This exchange of letters involves a couple of people I know spanking the Chinese representative in the UK for promulgating annexation propaganda. Nice work, people!
+++++++++++++
FINANCIAL TIMESOctober 24, 2014
It’s time for a bullying regime to step into the 21st century
Sir, The letter about Taiwan (October 18) from Chinese embassy spokesman Miao Deyu is textbook Chinese Communist party propaganda that cannot pass unchallenged.
First, the false assertion that Taiwan is “an inalienable part of China”. It is clear from China’s own historical maps and chronicles that Taiwan was not considered part of the empire until the late 17th century, and was at that time of little interest to the Chinese. As Emperor Kangxi wrote in 1683: “By taking it we gain nothing; by leaving it be, we lose nothing.” It was only at the end of the 19th century that the island became, for a brief period, a province of Manchu-ruled China.
During the early decades of the 20th century, Chinese republican leaders Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, and communist leader Mao Zedong each supported either Taiwanese autonomy under Japanese rule, or full Taiwanese independence. This is on the historical record. It was not until the second world war, when both the Chinese Nationalist KMT and the CCP came to view Taiwan as strategic booty to be seized once the US defeated Japan, that the fake “Taiwan-has-always-been-part-of-China” story was concocted.
Regarding Mr Miao’s embarrassingly social-Darwinist remark that people “on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same blood, language and roots”: this makes about as much sense as suggesting that Ireland should be incorporated into Britain since people on both sides of the Irish Sea share “the same blood” etc; or for that matter to conclude that the UK is part of the US.
Finally, he impertinently states that issues concerning the wholly independent polity that is modern Taiwan are “China’s internal affairs”. When the CCP snaps out of its imperialist dream it will find we are living in the 21st century and the question of Taiwan’s national and political identity is purely one for people in Taiwan to decide, free of the threat of annihilation by the bullying regime across the Strait.
Don Cropper
Cardiff, UK
-------------------------------------------
Sir,
Miao Deyu is a capable representative of his country’s firm position that “there is only one China in the world” (letters, October 18), and that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China”. Alas, he stretches the truth that his country’s position “has been universally recognised” by the UN and UK governments.
Like Palestine, Taiwan’s international legal status remains in limbo. The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty formally ended Japanese sovereignty over Taiwan yet pointedly failed to assign sovereignty over it to any other state. In 1951, China was at war with the UN in Korea and Chiang Kai-shek’s regime had just inflicted an unfortunate “white terror” on the island to enforce the rule of Chiang’s exiled “Republic of China”. As such, the major signatories of the San Francisco Treaty deferred assigning sovereignty to either belligerent in the waning days of the Chinese civil war.
Her Majesty’s representative to the San Francisco conference explained that “the treaty also provides for Japan to renounce its sovereignty over Formosa [Taiwan] and the Pescadores Islands. The treaty itself does not determine the future of these islands.” The US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and others explicitly endorsed that view, with the US delegate, John Foster Dulles, asserting that “clearly, the wise course was to proceed now, so far as Japan is concerned, leaving the future to resolve doubts by invoking international solvents other than this treaty”. In 2014, this remains the view of the major signatories, including Japan.
The Beijing regime was seated in the UN by a vote of the General Assembly on October 25 1971, replacing the representative of Chiang Kai-shek as the representative of “China”. It is a little remembered fact that the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan all voted against the expulsion of Chiang’s representative, even though they in principle favoured seating Beijing. As recently as 2007, as Beijing attempted to assert its authority over Taiwan in several UN agencies, the US reminded the UN secretary-general that “we take no position on the status of Taiwan, we neither accept nor reject the claim that Taiwan is part of China”. However, the US representative was displeased “that the UN has promulgated documents asserting that the United Nations considers ‘Taiwan for all purposes to be an integral part of the PRC’.” He said that “while this assertion is consistent with the Chinese position, it is not universally held by UN member states, including the United States”.
The US cautioned the secretary-general: “If the UN Secretariat insists on describing Taiwan as a part of the PRC [People’s Republic of China], or on using nomenclature for Taiwan that implies such status, the US will be obliged to disassociate itself on a national basis from such position.” Other San Francisco Treaty signatories delivered similar demarches. Confidential American diplomatic cables irresponsibly leaked to the international press via WikiLeaks indicate that the UN secretary-general acknowledged the American position.
The Chinese foreign ministry surely has a right to its own opinions regarding the international status of Taiwan, but it does not have the right to ascribe these opinions to other countries or to the UN.
John J Tkacik
Alexandria, VA, US
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original letter from Miao Deyu
Sir, Your advertisement (October 10) on the so-called “Republic of China 2014 National Day Celebration” is misleading and causes confusion. It is a flagrant violation of the one China principle. The Chinese side expresses strong indignation and grave concern over it.
I must call to your attention that there is only one China in the world. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. Although the mainland and Taiwan are yet to be reunified since 1949, the fact that both belong to one China has never changed. People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same blood, language and roots. They are one family that cannot be separated. Peaceful development in cross-Straits relations will bring us to peaceful reunification. Attempts to obstruct peaceful reunification or create “two Chinas” and “one China, one Taiwan”, in whatever form, go against the will of the people and the trend of history. They will undoubtedly end up in vain.
One must bear in mind that the one China policy has been universally recognised and observed by the international community including the UN and the UK government. Taiwan-related matters are China’s internal affairs. China is firmly opposed to any outside intervention, and words and deeds that violate the principle.
Miao Deyu
Spokesman, Chinese Embassy in the UK
_______________________
[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!
5 comments:
Sir, Your advertisement (October 10) on the so-called “Republic of China 2014 National Day Celebration” is misleading and causes confusion.
This opening sentence sets up the attack and seeks to confuse by injecting the word "confusion" into the argument, the intent is to cause the reader to blink and ask what they might be confused about.
It is a flagrant violation of the one China principle. The Chinese side expresses strong indignation and grave concern over it.
The writer hopes to frighten the editor and the reader with words such as "flagrant", to craft an accusation of editorial intent. The word "violation" is a powerful word that creates an immediate emotional response in the reader and was chosen to cause the reader and editor to tighten the sphincter and go rushing into an apology for unintentionally having violated an accord they obviously should have known about, thus making it appear flagrant.
Then comes the first sleight of hand with the mention of the One China Principle. The One China Principle is a construct that is shared by the CCP and a few members of the KMT and a smattering of other Chinese nationalists. It is a term that is often used to confuse the idea of any given state's One China Policy. The writer then slips and writes the view from the "Chinese side" (as opposed to the "Taiwanese side"....?) which is expressing "indignation and grave concern". The threat of the abstraction of Chinese anger coupled with the weighty and dire adjective "grave" is a taste of Chinese hyperbole by associating the perceived (and manufactured) violation with an act that could result in someone's death. China knows that most people around the world still get nervous when the Chinese imply "grave" consequences. China is aware of how its killing of countless millions of Chinese people in the name of the CCP since the 1950s, Tiananmen Square and harsh government controls have been portrayed outside China as symbolic of China's resolve to resort to extreme and even "grave" measures in the name of ideological survival.
I must call to your attention that there is only one China in the world. The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.
The second part of the writer's sleight of hand is to link the One China Principle with a nonexistent binding legal framework. This usually segues into UN recognition or something official sounding. Of course, that begs the question: Were there nations before the United Nations was formed, and if so, who made them legal without the United Nations to recognize them? If not, then how could they possibly unite? But I am getting ahead of myself.
Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. Although the mainland and Taiwan are yet to be reunified since 1949, the fact that both belong to one China has never changed.
Again, the writer relies of the reader accepting "the fact" as factual. The writer goes through great pains to illustrate how two mutually exclusive entities can be unalienably linked, yet separate. Despite a much more convoluted history and the troublesome existing of an actual binding legal framework provided by both the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the Treaty of San Francisco, Taiwan is not bound to China, and was not bound to China in 1949. Taiwan's status, as other writers have observed, was left and remains, undetermined.
People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share the same blood, language and roots. They are one family that cannot be separated.
This is where the writer hopes to provide the meat of his argument as to why Taiwan is legally and unalienably bound to China, yet in light of the rise of nations and nationalism, these are among the weakest and least tenable reasons. But in the Chinese nationalist made they might be reasons that make perfect sense.
Blood: The idea of blood and nationalism was a common trope among the ethnic nationalist movements that were the result of 19th century social darwinist thinking. Social darwinism was popular among European and American colonizers to provide a moral reason to their colonization of other groups of people and their lands all over the world. Many of these concepts were adroitly adopted and applied by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in his founding of the Chinese nationalist movement as they afforded him the tools he needed to demonstrate why the Manchu Qing Empire was the illegitimate sovereign of the "Chinese race". He drew a line of blood in the sand as an essentializing agent by conflating Han into Chinese and Chinese into a "race". On the other end, Sun included Tibetans, Muslims, Mongols and Manchus as sub-races within China, but relegated them to a less significant standing.
Prior to Sun's appropriation and application of western colonialist ideas on blood, science and darwinism, the people of the Qing Empire were divided by region and class. It was common for cross ethnic marriages to occur within the same class, as it was also common to adopt sons to provide a male heir. This helps demonstrate both the dynamism of ethnic relations in China, as well as the traditional location of "blood" in Han cultural identification. Frankly, blood was never an issue. Lastly, ethnic feuding was quite common in dynastic China, in which residents from neighboring areas were often in a constant blood feud and viewed the other as "different".
To appeal to the obvious scientism of Sun Yat-sen that is still being echoed by China's diplomatic corps, the concept of unique racial blood types has been completely blown away by modern DNA research that has demonstrated, not only a lack of singular defining markers within the whole of China, but also a lack of common identifiable markers within most nations today. Almost every nation on earth does not use racial criteria to signify its nationhood. Many have tried, but divisions and subdivisions continue within the presumed superior ethnic groups. The acceptance of the racial nation in China by the CCP also creates a conundrum in arguing that Han=Chinese and Chinese = Han... except when it doesn't.
Then there is the use of a common language as predicating ownership of a land and its people. Again, colonization brings this argument into sharper perspective as the language of the colonisers has spread around the globe. Spanish in South and Central America, English and French in North America and Africa. It is easy to accept that within these regions there are people who speak the languages of the colonisers, yet they are not bound to their former coloniser by virtue of language. If anything, the United Nations stepped in to oversee self-determination to help nations determine their sovereignty regardless of the colonial experience. The rise and fall of languages, their fluidity and change makes the notion even more laughable.
Lastly, China is a nation of hundreds of languages. Putonghua or modern Mandarin is a language that was contrived as a unifying element to the Chinese nationalist puzzle. Under the strong centralisation of the Leninist party states of the KMT and CCP, a strong centralised language was seen as essential for unifying a country that did not want to be unified. By the 1930s there were calls for several independent nationalisms in what is now China. Putonghua/Modern Mandarin was crafted from a conglomerate of court Mandarin and six or seven northern languages. This creation was then exported to the people who were viewed as the object of Chinese nationalism in the hopes of transforming the people and their loyalties.
In the final reason, the writer cites an undefined "roots" as his third reason for Taiwan's indelible like to China.
In the final reason, the writer cites an undefined "roots" as his third reason for Taiwan's indelible like to China.
While it seems to parallel the concept of blood relations, I suspect it goes deeper to probe the primordialist belief many Chinese nationalists like to promulgate; that the "Chinese race" evolved from a separate primate ancestor as opposed to the "Out of Africa" theory. High school curriculums still contain reference to the Peking Man as "proof" of the Multiregional hypothesis.
The other idea the writer may be hoping to evoke is the idea of a "shared culture".
This has been a very strong argument for people who view culture as culture with a big "C". This is often viewed in the context of traditionalism in a vacuum as symbols and meanings passed in a linear fashion between generations.
The problem with culture is its mercurial nature as constantly changing, acting and reacting. Culture can be transparent and translucent. The interaction between the citizen and the state is one of the drivers behind cultural change. There is a strong horizontal drift within cultures that can, within a short period, transform the meanings and symbols. An object may appear the same, yet hold radically different meanings. This change comes from experience. As Taiwan and China have been governed differently... ALWAYS (even under the Qing Taiwan was governed as something different that required different laws), they have developed different meanings and meaningful symbols that are instantly decoded my those sharing the culture.
Culture is a very poor starting point for arguments for nationalism, but nationalism may make a good argument for culture and cultural production.
Peaceful development in cross-Straits relations will bring us to peaceful reunification. Attempts to obstruct peaceful reunification or create “two Chinas” and “one China, one Taiwan”, in whatever form, go against the will of the people and the trend of history. They will undoubtedly end up in vain.
Having already threatened "grave" concerns, the writer places the onus of peace on the reader/editor while advising them to stand clear of China's ultimate goals. This is a word of warning that seems to intentionally reinforce the first few lines. This also seems to been a reinforcement of One Country Two Systems in evoking "in whatever form".
The writer also uses "the will of the people" which is ironic as "the people" are not really afforded an opportunity to voice an opinion in China. Then the "trend of history".
The writer attempts to use the bandwagon to buttress support for his argument-- an argument that has often been used by the West to cajole China to democratize--but fails to concede that history is a construct that satisfies the historian. History is a selection of events and experiences that are crafted into a narrative.
What I think the writer is trying to do, is to create an analog with the unification of East and West Germany. Taiwan's situation is not analogous as the division of Germany was the result of allied powers scrambling for control over a defeated Germany. Taiwan was ceded to Japan by treaty. In other cases there have been countless divisions as strong centralised powers are incredibly inefficient in reacting to the needs of the periphery. The collapse of the Soviet Union is a great example of this. The break up of Czechoslovakia. But this begs the cheat, that Taiwan is still not analogous as Taiwan is an independent and self governing entity. It is not under foreign control. So history is of little help and the trend is that there is no trend. Each situation has its own variables.
One must bear in mind that the one China policy has been universally recognised and observed by the international community including the UN and the UK government.
Again. this is the sleight of hand that many uninformed readers take as fact and some informed readers mistake as fact. Different countries have their own China policies. The United Nations, like an exclusive country club, has not invited Taiwan to become a member in its group. This passage mischaracterises the UK position as mirroring China's own One China Principle. It does not.
Taiwan-related matters are China’s internal affairs. China is firmly opposed to any outside intervention, and words and deeds that violate the principle.
Again, the writer attempts to annex Taiwan as an internal matter after acknowledging that the PRC does not administer Taiwan.
Post a Comment