Taiwan Post Gone Again

Get'em while they're hot! They may well be the last stamps with "Taiwan" on them for a while, as the KMT has re-asserted its colonial identity over Taiwan:

The name of the state-run postal company was changed back to the original title Chunghwa Post, in a low-key ceremony in Taipei.

Former Directorate General of Posts director Hsu Chieh-kuei (許介圭) criticized former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration yesterday for its name-change policy, calling it nothing more than political maneuvering.

Last year President Chen changed the name of Chunghwa Post back to "Taiwan Post," the name it had been known under during the Japanese and early KMT colonial periods. This was part of a process of restoring the name "Taiwan" to organizations that had once had that name, and removing markers of KMT colonialism from names across the island. During transitions from colonial and authoritarian governments to local, democratic governance, such name changes are common.

The original political maneuvering was deleting "Taiwan" from such names in the first place, part of a political strategy to eliminate the idea of "Taiwan" from political discourse. The Postal Museum's online presentation (click on the pic) is an outpost of this colonialist historical pattern:

China's modern postal service was founded in 1896 and the General Post Office was set in Beijing. For a hundred years, the efforts made by each generation of postal workers have contributed to the growth of the postal enterprise. Especially, the contributions which all former General postmasters devoted cannot be left unrecognized.

People talk about Taiwan's contested identities, but the real problem is not that it is contested, but that, in so many public spaces, it is not contested at all.

[Taiwan]

Taiwan Sues ISO over "Province" designation

Radio Taiwan International announced that Taiwan is suing the ISO:

Taiwan is suing the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) over its reference to the country as "Taiwan Province, China" instead of "Republic of China (Taiwan)." This is the first time that Taiwan has taken legal action against an important international organization.

The foreign ministry said Tuesday that Taiwan filed the suit with a Geneva court in July after the ISO failed to rectify Taiwan's designation in the ISO 3166 country codes list.

The ministry said that this misleading situation not only causes misunderstanding about Taiwan but also undermines Taiwan's national status.

The Geneva-based ISO is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations.

It may seem weird to sue the ISO, but in reality it is deadly serious. As Anthony Van Dyck, AKA Maoman of Forumosa fame pointed out to me, ISO standards lie behind innumerable everyday products. When software programs want a valid list of who's what in the world for those universal drop-down menus, they go to the ISO. By hitting the ISO directly, Taiwan is saving an infinity of fights with individual organizations over their Taiwan standards, and making change where it can affect a large number of institutions and products.

[Taiwan]

Rectifying the Textbooks

Annie Huang of the AP reports on the changes in the school textbooks here. The Ministry of Education is reforming the textbooks to eliminate the problem of Chinese colonialism that continues to define so much of historical and social education here.

The announcement is the latest in a series of moves by the island in the past few months to assert its sovereignty as President Chen Shui-bian's final term in office winds down. China claims Taiwan as its own and has repeatedly threatened to attack should the island formalize its de facto independence. Beijing opposes anything that appears to give Taiwan the trappings of sovereignty.

Pan Wen-chung, an Education Ministry official, said authorities are considering dropping about 5,000 "inappropriate" references in Taiwanese textbooks to help "clear up confusion" about the island's identity.

Pan did not elaborate on the proposed changes. However, local media said the revisions would include changing "national opera" to "Chinese opera," "the Ming Dynasty" to "China's Ming Dynasty," and "this nation's historical figures" to "China's historical figures."

The textbook changes are in line with the current thinking of Chen's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which favors Taiwanese independence and opposes identification with China, from which the island split amid civil war in 1949.

The pro-DPP Liberty Times newspaper praised the textbook initiative, saying it fit with Taiwan's effective status as an independent state.

"China is my country? And Taiwan is located off my country's southeastern coast?" it asks mockingly. "All those descriptions are obviously contrary to the facts, belittling ourselves and confusing the national identity. Yet they have long been everywhere in our textbooks."

Hilariously, the KMT argues that the DPP is engaging in "thought control." As if the current textbooks aren't engagements in "thought control."

The DPP is "seeking to impose thought control ... and distort the base of our national and cultural development," said Nationalist presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou.

Of course, no reference to name rectification -- perfectly normal in post-colonial environments -- is complete with the standard noise that it "angers China."

The move could also provoke a harsh reaction in China, which has long been sensitive to its neighbors making changes to their history textbooks. Massive protests erupted two years ago after Japan approved a new textbook that critics say whitewashes the country's wartime atrocities.

How many times have we seen the phrase "could provoke a harsh reaction from China?" A million. How many harsh reactions have we seen? That would be.....zero.

Finally, the writer gets around to explaining what the problem is:

Taiwan's school textbooks have traditionally given heavy weight to China's 5,000 years of history and works of ancient Chinese poets and philosophers, leaving little space for Taiwan's own history. The current textbooks date back to the early 1950s, after Gen. Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist forces fled the Chinese Communists' takeover of the mainland.

Oh yeah. The textbooks are totally unsuitable for a modern democratic society based in Taiwan. ESWN has a list of some of the changes culled from the local papers:

中法戰爭 Sino-Franco war -> the war between the Qing dynasty and France
日本佔據台灣 Japan occupied Taiwan -> 日本管治台灣 Japan administered Taiwan
Calendar references during Japanese rule used to be in terms of Qing Dynasty or Republic of China calendar, but they will now have to changed to either Showa (Japan) or western calendar (for example, the 20th year of the Republic of China must now be either the 5th year of Showa (Japan) or 1932).
中外遊客 tourists from inside and outside China -> 國內外遊客 tourists from inside and outside the country
國畫 national painting -> 中國山水畫 Chinese landscape painting
京劇 Beijing opera -> 中國京劇 Chinese Beijing opera
國字 national writing character -> 中國文字 Chinese writing characters
國曆 national calendar -> 陽曆 solar calendar
歷史上 in history -> 中國歷史上 in Chinese history
古人 ancient people -> 中國古人 Chinese ancient people
古代 ancient times -> 中國古代 Chinese ancient times

Those like Ma Ying-jeou who were not born in Taiwan will be hereafter referred to as 新住民 "new residents" or 中國各省隨中華民國政府遷台人士 "those people from various Chinese provinces who moved to Taiwan along with the Republic of China government."

國父孫中山先生 nation's founder Mr. Sun Yat-sen -> 孫中山先生 Mr. Sun Yat-sen
台灣地區 Taiwan area-> 台灣 Taiwan
海峽兩岸 the sides of the strait -> 兩國 the two countries
我國 our country -> 中國 China; if for example the reference is to Chinese history, culture or language (e.g. 王羲之是我國著名的書法家 Wang Xizhi is a famous calligrapher of our country -> 王羲之是中國著名的書法家 Wang Xizhi is a famous calligrapher of China)
中國 China -> 我國 our country; if, for example, the reference is to Taiwan history, culture or language
鄭成功從荷蘭人手中收復台灣，所以後人尊其為民族英雄 Kuxinga recovered Taiwan from the Dutch and therefore people honored him as a national hero afterwards -> 收復recovered and 民族英雄 national hero are controversial value judgments.

Most of the changes are reasonable and in line with changes made in places like India after the Raj, or Kenya after colonialism, or in Eastern Europe after the Russians left. Such change is normal in all other places after authoritarian and colonial regimes vanish into history and a people establishes themselves in their own land. Only here, where the former colonial party remains and seek to annex the island to the place they came from, is this viewed as strange.

The recent moves may also be viewed as another kind of statement, in addition to: "Taiwan is a nation." They also announce that the DPP is increasingly confident it will retain the Presidency in '08. An article by Max Hirsch of the Taipei Times noted last week that although the KMT remains many times richer than the DPP, the DPP has raked in more cash in the last two years. Maybe it is an anomaly, or maybe the smart money knows something....

[Taiwan] [Democracy] [DPP] [KMT] [postcolonial] [Chiang Kai-shek] [name rectification]

Saturday of Political Stuff

Policeman direct festivities at a Taichung temple.

This weekend we went up to Taipei for the Swenson's meet up, hiking, swimming, museum visiting, and other good stuff.

But we always have time to pause for a butterfly.

Friday night on the metro in Taipei.

Friday evening I stopped by a Thai place by the Nanjing E. metro stop to enjoy some pale ale with unnamed state department sources and the redoubtable Franc Shelton. The ale was magnificent, but the large glasses required no little hand-eye, as Franc demonstrates here.

The next stop was Hooters and more beer. We were feeling pretty good by then.

The following morning I staggered out of bed, not feeling so good, and went to the Shannon meet up. I collected this sign in the subway that warns that it is illegal to sell fakes over the internet. As theft and plunder of IPR rises in China, combined with pressure from the US, Taiwan is experiencing a sudden conversion to IPR support.

The top sign warns that electioneering is illegal in the subway. The bottom sign warns that no poultry should be carried in the subway. I had a lot of trouble tying my goose up at the top of the steps.

Civil Blvd, looking east.

The Swenson's meet up was packed. The presentation was by one of the faculty at Chenchih University who had done research in Shanghai on the Taiwanese community there. The discussion was wide-ranging, and touched on many issues. The researcher said that the Taiwanese live largely as an ethnic enclave in a certain part of Shanghai, about 500,000 of them. At first they sent their kids to Taiwanese schools but lately the trend has been to send their children to elite Chinese schools, and thence to undergrad at a Chinese university, and graduate school in the west. This way they will grow up to be citizens of the world with good connections in many cultures. It was a fascinating discussion with many intelligent questions and comments. The Shannon meet ups are a good place to meet people. We'll probably be off for August, though, so look forward to the next one in September.

After the meet up David Reid and I headed over to the nearby Land Reform Museum, but it was closed.

We then decided to visit the Dead Dictator Memorial, which is now the Taiwan Democracy Memorial, although not 100%, as we shall see. There was an exhibition there on transitional justice in Taiwan. Visible on the structure is a small banner that identifies the name as changed (see previous entries on name changes at the hall, and on name rectification in general).

The contested nature of the Memorial is captured in these two signs, one of which identifies the place as Democracy Memorial, while the other, a work order, identifies it as the Chung Cheng Memorial. Similar situations abound throughout the site.

Scaffolding covers the main door, blocking the view of the statue of Chiang. The memorial itself is the apotheosis of the personality cult that Chiang and the KMT fostered around himself, a cult which continues to be central to the idealized political identity shared by core KMT voters. Unfortunately the global media has utterly failed to convey any of the meanings of the name changes, or their political contexts, to the global reading population.

The memorial is not build of marble, but concrete and plaster in imitation of it. As a result, it is slowly disappearing. If you look close, you can see how dirty it actually is.

Setting up for an activity.

This tacky and poorly-made lion is typical of the construction here. I remember in 1989 I used to come up there on the platform in the evenings with my girlfriend and drink beer and pass the time together. We were never hassled by security. Only in Taiwan.....

Inside, all is tourist.

Contested identities, contested spaces. Here the exhibition on transitional justice begins. The artifacts from the dictator's life have been shunted to a side hall, but have not been eliminated. What the government should do is remove them and give them to the KMT. If they want to worship a mass murderer, that should be their issue. Shouldn't do it on the government dime.

Although the exhibition sits in one of the main tourist sites in Taiwan, only the titles of each exhibit are in English. Translation is desperately needed here.

A blast from the past. Almost forgotten now: in 1996 authoritarian Premier Hau Pei-tsun, who struggled desperately to roll back the escalating tide of democracy here, left the KMT in disgust and ran on an independent Presidential ticket, with Lin Yang-kang as his veep. Here is one of their pamphlets from the campaign. Hau's son is now the mayor of Taipei.

Unfortunately not only is the English limited, it is also bad. How many times have you said to yourself: with a little investment of cash, the English presentation could be so much richer and broader....

As I said....

A replica of a cell holding political prisoners. Tiny cells like this held twenty people.

In a side exhibition area is the collection of artifacts from the Chiangs and their era. Here are the general's cars.

An exhibition room.

David and I had a good laugh over this one: the sedan chair used by Chiang when he went for a "stroll." You know, when he went strolling around on the backs of four strong men. It's like the old joke, when the first mate of the galley comes down to the hold to tell the slaves -- I have some good news and some bad news. Give us the good news first! Well, you'll all be getting double rations today for lunch! Hooray! Now what's the bad news? The captain wants to go water skiing after lunch....

When you look at "national unification" as defined by Chiang in the 1920s, Taiwan is never mentioned. The idea that Taiwan is part of China is strictly a post-1945 notion.

Three beauties from the Philippines grace the hall.

A diorama of the site.

Outside, a water bird enjoys the cool of the shade and water.

Here he gives himself a good shake.

One of the flanking buildings is undergoing repairs.

I stopped by a small protest on behalf of the Hsichih trio, whose convictions on forced confessions, unsupported by evidence, and subsequent death sentences, have energized opposition for 16 years.

The prisoners. Saturday was the hottest day in almost a century, and I quickly got sunstroke.

The protest was watched by policemen, who didn't interfere.

The protest took the form of a people's court.

After the protest, I walked across the city to the Taiwan Beer Bar over on Ba De Rd.

Ren Ai Road as evening falls....

[Taiwan]

The Indigenous

"The wheel of the Tarot is the wheel of Dharma," Mama Sutra said softly when he had concluded. "It is also the wheel of the galaxy, which you see as a blind machine. It rolls on, as you say, no matter what we think or do. Knowing that, I can accept Death as another part of the wheel, and I can accept your nonacceptance as another part. I can control neither. I can only repeat my warning, which is not a lie but a fact about the structure of the Wheel: By denying death, you guarantee that you will meet him finally in his most hideous form."

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) announced last week that it would put "Taiwan" into the KMT charter, as the Taipei Times reported:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday acknowledged that it would include "Taiwan-centered" values in its soon to-be-revised party regulations, but said it would not ditch ultimate unification with China as one of the party's goals.

"The phrase `adhere to a belief that will prioritize Taiwan and benefit the people' will be added [to the party's regulations], but the basic principle of opposing independence for Taiwan remains the same," chairman of the KMT's Culture and Communications Committee Yang Tu (楊渡) said yesterday at party headquarters.

Yang made the remarks in response to a report in yesterday's Chinese-language China Times that said the party would add the term "Taiwan" and delete "unification" in its revised regulations in an attempt to broaden the party's appeal.

The KMT will revise its party regulations on June 24 during the party congress, and the changes will mark the first ever mention of "Taiwan" in the party's regulations.

There were mixed reactions, as some KMTers wondered aloud whether including "Taiwan" in the Charter might be acceptable to the Deep Blue base -- yes, you read that right -- the very word "Taiwan" is offensive to the Deep Blues. The DPP predictably dismissed it as a ploy, while some of the more rational voices in the KMT thought it was a good idea. KMT bigwigs presented the move in the usual conflicting we-mean-it- But-we-don't-really-mean-it style, arguing that it was a necessary change and a normal one, but stressing that Party's goal of obliterating Taiwan and annexing the island to China remained inflexible.

As the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) plan to prioritize "Taiwan" in the proposed charter change threatens to split party members, KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) tried to play down the issue yesterday, insisting that the party was still seeking consensus on the revision.

"The KMT's biggest responsibility at present is to defend the Republic of China ... We are being pragmatic, but we won't make big changes on the party's goals," Wu said yesterday before hosting a KMT local government chiefs meeting in Taipei County.

The KMT is expected to revise the party charter during its congress on June 24 and include "Taiwan-centered" values in the revised version. The changes will mark the first ever mention of "Taiwan" in the party's charter.

KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reiterated yesterday his support for the revision, but denied that the changes were an election ploy to help him attract votes in the presidential race next year.

"The phrase `prioritize Taiwan and benefit the people' has been mentioned many times before. We are just including it in the charter to reflect what we've been doing all along," Ma said during the meeting.

The indigenization of the KMT has been a long process filled with contradictions for the party and its associated organs. Originally the Party legitimated itself and its authoritarian rule by claiming to represent all of China, and building its theology around retaking China. That went by the wayside. During the late 1970s and 1980s the Party began bringing in members of prominent local families, the Golden Oxes, who had to make substantial contributions to the Party coffers in order to get access to positions of power at the local level. Further, to hold many positions of importance in the government and society, the Leninist Party-State required membership in the KMT. Gradually the number of locals in the KMT rose, and they in turn rose within the KMT.

The Taiwanization of the KMT created significant problems for the KMT. During that same period, as it became obvious to even the densest Zealot that the KMT would never retake China, the guiding theology underwent a shift from taking China back to annexing Taiwan to China. This is, interestingly, an advertently pro-China position, and an inadvertently pro-Taiwan position. To wit: the old position asked: What shall we do with China? and treated Taiwan as nothing more than as base of operations to be exploited. The new theology instead asks: What shall we do with Taiwan? which places Taiwan at the center of the conundrum, not China. The answer may be pro-China, but the question is not. Like it or not, the creeping Taiwanization, and a strong presence at the local level, is inevitably making the KMT a Taiwanized party. If the KMT loses the Presidential election, especially if it loses it badly, expect a far more open call for reform of the party's position. As I have noted many times before, as long as the KMT's guiding theology calls for a denial of its Taiwanization, it will experience internal conflicts between the need to guard its identity and its need to get its people elected.

I spent the weekend hanging out with one of the island's most informed foreigners, Andrew Kerslake, who pointed out to me another example of this inadvertent indigenization process: the Blue media. In cultural studies, the media (in its broadest sense of books, journalism, and so on) is an important part of shared experience that helps form and transform national identities. In Taiwan the pan-Blue media constantly criticize the local government and the local pro-Taiwan parties. Despite their pro-China stance, their insular focus on Taiwan -- to the exclusion of all else -- helps create in the locals a sense of a shared Taiwan experience. Even as they attack the Taiwan Consciousness, they can't help but build it.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [2008 Presidential Election] [name rectification]

The name changes at the Old Dead Dictator Hall are now under way. The new name is "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" as if democracy were already dead here and now needed to be memorialized. Kinda ominous.....

The name changes have sparked a furious reaction from the KMT, whose political identity the mass murderer Chiang Kai-shek is central to. Every time the DPP makes a move like this, the KMT reacts with fury, tying itself ever more tightly to the image of a dead dictator whom hardly anyone on the island who is not a mainlander regards with respect. Even The Future Savior of All We Love^(tm) Ma Ying-jeou himself jumped in, as Taiwan News reports:

On Saturday President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) presided over the grand ceremony to announce the name change of the landmark located in downtown Taipei, named after the late president Chiang Kai-shek, to a memorial hall commemorating the achievement of Taiwan's democratic movement. Two gigantic drapes with paintings of Taiwan water lilies and the name "National Taiwan Democratic Memorial Hall" were seen hanging from the sides of the main building, which enshrines Chiang Kai-shek in the form of a large statue.

Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the presidential candidate of the main opposition party Kuomintang, said the central government should have had a second thought before launching such a movement. Ma accused the government for not only taking the lead role in violating the law but also stirring confrontations between the people.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said, "We (the Taipei City government) will immediately demand that they (the central government) remove the drapes. If they don't do this we will be forced to take action." He said that the city government will proceed to pull down the drapes at any time after a document requiring the removal of the drapes is sent out.

Taipei's chief of cultural affairs Lee Yung-ping said the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall has not achieved its legality through legislative approval and thus is nonexistent, and the two drapes covering the left and right sides of the building, if not removed, would be handled according to the Act for the Preservation of Cultural Properties, which would impose a fine of between NT$100,000 to 500,000 for such a violation and for each further breach. Lee said the department had issued a fine of NT$10,000 and demanded the drapes be taken down right away.

The Taipei City Government did not give permission last year to the application of the organizers of a massive anti-Chen Shui-bian protest to cover the Jingfu Gate, a historical city gate near the memorial hall, with drapes, Lee said. That showed the City Government's administrative consistency in dealing with the use of cultural sites, Lee said, adding that the city government was forced to intervene into the controversy of the issue about the name change of the memorial hall.

The KMT legislative caucus plans to file a complaint against Education Minster Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) for misusing his administrative power to stage the name change. KMT's policy chief Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) criticized the creation of the name "National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" as an illegal creation because the Provisions Governing the Organization of the CKS Memorial Hall Administration Office, which is a law, has not been abolished.

In addition to the ongoing struggle between the two competing nationalisms, one Taiwanese, the other Chinese, the issue also shines a light on another problem: the ambiguous lines of authority in the government here. There is a general complaint that democracy has made everything messier, and it is quite true: democracy has forced the government to figure out what the rules are, and in most cases they are vastly unclear, with multiple and conflicting lines of authority. Foreigners constantly complain that different government agencies tell them different stories about what is needed to accomplish this or that, but actually that is the experience of everyone on the island, at almost every level. In the past Taiwan was governed by men, not laws, and so to get something done, you had to find out who was in charge of that thing. But now, no matter what the issue is, lines of authority are extremely unclear.

In this case the Taipei city government -- which is a municipal government and thus, under the bizarre system here, the equivalent of a province -- is pitting itself against the central government. The level of the clash is easily misread. This is not a case of, say, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania defying the Federal government. This is more like George Wallace's attempt to keep blacks out of the University of Alabama -- a state vs. Federal clash. The Taipei city government has considerable clout, and it is backed by a legislature controlled by the pro-China parties.

Should be lots of fun here over the next few weeks. Caroline Gluck of the BBC provides an international news account.



These lovely photos were passed along to me from Jerome Keating. My thanks to whoever took them.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [2008 Presidential Election] [Chiang Kai-shek] [name rectification]

Statues and Colonialism here and there

Recent events in Estonia show how colonial monuments are typically treated during a transition to democracy, with some strong parallels to our situation here in Taiwan:

Estonia took away the controversial statue of a Red Army Soviet soldier from the center of the capital early yesterday after violent riots against its removal in which one man was killed.

The 2m high bronze statue of a World War II Red Army soldier was spirited away overnight after the worst violence seen in years in Estonia, including vandalism and looting by mainly Russian-speaking protesters.

"The aim of the government decision was to avoid further possible actions against the public order," the Estonian government said, and the president called for calm.>

Like the statues in Taiwan, the statue in Estonia is a symbol of the former authoritarian government controlled by outsiders:

Estonia has said the monument is a public order problem as it attracts Estonian and Russian nationalists. It also said it is more respectful to the dead for it to be moved to a cemetery.

Removing it angered some Russian-speakers, a large minority of around 300,000 in the country of 1.3 million. Estonians tend to view it as a reminder of 50 years of Soviet occupation.

Like Taiwan too, the huge neighboring power which has connections to a minority of locals who identify with it, and nurses dreams of annexing it, got angry:

Russia's upper house of parliament yesterday approved a resolution calling for a break in diplomatic relations with Estonia in retaliation for the removal of a Soviet war monument from central Tallinn.

The non-binding resolution was approved unanimously by the senate and comes amid furious reactions from Moscow after the removal of the monument, which sparked violent clashes in Estonia.

The senate "calls on the leadership of the Russian Federation to adopt the toughest possible measures, including a break in diplomatic relations," it said.

Russia's reaction should "show that modern Russia categorically does not accept the barbaric attitude of Estonian authorities to the memory of those who were victorious against fascism," it said.

There many other parallels -- after Chiang Kai-shek's Stalin's death the local Kuomintang Communist Party expanded its membership to include Estonians, while simultaneously moving to suppress local culture. Chinese Russian was taught in the primary schools. A key difference, though, was that the West recognized the illegal nature of Soviet rule over Estonia and the independence of Estonia, while the Chiang regime had strong Western support and Taiwan independence was simply a card that the US, among others, might consider playing if necessary.

The case of the post-Soviet states in Eastern Europe shows how normal it is, in the transition to democracy, for the emerging democratic institutions to sweep away the monuments the colonial regime erected to itself and rename its institutions and organizations. What's happening in Taiwan is normal.

Jim Mann makes an interesting point in his new book on China, The China Fantasy, which describes how people in Washington rationalize away the repression in China. One way, he notes, is that dissidents in the Soviet world were cool, whereas dissidents in the Chinese sphere...are not so cool. One need only contrast the patronizing commentaries on Taiwan's name changes with the widespread cheering for exactly the same events in post-Soviet eastern Europe to see his point.

[Taiwan] [Estonia] [name rectification]

Ted Galen Carpenter on US and Taiwan Defense Policy

Last year Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute published a book discussing why we shouldn't defend Taiwan. This year he's back to work on the issue of defending Taiwan, this time complaining in the Asian Wall Street Journal that Taiwan is free riding on the US defense network:

The Taiwan legislature's reluctance to pass a "special defense budget" to pay for U.S. weapons systems looks set to continue as the island's presidential campaign heats up. That leaves America in the unenviable position of having an implicit commitment to defend a fellow democracy that doesn't seem especially interested in defending itself.

First, the good thing: Carpenter understands the difference between Blue and Green and their respective positions on the defense purchase:

Though Mr. Chen's administration has repeatedly scaled back the deal, reducing it in stages to a mere $10.3 billion, from $18.5 billion, prospects for its passage have barely budged. So far, the Pan Blue coalition has blocked a vote on the measure more than 60 times. It took until December of last year for the majority to agree even to send the proposal for consideration in the budgetary committee. U.S. President George Bush grew so disgusted with Taipei's behavior last month that he personally overruled a Pentagon arms proposal for the island unless and until the special defense budget is approved.

Then Carpenter veers into the mad mad media world, going to blame President Chen for being, you know, "provocative." Mad Chen, the Crazed Independence Radical, strikes again!

A very disturbing dynamic is developing in Taiwan. On the one hand, Mr. Chen's government seems determined to consolidate Taiwan's separate political status -- even if that means taking measures Beijing regards as highly provocative. The latest incidents include, for instance, Taipei's decision to rename various state corporations to substitute "Taiwan" for "China." Yet even as Taipei adopts ever more assertive policies toward the mainland, it underinvests in defense. Its spending on essential matters like procurement, operations, training, and personnel has shrunk, in real terms, by more than 50% since 1993, and continues to contract at an alarming rate. Taiwan's regular defense budget has plunged to an anemic 2.2% of its annual GDP.

Chen cannot help but be provocative, because being provoked is a choice China makes. Writing like this makes China the helpless victim of Chen's actions, rather than a calculated actor making use of all its agency in international arenas to lead, and to mislead.

Further, as I and others have stated (see Mark Harrison's commentary below this one), name rectification is a normal and inevitable step in the democratic evolution of the island. Taiwan is simply restoring the name "Taiwan" to items that were originally named "Taiwan" in many cases, like the shipbuilding and posts.

Thus, in the rhetorical world Carpenter builds, Taiwan is being "provocative" on one hand while cutting defense spending on the other:

From America's standpoint, Taiwan's political leaders are creating the worst possible combination: the DPP's provocative cross-straits policy with the KMT's irresponsible policy on defense spending. That is a blueprint for trouble. China has already deployed nearly 1,000 ballistic missiles across the Taiwan Strait, and Beijing's military modernization program appears heavily oriented toward credibly threatening military action against Taiwan. A bold cross-straits policy, coupled with inadequate defense spending, virtually invites a Chinese challenge.

At least this time around he mentioned the missiles China points at Taiwan. Carpenter does not face the strong role of the US in creating this mess by jacking up the price of the submarines and refusing to give Taiwan any co-production role (getting all historical and suchlike, I must remind that the KMT is on Taiwan because of our intervention). In Carpenter's rhetorical world, it is all Taiwan's fault, a sad trait shared by many observers in the US, and a position China wants observers to take. Too bad Carpenter buys right into it.

Chen's actions are not "a blueprint for trouble." China makes noise whenever Taiwan takes any action in the international sphere. Readers may recall that the National Unification Council (NUC), which Chen froze last year to international farce dismay, was opposed by China when it was erected. There is no way Taiwan can exercise its democracy -- indeed, make almost any autonomous international decision -- without peeving China...and it should be noted, China gets "provoked" because "being provoked" is how China achieves leverage over Taiwan -- bullying the international community into complicity in suppressing Taiwan's democratic development and international space. Hence it pays China to get "provoked."

Rhetorical blindness finally overtakes Carpenter at the end:

It is even worse to incur such risks on behalf of a client state that is not willing to make a meaningful defense effort.

As Mark Stokes, who used to run the Pentagon's Taiwan policy, said last year, in Taiwan there are pilots prepared to board aircraft for suicide missions against China should war arise (and all honor to them, for they are men). There are people on Taiwan who spend their whole professional life preparing to die for this island. But Carpenter surely does not mean to denigrate them, so what can he be talking about? Because Carpenter cannot be talking about the Taiwan I live on. As the Congressional Research Service observes:

As for U.S. arms transfers to Taiwan, they have been significant despite the absence of diplomatic relations or a treaty alliance. The value of deliveries of U.S. defense articles and services to Taiwan totaled $7.7 billion in the 1997-2000 period and $4 billion in 2001-2004. Among worldwide customers, Taiwan ranked 2nd (behind Saudi Arabia) in 1997-2000 and 4th (behind Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Japan) in 2001-2004. In 2004 alone, Taiwan ranked 5th among worldwide recipients, receiving $1.1 billion in U.S. defense articles and services. Values for U.S. agreements with and deliveries to Taiwan are summarized below.

1997-2000 period 2001-2004 period 2004
U.S. Agreements $1,900 million $1,200 million $590 million
U.S. Deliveries $7,700 million $4,000 million $1,100 million

From worldwide sources, including the United States, Taiwan received $13.9 billion in arms deliveries in the eight-year period from 1998 to 2005. Taiwan ranked 3rd (behind Saudi Arabia and China) among leading recipients that are developing countries. Of that total, Taiwan received $9.8 billion in arms in 1998-2001 and $4.1 billion in 2002-2005. In 2005 alone, Taiwan ranked 6th and received $1.3 billion in arms deliveries, while the PRC ranked 5th and received arms valued at $1.4 billion. As an indication of future arms acquisitions, Taiwan’s arms agreements in 2002- 2005 totaled $4.9 billion. The value of Taiwan’s arms agreements in 2005 alone did not place it among the top ten recipients that are developing countries.

What does Taiwan have to do to get Carpenter's approval? Here are the budget numbers from the CRS report:



Note that the budget is pretty much the same every year. This means that in real terms expenditure is falling. One might argue that viewing in dollar terms is unfair -- in 1994 $250 billion NT$ got you almost $10 billion greenbacks, now it gets you just under $8 -- but recall that Taiwan's overseas weapons purchases are dollar-denominated and so the exchange rate gives a meaningful indication of the island's falling purchasing power. Except --wait -- weapons procurements are typically funded out of Special Budgets which amount to another US$22.6 billion over 1994-2003, spending that went for purchases of fighters and military housing.

There is no question that the island's defense budget must rise. There is also no question that forcing Taiwan to purchase submarines at three times the world rate while not giving the island any co-production is short-sighted and counterproductive -- and a poor use of limited and precious defense dollars. It is not for nothing that many observers are recommending that Taiwan build its own submarines -- weapons, it should be noted, that the US refused Taiwan for two decades, because they have no obvious defensive function! In other words, Carpenter excoriates the island for not wanting to purchase weapons the US said it didn't need for better part of two decades. The gods of history love irony....

And more irony: since Taiwan won't buy subs, the President has indicated that he doesn't want to sell it fighters. Surely a more reasonable US position to take is to sell the island fighters, the one weapon it really needs, while pressuring it to purchase the other weapons using less dangerous leverage. It is one thing to say: you're not doing enough to defend yourself. It is quite another to say: you have to defend yourself in exactly the way we tell you to....

Thus, Taiwan is too making a "meaningful defense effort." It is one of the largest arms importers in the world. It is revamping its military organization, procuring radar, command and control, and land warfare systems. It may not be up to the levels that Carpenter would like to see, but no one can deny that Taiwan puts quite a bit of emphasis on defense.

Carpenter finishes:

America is in an unrewarding and potentially dangerous position. Washington must make it clear to all political players in Taiwan, especially the Pan Blue leaders, that free riding on America's military might cannot continue.

Yes, perhaps America is in an unrewarding and potentially dangerous position. If so, it has only itself to blame for this mess -- rational pricing, a friendly co-production strategy, some patient commitment to the democracy side in the island's politics, constant pressure on the pro-China parties -- and all of this might have been avoided. (I am delighted that Carpenter calls for some sharp policy directed at the pan-Blue leaders -- here the US has not yet realized that effort on the pan-Blues must be direct and sustained, not fitful and clumsily aimed at "Taiwan.")

Withal, it must be said: it is high time US opinion leaders focused on a major cause of the problem: the United States. Sort out our own behavior, and Taipei will perforce follow.

[Taiwan] [China] [US] [submarines] [arms purchase] [name rectification]

Name Rectification Commentary in Oz Paper

Mark Harrison points to a great commentary on the name rectification issue (I assume he wrote it):

China has observed Taiwan’s renaming of its identity and history with frustration and sometimes anger. But it has learned that belligerence serves only to define Taiwan’s identity as Taiwanese all the more sharply, and so in recent years the public statements of the Chinese government have become more circumspect and ritualized. Despite China’s ascendancy as a global power, without direct control over the island it is limited to either military action or intervention in proscribed parts of the international community, especially those where the Taiwanese government also operates. In that arena China has been aggressive and uncompromising, shutting down any and all international space for the island to operate as “Taiwan”.

However, as effective as China has been in the areas available to it, in the wider field of global commerce, media and civil society, China is actually losing the fight over naming Taiwan. For the first time, on its 60th anniversary in February, the 1947 uprising was widely reported in the international media, even if much of that reporting failed to understand its significance. That Taiwan is a centre of the global computer industry is also widely known. More fundamentally, since the name Formosa fell into disuse in the 1960s, it has been common sense that the name Taiwan refers to an island in the northern Pacific and China to a great nation on the mainland of Asia. No one who says they are visiting “China” then travels to Taipei. As Confucius would have understood perfectly clearly,the Chinese government’s goal of the accession of Taiwan means overcoming the power of language itself.

Go read the rest.

[Taiwan] [China] [Democracy] [DPP] [Taiwan Independence] [name rectification]

WaPo on the Chiang Legacy

The Washington Post has an article by a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan on the removal of the markers of the Generalissimo's personality cult from around Taiwan:

For individual Taiwanese, Chiang -- the stoic military leader who retreated to the island in 1949 at the end of China's civil war, along with 2 million followers -- remains a polarizing figure. Political persuasion determines how his legacy translates: Either you see him as a brutal dictator who held the island hostage under martial law, or as the man who valiantly defended Taiwan against Chinese Communist invasion. Because supporters of the first view are calling the shots these days, the dictator, who died in 1975, is taking a beating.

The article is unmitigated dreck -- given space in the Washington Post to discuss the complexity of Chiang's legacy, including the millions he murdered in China and Taiwan, the fostering of personality cult around Chiang by the KMT, the island's economic and political growth, the normality of name rectification in post-colonial and post-authoritarian settings, and many other things, the author wrote a lighthearted piece about finding the remains of the General's legacy around the island. Instead of explanations that might illuminate what is happening in Taiwan, we get a list of the regalia inside the CKS Memorial:

Artifacts of note include Chiang's Western-style wedding suit (gray pin-striped pants and tails), his 1955 bulletproof black Cadillac, case after case of military medals and a gallery of photos that reads like a World War II-era film reel. With Madame Chiang turned out flawlessly in ankle-length cheongsams, the couple are pictured smiling in meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Earl Mountbatten and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, drumming up global support for a "free" China.

What a waste.

[Taiwan] [media] [name rectification]

Economist: "Cultural Revolution" Provokes DPP

A recent article in The Economist on the renaming of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in downtown Taipei entitled "Cultural Revolution" has sparked the ire of the DPP:

An article describing Taiwan's government's move to remove dictator Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) influence from the island in the latest edition of The Economist magazine gave rise to comment from some Democratic Progressive Party members yesterday because of it controversial headline "Cultural Revolution."

Removing the near-god image of Chiang Kai-Shek from society is part of Taiwan's effort to pursue democracy and the protection of human rights, said Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) when she commented on the magazine article. "No one should be deified anymore when Taiwan has moved forward as a democracy," Lu said.

The headline revealed Europeans' lack of understanding of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, commented DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (王拓). The DPP government promotes the moves including removing Chiang's statutes from military camps in an aim to dispel a common idolatry resulting from the former KMT's authoritarian rule, Wang defended. The magazine "has gone to far" by likening the DPP act to the infamous Chinese Cultural Revolution, he argued.

What did the article say?

CHIANG KAI-SHEK may once have been revered as a near-god on Taiwan, where he led his Chinese Nationalist regime after being defeated by Mao Zedong's Communists on the mainland in 1949. But almost a third of a century after his death, the memory of the old dictator is being effaced, with the removal of the generalissimo's statues and the renaming of many streets and even Taipei's international airport.

......

Chiang's legacy has never been properly examined in Taiwan. Arguments about the past are also fights over what the island should be in the future: a part of China (the view of Chiang Kai-shek and his political heirs), or an independent nation with a distinct, non-Chinese Taiwanese identity.

The airport was originally planned to be named Taipei-Taoyuan International Airport. That name has now been restored. It's good that the article correctly identifies one of the underlying conflicts, and much of the article is OK, but in the last paragraph it regrettably becomes unabashedly pro-China and pro-KMT:

DPP leaders may be politicking ahead of parliamentary elections in December, and presidential polls next March. But there is more at stake. By casting the 228 Incident as a clash between Taiwanese and KMT “outsiders”, the DPP has not only opened old wounds in Taiwan but also created anxiety in Beijing. China's Communists may have been at odds with the generalissimo. But they fear that Taiwan, by breaking with Chiang's legacy, may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland.

The DPP did not "cast" 2-28 massacres as clashes between Taiwanese and KMT outsiders -- that's what they were. The KMT defined them that way, publicly and literally, when it moved onto the island, looted it extensively, removed Taiwanese from positions of authority, told the Taiwanese they were a people tainted by association with the Japanese, and then excluded them from public life. George Kerr's account of the event, Formosa Betrayed, is online, easily Googled.

The DPP did not "open old wounds" in Taiwan, but is trying to heal them by the application of democracy and history. In other post-authoritarian and post-colonial contexts, it is normal for the democracy side to rename monuments, to recover lost history, and to punish the perpetrators. Thanks to the longtime lobbying by the KMT, only when it comes to Taiwan does the international media question what has been an utterly normal process in dozens of nations from Spain to Italy to Eastern Europe to India.

The fact is that the there is no massive memorial to Hitler in Berlin, no massive memorial to Franco in Madrid, and no massive memorial to Mussolini in Rome. All over the world, in the post-colonial era, money, streets, parks, and other relics of the colonial era were renamed and remade. This is normal and to be expected -- except, for some reason, here in Taiwan, where the exercise of democracy is regularly negatively framed by media from democratic countries. Sad fact: in no report on the name rectification in the international media has the international media made any attempt to place it in an international context. Naturally, readers miss the significance of the moves.

What's really ironic is that the Economist that very same issue published an article on the repossession and reconstruction of history and identity in educational systems around the world -- but didn't mention Taiwan!

The article then makes that Beijing-centric turn that every one of us who watches the international media now recognizes as the norm:

...........but also created anxiety in Beijing. China's Communists may have been at odds with the generalissimo. But they fear that Taiwan, by breaking with Chiang's legacy, may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland.

"Created anxiety in Beijing?" A very poor choice of words. Beijing is not "anxious" but "avaricious." Beijing gets upset whenever Taiwan exercises its democracy -- not only does that threaten China's drive to annex Taiwan, but it also sets a double example for Chinese culture: that democracy is possible, necessary, and right; and that authoritarian rulers may be held accountable, and will be remembered for the evil that they are. "Anxiety" does not drive the placement of missiles and the threats of military force and name-calling and accusations. That is plain unencumbered greed.

The last sentence "......may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland" implies that Taiwan is part of China. It would be nice if reporters adopted a neutral position on the matter -- as Dan Bloom once put it, China is nobody's mainland but a few small islands off its coast. Taiwan isn't "breaking away" -- it isn't now and never was part of China. Time to stop the adoption of Beijing's point of view, folks. There were many ways that article could have ended, and given that China is always peeved at the DPP, little reason to dwell on China's reaction -- and certainly none to end with a historically erroneous and emotionally negative thought. Sad.

[Taiwan] [China] [Economist] [DPP] [Taiwan Independence] [KMT] [media] [name rectification]