Data and Lore (a COVID-19 story)

Does this mean...I'm Wesley?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I won't.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neither of these are good! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will all pay the price for it.

Paper Ninja Stars (or: Fear, Foreboding and the Taiwanese Left)

The graphic that appeared by the names of some Taiwan Statebuilding Party candidates in the 2020 election on official ballots

First, an announcement: you’ll be seeing fewer (and shorter) posts from me between now and June. I am now officially shoulder-deep in dissertation writing and really must concentrate on that. I’ll update occasionally, but in the meantime I’ll be posting relevant content by others on the Lao Ren Cha Facebook page (yes, that is a thing which I never formally announced). 

Anyway, let me tell you a story. 

When I was in junior high, I was the target of a not-very-successful bully (everyone else hated him too; his bullying did not win him any popularity). He’d randomly trip me in the hall, push or whack me for no reason. Once, he ran into a classroom I was in, put some tape he’d pulled from a cassette around my neck and ran out holding both ends. One day, he made a paper ninja star and flung it at me just as a class we had together was about to start. It nearly hit me in the eye.

I lost it. I got up, slapped him hard across the face, picked him up by the neck - lots of adrenaline going - threw him into a row of desks, and then kicked him so he slammed further into those desks. I may have done more; I was a whirling dervish of rage and I truly don’t remember. 

My response was way out of proportion to his throwing a paper star at me. But honestly, considering everything else he’d done over the past two years, it had been a long time coming. I don’t condone violence and would not do this as an adult, but I’m also not sorry for beating the crap out of him as a teenager. 

So what? 

In the past few weeks, I wrote about my feelings on the common (though not universal) sentiment in Taiwan that the Chinese families of Taiwanese businessmen in China - Taishang - should not be evacuated to Taiwan in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, with some feeling they shouldn’t be able to come here at all. 

I’m not talking about those who pointed out the logistical issues or the question of priority. Those opinions are reasonable. I’m talking about those who expressed that the lives of those people were not Taiwan’s concern - despite their being family members of Taiwanese nationals.

I had been trying to start from kindness - that is, recognize that it’s important to treat even people you don’t like as human beings whose lives matter. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t care for the attitudes of Taishang generally. And, just as importantly, that it’s not right to dismiss children as ‘not our concern’ because you don’t like the decisions of their parents - decisions the children had no say in. 

After acknowledging that, talk of logistics becomes possible, and the same decision may have been made in the end because China has left Taiwan with so few options - but the process of the discourse matters. 

I stand by that view, but here’s what’s changed: I should have also started from kindness when considering Taiwanese public opinion. 

With a few exceptions of some extreme comments online that do not represent the norm, I highly doubt most people actually want to punish those children by refusing them evacuation because they dislike their parents. Most people are quite capable of realizing that those children did not choose to be Chinese nationals.

Rather, it was a howl of rage from Taiwanese who’ve chosen to stay and engage with their country, who are sick and tired of both China’s bullshit and Taishang opportunism and sellout behavior that actively harms Taiwan. Howls of rage are not always politically correct, but that does not render them unjustified. This one was a long time in coming, and I should have seen that immediately. 

In other ways, I’ve tried to be empathetic to these expressions of anger. While I appreciate the discussion of Sinophobia in Taiwanese discourse, generally I feel we should always - always - view statements that may seem aggressively nationalist or anti-China on their face in the context in which they are made. 

Taiwan has been treated like garbage by the Chinese government for so long - and individual Taiwanese have been insulted by a large number of Chinese citizens so regularly - that honestly, can you blame them for lashing out? Maybe give the victims in this game a break instead of (yet again) putting the burden of assuming a conciliatory tone on them. 

Especially when they already know that it’s logistically impossible to do much for those children and accompanying spouses, it becomes easy to vent one’s justified rage at Taishang who expect special treatment and whine and writhe with entitlement when they don’t get it. 

That said, my actual conclusions remain the same: a different active response is not logistically possible, but I still cannot condone a “those children aren’t Taiwanese so they are not our concern” attitude. Even when their parents often have an opportunistic, have-your-Chinese-money-but-get-Taiwanese-benefits-too attitude to Taiwan (to put it gently).

The difference is this: I’ve come to realize the public anger mostly did not stem from the question of the Taishang children specifically, just as my throwing that kid into a desk in junior high wasn’t really about a paper ninja star. 

And that’s just it: while remaining true to ethical convictions that do matter to me, I could have started from kindness when evaluating a facet of public opinion that bothered me deeply. Both were possible. 

So where did my original reaction come from? 

Fear, honestly.

I don’t think the ethical divide on this issue is really that great, if it’s there at all. But where I saw “people lashing out at foreigners...and I’m a foreigner!”, I suspect most people saw “we’ve been bullied for so long by China and people who sell out to China, and we’re sick of it!”

“Foreigners” as a general class was never really the point.

This fear also includes worries over the unstable life situations all immigrants face. I do wonder, for some people (though not all), at what point in a crisis I might be deemed “not Taiwanese enough” to receive the same assistance as everyone else, as a taxpayer and part of the system. 

I’ve had a few experiences in the past where expressing a political opinion that a Taiwanese local did not personally agree with caused that person to default to “well, you’re not Taiwanese” (implied: so you don’t matter). That a lot - if not most - locals might actually agree with my opinion didn’t seem to register. I’ve had people just assume that if Taiwan faced a true emergency I’d just leave, because theoretically I "can" (I wouldn’t - and there are real questions over whether I actually "can"). 

At what point does a reaction like that spill over into views on who should get access to what services?

But, overall, I doubt most people would think I should be denied, say, medical care in Taiwan during a pandemic. I pay for NHI just like everyone else, after all, and don’t try to game the system the way a lot of Taishang do. In any case, there’s an element of white privilege which would blunt such an effect. 

Remember, however, that the vast majority of foreigners in Taiwan are not white, they are Southeast Asian, and they have neither the privilege nor often the resources to weather a public opinion backlash against their access to health services in Taiwan.

Is it any wonder, then, that when I hear “Taiwanese citizens first!” that it puts me on edge, even though I know that’s not meant to include me?

But, there’s an even more complex fear: fear that the Taiwanese political left I generally support does not actually support people like me. 

As much as I hate them, I can’t deny that the immigration reforms the KMT passed under Ma Ying-jeou were genuinely helpful for foreigners and conveyed a more welcoming attitude (though, again, that was very much contingent on white and Han privilege - rules were relaxed for Chinese accompanying family, and foreign professionals like me, but nothing really improved for the blue-collar workers who make up the backbone of Taiwan’s foreign labor and community). 

I also don’t doubt that the Tsai administration is more or less on our side: they passed some pretty striking immigration reform themselves, though again they seemed to encode privilege into law, demarcating in even more detail which immigrants were ‘worthy’ and which were not (spoiler alert: I’m not). 

But those left of Tsai - think the NPP, back when they mattered? They were key voices in scrapping the proposed relaxation of rules on hiring foreign workers, such as the required salary floor and required previous work experience for professionals. (Their arguments did not make a lot of economic sense, either - they just ensured that people who wanted to move to Taiwan either could not do so, or got stuck teaching English when they really didn’t want to, which isn’t good for the profession.) I hear noises from them that immigration should be controlled to ‘protect Taiwanese jobs’ and no specific support from them on the ever-present dual nationality issue, despite their putting forward an ‘internationalized’ face more broadly. At the end of the day, a few (though not all) of them are still localists who may be friendly to ‘foreigners’, but will always consider immigrants in Taiwan to be just that - only foreigners, never ‘new’ members of a common community. That is, if they consider us at all. 

So, when newly-elected legislator Chen Bo-wei made the news saying that “foreigners” (外籍人士) should pay more for health insurance in Taiwan, surely it is understandable that it sounded as though he were referring to all foreigners. After all, the term he used is fairly broad: I might be considered 外籍人士! 

Several people asked his office for clarification, at which point it was explained that he specifically meant Chinese accompanying family, who are covered under a different category of National Health Insurance (foreign residents like me are covered like ordinary taxpayers as we work here), and whose 'residency requirements' were relaxed under Ma Ying-jeou. Simply put, Chen - a known localist - should have made himself clear from the beginning and not spoken so carelessly. 

In a world that made sense, I’d still disagree with Chen: Chinese are foreigners, just like me. Therefore, eligible Chinese nationals shouldn’t obtain NHI coverage under a special category, any more so than any other foreigner. Acknowledging that they’re not like other foreigners, if anything, implies that there is a special quasi-intranational relationship between Taiwan and China when I’d argue that there shouldn’t be. 

However, the world doesn’t make sense, and I don’t know that we’re at a point in international relations where adjusting the law in that direction would be feasible. 

In any case, surely one can see how a statement like Chen’s would raise concerns. The KMT is out of power and they’re awful (and Han supremacist) anyway - they might’ve passed some strong immigration reform, but to them Taiwan’s fate is ultimately Chinese, period. The DPP under Tsai is more internationally oriented than in the Hoklo chauvinist Chen years, when there was essentially no forward momentum on immigration policy. 

But, the Tsai administration is also slow and cautious. The Taiwanese left - those whom I’d otherwise tend to agree with - are not necessarily strong allies of the foreign community. This makes it hard to know quite who to support.

With all this in mind, is it any wonder that criticism of “non-Taiwanese” getting access to “Taiwanese” resources would cause worry in Taiwan’s foreign community? We’re not exactly sure who our allies are, though we know we have them.

And we're the most privileged foreigners (after perhaps overseas Chinese who have obtained ROC nationality). What about the most vulnerable?

But, there are times when something that looks on its face like an anti-foreigner backlash isn’t really that at all: it’s a reaction to years of being bullied (by China) and really has nothing to do with “foreigners”, or “children”. I can’t ever agree with the more extreme comments I saw (e.g. “bastard children of traitors and their mistresses”) and I still think that the child of a citizen deserves to be treated as more than just a foreigner regardless of their nationality. Context matters, however, and the anger I witnessed certainly has a a fraught one. 

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

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

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

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


What about the stark ideological contrast regarding Marxism? 

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

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


Let's address those now. 

Marxism

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

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

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

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

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

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


Chinese Culture

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Same same. Not different.Democratization

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As I've said: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's really not that weird. 

My Glass Persimmon

On a sad day like 228, I want to write something that, while perhaps a bit maudlin, is also hopeful. 

Let me share with you my glass persimmon. 

You can buy them new - they usually come in pairs for reasons explained below - but I found this one at an antique/vintage shop for 30NT (about US$1). 

Foreign friends may not immediately 'get' that this is the sort of thing you're likely to see at your grandma's house - it's kind of an old-style thing. Literally like a kitschy figurine your elderly relative might have around.

Persimmons  are a major agricultural product in Taiwan and are one of many popular fruits for gifts. Most fruits given as gifts have an 'auspicious meaning' and persimmons are no different. They're most commonly grown in the mountainous parts of Hsinchu - they're also found in Taoyuan county around Lalashan - and often eaten dried, like a candy - dried persimmons are exceedingly sweet.

The word for persimmon (柿子, or shìzi) sounds like the "shi" in 事事如意 (shì shì rú yì, or "everything is going well"). The first character is doubled - I suppose that's why glass persimmons usually come in sets of two. 

You can buy glass fruits of all kinds, but it seems persimmons are particularly common - that's probably because of their appealing flattened circle shape. They make good paperweights and are fairly common as gifts as well. It's traditional to put a little gold leaf inside to signify wealth and prosperity (or perhaps just to look nice). I also personally think the opaque coral-orange color of red persimmons is an attractive choice and works well in glass.

In all my years in Asia, I haven't seen glass persimmons as decorative items - especially in the style of my persimmon - anywhere but Taiwan (though they might exist elsewhere; I haven't been everywhere). They have the same meaning in China, but even the first search result for glass persimmons in Chinese culture comes up with a fancy glass persimmon sold by a Taiwanese company- at a much higher price than I paid for mine! (More affordable options are available). 

I don't really mind that I don't have two. Just the one, on my coffee table, is perfect. 

So why do I like mine? 

First of all, persimmons are an early autumn fruit, in season right around my birthday, which often coincides with Mid-Autumn Festival.

Plus, over the past few years I've spent more time intentionally decorating my apartment to look modern and clean, but with comfy retro and antique twists. Think "Taiwanese auntie with good taste" or, these days, "Taiwan hipster coffee shop". 

No, really. The decor is totally Taiwan hipster cafe. 

I spent a lot of time putting together a 'vintage Taiwan' wall, and my little persimmon fits nicely in this style. The color contrasts well with all of the blue I tend to use in my decorating. That this type of knickknack is just so typically Taiwan really appeals to me, too. 

But mostly I like the way it feels in my hand. Cool, heavy, smooth, and perfectly circular. I've been dealing with a heavy workload, academic stress and general anxiety over the past year, and it's calming to pick it up and roll it around in my hands. 

(That paragraph is starting to sound like an intentional setup to a "that's what she said" crack, so I'll stop there.) 

It's like this: 2019 and 2020 have been stressful years for me academically. It feels like my dissertation is never going to get done. But my glass persimmon is a reminder that if I just keep doing the work, there is an endpoint and 事事如意 - everything will turn out well. 

And, being 228, it's a reminder that Taiwan has had a long and painful history, a history that many people want to pretend doesn't exist independently (oh, but it does). Even now, it faces general threats from China, and a particular threat to public health from COVID-19. Again and again it's had to rise to meet various challenges - including pushing a foreign dictatorship out of power. Mostly, its efforts and admirable successes have gone ignored on the world stage. 

There's no clear endpoint in sight for Taiwan, but we have to believe that 事事如何 - everything will turn out right in the end.