set with traditional-style tables and chairs, with white plaster dividers inset with Qing-style windows shaped like peaches, medicine gourds, butterflies, ingots and more. 

There was something performative about the whole thing, not unlike going to a restaurant in America with "America" in the name. These restaurants were gorgeous and the food was delicious, but the unspoken point seemed to be "welcome to China, don't you love our 5,000 years of culture and therefore everything about our country!" [exclamation point - it's not a question.] 


Those were just two meals in China, but they illustrate a larger point: the Cultural Revolution is dead. Long live Chinese Culture as a method of state control! 

This topic ties in nicely with the Marxist angle above. To clarify the relationship, let me quote Alton Thompson's comment in the Taiwan History Facebook group (which is great - you should join!):

A big ideological split existed when the Communists really bought into the Karl Marx shtick about international class struggle. The Red Guards torched Chinese art, destroyed Beijing opera, and laid waste to Tibetan Buddhism in the name of the new order. With this sort of erasure going on, CKS could display Chinese cultural treasures in the National Palace Museum here to make the case that his party preserved, and therefore must be heir to, Chinese culture. 

Mao's successors added 'Chinese characteristics' to their concerns—and that changed everything. As in so many Communist régimes, party leaders now needed international investment to rescue their failed economy and underwrite their party's continued hold on power (see also 'Cuba'). It helped this project to move the Marx talk into the realm of nostalgia as they established stock exchanges and rebooted Chinese art, Beijing opera, and Tibetan Buddhism in some form to show visitors.

The CCP suddenly found itself in ideological kinship with the Nationalists. The main product on offer by both parties now was simply a police state with Chinese characteristics. This conjunction emerged just as both parties were viewing with increasing alarm Taiwan's advancing democracy and growing sense of native identity.

The rebirth of 'Chinese culture' in China was not a natural post-Cultural Revolution occurrence - it was an intentional CCP-backed initiative. Xi Jinping himself has said so numerous times and even cursory searches will bring up state-supported initiatives to promote 'Chinese culture' and tie it to 'Chinese government control'. Here, it's stated explicitly, but also uncritically (you may choose not to read that as your self-care for the day. It's more than a little barfy.)

Does this sound different from the KMT's attempt to harness "preserving Chinese culture" as a tool of party control through the Cultural Renaissance Movement (中華文化復興運動)? No:

While the KMT had little hope of retaking China, it used propaganda to maintain the illusion that war could break out at anytime to justify its military rule and keep its population united and patriotic. The Cultural Revolution broke out in China in 1966, giving the KMT a perfect opportunity to launch the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement as a countermovement. 

It was not the first of its kind. The KMT had launched the Cultural Reform Movement (文化改造運動) and the Cultural Cleansing Movement (文化清潔運動) in the 1950s. These movements share the common goals of shaping the world view of its constituents by repeatedly promoting KMT founder Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) Three Principles of the People (三民主義), fostering unwavering allegiance to Chiang and carrying out the ultimate goal of defeating the Chinese communists.

The council was made up of scholars, cultural experts and a large number of high-level KMT officials. In addition to promoting traditional Chinese arts, it sought to instill the ancient “Four Principles and Eight Virtues” (四維八德) among the populace.

You may have noticed in the last election that the KMT is holding strong to their "Chinese cultural" touchstones. The hyper-prominence of the ROC flag and its KMT telltale heart sun. The claims that this election was "a battle to save the ROC". Knowing it can never compete with the DPP on Taiwaneseness, a tacit but omnipresent push toward Chineseness. KMT-allied groups, such as the Anti-Gay Aunties (not their real name, they're actually the 中華婦女黨 or "Chinese Women's Party") explicitly talk about their bigotry beliefs in terms of "Chinese culture".

So, now we have the KMT in Taiwan and the CCP in China both promoting "traditional Chinese culture", and both tying it explicitly to their political goals.

Same same. Not different.Democratization

A Facebook comment on my first post pointed out that the KMT's history of authoritarianism didn't fully explain how the party as a whole could go so red. After all, they did capitulate to democratization, and the KMT's stated goal was always 'constitutional democracy' (of course, a 'stated goal' can never be taken as true belief - look at their actions, not their words). There must be some among them who really do believe in the democratic system, and don't wish to go back to authoritarianism. Some probably still believe that this all-important 'Chinese destiny' for themselves and for Taiwan remains an ROC construct, rather than capitulation to the PRC. 

And yet even they seem willing to be pulled along by the party's rush to cooperate with the CCP. Why?

There's no simple answer to this, and I do believe that (some of) these people (mostly) believe their own words.

However, true discomfort with authoritarianism must also mean discomfort with an authoritarian past. If one is able to excuse or explain away the KMT's history of political repression and mass murder, and join the party that did those things despite the party never fully making amends for their past, they are clearly not as uncomfortable with authoritarianism as they say, or believe. 

There are surely others who believe that "One Country Two Systems" is still viable, though they'll never call it that. The term is now - rightly - political poison. Still thinking of Taiwan's destiny as ultimately Chinese, they likely consider some sort of co-existence with the CCP inside a united 'China' as the next best thing to the KMT's original goal.

The KMT has recently insisted that "One Country Two Systems" will happen - in the words of failed presidential contender and now Some Guy in Kaohsiung - "over their dead body". But again, look at actions, not words. Every action the KMT has taken is toward a One Country Two Systems model, not away from it. Closer economic ties? Check. Not changing all of the references to "China" on national enterprises? Check. "Preserving Chinese culture"? Check. "Not rejecting unification"? You betcha. Floating a possible peace treaty? Uh huh. Links for all of those can be found in my previous post focusing on Leninism.

I don't know what to say about those KMTers, except that they are either stupid, delusional or intentionally ignorant. 

After witnessing events in Hong Kong, it is impossible to truly believe that there can be peaceful unification under any sort of two-system model. Leaving aside those who may simply be delusional or dumb, there must be a rationale in the minds of KMTers who intentionally ignore this fundamental truth: 

 “Under the premise of ensuring national sovereignty, security, and development interests, after peaceful reunification, the social system and way of life of Taiwan compatriots will be fully respected,” it said. 

“Private property, religious beliefs, and legitimate rights and interests of Taiwan compatriots will be fully protected.”

China has not explained how Taiwan’s democracy may be allowed to continue if it takes control of the island. [Emphasis mine].

As I've said: 

Note that among the things to be "respected", democracy is not listed.... The CCP apparently would get to decide what aspects of Taiwan's way of life are "legitimate" - just as they get to decide both who is Chinese and what it means to be Chinese - and you can surely expect that any sort of non-approved belief or attempt at continued democracy or even basic freedom of speech would be construed a threat to "national security" and therefore "not legitimate". "Rights and interests" is too general a phrase both in Chinese and English to mean anything, other than what the CCP wants it to mean...

Therein lies the answer to how KMTers who "support democracy" square that with friendliness to China and openness to unification.

They "support democracy" in that they believe there should be elections, and that the people who get the most votes should win those elections. That's about it. Even in the mid-20th century, the KMT held elections. Some of the local ones were actually competitive, in a sense. History shows that it's not necessarily an incongruous thing to believe as one supports an overarching authoritarian framework.

Under what structure those elections are "allowed" to take place is the question. For these KMTers, fake democracy will suffice. After all, they've joined the party that did fake democracy for decades, and then (wrongly) took credit for actual democracy! They are currently members of a party that has attempted to use lies, rather than platform-based campaigning, to win elections, and did not quit because of it. Even before the Hong Kong protests, they looked at Hong Kong's fake democracy and seemed to think "yeah, that'll do".

Fortunately, most Taiwanese can tell the difference between real democracy and the Diet version. They look identical but when you actually imbibe them, the core ingredients simply don't taste the same.

I bet some of the people pushing Taiwan in this direction can tell the difference too, but either their desire to be a "Chinese" party with a Chinese destiny overrides it (ie., democracy is of secondary importance), or they're sure that they personally stand to gain from unification under any system (they won't, but have probably been promised otherwise.)

Finally, it's worth bringing Leninism back into the discussion. Some of the old Leninist structures may no longer exist or hold any power, though the old patronage networks they engendered still exist. But one aspect of Leninist organization still seems to hold say in the KMT: democratic centralism. 

There may be KMTers who don't actually agree with the turn the party has taken, and who do understand that it goes against ideals they personally believe in. However, there's strong pressure within the party to 'fall in line' once an issue has been decided, and those who don't are punished (just look at what happened to Jason Hsu). There are ways to skirt that line, with tacit party blessing - see Wayne Chiang showing up to vote for one key provision in a same-sex marriage bill that the KMT had decided it would oppose, knowing that by the time he runs for Taipei mayor in 2022, treating LGBT people like people will be normalized. But openly opposing the "party consensus" after it has been reached? You're out.

This is true of most political parties, but the KMT seems to adhere to it more vigorously.

So, there may be KMT members who actually don't agree with their party's hard red turn, but they've decided that staying in the party and going along with it is more beneficial to them. Since they're comfortable building careers within a formerly authoritarian organization to begin with - one in which family connections matter more than talent, doing away with the notion that leaders are chosen based on merit - going along surely isn't as painful as it may seem from the outside.

Don't hold your breath, then, that anyone within the KMT will sound the alarm.

As a commenter on my earlier post pointed out, the KMT and CCP are like the Yankees and the Red Sox. They have different team colors and appeal to different demographics, but there's no actual difference between them - they're both playing the same game. Each one's fans claim to hate the other, but they all love the game, and they'll both gang up on people who don't want to play at all.

Ideologically, there is no longer much difference between the KMT and CCP - only rivalry over who should 'win'. Even in baseball, players are traded every season. It's all just a game. If the stronger team sees the benefit of helping out the weaker one to keep the World Series from being cancelled, it makes sense that the weaker team would be likely to accept.

It's really not that weird. 

Please, sir, I want some more.

Photo: screen grab from the 60 Minutes interview

If you’re watching Taiwan-centric social media, you’ll know that Bernie Sanders was finally asked about Taiwan, in an interview with Anderson Cooper.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Ring the bells in celebration!

Truly, every candidate should be asked this. I would very much like to hear Warren and Buttigieg’s answers. 

Sanders' reply was encouraging:

Cooper: If China took military action against Taiwan, is something you would...? 

Sanders: It's something...yeah. I mean I think we have got to make it clear to countries around the world that we will not sit by and allow invasions to take place, absolutely.

This is good - or at least, good enough. It’s enough that I could vote for him with confidence if he gets the nomination, a future which looks increasingly likely. 

However, it seems like Taiwan advocates and allies are perhaps reading a bit too much into what Sanders actually said. Headlines like "US will take military action" aren't helpful - he didn't say that. He said the US would "make it clear" and "not sit by", which is not necessarily the same as a military response. I understand that there's not a lot to go on when divining answers to US presidential candidates' views on Taiwan, but this reads to me as thirsty people in a desert thinking everything is water. Interpreting it too much is about as useful as reading an oracle bone.

Though my overall take on the US election vis-a-vis Taiwan leans pessimistic, I have been thinking that regardless of the candidates’ histories, all of the senators in the race - Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar - have voted for legislation that either chastises China (the Uighur and Hong Kong human rights acts) or actively supports Taiwan (the Taiwan Travel Act and TAIPEI Act) in the past few years. That’s good news, and it shows that it’s possible to envision a Trump-free US that still supports Taiwan. 

I also love hearing the cries of millions of Bernie supporters, the ones who’ve gone half-tankie and extremely against US engagement abroad (because to them the US is always evil in every situation and in fact is the only font of evil in the world, the CCP cannot be evil because it’s not the US, QED) hearing clearly that their candidate has a realistic foreign policy vision. 

They are music to my ears. 

However, I have questions. 

First, what changed since 2011 when Sanders voted against selling F-16s to Taiwan, and 1997 when he voted against missile defense? Those were measures that could have helped Taiwan defend itself. I understand that viewers might not be that interested in the answers to such detailed questions on Taiwan, but I do wish Cooper had challenged him on this. I’d very much like to know his answer. 

A friend pointed out that in those years he hadn’t had to articulate a clear foreign policy vision. Now that he must do so, he’s had to really think about what that might look like, and his ultimate conclusions might break with his past views. I can appreciate that, but I really would like to know Sanders’ actual response. 

Second, Sanders mentions US engagement abroad as part of an alliance or coalition of allies: 

I believe the United States, everything being equal, should be working with other countries in alliance, not doing it alone.

Great. Theoretically, I absolutely support this. It’s good for Taiwan as well. A single, powerful, ideological enemy of China with an extremely poor reputation regarding military engagements abroad standing up for Taiwan alone could give China something to twist into a pretext for invasion. An alliance of liberal democratic nations standing up for Taiwan would be more likely to help Taiwan achieve its goal of recognized, de jure sovereignty (as the Republic of Taiwan) with less risk.

But what happens if other liberal democracies and natural allies of Taiwan and its cause don’t stand up with the US in the face of Chinese invasion? Does that mean we let Taiwan be annexed? 

The UN is in China’s pocket - any coalition would have to take place outside that framework. Europe (with perhaps a few exceptions) is weaker on China than the US, almost certainly to their detriment. Australia feels practically like a Chinese vassal state, and New Zealand’s prime minister might be great in other ways, but she’s not strong on China. I honestly think Canada is a coin flip - one day chummy with China, the next calling for Taiwan’s inclusion in the WHO. Japan, possibly - they’ve been expanding their fighting capability in recent years, but overall don’t they lack an offensive military force? Anyone else in Asia? Probably not. 

What does the US do if it can’t get a coalition together? Wash its hands of its best friend in Asia? 

What happens when American liberals and lefties - his support base - wring their hands because the world has not stepped up as we’d hoped, and say the US should not get involved because nobody stands with them? Does Sanders listen, or does he do what’s right anyway? Does he understand that standing with Taiwan is fundamentally different from other conflicts the US has been criticized for in the past?

In short, "we need a coalition of liberal democracies" is only a great solution if it is likely to actually happen. And I'm not at all sure it is likely. So what then?

Again, I wish Cooper had asked this. 

Lastly, I have to wonder what this means for “us” - the Taiwan allies and supporters. Yes, it’s great news. 

But, Sanders is clearly not going to support Taiwan unilaterally standing up for itself, or a change in the ROC colonial framework. He probably understands that Taiwan’s fight for sovereignty has already been won, the question is recognition. But I doubt he has too much interest in changing that, and if he did, it certainly wouldn’t help him in the election to say so. 

While I agree in theory that diplomacy is always a better answer, it does feel like “diplomacy” has been something conducted by high-level officials alongside foreign interests, which seeks to avoid conflict by creating and extending the existence of quagmires - swamps of intractable situations that suck to live in, but “at least it’s not war”. These negotiators, especially the foreign interests, don’t actually have to live in the morasses they create. They don’t have to live in Palestine, Taiwan, Kashmir. So it doesn’t matter that much to them if the quagmires persist, and they might even begin to call them “beneficial for both sides” (as Andrew Yang did). They might even believe it. 

It’s one thing to be resigned to a slow resolution to avoid a war. It’s another to forget that the resolution process isn’t actually the goal, and start viewing it as a permanent feature of the geopolitical landscape - a swamp we’ve convinced ourselves cannot, or should not, be drained. To convince ourselves that those who live in the swamp actually like it that way.

I do wonder, then, whether Sanders’ Asia policy vision — which I admit is realistic, and generally palatable — is another form of “let’s let the Taiwan quagmire sit awhile”. 

On top of that, China is not a trustworthy negotiating partner. They make agreements, yes, and then immediately ignore them. They bully and pretend to be offended. The only way to win against their tactics is not to play. I think Sanders may understand that, but I’m not sure.

On a related note, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how my own uncompromising vision of the future - a globally-recognized Republic of Taiwan - squares with what is diplomatically possible. 

Along with that, I’ve been thinking about language: whether Taiwan allies are beginning to show a worrying trend towards self-censorship - asking for less than Taiwan deserves, because articulating our actual goals could “anger China”. Begging for crumbs when we all know Taiwan deserves a whole meal. 

“Sanders is unlikely to support an end to the ROC framework” is simply realistic; I don’t necessarily agree with him, but I can’t argue with it as an accurate description of his probable Taiwan policy. 

“Don’t ask for diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, it could provoke China”, however, perhaps edges up against the line of adopting China-approved language. “Don’t say that, it could sound sinophobic” does too. Some language is sinophobic, but there are instances when it isn’t — rather realistically describing CCP actions or simply stating a strong pro-Taiwan position — yet could be seen as anti-China by someone looking to take offense.

I understand that my big-picture vision of Taiwan is not immediately diplomatically possible, and that what strong Taiwan allies articulate for the country’s future sounds scary to some. But, the Chinese government absolutely wants us to be terrified of sounding “China-hating” (when we’re not - we’re pro-Taiwan). They want to paint Taiwanese who are justifiably angry at China’s treatment of them as extremist, xenophobic, nativist splittists. They want us to clip our own wings and curtail our own wishes so that we might not ask for everything Taiwan actually deserves. It helps them if we genuflect and kowtow for crumbs rather than the whole meal, so they can scream and cry that we’re getting even some crumbs. 

I’ll vote for Sanders and his “status quo” take on Taiwan - and yes, it is a status-quo take, just dressed up in prettier language — because it is nudging the Overton window in the right direction. I’ll take it. Warren is still preferable, but this is acceptable.

But, please, I want some more. 

There are many paths to a recognized and decolonized Taiwan, and diplomacy will always move more slowly than we’d like it to. We should all very much appreciate the slow process of moving the line, so that more and more space for Taiwan becomes available. I personally don’t care to hear, however, that we should not clearly articulate the final goal, because it could provoke China or scare the architects of the swamp. Let’s all recognize that Sanders’ views on Taiwan are acceptable for now, but no more than that.

Basically, we can't forget that there is a difference between pushing for a realistic policy accomplishment or incremental push forward in the discourse, and the actual end goal, and there is a line between advocating for what is realistic (crumbs), and insisting on what Taiwan deserves (the whole meal). 

In the end, when figuring out what we actually want, it’s better not to limit our wish lists to procedural goals or interim solutions. The big-picture wish list should include a full vision of Taiwan existing confidently as Taiwan, and nothing less. Those of us with actual power (so...not me) can work on incremental change, but the general supporters? People like me? Let’s perhaps not convince ourselves that it’s dangerous to ask for too much. 

Sometimes Taiwan's problem isn't global ignorance - it's China-appeasing malice

From Twitter account Star Trek Minus Context

Until fairly recently, I had a friendly acquaintance. We'd met in person; he wasn't just a Facebook 'friend'. After all I've written about Taiwan, all I've said, all the articles I've posted, he would still make "jokes" asking me about my life "in China". He once referred to my city as Chinese Taipei. I kept asking him to stop, but did not immediately cut him loose, because I knew he was joking and was perfectly aware that Taiwan wasn't China. Wrongly, I believed that if I could convey to him that these jokes weren't funny and only served to irritate me, he'd understand that and stop. He didn't, I got sick of it and unfriended him.

I'm telling you that story for a reason.

In recent weeks, at least three countries have banned (or temporarily banned) Taiwanese travelers over coronavirus fears. These bans weren't directed specifically at Taiwan, but rather included Taiwan in China. Joining Italy and Vietnam (the latter banning Taiwanese travelers only for a brief period), the Philippines is now including Taiwan in Chinese travel bans.

“If you look at the WHO map and the number of cases that they have, Taiwan is included in China. Since we have a temporary travel restriction and ban on China, then Taiwan is included,” Domingo said in a press briefing.

Once again, everything I said about the Vietnam travel ban also applies to the Philippines:

I want to be very clear here: I don't think the dingbats who made these decisions actually believe Taiwan is a part of China. At best it's highly unlikely. Consider the cultural, economic and geographic ties between Vietnam and Taiwan, as well as a fair amount of well-publicized controversy surrounding these ties. There's just no way that Vietnamese policymakers don't know that Taiwan is a thing.

More likely, the airhead bureaucrat who made these decisions either simply doesn't care, or is perfectly aware that Taiwan is separate from China with a separate (and more effective) healthcare system and far fewer confirmed coronavirus cases, but doesn't want to anger China. So they use this exclusion from international organizations and their own country's lack of official recognition as cover for their bad decisions, thinking they're doing the right thing by keeping China happy. 

With all of the connections, both historical and current, that Taiwan and the Philippines have - they're right next to each other! - there is simply no way that Eric "Douchesack" Domingo does not know that Taiwan is not a part of China. Probably part of his job is keeping up on health-related issues in connection with all of the Filipino workers who come to Taiwan. If not his job, then someone under him. 

He knows. He just doesn't care. He's not ignorant; he's making a choice. 

Sometimes ignorance really is the issue. I've met American exchange students in Hong Kong who truly believed that the Chinese government extended to Taiwan. I have relatives who thought Taiwan was not a democracy until I set them straight. I still get mail from people I know that put my address in China. Websites that list Taiwan as a "Province of China" often don't realize that they're using a pre-fab list that says this, and many are happy to fix it if asked nicely. In those cases, it makes sense to patiently and non-judgmentally start a conversation about Taiwan so that they might know more about the issue and reconsider their previous assumptions.

But sometimes, especially at the government and international organization level, the choice to treat Taiwan badly is not made out of ignorance. It's pure China-appeasing malice.

ICAO knows perfectly well that China doesn't control Taiwanese airspace. The WHO isn't stupid (well, they are, but not in this way)  - they are likewise aware. The UN knows Taiwan exists. Italian officials may not be so aware of Asian geography, but certainly Vietnam and the Philippines are quite cognizant that Taiwan's government is not the same as China's. IELTS and TOEFL both know it too. The Lancet is not staffed by morons, they definitely know, and yet they defend themselves with this crap, and people who should know better actually buy it (a fallacious appeal to authority does not outweigh the fact that Taiwan's health care system is different from China's, period).

These people are choosing to feign ignorance, and the result is intentional cruelty and decisions that do more harm than good.

In such cases, an approach of "oh, they must be misinformed" is simply not going to work. Raising awareness is great, when directed at people around the world - the news consumers - who truly don't realize anything is amiss. But thinking that you'll convince Eric Domingo, the WHO or people like them by making a case aimed at raising their knowledge level is doomed to fail - because the problem that needs to be addressed is not a lack of knowledge.

I will reiterate: it's this guy's actual well-paid real job that he is really supposed to do, and do well, for real money to know the public health situation of countries where such issues might affect the Philippines. Of course it is his job to know that Taiwan has exemplary public health, rather than lean on the fallacy of "what the WHO says". It's possible that he's completely unfit for the role, but I doubt it.

He's not stupid. He's an asshole. You can't convince an asshole with "clarification" or sincere discussion, because they are not interested in being informed (or letting on that they already are). 

My husband said once: 

Pro-Taiwan person on Twitter: Taiwan has fascinating history and politics and I encourage you to learn all about it

Pro-PRC person on Twitter: if Taiwan’s not part of China then why is it the Republic of *CHINA*

— Brendan AE (@AnimalExtender) January 22, 2020

And that's really it. A pro-Taiwan position is predicated on knowledge. People come to Taiwan's side because they learned more. An anti-Taiwan position (that is, any Taiwan position espoused by China) is predicated on remaining ignorant - you can only stay that way if you don't learn about Taiwan's fascinating and unique history and political situation and just invoke repeated, yet fallacious, appeals to authority until the other side gets tired.

At some point, that's a choice, especially when it is your job to know better.

Taiwan advocates have a really great hammer. We might call it Thor's Hammer, but it's really more like Cassandra's Hammer. Cassandra's Hammer works just as well as Thor's Hammer, except nobody believes that it can do the things it does. (Also, it earns 77% of what Thor's Hammer gets for doing the same job.)

That hammer is knowledge - we know the history of this country. We know why it's unique. We know, in painstaking detail, why and how it is different from China. We understand that these are facts: That Taiwan's health system is different from China's is a fact. That Taiwan's government is not the same as China's is a fact. That data consistently show that Taiwanese people want to keep it that way is a fact. That we are not overwhelmed with coronavirus as China is...well, unfortunate for China, but also a fact. These facts are not up for debate, and they form a powerful - I'd say unassailable - argument. 

When you have a hammer like that, every problem really does look like a nail. You want to inform, educate and clarify because you have a great tool for it.

That's important - raising awareness among people who truly don't know plays such a crucial role. I will never say we should stop doing it - in fact, we should do it with patience, humility and joy.

Did I mention patience?

But not everything is a nail. You can't win someone to your side with "clarification" and "awareness raising" if they are already clear and aware, but are choosing to be a douchesack anyway. You're trying to solve a problem they don't have.

I don't know how to fix the issue of intentionally harmful decision-making aimed more at the political expediency of appeasing China than actually doing the right - and most effective - thing by including Taiwan, as itself, in international affairs.

Call them out? It works to some degree - that's how we got ICAO to stop mass-blocking anyone who mentioned Taiwan and got some online participation at the WHO. It sure feels like cold leftovers when we deserve a full seat at the table, though.

Unfriend them, like I did with that guy on Facebook? I'd sure like to see Taiwan say to the Philippines, "okay, if you think we're China, please send all work applications for Filipinos coming to Taiwan to Beijing and see how that works out", but the fact is that we need to stay on good terms with other countries in the region. (It would also hurt workers who are just trying to earn a living).

Continue to push persistently, refusing to be gaslit by their feigned ignorance, while cultivating 'establishment' allies who can get things done for Taiwan? Sure, but it's a slow process.

The work is brutal and the road is unclear. I don't have any better solutions. But it must be done. 

The CCP's mind tricks are working better on the West than on China right now

Found on Twitter from user AlexTheBullet (I don't know the origin of the image)

Chinese people: The Chinese government has been thoroughly incompetent at handling coronavirus!

The Chinese Communist Party: We are doing an excellent job.

The rest of the world, including the WHO: You are doing an excellent job, also these are not the droids we’re looking for

Watching the coronavirus horror unfold in China, I’m acutely aware that I’m close by geographically but worlds away politically and in terms of public health and safety - and those differences are the only thing keeping those of us in Taiwan safe.

It also means that in Taiwan, people generally have access to what’s going on in both China and the West. Information from the latter is freely available and increasingly accessible. At the same time, many Taiwanese have friends or family in China, many of whom are currently waylaid in Taiwan. Speaking a mutually intelligible language (mostly), they have a better idea of what is going on in China than most Westerners, for whom ‘China’ is much further away geographically, historically, relationally and linguistically. 

It should be obvious that Taiwan, alongside Hong Kong, is one of the most informative places from which to observe the nexus of knowledge, belief and awareness in both China and abroad. 

And what I am seeing now is truly astounding. 

Alongside the unfolding of a national tragedy, China is also experiencing a brief window in which freedom of speech is somewhat possible. And if you listen, what you hear is a furious outcry - the howl of a nation. 

From my Wechat Moments:

"现在你我都知道了，杀死我们的并不是蝙蝠。“

"Now we all understand, it's not the bats that are killing us."#2019nCoV

— Frankie Huang 🐯 (@ourobororoboruo) February 6, 2020

And this:

Checking my Wechat Moments (the equivalent of a Facebook feed in China) this morning: It's almost entirely posts about Li Wenliang, the whistleblow Wuhan doctor who died of coronavirus. This appears over and over:

"A healthy society should not have only one voice." pic.twitter.com/X9vOqzP5JJ

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) February 7, 2020

People in China - many of them, anyway - know that the coronavirus epidemic has been mishandled from the top down and is still not being handled well, that their leaders (whom they never chose) are throwing each other under the bus, that that Xi Jinping is missing in action and that the initial outbreak was mishandled and covered up so spectacularly that it (at least partially) exacerbated the spread of the disease. They are fully aware that Li Wenliang - who was not a dissident - was reprimanded for warning a private WeChat group of his fellow medical school alumni about the danger, and that he can be credited as one of the early voices to speak out about the disease.  Li recently died, and the government (so it seems) half-heartedly attempted to cover it up - and it’s causing an absolute meltdown on Chinese social media.

The replies demanded of Dr. Li when he was reprimanded - that he "was clear" and "could" follow the government's orders - have been given life as a form of protest:

你能做到吗？你听明白了吗？ https://t.co/c1h1Z7MCOB

— 桃味冬日饺子 (@ViolaInJuly) February 7, 2020

They also know that the government data on the disease can’t be trusted. 

And they know this because so many of them have known all their lives that the CCP is built on repression and lies, but have chosen until now to survive and endure rather than speaking out and going to jail, or worse. 

Compare that to what I’m seeing from the rest of the world, especially the West. It’s like some sort of Jedi - well, I suppose Sith - mind trick. 

Despite the international news reporting on the death of Li Wenliang, the consensus seems to be that the CCP is doing “everything they can” to stop the epidemic and that their response has been “great” and “transparent”. The WHO has praised China's response, as well. In China, people know that when you officially reprimand those who issue early warnings, that’s not transparency. Some are even saying that criticism of the Chinese government response is Sinophobic or anti-China. While there have been racist incidents against Chinese people - and that is obviously wrong - it is not Sinophobic to criticize a government.

This is despite international media (finally) starting to report on how badly they are actually doing:

This wonder at China’s logistical prowess is symptomatic of a recurrent trope among western commentators. We might call it the “if we could just be China for a day” view....

But when it comes to a public health epidemic, there are worrying limits to the Chinese Communist party’s control. To maintain authority, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) must convince the public that everything is going to plan. This hampers its ability to respond to epidemics....

People are praising the “hospital built in 10 days” (which I suspect plenty of Chinese people realize is a cross between a farce and a death camp - you wouldn't need to build a hospital that fast if you had dealt with the outbreak appropriately in the first place). All the old cliches are coming out: they sure know how to get things done (except for initial containment of the outbreak, I suppose), they’re taking such decisive action (which they hadn’t done before). From the link above, this guy is quoted in the BBC:

"China has a record of getting things done fast even for monumental projects like this," says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations....

"The engineering work is what China is good at. They have records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to imagine. It can be done," he added.

I see numerous comments echoing this trash online.

They’re praising China’s health care system (this is just one example), even though it’s failing, and spectacularly, too. It seems a fair number of Westerners have believed for some time that China had universal or accessible public health care” simply because China calls itself “communist”. It does not.

They are talking about that ridiculous Bloomberg article about how “China sacrificed a province to save the world” as though it was some sort of heroic act and not the tragic consequences of endemic incompetence and corruption in a government ill-prepared to deal with this crisis. And if you think public figures aren’t quoting that nonsense, oh, they are: 

The fatality rate in Wuhan is 4 percent; outside Hubei province it’s .17 percent.

Without any democratic input China sacrificed the 50 million residents of one province in order to save the rest of the rest of the world. What a decision https://t.co/tDa9DGe5e7 pic.twitter.com/aRLRrnIHWZ

— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) February 6, 2020

To be fair I think he meant this to be somewhat critical? It's unclear.

Of course, while one might be able to try and justify the locking down of the epicenter, this is what Chinese social media is asking - and the West apparently is not: if the government has been doing such an excellent job, how did it get to the point that they needed to lock down several other cities and put a huge chunk of the economy essentially on hold? Was it necessary, or is it a massive overreaction? We have no idea which it is - and isn’t that even scarier?

Worse still, the international media is taking government data as gospel, which people in China know right now not to do. We don’t know what the fatality rate is because nobody knows how many people died before being diagnosed because they couldn’t get care. China keeps reporting “2.1%”, a number I don’t think anyone in China believes. We have no idea how contagious it is, either. We know nothing.

神奇的病毒，还是个数学高手
1月30日：170死/确诊7821=2.1%，
1月31日：213死/确诊9800=2.1%，
2月1日：259死/确诊11880=2.1%，
2月2日：304死/确诊14401=2.1%，
2月3日：361死/确诊17238=2.1%，
2月4日：429死/确诊20471=2.1%，
2月5日：493死/确诊24441=2.1%
2月6日：564死/确诊28605=2.1%

— 李隽 (@juanli324) February 6, 2020

If the CCP is doing such an excellent job, how is it that China-watchers in Asia are openly wondering if this will be the crisis - not just of public health, but of public fury - that brings down the CCP?

CCP's persecutions, lack of transparency, and its management of the #coronavirus could be the last straw to break the camel's back. The oppression & anger people have felt for decades is coming to the fore. Please, may change come for the good of China.https://t.co/G67g5Fhh4p

— Roy Ngerng (@royngerng) February 7, 2020

It’s like some sort of demented hypnosis. The media is waking up, but I'm shocked that the commentary has been so...so...tankie.

How did the CCP manage to dupe so many people abroad, when their own citizens after years of forced indoctrination seem to (mostly) know better? How is it that people outside China seem more susceptible to authoritarian propaganda than the people educated since birth to support that system? How is it that the rest of the world seems to put faith in Chinese state media - which is known for spouting government lines rather than the truth  - while being completely oblivious to - or simply ignoring - a billion furious people?

It's like they all read and believe this junk rather than actually listening to people in China who have a brief flicker of an opportunity to speak out.

And those same Westerners are probably patting themselves on the back for being aware of the crisis in China and sympathetic to the Chinese people - whose voices they ignore in favor of state-peddled lies. I don’t think they realize the level of vitriolic, potentially incendiary outrage brewing in China against the very government they praise from a distance.

Truly, it amazes me. 

In China and the region, we know that the biggest danger isn’t coronavirus, or isn’t only that. Far scarier is knowing that we can’t trust the government tasked with combating the epidemic. At all.

As Chinese citizens are showing the world that they don't buy the CCP's crap when it comes to coronavirus, the world seems to be saying "more crap, please!" The death of Dr. Li might turn that tide, but with the WHO expressing condolences, after praising the government that silenced him and not seeing the irony of it all, and then backtracking to say they "had no information" (!!!), I'm not sure.

I wish the rest of the world would realize it too.