The Emotional Geography of an Accidental State

That tiny gray plaque in front of the Men's Tailor on the right marks the place where the 228 Incident began. Across the lane on the left, the colonial-era black buildings are the site of the Tianma teahouse, where the vendor who was beaten was "illegally" selling cigarettes. On the far left at the top you can see the sign for Tianma Teahouse (it's the white rectangle above the windows if you can't read the Chinese). 

Last summer, a student of mine asked me if, instead of regular class, we could walk around Dadaocheng as she'd never actually been. She's aware I go there often and know the area well. I met her at the Jiancheng traffic circle - this was before that glass circle building was torn down - and was genuinely surprised to learn that she didn't know three things:

- That the area was a swamp until Qing times

- That the circle itself had been a pond/reservoir as well as a bomb shelter, with the water from the pond used to put out fires from air raids, and after that was a popular culinary destination for local street food

- That the 228 Massacre began nearby, just to the west as one approaches the Nanjing-Yanping intersection.

After a quick backgrounder on Jiancheng Circle - which, again, I was truly surprised to be giving - we spent quite a bit of time ruminating at the plaque that marked where 228 began. It felt weird and slightly inappropriate to be a foreigner giving this information to a local, but here we were.

"Of course I know 228," she said. "But I didn't know where it happened. I guess I never thought about exactly where in the city it started."

We fell quiet.

See that barely-noticeable granite plaque on the left? You'd miss it if you weren't looking for it.

"I already know this history," she repeated. "But maybe now I feel more connection to it, because I actually went to the spot."

This is not to say she does not know her own country's history. By her own words, she does - quite probably as well as I know my American history. This will not be a hectoring "Taiwanese don't know their history!" post. I will never write such a post. If I ever approach that topic, it will be in a more realistic and nuanced way.

However, as we wandered around various other Dadaocheng landmarks - the old riverside mansions of major trading families, the municipal brothel, the old Yongle Market, Wang's Tea and more - she kept commenting, and I could feel, a deeper connection to her city being formed. We finished the day with her exclaiming again that she was genuinely surprised and regretful that she'd never taken the time to explore that neighborhood before. She seemed the most affected by the simple 228 commemorative plaque on that unexceptional stretch of sidewalk on Nanjing West Road.

I've come back to this story because, as 228 approaches and as I plan to visit Nylon Cheng's office (the Cheng Nan-jung Liberty Museum) on that day (some people who want to go in our group are not free on the more appropriate date of April 7th), I have found it helpful to reflect on the importance of attaching knowledge of historical events to the more visceral feeling of visiting the places where they happened. Knowing the historical and emotional geography of your city, and even your country. Taiwan is an accidental state (as the shiny-brand-new book of the same name points out), and also accidentally in its current state. Knowing not just the facts and dates but also visiting the places where these things happened imparts an emotional connection to that history that reading a book or memorizing a list of dates can never do.

It is more fruitful, then, to reflect on how the 228 Massacre continues to affect Taiwan by connecting it to a real geographical point, a historical locus from which to better understand the city and country. This, not "history", is the connection I have noticed some acquaintances of mine lack. It's a problem not limited to Taiwan, but feels especially jarring here, where the Taiwanese identity movement is so closely tied to associations with history - many social activists think of themselves as carrying the torch of civil society from their predecessors - and the land itself. Cycling around Taiwan and climbing Jade Mountain are seen, if subconsciously, as activities that bring one closer to the land and identification with it, so it is confounding that so many loci of political and social history are unknown or forgotten. How many other Taipei residents know about 228 but haven't a clue where it happened?

Again, this is not to say nobody knows. I know many socially and politically active people who can and do visit these places regularly. I'm describing a trend I see among some friends and students; it is not meant to be an indictment of an entire society.

Of course, 228 is not the only site of historical interest that make up Taiwan's emotional geography. I could do a sweeping survey of the country and list many - from the (likely) beach in Manzhou where the events of the Mudan Incident began to the Wushe battlefield to Baguashan in Changhua to Guningtou Beach in Kinmen. Instead I'll just name a few that resonate with me in Taipei:

Qingshan Temple, which has an interesting backstory that very weirdly mirrors some of the stories told about shrines in In An Antique Land about an entirely different part of the world and, while not a great historical turning point, is a story that brings to life the temple culture of the waves of Hoklo immigration from China.

Students and friends: "Where is Qingshan Temple? I didn't know that story about Qingshan Wang!"

Machangding Memorial Park, which gives me the heebiejeebies at night (though I wrote this post awhile ago, when I wasn't the writer or Taiwanophile that I am now, so please don't judge me too harshly for it)

Students and friends: "I've never been there - was it really an execution ground?" (Yes.)

Dihua Street - the old commercial center of Dadaocheng and subject of a well-known painting. Not for any major historical event but just the general sense of history (I'm particularly a fan of Xiahai temple and one house in particular, the one with the decorative ginseng around a high circular window. See if you can find it).

Students and friends: "What is there to do on Dihua Street?"

Ogon Shrine in Jinguashi (close enough to Taipei!) - simply because it's one of the easiest and only Japanese shrines that still has some existing structure that's within striking distance of Taipei. There is a much better-preserved temple in Taoyuan but the setting is not quite so evocative.

Students (not so much friends): There's a Japanese shrine ruin up there?

Yes, there is. 

The Chung Nan-jung Liberty Museum, which I will admit I have not yet been to, mostly because that sort of thing tends to make me emotional, and I think deep down I've been avoiding it. However, it is crucial to understanding Taipei's emotional geography to know where Nylon Cheng immolated himself in his burning office and why, and to see the spot for yourself.

Students and friends: That's downtown? It's right near the MRT? I had no idea it was so close!

Chen Tian-lai's mansion - there is quite a bit of history here that you can read about in the link, but honestly, I've been known to head down there and just look at the facade. I'm a huge fan of 1920s colonial architecture. Very close to Dihua Street (I also like the Koo Mansion a bit to the north, down a lane you would never think to walk down, occupied currently by a kindergarten).

Students (but not friends, most of whom know this place): There's a mansion here?

The Wen-meng municipal brothel - no survey of women's history sites in Taiwan is complete without a stop here, although chances are all you'll get to see is the exterior.

Students and friends: Prostitution used to be legal? There was a government-run brothel? What?

Qingdao and Jinan Roads around the Legislative Yuan - frankly, if you weren't down here some evenings during the Sunflower occupation, you missed a seminal moment in Taiwanese history. I spent quite a bit of time here around this time three years ago, and the two streets are now synonymous in my visual memory with social movements in Taiwan.

Wistaria Tea House - first the home of the Japanese governor-general, the setting of Eat Drink Man Woman, and also a gathering place for political dissidents in the Dangwai era. Also, great tea.

OK, everyone knows this.

These are just a few of the many possible choices, and I narrowed it down by choosing those that matter to me - the ones that have made the history of Taipei and of Taiwan come alive for me (and in one case, really come alive, as I was there in the crowd when things went down).

In any case, I encourage you to leave your homes this long weekend commemorating one of Taiwan's greatest tragedies and saddest cultural touchstones and go out and see some things for yourself. I promise, you'll connect with the city on a more physical level. Go!

東施效顰: A Review of Rose Rose I Love You (玫瑰玫瑰我愛你)

I was delighted to get my hands on this short and snappy Taiwanese novel from the 80s. Both the writer and the novel itself are well-known, and in the latter case perhaps infamous, here. Yet, among my foreign friends, I can't name another person I know of who's read it.

If you don't think about it too much, this 180-page story might come across as a vehicle for every vice and bodily function, a thin plot providing the backdrop to fart-and-armpit porn, with prostitutes who never actually have sex, at least not in the events set out in the novel. It may seem fatuous if not self-indulgent, as if Wang Chen-ho's idea of being daring in 1981 was to include as much reference to body parts and bodily functions as possible and leave it at that.

You'd be wrong, though. Now, I love a good fart joke and would describe my sense of humor as bent and filthy - I was born, not raised, this way - which those closest to me know and love, or at least tolerate, about me. My dirty mind and Rose Rose I Love You felt like a match preordained, a matter of fate, not luck. In fact, please enjoy an excerpt from this classic novel:



One of my first impressions was this: if you were in any way inclined to think that Taiwanese culture is 'conservative' or 'traditional' in a Western sense, you will be promptly disabused of that notion just a few pages into Rose Rose I Love You. It details a society that is interesting in how not conservative it is. I've written about this before, and it's worth going to have a read. Even Taiwan's tendency to be more friendly to Western ideas and cultural exchange is explored, to some extent, beyond all the prostitution, bawdy jokes and straight-up farting.

My second impression: there is a lovely phrase in Chinese that is, plainly, ～就是一個屁: it translates to "it's just bullshit/it's nonsense" but literally means "it's just a fart". I am, then, not so sure that the farting is in there for comic effect alone. Wang seems to be reaching fragrantly through the pages to impart to us the main point of his book, the universe, and everything: it's all farts. All of it. 

After checking out the 2014 Taipei Times review of the same book (and learning a new phrase - 肥唧唧), my takeaways are a bit different. Perhaps because I have never read the original, so my knowledge of what the original language was and what it signified in a deeper sense is therefore limited to what the (excellent) translation provides as well as my Taiwan schemata, I missed certain aspects of this somewhat opaque story about a fat, clownish, provincial English teacher going to great lengths to plan a training course to turn common Hualien prostitutes into high-class bar girls for some visiting American GIs (whom we never meet - the novel ends as the training begins). I had to form a lot of my own impressions in something of a vacuum in that way.

Yet, throughout the novel, one cliched idiom kept popping into my head: "trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". This saying has similar connotations to a Chinese idiom about an average woman - Dongshi - trying to look beautiful as a classic Chinese beauty - Xishi - but ultimately failing (東施效顰).

Teacher Dong (董斯文, though this is not stated in the English version and I spent much of the book thinking his name was 東斯文, or Eastern Refinement), thinking himself a dignified, educated and worldly gentleman, peppers his speech with English words and phrases - which the other characters repeatedly mishear or make fun of in bawdy Taiwanese or Mandarin puns - for example, turning position, as in a sexual position, into 破理想 or destruction of morals. He constantly reaches for an appearance of worldly refinement only to suffer from chronic flatulence, have his language misheard or derided by others and be repeatedly mistaken for a famous fat clown.

The prostitutes he is trying to turn into high-class bar girls - whom he envisions wearing gorgeous traditional dress - both Chinese and aboriginal - are, to be frank, rather common whores, and act the part as they are pressed into joining his training course. A few weeks of talks on hygiene, Christian prayers, "thirty English sentences", "global etiquette" and more are meant to turn these women into something they simply are not, in order to impress - and make money from - visiting American GIs. They are chosen based on the size of their breasts (like pomelos, not small oranges), age, looks, health and lack of menstruation. Councilman Qian, who makes several appearances, is supposed to be a brave and selfless servant of the people, having been elected in what would have been one of Taiwan's first local-level elections (full democracy didn't happen until 1996, but local by-elections were taking place as early as 1968, when the book takes place), mostly got elected for stripping on stage and showing everyone his rather large set of equipment. The bar the girls will work in is being built, and is described as being modern and inviting, yet towards the end it's noted in a parenthetical aside that there are no bathrooms and the only nearby ones are maggot-infested squat toilets. Even the song the girls are to sing as the American GIs arrive - Rose Rose I Love You - is given a double meaning, as a virulent strain of gonorrhea called "Saigon Rose" is quickly gaining notoriety among the denizens of Asia's whorehouses. The rich and popular town doctor sexually harasses, and quite probably beds, several of his male patients. It is implied that he has an armpit fetish. Teacher Dong himself, towards the end, basically spouts a repackaging of Audiolingualism as his own language-teaching invention that nobody else had taken notice of yet.

Nothing is too gross, or too low-class, for Wang to include to describe the seamy underbellies of every character parading around, acting as though they are better than they are.

It's hard not to read a complete takedown of urbane worldliness, beautiful women, educated teachers and even democratic elections in this. Everything in the novel is a sow's ear. Every woman is Dongshi, not Xishi. The teacher is a fat clown, not Confucius. The American GIs that everyone prepares for excitedly are probably swarming with venereal disease. And yet they are all pretending to be more than that - or at least Teacher Dong and Councilman Qian are, and everyone else is along for the ride.

I too read it as a satirical stab at Wang's memories of 1960s Taiwan - the prosperity and refinement of the Japanese colonial era fading (yes, I know, colonialism sucks, but the Japanese do have a very refined asthetic), modernization not yet begun, with Taiwan, its clothing patched and identity in shambles, trying desperately to impress a bunch of foreigners. It's hard not to read into it a full-on prison shanking of 1968 Taiwan, a sow's ear perhaps in Wang's estimation that is trying to be a silk purse on display for the Americans, that doesn't even know it's not. Not even one character makes it to the level of a joke - at best they are all punchlines.

This may sound bleak, but Wang also imbues these sow's ears with potential. Teacher Dong might well speak very good English, and what is essentially repurposed Berlitz is still better than whatever passed for typical English teaching at the time. Several of the bar girls are described as being quite beautiful, one is referred to as a "modern-day Lin Daiyu", almost as a Homeric epithet. The food that Big-Nose Lion and his aging prostitute girlfriend A-hen eat sounds delicious. Councilman Qian (I don't know which character it is, but it is a homophone with 錢, or "money", and I doubt that's an accident) seems to have a genuinely impressive member. These tiny droplets of hope glint across the narrative as though Wang is saying, in effect, "yeah, I know it looks bad now and these guys are a bunch of fools who think themselves kings, but don't give up on Taiwan. We really do have potential!"

Or, perhaps, he was saying "Stop trying to show off for the West, figure out who you are and celebrate it!"

And, of course, from the perspective of 2017, I can see that he was right.

I would love to comment more on the identity questions that were likely laid bare by the original text, but not having read the original, I'll let the Taipei Times review have the last word: 


It could also be a searching look at a protracted moment in Taiwan’s history — one extending to this day — of testing out many trappings of identity, often for the purpose of outside consumption. But the novel is open-ended, offering no glimpses of its true self: In the final scene, the prostitutes intone the Lord’s Prayer and Teacher Dong launches into a reverie: The Americans are coming, greeted by 50 world-class bar girls wearing cheongsams or eye-catching Aboriginal dress. The ladies sing the titular song, Rose, Rose, I Love You, first in Chinese and next in English. Each is a shimmering ambassador of an ethnic identity none wholly inhabits, and no one is so sure of who she is.

The country is broken, but the mountains and rivers remain: a review of Green Island

 I don't do book reviews often, but as I have recently taken an interest in expanding - and doing a better job of reading - my Taiwan-related book collection, writing more about what I've been reading is pertinent. It's rare that what seems like the entire expat community in Taiwan starts talking about the same book at the same time, but I picked up Green Island quite some time ago because that is exactly what happened. I couldn't not read what everyone else was talking about.

I'm happy - no, grateful - that I did.

Historical fiction is often more fiction than it is historical: I would not recommend that anyone get a feel for, say, Tudor history by reading Philippa Gregory. Green Island is a bold exception - the history, to my eyes, is more or less accurate, and the ways that the various (fictional) characters engage with it are often enrapturing. It is not a true story, but it may as well be - and in fact, a few peripheral characters are clearly composites of real Taiwanese historical figures. With the exception of a few overly florid language choices that can be distracting, a reader might imagine any one of them as somebody's real friend or relative living through real historical events. It felt more like a good friend narrating true family history than a novel.

The unnamed narrator is born on 2-28 (February 28, 1947), a cultural and historical flashpoint burned into the collective memory of Taiwan. I appreciated (and hope I correctly sussed out) the subtle reference to Midnight's Children, where the protagonist is likewise born at exactly the moment that India gains independence. Her father, as a result of actions we all take for granted as basic human rights, finds himself imprisoned on Green Island, where many political prisoners were held through the White Terror era following 2-28. The reverberations of that - an action that the brutal, authoritarian government does not acknowledge let alone apologize for - affect the family deeply. You might say they never fully recovered. Again, this will be a feeling quite familiar to many Taiwanese. For expats, remember that any given local friend might well be affected by a similar family background.

You will learn from this, then, not just the historical events as dates and descriptions marching across the page of a textbook, but the feelings and memories they created and how they affect the national and cultural psyche of Taiwan.

On a personal note, I am no stranger to historical events coloring, like a dollop of red dropped into a bowl of white paint, the history, relationships and outlook of a family. My own family's story takes place a generation before the events of 2-28 and has nothing to do with Taiwan, nevertheless it does allow a particularly personal platform for empathy, not that I need one to feel it. My grandfather's parents escaped from the Armenian genocide in Turkey, my great-grandmother after untold trauma and my great-grandfather after spending some time as a freedom fighter. My grandfather grew up in pre-war Greece, coming to America with his family in his primary school years. I never personally experienced any of this, yet from the food we ate to the language of the hymns in my grandparents' church in Troy, New York (Armenian) to the language my older relatives spoke with each other to common topics of conversation as well as the basis for the anti-Muslim sentiment of that generation - and my generation's subsequent pushing back against that while still being empathetic to what my ancestors lived through - everything up to 2017 carries the tinge, lighter and lighter but still there, of what happened in 1915.

As I told a friend recently, perhaps this is why I care so much about Taiwanese history. It's not my history, but in terms of the broad strokes of the effects of events like the White Terror or the Armenian genocide, it's not that different.

Back to the book. As a long-term expat, reading the descriptions of life in Taiwan at that time felt photo-realistic. Anyone who has spent time here and engages with the cultural geography of Taiwan will practically hear the Taiwanese pop music - you know, the stuff taxi drivers like to play - running through their head as they read. The slightly cloudy jars of local candies and sweets? Yeah, they're still around. The house with the banyan tree that the family lived in? Many of those remain, and I could imagine exploring one that's open the public on my trips outside (or perhaps even within) Taipei. The bicycles, the beer, the books, the typhoon, the outdoor parties, locally called ban dou? The story may be set in mid-century Taiwan but every last one of these things calls forth a host of sense-memories in the early 21st.

If you have a strong grasp of Taiwanese history, you will cry. I did, and I'm not a crier. You may have to put it down at times - it can get raw and painful. As you read it, you might feel you are engaging not with a book but with the agonizing history of a nation that has, at every turn, been beaten down and treated unfairly.

Green Island has been criticized, mildly, for its florid descriptive language. I can't fault it too much for this: the Taiwanese landscape almost begs for it, and I appreciate the intricate descriptions of emotions. All too often the stereotype of people from Asian cultures is that they are staid, reserved, perhaps even emotionless. It might be easy for someone who isn't exposed to it much - even one who lives here but doesn't engage much locally - to assume that this comparative lack of outer expression, at least as seen through a Western lens, corresponds to a lack of inner emotion. In truth, I have heard people make preposterous claims like "Asians don't get angry!" (Wait, what? How is that even...what?) In places perhaps the language is overwrought, but it provides a strong counterpoint to this ridiculous stereotype by giving, and then lovingly describing, the full range of inner workings of some characters, and implying the emotional state of others.

I also appreciated that the book, while clearly written from a local Taiwanese perspective in terms of the characters whose lives it chronicles, is quite fair to the Nationalist refugees and soldiers who came to Taiwan in the 1940s and whose government was responsible for the tragedy visited on Taiwan during and after that time. There are marriages between "locals" and those who fled China, and, without giving away too much detail, there are betrayals from unexpected places. In the end, Green Island respects the humanity of every character, even ones you might not expect to be sympathetic.

That said, the book's perspective is laid bare towards the end, with a flashback to how the narrator's father and mother met. It references the connection of the Taiwanese people to the land, and how that has remained constant no matter how badly the country is broken: the people are the mountains and the rivers. Green Island prods you not to forget this.

Let's acknowledge what is already true

So, last week I wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal replying to an Op-Ed and follow-up letter on US foreign policy on Taiwan. I had to cut it down from the original 1000-or-so words to 300 or so, and was led to believe it would likely be published this week. It hasn't appeared yet, and may never: between then and now the Michael Flynn scandal exploded, and perhaps it got canned in favor of giving that issue more coverage.

I did not include some of my thoughts, such as the fact that Metzger appears to be a typical Dr. Some White Guy Who Is An Expert On China, pontificating on Taiwan despite not knowing enough about it - or rather, having what he knows about it filtered through the lens of being a "China expert", not a "Taiwan expert" - to be commenting credibly. In this sense I do not feel bad about telling a Stanford professor that he is dead wrong.

Nor did I include my thoughts on misconceptions in the media on Taiwan, I plan to do a mythbusting post soon so I can just direct people to that rather than repeating the same tired points.

However, I do want people to hear what I have to say, so I've copied the original longer letter here. I'll let you know if the shorter, edited version ever makes it into the paper. In the meantime, enjoy.

* * *

I read with great interest the recent opinions of John Bolton and Thomas Metzger  (both behind a paywall) on the best direction for the US’s future Taiwan policy. It is quite clear that there are some basic truths about Taiwan that Mr. Metzger is ignoring, which ought to be clarified.

First of all, the current framework between Beijing and Taipei is far from “peaceful”. Beijing has a large number of missiles aimed at Taiwan: some estimates put it at over 1,000. Beijing has been quite clear that it is gearing up for an eventual invasion of Taiwan, and has made it clear that the only possible peaceful solution is capitulation. This is not peace: it is a threat.

A situation that fragile, where one side has everything to lose and the other comparatively little, cannot be called a successful framework.

This is especially true given that most Taiwanese citizens do not identify primarily as Chinese. Unification of any kind is not acceptable to the majority of citizens, and likely never will be. What their government claims on paper – a claim made by the former dictatorship, nothing the Taiwanese people ever agreed to democratically – is immaterial. It does not affect their views.

It is true that the Republic of China, which is the current government of Taiwan, claims to be the sole government of all of China. Again, this claim does not reflect the views of the Taiwanese people. The claim cannot be formally retracted, nor the name of the country changed: from Beijing’s perspective, any of these actions would constitute a declaration of formal independence, which would precipitate an immediate war. To insist that as long as the Republic of China exists that Taiwan is a part of China, and yet to scold Taiwan for provoking China in any way, admonishing them instead to pursue peaceful relations, is to essentially trap Taiwan in a Catch-22.  To do so at best makes one a 'useful idiot' of China.

This change has been brewing since full democratization in the 1990s, and has only grown since the upheavals in Taiwanese civil society in 2014. Metzger fails again, then, to understand the reception that former President Ma’s meeting with Chinese President Xi received in Taiwan: when it did not elicit eyerolls, it was ignored more or less completely in civil society despite a great deal of media coverage. The Ma-Xi meeting was a footnote to a failed presidency, the last gasp of an administration whose views were no longer in sync with the electorate: few in Taiwan would say that Ma’s China strategy was successful, and few would agree that it is the best framework for the future.

In short, the Ma-Xi meeting was not “momentous” as Metzger claims; it was a desperate grasp for historical relevance by a leader on his way out. By all measures, it failed. One need only look at the outcome of the 2016 elections in Taiwan, as well as the continued relevance of the 2014 student movements there, to see it.

A final, crucial misunderstanding taken as fact by Mr. Metzger is his characterizing Taiwan-China relations as “respecting both the autonomy of the Taipei regime and its existence as one part of China.” First of all, the connotation of “regime” is that of an authoritarian government. That describes China, not Taiwan, which is a vibrant and thriving democracy. Secondly, few in Taiwan agree that Taiwan is “one part of China” is deeply disrespectful to the Taiwanese people. It is not possible to respect Taiwan if you, in the same breath, label it as a part of another country rather than a sovereign state in its own right.

International law supports the possibility of Taiwanese independence: under different interpretations of international law, Taiwan is either an independent nation, or its status is undetermined. There is no accurate interpretation that determines Taiwan to be a Chinese territory.

Even US policy on Taiwan follows this convention – the US does not, and has never, agreed that Taiwan is a part of China. Bolton is entirely correct that it merely acknowledges Beijing’s claim to Taiwan, nothing more. This, at least, is clear in a confusing array of papers, positions, assurances and communiqués that were created to be deliberately vague. 

The US’s Taiwan policy, at its heart, calls for a peaceful resolution of the issue, and allows for any given resolution agreed on by both sides. This leaves room not only for the US to communicate with Taiwanese leaders, but also for American support of eventual Taiwanese independence (though not as the government of China) or the normalization of relations with Taiwan. It does not in any way shackle the US to China’s forceful demands.

There does not need, then, to be a change in US policy on Taiwan. All we need to do is acknowledge what is already true. 

Taiwan's Catch-22

Some Shower Thoughts - yes, this is what I think about in the shower. I've been traveling in Vietnam and, having returned to Taiwan on a red-eye after an overnight bus ride, am light on sleep. Hopefully this doesn't mean the post below is incoherent or overly repetitive. I'm sure someone has written about this before, but hey, I like to share Shower Thoughts so here goes.

Anyway...

I hear a lot - in media, in real life, in comments - that the US need not change its "One China Policy" because "Taiwan" doesn't exist as a national entity and the "Republic of China" still technically considers itself the rightful and only government of China. That, barring a formal change in the constitution of the ROC (and one would assume a name change as well) making this claim, there is no need to re-examine US policy because people "on both sides of the Strait" still officially believe that there is "One China".

Putting aside the already-debunked notion of the US's "One China Policy" (there isn't one, not really - acknowledging someone else'sposition does not constitute a position of one's own, and everything else isdeliberately vague), I have a few problems with this idea that Taiwan would have to formally make this change before the US would be obligated to take any policy changes into consideration, and because they have not done so, clearly they (the government, but, it is implies, also the Taiwanese people), they don't want to.

No no no no no this is wrong no.

This is one of those things where a perspective that is reasonable on its face actually hides much more sinister motives, even if unintentionally so, though I often doubt that they are unintentional.

What this particular argument is doing, by appearing to simply defend official norms, is playing straight into Chinese propaganda, if not China’s outright strategy to marginalize Taiwan. 

Those who say this must know perfectly well that Taiwan can’t change its official stance, no matter how much it may want to (and polls consistently show that thepeople want to). Doing so would, in Chinese eyes, constitute a move towards formal independence (which is what the Taiwanese likely actually want), which China has consistently said would cause them to immediately declare war. While Taiwanese do favor independence and do consider themselves, by and large, Taiwanese rather than Chinese, pretty much nobody in Taiwan wants to go to war because they quite rightly realize that war, well, sucks.

Taiwan, therefore, regardless of what the people want, is locked into making this claim that they are officially the government of China – a claim they pretty much try to ignore because its existence is just as inconvenient and unwanted as it is necessary – because the other option is to watch the country they have built get demolished by the PLA.

Consider the double standard: you insist Taiwan must change their claim if they don’t want to be considered Chinese, and to continue to have a government that considers itself “China” can only mean that the people are, or think of themselves as, Chinese. Yet you also insist that they not do so: to “provoke” China in such a way would be problematic, would cause war, would make Taiwan a “troublemaker”. Taiwan doesn’t want to make trouble, does it? No, little Taiwan, just sit tight, don’t make Big China angry. Don’t start a war. You don’t want to be a troublemaker, do you?

Oh, but if you don’t make trouble and instead choose not to make any official changes, you must therefore think of yourselves as Chinese, because you didn’t make any official changes. If you want us to think of you as Taiwanese...

...oh but don’t do that because you wouldn’t want to be provocateurs, would you?

How is this not a painfully, nakedly obvious Catch-22 for Taiwan?

Consider as well that the only reason the ROC – and therefore its vision of China - exists in Taiwan is because the Nationalists decided to claim Taiwan, then flee to it, and then proceed to set up a government that nobody in Taiwan said they wanted. They weren’t invited, they invaded. That constitution claiming to be the sole government of China, even the name “Republic of China” or even calling themselves Chinese, are not things that the people of Taiwan ever decided, together, through self-determination, that they wanted to claim or do. They were ideas forced on Taiwan by a government that was never invited to govern and has since democratized, under a name that can't be gotten rid of so easily.

Consider, then, what you are really saying when you say “the last time I checked ‘Taiwan’ was officially the ‘Republic of China’ and therefore considers itself a part of China, too”: you are saying that any sort of indication of what the people of Taiwan want doesn’t matter, all that matters is a position decided by a regime that came from China uninvited and decided unilaterally for the people already living here what their government stood for, that now cannot be changed because the country they fled has threatened war if they do so.

What you are saying is that you do not believe in self-determination. What you are saying is that you think modern-day colonialism is okay, not only that, but that a provision in a document that can’t be removed under threat of war is a perfectly fine barometer by which to determine the will of a people. That they literally must risk getting pummeled by China in order to change a few words on a piece of paper before you will take them seriously. You know it is impossible; you know that what was claimed by the ROC back when the ROC was a dictatorship does not reflect the will of the Taiwanese people, but you demand the impossible anyway. Why?

Let’s say a dictator claimed to speak for you, and then years after dismantling that dictatorship you could not officially, on a government level, disavow that dictator’s words without watching your city get blown up, but on a personal level were quite clear that you never bought into the original rhetoric. How would you feel if everyone else in the world stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted “la la la we can’t hear you, you must think that because your former dictator said so and you don’t want to die, la la la”?

How would you feel if your country underwent a massive upheaval in civil society, bringing it from a nation unwilling to speak truth to power about its identity to one willing to own its nationhood unapologetically, and the rest of the world collectively ignored it, pretending you all still felt the way you seemed to before it all happened? Because that's basically how Taiwan has been treated since the Sunflower Movement.

Does that make any sense at all? And if it does, is it really so easy to tune out the cognitive dissonance of claiming to care about freedom and democracy around the world? Can you really claim to be anti-war if you think that a nation must risk war – a war it will lose - to express its true desires? Can you really claim to be pro-democracy if you think the ideas of a former dictator speak for the will of a democratic people? Is that really the price an already-sovereign nation must pay to be taken seriously when there are other valid ways of knowing how the people of that nation feel?

Consider this as well: this is exactly what China wants you to think. They want you to set an impossible standard for taking Taiwan seriously: either they are “troublemakers” provoking a “war” or they “clearly still think of themselves as Chinese because their government officially says so”. There is no path forward for Taiwan to claim its sovereignty and identity on an official level. You’ve blocked out in your mind the notion that a people might have a different will and vision for their future than what they are forced to claim by a hostile power. Or perhaps you are claiming that the position they are forced to hold, literally at missile-point, is a sincere one when you know full fucking well it’s not.

And you’ve done this because this has been China’s propaganda campaign all along. They want you to mentally block Taiwan off into two alternatives: either they are a troublemaker and warmonger disturbing peace in Asia, or they think they are Chinese. The more impossible you make Taiwan’s position by refusing to consider data that shows the true will of the Taiwanese people, the easier you make China’s goal of annexing Taiwan and then pretending it’s not a hostile takeover of a sovereign state.

In short, if you insist that Taiwan has to disavow the positions of the ROC (which were forced on it) in order to be taken seriously as a sovereign nation with a national identity, but then say that any provocation of China makes Taiwan a "troublemaker", then you've set Taiwan up for a Catch-22. Either you know that and you're a jerk, or you don't and you're a useful idiot.

The Sri Lanka Test, China's Crap-in-a-Box and Other Gentle Tearings Apart

This article appeared in The Guardian today:

China threatens to 'take off the gloves' if Trump rips up the status quo on Taiwan

It's not awful. Seriously, it's okay. But I want to make a point about the form pro-China (or anti-Taiwan) bias takes in the media, so I'm going to tear it apart for you. That, and it is purely entertaining for me.

Let's start with the title.

Forget that it's not made clear whether China is threatening the US or Taiwan; China itself hasn't made this clear. What bugs me is the implication that the status quo in Taiwan is entirely up to the US, that it is the US who decides whether Taiwan will adhere to it or not. Not a lick of agency afforded to Taiwan?


China has stepped up its rhetoric against Donald Trump, with a Communist party-controlled newspaper declaring Beijing will have no choice but to “take off the gloves” if the incoming president insists on tearing open a Pandora’s box over Taiwan.

Isn't a Pandora's Box something that you open without thinking your action will cause far-reaching catastrophic consequences (because perhaps you do not know entirely what is inside), but does? Is it really a Pandora's Box if China shits in a box and then hands it to us? Like, we all know what's inside and who put it there. China shat in it; that's what's inside. Now China is threatening that we shouldn't open the box they shat in? That's just China being a jerk, it's not a Pandora's Box. In fact, I'd argue it's something like the opposite of a Pandora's Box because you know what's inside as the giver has taken great pains to tell you that it's full of their stinky turds. If you invent the consequences, that's not the same thing. Calling it anything else than China shitting in a box is removing the active agency of China in handing the US and Taiwan a box full of shit. Like, how about instead of "don't open this box, you have no idea what unnamed entity placed far-reaching consequences inside", let's be all "China, why the fuck did you shit in a box? Not cool."

Side note: "a Communist Party-controlled newspaper" makes it sound like there is a non-government-controlled media source in China. There isn't. Why make it sound as though this particular newspaper can be compared to a freer press that exists in China? As far as I am aware whatever freer press existed no longer does. Best to acknowledge that. 

An editorial said Trump’s repeated threats to abandon the “one China” policy could no longer be dismissed as “bluster or miscalculation” but instead appeared to be a deliberate and intolerable ploy designed to extract concessions from Beijing.

I am very curious what their definition of "One China" policy is or how they understand it vis-a-vis American policy on Taiwan. Because as far as I am aware the US at no point has said that they definitely think Taiwan is a part of China. Everything is very vaguely written (deliberately so), but the "One China" policy has allowed for stopovers before, there is nothing in it that specifically says the US President cannot talk to Taiwan's President, and not even anything in there that says Taiwan is definitely a part of China. US policy on Taiwan-China leaves room for an independent Taiwan. So what are we tearing up exactly? 


Under a nearly four-decade old policy, the United States has acknowledged Beijing’s position that there is only one China. The US has formal ties with China rather than the island of Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland one day.

This is actually pretty good! Most media outlets get this wrong, writing that the US believes there is only on China, and that Taiwan is a part of it, when the truth is that they only go so far as to acknowledge that this is China's stance. So...good job, actually. 

But...

"island of Taiwan": I know not every pro-Taiwan voice agrees with me on this, but I really would like to call for an end to consistently calling Taiwan an "island" rather than a "country" or "nation". It skirts the issue, and skirting the issue is a form of pro-China bias.

Brendan likes to talk about something he calls the "Sri Lanka test", and I tend to agree with him. If you replace "Taiwan" with "Sri Lanka" in any given sentence, and it still feels like you're not stretching yourself around the truth by calling it an "island" - if you'd refer to Sri Lanka the same way in the same context - you are okay. If it seems weird to constantly call Sri Lanka an island rather than a country, you've got a problem. 

"...which Beijing sees as a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland one day": 

This only eschews China bias if you put "breakaway province", "reunified" and "mainland" in scare quotes. 

First, I get that there is emphasis on what China says, as this is an article about something China said. Sure. Often there is a problem with writing lots about what China says on articles focused on Taiwan, and comparatively little on what Taiwan says. I can forgive it this time, but remember, my lovelies: be ever vigilant.

That said, this article would have been more accurate, more objective and stronger if they'd added two sentences about how the Taiwanese identify as Taiwanese, are generally against any sort of unification with China ever, and generally favor independence - in fact, most see themselves as independent already.

This is how insidious pro-China bias is in the media: the verb "reunify" (as opposed to "unify" or "be annexed by") is not called out for its obvious nonsense usage. You cannot reunify what was never unified to begin with, and the ROC and the PRC were never unified. (We can get into the details of the Qing Dynasty, or 1945-1949, what it means to control a country or territory or what all those crazy treaties meant, but I'm not sure any of it matters). Yet "reunify" is used without any sort of pretense or sarcasm. It's just taken as word. Does that not invite in the mind of the reader, who likely styles themselves something of an educated person, the idea that it would, in fact, be reunification if The Guardian called it that, and that reunification doesn't sound so bad?

And what is the "mainland" to an island nation that has no territory on the continent? To assume there even is a "mainland" is a form of bias. There is China, and there is Taiwan. Taiwan has no mainland, unless you mean how, say, the Orchid Islanders see Taiwan proper.

However, I do want to say one good thing here. No "split in 1949" nonsense. Yay! We are working tirelessly to get that nonsense phrase banished - not censored, more seen as embarrassingly incorrect - from media around the world. So I'm happy to see it didn't make it in here. 

On Sunday, Tsai was making no apologies as she returned to Taiwan from her trip to the Americas, which included US meetings with Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and state governor Greg Abbott, as well as a visit to the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco.

Why should Tsai apologize for doing what the leaders of sovereign states do all the time with their allies, and for doing what previous presidents of Taiwan have done (if I am correct - correct me if I'm not - meeting with American government officials who are not the US president is not exactly a new thing for Taiwanese presidents even post-1979)? Why on earth would you even imply she needed to do such a thing? Would you write "Chancellor Merkel was making no apologies as she met with British members of Parliament?" No? So why the fuck are you writing this?

Tsai said the trip, which took her on to Central America, elevated the island’s international profile.

Does this pass the Sri Lanka test?

I'd say no.

US officials had said Tsai’s transit stops were based on longstanding US practice and Tsai’s office had characterised her meetings there as private and unofficial.

Again this is pretty good. True, accurate as far as I'm aware. Why, however, is it at the very end after a very lengthy explanation of China's side of things (and quite little in the way of Taiwan's other than a few remarks by Tsai?). Why is it saved for the very end when plenty of readers have stopped reading, and given so little space?

* * *

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my little practice exercise, my expression of a part-time hobby. I deliberately chose this article as it's not that bad, and on the surface even seems pretty good. It's easy to tear apart a mishmash of half-baked piss-and-corn-nugget chowder written by a sadfaced hack who just looked up Taiwan and now knows it's not Thailand yet somehow managed to get his sticky inappropriately-used sweatsock of an article published, somehow, by an editor stupid enough to buy it, slap "CHINA!" on it and then write something about 1949 in there.

It's harder to pinpoint pro-China bias in an otherwise okay article, at least one that kinda-sorta stands up to some scrutiny and at least gets a few key facts right (and thankfully leaves the fictitious "facts" out), but we need to keep doing this if we don't want to let merely okay be good enough when it comes to reporting on Taiwan.