Dear International Journalism on Taiwan: I fixed all your bullshit headlines for you

I woke up this morning elated for Taiwan, and annoyed at the headlines dominating international news coverage. Editors around the world were clamoring over each other to choose the most asinine angle to introduce the results of the Taiwanese elections. 

If these editors festering behind news desks are to be believed, Taiwan is a recalcitrant teen -- a very naughty boy -- defying the will of stern parental figure China. Taiwanese don't care at all about the threat of looming war and are basically taking a "fuck you, Dad, I do what I want!" approach to international diplomacy. As Taiwan slams the door to its room and blasts goth rock while smoking out the window, all the neighbors tut tut because they're "concerned about that kid's future" -- seemingly not noticing that the parental figures are abusive and cruel. It's a lot harder to help get someone out of an abusive situation than it is to worry that they're provoking their abuser.


                                      


Obviously, this is stupid. China isn't Taiwan's parent, and has no say in what Taiwan does. At worst, you might consider Taiwan an adult that's gone low-contact with abusive stepparents and is fully capable of managing their own affairs.

In other words, if Taiwanese voters, who have front-row seats to the Beijing hissy fit and have the missiles pointed at them (dear editors: do you have missiles pointed at you?) understand that appeasing Beijing simply will not work, why can't these major news outlets see it?

Taiwanese voters showed that they, unlike most of the world, correctly gauge the threat posed by China, and understand that accepting the terms of a country that wants to subjugate them simply does not work. They, unlike these editors, consider their own election to be about their polity, their country and their future -- not one dictated by China. 

They understand that a temporary "peace" attained through telling Beijing what it wants to hear -- essentially, we accept the concept that Taiwan is part of China -- won't work. First of all, it's a lie, and Beijing probably surmises as much. Second, it won't be possible to keep up that charade for long. What do all of these "oh my god, it's so provocative" types think is going to happen when China starts pushing for meaningful steps to integration which the Taiwanese public does not want? 

Because whatever it is, it won't be peace. If Beijing doesn't realize that Taiwanese don't think they're Chinese now, they eventually will. And then what?

The only solution, therefore, is to run their country as they see fit and hold the line with China. There simply isn't another way.

Yes, it's a shame that the opposition is either incoherent (the TPP) or are run by filthy unificationists. I would love to see a healthy opposition to the DPP that wasn't a fully bought and paid-for subsidiary of the CPP, and who also had a cohesive ideology, vision and set of policy proposals. 

It would be fantastic if this were a wake-up call to the KMT that they might continue to dominate locally, but they will struggle to win national elections if they continue to push the narrative that Taiwan is China culturally, historically and/or politically (whether through ROC patriotism or bare-faced unificationism). 

I doubt it though. Their internal philosophy is still heavily dominated by Ma Ying-jeou, and that guy lives in another world. Someone needs to buy him a watercolor set and a nice cardigan. Sit him down in a rocking chair and be like "okay grandpa, yes I know, uh huh, Taiwan bad, okay so why don't you paint a nice picture about it, hmmm? There you go. No no, you sit and relax. Let me get you your pills." 

If the TPP could step up and be a true "beyond blue and green" or "beyond cross-strait tensions" opposition, well, I'd love to see what would happen there. But I doubt it, as long as they're a one-man party run by a misogynist third-rate manfluencer whose only coherent ideology is "ME!" 

Anyway, I'm just ranting now.

Truly, the international media has taken great strides in how it reports on Taiwan. With some fumbles, the Taiwan-based reporters are improving on the work of their predecessors who used to parachute in, write garbage and leave. I don't see "split in 1949" nonsense that often anymore, and I haven't spotted a "renegade province" in some time.

Some pieces are genuinely good, like this one in the Financial Times (as usual, ignore the headline). It's nice to read an article and have no notes.

I'm still disappointed in the majority of think-tank analysis, but I suspect it will always be thus. 

The editors who write these headlines, though? 

They didn't just fumble. They took a Lalique vase, filled it with moonshine, drank the moonshine, barfed the moonshine back up into the vase, then threw the vase against the wall so that the barf and shards spattered everywhere, including on them. Then they shat themselves for good measure. 

Anyway, their work is trash and I hope the good reporters who also get hit with flecks of their barf shards will tell them so. 

Or maybe the gods can give them hangnails for every shitty headline they write. Nothing worse than that, I'm not a monster. Won't kill them but maybe will help them re-think their poor life choices. 

Truly, this is a reverse vision board of terrible ways to lead an article about Taiwan.

 

It's OK to not love China

     Flame me if you want, but I will never add an "I love China, but" to any of my opinions

I have to get something off my chest. A dark confession, the opposite of what I feel is expected of me. You see, as much as I feel expected to say otherwise, I don't love China. 

When favorably discussing Taiwanese independence, sovereignty or identity, or saying anything negative about the CCP, it seems as though so many people feel the need to insert a little "I love China, but..." or "I deeply love the people and culture of China, however..." Sometimes this is a single sentence header; sometimes it stretches out to cover an entire paragraph detailing some positive experience or perspective on China as a country, to emphasize the differentiation of the nation and people from the government. 

Here are just a few random examples from a quick search:

That's all fine, if you truly "love China" no one should stop you from saying so, but I don't love China. 

I certainly understand this, however. I've even engaged in it. One doesn't want to imply dislike or hatred of a group of people, or aim derision at an entire nation in all its complexities. Of course, engaging in "Screw China!" rhetoric is fundamentally racist, when China is a vast, complex nation full of everyday people who don't deserve to be lumped in with their genocidal government. 

Nobody actively insists this is a necessary addition to what one really wants to say, but I see it so often and feel compelled to include it. The consequence is often being labeled a "China-hater" (China as in the country, not the government) or worse, of perpetuating anti-Asian hate. Of course, tankies, aggressive Han supremacist trolls and CCP shills (both paid and unpaid) will accuse pro-Taiwan advocates and CCP critics of all of this anyway, but it feels like a necessary preliminary step to defend oneself.

But here's the thing. 

I truly don't love China. 

I've felt unspoken pressure to preface pro-Taiwan advocacy or criticism of the brutal, genocidal, authoritarian CCP with exhortations that are simply not sincere. And there's a strong likelihood that I'll attract criticism for simply being honest about this. 

Let's be clear: I don't hate China, either. I certainly don't hate Chinese citizens.  It's ridiculous to hate a whole nation -- no place, especially not one so large, complex and diverse in cultures, languages and history, could possibly deserve an opinion so simplistic and dismissive.

As someone who has lived in China and returned several times since, I simply have no specific affection for the country. Although I can never know what it's like to be Chinese or be a PRC citizen, I've experienced some version of life in China, and not in the big east coast cities (I've visited those, but my actual life there was in Guizhou). That experience resulted in mixed feelings.

Chinese histories -- the many histories of the regions now considered China -- are fascinating. The many cultures of China are, too. I've fallen out of love with the Mandarin language, but am enthusiastic about learning Taiwanese. Clearly Sinitic languages are of great interest to me. There are plenty of astounding things to see in China. I've seen them and been astounded. To touch on more everyday matters, the food is great (usually -- it's not always prepared well, as in any country) and the people are generally pretty nice. Daily life, at least for an expat, was fairly safe when I lived there.

But you know what else I experienced in China? Horrendous misogyny, aimed not at me but at Chinese women I knew. Their stories aren't really mine to tell, but I am pretty sure this attitude isn't anecdotal. 

I may have felt safe enough on the streets, .but I didn't feel the same way expressing any kind of opinion. That included fairly anodyne ones like "I think Taiwanese should get to decide if they want to be part of the PRC", which isn't even close to the pro-independence diehard that I am today. In contrast to Taiwan where one can freely discuss 228 or the White Terror, I never mentioned Tiananmen Square, because I knew I couldn't. Mail sometimes arrived pre-opened. People occasionally told me controversial opinions, such as "I was at Tiananmen Square so I know how fucked up things are", "We're not allowed to fully practice Uyghur culture, they are our oppressors" and "I'd like to protest the government but they'd just kill us." 

I kept those confessions to myself while in China -- what other choice was there?

That's not even getting into how sick the pollution made me, multiple times, nor the trouble of accessing actual international news. 

There were so many reasons why I chose to leave at the end of my year in China, but stuck around in Taiwan. My first six months in Taiwan were rough, but I felt a budding affection for the country which only grew. In China, that feeling never came.

In fact, the part of China I liked most was East Turkestan (known to some as Xinjiang), where people don't like the CCP, aren't Chinese and don't seem to really want to be part of China. I feel nothing but grief for what has happened there since my visit so many years ago. 

I've lived in four countries in my life -- the United States, China, India and Taiwan. I feel affection for India despite its flaws, and actually do love Taiwan. I chose to settle here, after all. My feelings about the US are more positive than about China, but I wouldn't say I "love" it. I can't say why China was my least favorite place to live, or why it didn't capture my affection in the same way as other places I've intentionally moved to. India is hardly perfect, and Taiwan has its negatives. But China just didn't do it for me.

Life there wasn't all all awful. There was good and bad, and those bad experiences above were balanced somewhat by positive ones. I made friends, began learning Mandarin, ate some amazing food, saw some stupendous scenic, cultural and historic sites. Very few experiences are all bad. And that's how I feel about China: good and bad.  

Honestly, regardless of what I think about any given government, I feel fairly neutral towards most countries. At best, I've enjoyed traveling in them and learning about them, but I wouldn't describe my emotions towards them as "love". I went to Sri Lanka and enjoyed it immensely, but that's about it. I went to Myanmar and had many positive experiences, but I wouldn't say I felt "love". Our honeymoon was a bus trip from Panama to Guatemala. It was amazing, and each country fascinating in its own way. But do I "love" Nicaragua? I wouldn't say so. I do care about people, but feel no clear need to love a country absent some specific yet ineffable catalyst.

Countries are countries -- they all have their good and bad points, some have more good than bad, and most have intractable problems but also things to like. People are also just people: most are good, many are nice, a few are rotten. That's true anywhere in the world you go. Even general safety is linked not to how "good" people are, but more to economic factors. 

So why, exactly, should I "love" China? What does it matter that I lived there? What does it matter that I live in Taiwan now? And what does it matter that I'm pro-Taiwan? I still don't have to "love" China in order to criticize it, and I'm sick of feeling tacit pressure to say I do. 

It feels like pre-emptive self-defense, as though one needs to justify supporting for Taiwan, Tibet or East Turkestan. As though one needs  a caveat in order to oppose the Uyghur genocide, or criticize the CCP. But I neither want nor need to prove myself, to add an insincere caveat, to speak the truth about other countries like Taiwan, and other cultures like Tibetan and Uyghur.

The case for Taiwan, among others, is just and right all on its own. It's time to stop falling over ourselves to proclaim "love" for China just because CCP shills will twist support for these causes into "anti-Asian hate" or "you're racist against Chinese people!" when that's simply not the case. 

I do hate the CCP: they certainly have no business running a country given all they've done to harm China (and then claim credit when they stop or reverse just some of the harm they themselves inflicted). They should be shunted out of existence. Xi Jinping should face charges before an international court for crimes against humanity and spend the rest of his life not as the dictator of the world's most populous country, but alone in a deep dark hole. I cannot describe the degree to which I loathe that government. 

But there are many governments I don't care for. Many run countries I like quite a bit, or feel neutrally toward! I appreciate Indian democracy but acknowledge the flaws of the Indian government (certainly I'm no fan of the BJP). The US government has some obvious problems. Taiwan has an admirable democracy but the government sometimes makes me feel like bashing my head against a wall. At least they're democracies, though. The CCP -- brutal, non-democratic but ultimately not the only factor in my feelings about China -- is an entirely different thing. 

But you know what? Whatever. I don't love China. I don't love China! It feels so freeing to just be honest about that. Living there had its upsides and drawbacks, but in the end the drawbacks outweigh the upsides, and I have no regrets about choosing never to return. I do miss things like 酸辣米皮 -- Guizhou-style hot and sour flat noodles. It's a shame I will probably never again see places I actually did love, such as East Turkestan, the Miao areas around Kaili, and Hong Kong. But I don't think China is a safe destination for public supporters of Taiwan. Oh well. 

I support Taiwan and Taiwanese independence. Taiwan is a country. Taiwan has a unique history and culture, and most Taiwanese do not identify as Chinese. China has no business claiming Taiwan and is absolutely in the wrong for threatening a bloody, violent war. Period. They are the provocateurs -- the only provocateurs. Not Taiwan, not the United States. 

That same government will tell you that this stance is akin to hating China as a country, which is essentially the same as anti-Asian racism. That is a lie, and I reject it. 

The CCP should fall, though nobody but the people of China can make that happen. I want only good things for Chinese citizens, but don't know how to support them. I wish I did. 

All of that is true, and also, I don't love China. 

Insider testimony: Asian Boss frustrated they couldn't find Taiwanese with their desired viewpoints, causing local video producer to "nope out"

Since my last post regarding the Asian Boss video "What do Taiwanese think of China?", I've been able to speak to someone who almost got involved in the project, only to pull out because he didn't want to be a "propaganda shill" and felt the work was "journalistically unethical". 

Here's a summary: Asian Boss didn't just decide to seek out a pro-KMT viewpoint and present that as a street interview. They did all of the filming but felt that the video had too many "green" (pro-Taiwan, wary of China) viewpoints, so they wanted another blue viewpoint "to give a balanced view". They didn't want just any deep blue perspective: they wanted it to be filmed in an area where young people hang out, and implied he wanted a younger-looking person to deliver this opinion. They did not want to spend any more time filming people that didn't have the opinion they were looking for, but rather to "pre-screen" interviewees and reject anyone who didn't have the desired political views.

In the end, it was too hard to find someone like that, so they went with 柴Sean你說, the Youtuber mentioned in the last post. 

How do I know all of this? I spoke with Christopher K. Young, the independent video producer they originally spoke to about obtaining such footage. He agreed to let me publish his story, with his name, to clarify exactly what happened with that video. 

Christopher is the admin of the Filmmaking: Taiwan Facebook group where one of the founders of Asian Boss first posted the request to film "an interview" on December 2nd. As he films with the requested equipment and can outsource projects to his own people, he also messaged the poster to discuss the project -- a field camera and reporter to "hit the streets for 5-6 hours" to get the desired interview.

 
Talent was suggested and a rate agreed upon, but there were caveats. Much of the rest of the conversation took place on a call. 

"I wasn’t just to hit the streets and take interviews. I was to only accept interviews with pro blue opinions. I told him I felt that was journalistically unethical and was going to put my reporter in the position of having to engage people in needless confrontation," Christopher told me. 

The person from Asian Boss said they already had "a bevy of green interviews and desired some blue interviews to give a balanced viewpoint," in Christopher's words.

Specifically, Christopher -- or the reporter he was going to send -- was being asked to pre-screen interviewees because they didn't want to pay for field time recording interviews they felt they couldn't use.

Christopher then suggested pre-arranged interviews, as asking a reporter to stand on the street asking passerby for interviews but saying they're no longer interested upon hearing the interviewees are green is "asking for a fight". 

Which is indeed true. Could you imagine standing on a street in any Taiwanese city (even Miaoli!) asking for vox pops on Taiwanese views of China but turning away anyone who offered up a viewpoint that wasn't pro-KMT or pro-China enough? 

They were asking for even more trouble given their other desired parameters for this interview. "I told him I could see if I could find such an interview in an oldies park or something," Christopher said, "but he’d heard of 西門 [Ximen, a popular LGBT-friendly area where Taiwanese youth might hang out] and wanted us to go there."

Again, can you imagine going to Young Gay Bar Central and saying 'hey I'd like some street interviews but only if you support the KMT'? Beyond the confrontations that would certainly ensue, could you imagine how bad that would look for you, and how unlikely success would be?

Asian Boss insisted, again in Christopher's words, that it "had to look like a street interview", at which point he turned down the project. 

"I noped out," he said.

"I told him I could tag the videos that have the opinions he was looking for, I can understand that, but that if no blue opinions could be found, that such would be representative of what Taiwan looked like from a political standpoint, especially considering the demographic he wanted me to mine," Christopher continued. 

That said, the decision not to work together was not entirely one-sided. " If I’m being completely fair, the decision to not work with one another was mutual," Christopher said.

"Ahead of the last call that we had, he claimed he was giving thought to his methodology and I therefore was on standby to see if how they were going to approach the video was going to align with my views on a journalistically ethical, or at least conversationally unconfrontational, interview process."

In my opinion, Christopher is exactly correct: if you go out and interview younger people, and what you get are mostly green-leaning opinions, then that's simply what people think. It would still be anecdotal, but without doing methodologically sound research with a sufficient sample size, it would be as close as a street reporter could possibly get to the truth. The consensus. The balance. 

Injecting something different into those results -- something you have to search for, even post on Dcard to beg for -- is manipulative. It's not balance: it's a false narrative positing that these views are more common among younger people than they actually are. 

"He and I were both clear that he was going to have to dig deep to find a young blue opinion and I was to make it look like a street interview, which I wasn’t okay with, so I passed," Christopher added. 

At that point, Asian Boss told him they were going to with the Youtuber they'd found, but would still like to hire his reporter to do the filming. He connected them and then removed himself from the situation.

When discussing this arrangement, Christopher added: "I even expressed to [my reporter] my doubts that things...were going to work out, and wanted to confirm whether or not she wanted to work with them on their own....I didn’t want it to cost her a paycheck based on adherence to my personal principles."

Presumably, that interview took place as 柴Sean你說 was indeed interviewed and the video came out as planned.

It was indeed shot outdoors and perhaps could have passed for an interview of a random pedestrian in a park, but it seems the reporter did their job too well, offering a higher-quality visual product than the other street interviews. 

That said, if something about the Youtuber stood out, it wasn't just that it was a better video, shot in good light at a flattering angle. His views truly are outside the mainstream, and he seemed all too ready to discuss them in eloquent detail. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't come prepared with a PowerPoint.

Now, you know how it happened. There's even some inkling as to why. What people actually think -- the general consensus among Taiwanese, especially the youth -- isn't "balanced" enough for Asian Boss. Instead, they feel the need to project a false narrative of what views are common or mainstream among this demographic and the populace in general. 

You can tell they were constructing that story themselves by some of their translations. For example,  Daniel Ku notes in his reaction video, they translate "unification" (統一) as "reunification", when that's not actually what the term means. 

In short, they didn't like that the spectrum of views they found in Taiwan leaned greener than they'd like, so they 'added' blueness to create the story they wanted to tell.

The story they wanted to tell. The viewpoint they wanted to disseminate. The spectrum, the range, the balance of views of average Taiwanese? That was all right there on the street for them to find. They rejected it in favor of their preferred narrative.

Asian Boss had two ethical choices here: go for a 'spectrum' regardless of how popular each view is and do clips from pre-arranged interviews, or do a true vox pop, where what you get is what you get. Doing the former would have required finding someone as fringe green as the Youtuber they found was blue. (Notably, they never tried to find such a person.)

Recruiting a dude because a vox pop didn't return your preferred story and presenting him as something he's not? Not cool. It stood out so much that I wonder if the people who ultimately approved the final product were even aware of how outside the mainstream their plant was.

Perhaps when you're getting high on your own supply of feel-good "balance", you don't recognize when you've gone so far off course that you've actually portrayed something inaccurate?

Christopher ended with this: "He sounded a lot like the speaker in the beginning of the video each time. Big platitudes about how balanced they want to be, that they hope their truth-seeking can in some way help avert war between the two countries...in each instance he was, in my opinion, telegraphing how unacceptable he knew their approach was going to sound."

That video was not an "accurate pulse" of what "ordinary people" think. It was not a neutral report of what they found when they "hit the streets of Taipei". 

And it was not the story Taiwanese actually want to tell -- at least not the ones they found by canvassing the streets. It was Asian Boss's sandcastle. 

Their story. Not Taiwan's.

What interpretations of "status quo" polls get wrong

Peer under the clouds and the valley is clear

I'm sure others will write on this in the coming days, but something's been on my mind and I have to unload it in long form. 

You know those polls asking Taiwanese citizens what they think about maintaining the status quo, independence or unification? A couple of them have come out recently, one from NCCU, commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council and one from the World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI). 

And I am here to tell you that while the data may be fine, interpretations of that data are almost always wrong. 

Interestingly, reporting of the MAC/NCCU poll doesn't seem to distinguish between maintaining the status quo and moving toward independence, deciding at a later date, or moving towards unification. The poll itself does so (look at Question 4). So what's up with the media? The MAC itself, the Taipei Times and Focus Taiwan all report "84.9%" of Taiwanese "support maintaining the status quo" with no further details offered. MOFA bumped that number up to "nearly 90%". I'm honestly not sure why, but my guess is that that's the line MAC wanted to put out there and the media reporting on it just followed their press release.

Previous NCCU polls differentiate as well. As of June this year, if you combine everyone who wants to maintain the status quo: indefinitely, with a decision at a later time, moving toward independence and moving toward unification, you get 83%, just slightly below this poll's results.

Those are very disparate views however: someone who wants to maintain the status quo but move toward independence (25.8% in the June poll) might agree on the "status quo" but their beliefs differ significantly in most other ways from someone who wants to move toward unification (an unimpressive 5.7%). "Move toward independence" is highly competitive with "maintain indefinitely" and "decide later", whereas "move toward unification" is down in the sewer. 

You simply cannot credibly combine those into the same set of beliefs, unless your bias and your goal are to push for maintaining the status quo and to mask what Taiwanese really think beyond that.

Despite not clarifying this, media reports do shed some light on the fact that for most Taiwanese, "the status quo" is a stand-in for we want peace, not war, and to maintain the sovereignty we already have. You can see this in the high agreement with Tsai's statements -- not perfect stand-ins for what Taiwanese actually, ideally want for their country but better than a lumpen status quo potato salad.

Most (77.1%) agree that neither China nor Taiwan have a claim on the others' territory, Taiwanese alone should get to decide Taiwan's future, Chinese annexation should be resisted, Taiwan's democracy maintained and Beijing's attitude toward Taipei was unfriendly. 85.6% don't support "one country two systems". 

Combined with the fact that most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, and those who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese prioritize Taiwanese identity, does this sound like a country that is actively choosing the status quo because it doesn't know what it wants, or a country that does know what it wants, but is deferring discussions on formal independence because de facto independence is sufficient given the threat from Beijing?

If this is a country that does know what it wants -- and it does -- why is there a continued insistence on forcing very disparate beliefs into one lumpen mess and claiming it as the "center" position? 

The actual center position is that Taiwan is already sovereign. In other words, unification (that is, annexation) is an extreme or fringe position, but trying to both-sides Taiwanese independence is straight-up wrong.

Taiwanese independence is a mainstream position. It is not remotely extreme. 

That's not my opinion. That's what the numbers say if you read them without blinders.

At first glance, the WUFI poll had somewhat different numbers. Moving toward independence and indefinite maintenance of the status quo were both near 40%. Independence as soon as possible was more popular than fast unification, at 7% and 1.8% respectively, and only 7% want to move towards unification. Most support using Taiwan as the name of the country despite threats from China, and most are in favor of diplomatic relations with the US. The only number that indicates much disagreement is the question of "just Taiwan" or "Taiwan and the Republic of China", which came in at about 40.5% and 30.9% respectively. It's not close, but the latter isn't swimming in the gutter alongside support for unification. 

What that means is that Tsai's re-imagining of what independence means is indeed the center position: that Taiwan doesn't need to declare independence because it's already independent, and its name is the Republic of China (the last bit of that being a current statement of fact, used to bridge the two perspectives). It certainly shows her "consensuses" in line with what Taiwanese actually think than the fabricated 1992 Consensus.

Back to the status quo: if you do the irresponsible thing and combine the numbers that all indicate some maintenance of the status quo -- despite their deeper ideological differences which should not be papered over -- you get approximately 87%, which isn't far off from the MAC/NCCU poll.

So okay, blah blah blah, lots of numbers. What's wrong with that?

Nothing, on the surface. The numbers are real. The desire to keep things as they are is real. However, they are often used to advance a line of thinking that simply doesn't match up with what all the other data tell us. 

I'm thinking not only of all those other questions that indicate a strong preference for maintaining sovereignty and resisting Chinese annexation, a general feeling that Beijing is unfriendly to Taiwan (which it is), a strong lean towards Taiwanese identity and using the name 'Taiwan' internationally.

It's also a question of what "the status quo" means, and under what conditions those questions are answered. 

An argument could be made that the questions themselves were constructed to push people toward answering "I prefer [some form of] the status quo" and then encourage the media to report that line. I know others will make that argument, so I won't as they can do it better. Besides, while it would be fairly easy to say that the Mainland Affairs Council is perhaps questionable, I doubt WUFI would intentionally construct questions that push for a specific kind of answer. And NCCU? As an institution they may lean blue but they've dutifully reported on the ascendance of Taiwanese identity for decades; I can't say they are intentionally engaging in academic chicanery.

In other words, I used to think the polls perhaps lacked basic construct validity. Maybe they do, but I'm going to back off that for now.

I feel quite comfortable, however, in calling out all the extraordinarily wrong interpretations of the data.  

There's the obvious question of what the status quo means to Taiwanese: as a friend pointed out, who could possibly look at the current situation -- the status quo -- and not consider it to be de facto independence? It's an answer that says "yes, I would like to maintain Taiwan's democratic government, institutions, borders, currency, military and society." In other words, a form of independence. As Tsai herself says: Taiwan doesn't need to declare independence because it is already independent.

The real news here is Taiwan wants to keep the sovereignty it already has. Does that not make for a sexy enough headline or something? Why is it always reported as "Taiwanese don't know", when that sort of data massage could get you a job in a Wanhua teahouse?

That should be clear from which "status quo" sub-sets have more respondents: almost nobody thinks the current situation is a holding pattern for possible unification. That's not my opinion, that's most Taiwanese saying -- in these numbers -- they don't want to move toward unification, now or ever. It's not an "undecided" and arguably, since democratization, it never was.

So why do people keep writing about it as though it's a big question mark, as though Taiwan is less decided on its desired outcome than it actually is? Even if the data are solid, why this off-the-wall interpretation of it?

I keep asking because I genuinely want to know why. 

We must also consider the conditions under which the questions are answered. With China insisting it will start a war if any move is made toward independence, and most people understandably not wanting a war, some version of "the status quo" makes sense, when the status quo offers both peace (of a sort -- our lives go on as usual but I'm not liking those warplanes either) and independence. It's an answer given under duress. Not by the pollsters, but the general atmosphere of Beijing's credible threats. 

It tells you a great deal about what Taiwanese want with a gun to their head, but nothing at all about what they ideally want for their country, if they could choose it without war clouds looming.

So why do people interpret it as some sort of freely-made final decision, not influenced by the threat of violent subjugation?

As one person commented, if you're asked whether you want to stay in jail or go free, most people will choose to go free. If told, "well, okay, but if you walk out the guard will take his best aim and probably kill you", your answer might differ considerably. The prisoner is no longer being asked what they want in an ideal situation.

One might say it doesn't matter: the Beijing war drums aren't slowing down, so there's no point in asking what Taiwanese would ideally want if they didn't have to contend with that. I disagree: it may be a hypothetical question, but it would get a lot closer to answering what Taiwan really wants for itself -- not just how the people react to a real external threat. 

Right now, people are interpreting the current results as exactly that -- what Taiwan really wants for itself -- when that is simply not what they indicate. It's just not. So stop showing your whole ass on this, please. All of you.

It's interesting, at least, that nobody seems to have asked this question that I know of, though the polls cited by Michael Turton comes pretty close. Like NCCU, the pollsters have their own ideological bias.

However, it does matter that when offered an ideal situation, most Taiwanese choose peaceful independence.

The closest we seem to get everywhere else are answers about how Taiwanese identify, how they want to participate in the international community, what they see as the name of the country, what they think of Chinese annexationism, and the differential between those who want to move towards independence vs. unification. None of these are a perfect stand-in, but they at least approach the question: is there a consensus on an ideal outcome for Taiwan?

And looking at those numbers, the answer is yes. And that ideal outcome is peace, with eventual independence. 

Repeat after me: 

Taiwan independence is a mainstream position.

Interpretations that say Taiwanese just don't know are harmful, unserious, ignorant and miss the point. Some intentionally so: there's a lot of institutional support for toeing the line at we want to maintain the status quo, please do not ask further questions thank you and good night. Some of it is well-meaning, an attempt to seem "nuanced" -- not in the good way, but in the both-sidesy fake-neutral way that the most pusillanimous analysts seem to adopt as a standard.

Consistently ignoring the contextual factors around these 'status quo' polls, applying odd assumptions to the questions actually asked and lumping together data that say far more when separated out is problematic.

It not only allows one to misconstrue what Taiwanese are accepting under duress as they actually want, it allows one to believe two very untrue things: that the KMT's position on China might be popular again given enough time, and that any talk of de jure sovereignty "angers" and "raises tensions" with Beijing, when Beijing is the antagonist -- not Taiwan. 

Neither of these things will ever be true, but if you believe Taiwanese don't know what they want and the only credible "center" position is an "undecided" despite all available data indicating otherwise, then believing those falsehoods becomes possible.

The dartboard is right there in the pub, most people in the pub are telling them exactly where the bullseye is, but their darts keep landing in the road outside.

I still want to know why.

Who should Taiwan open for?

For not quite two years now, Taiwan's borders have been closed to most people. In on-and-off policies, students, resident visa holders, foreign blue-collar labor, businesspeople and others have been permitted to enter...or not. Tourists have been firmly shut out. As the rest of the world (wisely or not) begins to re-open and "live with COVID", there's been debate about whether Taiwan should do the same. 

Some of this discussion has been quite reasonable: allowing students, family members of citizens and residents and people who have accepted jobs are all logical policies to support. Other points have been, shall we say, less trenchant -- for example, the push to let tourists back in. 

So, let me change the tone here and just lay it out. Yes, we should let family members -- especially spouses and children -- of both citizens and residents into Taiwan. Most spouses of citizens can now do so, but family members of non-citizen residents remain barred from entry. This is wrong. Quarantine and contact tracing have been fairly successful -- I see no reason not to let students and people with jobs waiting for them in as well. A special category of visa you can petition for if your situation gives you personal reasons to go to Taiwan can also be made available: for, example, unmarried partners, siblings and other family members.

Tourists, however? No. 

There was a recent article in The Guardian about this, but I don't want to focus on it. The discussion has been going on longer than that, and the attitude is widespread enough to merit a general response rather than a targeted breakdown. 

International tourism is a little over 4% of the economy. That's not nothing. I'm not saying the hotels, restaurants and tour businesses affected aren't important. But let's be honest -- it's a thin slice of what makes Taiwan hum. Even if Taiwan were more of a tourist-dependent place like, say, Bali, I'm not sure I'd be in favor of opening up. At such a small slice of what makes Taiwan go, however? Absolutely not.

Am I personally in favor of giving up a zero-COVID life and risking an outbreak in Taiwan so we can get that 4% or so humming again? No. Why should I? Why should anyone?

I'm sorry, hotels in Kenting, but I'm not  willing to give up the more or less normal life we can now have in Taiwan so that you can get more customers. I am certainly not willing to risk my health for it! I don't think many people are, nor should they be. Your business is simply not as important to me as normalcy in daily life in Taiwan and a near-zero chance of catching COVID -- for everyone who lives here. When vaccination rates rise that can change, but we're not there yet.

Perhaps think of strategies to entice domestic customers to take all that annual leave they're not spending on international travel to stay at your hotels during the week. 

Besides, re-opening for tourism would mean doing away with the quarantine. I suppose borders could be opened but the quarantine kept in place, which would certainly deter tourists but be tolerable to those with reasons to make the trip. However, we're still at the point where it's better to actively discourage non-essential travel, and framing it that way does the opposite. Perhaps in a few months, especially if quarantine capacity could be increased, that would be a conversation worth having. But by the time that happens, we'll also have higher vaccination rates anyway.

Honestly, I'm sick of the quarantine regulations too. We all are. I would very much like to go back to the US to see my family, some of whom I have not seen in person since 2018. My grandmother is 95 years old and I worry every day that things won't get better in time for me to see her again. It's just a sad financial fact that quarantine hotel rooms for my husband and I are simply not financially feasible after a genuinely rough summer. 

But the fact is that the quarantine has helped catch imported cases, and we still need it until vaccination rates are higher. Mandatory 2-week quarantines and international tourism are simply not compatible.

Besides, opening up for tourism would guarantee an outbreak -- for this reason, the entire premise of the argument is flawed. An outbreak wouldn't exactly cause tourists to pour in, would it? It would not only depress the exact sort of inbound travel that opening up would aim to bring in, it would depress domestic tourism too. We know this because that's exactly what happened during the May outbreak. I was in Tainan recently and the B&B owner admitted that from May until the "soft lockdown" ended, allowing indoor venues to re-open, they didn't have a single guest. Now, they have some -- we weren't the only people staying there. A fresh outbreak would mean none.

What's more, the risk such a move would bring would devastate a far greater chunk of the economy than the sliver fueled by international tourism. Business that rely on local custom -- restaurants, shops, cafes, smaller hotels catering mostly to local crowds, even cram schools as much as I dislike them -- all took a hit from the May outbreak. Many closed: the hotel I liked in Taichung which seemed to mostly attract young Taiwanese weekenders on mid-range budgets, the Konica shop I'd use to print out photos for relatives, more than one cafe I liked as well as several restaurants, gone. My own income was briefly torpedoed, as was my husband's, though fortunately at different points.

They didn't close, and we didn't have to dip into savings, because there weren't international tourists. That all happened because the domestic economy was affected. Risk that again for that tiny 4%, which probably wouldn't even reach 4%? No thanks.

I don't think the CECC is being particularly wishy-washy about this, either. It's true that they haven't set clear milestones for re-opening or changing quarantine rules. It's true that they won't state clearly what vaccination percentage will be considered "sufficient". But that makes sense to me: this is literally an evolving disaster, and it's evolving because people are not smart. They hear ignorant takes about vaccines and hesitate to protect themselves and others. They make obviously logically flawed arguments about "re-opening", which brings further outbreaks.

Oh yes, and they complain that "we can't find mayonnaise" -- or something -- when supply chains are disrupted around the world and there is indeed mayonnaise to be had. I have some in my fridge. It's available. I'm certainly not interested in risking my health and life because some guy whined to The Guardian that there isn't enough mayo. Come on.

The virus mutates, it becomes more infections, and all the milestones have to change. 

I don't call an evolving response to an evolving problem wishy-washiness or lack of clarity. I call that being flexible, which is exactly the right way to be. There is some strain, but the whole world is strained. By comparison, Taiwan is not a festering hellhole due to bad policies (though there have been some, I admit). It's stayed pretty good, due to (mostly) good policies.

So yes, by all means let's push the government to consider allowing home quarantine for the vaccinated at some point in the almost-predictable future. Let's push to allow people who should have the right to be here -- family, workers, students -- to be allowed in. Certainly, let's look at further relief as necessary for the worst-affected sectors. If you're able, take some time off during the week and go use those quiet tourist facilities while they're not crowded. Give the hoteliers and tour operators a bit of domestic custom. I'm looking at some trips I can take myself, now that life in Taiwan is closer to normal again.

But no, it is not time to re-open for international tourists. It's just not. 

John Oliver actually did an episode about Taiwan! How was it?

For months, I've been lobbying Last Week Tonight to do a segment on Taiwan. There was a Facebook group and a petition, which were covered by the Taipei Times. It was a thing, though I didn't always have the energy to give it the momentum it needed, although I did try to provide a steady influx of fun pro-Taiwan memes. Not because the memes should make the show, but because memes get views, likes and shares which would get the actual petition more visibility.

Why Last Week Tonight? I chose them specifically because they did strong segments on China, the Uyghurs and Hong Kong in the past. The Daily Show and The Late Show have blundered on China and Taiwan in the past, getting Taiwan's situation painfully wrong or softballing China. They were not ideal candidates. Oliver handled similar sensitive topics well: he was the guy to do this.

Last night, they actually did the episode! I have no idea if my effort had any impact at all -- perhaps they'd already decided to go this way long before I started any of it. Perhaps they got the idea independently and it was a big, fat coincidence. One of the producers is Taiwanese-American and one of the writers used to live in Kaohsiung, so it's entirely possible this had nothing to do with my petition. 

I just wanted the show to happen. It did. That's the win.

When I started this, there was a lot of support -- thanks to everyone who contributed images, memes and translations, and to the Taipei Times for bumping its visibility! -- but also a lot of unhelpful comments. Some could be ignored completely: I don't care if you think John Oliver and his show are dandies of the pseudo-liberal bourgeoisie. Some just said he wasn't funny, or wasn't 'leftist' enough. But who cares? 

This was the point: Taiwan needs a moment in front of a mainstream Western liberal audience in a fun, easily digestible format. We need to reach the people who will tune into a late night news satire show, but not, say, listen to Tsai Ing-wen on CNN or read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. We need that because there's just not enough general knowledge about Taiwan out there, there's a global dismissal of the wishes of the Taiwanese people for their own future, and general solidarity can mean political influence: the John Oliver Effect is real.

The show happened, and it got Taiwan in front of a bunch of new viewers. And it was a great show! Because I enjoy dissecting media, I do want to talk about the segment's strong and weak points. But before going down that road, let's all admit that as a whole, it was an unqualified success. It not only got Taiwan in front of a mainstream liberal audience -- which, again, was the key goal -- but it did a highly competent job, too. On the whole I'd give this a 95% out of 100, and that's a damn good appraisal for someone as picky as me about good coverage of Taiwan (I have no time for half-baked analyses and tired ideas recycled as 'new' and certainly no time at all for pro-China takes when China has missiles pointed at my house.) 

Let's start with what they got right, because I want to emphasize that it was indeed excellent. 

The messaging was on-point. Any criticism I have is pretty much meaningless in the face of this all-important triumph. They used Taiwanese voices to make points about Taiwan: not only President Tsai but also Sexy Legislator Freddy Lim screaming "Chinese Fucking Taipei, it's FUCKING BULLSHIT!" That's how you do it. Great job. The ending was superb: how can you go wrong with supporting Taiwan deciding its own future? 

The show got the 'stacks of warplanes' right, and pointed out that they've been electing people who are pretty comfortable calling Taiwan independent. They used amusing media -- butt plugs, John Cena, a WHO representative (figuratively) pretending to have a brain hemorrhage to avoid talking about Taiwan -- to make strong points and showed just how cringey it is for the world to so clearly want to avoid talking about Taiwan for fear of shattering so many glass hearts in China. 

The history was done quite well: I'd give it a 99%. I would not have made it sound as though the Qing governed all of Taiwan (mostly, they didn't -- they held about a third until the final decade or so of their rule), and perhaps 228 deserved a moment. But the White Terror got a lot of time, which frankly it needed. Now millions of Americans who don't know that Taiwan was once a Japanese colony and KMT military rule was horrible, which they might not have known two days ago. 

The murky jungle of communiques and carefully worded agreements and acts was also handled quite well, with the top-notch Kharis Templeman explaining how the US acknowledges but does not necessarily accept the Chinese claim on Taiwan, and that Taiwan's status is undetermined. I've never liked 'strategic ambiguity', and perhaps the fact that it's no longer very ambiguous could have been mentioned. The US has never been clearer! However, a lot of viewers likely thought that the US simply believed Taiwan to be a part of China. Now they know that's not the case. It's a win. 

I'll even take the mascots, because Last Week Tonight loves those. I'll take the bubble tea, even though it feels like an obligatory inclusion. I'll take John Cena even though I literally do not know why he's famous.

So we've got:

Mostly strong history of Taiwan highlighting how it's not particularly Chinese & how awful the KMT was (check)

Freddy Lim screaming that Chinese Fucking Taipei is Fucking Bullshit (check)

Pretty good overview of the current US position (check)

Buttplugs (check)

Mocking cringey White Guys with bad opinions (check)

Tsai Ing-wen saying basically "we are an independent country, we don't need to declare independence" (check)

Taiwan deserves to decide its own future (check)

Guy speaking Taiwanese at the end saying "look I'm just trying to live my life" amid quite a bit of Japanese aesthetic (check -- and love the inclusion of the Taiwanese language!)

I'll take it!

It is worth discussing the weaker aspects, however. If you just wanted to ride the love train, you can stop here -- this is more of an exercise in media dissection than actual criticism. I loved the show, and I want to keep that clear. Even the parts I didn't love achieved their goal, and I love that goal. 

First, let's talk about the way Oliver discusses Tsai's own words. I'm not a huge fan of this: he makes it sound like she's in favor of 'maintaining the status quo' and 'not declaring independence' when that's not exactly what she said. It's true that she chooses her words carefully (she has to), but here are her exact words:

The idea is, we don't have a need to declare ourselves an independent state, we are an independent country.

I suppose it's true that she's 'drawing a line' at a 'declaration of independence', but she didn't say Taiwan would 'stop short' of a formal declaration of independence. She offered an entirely different perspective: that there is no need to declare independence formally, because Taiwan is already independent. Would you need to ask any other country to declare independence formally, when they are already functioning independent states? No. So why would you need to ask it of Taiwan?

That is, honestly, one kind of pro-independence position, and that was the position she was elected on.

"Independence" can mean many different things, including believing that there is no need to formally declare what you already are. If the only way to be fully "pro-independence" is to be "in favor of a formal declaration of independence", then that shoves what can and cannot be considered 'pro-independence' to the sidelines. It forces it to remain a fringe opinion and pushes everyone who holds it to sound radical, when it's not and they're not: it's mainstream. Pro-independence supporters are not a fringe element, so defining it to make them so is disingenuous and weak analysis. 

The second weak part was the discussion of the 'status quo'. The poll they cited is not particularly reliable; specifically, the questions are formed in such a way that if you're worried about a war of any kind, many with pro-independence leanings are going to choose 'the status quo'. What they're actually choosing isn't the 'status quo', which is not tenable and not desirable in and of itself. They're choosing sovereignty without war. 

That, again, is a functionally a pro-independence position. Any other interpretation relegates 'independence' to the fringe of Taiwanese political discourse, when it's not. 

While Oliver did mention that 'the status quo' can mean different things to different people, he didn't elaborate. When you talk about the status quo, you really have to point out the conditions under which people are answering: with guns to their heads. Literally, if you consider Chinese missiles and warplanes to just be fancy flying guns.

Who would choose the status quo if they did not have a gun to their head? Perhaps some people -- certainly some internal disputes about the name of the country would have to be worked out -- but I doubt it would be many.

Since 'the status quo' requires that much elaboration to be even remotely clear, I would not have gone with such a weak premise. It just wasn't the best choice if the time wasn't there to elaborate. That was to the segment's detriment. Instead, it's better to pick something that paints a clear picture, shows that there's some internal disagreement but also highlights the strong consensus that exists alongside it: Taiwanese identity. 

Around 70% of Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese. About a third identify as Taiwanese and Chinese, with other research showing most of those prioritize Taiwanese identity. About 2% -- less than the margin of error -- identify as solely Chinese.

That shows some internal divergence of opinion while clarifying that there is indeed a consensus, and that it's not to be a part of China, in whatever form that takes. "Status quo" data can be brought in to show that there's a strong preference not to fight a war if at all possible, but that's about all it's good for.

The second part I thought was just 'okay' was the section on Taiwan's armed forces. It's true that recruitment is down, the topic flows clearly from the previous point, and the video is amusing: I imagine that's why the writing team decided to include it. 

However, it has the side effect of once again making Taiwan seem more divided than it is. Nobody reasonable would argue that all Taiwanese are in alignment with their desires for Taiwan's future. I don't think any country can claim that (though many governments try to). But there is a consensus of sorts and it deserved to be sussed out a little more.

The armed forces are not having trouble recruiting because people are unwilling to fight China. Of course, nobody knows what they'd do in a real wartime situation, but polls show that most are, indeed, willing to defend their country. That's the best data we've got, so anyone wanting to imply Taiwanese would not fight needs to do a lot of legwork to prove that as the numbers are not on their side. I suspect most people willing to defend Taiwan aren't joining the military because they figure that if there's a real war, they'll be called up to fight anyway. That's reasonable! 

If ambivalence about China isn't the reason why military recruitment is low, then what is? Mostly that the military doesn't offer a great career path. It's not seen as desirable or something for 'intelligent' people to do, which is a shame when you have a defensive force facing a huge superpower like China. The pay is mediocre, and while you can retire young and get a good pension -- last I heard you could get 50% pay after leaving a military career at 40 -- overall it's just not a prestigious choice. 

The other reason has to do with Taiwan's own history. The military used to be the oppressors. Do you really expect the descendants of people the military routinely detained, disappeared, tortured and killed are going to be signing up in droves to train with them? To fight under that white sun and blue sky symbol that oppressed them for so long? I'm not Taiwanese, but the thought of doing that gives me the shakes. 

The military doesn't have a recruitment problem due to ambivalence about China. They have it because they don't provide attractive career opportunities, and retain some symbolism of an authoritarian past. 

Finally, I wasn't a big fan of starting out by calling Taiwan an "entity" (it's a country) and then using the verb "reunify" (which they do once because Xi Jinping says it -- fine -- but it comes out of Oliver's mouth once too. Less fine). He does, however, use the term "country" later on, which I acknowledged, and the show itself has said they tried to limit usage of "reunify" to parts where they were discussing the Xi/China viewpoint. That's fair. 

Don't take all this criticism too seriously

At the end, the segment sticks the landing. The messaging is on point, and the weaker parts don't detract from it. There are also things I would have included: Taiwan's amazing COVID response (yes, it's still amazing), marriage equality and other progressive credentials and perhaps a little less on the weaker 'status quo' and 'military' sections. 

But as it is, it's great work -- better than I expected from a Western media outlet, and better than anything Last Week Tonight's fellow satire news shows could have offered. Indeed, that's why I chose them for the petition and Facebook page.

I'm not dissecting it to discourage future media from taking on the topic of Taiwan: I'd love it of more of them did, and made an effort as earnest as Last Week Tonight in doing so. As I've said many times, really only friends and Taiwan insiders who already care about this country are likely to read Lao Ren Cha. The wider world won't, because it's a niche blog. So this is for the insiders, to see the segment disassembled and examined. It's not a warning to Western media that they can never do Taiwan well. 

Clearly they can, if they want to. Last Week Tonight just did!

This segment gets the right message in front of the right audience, which simply writing about Taiwan was never going to do. That's a win, and I'll take it.

What is going on with the KMT's foreign language social media people?

Earlier today, activist and journalist Roy Ngerng wrote a fairly anodyne tweet about how the Tsai government had "built Taiwan's relationship with other democracies" so that Japan and the US were aiding Taiwan quickly, without Taiwan having to surrender its sovereignty or dignity to China. 

The Kuomintang, on their official account, responded the way a CCP sock puppet might -- as you can see from the cover photo.

It's already in the local news, where you can also see some of the more polite replies. 

At first, I believed it was most likely a trigger-happy intern who had forgotten to log in to their personal account and accidentally went after Ngerng on the KMT's official account. That in itself should be enough to get them fired. At best, it meant that this was the kind of person the KMT employed: willing to spew hateful word salad co-opting the social justice language of the left to make nonsense arguments, and not able to make a particularly coherent case.

What's more, the language read exactly like the CCP's United Front and fifty-cent bots, as many pointed out:

The entire comment is incoherent -- calling Ngerng, who is not white, a white supremacist for talking about help that Japan (a non-white country) and the US gave to Taiwan. It's not worth analyzing very deeply, but the part about anime in particular is as questionable as it is incoherent. There are entire subreddits full of people who believe all anime is pornography (so, My Neighbor Totoro is...huh?), but even if that were true, it's irrelevant here. 

There's another less popular line of thinking that anime is some sort of artistic way for Japanese, who want to fantasize about being "more Western" without having to say so, to enjoy and imagine themselves as having "Westernized" bodies and forms through anime. This could what be what our questionable tweeter meant: that one might answer "you're accusing me of white supremacy, but Japan's not white", with a prepackaged "they wish they were white and that's white supremacy, because anime!" retort.

The whole argument is of course pure bullshit, but it could be what he meant (I am almost certain the rogue tweeter is a 'he', because the entire International Department is male, as we'll discuss below). It sounds like the sort of pseudo-intellectual trash one might pick up in the same discussion spaces where one picks up phrasing like "muh Japan".

In any case, that's the best possible scenario. 

At worst, it implied that the KMT hired one or several people to manage its social media whose other job was to operate horrible troll accounts that spew this kind of rhetoric in an attempt to ruin any attempt at meaningful discourse while being completely impossible to argue with. This is an intentional tactic that political interests pay for -- especially the CCP -- and it is so toxic and oxygen-sucking, it's like trying to duel with quicksand.

I'm not sure it matters if there is one person or many working for the KMT to engage in this sort of discourse online. I'm not sure it matters if this was meant to be a personal tweet posted from the wrong account. Whoever wrote that tweet has exposed themselves as having a vicious, angry and problematic personality who is willing to deal with people in the exact same way as a pro-CCP troll might. The KMT hired them anyway.

What's more, the KMT has previously made statements in support of US-Taiwan ties and thanked Japan for their donation of over a million vaccines. So, such a jaw-dropping, unprofessional response by an official organization to a fairly benign tweet is...eyebrow-raising. It just doesn't make sense. 

Within 45 minutes the tweet was gone, and a poorly-worded "sorry if you were offended" apology posted by the official account. That reply was also deleted and re-posted:

To be fair, the original "apology" had a typo in it, and the new post fixed that. The goal might not have been to delete all the angry replies. That was the effect, however.

This got me wondering: what is going on in the International Affairs department of the KMT? Because either they're running a whole online troll operation, there's a massive internal tug-of-war, or they have at least one reckless person who can't do their job properly, and who holds some pretty horrifying views. 

Of course, it's not hard to find out who works in this department of the KMT. Lee Ta-jung is the director, and is associated with Tamkang University. There's nothing odd there. Shen Cheng-hao doesn't have much going on either. He appears here with his colleague (whom I'll talk about in a minute) on a show about how the youth feel about the US election, but frankly, I haven't watched the whole thing. Ho Chih-yung has ties to the National Policy Research Foundation and National Tsinghua University. Although I doubt I'd agree with any of these guys -- and yes, they are all men -- on political issues, they don't seem like people who would log into the KMT's official Twitter account to incoherently harass a journalist over an anodyne tweet.

Then there's Tang Cheng-wei. Here he is -- again in the local media ETToday -- making sexist remarks about President Tsai on a Taiwan News article about her winning the John McCain prize. He insulted her by calling her a virgin, and a loyal dog of the US. Seeing as until very recently the US seemed to prefer the KMT, that's an odd comment. He also insulted others who disagreed with him:

It's interesting to me that he wonders why people would bring up the KMT, when he works (or worked) for the KMT. 

Anyway, he continues with his anti-West, anti-foreigner talk:

He also implied that respected writer and analyst J. Michael Cole is a "Canadian spy" hired by President Tsai for that reason (Cole stopped running Thinking Taiwan when Tsai was elected, and there is no indication that he used his previous intelligence training in that role. He is open about his previous intelligence career).

This is strange disinformation to spread by someone working for the KMT, as the KMT insists that the DPP is the one spreading fake news.

Update 6/12/2021: Interestingly, this is all breaking now, even though his comments were made a month ago. The local reports don't connect him to Thursday's tweet, however, and say he stopped working for the KMT in March to do military service. That's odd. These are all from the past few days -- you can find them yourself if you'd like. I've included a screenshot to show you how recent all of this news is:

The only report of his comments about Tsai that dates from the actual event just calls him a "former" consultant and offers no other details. While I am fairly sure when I read that article two days ago it didn't say he was a "former" anything, I could be mistaken. It's also possible my memory is correct but the writer was wrong. The article about the "International War Room" is from February. 

I cannot offer any interpretation of this; I'll just leave it here for you.

Furthermore, Tang's anti-foreigner behavior is interesting, for someone who wrote at great length about how great America is on his own Facebook page in 2018: 

...I'm not going to bother with screenshots of the whole thing.

America is a diverse and multicultural country, while also being majority-white. How does this square with his anti-foreigner comments a month ago?

Remember, this person is (or was) partly responsible for KMT outreach to foreigners. Why would the KMT hire someone who hates white people to help them try to appeal to the rest of the world? I mean, I get that white supremacy is a massive problem, but if your goal is international outreach, this isn't how you do it.

He mentioned in the video above that he's a Trump supporter. This should not matter in relation to the issue at hand, but Trump himself is associated with white supremacy and "America First!" rhetoric, so it's a mismatch with his anti-foreigner, "loyal dog to the US" stance on President Tsai if he supports a strong US otherwise. 

This is a person the KMT chose to take on in their International Affairs department. This is a person they entrusted with part of their goal of international and foreign-language outreach. 

A known (former?) employee of the KMT making online comments about the president of the nation -- childish, trollish, sexist and highly inappropriate given his job -- should be enough to raise questions. 

Of course, Tang has the same right to freedom of expression as anyone else. Nobody is going to arrest him over his horrible comments about Tsai. But freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, and others have just as much right to point out that his personal comments don't look good when you consider his job. If I go online as Jenna and say "X", and someone writes about how the woman behind Lao Ren Cha said "X", that's all within the bounds of freedom of expression. The same applies here.

To be clear, we don't know who was behind the offensive and frankly uncalled-for and line-crossing tweet to Ngerng; perhaps it truly was an intern, and if so, I can only hope that that intern has been fired already. That tweet happened on Thursday, so whoever wrote it still had access to the KMT's official account just a few days ago. That is not acceptable.

However, regardless of who wrote that tweet today, one thing is clear: the KMT has in its employ at least one (and possibly several) highly problematic people who are causing multiple embarrassments, and who perhaps are not the best choices for communicating with the English-speaking public or representing the party. If they want to be taken seriously as the opposition, and maintain a dignified online presence, they really must do better than this. 

Today's tweet -- whomever wrote it -- crossed a line. Tang's comments about Tsai last month crossed a line. How many lines must be crossed before they address what is obviously a recurring problem?