When is a Taiwanese not a Taiwanese?
Our friends Chris and Tarzan went to Manilla to fly in the pre-PWC, only to find themselves stateless. Both had entered as representing Taiwan in the event (as Kerry, Eiho and I had done in 2004) but were refused entry under that nationality at registration. According to Godfrey Wenness (comp organizer and site owner) the Chinese team had gotten there first and insisted that the two Taiwanese pilots be forced to fly under the flag of the PRC. Chris also has US nationality so he was able to fly as an American. Tarzan otoh had no such backup and was forced to flying a flag of convenience rather than submit to the humiliation of being conscripted into the PRC team.
This all-too-common, reflexive, mindless, insistence, even in the most trivial circumstances, that Taiwan is part of China is exactly the kind of thing that persuades the locals that the Chinese are simply indifferent to them as human beings. Also, China seems not to have learned that the quickest way to make someone hate something is to make it compulsory.
[Taiwan] [China] [Taiwan Independence]
1 comment:
Maybe Tarzan should have swung, hahaha I kill myself sometimes.
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