Frank Ching: Chen is Illogical

Frank Ching's latest in the South China Morning Post -- the article is currently behind a pay wall, so enjoy.

There is no possibility that Taiwan can enter the UN, as both Washington and Beijing have said. Yet the DPP government insists on holding a referendum on the issue on March 22 - the day of the presidential election - primarily to drum up support for its candidate, Frank Hsieh Chang-ting.

Beijing has warned that this has created a "highly dangerous" situation. But Mr Chen and his associates evidently believe that strengthening their candidate's chance of winning is more important than the safety and security of Taiwan's 23 million people.

I'm always amazed by comments like this. Apparently Mr. Ching thinks that Taiwan's safety and security are threatened by Chen Shui-bian, and not by Chinese missiles and aircraft. Mr. Ching, who accuses Chen of being illogical, seems to suffer from a few blown logic circuits himself. If only those silly French resistors hadn't threatened the safety and security of France by fighting the Nazis. And think how much safer Ethiopia would have been if only Menelek II hadn't objected to a clause in a treaty placing Ethiopia under Italian "protection".... Ching maunders on....

The decision not to display festive slogans on National Day underlines the pro- independence position of the current government. It shuns any association with the "Republic of China" - even though that is how it is known to its few remaining diplomatic allies.

It is unprecedented for a government to turn its back on its own flag, anthem and national day in this fashion. The administration wants to change all the trappings of the state, replacing them with ones that have no link with mainland China. Thus, at DPP rallies, displaying the Republic of China flag is considered provocative because it is associated not with the DPP but with the opposition Kuomintang. The president is photographed with the national flag only on formal occasions, when it is unavoidable.

..."because it is associated with the opposition Kuomintang." Yes. Doh. The "national flag" is a "party flag" because -- and among Ching's intellectual shortcomings appears to be selective amnesia -- that flag was the flag of a one-party colonial state that murdered and imprisoned many of the people who had fought for democracy here. Of course they minimize their connection with the illegitimate government of the island that oppressed them for 50 years! In a piece in the Taipei Times yesterday entitled "The roots of the 'abnormal' Taiwan," this point of view is perfectly expressed:

But there aren't too many perished states around that have brought their national title, flag, constitution and system to a place that wasn't even part of the state's founding. So if you say there's nothing abnormal about that, then you are probably the one that is a bit abnormal.

What Taiwanese feel is a contradiction and it makes us feel awkward because when we are celebrating our national day, we are celebrating the national holiday of a perished state.

With Ma and his supporters thinking that the ROC is completely normal, they should be happy that the government -- which happens to think that the ROC is not normal -- is celebrating the ROC's national day at all. But instead, pan-blue politicians dressed up in red on last year's national day celebrations and stirred up a ruckus.

Now there are reports that they are planning the same thing again this year. With such behavior, only a fool would believe them when they profess to deeply identify with Taiwan.

Pan-blue supporters often ask pan-green politicians why they would want to be president of the ROC or ROC legislators. There's a simple reply to that: Would you prefer the old system be overturned in a violent revolution?

The DPP treats the ROC flag as exactly what it is: a useful virtual state that will disappear either because the Chinese swallow Taiwan, or the DPP succeeds in gaining independence. Either way, the ROC has no future. But here's Frank Ching's denunciation of the DPP's "illogic."

On the one hand, they denounced Beijing's passage of the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which gave the mainland the legal right to use military force if Taiwan moved towards independence. Mr Chen responded by saying the law's passage "will pose the greatest threat to regional stability and world peace".

On the other hand, the Chen administration is confident that Beijing will never attack, regardless of Taiwan's provocations. Thus, Mr Chen told The Wall Street Journal last month that "time has proven that the United States' concerns about, and criticism of, our actions were all unwarranted. Nothing happened."

Similarly, he said, he can assure Washington that "nothing is going to happen" after a referendum on joining the UN.

So, Beijing is both a threat to regional and world peace - and yet it will do nothing about Taiwan's provocations. The two positions are not consistent.

Either the Anti-Secession Law is not a threat to peace, or Mr Chen's actions are likely to trigger a military response from Beijing. He can't have it both ways.

It's Ching who has problems, not the DPP. If you threaten to murder people -- and Beijing cannot pass a law that gives it the right to kill Taiwanese, unless Ching believes that it also has the right to murder Chinese dissidents since it has passed laws enabling it to do so -- then you are a threat to peace. Period.

There's nothing wrong with Chen's logic. Ching's position is like arguing that a serial rapist is not a threat to the women in the neighborhood unless he is actually raping someone. Chen's position is that it is probably safe to walk past the house of the rapist this time, but everyone should be careful, because you never know what he's capable of. Nothing illogical about that position.

Observe also Ching's acceptance of the rather odd state of affairs: there's no hope of the referendum succeeding, since China can block it at the UN with its veto. So why is China upset? Ching apparently does not feel that is a question worth asking....

If that referendum passes, China will not be able to pretend that Taiwan independence is the dastardly plot of a tiny cabal of splittists (acting, of course, in conjunction with the equally nefarious governments of the US and Japan). If it passes, it will signal that a people in the Chinese cultural world can still eat tofu, speak a Chinese language, and pray to the gods of ancient China, but not be part of the Chinese state. If it passes, it will demonstrate that Chinese people can exercise democracy just like any other people on earth.

These things, not just independence, terrify the government in Beijing. Frank Ching, though, just doesn't seem to have much interest in them.

[Taiwan] [China]