Pages

Friday, May 30, 2008

Taiwan News: Wu gives away Taiwan

Taiwan News has another hard hitting editorial, this time on how KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung has sold out the island and its vision of pluralistic democracy:

In the midst of the storm over Tuesday's lightening hike in petroleum prices by the new Kuomintang government, virtually all of our citizens have failed to notice that the title deed to Taiwan's hard-won democracy and substantive independence were literally being given away to the People's Republic of China by the chairman of the self-same ruling KMT.

The transaction took place during the meeting in Beijing Wednesday between KMT Chairman Wu Po-hsiung and PRC State Chairman Hu Jintao, who was wearing his more important hat of general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The results of the Hu - Wu tete-a-tete have already been lauded as a "breakthrough" for "peace between Taiwan and China" by international media and most of the local press, which dutifully reported Beijing's instructions for the resumption of consultations between the Taiwan's semi-official Strait Exchange Foundation and Beijing's counterpart Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait next month in Beijing. Nevertheless, odes of joy that "peace in our time" has been realized would be premature before a close examination of the bill for this "ice-breaking."

A close perusal of the charges show that all of the alleged gains of Hu's apparent "concessions" overwhelmed by the cost to our freedom and future prosperity of the consensus reached by the two ruling parties on the overarching political framework for future cross-strait relations.

As warned in previous editorials, the signal for the KMT's sell-out of Taiwan was conveyed by their repeated use of the term "Chinese nation" (zhonghua minzu) during their talks.

The decisive point, as the official Kuomintang News Network highlighted yesterday is that both Hu and Wu "used 'Chinese nation' to replace 'one China."'

This political parlor trick did not simply "set aside the dispute over sovereignty," as claimed by Wu, but instead elevated a racialist (and unhistorical) concept of the "Chinese nation" (invented by Qing Dynasty writer Liang Qichao in the early 1900s) based on "common blood ancestry" above both the PRC and the ROC constitutions and committed both ruling parties, in their status as the self-anointed representatives of the "great Chinese nation," to the imposition of this "final solution" to the cross-strait dispute.

Not coincidentally, the substitution also superseded Ma's claim that the so-called"Consensus of 1992" allowed for "separate verbal expressions" of "one China" and Wu's references to our president as "Mr Ma" confirmed this marginalization.

Since the PRC is a one - party dictatorship, no one will be able to object to Hu's action, but the action of Wu and the KMT have illegitimately subordinated the democratic rights of the 23 million Taiwan people and the legal authority of newly inaugurated government of President Ma Ying-jeou to the arbitrary agenda of the "KMT-CCP platform."

Moreover, the KMT and CCP clearly intend to use the "iron cage" of the "great Chinese nation" to imprison Taiwan's citizen - based and democratic constitutional system and deny any option for the Taiwan people besides affiliation with the "great Chinese nation."

The KMT - CCP consensus to enshrine the "Chinese nation" as the "final solution" has already surrendered Taiwan's sovereignty in principle to the CCP; the role now earmarked for Taiwan's democratically elected government and its "authorized" SEF is to negotiate the concrete terms of surrender, including the provision of face-saving "carrots," with the ARATS.

The protest by Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan yesterday that the "track two" KMT-CCP platform "cannot override" the government authorized SEF-ARARTS channel is doomed to futility because the PRC, which is obviously the dominant partner in this asymmetrical political dance, has placed primacy on "party - to - party" negotiations and uses ARATS only as its tool.

Although the 23 million Taiwan people are the primary victims, President Ma himself has clearly been outflanked and outfoxed by the KMT old guard headed by his rivals such as KMT "honorary chairman" Lien Chan and Wu himself.

Besides negating the liberal and pluralist citizen nationalism of the Democratic Progressive Party and the Taiwan democratic movement, the KMT-CCP reification of an overarching racial concept of a "Chinese nation" also contravenes the ROC Constitution, a framework which Ma swore to defend and implement, which is itself founded on the spirit of civic nationalism and "people's sovereignty."

Article Two of the ROC Constitution, promulgated in December 1947, declares that the "sovereignty of the ROC resides in the whole body of citizens" while Article Three specifies that "people who possess the nationality of the ROC are ROC citizens."

These two critical declarations show that the ROC's republican foundation is not primarily based on its territory but upon "citizen nationalism" (kuominzhuyi) and not "racial nationalism" (minzuzhuyi).

President Ma has been effectively given the choice to either acquiesce in this sleazy transfer of "ownership" to the "great Chinese nation" and the disembowelment of our hard-won democracy or to join with democratic and Taiwan-centric forces to reject the right of the KMT and CCP to unilaterally impose their "final solution" and deny the autonomy, democracy and dignity of the 23 million Taiwan people.
I was discussing this editorial with a knowledgeable observer of Taiwan affairs, who pointed out that the emphasis on the chunghwa minzu as the basis for the "Chinese state" is a way to suppress 'citizen nationalism' and prevent it from spreading into the PRC. As the editorial points out, the PRC wants desperately to suppress Taiwan's democracy, and the KMT has a similar interest -- the locals once voted a non-KMT party into office. Note also that MAC headed by TSU politico Lai Shin-yuan has been totally bypassed in these negotiations.

Didn't take long, did it?

25 comments:

  1. The DPP discredited itself by chasing the impossible goal of international recognition for Taiwanese independence and encouraging a split between socalled bensheng and waisheng people.If Taiwan is not to slip into Beijing's control it's time for true national unity and the consideration of realistic alternatives.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just out of curiosity... How many elected representatives from Taiwan signed to ratify the 1947 constitution?

    It appears Ma, like Chen before him, is trying to rush through major changes for fear the DPP will come back.

    Chen conducted his first term like he was afraid he'd be a one hit wonder and then was surprised by a second term. After the second term He then tried to go for broke fearing the KMT come back.

    Ma seems to be looking over his shoulder at the same scenario. "Better make the deepest changes ASAP in case those DPP bastards come back".

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://old.npf.org.tw/PUBLICATION/IA/091/IA-R-091-077.htm

    Triggered by your post, I found this article on google.

    According to it, China as a nation since 1910 has long been doubled as Cultural Motherland said various scholars.

    What if I prefer not miggling culture with my nationality?
    I am from Taiwan and I don't identify myself as Chonghuaminzu.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree with anonymous (9:19) in many respects.
    But to unite, the ROC constitution needs to be scrapped as it is based on racialist ideals that works to create a strong, centralized, cultural hegemon at the expense of people who do not identify with those ideals.

    As it stands, the ROC constitution attempts to place those citizens who do not identify with Chinese cultural nationalism, in a position of inferiority and lacking modernity. It then lends itself the authority to modernize and transform them. This is colonialism folks. A civilizing project.

    To truly unite the pluralities on Taiwan, "Chineseness" needs to be scrapped. Culturalism needs to be scrapped. The fictive "four ethnic groups" needs to be forgotton. The education system needs to be Taiwan centered to give everyone equal access. Confucian ideal need to be abandoned.

    Otherwise there is no way people on an island of such diversity can possibly respect each other as equals.

    Don't look to Ma Ying jiu to make these changes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://cgi.blog.roodo.com/trackback/4693667

    Another link about "Han ethnic chauvinism."

    Reading your blog is like having an insightful class about Taiwan. I know it's quite wierd since I was born as a Taiwanese but know so little about it than you who were not born as Taiwanese.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Ma seems to be looking over his shoulder at the same scenario. "

    I am not sure it is entirely Ma's doing in this case. It might be, but something tells me that he is perfect for both the KMT and the CCP. He is pliable and impotent.... a figurehead really.

    If you tune out the giddy noise of "warming ties, whoopdedoo", you can see a big oddity. Here a party leader is going to China and usurping the power of the president. Ma specifically forebade him to talk about sovereignty issues, but by repeatedly saying that people on both sides of the strait are Zhonghua Minzu, he is doing just that.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It doesn't seem as though Ma is making these changes quickly, but that Ma and the KMT (especially) have been working behind the scenes for years, otherwise none of this could be going on so quickly. Everything has to have had some form of contact as noted in this and other blogs for the past year or so.

    I'm not surprised at all by any of this...I think Tim Maddog's slogan for Ma, 馬上會好痛, is becoming quite apt...if not just for the economy. Indeed, the KMT is taking Taiwan, excuse, the ROC and running with it.

    I have a summer class final tomorrow, otherwise I'd fill this statement up with more...substance...對不起。。。

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Hakka-Aboriginal-Waisheng-Bensheng distinction was exacerbated, defined, formalized, and encouraged by the colonial KMT government, NOT the DPP.

    College admissions and jobs favoring waisheng, hitting bensheng for speaking Taiwanese and overall making Taiwanese into the language of the lower classes, creating

    In Taiwan, there are "dorms" and walls everywhere. The dorms are for officials to live separate from the rest of the population wherever they are sent in Taiwan. Nearly all schools, research institutions, government agencies all have walls that complete enclose them separating them from the rest of th city. The old military villages were a society sufficient and independent from the rest of Taiwan--old waisheng lived there and never learned a word of Taiwanese, and they were hotbeds of waisheng gang activity (the waisheng us vs everyone else). Completely colonial attitude with no real attempt at integrating into this society.

    It's unbelievable that waisheng today, beneficiaries of a discriminatory system, will now say today that they are victims of the DPP.

    Waisheng say this shit only because they are like the Sunni's in Iraq and the Russians in Estonia, longing for the "good old days" when they were on top.

    The DPP said things like, people who wanted to unify should just swim over to China, which is provocative, but it's about your ideals for where you want to take Taiwan, not your who your ancestors are.

    Lots of waisheng support the DPP and Taiwanese independence--the problem is a bunch of people, mainly waisheng descendants don't like Taiwanese independence and so they come up with this argument that the DPP is excluding them. Whatever...

    ReplyDelete
  9. What did you expect? Of course the bending over and ass kissing is a major part of KMT policy towards mama China.

    It will happen quickly.

    Foreign dissenters will have little to look forward to accept banishment and worse.

    ReplyDelete
  10. since the new KMT government was democratically elected by the 23 million people of Taiwan, it seems patently obvious why Wu's recent achievments in Beijing are of less concern to the general public than fuel increases... *unlike* closer ties with China, the vast majority of the Taiwanese people don't want fuel price hikes.

    ReplyDelete
  11. oncern to the general public than fuel increases... *unlike* closer ties with China, the vast majority of the Taiwanese people don't want fuel price hikes.

    LOL. Why do you think they scheduled public announcements of the gas price hikes at the same time as Wu and Hu were jumping in bed together?

    Michael

    ReplyDelete
  12. Either waisheng and bensheng decide that national unity is much more important than any wrongs they suffered from each other or Taiwan is finished.A huge communist dictatorship has announced its intention to invade if Taiwan does not surrender.What more is needed to persuade all people on Taiwan to put aside petty squabbles?

    ReplyDelete
  13. If they've been meeting each other for years before, surely this current trip is just for show? Hasn't it been said that nothing will be signed while Wu is over there. Why would they want to divert attention?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thomas,

    Your're not quite right on your point.

    The KMT used the term "Chinese" to cover all ethnicities, viewing each as a Chinese variation. Aborigines were thus a sub group of "Chinese"... according to early KMT doctrine.

    The early DPP tried to capitalize on the extant Waisheng/Bensheng tensions to jump start the young party in the 80's and resorted to using ethnonationalist tropes i.e. Su Bing's Taiwan's 400 year History and other means of ethnic deployment to challenge the KMT. "Taiwanese" was thus made to be synonymous with Hoklo speakers. This is really where the DPP dropped the ball. They made some short term gains, but in the early 90's they were severely beaten, reduced to 12 seats in the LY... (sound famliar?). To broaden their appeal, and shake the reputation as being the pro Hoklo party, the DPP invented the idea of Taiwan as a "community of fate" with "four ethnic groups" Hoklo, Hakka, Aboriginal and Waishengren. This formula has been more or less accepted by all parties in recent years, but fails to account for all of the cross ethnic mixing that goes on here and has gone on for centuries...including recent immigrants from most parts of the world. Most of the time these people are labeled with a caveat that makes them less than authentic Taiwanese.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thomas,

    You are attempting to discredit the vast majority of innocent Waishengren who did integrate fully into postwar Taiwan and still faced discrmination at the hands of DPP ideology. This was in the early 21st century, nearly 2 decades after martial law was lifted and the DPP was legalized.

    This is unrelated to the misdeeds of the KMT, which this population sector has nothing to do with. I'm not talking about the government elite.

    Will comment more later as I am about to be busy for the day.

    ReplyDelete
  16. If you think "中華民族" is synonymous with "漢人" and that Ma's inaugural speech and the similar language used at the recednt ROC-PRC and KMT-CCP exchanges signal the existence of a Han Chinese world domination conspiracy, you could be right.

    Alternatively, the fact that the PRC made no reference to "One China" and instead talked of "Chinese" on both sides of the strait in the recent Hu-Su and Hu-Wu meetings, could be a concession to Taiwan that would give room for more than one political entity on both sides of the strait.

    Time will tell.

    ReplyDelete
  17. ...Hakka-Aboriginal-Waisheng-Bensheng distinction was exacerbated, defined, formalized, and encouraged by the colonial KMT government, NOT the DPP.

    College admissions and jobs favoring waisheng, hitting bensheng for speaking Taiwanese and overall making Taiwanese into the language of the lower classes, creating...

    Waisheng say this shit only because they are like the Sunni's in Iraq and the Russians in Estonia, longing for the "good old days" when they were on top...


    Repeat that again, do you even read what you just wrote? Racist :)! Btw, Sunni will be on top again once we were kicked out of Iraq. Sunni doesn't rule that piece of land for centuries as a minority without merit.

    As for the gas price. Like I mentioned before, DPP economic policies were stupid (ran by people probably graduated from University of Phoenix). The new administration is doing the right thing and we will see the results in 4 years :). However, I still predict 6000 for Taiwan stock exchange at the beginning of next year but the old administration and the world economic trends are the two main things to blame.

    ReplyDelete
  18. KMTards disgust me to no end. I am too nauseated to even post a comment.

    ----




    Thanks MT for all that you do.

    ReplyDelete
  19. What do you expect from American desperado?

    ReplyDelete
  20. The focus on racial nationalism by the Chinese should be noticed as inconsistent with their claims to Tibet. This should provide the liberal media an interesting choice: Point out the inconsistency in order to support the fashionably popular re-establishment of the pre-China dictatorship in Tibet, or ignore the inconsistency to avoid supporting democracy and freedom in Taiwan. My bet is they'll avoid supporting democracy and freedom in Taiwan and continue to focus on how dreamy Obama is.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'll admit total novice level here when it comes to Taiwan politics (that's why I read here), but anyone else feel like there is quick sand with no room to wiggle? Every movement just causes further sinkage. As we are adopting, I feel it is of utmost importance for me to learn everything I possibly can about Taiwan. I just wonder what I will be telling our child in 20 years considering the balancing act that Taiwan performs each waking moment. Thank you for sharing and educating others.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Arty, what specifically did you see in Thomas' comment that was racist? I do agree that many waisheng have integrated into Taiwanese society (especially those younger and born in Taiwan, i.e. Frank Hsieh's former campaign spokesperson), but I'm not sure I would disagree that the majority of those that are pro-unification (less than 10% these days) don't largely have a cultural or ethnic identity that is disparaging of Taiwanese identity. (Though, again, the reverse isn't necessarily true--many waisheng descendants support independence/DPP).

    Why are you saying that the Sunnis will be on top again? The conditions that kept them artificially on top previously are no longer possible! They were on top because of a dictatorship. With all sides now armed to the teeth and no overwhelming central power, why would the overwhelming Shia majority put up with Sunnis yet again being in a privileged position?

    Third, you should check out the backgrounds of the former DPP administration. Annette Lu was a graduate of Harvard, the former finance minister was top economist at the IRS (yes, the US IRS), many more, plus tons of NTUs... That said, I don't think doing well in the educational system really says anything about leadership abilities.

    The new KMT administration is similar in having high educational backgrounds, but unfortunately, shows quite a lot of stupidity when it comes to basic laws of economics. There are many problems with CPC and gas prices, but focusing just on the arbitrage situation they foolishly created--if they hadn't kept saying that they were going to raise prices "all at once" (translation: by a lot), and they hadn't kept saying 6/2 as a date, there wouldn't be such a huge arbitrage opportunity.

    Keeping tanks of gasoline stored around over time for the average person is a hassle and for the gasoline operator looking to make a quick buck, dangerous, illegal, and a steadily increasing cost that eats into their expected profits.

    If they had instead done something like do unannounced gas price increases at 1 NT a week or a month, they would've killed two birds with one stone. One, they kill any arbitrage (because it's no longer worth it to store for so long to make such small margins and how long you have to wait to make money is indefinite as increases are unannounced), and two, there's a buffer to the increases, not simply creating "inflation shocks" that will reverberate throughout the economy.

    The new administration is so amateurish that they are saying that prices will be increased again in July. What?! Are you kidding me? If oil prices jump again, people are going to be hoarding oil all over again once the beginning of July rolls around.

    Do it unannounced or simply float tracking along international oil prices (maybe weekly updates), and there won't be a stupid lag between global oil price increases and CPC price increases that will create opportunities for arbitrage.

    Sigh...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Thanks Taiwan economics.... there's already a small black market in gasoline as the government subsidizes gas for fishing boats which is then illegally sold at lower prices than the official price.

    Michael

    ReplyDelete
  24. The conditions that kept them artificially on top previously are no longer possible! They were on top because of a dictatorship. With all sides now armed to the teeth and no overwhelming central power, why would the overwhelming Shia majority put up with Sunnis yet again being in a privileged position?

    Huh? You do know the moment we leave there will be a huge civic war right...and do you mind guessing who has won the last few times. Of course Shia might win in the end this time (I mean you can only lose so many times) but history is against its odds.

    Do it unannounced or simply float tracking along international oil prices (maybe weekly updates), and there won't be a stupid lag between global oil price increases and CPC price increases that will create opportunities for arbitrage.

    This I agree but the lag between the real price of the gasoline and the current market price in Taiwan is too large. Regardless what KMT administration is doing, it is going to be hammered by DPP. And yea, saying they are going to raise the price again in July is stupid. I will just say the price will be raised unannounced in the future. Btw, I don't think slow rise in price will work overtime because the expectation is the same. Also, Taiwan has this lag of oil price today is mainly due to pricing fixing scheme by the former administration, am I correct (time to blame LY again)? I guess we will see the end result in 4 years.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Too bad the only public discourse on this matter is on Michael Turton's blog.

    Where's the public outcry, the blame, the endless TV commentary, the mass movements in the street?

    Ma's not going down until he gets caught in a more salacious scandal... sex...corruption...a public revelation of his growing bald spot... But old Ma is too clever to fall for that and will have proxies do it for him.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.