China Post Stealth Attack on Taiwan Independence

You don't expect parody from the leaden pages of the China Post, but the other day they ran a very funny article on "the Kinmen identity" which is an ROC identity. The article describes a study published in an academic journal, based on 10 interviews:

This explains why several interviewees avowed a national identity with the ROC rather than a regional identity with Taiwan. As one interviewee pointed out: "I don't identify with the word 'Taiwan.' The 'Republic of China' has more meaning for us, because I think Taiwan is included in the ROC."

In the 1980s, the PRC's military confrontation was replaced with detente, Taiwan began to withdraw troops, and Taiwan's independence and "de-Sinicization" movement grew in strength. With these changes, Kinmen's people grew concerned about being marginalized, and that "Taiwan didn't identify with Kinmen."

Said one Kinmen interviewee, "We had been ruled under martial law. We made sacrifices because of the war. Our government doesn't pay attention to us."

Another responded, "Some people say that Xiamen is a marginalized city, Taiwan is a marginalized place in the world, and Kinmen is a marginalized part of Taiwan."

When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in 2000, many Kinmenese opposed Taiwan's independence for fear that Kinmen would someday be cut off from it.

The islanders are pro-KMT and vote for the Blue side almost to a man. The clever bias of the article -- calling "Taiwan" a regional identity, and denigrating it by subtle comparison to a local identity in Kinmen -- is brilliant. Oddly, this article has a byline, which is unusual in an article that uses propaganda terms like "de-sinicization." Most of the time those read "China Post Staff" which means they are translations from the Chinese-langage articles in the China Times. Read the whole thing to get the flavor.

[Taiwan]