After the show a group of us celebrated the PRC's 60th by heading over to a Xinjiang restaurant (HJS), where we killed an entire production run of Taiwan beer. Listening to a Taiwanese woman there talk about how they had been taught to regard Xinjiang and Tibet as part of China, and how moving it was for her to listen to the story of East Turkestan (the name of Xinjiang before the PRC colonized it), I felt again: this is a film that everyone on the island should see.
You can also see how completely shameless the KMT's refusal to grant a visa to Kadeer was -- here is a regime which, as my good friend Michael Fahey noted, operated a blacklist against its own people, exiling so many, and which thus has a special obligation to political exiles everywhere. But at the same time, because Kadeer is so effective, it is easy to see why they wouldn't let her in.
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Daily Links
- Fabulous new find of ancestral hominid.
- Steve Yates on Fox News commenting on the Empire State building lit up to commemorate the 60th of the PRC. Excellent Taiwan comments, Steve!
- Joe Hung, longtime rabidly pro-KMT, pro-China commentator at the China Post, has taken over the head of the Central News Agency. I have no further comment on this.
- More bad news for the KMT in local elections: Hualien KMTer has dropped out to run as independent, may turn KMT lock into competitive race. More comments on this tonight.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!
Where's old Wu'er Kaixi? He's been pretty absent through all this.
ReplyDeleteYou may want to check the history of East Turkestan. With the exception of a few years as a republic, it's been controlled by China in one form or another since the Tang Dynasty or controlled by the Mongols. It's pretty much never been an independent state (unlike Tibet).
ReplyDeleteNot sure if Hung is really hung, but I have seem him at work and...oh lord, what a screwball.
ReplyDeleteActually,Wu'er was in Taichung the other day talking to AmCham.
ReplyDeleteHistory of East Turkestan? Let's see -- controlled by Mongols or the Tang Dynasty, so therefore it should never be independent, and China has every right to march in, annex the place, and shoot everyone who disagrees with them.
wow, Mr. Yates is right on on this one!
ReplyDeleteFurther, since the 1700s it was part of the Qing, then the ROC, briefly a republic, then the PRC. It's a pretty obvious succession of Chinese rule.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think would happen if China gave independence tomorrow? The Russians would most probably march in. Independence is not at all realistic or historically accurate.
Michael, the disagreeing-with-you Anon was saying that Xinjiang has been controlled by China since the Tang dynasty; i.e., China already had control of Xinjiang and therefore did not need to "march in" or "annex the place".
ReplyDeleteI don't know if that's correct, since I don't know much about Mainland history, but that's what was actually said :) I'll agree that if that's true, Tibet does have a better -- or rather, more understandable -- claim to independence, but that doesn't mean Xinjiang's claim is invalid.
I take Greenland as an example for a country/region, which was never really independent, but is now granted more and more autonomy. This could be an nice model for Tibet and Xinjiang.
ReplyDeleteKadeer said she want to sue Taiwan government.
ReplyDeleteReality or just empty announcement?
No news about that since few days...
By that line of logic, India should also be part of China since it was ruled by the Mughals who were descended from the Timurid Mongols. Even during the Tang, China exercised control over only a small part of modern day Xinjiang. For the next 700 years, it had no control whatsoever over Xinjiang.
ReplyDeleteFurther, since the 1700s it was part of the Qing, then the ROC, briefly a republic, then the PRC. It's a pretty obvious succession of Chinese rule.
ReplyDeleteYes, pretty obvious, except for the fact that the Qing weren't Chinese and that it was a republic.
Yes, and except for the mistress and baby, it's pretty obvious that John Edwards is monogamous.
BTW, the Uighurs one controlled an empire that stretched from East Turkestan over to Manchuria and over Mongolia into what is now China. Clearly they should control China.
The idea of "Chinese" was actually invented in response to the Qing as a means to delegitimize the Qing dynastic rule. Prior to the Qing, the concept of imperial territory was one bound by the ocean and the Great Wall. Still, prior to that it had always been changing.
ReplyDeleteJoe Hung is not the dumbest KMT ideologue... but he is one of the most dogmatic.
ReplyDeleteWho "should" control Xinjiang is largely irrelevant. The fact is that China does control it. With Han making up nearly half the population, it is doubtful that it would even vote for independence in a plebiscite.
ReplyDeleteAny break up of China would likely be very bloody, and would not necessarily improve things. The experiences of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union should teach us that. But Wilsonian idealism is still not dead..
Any break up of China would likely be very bloody, and would not necessarily improve things. The experiences of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union should teach us that. But Wilsonian idealism is still not dead..---
ReplyDeletelook we have already Yougoslavian situation there. local population opose chinese colonisation and dont want to be cinized. chinese dosnt control East Turkestan. Only Chinese army does. it is a big difference when people do live together or when they are quarded by millitary everyhwere.. futher or later chinese will fail here. even it will make them bakrupt by wasting billiuons of own money for the ocupation or quarding of own colonies there.
and if you want differences with yougoslavia its only the friendly country wich will give them modern weapons. i think India or Kazakhstan can play there better role. oh and yeahh.. russians are liveing there already. some decades longer than chinese.