A Paucity of “Blessings”: the KMT and what it means to be “credible opposition”

Screaming in stone?

It’s rare that I have not a single critical thing to say about the overall body of work of an expert or policy wonk focusing on Taiwan. However, a few people come close, and I’ve always admired the work of Kharis Templeman. He’s good at what he does, he’s clear and to the point, and he makes sense. I’ve never heard him say anything ridiculous about the US or Taiwan “provoking” China, among other claims I personally think are, well, deranged. He seems sensible. I’m on board.

So, I would like to begin this post by stating that all of it comes from a place of respect. I read his forthcoming “Blessings in Disguise: How Authoritarian Legacies and the China Factor Have Strengthened Democracy in Taiwan” and, well…to put it kindly, I was not entirely impressed. To be clear, most of the argumentation makes sense, and he doesn’t make any historical slips that I could find (you’d be surprised how often that happens with other scholars and researchers). 

That said, I have thoughts. I do think Taiwan needs at least two credible, stable, institutionalized parties. The DPP needs a strong rival to hold it accountable, and vice versa -- the DPP needs to hold its opposition accountable, as well. That other party is, and always has been, the KMT.

However, I see no reason why that strong opposition should necessarily continue to be the KMT. After reading Templeman's paper...

...I still don't. 

The core thesis is that the KMT is “good for Taiwanese democracy” by existing as an entrenched, institutionalized party with a core voting base and ability to govern within established systemic norms. 

This does make sense on its face: stability begets stability, and democracy is tied deeply enough to the will of the people that if there are not institutional factors at play, including disciplined, electable yet competitive parties, it’s easy for the whole thing to fall apart. It’s frightening how quickly one party might gain a stranglehold on power, or for the system to become so chaotic or unaccountable that it’s not clear what benefit ‘electing your leaders’ even has. 

Here's the thing, though: it’s just a little too close to ‘status quo for the sake of the status quo’ — what we have now is good because it’s stable, and change is to some extent inherently destabilizing. To be honest, there may be some truth to that. Not all change is good; even in the most flawed system, change can bring unfortunate consequences. 

But, as we’ve seen with Taiwan’s own democratic transition, change may be scary, chaotic and raw, and still need to happen. 

The DPP were once the outsiders, the upstarts, the ‘anti-system message’ guys. And now they’re institutionalized. 

In other words, upending the system, letting in newcomers and outsiders, destabilizing norms — these can be terrifying and have negative consequences alongside the positives. But a party may well only be an outsider or destabilizer…until it isn’t.

And a party may be a credible institutionalized rival...until it isn't. 

Thus, the argument that the KMT is good for Taiwan only holds for as long as they actually do have a strong voting base. It’s true only insofar as they remain competitive and can actually win every kind of election. That’s not assured: they can and do dominate at the local level, but nationally, their ability to actually win an election is, well, up for debate. At least for now. 

The second they lose their legitimacy, their base, their electability (especially at the national level), what then? Are they still “good for democracy” if they can’t provide a reasonable alternative to the DPP? I wouldn’t think so. 

Right now, the TPP, no matter how unclear their policies, seems to be presenting a credible threat to the KMT and is becoming truly competitive against the DPP. They’re “outsiders” now, but perhaps less so with an erstwhile Taipei mayoralty under their belt. They are already both in leadership and hot water in Hsinchu (corruption allegations), and Ko is giving the KMT's Hou a solid scare in the presidential race. 

What if the TPP actually makes it and becomes “institutionalized”? Will we need the KMT then? Or are they only a “blessing” for Taiwan as long as they’re credible? If the TPP actually does usurp the KMT’s competitiveness against the DPP, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s good or bad — just different, and indicative of how far the KMT would have fallen. Certainly not a loss of any ‘blessing’ stemming from the authoritarian era. 

It makes sense that stable political parties that respect the norms of governance and remain competitive are good for democracy in general. As long as the KMT and DPP fit this bill but no other parties do, I can understand the argument. However, the moment another party becomes ‘institutionalized’ — credible, prosperous, competitive — what exactly is the benefit of the KMT in particular? Why should it be them specifically?

Templeman tries to make the argument that the KMT itself is “indispensable” as the opposition to the DPP, but this is where I found the paper weakest. 

Again, it is only ‘indispensable’ for as long as it remains stable, credible and competitive. And outsiders are only outsiders until they’re inside — like, oh, the DPP. And insiders only remain inside for as long as they can hold their place. On those fronts, Templeman seems more optimistic about the KMT’s future at the national level than I am. 

Let’s look a little deeper at the two points made here: one is that the KMT’s own disciplined party core forced the opposition, which lacked the KMT’s resources and institutional entrenchment, to also create a disciplined, organized hierarchy that (ironically, as he correctly notes) this meant that the DPP’s organizational structures mimicked the KMT, both of which are founded, basically, on Leninist norms of party structure. 

This is an accurate telling of history, but whether it’s a “blessing” depends on whether you think that particular party structure is ideal, or a good choice. I’m not an expert in Leninist party structures, so I’ll save that question for someone else, but in general I am not a fan of Leninist praxis. I do wonder if Taiwanese parties could perhaps do better than the model they were handed. 

I doubt the DPP is going anywhere, seeing as they hold both the presidency and the lead in the  upcoming election (keeping in mind that a lead this early on is not always easily kept). Furthermore, their general orientation regarding Taiwan’s sovereignty is much more in line with the general consensus. Whether or not Taiwan should — or even can — have “better relations” with Beijing is still up for debate, though I tend to think Beijing’s own attitude makes that impossible, not any specific policies of the DPP or KMT. However, on unification vs. independence and national identity, the DPP seems to be much closer to what a greater share of the electorate wants. 

As for the KMT? Well, would it be so bad if a party that was disciplined but had a novel party structure that didn’t follow the old China-imported Leninist paradigm usurped their position as chief competitor? Crucially, would political parties in Taiwan have been able to form disciplined institutional cores if the KMT had never come and shoved their ideology down Taiwan’s throat? 

I don’t know. Perhaps not. Assuming, however, that what happened was a ‘blessing’ sounds to me like making excuses for colonization. It’s along the lines of “the British Raj was terrible, but without them India wouldn’t have all that infrastructure, like railroads”. As though Indians would certainly not have been able to figure out railroads on their own. Perhaps geopolitical factors would have made such things harder to accomplish, but whether we’re discussing Taiwanese political parties or Indian railroads, they were by no means impossible without all the horrors that accompanied them. The horrors of the White Terror were not definitively necessary for Taiwan to blossom into the democracy it is today.

Templeman then focuses on the “China factor” — the fact that differing views on China remain the primary divide in Taiwanese politics. There’s nothing incorrect in this assessment, and the historical review was on-point. 

Well, on point with one caveat: the KMT doesn't continue to be one of the major opposition parties because of the "China factor", wherein there are two main poles to Taiwanese political affiliation, one pro-China and pro-Chinese identity and one wary of Beijing and Taiwan as part of some concept of "China". Rather, "the China Factor" exists because the KMT brought it to Taiwan. That, however, is a topic for another post.

However, the rise of the TPP in the current election cycle, ephemeral as their competitiveness may (or may not) be, was completely ignored. I’m not pro-TPP by any means, but this felt like a glaring omission when parties such as the NPP garnered mentions. The TPP doesn’t have a clear China policy, but then, neither did the KMT’s Hou You-yih until fairly recently. 

The China factor certainly matters, as much as we may wish it didn’t. However, it only matters for as long as it matters: if the electorate ever settles on a general consensus vis-a-vis China, that “divide” will suddenly boost the ability of one party to dominate. Although partisan identification shows some interesting changes, looking at fundamental support for pro-China policies vs. against them, my bet on where any such dominance might land is squarely in the pan-green camp. 

It’s not like support for unification is on the rise, and even DPP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te has said he would be open to dialogue with Beijing. The DPP openly states that Taiwan is “independent”, adding in a little “called the Republic of China” coda delivered with everything short of a wink wink, nudge nudge.

On the other side, I consistently see the KMT try to hide its more pro-China tendencies: they don’t dare openly state that they’re pro-unification, nor did they dare to speak against the 2019 Hong Kong protestors resisting the exact same government that they, the KMT, want to be closer to. They talk about the fake 92 Consensus, but can't admit that China never agreed to their interpretation that there are "differing interpretations". 

In fact, the KMT/DPP dichotomy, riven along pro/anti-China lines, has given rise to a large group of voters who simply dislike both parties. There are those disillusioned by the KMT but can’t fathom voting for the DPP, often due to a lifetime of pan-blue media inculcation that the DPP are “riffraff” and “troublemakers” — that is, they still don’t believe that the DPP are “institutionalized”. 

There are also those who are angry at the DPP’s failings, and to be sure it is not a perfect party. However, they’re adamant that Taiwan is certainly not part of China, and the thought of voting for the pro-China KMT, with its lingering scent of the authoritarian era, is an anathema to them. Basically, “the party I would typically vote for sucks, but the alternative is even worse!” 

(If that sounds a lot like some Americans pissed at both the Democrats and Republicans, well, it should.) 

If it’s a “blessing” for the two dominant parties to be the imperfect “they’re corrupt too!” DPP and the “but they murdered my uncle and insist I’m Chinese” KMT, then I’m not as optimistic for Taiwan’s future as Templeman is. I don’t think Taiwan’s democracy is in dire straits -- far from it -- but thinking of it in these terms makes it seem more troubled than I would otherwise believe, not less. 

Templeman continues by noting that the KMT is the “indispensable” foil to the DPP not only because they’ve managed to survive into the democratic era, but because they continue to have huge resources at their command. Is this actually true? As Donovan Smith recently noted, they’re still reporting funds effectively frozen by the transitional justice committee, and might actually be in danger of bankruptcy. I’ve heard multiple rumors over the past few years that they struggle to pay their own people. They have a legacy as one of the wealthiest political parties in the world, and certainly the wealthiest in Taiwan, but that may be more a memory than current fact. 

I’m deeply unconvinced by the next section: 

Commentators and academics in Taiwan, especially those sympathetic to the DPP, frequently bemoan the fact that the KMT survived into the democratic era and continues to play a leading role in politics (e.g. Baum & van der Wees, 2012; Hwang, 2016; Schafferer, 2010). In this view, the KMT’s authoritarian inheritance, including a murky collection of businesses, investment holding companies, buildings and land plots, and other assets that it acquired during the authoritarian era, have given the party an unfair advantage in contested elections; if the electoral playing field were really level, it would have faded into oblivion a long time ago. Thus, the current DPP government is justified in seeking to force the KMT to provide a full account of its finances and disgorge any ‘ill-gotten assets’ back to the state from which it acquired them. Yet the persistence of the KMT as a major electoral force, and in particular as a credible threat to retake power even after it lost control over the central government in 2000, has also had unambiguously positive consequences for the party system, and thus for democratic accountability. And if reformers push too hard to disrupt the current party system in a misguided attempt to resolve these ‘distortions’, they might end up doing more harm than good to Taiwan’s democracy in the long run. 

There’s a very obvious disconnect here: Templeman acknowledges that the KMT had (and has) “assets that it acquired during the authoritarian era, [giving] the party an unfair advantage in contested elections”, but then states that they are a legitimate party because they’re still “a credible threat to retake power”. Yes, they are — in great part because of all of those (erstwhile?) assets giving them an unfair advantage! That’s the whole point. 

It’s like saying “Yes, Brockton Squinglehopper III had some unfair advantages from his family’s massive wealth and privilege, but the fact that he is an adult now and is also massively wealthy and privileged is a sign that he earned it, and that’s positive!” How is it positive, exactly?

As for clientelism, both parties engage in it, but to me at least, it seems the KMT is the far more serious offender. Far from being held accountable, several years on they still don’t understand why preferential pension schemes for their major voting blocs had to be done away with. 

It’s not that the KMT has no true supporters: they do. But they have also had so many unfair advantages, from resources to control of the education system and media to actually being a long-term established party when Taiwan democratized, unlike the DPP. That they continued to win elections is, in part, evidence of how steeply the playing field was pitched — not an argument that it’s inconsequential.

It convinces me of two points only. First, that Taiwan needs credible opposition parties that are stable, disciplined and hold each other accountable. In the past, that has been the DPP and KMT. There is no reason, however, why it would be best for the KMT to continue to dominate over newer parties. The best I can say is that they historically have done so; I don't see a solid argument for why it would be best for that to continue, if the newer party can be just as credible, competitive and respectful of democratic norms. 

Again, a party is only “institutionalized” while it remains competitive, and it’s only an “outsider” until it’s inside. 

Certainly, the KMT cannot be forcibly done away with, and not all third-party opposition is necessarily positive. I see no problem, however, with the KMT dying a slow, natural death as its pro-China views simply fail to garner sufficient support to remain competitive, and its stolen assets are rightfully given back to the nation.

I also have a problem with the idea that both parties are equally committed to Taiwanese democracy. Templeman doesn't say this, but he seems to assume it as a prerequisite for all those "blessings". The KMT kicked out the guy who played the biggest role in democratizing Taiwan (Lee Teng-hui), and plenty of the deepest blue KMTers would happily sell Taiwan to China tomorrow. "You can't eat democracy" and all that. Are they really committed to Taiwan, by any name, as a sovereign nation not united with the PRC? Are they really committed to democracy? I remain unconvinced, because the KMT's own actions have been unconvincing.

I do not think Taiwan’s democracy is rotting away, and I don’t think the KMT should be — or needs to be — actively excised from the political system. But I do not see the authoritarian era as much of a “blessing”. And certainly, I agree that not all change is good, not all outsiders are positive forces, and political parties need credible rivals so that each side may be held accountable to good governance and institutional norms. I agree that the China divide is the primary dividing point in Taiwanese politics. 

However, the KMT’s pro-China orientation, especially the unificationism they try and fail so hard to hide, rapid loss of once-stolen resources, continuing clientelist tendencies and and inability to be accountable for their own authoritarian past all point to one thing: the DPP needs credible opposition, but there is still no reason whatsoever why that has to be the KMT. 

The KMT holds that position right now, but I see no good argument for why they should continue to do so, especially if they die a natural death at the hands of public opinion and a new credible party arises to take their place. 

Templeman's paper is an excellent argument for the historical and political forces that help explain why Taiwanese democracy is the way it is -- everything that's led the country to its present political state, and the benefits of it. It is not a strong argument for the KMT continuing to hold its current status. Even if some of the past they inflicted on Taiwan turned out to have benefits, that’s not an argument for their continued position as one of the two main parties in Taiwan. That position can only be conferred by one force: the electorate. I don’t know which way that current will carry us, but my money’s not on the KMT. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So let's hop on the bonobo feces train! 

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

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

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

Bet not.


"The UN says Taiwan is part of China!" 

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

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

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

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

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

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


"Other countries have One China policies!"

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

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

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

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

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

"Taiwan hasn't declared independence!"

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

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

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

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

"No countries recognize Taiwan!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


"What about the 1992 Consensus?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Of course not. That's ludicrous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Got any more?

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

The KMT's Massive Cracks (and the DPP Firming Up)

One of the two parties has been putting their ears to the ground.
The other needs a hearing aid (perhaps literally). 

Nine months ago, if you'd asked me about Taiwanese electoral politics, I would have told you these things:

1.) The DPP is cracking up at exactly the moment that it needs to come together and show unity. As a result, the DPP are going to continue to be tainted by accusations that they're not good at administering once in power and are, at their core, just populist rabble-rousers (as friend and political analyst Donovan Smith put it) who are prone to infighting. 

2.) The KMT is going to unite behind Big Uncle Dirk, not because they all like each other, but because they see him as their only chance to win in 2020. Terry Gou will be pissed, but that's it. 

3.) Because of this, both parties are going to have trouble shoring up their youth credentials and future leaders, because both are 'older' parties. 

So I guess it's a good thing that nobody asks me about politics, because damn was I wrong. 

Now that the major parties have finalized (finally!) their revised party lists for proportional representation seats and their presidential candidates have chosen running mates, it sure looks to me that the DPP, against all odds, has managed to actually unite. On top of that, tapping her primary challenger, Lai Ching-te, as her running mate was a great way to really bring home that 'unity' message. I'm not a fan of Lai (I think he's a corrupt, self-serving opportunist) but I understand why he was chosen. 

The KMT, on the other hand, are the ones falling apart and come across as terrible, out-of-touch administrators. With Han saying things like "Tsai is fat and white [that is, corrupt and soft] and I'm dark and think [i.e. one of the everyday working people]", the KMT is sounding more and more like "populist rabble-rousers" compared to the DPP's well-considered governance. On top of that, the KMT party list exposes how much they - rather than the DPP as once seemed to be the case - are plagued by factional infighting. It's so bad that Han's own running mate, Simon "Who?" Chang, suggested that people vote for pan-blue third party candidates.

I don't actually want to talk much about the party lists though - plenty of people have already done that. All you really need to know is that the KMT's list, even revised, is such a massive joke, full of ancient 'Mainlanders' (people born in China or who identify as Chinese because they were born in Taiwan to Chinese parents not long after the 1949 diaspora). Revising it didn't really fix that, despite removing the guy who said independence supporters - so, most Taiwanese - should be beheaded, and Wu Dun-yih putting himself lower down on the list (putting himself on the list at all was craven and opportunistic). 

The DPP's list is problematic too, with not that many young candidates who could benefit from the exposure, and an indigenous TV host put at #1 and then revised off the list altogether. But nobody seems to be talking that much about it, because the KMT's absolute insult to the Taiwanese people is sucking up all the attention.

It's also worth noting that other than these blunders, the DPP party list seems designed to send a few clear messages: first, we are unified. Or, less generously, we are making sure all our key 'people' are happy for now. Second, we're tapping (experienced, older) experts. Or, also less generously, we actually aren't trying hard to shore up our youth support (though at least one nominee, Hung Shen-han 洪申翰, is under 40). Finally, we are willing to work with the Left (considering the inclusion of someone like Fan Yun). Or, again, less charitably: we are trying to absorb pan-green third parties so they cease to be a threat. 

Regarding that last one, though, I don't think there's a big practical difference between the two interpretations. To absorb those third parties, they pretty much have to accept lefties into their ranks. By recruiting lefties, they undermine those third parties. The difference is...what exactly?

But here's the thing - although the DPP party list doesn't skew particularly young or indigenous, I would argue that the DPP overall has done a solid job of shoring up its overall youth credentials. Hiring Sunflower luminary Lin Fei-fan, when it's well-known that the NPP also wanted him, was a baller move. Importantly, he was the one who chose the DPP over the NPP, for his own reasons - but his choice does send a message. Gaining the support of ex-NPP and now independent legislator Freddy Lim was also a win. In addition to Lin, the DPP has been attracting a fair number of people from the Sunflower generation. 

It's worth noting that this has been the DPP's plan since the 2014 Sunflower movement - they've always hoped to recruit these younger activists, though they did not immediately run them for office - and what we're seeing now, despite their party list skewing older, is the beginning of the fruition of that policy.

I wouldn't personally know, but I would be shocked if they aren't trying to grab the recent exodus from the NPP, too. I don't know if they'll be successful, but I can't imagine they won't try. With Fan Yun recruited, I'd be shocked if they weren't trying to bring the only Social Democratic Party politician ever elected (as far as I'm aware?), Miao Poya, into the fold. I'm not confident she'll bite, though.

It's also worth noting that, again, there is little practical difference between recruiting the more liberal members of this generation (including poaching or vacuuming up unhappy defectors from other parties) because the DPP is willing to move to the left a bit, and doing so simply to eradicate their pan-green challengers. 

The KMT, on the other hand, seems to have dug in its heels on being the Party of Your Grandparents (and Maybe Your Parents If They're Kind of Awful People.)

I suspect that this is because the DPP's core philosophy was never actually populist rabble-rousing: that sort of political rhetoric may be adopted by any party and is more of a quick-win strategy than a guiding ethos. They've always been the party borne of the Taiwanese democratization movement, which means they're the party more willing to consider a progressive way forward. Although they have their elders and social conservatives and have not always been on the more progressive or liberal side of every issue - and have just as much interest in keeping Taiwan locked into a system dominated by two major parties as the KMT - they've shown the capacity to evolve with the times. Passing immigration reform (unlikely in the Chen era, but one of the first things Tsai did) and same-sex marriage are clear indicators of that.

As a result, they have a core guiding ethos that has the capacity to attract the support of younger generations, even if the party doesn't always live up to its own ideals. Despite setbacks - the delay with passing same-sex marriage being just one - they can shore up their ranks with Millenial and Gen-Z recruits and hang on to youth support. Or at least, the potential is there.

It's not that the KMT doesn't want to attract the youth - I'm sure they'd love to get the votes of some imaginary "sons and daughters of China" (中華兒女). But, despite the occasional socially liberal move (for example, they were once the technocrat party which was actually more open to immigration than the then-Hoklo ethnonationalist DPP), their guiding ethos is one of political conservatism and authoritarianism. That's no surprise given their origin in Taiwan as an occupying force and then a military dictatorship.

What the DPP envisions for the future needs some tweaking, for sure. They really should back off on the useless drug war, and the death penalty has got to go. Same-sex marriage needs to evolve into full marriage equality. But their fundamental principles - a free, sovereign and democratic Taiwan in which everyone enjoys equal rights - is one that can carry to the future. 

The KMT - they want what exactly? From their nominee, you'd think it was allowing Chinese annexation. From their party list, some old-fashioned notion that Taiwanese are primarily Chinese or that the ROC could ever "retake the Mainland". Certainly, according to things Han and his wife have said, they're turning more socially conservative and especially hammering the "family values" and anti-immigrant rhetoric. A shame, as they were not always the more socially conservative party on every issue.

How do those beliefs carry to the future? They don't. The youth won't vote for any of that.

As a result, I can count the 'young' KMT future leaders who are publicly high-profile now on perhaps one hand, one of whom was left off the KMT party list. All of them are older than me (I'm in my late 30s - not exactly young). The DPP, on the other hand, has grown a much bigger stable. They might screw it up - one reason why the NPP fell apart, after all, were the Generation Xers running the show and not giving the Millenials and Gen-Z members enough opportunities or a big enough say. But for now, things are looking fine.

In short, I never thought I'd say that the DPP might actually maintain youth support rather than growing as gray, wrinkled and irrelevant as the KMT, but they're actually doing a pretty okay job of it.

This doesn't necessarily mean the KMT will lose, of course. Young people are not as reliable voters as older ones, and despite it being noxious, populist rhetoric is often effective. They probably will lose, but in this election cycle, their inability to attract the youth probably won't be the reason why. All of the work the DPP is doing to keep itself relevant is going to pay off one generation down the road more than it will now.

What scares me is that if the KMT does pull off an unlikely win, Taiwan is in a precarious enough position vis-a-vis China and the KMT has grown so much more 'red' and unificationist that the vision of Taiwan that the Taiwanese youth (mostly) want will never have time to blossom. Their parents and grandparents will put Taiwan on a road that their children never wanted. Rather than having the ability to build the country they do want once they become the most powerful voting bloc, they'll be forced to fight for their very survival instead. You know, like in Hong Kong.

In other words, I don't think Han will win, but if he does, I'm not sure Taiwan as a sovereign nation will survive it. And it's the youth who don't even like Han or the KMT who will pay the price for that. 

UN Women, Yifang Tea and the OG: I love how Taiwan just snapped

So, everyone's writing about all the 'big' political news over the past week or so - internal divisions in the NPP, NPP legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal being in trouble for corruption, Ko Wen-je forming his own party and likely running for president, Ko Wen-je saying Terry Gou is the best potential presidental candidate and talk of a potential collaboration, China banning individual travel to Taiwan, Terry Gou collecting but "not really" collecting (but actually collecting) signatures toward an independent run and creating what he calls a "youth platform" (lol). Oh yeah and Huang Kuo-chang wants to be Taipei mayor (I'm almost certain that's true, though I doubt he'd actually be working with Ko to that end as the link reports.) 

All of this stuff is fascinating, but I'm not going to write about it (I already touched on NPP internal turmoil and don't intend to return to the topic). Why? Because everybody else is, their work is solid, and you can get the information you want from those sources; I don't have any opinions so sparkling that I need to make my own post expressing them.

Instead, I'm going to shine a little light on a corner of the Internet I've found to have grown very interesting of late.

Every time some company has said something stupid about Taiwan and China, there's been a backlash from Taiwanese bashing them on social media, downrating their businesses and generally registering their displeasure. It happened with airlines, Cafe 85 and others (though to be fair, Cafe 85 isn't very good and who cares about them).

The posts die down as the news grows more distant, and they usually cap out at a few hundred, by everyday people rather than public figures. There might have been some spillover into later social media posts by those companies, but it was relatively minor.

Then, Hong Kong happened and it put Taiwanese on edge for good reason. There's a strong sense that China so often gets what it wants because it forces companies and organizations to adhere to its strictures on how Taiwan may be referred to. On top of that, it's only been a few months since Taiwan became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, which garnered it a huge amount of international media attention (much of it good, with the occasional journalistic fraud bringing China into the mix when China had nothing to do with it.) The time was ripe for the way Taiwanese react to companies and organizations insulting their country to change.

Then, UN Women - one of the worst offenders when it comes to respecting Taiwan - put up an infographic of countries that recognize same-sex marriage, including Taiwan as a "province of China".

Friends, the backlash was astounding. Not a mere few hundred comments - as of this post, the total stands at over 18,000. People getting involved include NPP spokesperson Wu Cheng, former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung, DPP legislator Karen Yu and SDP city councilor Miao Po-ya.







President Tsai commented as well:

#Taiwan has long been a bastion of human rights & equality in #Asia. It is disappointing to see @UN_Women misrepresent Taiwan, but misrepresentation can never erase the efforts of all those who fought so hard for the freedom & equality we enjoy today. pic.twitter.com/cVt3BTkZkg

— 蔡英文 Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) August 5, 2019

And the spillover has been astounding (and is still going on). While the initial flood has dwindled, as is to be expected, every post UN Women has made since then, no matter how unrelated, has garnered dozens or more replies from angry Taiwanese demanding that their country be treated with respect. 












This feels different from all those times when a rivulet of angry Taiwanese complained bitterly but eventually went away. It's ongoing and it's angry. It's refusing to take silence for an answer. It won't even take a bad answer for an answer (note UN Women's weak authoritarian-apologist punt of a reply). 

On top of that, the Hong Kong franchise of beloved Taiwanese brand Yifang Fruit Tea came out in favor of the Chinese "One Country Two Systems" policy, infuriating Taiwanese and causing backlash not just against the Hong Kong franchise, but all Yifang franchises, and the anger hasn't died down. I was talking with a furious friend about it as recently as last night.

What's more, rather than keep the anger online, people have gone to express their anger in the real world: 

Photo from DJ 金寶 on Facebook

For those who don't read Chinese, the graffiti is basically calling them Communist sympathizers and implying that, as a result, they are not really Taiwanese.

It could be that Yifang tea is popular and just plain good - far better than Cafe 85 - or it could be that, as Yifang's branding is explicitly Taiwanese - its whole 'look' is Taiwanese and follows the Japanese-vintage-hipster aesthetic that goes along with this. It could be a bigger slap in the face for this kind of company, in a way that isn't true for an airline or a cafe chain that doesn't make "Taiwan" a part of its brand.

Or it could be that Taiwanese have just freakin' had it and they're going to start making themselves heard.

All I can say is, keep it up. This feels like something different, something angrier and more passionate and ready to fight, and I love it.

Also, did you know that you can suggest edits to pages like UN Women?

Because you can. Have fun!

Before I sign off, I want to tip my hat to the OG - foreign minister Joseph Wu. Before any of this, he was dropping mikes and taking names. Here he is back in May calling People's Daily a 'commie brainwasher' that 'sucks' for writing that "Taiwan, China" had passed same-sex marriage.

Some might not like his tone, but he wouldn't have gotten in the news if he'd taken a softer tone or not explicitly say that a media outlet that objectively sucks...well, sucks.

WRONG! The bill was passed by our national parliament & will be signed by the president soon. Democratic #Taiwan is a country in itself & has nothing to do with authoritarian #China. @PDChina is a commie brainwasher & it sucks. JW https://t.co/eHKzXdzxoT

— 外交部 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan) 🇹🇼 (@MOFA_Taiwan) May 19, 2019

Rock on, JW. Rock on. 

"If it's Taiwan today, people should ask 'who's next'?": full video of Tsai Ing-wen's CNN interview and comments

So, if you're like and don't have a TV, so can't necessarily watch something when it's on TV, you may be disappointed in the 4 minutes or so of footage across two videos of President Tsai's CNN interview on CNN's official feed.

The good news is that an awesome guy I don't know is here to help! You can watch the full video here.

Apparently two well-known analysts in Taiwan went in on ICRT about the interview (one thinking positively of it, the other negatively), though I haven't listened to the whole thing yet. 

I have a few thoughts myself. Tsai herself, in my opinion, performed admirably. To a Western audience - the people this is actually aimed at - she came across as reasonable, pragmatic, even-keeled and intelligent (all things she truly is). She made a very strong case for Taiwan as a beacon of democracy and freedom, and was very clear on the threat from China and why it should matter to the world, without any 'troublemaking' rhetoric. More time could have been spent on marriage equality  - as far as I can tell, it wasn't mentioned  - though I may have just missed it - to really hammer home the idea of Taiwan as 'liberal beacon in Asia' (it's not that liberal by Western standards but by Asian standards, it kind of is). She also makes a strong case for closer communication and stronger relations with Taiwan, without seeming desperate or begging.

She makes it clear that Taiwan does have its own military capability and can withstand a first wave of attacks. This is essential - we need to show the world that Taiwan does take its defense seriously and would not simply beg the world to defend it as it stood by, helpless and unwilling to stand up for itself.

"If it's Taiwan today, people should ask, 'who's next'?" - I truly don't think one can make a stronger case, and it was delivered succinctly and clearly.

Her point that Taiwan is the only democracy in the Chinese-speaking world, and it produced a female leader, so we need to quit it with thinking women are limited in what they can do is a strong one. By going meta with the 'questions about being a female leader of a country' trope and acknowledging it, with her basically saying 'what I think about such questions don't matter, I have an obligation to answer them until female leaders are totally normalized' (paraphrased), she shows that she always considers her role carefully as a leader rather than giving in to her personal feelings. To Americans who may be sick of seeing the puerile, vengeful, personal spewings of their own president, this is likely to play well.

She showed that she does speak fluent English, but wisely moved back to Mandarin for the more complex questions. This will also play well to a Western audience.

Tsai is quite good at this kind of interview, where she almost certainly prepares careful responses to known topics in advance, and where a questioner prompts her on various topics so she doesn't get too bogged down in technocratic wonkery.

I'll admit that by giving careful answers that kind of evade the meat of the questions asked - on whether Taiwan counts on US support in the face of a Chinese invasion, on whether Trump is an unreliable ally - she does come across as just another 'politician' to some extent. She doesn't really answer these questions, and I would have liked a stronger stance on Taiwanese not favoring unification, now or ever. That said, I think any half-intelligent viewer will understand that her country is in a precarious position. In a situation where a single misplaced word can infuriate China, her 'careful' approach is simply necessary.

All that said, the average Westerner interested enough to watch this interview would, in my estimation, be persuaded that Taiwan is worth taking seriously and its leader is not an 'extremist', an 'ethnic nationalist/separatist' or a hotheaded despot, but the pragmatic, serious, hard-headed and slightly nerdy (okay, very nerdy - that karaoke comment about reading while her friends sang...wow) democratically elected leader of a proud, free society.

That doesn't mean I feel so positive about the whole interview. While I am very pleased with how Tsai presents herself, I'm less of a fan of the historical interludes about the Taiwan-China situation, and some of the language that the interviewer used (namely the terms "reunification" and "mainland").

No one thing the presenter said was wrong, regarding what happened in 1949, the change in diplomatic ties, that Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China, or who the US recognizes as 'the sole China' now and why. No one fact was off-base.

But taken together, it presents an image of Taiwanese history that I can't endorse as accurate: there are several lies of omission that seem like minor details but are in fact pivotal to an accurate telling of Taiwan's story. If included, such details would change the overall narrative of Taiwanese history to such a great degree that leaving them out feels false.

Imagine if, instead of the usual "1949", "two Chinas", "the Republic of China still claims" narrative without any key details, the presenter had said something like this:

"Taiwan had been a Japanese colony until the end of World War II, when the Allied Powers allowed the Republic of China to accept Japan's surrender on their behalf and govern Taiwan, amid some controversy. The Nationalists and their leader, Chiang Kai-shek, who controlled Republic of China, were then defeated by the Communists under Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic of China. The Nationalists fled to Taiwan, claiming to be the 'sole' government of the 'true' China. Both leaders of these "two Chinas" were military dictatorships marked by oppression and mass murder. The United States recognized the Republic of China on Taiwan, under Chiang Kai-shek, until the late 1970s, when it switched recognition to the PRC in Beijing. Since then, China has continued on a trajectory of dictatorship while Taiwan has democratized and liberalized, with many Taiwanese no longer identifying as 'Chinese'. Polls in Taiwan show consistent support for a separate Taiwanese national and cultural identity. Some in Washington say that in light of this, it's time to re-assess US policy in the region, which..."

Same basic facts, but with pertinent details centered in the narrative, it tells quite a different story, doesn't it?

But, hey.

We can't get everything we want, so I can only hope that during the 'historical' interludes, American viewers went to the kitchen to get more chips. 

In the end, it doesn't matter as much as Tsai comporting herself well, which she clearly did. Taiwan needs to present a clear case to the world that it is worth taking seriously and aiding if necessary. I never thought I'd say Tsai Ing-wen was the public speaker who could accomplish much of anything (she's not a great speaker), but...I could be wrong. She's exactly the face Taiwan needs to show to the West. 

Where Richard Bush is right, and where he is wrong

Let me start out by saying that I don't think China expert (which somehow includes Taiwan? I mean, being the former AIT chair makes that okay, but they are not the same thing) Richard Bush is a Confucius McDoorknob. We can all agree that he is deeply credible.

So, let me be kind, and start with the ways that his two most recent articles (here and here) are right, before talking about the ways that they aren't.

In the first article, he's quite right that Tsai has been doing an excellent job of managing cross-strait relations, using caution most of the time, but snapping back like a bad-ass she-wolf at the appropriate times. This is just right, and Bush and the US are right to support her:


In my view, one of the reasons that the United States has expressed support for President Tsai and her administration is precisely because she is cautious and careful. She does not take the U.S. commitment for granted and understands the value of close communication.


He's also right that a referendum on de jure Taiwanese independence is a terrible idea.

Frozen Garlic covered why referendums are not the direct-democracy saviors their supporters make them out to be in the context of energy policy; it really covers referendums as a problematic tool more generally, though, and I highly suggest reading it.

Echoing Froze, Bush points out:


When it comes to democratic mechanisms, none is perfect in my view. Whether it is indirect democracy in a legislature or direct democracy through a referendum, distortion and manipulation of the popular will occurs. So a referendum is not necessarily better than other mechanisms.

If referendums are to be employed on routine policy issues, in my view, they should be crafted in a way so the result truly reflects the view of the majority of all citizens. I’m not sure one can say that about the referendums that were held on November 24 last year.

All the more so when the referendum is on questions regarding the fundamental identity of a state and a nation. For these, it is a good thing to set a high bar for authorizing a referendum and passing a referendum. The stakes are so high and the consequences of being wrong are so great, that it is appropriate—even mandatory—to require a broad public consensus through a super-majority for passage. Witness the trouble that Great Britain is now in because only a simple majority of those voting for Brexit was required for passage.


There are other reasons why it's a bad move, as well: first, that it would take a willfully blind person or someone invested in an outcome they are not openly articulating to say that Tsai is not working toward setting the fundamentals in motion for eventual de jure independence. It's not even reasonable to say she's moving too slowly; this is the pace you have to move at when you are threatened by a nasty bully just a few hundred miles away with missiles pointed at you.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that Taiwan has to make choices based in its real situation, not in how it would like the world to be right now.

The only reasonable criticism, then, is that she's not doing a particularly good job of 'selling' her way of doing things to the public. I do understand this is difficult: the deep blues already think this is the GREEN TERROR (it's not, and that phrase doesn't mean anything) and the deep greens are in fantasyland - they'd rather do what feels good than work in concrete ways toward a future for Taiwan. But it does feel as though she hasn't really tried.

So to say that what's needed is a bing-bam-boom REFERENDUM! goes beyond wishful thinking - in some ways it's straight-up childish.

And, of course, it's a bad move because it will probably fail. I mean, look at how easily the tide turned on the referendum to end the use of "Chinese Taipei" (which realistically would have meant applying to stop using that name - there's no way it would have been accepted). All it took was the IOC being a bunch of whiny buttclowns and the Taiwanese Olympic athletes coming out against the change to get the Taiwanese not to vote for a referendum that would have symbolically told the world that they think "Chinese Taipei" is a preposterous name, which it objectively is.

If we can't even pass "what the hell is Chinese Taipei?", how are we going to pass this? We're not. That doesn't mean the Taiwanese electorate doesn't generally support independence; most people do.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, he's right about Taiwan having to take into account the political situation in the US and what they will and will not realistically offer Taiwan.

Yeah I know I just puked in my mouth saying that too, but it doesn't make it untrue.

From the "open letter":


I do not know how firm the Trump administration’s commitment to Taiwan’s defense would be if military conflict were likely. There are certainly those who see Taiwan as a useful asset in its campaign to resist what they regard as China’s revisionist objectives. But valuing Taiwan’s partnership in this way is not the same thing as giving Taiwan, or political forces in Taiwan, a green light to act unilaterally to change the status quo, a principle that remains a central element of U.S. policy.

I do know that President Trump himself is skeptical about any U.S. security commitment to Taiwan. At a meeting of the National Security Council on January 19, 2018, Mr. Trump asked his senior national security team, “even more than [Korea], what do we get from protecting Taiwan?” The implication of that question is the U.S. commitment to Taiwan is not justified, as far as he is concerned. I have seen no evidence that this skepticism has changed. It is consistent with his long-standing opposition to U.S. defense commitments to U.S. friends and allies. 


and from the "let's not invite Tsai to speak" article, which I think was easily the worse of the two:


Make no mistake: The United States should continuously find ways to improve relations with Taiwan. We need to improve our economic relationship and help Taiwan effectively enhance its deterrence against China. That requires engaging Taiwan leaders on how they realistically believe American can help them, not how we think we should help. Forty years of American experience in conducting U.S.-China relations has demonstrated the need to be skillful and sometimes stealthy in our Taiwan diplomacy. Public symbols, deftly deployed, are important in relations with Taiwan, but substance is far more important.


In short, when talking about how to improve the chances of a truly independent future for Taiwan, it is simply smart to consider the US position as Taiwan's most powerful potential ally. I don't like it any more than you do, but whether or not the US will ultimately stand up for Taiwan does matter. At the very least it forces Taiwan to consider what it has at its own disposal when making decisions rather than assuming that its underdog status is so sympathetic and its cause so just (though it is) that of course anyone who truly cares about a free and democratic world will, in the end, stand by us. But that is not at all assured. It's not right and it's not fair, but it is sadly true. 

And, of course, he was smart to point out that the call to invite Tsai to address Congress originated with a group of US Senators, and it's not clear that Tsai herself thinks its a good idea:


The third flaw in this initiative is its disregard for Taiwan’s view. I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the authors did not ask President Tsai if she thought this was a good idea—and, if they did ask, they didn’t listen very carefully to her answer. President Tsai is responsible for the prosperity and safety of 23 million people. She understands that she must maintain some degree of balance between relations with the United States on the one hand and relations with China on the other. Clearly, relations with China are not as good as she might like them to be, but I believe she would not wish to risk a further, serious deterioration in relations with Beijing unless it brought it an extraordinary benefit.


But I have to say, there are a lot of ways in which Bush is straight-up dead-ass what-the-hell wrong.

Starting with the quote above, what's up with the fallacy that Tsai can do much, if anything, about deteriorating relations with Beijing. They're going to treat Taiwan like garbage no matter what she does because they simply don't like her, the DPP, or the Taiwan consensus. Relations are deteriorating because Beijing is deteriorating them, and that's not going to change.

Along these lines, and alongside some pretty solid wisdom, Bush is also selling some Grade A snake oil. Reading these articles is like going to your Harvard-educated doctor who effectively treats an infection with modern medicine, and then recommends you get your humors balanced.

Let's start with the top shelf dippery:


The first aspect is that the proposal touches on the national interests of the United States, specifically its abiding interest in peace and security in the Taiwan area and its longstanding view that neither side of the Taiwan Strait should try unilaterally to change the status quo.


and:


You will recall that President Bush publicly criticized Mr. Chen in December 2003 for trying to unilaterally change the status quo. In September 2007, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen warned that Mr. Chen was putting Taiwan’s security at stake for the sake of the DPP’s electoral advantage.


These points pre-suppose that the status quo can potentially be changed bilaterally, or in some way other than unilaterally (and that the DPP fights the status quo "for its electoral advantage" rather than because they, and most Taiwanese, actually believe in working toward an independent Taiwan).

This is false.

It's not only false, it's dangerous to buy into. It will never happen. There's no game to play here, no potential winning strategy in which, if Taiwan negotiates with China in just the right way, or plays nice to just the right CCP officials, that there will be a breakthrough and a permanent situation of peace and Taiwan's assured autonomy would tumble from the heavens, rejoice! 

China. Will. NEVER. Agree. To. A. Bilateral. Solution. That. Taiwan. Can. Accept.

Ever. 

Well, unless the CCP falls in an inglorious revolution, but that would create so much instability and uncertainty (a dying CCP who invades Taiwan as a last-ditch effort to distract its own people from the situation about to boil over at home?) that it's not exactly desirable either. Slow reforms and so-called "bloodless" democratization/liberalization are even less likely, at least not on any timeline that will be viable.

That leaves three possible solutions that Bush is assiduously trying to avoid admitting to:

a.) war
b.) perpetual status quo
c.) some non-war-starting way of unilaterally changing the status quo

(The idea of peaceful unification is as much a non-starter as China agreeing bilaterally to Taiwanese independence: Taiwan would never accept it).

War is possible, but quite wisely, nobody (except perhaps China) wants to pursue it, so let's leave it aside. The perpetual status quo is a chimaera. It seems real enough but can't last. There's just no way that Taiwan's current situation is permanently tenable. This is because while the CCP as a whole may not be in any great rush to try to annex Taiwan, Xi Jinping harps on it in a way reminiscent of Chiang Kai-shek before anyone took him seriously. It seems unlikely to me that he'll run China for the rest of his life without at least making an attempt to accomplish it. And yet, the Taiwanese overwhelmingly support independence (whether de facto or de jure). They may vote for politicians who say otherwise, for other reasons, but when those politicians make concrete moves towards integrating with China, watch how their fortunes change.

So what does that leave us? Option C. I have no idea how we cause that to come about, but seeing as I don't see any "bilateral" way of changing anything between Taiwan and China, we can't take any potential future unilateral action off the table.

That Bush wants to imply that this is not Taiwan's reality, and that a bilateral solution may be possible, is dangerous wishful thinking at best, and straight-up snake oil served by gaslight at worst.

And, while I appreciate that Taiwan must take the US's position into consideration, I balk at the implication that we should prioritize the US-China relationship as though it is somehow more important to Taiwan than the question of its own continued sovereignty:


If the president of Taiwan were to speak to a joint meeting of Congress, any U.S. claim that its relations with Taiwan were unofficial would ring completely hollow. China would interpret the move as Washington’s reneging on the fundamental bargain at the heart of U.S.-PRC relations. Although I cannot predict exactly what Beijing would do in response, a radical downgrading of the relationship would be likely. Any hope that President Trump would have of cutting a trade deal with his New Best Friend Xi Jinping would vanish. U.S. requests for Chinese assistance concerning North Korea would fall on very deaf ears. Many sectors of American society that still value the U.S.-China relationship would be hurt. American multinationals that rely on China as a market or production platform would be vulnerable to retaliation, with attendant effects on jobs and profits.


Yeah okay but now you're starting to make it sound as though US corporate profits are Taiwan's chief concern, or that we should be worried about the US-China relationship for its own sake, beyond what it portends for the US-Taiwan relationship (or the Taiwan-China relationship).

We don't. I don't care about a trade deal between the US and China beyond its potential impact on Taiwan, and I don't care about the "fundamental bargain at the heart of US-China relations" because it's a crap bargain. I want US to normalize and make official relations with Taiwan, so why would any Taiwan-prioritizing readers take this paragraph seriously?

I mean, I get it, this is aimed as much at a US political audience as a Taiwan one, but as someone who prioritizes Taiwan, it is deeply unconvincing. Poor babies. It might hurt your profits. Oh noes. Oh wait, I don't care.

Finally, I'll also say that this simply can't be argued with, but is still deeply problematic for reasons explained below:


Also, neither you nor I can control how the Beijing government interprets developments on Taiwan and whether they trigger Article 8 of the Anti-Secession Law.


What bothers me about it is that he comes so close to understanding a deeper truth about China: that they are going to treat Taiwan like crap no matter what, and Taiwan can't control that (the US, in theory, could influence it in some way - if it wanted to. It doesn't.)

But no, he stops there, and then promptly trots out the same old blather implying that Taiwan not only can, but should, play this game with China:


The second flaw in this proposal [for Tsai to address Congress] is Taiwan would suffer. This initiative began in the United States, and Beijing would take the opportunity to pressure and squeeze Taiwan even more than it is already doing. It would likely find ways to get the small number of countries that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei to switch to the PRC. Taiwan-directed exercises by China’s People’s Liberation Army would intensify. China’s efforts to interfere in Taiwan’s domestic politics would increase. So, a gesture that senators intended to help Taiwan would only hurt it.


Taiwan is going to "suffer" no matter what. China will "squeeze" Taiwan no matter what. They will try to poach our (well, the ROC's) diplomatic allies no matter what (and I'm not sure how much I care - it's not like those countries recognize Taiwan. They recognize the ROC as China, which is not the same thing really). Taiwan-directed exercises by the PLA will probably intensify no matter what, and Xi's anti-Taiwan rhetoric will escalate no matter what. So while I admire Bush's genuine concern for Taiwan, he's coming at it in not only a wrong, but condescending way - as though we don't see for ourselves that China is already doing the things he is threatening China will do.

Let me repeat:

China is going to increasingly treat Taiwan like garbage no matter what Taiwan does, and there is nothing acceptable to the Taiwanese electorate that Taiwan can do to stop it. 

So if the CCP is going to continue to be a bunch of glass-hearted pissbabies, and they are going to increase their bullying of Taiwan regardless, then dude.

Let them.

And don't buy into the illusory nonsense that if Taiwan just plays footsie in the right way, it can negotiate a better outcome for itself or somehow convince China to stop being such a jag-off. This will never happen.

The only way to win this game is not to play. I support Tsai because, while it looks like she's playing China's game, she in fact has her own deck of cards and is playing her own long hand. China's not even invited to the poker table.

So let's keep not playing. Let's not make any rash moves, and let's stop tearing ourselves apart because some people need to prove that they are more ideologically "pure" rather than seeking realistic, practical solutions that lay the groundwork for a future that includes an independent Taiwan.

But holy mother of god, let's not buy any "but China will be mad and you can't make any unilateral changes!" garbage.

We know better and we will not be fooled.