Taiwan presents multiple challenges to China -- a democracy where China claims Chinese societies are not ready for that form of government -- and a culture that acknowledges Chinese roots but calls itself Taiwanese -- and, at least from the DPP side, a vision of multilingual, multicultural society where citizenship is rooted in a lawful relation to the national polity, not a racial classification. Not to mention its economic prowess, brand monikers, and its culture industries, which reinforce Taiwan's independent identity. And which sell big in China, too.Naturally, all this annoying independence of thought and behavior brings out the inner Borg of the thugs across the Strait. It. must. be. assimilated.
This week
Cai Wu, the highest-ranking mainland official to visit the island in 12 years, said on Sunday details of the plan have not been finalised but suggested building on a sweeping trade pact the two sides forged earlier this year.To go with economic integration and financial integration, China is essentially proposing cultural integration -- assimilation. Taiwan News put it well today:
"For instance, I'm wondering if it is possible to sign an agreement patterning after the ECFA (Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement)... it is still under discussion," Cai said during a press conference while touring Taipei's National Palace Museum.
Cai will attend a seminar in Taipei on Monday, according to its organisers, the Shen Chun-chih Culture Foundation, a non-profit Taipei-based body focused on cultural exchanges with the mainland.
In the wake of the signing of a controversial "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement," the authoritarian People's Republic of China has launched drives to push President Ma Ying-jeou's rightist Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) government to accept political negotiations and help promote "cultural unification" under a "Chinese national identity.""Chinese race nation" is Han chauvinist code that Ma uses as well -- see his inaugural speech. The common ground that enables the KMT and CCP to overcome whatever minor inclinations they may have not to cooperate is this race-based vision of the Chinese nation. It is in direct opposition to the formal DPP goal of a national citizenship independent of ethnic considerations in a constitutionally defined independent and democratic republic.
While Ma appears committed to delay political talks until after the crucial Nov. 27 municipal mayoral elections, the KMT government seems to have fewer qualms about cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party - ruled PRC's intention to subordinate Taiwan culture under the reactionary umbrella of "Chinese national culture."
This agenda was showcased yesterday in the second KMT-CCP "Cross-Strait Cultural Forum" held yesterday in Taipei under the theme of "seizing the opening and creating a new situation."
National Cultural Association Secretary-General and former premier Liu Chao-hsuan set the tone by reaffirming that "Chinese culture is the common denominator between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait," followed by Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng's parroting of Ma's denigrating definition of Taiwan culture as "Chinese culture with unique Taiwanese characteristics."
Platitudes aside, the main course of the conference was PRC Culture Minister Cai Wu's upfront demand for the rapid signing of a "cross-strait culture cooperation agreement" under the ECFA umbrella in order to establish an "institutional mechanism" to promote "comprehensive cooperation" in fields including resource integration, financing, talent cultivation, content creation and global marketing and even participation in the "re-examination of culture policies and regulations."
Statements by Cai and other PRC delegates showed that Beijing's short-term objective is to appropriate the fruits of Taiwan's higher development in cultural creative industries, including artistic creation, techniques, commercialization and marketing, and turn our cultural assets into "local content" for the PRC to market globally as "Chinese culture."
Besides predicting that "cross-cultural industry will become a new economic growth point and provide a pillar industry for the national economy," a term which surely did not refer to Taiwan, Cai settled any doubts about the ultimate purpose of "cross-strait cultural cooperation" with a resounding call to "commonly plan for the great revival of the Chinese race nation!"
Taiwan News argues that Taiwan's distinctive historical, political, and cultural experience is a wellspring of its creative power. In PRC hands this distinctiveness would be -- as Ma himself puts it -- "Chinese culture with unique Taiwanese characteristics" -- assimilated. The latter half of Ma's formulation would be instantly lost under a PRC rubric, since distinctiveness must be carefully mediated by Chineseness in the PRC cultural lexicon, to fence in the unruly habit of other ethnicities to develop their own identities.
The PRC program is clearly aimed, as Taiwan News observes, at subsuming Taiwan's cultural industries under the rubric of China and eliminating a potentially important source of Taiwanese "difference." Not to mention -- as always -- the practical goal of eliminating Taiwanese industries where they compete with Chinese firms. Elimination of "Taiwan" as a "brand" is also a key goal; media reports suggest that things with the "Taiwan" label on them are popular in China and that what Taiwan sells is its distinctive culture -- accessible, yet different.
How that must annoy the CCP in Beijing.
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Daily Links
- Fake chips from China threaten all sorts of devices
- The Formosa Foundation ad on Youtube
- Can we stop with this rhetoric? "The Chinese" are not a subspecies, whatever you may think of how they treat animals. Or anything else.
- China Times editorial on Taiwan's structural problems and Ma not doing anything for the poor.
- First phase of wetland purchase in Changhua done.
- Way cool: scientists have argued for years that the Amazon jungle was inhabited by millions prior to European contact and is the result of human creation and construction. Now the evidence is overwhelming. See also Charles Mann's 1491 which will completely change the way you think about the history of the Americas.
[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!
22 comments:
Ah well, we'll be laughing over here in Shanghai when the reunification comes. It's inevitable, you know... the numbers alone make it so.
:)
Micheal, I hate propaganda of every kind, even if its supposedly good counter propaganda.
Taiwan's democracy is a huge obstacle for the PRC out of practical reasons, but neither is Taiwans populations demand/use of far greater civil and political liberties nor the mostly childish and flat popculture the island churns out a bigger threat to the PRC internally than, say, HK is. That is, no threat at all.
My two cents
Did I say "threat?"
Anon:
Don't worry, Taiwan is no threat. The ECFA will go through and gradually integrate Taiwan back into the motherland, so we can resolve this all peacefully. The power of the RMB will overcome the DPP and keep everything nice and harmonious. I guess I just don't see why people are so afraid of us- all you have to do is join the party, and you're home free... :)
Hongmao, thanks for amusing us. It's always a pleasure to read the wit of natural-born slaves.
Wow. A few folks recently on here trying to put words in the author's mouth. To Hongmao I only have to say that we in Taiwan won't be laughing when the CCP dictatorship finally collapses and millions of innocent Chinese and Taiwanese are embroiled in the massive scale of destruction that will be brought on by the CCP desperately holding on to power and then 'burning the oil wells' as it loses its grip and engages the 'cut off my nose to spite my face' policy ...
Micheal: Ok, you wrote challenge. But challenge where? You can't challenge somebody, unless you got an arena. China doesn't let you play on his turf, unless SHE sings about how great Zhongguohua is...
Internationally, not really.
Inside Taiwan? just business as usual
"Taiwan is no threat..."
Who, whom?
Whatever happens geopolitically, you can bet your shiny little red ass that I'd be an instant threat to you if you ever dared cross my threshold with your principles out in the open.
I'm Taiwanese, in that I was born in Taipei, and basically, all my family speak "Taiwanese."
Of course, I don't want Taiwan assimilated into the Chinese state.
However, large empires/nations have always dominated and made accessories of smaller nations. US/NATO/the victors of WWII established Israel to reserve/preserve their interests in middle east oil, and thus the US has enjoyed the ability to project military power into the region quite easily. Japan, Philippines, and of course Taiwan, have served similar functions for US power in Asia as it competes with China.
Taiwan is key to naval military superiority in the region.
So, as a Taiwanese, a Chinese- and Asian-American, who is also a citizen of the US, I see that Taiwan has two "choices." Be an accessory to US power or be an accessory to Chinese national power.
Honestly, if I had to choose between two super-powers, why would I, as a Taiwanese, want to be allied with an aggressive super power?
China and the US both execute people. China and the US both torture people. The US seeks to actively create legal regimes that justify such behavior.
the US invades other countries AND seeks to dominate and create international law according to our imperialist vision. When is the last time China launched a war of aggression? When did China firebomb civilians, then nuke more? When did China napalm an entire country and launch secret wars against neighboring countries? When did China train and weaponize religious fanatics and let a country fall under their rule, only to bomb and occupy decades later? Is China militarily occupying two countries right now? Has it killed hundreds of thousands through sanctions against their own former-puppet, and then through war?
I mean, honestly, I would rather be an accessory to Chinese power than US power.
Any Americans willing to explain this one to me?
At least from the DPP side, a vision of multilingual, multicultural society where citizenship is rooted in a lawful relation to the national polity, not a racial classification.
Tell that to the Thais, or Indonesians or Filipinos.
The DPP are no more interested in multiculturalism than the KMT (actually, the KMT are slightly more inclusive in this regard).
The worst thing is, you know that yet still write sentences like the above.
Ah trolls. So dumb, yet so insulting. No wonder they post anonymously.
"Tell that to the Thais, or Indonesians or Filipinos."
Everyone always loves to talk about this, but Filipinos looking to work as maids choose Taiwan as their top choice. They make more here, they're treated better here, and they can more easily run away and be self-sufficient here. Where's the significant discrimination? It's not like citizens of those countries can't become citizens of Taiwan. Any difficulty is similar to that of anyone wanting to become a citizen of Taiwan without a half million dollars to invest.
Are you all claiming that NOT automatically giving citizenship to anyone that wants to work or play in Taiwan is discrimination? Michael doesn't have citizenship either, I think probably for tax or military service reasons.
Michael doesn't have citizenship either, I think probably for tax or military service reasons.
No, because immigrant citizenship in Taiwan is a second class citizenship, a problem that neither of the major parties is addressing. I'd love to take out citizenship here, provided I could have dual like the native-born Taiwanese.
I pay the same taxes everyone else does. Too old to serve in the mil.
Michael
I'd love to take out citizenship here, provided I could have dual like the native-born Taiwanese.
Well, the multicultural, all-inclusive had 8 years in power where they could have changed that law. Oops.
ROFL. How it must pain you that the DPP's policy's on citizenship are not based on being "Chinese" at all, but on membership in a democratic state.
And so courageous, posting anonymously!
Basically, it comes down to this- Taiwan can choose between two oligarchies- the dying American oligarchy, or the rising Chinese oligarchy. There's no difference except culture and proximity. Americans are no more "free" than the Chinese- democracy and rights are an illusion. All the power is held by financial elites. Better to bet on the horse that's going to win the race, no?
As I said, Hongmao, you're a natural-born slave, and you think like one.
"Better to bet on the horse that's going to win the race, no?"
Wrong. Aside from the massive problems of environmental destruction and the logistical nightmare of energy supply; aside from the fixed gearing of such a huge economic area toward a tottering demand for imports in the U.S. and the E.U; aside from the total mess of China's financial system and aside from the seething social unrest among the downtrodden poor in the rural provinces.... China has too many unmanageable problems, to wit:
1) Demographics. Due to the stupidity and intractability of the one-child-policy, China is perhaps now only one generation away from having literally no future. Taiwan also has poor fertility rates - but unlike in China, these are not enforced by government coercion and the scale is much smaller.
2) China does not have much tradition of individual freedom to draw upon and your system of government holds the very idea in contempt - but freedom is nonetheless the most necessary condition for producing your way out of the shit hole your government has landed you in.
I think it likely that the U.S. will suffer some form of "collapse" too, but I also think it will recover in some bastardized but nonetheless functional form, and that may even be true of some parts of Europe. But I don't see how anyone can hold out such hope for China. Your history is your gravity - your country is, as Cartman would say, seriously "F-d in the A".
@kid.why: I've got work I'm trying to procrastinate, so I'll bite.
Like all human endeavors, the US has it's problems.
However, as a grand-son of holocaust survivors, I'll have to register some disagreement with your assertion on Israel. But that's a side-track.
I see that Taiwan has two "choices." Be an accessory to US power or be an accessory to Chinese national power.
I think the second choice is to be subjected to PRC national power.
why would I, as a Taiwanese, want to be allied with an aggressive super power?
...
When is the last time China launched a war of aggression?
The PRC is not aggressive? How about 1949 or 1950?
And now they've upped their expansionist rhetoric, and have a quickly modernizing military.
You don't think there will be PRC aggression in the not-so-distant future?
And where the US has made war, they at least try to extricate themselves. Sure, we have bases all over the world, but there are attempts to mitigate the affects on the peoples. (No, it's not perfect, yes, the number of foreign bases should be reduced).
China and the US both execute people. China and the US both torture people. The US seeks to actively create legal regimes that justify such behavior.
The US is trying (poorly) to not torture. The PRC, not so much. Also, the PRC's target of torture & execution is their own citizens, especially to those they deem "splittists". If you follow your plan to be an accessory to "PRC power", you will become a citizen, and my family will become "splittists".
@Kid:
Step 1: Read about the post war development of Japan, South Korea, West Germany, and Taiwan.
Step 2: compare them to East Germany, North Korea, (especially) Mao's China or the Eastern Block Countries.
Step 3: Draw your conclusions about which side yielded better results for said countries.
@kid.why:
And I guess you would want to live in Bejing more than California where you currently reside. How ironic!
@Robert R.
The examples of aggression you provided are from over 50 years ago. In other words, they support kid.wh(y)'s point of view more than they do yours.
Also, it should be noted that at that point in time, the PRC was new and still in the midst of a war against the KMT.
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