Five great things to read after the election

I spend so much time critiquing the media that sometimes, I like to point out pieces that are worth reading. The well-written (or spoken), thoughtful stuff that either makes you think, teaches you something, or elevates Taiwanese voices above the general din of foreign commentators. 

Not all of these are about the election specifically. Some are, but some are more about critical points and interesting ideas being made more accessible to international audiences, simply because more Taiwanese voices are slowly starting to be heard. 


A survey of Taiwanese history

First up is one I've already linked: Kathrin Hille's survey of Taiwan's history in the Financial Times. This is the article to give someone who doesn't know much about Taiwanese history, but would like to learn more. It gets a lot of little, often-overlooked details right without being overly long. For example, it's one of the only historical surveys clarifying both that the Qing, for most of their colonial reign, did not control all of Taiwan, and explores in some detail how 'not Chinese' Taiwan really became under Japanese colonial rule -- including in the minds of most Chinese leaders.

These crucial details are often overlooked in historical summaries of Taiwan, which tend to make it seem more tied to China than it ever really has been. It's engaging, readable and accurate. I honestly can't think of anything I'd fix. 

Why Taiwan's election matters -- for Taiwan, and for the ideals of democracy

Next, Michelle Kuo's excellent piece in The Guardian is well worth a read. I love this one because it centers everything Taiwan has gotten right. Essentially, that Taiwan may have its issues but the fundamentals are good. It also correctly positions Taiwanese democracy as something that grew out of the resistance movement to KMT dictatorship. That is, it came from the Tangwai, the fighters, the Taiwanese insisting on something better. 

Certainly, KMT supporters want to believe that they are the party of democratization, because it's easier to take comfort in that than to think about all the ways their party attempted to stop it from happening, and the leaders they take as role models were objectively bad people. (The one KMT leader who is actually owed some respect, Lee Teng-hui, is the one they kicked out of the party.)

Moving back to Taiwan

Next up is a fascinating listen-and-read from NPR on Taiwanese Americans who have chosen to move back to Taiwan. It addresses all sorts of topics, from how their families might feel about their choices, to the relative feeling of safety in Taiwan despite the geopolitical threats.

There's a lot here that expats who do not have Taiwanese heritage, like me, might not necessarily realize when it comes to Taiwanese Americans who make the move, and topics we probably wouldn't think to investigate on our own. 


Emily Y. Wu on CNN

After the election, Christiane Amanpour interviewed Emily Y. Wu on the election results and what they mean for Taiwan. I want to see more of this -- getting Taiwanese voices in the international media rather than bringing on some rando white guy commentator. Wu's answers were articulate and thoughtful, providing perspective on the results and why China's threats have not deterred Taiwanese voters. She does especially well in describing why, exactly, Taiwan is already an independent nation. 

I get so tired of "should Taiwan be independent" or "will Taiwan get independence" or "can we support Taiwan independence" as though Taiwan is not currently independent. If it isn't, who governs it? Someone other than the people of Taiwan? 

I was a little taken aback by Amanpour's seeming lack of preparation. She says Lai referred to Taiwan as "Republic of Taiwan, China", and then double-confirmed it. Of course, he did no such thing. He calls it exactly what President Tsai has always called it -- either Republic of China, Taiwan or Taiwan, Republic of China. Could you even imagine what would happen if a president of Taiwan switched the two names?

Amanpour also seemed to brain fart on President Tsai's name, but hey, we all have bad days. Regardless, Emily was insightful and worth listening to.

An election scholar's take on the results

Finally, there's Frozen Garlic's take on the election results. There's little here that I didn't already know, but Batto lays out a clear narrative of what happened, and what it might mean for the parties, the government and the nation going forward. He spends a lot of time discussing who might be speaker, what it could mean, and how much power the TPP now wields in the legislature (as well as what would happen if there were a battle over Lai's premier pick, and how that would affect the various parties -- especially the TPP). 

The only thing I'd add is that it would be interesting to see the DPP back the TPP's Huang Shan-shan as speaker. I'm not sure they will, and it would be unusual for the speaker to come from a party that holds only eight seats, but it might be a way to get the TPP to consider the DPP's agenda more favorably, rather than simply trying to convince the TPP to support the DPP pick for speaker. 

As a bonus, if you're interested in how the tiny parties did, there's Donovan Smith's take to read, as well. He spends less time on the speaker and premiership and more on how various parties' fortunes have risen and fallen. 

Good reporting centers Taiwanese agency

Taking a bit of a risk with my weird graphic, but I like it. 

I don't think of the Economist as an accurate source of news on Taiwan. They report on Taiwan with some frequency, but in terms of relative merits to flaws, their articles are at best middle-of-the-road. At worst, they're unequivocally terrible. Occasionally, the magazine puts out something surprisingly good on Taiwan, but don't ask me for an example from the past right now as I can't think of one.

One of the chief problems with their Taiwan coverage hounds other publications as well: their disturbing tendency to deny Taiwan any agency in its own narrative. Stories ostensibly about Taiwan might barely reference what's actually going on there; to a reader who doesn't actively consider what they're reading, they might come away with the vague, unsettling impression that Taiwan is a barren rock that other countries fight over, just a piece of land to be won or lost. 

It would be easy from this sort of writing to assume Taiwan doesn't have any people living on it at all. 

Great powers fight over it, threats are levied against it, claims are made on its territory, but Taiwan might as well be Olive Oyl (thanks to a friend for that analogy) -- standing their whimpering in the general vicinity of the muscle men who want to possess her but with no apparent personality of her own. Whatever Taiwan itself wants is apparently not relevant to its own story or future. 

I don't know why reporters do this. I would imagine at least some of them have actually been to Taiwan, met and talked to Taiwanese people. They can't possibly think Taiwan is merely some trophy to be won or lost, a square on a chessboard that, if it could express itself, wouldn't have anything to say. They can't possibly believe that the views of Taiwanese people exist only as reflections of whatever China or the US want them to think.

And yet, this is how they write. It is simply bad reporting and in any other context, I daresay it would be more robustly called out as the racism that it is. 

With this in mind, two articles appeared recently in The Economist that show the effect better reporting can have on disseminating global understanding of Taiwan. I'd like to compare them, to elucidate what can be considered good writing on Taiwan, and differentiate it from the crap.

"America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan", which appeared in the Storm Warning brief with no byline, is pretty bad, though not wholly irredeemable. "Taiwan is a vital island that is under serious threat" by Alice Su is far superior. 

You can tell by the titles: the former foregrounds the US and China, implying that they are making similar or parallel moves regarding Taiwan, although this is not the case. China is preparing to start a war in Taiwan. The US is preparing for the possibility of having to help Taiwan defend itself. Taiwan may as well be an inanimate pawn in this headline, a battered toy for two cats who've got the zoomies to tussle over. 

The latter references Taiwan in the first word rather than the last, and immediately references something about it. The US and China don't even appear in it. "Vital" can mean something like vibrant, or lively -- but it can also mean crucial or (strategically) important. Both are true, and I'd argue the more human definition is just as meaningful as the geostrategic one.

Of course, writers don't typically get final say over the titles of published articles. The Storm Warning article might have been mauled by some squash-brained editor who didn't know better, but have solid content. 

This was not the case. The article is just as bad as the headline implies. Here's how it starts: 

Their faces smeared in green and black, some with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles on their packs, the men of “Darkside”—the 3rd battalion of America’s 4th marine regiment—boarded a pair of Sea Stallion helicopters and clattered away into the nearby jungle. Their commanders followed in more choppers carrying ultralight vehicles and communications gear. Anything superfluous was left behind. No big screens for video links of the sort used in Iraq and Afghanistan: to avoid detection, the marines must make sure their communications blend into the background just as surely as their camouflage blends into the tropical greenery. The goal of the exercise: to disperse around an unnamed island, link up with friendly “green” allies and repel an amphibious invasion by “red” forces. 

All I can say is woof. I can't fault the writing style, as the delayed lede allows for creative scene-setting that draws the reader in. But come on! We've got all this big macho US army energy, references to Iraq and Afghanistan, Taiwan as an "unnamed" island. I understand why all these narrative choices were made, but the cumulative effect is not one of a real island full of real people whose choices are at the center of it all, but two massive military industrial complexes itching to go at it.

I hate defending the US and will do so as rarely as possible, but just by the facts, the US is not planning to invade Taiwan as they did Iraq or Afghanistan. That would be China's intention. 

I know the opening doesn't say this, and does not really criticize US military involvement in Taiwan -- in fact, I get the sense the author supports it -- but it does draw an implicit connection, and I fear this is what readers will take away.

Compare that to the opening of Su's piece:

When Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, announced the extension of military conscription in December 2022, she called it an “incomparably difficult decision”. Taiwan’s young were previously subject to only four months of conscription. Starting from 2024, they will serve a year each, with improved training. “No one wants war,” she said. “But peace will not fall from the sky.” Taiwan must prepare for war, she added, to prevent it.

Without hesitation, the article dips into the situation in Taiwan, providing crucial context about the decisions Taiwan is making and why. Readers get the immediate sense that Taiwan is defined not just by its land but its people, and they have a government and thoughts and feelings and choices and lives. The reader is invited to consider Taiwan for its own sake, and what it might feel like to be in Taiwan with this huge threat looming over you. 

The following paragraphs follow up on this, and the focus does not shift from Taiwan until the third paragraph. 

To be clear, I don't agree with everything Su says here. She calls Taiwan "numb to China's threat" (which is not true) and asks "whether" Taiwan is willing to defend itself. People aren't numb, they're tired and worried and don't want to fret themselves into migraines and insomnia every day, so they compartmentalize it in order to live normally. It's exhausting to spend each day wondering at what point in the future your neighbor's going to press the button on those missiles he's got pointed at you.

I don't think Taiwan has "no consensus on who they are", either. Most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese; the vast majority who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese prioritize Taiwanese identity. Most say they are willing to defend their country, and most consider Taiwan's current status to be sufficient qualification to be considered independent. There is virtually no support for immediate unification and not very much for eventual unification, either. Most don't want a war, which is probably the main reason why they say they prefer "the status quo". Of course, I can't be sure, this is just a feeling based on anecdotal observation.  Frozen Garlic discusses this in his redux of the relevant poll; I suggest you read it.

Anyway, that sure sounds like a string of consensuses to me! Exactly what kind of country Taiwan is, and how it will defend itself against China, are still relevant questions and ongoing debates. Whether it is a country and whether it should unify with China, however? Though there will always be dissenters, those questions seem fairly settled.

That said, for the purposes of comparing two journalistic approaches to Taiwan, these are the nitpicks of a crotchety old git who has the diabeetus and puts ice cubes in her tea. I shake my cane at you! But truly, Su's article is pretty good. It takes every opportunity to foreground Taiwan and Taiwanese agency, and thus implies to the reader that this is a place that matters, these are people not too different from you, and they matter. It shows the reader that Taiwan has its own internal workings, can make its own decisions, and has its own views on China's aggression. 

This implies that the possibility of war is not because two superpowers are bored and feel like duking it out over some rock. It's because China wants to annex Taiwan, and the Taiwanese do not want this. 

Taiwan has agency, and that agency not only matters but is at the core of the conflict: Taiwan is unwilling to do what China demands, and China wants to take their agency away. How would you feel if someone wanted to annex your land, murder your kid for attending a protest, tell you that you don't get a say?

Without it being made explicit, this sort of story asks the reader to consider these questions, perhaps subconsciously. This rings clear throughout Su's piece, even as I may disagree on the details. 

In fact, after a few more paragraphs we get this gem, which I consider the nut graf but probably isn't:

As Chinese pressure on Taiwan grows, the Taiwanese look for the world’s support. Taiwan stands “at the vanguard of the global defence of democracy”, Ms Tsai has said. To let it go under would be a devastating step towards the might-is-right world that both Mr Xi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin seem to favour.

Instead of starting off with what's happening in the Taiwan/China/US Torment Nexus (protip: don't create the Torment Nexus) to Iraq and Afghanistan, two places where the US screwed up massively, it chiefly describes Taiwan's critical juncture to the resistance against Putin's war in Ukraine. This is the better analogy. 

To be fair, the Storm Warning piece does this too, and compares Xi's irredentism to Putin's. I support this, because it's true. But compare one of their typical paragraphs: 

America, meanwhile, is sending more military trainers to Taiwan. The Taiwanese government recently increased mandatory military service from four months to a year. Prominent congressmen have urged President Joe Biden to learn from Russia’s attack on Ukraine and give Taiwan all the weapons it may need before an invasion, not after one has started. Adding to the sense of impending crisis are America’s efforts to throttle China’s tech industry and Mr Xi’s growing friendliness with Russia.

With one from Su's piece: 

Taiwan has not made up its mind how or even whether to defend itself. It is at once the “most dangerous place in the world” yet numb to China’s threat. Only since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has serious debate about a possible Chinese invasion become normal. That is in part because China’s Communist Party is engaged in an information war designed to sow confusion. It also reflects Taiwan’s tortuous history and politics.

One frames the Ukraine conflict mostly in terms of what the US and China think about it. The other uses it to help the reader understand Taiwan's internal workings.

When it can finally turn its gaze from the US and its Big Tank Energy, it talks about what China claims and how it acts vis-à-vis Taiwan: 

China’s Communist leaders have claimed Taiwan since Nationalist forces fled to it after losing a civil war in 1949. America has long pledged to help the island defend itself. But in recent years, on both sides, rhetoric and preparations have grown more fevered. China’s forces often practise island landings. Its warships and fighter jets routinely cross the “median line” (in effect Taiwan’s maritime boundary) and harass military ships and planes of America and its allies. After Nancy Pelosi, at the time the Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, visited Taiwan last year, China fired missiles towards it.

These are all important details, but shifting focus from the US, everything is now centered around China. The two countries' preparations are "fevered", there are warships and fighter jets and and rhetoric and missiles and some other kind of ships and Nancy Pelosi. 

What there isn't? Anything Taiwan might think or want or even an acknowledgement that 23.5 million people maybe have a role to play and a lot at stake. 

It gets worse. Later on, if you're still reading this Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-sized article (Brendan's joke about that book: "it takes as long to read as it took to happen"), you get this: 

Given the appalling consequences, would America and China really go to war? Chinese officials say their preferred option is still peaceful unification, and deny there is any timetable for an attack.

OKAY, but Taiwan is never going to accept or choose peaceful unification because they see how badly the Chinese government treats its own citizens, including but not limited to Hong Kong, Tibet and East Turkestan! That "peaceful unification" is not possible, that Taiwan has an opinion on this, that the world has to lie to China to prevent invasion (for now) isn't mentioned -- only that China claims it wants peace. That China knows Taiwan will never choose unification, and yet has not renounced the use of force, should tell you everything about what China wants: war. If they didn't, they'd commit to no war, because it is very easy to not invade your neighbor. 

What's more, this paragraph not only never explores how Taiwan feels about the "appalling cost of war" even though they'd be the most affected, it also implies that China might choose to back off from invasion because it would be bad for Taiwan, some of their troops, and the global economy. LOL. Do you think China cares? I don't.

Worse yet, the wording outright states that all this horror would be caused by "the US and China [going] to war", not China starting a war. 

It continues like this; I read and read, and everything was US, China, US, China, war, war, invasion, imminent war. In many paragraphs Taiwan wasn't even mentioned even though this is where the war would take place! You don't get any meaningful engagement with Taiwan's potential actions until a paragraph somewhere in the potbellied middle of this extremely long piece.

Is it a counter to China's claims, which appear near the top? Perhaps some insight into what is happening in Taiwan right now as they face this threat? Nope. It's more guns and bombs and artillery and rockets:  

Taiwan’s strategy, meanwhile, is to thwart China’s initial landing or prevent it from bringing enough troops. Taiwanese forces would block ports and beaches with sea mines, submerged ships and other obstacles. Backed by surviving aircraft and naval vessels, they would strike China’s approaching force with missiles and pound disembarking Chinese troops with artillery and rockets. Some PLA texts suggest that Taiwan has underwater pipelines off its beaches that could release flammable liquid. Some of its outlying islands are protected by remote-controlled guns.

The fact that Taiwan's extremely justified refusal to be annexed by China (and China's inability to accept this) is at the core of this conflict is simply not worth mentioning, apparently. It's just Anger McRagersons chucking rockets at each other thousands of miles away. The visuals here imply little islands out in the ocean whose primary feature is guns. The implication? This war is stupid, everyone sucks, and the US should stay out of it. If Taiwan falls, so what? It's some random island in the middle of nowhere, it can't be of any importance. I don't want another Iraq or Afghanistan! 

Nevermind that US assistance to Taiwan could be one of the most crucial obstacles standing between Taiwan's subjugation by China, much as the world's support of Ukraine helps Ukraine stave off Russia each day. 

Surely readers know Taiwan has people; some might even realize that the population of Taiwan rivals Australia (and how would you feel if Australia were invaded by a hostile foreign dictatorship?). To the writers, however, it may as well be a fortress stuffed with incendiaries and nothing more. 

I do understand the point of all this -- it's not meant to be a human story, it's intended to be focused on  military tactics. I don't think the article is totally without merit. The various war scenarios provide useful information regarding what a war in Taiwan might actually look like, for readers who don't know. There are worthwhile details about military readiness sprinkled throughout. However, the overall effect is one of BAM BOOM BOOM BANG KAPOW by two big armies over some pile of rocks.

Perhaps we need these sorts of stories. People should be able to learn about what the US is doing abroad, and what it's facing. Isn't there a way to tell that story without ignoring Taiwan almost completely, though? 

Su takes a more holistic approach. She continues with the Ukraine analogies and makes the case for Taiwan both from a global economic and internal perspective: 

Taiwan also has outsize importance in the world economy. A conflict over Taiwan would do a lot more damage even than Russia’s war on Ukraine. Taiwan makes more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones to guided missiles, and 90% of the most advanced sort. Rhodium Group, a research outfit, estimates that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could cost the world economy more than $2trn.

Taiwan’s leaders know that neither strong democracy nor economic importance is enough. The Ukraine war has taught them that a small country bullied by a bigger neighbour must demonstrate that it has the will to resist. Fight back, and there is more chance that the world will come to your aid. But Taiwan is not ready to fight.

The Storm Warning piece also references the global economy in a very similar paragraph, but never ties it in or brings it back to Taiwan. The best you ever get is this: 

A war game by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, another American think-tank, found that under its “base scenario” Taiwanese, American and Japanese forces typically severed PLA supply lines after about ten days, stranding some 30,000 Chinese troops on the island. Taiwan survived as an autonomous entity, but was left with no electricity or basic services. America and Japan suffered, too, losing 382 aircraft and 43 ships, including two American aircraft-carriers. China lost 155 planes and 138 ships.

Even in a paragraph about the aftermath and cost of war, Taiwan gets one sentence. Then it's back to what America and China lose. 

While the Storm Warning piece ostensibly about Taiwan never gets any better about actually including Taiwan in the narrative, it's in the warp and weft of Su's work. 

This is what we need more of. Even the military-focused stories should spend more time considering Taiwan's own perspective and role, and what Taiwan has to lose. This is how we get readers to actually see what war would mean, and consider that it wouldn't happen to a place, but to people. 

Of course, one can argue that the Economist published both because the angles are so different: one focuses on Taiwan, the other on the US and China. Three players in one drawn-out story. I can understand that, but taken on its own, the Storm Warning piece is almost comical in how actively it ignores Taiwan. The Economist has a paywall, not everyone reads every article (many can't), and there's no way to make a social media post with two fully-displayed link headers. Good intentions or not, the Storm Warning piece on its own erases Taiwan.

Do we really need these US-China Go Boom-Boom pieces? Arguably yes, but they lack crucial context. Could the useful military and war scenario information be included in something a little less dismissive of Taiwan itself? Perhaps stories like tome in this Storm Watch might at least attempt to include the Taiwanese perspective, or even question whether China is right to claim Taiwan, or their "peaceful unification" talk is possible or meaningful?

Then, beyond how many different types of Big Guns and Ships and Rockets the US and China can chuck at each other, readers might understand that this is a country full of people and they play a crucial role in their own story. 

In other words, in a story theoretically about Taiwan, at least some of the focus should actually be on Taiwan.

A Pomegranate for New Year's Eve

A Majolica tile from a long-gone Taiwanese farmhouse with pomegranate-themed jewelry and ornaments from Armenia (the beaded necklace is my own work, featuring an Armenian glass pomegranate)

Pomegranates are an unofficial but potent symbol of Armenian culture. As with Chinese culture, this has to do with fertility and abundance -- the fruit's presence on everything from fine porcelain to the vintage Majolica tiles on Taiwanese farmhouses carry a similar meaning. Although it's easy enough to buy pomegranates in Taiwan each winter, they seem to carry less symbolic weight than kumquats, peaches, pineapples and oranges here. That said, if you're on the hunt for those aforementioned old tiles, you'll certainly come across the pomegranate, peach and citron pattern. It's one of the most common.

In Armenia, the pomegranate also symbolizes resurrection (many arils mean many lives) and the "unity of many under one authority". As an atheist and anti-authoritarian, I'm not particularly interested in the Christian flavor of all this, but as a country, Taiwan seems to have done well as a collective of many individuals working together to beat the pandemic, under the sound guidance of the CECC.

This was not an abundant year. It was not particularly prosperous or fertile. But it was a lot: in addition to all the pandemic-wrought difficulties, many small, tart arils did come together to form a semi-coherent whole.  In the bevy of little things from 2021, I managed to unearth ancestral connections I'd thought were lost forever and carve out some new understandings of my own heritage.

Metaphorically speaking, 2021 handed me pomegranates. That's far from the worst thing, though they take a lot of work. From that bevy of tart little arils, I made a pomegranate-themed meal.

First, the writing. Interested readers can find my piece on Bilingual by 2030 and the possible benefits of an Intercultural Communicative Competence model in Taiwan Insight, my piece on Taipei's Railway Department Park in the winter issue of Taipei Quarterly (as well as a piece on Japanese heritage sites in their autumn issue). I'm working on something for Ketagalan Media on the use of technology to bridge the urban-rural education divide, but it's not ready yet. 

I was happy to learn that, at least for British and Irish spouses of Taiwanese citizens, the bureaucratic snafu making it impossible for them to enter Taiwan on spouse visas has been resolved after I wrote about the issue (though I don't think there's a direct relationship between my article and the resolution of the problem). I finally tackled one of my long-time bugbears in Ketagalan Media as well, dispelling myths about the supposed "Confucian" nature of Taiwanese education.

Then, the photos. To say that a lot of my attention has been diverted from Lao Ren Cha over the past year would be an understatement. I spent most of the 'soft lockdown' during the Taiwan outbreak cataloguing and identifying a large cache of family photographs that fell into my hands after my mother passed away in 2014, which I've kept in a 'dry box' (a dehumidifying cabinet) to preserve them from the ravages of Taiwan's humidity. Most of these are from the 1920s and 30s, from the Armenian refugee settlement of Kokkinia in Athens, Greece. Kokkinia is now a typical urban neighborhood where some Armenian families still live, with both Armenian Apostolic and Protestant churches. Some, however, are far older. 

I realized as I did this work that the photographs themselves hold historical value: not many photographs from survivors of the Armenian Genocide made it across the Atlantic. So, I collaborated with a historical society to donate and preserve high-quality digital copies of these images. You can see the results here. 

Here are a few examples. I don't know who this couple is, but I suspect they're my great-great-grandmother's parents:



And this is my grandfather as a child in Athens:

                    

In identifying these photos, I came across the work of Vahram Shemmassian, the only person who seems to have conducted serious academic research on the Armenians of Musa Dagh. Let me just say, it's a strange feeling to come across images of one's direct ancestors, as well as historical accounts that mention them directly, in academic work. This reading, in addition to other genealogical research, reminded me of something once said to a friend, when showing him a picture of my great grandfather in his fedayi (freedom fighter) outfit, during his time with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, or the Dashnaks if you're knowledgeable about this sort of thing). Other unexpected sources have surfaced as well. 

I told him that while certainly Taiwan's history is not my history -- my family isn't from here, I just happen to be here -- when I read and hear about the way the KMT treated Taiwan during 228 and the White Terror, and the rhetoric China uses to dehumanize Taiwan as it threatens subjugation and massacre, I do see parallels in what my own ancestors lived through. They're not the same thing -- nothing is ever exactly the same -- but the same dynamic of one group illegitimately claiming control of another group's heritage, culture, territory and yes, wealth while either threatening or conducting a massacre? Yes, I know that story. Watching the rest of the world dandy about "analyzing" these issues while debating "the Armenian Question" or the "Taiwan Question" as though these are abstract debates and not real people? I know that too.

Anyone with a shred of human empathy is able to understand this, of course, but knowing through my own history that the same playbook has been used before has had me thinking. Where that thinking will lead, I don't yet know. Writing on Lao Ren Cha increasingly feels like adding to a palimpsest: writing about Taiwan now, which evince the cultural memories of what came before. 

I made some decisions about education, too. In 2020, I realized my long-held dream of going to graduate school. In 2021, I decided I would most likely not pursue a PhD. I found academia supportive and welcoming, and I certainly did well. Issues of geography can be overcome. Funding is more difficult, but theoretically possible if I chase it. I certainly would not pay for a PhD program -- either it's fully funded or I don't go.

But the fact is, there's not much waiting for me on the other side of that gauntlet: I'm not willing to leave Taiwan, and there are essentially no good academic jobs in Taiwan for a language acquisition specialist -- the adjunct and annual contract work that does exist would entail a pay cut without putting me on the road to qualifying for dual nationality. That means I'd be doing a PhD quite literally for fun, because it wouldn't change my career trajectory. 

Besides, it looks like Brendan's likely to be starting his own Master's program soon. I needed his support to get through mine, keep a household running and work. He'll certainly need mine.

All that to say, 2021 wasn't a wash for us. The summer was hard, but we made it through, and having an "okay" year seems to be a win by global standards right now. And that's what it was -- okay. 

You can tell a pomegranate is ripe not by its smell at the base as with a pineapple or melon, nor by how hollow it sounds when you knock it, as with a pumpkin. Rather, look for firm, flat sides -- a rounded pomegranate isn't ready. The color doesn't matter much, but weight does; the heavier it is, the better. All that work into family history, decisions about higher education, writing, reading? I'm not sure it all adds up to anything -- a bunch of arils, or one ripe fruit? Who knows. But I do feel weightier, more angular, perhaps ready for new things.

What new things? I don't quite know. Perhaps not academia, but there are other options. 

How did we end 2021? With a feast that honored what defined my 2021: connections to a cultural heritage that I always knew about and even grew up within (well, the Americanized version of it). An Armenian Christmas dinner, created from scratch by the two of us working together. We fed fifteen people, old friends and some new; we filled up the maximum space available in our Taipei apartment for a true sit-down meal. 

Did everything include pomegranate? Of course not. But this is Armenian food -- it's safe to say most of it did.

We started out the meal with mezze. Hummus, beloved by Armenians. Babaghanoush and caçik, beloved by Turks and Armenians alike. Tabbouleh, more Syrian in origin but something my ancestors certainly ate. Muhammara, also Syrian, consisting of roasted red bell peppers flavored with Aleppo pepper (smoked paprika or cayenne will do) and pomegranate molasses, garnished with sumac, chopped walnuts and pomegranate arils Badrijani nigvziani, which is more of a Georgian thing but has a related flavor profile -- it's walnut paste with garlic and lemon rolled in roasted eggplant and topped with pomegranate arils. No Armenian mezze table would be complete without a big bowl of mixed olives. We served green (probably cerignola), kalamata and thasos. 

Then the main courses: lamb with plums and honey, a dish I ate at Kchuch, a restaurant hidden in a wooded grove in Dilijan, Armenia, washed down with pomegranate wine. Pomegranate molasses chicken garnished with slivered almonds. Dolma, which are vegetables stuffed with spiced and herbed bulgur and ground lamb (we call stuffed grape leaves sarma, not dolma). Rice pilaf, made just the way my grandmother used to, with a whole stick of butter. Ghapama, a pumpkin stuffed with rice, honey, butter, cinnamon, nuts and dried fruits and baked until tender. It's so good that there's a whole song, complete with trippy 1980s video, about how if you cook it everyone will come to your house.

And of course dessert: I went a little off-course here and made a British-style Christmas cake, but supplemented that with spiced walnut-stuffed cookies, made only by my Aunt Rose (Vartouhi). She would cut herringbone patterns in the top and call them "fish cookies" for the way they looked. Hers looked perfect, but they tended to be a little dry and hard. Mine looked like severed fingers but were tender and delicious. 

Instead of posting a string of photos, here's a collage I stole from my friend June. It doesn't have every dish (the pilaf, muhammara and lamb with plums and honey are missing), but it'll do:

I was unable to procure what I needed to make Armenian string cheese or the mahleb (the ground pit of the St. Lucia cherry) necessary to make cheoreg, but I did serve goat cheese garnished with nigella, parsley and pomegranate arils. Close enough. 

Everything you need to cook like this can be procured in Taiwan, by the way. Here's a quick key to some of the more difficult ingredients: I got the fine bulgur on Shopee. Parsley, fresh mint and dill can be found at Binjiang Market (though ultimately we went to City Super and certainly paid more as a result). Although my pomegranate molasses comes from the US, you can get it on Shopee, too. If it's unavailable, unsweetened pure pomegranate juice is an acceptable substitute in muhammara -- City Super at the Far Eastern Hotel sells small bottles of the juice. Chimeidiy (Chimei DIY) sells the correct tahini, though you can make it yourself with sesame seeds, and the local sesame paste is an acceptable substitute.  They also sell walnuts in bulk. Trinity Indian Market has any spices you can't procure at Jason's, the Eslite market or Carrefour. You'll need some hard-to-find ones like allspice, celery seed, nigella (kalonji), dill weed, dried mint, cumin, coriander seed and both hot and mild smoked paprika. Levant Taiwan Halal Meat has cubed lamb and can arrange ground lamb (the Braai Guy helped me out this time, but he doesn't usually carry it). 
Costco has Greek yoghurt, pita and goat cheese. 

The next morning, I noticed we still had half a pomegranate, its arils tucked neatly into a firm red shell. I cracked and peeled until the bounty fell out, and ate them straight from the bowl. 

Yesterday, I bought another particularly nice-looking pomegranate at the supermarket. Angular and heavy, it was ready to be cracked open. 

Reflection Eternal

                     

I mentioned in my last post that there would be more ‘headspace’ and casual blogging on here, at least until I get my bearings. And I mean that — it’s been a couple weeks but I still feel like I’ve just stepped off a Gravitron or a Tilt-a-Whirl, and all I can do is roll with that. I’ve done a lot of sleeping, and teacher training has picked up (ask me someday about my Kaohsiung Hell Week conducting EMI/EML training for university professors just before the dissertation was due; I used my incidentals’ allowance to buy a bottle of whiskey that I drained over several evenings of editing after full days of training. At least the hotel was pretty nice). I still haven’t gotten back into my normal rhythms; the research tabs I closed when I hit ‘submit’ have not been supplanted by the news tabs I used to open every day. Mostly, I rest. 

In the meantime, I just turned 40, and we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. For Lao Ren Cha, this means I’ve been blogging for the full measure of my 30s. I do expect that will stretch to my 40s, but what that will look like remains to be seen. Generally I don’t put much stock in life changing much just because one celebrates a milestone birthday, but I have to admit that for me, it seems to have been the case every time. I turned 20 in India, on a semester abroad that changed the trajectory of my life. I celebrated 30 in Costa Rica, on our honeymoon. We were just passing through; in fact we did a one-month bus trip from Panama to Guatemala, and it’s a testament to how long this blog has been running that I wrote about it! I celebrated 40 right here in Taiwan, 10 years married, dissertation just submitted, living a good life with far more stability than I’d ever imagined possible. The road ahead once again looks different on the other side of that Big 0 birthday.

That brings me to the real point: what’s been going on in my headspace. A few years ago I toyed with the idea of taking my writing in a more serious direction. I even wrote about it, though I can’t find that post now. It seemed like a good idea at the time, though being in grad school, I didn’t have much time to actually pursue that, though I did take steps to raise the overall level of discourse here, though I made a few exceptions when I was especially infuriated. 

Now, I honestly must say I’m happy I never went in that direction. That work matters, but there are plenty of people already doing that, many of them are quite good. There’s not much more I can add as yet another voice. Even when it comes to blogging, I do it because I enjoy it, but I don’t pretend it has a major impact beyond the relatively small bubble of people who already care about Taiwan. That’s not to say I think I’ve had no impact; perhaps there's been a small amount.

That said, over the past few years, I’ve watched Taiwan smash more soft power wins in everything from health care to music. Attention to Taiwan’s situation has even been raised in birdwatching communities. These successes in telling Taiwan’s story to the world came from people working in their respective fields who also happen to care about Taiwan. 

And what do I do as a profession, not a hobby? Teacher training. Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that I’ve had more impact helping my students to tell their own stories - and the story of Taiwan - and in raising the skill level of Taiwanese teachers of English so that they can do the same, if they wish than I could ever have through writing alone. In short, in most places where I feel I’ve made a positive contribution, it’s been behind the scenes, helping to elevate Taiwanese voices. While I have no issue using my own to speak out as well, I’ve come to realize that it’s not where my most meaningful work lies. 

Nothing clarified this more than writing my dissertation. I interviewed six teacher trainers, a mix of Taiwanese or foreign, and the foreign ones mostly develop local teachers. I focused specifically on intercultural communication, looking at the extent and methods that these teacher educators reported using if/when they incorporated intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in their teacher development work. Within that, I took a critical look at what ICC means, or might mean, for Taiwan in terms of Taiwan’s political situation as well as critical cultural issues and awareness. In short, what is Taiwan’s story and how do teacher educators here contribute to helping people to tell it to the world? 

Through this, I came to appreciate the extent to which both Taiwanese and long-term resident foreign teacher educators truly care about Taiwan, and contribute in their own ways to advocating for this country. Most of them had something to say about Taiwan, what it stands for, and what it has to contribute — and how the world would be better off knowing more about it. It’s something I have also been involved in, in a professional capacity, and it’s clear that’s where I can have the biggest impact in the years ahead. 

I will still blog, of course. I’ll still cover Taiwanese politics and issues from my perspective. I enjoy it, and it will continue to be a hobby -- I'm writing something about the US WeChat ban now, though it's neither as fun nor as true to what's actually in my head as this post. Perhaps I will have a few more moments of making small differences through it. Who knows? Writing is important too, but I’ve come to realize through completing a graduate program that I can contribute more in different ways. 

That’s good though - it means that I can use this space to be more creative rather than just straight politics all the time; in fact, I’ve always thought of myself as more a creative non-fiction writer than any sort of journalist or analyst. And, of course, I hope to elevate more Taiwanese voices. I enjoyed editing the two guest posts I had the opportunity to put up, and would like to do more of that.

So, if the general tenor in this space seems different, there’s a reason for that.

This is also a call to all of you, my readers (yes, all twelve of you). Look at what you already do — your life, your career, your field — and figure out how you can contribute to Taiwan that way. What soft power impact can you have, in your respective fields?

Anatomy of a Good Taiwan Article

This isn't new, but you've surely noticed that I've been busy. I don't need to comment on the main points of the article - I have no complaints and it's not current enough. That said, it seems like every time a terrible (or even "okay") piece on Taiwan comes out, it's easy to jump on it and say why it's terrible. 

I thought, why not flip the script and use this very good New York Times article by Edward Wong and break down why it's well-done, as a sort of how-to for people who perhaps don't 'get' Taiwan, but want to. It's not perfect, but the sub-optimal parts can be discussed reasonably. 

Let's start with the title: 

So many great things here: 

1.) The main headline is entirely about Taiwan and the US, prioritizing that relationship over any sort of clown-dancing China is doing on the side

2.) It's positive: there's no fearmongering. One democratic country with a lot of problems but also a lot of power trying to do something positive for a friendly fellow democracy. 

3.) It uses the correct verb: recognize. Taiwan is already sovereign; it is absolutely correct to write about whether other countries recognize that fact or not. The fact itself should not be in question. 

4.) It doesn't mention China in the main headline, and where it does do so, it correctly uses the 'authoritarian' epithet. This is accurate.

5.) There is no language that obfuscates China's choices: no tensions mysteriously raise themselves, China is not passively "angered" by any "moves"

Write more headlines like this when talking about the sovereign democratic nation of Taiwan, please. Write about Taiwan's other key relationships without headlining China or making China look like the victim of others' actions. It's not "a move likely to anger China", China is choosing to be angered by the completely reasonable actions of independent nations. 

Then there's the draw: 

WASHINGTON — A visit to Taiwan by an American cabinet secretary. A sale of advanced torpedoes. Talk of starting negotiations over a potential trade agreement.

All of these are positive things (some may not be a fan of the torpedoes but I implore you to consider the enemy we're fighting - fists alone won't stop them). All of them interesting to readers. There's no need to invoke China in the first sentence to get people to read about Taiwan. 

The Trump administration has taken action in recent weeks to strengthen United States relations with the democratic island of Taiwan and bolster its international standing. The efforts are aimed at highlighting a thriving democracy in Asia and countering China’s attempts to weaken the global diplomatic status of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

China does make it into the second paragraph, but is properly contextualized: the attempts to harm Taiwan are things China does, they are not actions by Taiwan or the US which cause China to be upset. China's "attempts to weaken the global diplomatic status of Taiwan" (a completely accurate assessment of their actions) compared in the same paragraph agains "highlighting a thriving democracy". This is wonderful - it does away with the charade of 'neutral' reporting in which there are no bad guys, even when there certainly are ("In A Move Likely To Anger The Wolf, Red Riding Hood Arrives At Grandmother's House") and goes with accurate reporting, which at its best is a clear-eyed depiction of a world that certainly has gray areas, but also mostly-bad guys and mostly-good guys, too. 

Wong then points out that Beijing claims Taiwan, which is true. It does away with all the old bombast of "renegade province" which is "to be reunited with the Mainland by force if necessary", wording which is fearmongering -- by force!!! -- and inaccurate (if you call Taiwan a "renegade province" often enough, even if you leave it open to questioning, people will start to think it is in fact a renegade province. It is not.) 

In fact, here's another great thing about this article: 

Check out how many times the word "Mainland" is used - zero! It is entirely possible to write an article all about Taiwan without once implying that Taiwan has some sort of Mainland area which is part of its sense of national identity (it does not). 

I'm not a fan of calling Taiwan an "island" rather than a "country" -- the Sri Lanka rule applies here -- but I'm willing to let it go. 

It gets a little problematic after this: 

That feeds into a bigger campaign by national security officials: to set the United States on a long-term course of competition and confrontation with China that any American president, Democratic or Republican, will find difficult to veer away from in the future.

“Taiwan is the most important thing from a military and credibility point of view,” said Elbridge A. Colby, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development. Mr. Colby wrote the Trump administration’s national defense strategy, which emphasizes competition with China and Russia.

You're not going to win over many New York liberals with this, New York Times. It's fine to talk about Trump's approach, though it's quite hard to say that Trump wants only to confront China (the next paragraph talks about how pro-China so much of Trump's narrative is so this feels a bit contradictory) and I don't particularly like the contextualizing of Taiwan as a chess piece dropped into that game of checkers. This piece sings when it talks about Taiwan as itself, and flounders when it tries to turn the whole thing into a "Taiwan as pawn" narrative. Taiwan is so much more than that, and the people in Taiwan certainly have a lot to say about the two big powers duking it out while they sit in the middle just trying to live peacefully with missiles pointed at them. 

It's so off-kilter with the rest of the piece that I wonder if some zealous BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MOVES LIKELY TO ANGER CHINA AMID RISING TENSIONS editor hurked it in there without Wong's consent. 

This paragraph splits the difference uncomfortably: 

Taiwan has been a fraught issue between Washington and Beijing for seven decades, and it is re-emerging as a potential focal point of tensions, as United States national security officials press their campaign against China. The officials also see bolstering Taiwan in a more urgent light given the crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong by Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

There are those mysterious tensions again! Where do they come from? (They come from China. China creates the tensions.) Taiwan again is treated like a barren rock devoid of people with ideas, opinions and desires of their own, being fought over by two foreign bloviators. But it does get better: highlighting Taiwan does indeed help to remind people of what the CCP is doing in China, most visibly in Hong Kong but elsewhere (East Turkestan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia) as well.

It also leaves the reader unclear as to whether Taiwan is a pawn to the US, or a friend. Perhaps by noting this, you can see how unhelpful such "two big guys fighting over a rock in the sea" rhetoric is. It's just not appropriate to the actual situation, and it stands out here among so much other excellent prose. 

I do particularly like this bit: 

President Trump himself admires Mr. Xi and is “particularly dyspeptic about Taiwan,” once comparing it to the tip of a Sharpie marker and China to the Resolute desk, John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, wrote in his new book. And the president is willing to sacrifice U.S. support for the democratic government for trade relations with China, he added. But campaign strategists have told Mr. Trump that he needs to appear tough on China for re-election purposes, giving pro-Taiwan U.S. officials an opening.

It doesn't make the Taiwan squad look bad -- everyone with an agenda does this, it's normal. What it does, however, is swiftly pop the balloon of inflated ideas that people have about Trump as a friend to Taiwan. He is not. Stop thinking of him as one; he is not our way out of this. He never could be. And he's not nearly as anti-China as some people think. 

President Richard M. Nixon began a process of diplomatic opening in 1971 with Communist-ruled China to get Mao Zedong’s help in countering the Soviet Union. The United States established diplomatic ties with China in 1979 and broke off formal relations with Taiwan, which had been a sanctuary for the Kuomintang, or Nationalists, since their loss in the Chinese civil war 30 years earlier. Every U.S. administration has tried to maintain an ambiguous position on Taiwan based on the “One China” policy.

I don't love this paragraph because it glosses over how brutal and basically just murderous the KMT was during those years. Plus, it says the US broke off ties with "Taiwan". No. It broke off ties with "The Republic of China", represented by the KMT, not Taiwan (Taiwan was not a democracy then so the people didn't get a say in how the KMT portrayed them abroad). There would never have been any need to break off ties with "Taiwan" because "Taiwan" does not claim "China". The Republic of China does, but that framework sucks, yet we can only really get rid of it when China backs down. The US could help with that by...perhaps recognizing or strengthening ties with Taiwan, which it has never done. 

The ambiguity has helped maintain stability across the Taiwan Strait, one of the most militarized areas in the world. But as China has grown stronger and more assertive, and as Mr. Trump has begun dismantling international commitments under his “America First” foreign policy, some U.S. officials and Washington policy experts say the United States’s traditional approach to Taiwan helps hard-liners in Beijing and increases China’s threat to the island’s 24 million people.

This is fine -- I don't love strategic ambiguity, but I accept that this is how it works right now. What is great about this paragraph is that it again points out the many ways in which Trumpism fails Taiwan. Trump is not good for Taiwan, the people working to bolster Taiwan are doing the work. It helps dismantle the narrative that the only good vote for Taiwan is a vote for Trump, when that is clearly not true. Trump's America is incapable of governing itself, let alone assisting Taiwan. We can't have that. The Democrats may have been cooler on Taiwan all these years, but to start to change that you need a firmer foundation of governance in the US, and Trump can never provide that. Otherwise you are literally building a castle on a sand dune. 

Also, while this is the first mention that Taiwan has people on it -- real people with real thoughts about their own country that the world should listen to -- and it comes rather late in the piece for my liking, it is there. That's more than you can say for most articles. 

Those officials, as well as Republican and Democratic lawmakers, aim to do as much as possible to show explicit U.S. support for Taiwan.

I won't paste the whole paragraph because at some point the New York Times might get salty that I'm basically just commenting word-for-word on their content. I figure I have to leave some out in good faith. But this sentence is fantastic: it highlights that Taiwan is a bipartisan issue, and there are Democrats who support it that we can reach out to. 

For those shrieking that Taiwan should never deign to talk to the right, I'm sorry, but no. 'Bipartisan' is not a dirty word in this context. Think about it: do you really want US support for Taiwan to swing like a pendulum every time a new party gets in power? For all that pro-Taiwan legislation that has passed unanimously to suddenly be a point of contention, with fights to get it through? We know what that's like when Republicans support Taiwan but not Democrats, and it would be utter stupidity to insist that only Democrats are acceptable, not Republicans (not even absolutely shitty Republicans whose domestic policies are horrifying, which pretty much all of them are). For those who think neither is acceptable and only "the left" will do...um, okay, I like the left too (mostly - not all of 'em). But the left doesn't have nearly as much popular support as you think and at some point Taiwan is going to need real assistance. Call me when "the left" is capable of providing essential military aid to Taiwan in the event of an invasion. Until then, bye. 

There are a few paragraphs after this about things the US has done for Taiwan recently or the ways it's stood up to China, which are all good reading. It points out that some of these efforts have failed, which again shows you that as much as you may want a pro-Taiwan savior, Trump is not your guy. 

A core element of U.S.-Taiwan ties is the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which obligates Washington to provide weapons of a “defensive character” to Taiwan.... 

But some administration officials argue the arms sales, and increased transit by U.S. warships through the Taiwan Strait, fall short of what Washington needs to do. They say Washington must make clear to Beijing and Taipei that it would defend Taiwan if the People’s Liberation Army tried an invasion or a blockade. The Taiwan Relations Act does not address that, and past administrations have left the matter vague.

These snippets are solid -- I would have liked a clarification of what the US's One China Policy actually is in there (it doesn't mean the US believes that Taiwan is certainly part of China, it means the US acknowledges the various claims of the two sides and that the matter should be solved peacefully - that's it). But this does good work: it reminds people that the US's stance has never been close to "Taiwan is a part of China".

No matter the policy options, the United States should “make clear its support for Taiwan,” said Shelley Rigger, a political scientist at Davidson College.

But she cautioned that U.S. officials should formulate Taiwan policy based on strengthening the island rather than striking at China.

“It doesn’t seem to get said enough: There’s a certain sense of conflation or confusion of what it means to be helpful to or supportive of or affirming Taiwan versus taking a position that is more challenging to the P.R.C.,” she said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “How willing are U.S. officials to pull Taiwan into that deteriorating picture, and how willing are they to be attentive to voices that say, ‘Be careful’? Beijing won’t punish Washington, but it can punish Taipei.”

Many articles like this quote some pro-China think-tank dip (like Evan Medeiros) or some CCP-affiliated "expert" in Beijing. I don't always agree with Shelley Rigger -- I am explicitly pro-independence and pro-US support, and take a fundamentally anti-ROC editorial line, and think most US support for Taiwan is valid and affirmative rather than just anti-China challenges. Also, I do think we should be challenging China, what with them being actual literal 21st century fascists, including all the genocide. But maybe an article about Taiwan is not the place for that. 

However, she is a fundamentally pro-Taiwan voice, which is better than quoting some tankie they could have dredged up from the sewer. And she's not wrong here, or at least not entirely. Some actions do indeed challenge China and use Taiwan as a pawn without actually helping them. Voices from Taiwan itself should certainly be listened to. Beijing can more easily punish Taipei than Washington. 

But - as China is determined to see every action that supports or affirms Taiwan as "challenging to China", making it literally impossible to take a pro-Taiwan position that does not "challenge China". That really needs to be said - there's no way forward to support Taiwan that magically won't piss off a country that's decided it will be pissed off by absolutely everything that doesn't go its way. But, it is good to differentiate between challenges to China which China gets angry about, and support for Taiwan...which China gets angry about. 

More good stuff here: 

Some analysts have criticized Mr. Trump for his apparent lack of knowledge of the nuances in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. In December 2016, before taking office, he and Ms. Tsai talked by telephone — the first time an American president or president-elect had spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979. Though pro-Taiwan policy experts in Washington welcomed it as an overdue move, the action created tensions with Beijing that Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, scrambled to defuse. It was clear Mr. Trump had no idea of the import of the call.

I truly cannot stress enough that Donald Trump Is Not Your Friend. He's not a strategic genius who will come bounding in with a sword to defend Taiwan, which he solemnly supports. He gives exactly zero shits about Taiwan, he's not smart enough to be much help, and...he just ain't it. I will say this as many times as Edward Wong's prose allows me to, because he deconstructs the Trump-for-Taiwan mythos so damn well. 

Also great: 

The administration took a restrained approach with Mr. Azar’s visit. Mr. Azar stuck to a carefully calibrated message throughout his three-day trip, referring to Taiwan as a “jurisdiction” and limiting his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party mainly to health-related issues.

U.S. officials said the visit was aimed at highlighting Taiwan’s success in containing the coronavirus outbreak.

China expressed its displeasure by sending two fighter jets across the median line of the Taiwan Strait. On Thursday, China’s military said it had conducted several live combat drills near Taiwan “to safeguard national sovereignty” and implied the exercises were connected to Mr. Azar’s visit.

This sets up Azar's visit for what it was: a totally normal thing for two normal countries to do, that absolutely no reasonable person has any right to be mad about, and China choosing to get mad about it and actively creating tensions over it. 

Ah, so now we know where the tensions come from. 

Let us also now take a moment to close our eyes, breathe in the humid Taipei air - aaaahhh - and note that the phrase "split in 1949" did not appear once in this article. Apparently, you can write an article about Taiwan without it. Wow!

All you have to do is just...not write that. Put your fingers on the keyboard and type literally anything but that, because the ROC and PRC may have split in 1949, but the PRC has never ruled Taiwan, so Taiwan could never have "split" from the China that exists today. (And that's not even getting into how such language obfuscates Taiwan's Japanese colonial past, which didn't officially end until 1952, and which never ended with Japan ceding Taiwan to the ROC. You may have thought that had happened, but I tell you, legit, it did not.)

Who'd have thought it would be so easy?

But something is missing - an actual Taiwanese voice. Most articles like this ignore such voices completely. It's all about what China or the US wants, and nobody who is actually from Taiwan seems to get asked for their thoughts. Fortunately, Wong closes with a powerful one: 

Wang Ting-yu, a legislator from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party who is on the foreign affairs and national defense committee, said in an interview that Mr. Azar’s trip was “a break for the Taiwan people.” 

He batted away concerns about Taiwan inadvertently getting caught in the crossfire of U.S.-China relations, emphasizing that the island had its own diplomatic and defense strategies. 

“If they want to give us a hand, then we appreciate it,” Mr. Wang said. “But Taiwan won’t be any country’s bargaining chip.”

I wish a Taiwanese voice had been quoted sooner, but it's also a strong choice to end with this, and sums up Taiwan's complicated views on the matter well. Taiwan needs support, Taiwan needs to be heard. Taiwan is capable of governing itself -- and does so fairly well, actually -- and defending itself. Taiwan needs back-up, not a savior.