Showing posts with label taiwanese_independence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taiwanese_independence. Show all posts

Sunday, May 7, 2023

The real-world consequences of US-China "Great Power" thinking


As usual, China-Taiwan commentators not from or based in Taiwan sound like sad old hamburger waiters prattling on about sauces.


It's not often that I write a whole post based on one fantastically stupid tweet, but here we are on this warm Sunday morning. 

Supporters of Taiwan have been more vocal in recent years, pushing back on the trope that conflict "over Taiwan" would fundamentally be a US-China issue, that the entire war scenario would be the outcome of a rivalry between these two nations. 

This is obviously wrong: Taiwan isn't some piece of land being fought over, it's a country full of people who have their own lives, thoughts, beliefs and desires. Those beliefs and desires are central to the issue, not some side discussion.

At its core, this is the China-Taiwan conflict: China insists on annexing Taiwan, but Taiwan will never accept being part of China. China will accept no other resolution. Taiwan will never cede itself, will never choose peaceful unification. They know what life is like under CCP rule; regardless, most Taiwanese don't think of themselves as Chinese, aren't governed by China and don't want to be part of China. There's no alternative, no compromise. How can there be, given the total lack of respect China has for both agreements and democracy? 

This is the heart of it: not the US, not some "Great Game", not a rivalry between two countries or two military buildups. And no, the desire of the Taiwanese people to continue to govern themselves is not some US psyops campaign. It's organic and began in Taiwan.

China wants Taiwan but Taiwan does not want to be part of China.
That's it. Taiwan is right and China is wrong, because all Taiwan wants is to govern itself in peace, whereas China is a brutal dictatorship willing to start a war. China's demands are top-down: they come from the CCP. In Taiwan, the people don't want to be part of China. It's not the same, it's not US-driven, and this matters.

There is one peaceful resolution, then: China must be deterred.

Enter the stupid tweet: 




This is what happens when you do, in fact, lose sight of the fundamentals of this conflict and think of everything in terms of the US, or the US vs. China. That every outcome is a result of something the US or China does, and not the will of Taiwan or simply what happens in wartime.

The basic assumption here is that in the event of China invading Taiwan that someone might actively blow up TSMC, wreaking havoc on global chip supply and multiple technology sectors.

China probably wouldn't do this, as they want that sweet, sweet tech. But the US probably wouldn't either, as TSMC's chips are central to the global economy. I don't think Taiwanese military forces would do this, because the country wants to be able to recover post-war. Besides, it would not be necessary.

TSMC has said rather openly that their own fabs would be "inoperable" if China invaded Taiwan. Here's the full quote

"Nobody can control TSMC by force. If you take a military force or invasion, you will render TSMC factories non-operable.  Because this is a sophisticated manufacturing facility, it depends on the real-time connection with the outside world. With Europe, with Japan, with the US. From materials to chemicals to spare parts to engineering software diagnosis. It's everybody's effort to make this factory operable. So if you take it over by force, it can no longer be operable."


They themselves have also said that chips are not as important as, well, democracy:

"Had there been a war in Taiwan, probably the chip is not the most important thing we should worry about. Because [after this invasion] is the destruction of the world rule-based order, the geopolitical landscape would totally change."


This is not something one side would do intentionally to harm the other, not a strategy US would employ to fight China -- it is simply what would happen if war broke out. It is not related to attacks "on the homeland" or "US bases". 

This has real-world consequences. Once we start talking about TSMC's destruction as though it's something the US would do, people freak out at the "hot war" scenarios of the US, perhaps even call it provocative or unnecessarily aggressive. Support for standing with Taiwan erodes, perhaps this is felt in the electoral realm and we choose governments that will abandon Taiwan to China, all because we think our own involvement would involve "destroying" TSMC, when that was never, and could never be, on the table.

I thought for awhile about whether TSMC would wreck itself in the advent of war. Perhaps, but I don't think so: they wouldn't have to. The operation TSMC runs is so sophisticated, so high-tech, that it would survive neither physical threats -- bombs, fires -- nor a disruption in global supply chain logistics.

Liu says it himself: this isn't a simple factory we're talking about. It's not something anyone could build. If anyone in China had the ability to do what TSMC does, they would already be doing it. That's true for anyone in the world: if they could, they would, and they're not because they can't.

A lot of commentators underestimate or misunderstand the level of sophistication at the design, machine and systems level required to make chips this advanced. They seem to think it's just mechanical arms stamping out chips. That a clean room is just really well-swept. That employees lose days of sleep to handle the tiniest issues because Asians are just extremely hardworking, not because the "tiniest issue" could cost millions of dollars (TSMC managers want a good night's sleep just like everyone else; they're not excited by those 2am calls). 

Thus they don't understand that those machines require constant, careful maintenance, constant supplies of all sorts of weird chemicals and elements not only in the chips themselves but for the etching process. In a war, the gas wouldn't make it to Taiwan, let alone the fabs, and the workers wouldn't either. It would be days, if not hours, before the whole thing went -- for lack of a more accurate term -- tits up. 

Nobody needs to "destroy" or bomb anything. It would just be. It would be an inevitable by-product of war. 

This is what Mark Liu was trying to tell us, and this is what we clearly didn't hear in our haze of "US vs. China, big rivalry, oh no!" 

Mark Liu's words are carefully chosen -- retired founder Morris Chang would not have made him his successor if they weren't -- and there's really no room for discussion on things like "People in Taiwan have earned their democratic system and they want to choose their way of life", that China will "think twice" on the consumer market chip supply disruption they themselves would experience, and an invasion would be "lose-lose-lose".

It matters that this is coming from the head of a company that is neither 'blue' nor 'green'. TSMC stays out of domestic politics in that way, unlike, say, Foxconn's founder Terry Gou. I don't know which way either Morris Chang or Mark Liu lean, and I'm not sure it matters. Both the KMT and DPP have tried to tap Chang for public roles -- or at least it's speculated that they have -- and the company has donated to both parties (as of 2009, they donated somewhat more to the KMT but I don't know what the numbers are now). 

However, it does matter that the consistent message from TSMC is that they want to do business, and war is bad for business (if you're, say, a communist who hates business, fine, but you're probably posting about it on social media using a device that uses a TSMC chip.) 

It also matters that their bottom line on Taiwan differs from Terry "sell it all to China for cash" Gou: Chang has said Taiwan should be a part of the developed world's "friendshoring" -- that is, countries that aren't China -- and Liu is quite clear that Taiwan is Taiwan, and they absolutely do not work with the Chinese military (unlike Foxconn, of which I'm deeply suspicious). This is not a company that will throw its hands up and hand its tech over to China.

If China insists on annexing Taiwan, that means war as is no possibility of Taiwan peacefully accepting subjugation that they do not want. Regardless of US actions, that would render TSMC inoperable. Thus, there is truly only one solution that avoids a global tech sector catastrophe: China must be deterred

Taiwan could get what it wants peacefully, if China could indeed be deterred. All it wants is what it already has: sovereignty from the PRC, self-governance. A continuation, and perhaps a recognition of the facts as they currently sit. 

This is not a warning to the US to "not provoke China", as some have taken it. The problem (for once) is not the US, it's that China wants something it cannot have. It's a warning to China, not from the US but from the biggest player in the Taiwanese private sector, to leave Taiwan alone for their own good as much as anyone else's. 

The US isn't going to destroy TSMC because that would happen anyway, as a result of Chinese actions. We must not base our opinions on how to support Taiwan on fairy tales and fabrications.

China is raising tensions all by itself, threatening war all on its own. It would be doing that without the US around, because the core of the conflict sits in Asia. They're not responding to the US, they're mad that Taiwan isn't interested in being ruled by them, and Taiwan is not wrong to want to remain independent.

This is not a discussion of whether the US should or should not bomb TSMC if China invades, because that's stupid. Don't be stupid. 

If China invades, TSMC won't need to be bombed by anyone, because it won't survive the war. The chairman has said that obliquely. There's no hidden meaning, no chiaroscuro of possible outcomes. If China starts a war, this will happen. If that will impact the global economy -- and it will -- then China must be deterred. 

Friday, April 14, 2023

Get Your Independences Straight

I'm done with intentionally obfuscatory discourse



Because I'm super fun at parties, I want to have a little rant about rhetorical lack of clarity and why it plays right

into the hands of CCP trolls, tankies and little pinks. 

The central problem: one can hear from multiple sides some sort of call for Taiwan to "be independent" or "declare independence", or call Taiwan some version of "not fully independent", usually in relation to some threat or snotty baby tantrum from China. Case in point:

“People tend to interpret his position as leaning towards unification. But in his tenure, even until today, he didn’t say anything about unification — or at least he didn’t propose any road map for unification,” Lu (Yeh-chung, an NCCU professor) said.

Rather, Lu said, Ma’s remarks demonstrate his preference for Taiwan’s status quo — neither fully independent nor fully united with the mainland.

First, Lu is wrong: Ma has talked about unification -- he specifically said "don't support independence, don't reject unification" in 2018. Does the good professor think we have such short memories? 

That aside, my question is simple: what on our beautiful green Earth does "neither fully independent nor fully united with the mainland" mean? Does Lu think that the government of the People's Republic of China has some sort of control over Taiwan? Not fully independent from what?

If we're talking about China, there are perhaps a dozen centenarians who still insist that "China" must and can only mean The Republic of China (on Taiwan), plus approximately three of their grandchildren and a couple of old white dudes who actually believe tedious reiterations of this opinion.

Of course, that's slight hyperbole, but it becomes less so every year.

Everybody else conceptualizes that as the People's Republic of China, period. If you say "China" and not "The Republic of China", no meaningful percentage of people think of the government in Taiwan. Even if you do say "The Republic of China", assuming the listener doesn't simply assume you misspoke and meant the People's Republic, it's more common to consider that a weird historical anomaly than actually China

And if we're talking about the country that just about everyone imagines when hearing the word "China", then I'd really love for one of these "if Taiwan were to become independent" or "Taiwan doesn't have full independence" commentators to please, for the love of sweet zombie Jesus, tell me what the hell that is supposed to mean.

Taiwan is already independent from that China. If that's what you mean, what exactly would Taiwan declare independence from? So again -- independent from what? How can anyone claim with a straight face that Taiwan isn't independent from the country the entire world associates with "China", when that country has no control over and no governance of Taiwan?

The common retort is some word salad along the lines of "well it's the Republic of China, so it also claims to be China". 

Even if that were true (it's not, and hasn't been for decades), that is not what most people think of at the word "independence". It's not even what the speaker meant in the first place, because again, these bad takes always come in the middle of a conversation about China. You know, the China you just thought of when you read the word "China".

They meant the PRC when they started bloviating, they know they meant the PRC, and switching out China for the government on Taiwan the second they're challenged on that is disingenuous and dishonest. It's not even obtuse, because I think they're fully aware of what they're doing. They expend so much verbiage on China's reaction, China's anger, China's position, China's threats, and they and everyone else know they mean China

Even our friend Professor Lu above spoke of Taiwan "not being fully independent" in the same sentence as "the mainland", even though "the mainland" (that is, China -- "the mainland" is not the name of a country) does not control Taiwan at all. There is no way this vaguery is sincere. It's clear obfuscation.

Then they reference Taiwan not having independence, and suddenly, it's a different China they are talking about, because intoning that Taiwan is somehow governed by the PRC is simply not justifiable, and they know it. It's a third-rate magic trick, a rabbit pulled out of a hat except everyone knows the hat as a false bottom. Abracafuckingdabra! 

All this is is a way to keep the old discourse about "Taiwan independence" on life support, as though Taiwan does not already have independence. Why? Well, it's so stupid that I don't even know why, but here's a good guess: they don't want to just admit that the PRC doesn't control Taiwan and never has, because that would probably lead to admitting that it has no claim, and never should get Taiwan. Or they're so balls-deep in outdated rhetoric that they just can't admit they've been wrong since at least 1996. 

Perhaps they think this wording projects an image of centrism and moderation, when it all it really does is announce "hello, I'm so out of touch that my opinion was last meaningful when the Macarena was a hit song!" 

Or, worst of all, they either don't care about Taiwan and just want the issue to go away (for them -- for Taiwanese this attitude on a global scale means lots of people will be slaughtered), or they actually think Taiwan should be a part of China, but know they can't reasonably defend this view. The China Is Taiwan, It's Just Tankie Vibes, Man remix. 

Independence from the Republic of China -- that is, changing the framework of the government that currently runs Taiwan's archipelago -- is a valid concern. The ROC system, the name, the constitution: it's got to go. Taiwan would be better served by a government tailored to its own needs, not one constructed with the notion of ruling that huge chunk of land on the continent. 

But, again, that is simply not what most people mean when they talk about independence. Yes, some deep green activists mean this, and I agree with them. The ROC has got to go. When they say "we are pro-independence", they are always clear that they mean a domestic form of independence, a throwing off of the ROC colonial framework. Crucially, they are almost always talking to other Taiwanese people,  usually in Taiwan. That is the context which allows their audience to understand what they mean. 

They might say Taiwan needs to openly declare this, but a declaration is different from already having something: you might elope and announce it to everyone later, but the fact is, you got married when you eloped, not when you told the world. Taiwan doesn't "become independent" when it announces as much. It became independent when it started fully governing itself, and stopped any active claim to that big country on the continent that we all consider "China", if not before. 1949, 1996 or 2005 (when the National Assembly was dissolved) -- take your pick, they're all well in the past. 

What's more, if these opinionators need to make the rhetorical switch from the PRC to the ROC when discussing Taiwan's "lack" of independence, often without clarifying unless pushed, then they already know that the PRC and ROC are two separate entities. They may not have fully internalized the fact that Taiwan does not want to be part of China, and hasn't claimed otherwise in decades, but they know this. The ROC and the PRC are not the same governments, and it's deceitful to refer to them interchangeably as "China". Either there is only one China -- the PRC, which does not include Taiwan -- or there are two, but even if there are two, they are not the same thing, and the commentariat absolutely knows this, even if they can't admit it. 

Finally, this sort of disingenuousness both assumes and forces discourse on Taiwan's relationship to the ROC to only exist in relation to the PRC. It implies that Taiwan deciding of its own accord to amend its own constitution is somehow related to PRC governance, when it is and should be an internal discussion. The same is true for name rectification (from the country to the airline) or other frameworks that ought to be modified or abolished to better meet Taiwan's needs. While some of these changes are tangentially related to China, the connection is not direct: the government of the PRC has no say at all in the governance of Taiwan.

To make Taiwan's potential choices seem more intertwined with China than they are -- that any action Taiwan takes is fundamentally in relation to the PRC, and cannot exist apart from that as a choice made by a self-governing people -- is to lend credence to China's ridiculous claims on Taiwan, and its subsequent manufactured anger and hissy fits.

The imprecision and its harmful intentionality infuriate me. It's not ignorance, it's purposeful obfuscation, and it must be treated as such. These people are not interested in learning about Taiwan; their objective is to harm Taiwan's international stature and waste your goddamn time.

So let me say it again: if you're talking about China and you mean the PRC -- which just about everyone does -- then it lacks integrity to say Taiwan "isn't independent" from "China", only to switch "China" to the ROC when called out. Stop it. Serious people do not do this. 

Be precise: do you genuinely think is Taiwan not independent from the PRC? If so, please justify this. In what way does the PRC control Taiwan? What would change about Taiwan's governance right now if it were to declare independence from the PRC -- anything at all?

Or do you think "Taiwan independence" means "from the ROC framework"? If so, why did you (most likely) bring it up in a discussion about Taiwan's relationship with the PRC? Did you think your audience wouldn't notice? 

And if you do mean "the ROC", start there. No backsies, no switcheroos. 

However, I would ask that the well-meaning activists and supporters (including myself) who want to see the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan please consider their audience. Are you talking to potential allies abroad who might not realize that your "independence" doesn't mean "from the PRC"? If so, you're likely to confuse them with talk of Taiwan "not having independence", as they imagine that independence to be from China. That is, their conception of China, which isn't the ROC at all. It might be well-intentioned but it's likely to backfire, as it portrays Taiwan as some sort of separatist "renegade province". It's a lot harder to support that than a sovereign nation that already governs itself and has never been governed by the big bully next door claiming it. 

What can no longer be tolerated, however, are all the commentators who aren't concerned with ROC colonialism and instead use linguistic deception to make Taiwan appear less sovereign than it is. 

Thursday, March 23, 2023

Doing Nothing Wrong

The man at the top right resembles my great-grandfather, but it's hard to tell 


This is going to start out like a post focused on the Armenian Genocide; I promise that it is related to Taiwan, and there is a point. But I'm going to do this my way -- that is, the long way -- and I only ask that you bear with me, if you like. 

***

Generations ago, two contradictory narratives came out of late Ottoman Turkey surrounding the ongoing massacre of Armenians under Sultan Abdul Hamid II. One was spoken about among diplomats and travelers, discussed in salons across the Western world: a paranoid Armenophobe Sultan was allowing Armenians to be attacked and slaughtered across Anatolia and even in Istanbul. Sometimes these attacks came with a pretext ("revolutionary activity" or "separatists"), sometimes not. 

Of course, these worried people made sympathetic noises but took few if any concrete actions to actually help the Armenians.

It's not an uncommon belief that the Armenian Genocide began and ended around 1915, that it came like a wave, and then receded. This is not true: the Hamidian massacres began in the late 19th century, ebbing and flowing and continuing into the early Turkish republic until at least 1922. 

Despite being called the "loyal" millet, or minority community, Armenians, among others, were second-class citizens. Possession of weapons was more heavily restricted, taxes were higher, and legal rights fewer. 

In this narrative, the Armenians had done nothing at all; they were prosperous in banking and commerce and living happily under Ottoman rule until one day, the crazy Sultan decided to exterminate them, and that bloody legacy was perpetuated by the Young Turks. (To be clear, it is well-documented that Abdul Hamid II suffered from mental health problems later in life and was paranoid specifically about Armenians). 

Of course, the Ottoman state narrative was wildly different: this was an "internal" matter, an "exaggeration" of events or a "provocation" by Armenian separatists and terrorists. 

If you think this sounds quite a bit like the way China spins its own stories about Taiwan, as well as actual parts of China such as Tibet, East Turkestan and Hong Kong -- exactly. But that's obvious; all governments lie, but authoritarian states are both the biggest and worst liars. It's not even my main point. 

To hear the Armenians tell it, they were loyal to the Sultan, while still celebrating the advent of the Turkish republic, presumably at its nascent stage when they believed it might result in fewer massacres, not a tsunami of fresh killings. Few were revolutionaries; none were trying to topple or break away from the state. We weren't separatists, they said. All we ever wanted was equality and justice. 

To hear the Turkish side, they were indeed separatists engaging in terrorist acts, and had to be stopped. Of course, this narrative always stops short of genocide: we had to stop them, we were provoked into the massacres that you are exaggerating and also that we did not commit. 

Frankly, the Turkish government continues to embarrass itself by perpetuating this narrative.

One of these narratives is obviously false. Let's leave aside the fact that I had ancestors in the death camps and not all of them survived, that my great-grandfather and great-grandmother, children at the time, barely survived the 1909 massacres and my great-great grandfather was murdered in Smyrna by Turkish troops as the 1922 fire raged. Plenty of documentation attests to the truth of the events, the official narrative makes no sense, and anecdotal accounts fill out the picture. From Michael Arlen's Passage to Ararat

In the fall of 1895, a group of German and Swiss schoolteachers were traveling through eastern Turkey. They passed a village where not a soul appeared to be alive. "A terrible plague," explained the guide. The schoolteachers saw blood on the walls of houses, and a village square where jackals and vultures still fed off the unburied dead. 

It's easy to assume that therefore, the Armenian story must be unimpeachable. The loyal millet, living peacefully under the imperial yoke, never engaged in the activities of which the Ottomans -- and later the Young Turks -- accused them. If this is true, the Armenians did nothing. 

The thing is, this isn't quite right. They didn't do nothing. 

The Turkish story may be embarrassingly stupid, but the issue with the Armenian narrative is that it glosses over the most important point: that they did nothing wrong

Why exactly is this a problem? First, it makes it easy for Turkey to defend their position: if there were no Armenian revolutionaries, how do you explain all the Armenian revolutionaries? 

Because they existed. That, too, is well-documented.

The main groups were the Dashnaksutiun (the Dashnaks) and the Hunchakyan Kusaktsutyun (the Hunchaks). The Dashnaks are known in English as the ARF, or Armenian Revolutionary Federation -- emphasis mine. Both groups were at least nominally socialist or social democratic; the Dashnaks perhaps less so, whereas the Hunchaks were more overtly Marxist. The two groups began as a united front, with the Hunchaks splitting off over ideological differences: if you think leftists like to get into big, fractous spats with each other rather than fighting their common enemy, then I would like to welcome you to join the People's Front of Judea, not those apostates running the Judean People's Front.

Fun fact #1: both parties still exist. Fun fact #2: my great-grandfather Mihran was a Dashnak and fedayi (resistance fighter) in the 1920-21 war for Armenian independence. I admire that a lot; I do hope that if the time ever comes for me to stand up for what is right despite immediate physical danger, I will do so. 

Theoretically, the Dashnaks were more reform-minded, wanting to better the position of Armenians within a larger Turkish state, whereas the Hunchaks advocated a breakaway Armenian state. The Dashnaks worked with the Young Turks to overthrow Abdul Hamid II, and the two groups worked together up until the 1909 massacres, which were promulgated by the new Turkish government (the Sultan had just been removed from power by this revolution) against Armenians, primarily but not limited to Adana, near my great-grandmother's hometown of Tarsus.

That is to say, these groups did consist of separatists and revolutionaries. Not every Armenian was a member; I'd gather most weren't. However, it's historically inaccurate to claim that they meant no harm to the Ottoman government. Some absolutely did. I do not believe this was wrong; for a time, they shared the same goal as the Young Turks, who are now celebrated in Turkey. Clearly, the Turkish government doesn't think opposing the Sultan was "wrong" either, as long as it was Turks doing it. 

Let's look at a specific example: one side says that the 1894 massacre of Armenians at Sasun was "unprovoked", the other says it was provoked because Armenians refused to pay taxes. The truth is that the Hunchaks indeed encouraged them to stop paying, because the taxes levied on Armenians were unequal and unfair, and the whole situation was a lot more complicated than a protest over taxation.

Without getting into the local, factional violence, there were indeed Armenians calling for reforms that directly threatened the state. Throughout, the Dashnaks and Hunchaks did indeed use revolutionary tactics to resist Ottoman oppression. Some of these forces were at play in Sasun; they emerged again during the bank occupation in Istanbul, which precipitated further massacres.

That's not doing nothing. But I generally support resisting murderous dictators. I am in favor of protesting unfair taxation and tribute. If the regional or central government is sending in troops to specifically punish you for refusing to be exploited by the other people they sent in to harass you, you should fight back against both the local perpetrators and the central government. 

That's not "doing nothing", it's doing nothing wrong. 

While I don't think separatism is always the best way to solve political problems -- sometimes it is, sometimes it just creates more problems -- I understand why Armenians at the time might have thought it a good solution. They were being treated like dirt; prosperity was gained not through privilege but adversity. Under those conditions, especially in the sociopolitical environment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wouldn't you also want to advocate for either reform or independence? 

To ignore this and insist that they lived their lives placidly oppressed is not only to give official Turkish accounts credibility that they do not deserve, but also to flatten the story. It perpetuates the myth of the "perfect victim": do we really want to imply that only some genocide victims are worth recognition and compassion? Do we really believe that the only argument against mass murder is to say the victims didn't resist their murderers? Or that "separatism" is an excuse for genocide? Do we really want to erase the agency of targeted groups to resist?

It is ethical and right to stand up against injustice. It is correct to push for equality, and if the government lording over you won't give it to you, you either have to change the government, or rid yourself of it. 

Whether you are independent like Taiwan and requiring only international recognition, or a part of some larger oppressive state and seek to break free, you are not required to accept second-class status up until the point that the state begins murdering you, never daring to set off a bomb or stage a protest. This should not and cannot be the threshold for deciding who is and is not a true victim. 

I hope you've followed me this far, and see how this connects not only to Taiwan, and every other group fighting CCP oppression. 

To hear the Chinese government tell it, Taiwan (and the US) are relentless provocateurs; their story veers between insisting most Taiwanese understand that their ultimate destiny is to be "reunified" as good Han subjects under the rejuvenated Chinese nation but are misled by a minority of "splittists" or the United States, and screeching that Taiwanese "separatists" are the instigators wholly responsible for Beijing's continued threats of violence. It's an internal matter, they say. You're exaggerating, China would most prefer a "peaceful" resolution but, you know, those pesky separatists! It's their fault that we may be forced to wage war, followed by brutal re-education camps. 

They do the same in East Turkestan and just about anywhere else that suffers under CCP repression. Like the Turkish government, they claim that Uyghur terrorists forced them to open the concentration camps that they also claim don't exist. You're exaggerating, they repeat. Those are vocational schools aimed at helping Uyghurs, not jailing them. Except we had to open them because of all the terrorists, and we had to forcibly detain people sent there. But you're exaggerating. 

If that fails, we're admonished not to worry ourselves over a far-off genocide because apparently genocide is acceptable if it's an "internal matter". 

Certainly I don't condone violent acts against civilians, but if we're talking about which side has killed more people, it would be the CCP. I may not be a fan of bus or subway bombs, but I have all the empathy in the world for people fighting the systemic erasure of their identity and culture. Such erasure never works, it always leads to violence, and the CCP started it. 

It forces us to consider the ethics of actions within a given context: Ottomans sending in troops to harass Armenians was wrong; Armenians occupying a bank with pistols and explosives was not wrong, per se. The American South wanting to secede because they wanted to continue the institution of slavery was wrong; East Turkestan wanting to cleave itself from its murderers to end a cultural genocide is not wrong.

I could draw out similar scenarios in Tibet and Hong Kong, but I think the point is clear.

This may seem obvious, but I don't think it is. When we portray the bad guys (and the Chinese government is unequivocally the villain here) as going after people who did nothing at all, the next step in that thought sequence is to consider "something" to be worse than "nothing".  As in, compassion comes more readily if they weren't revolutionary, or separatist; but if they were,  some might think the consequences are justified. But they actually did set off subway bombs! They did occupy a bank! They did resist police officers! They did plot to assassinate the Sultan! They actually are separatists!

Then it becomes "bad" to be a separatist or revolutionary. Those words sure sound so scary on the news! But again, if the government you're fomenting a revolution against is oppressing you and others, being a revolutionary is not wrong


Think of it this way: how much easier is it to advocate that the Chinese government should stop disappearing poor innocent Uyghurs who were just minding their own business? Compare that to persuading others that, yes, in fact there was and is resistance to Chinese rule in East Turkestan; that yes, there are Uyghur "separatists" by the basic definition; that resistance occasionally turns violent; but that Chinese oppression in East Turkestan is still unjustified and if the CCP can't do better (and it can't), perhaps East Turkestan actually should be independent. 

The same is true in Taiwan, although there are no thorny questions of civilian attacks to contend with and unlike East Turkestan, Hong Kong and Tibet, it is not legally a part of the People's Republic of China no matter how much the CCP screams otherwise (if it is, show me the binding international treaty or accepted convention that says so. It doesn't exist).

It's so easy to say that Taiwan has done nothing at all, but that's not true. Taiwan's done quite a lot: first and foremost, it democratized and in spite of Chinese missile tests, stayed that way. War is a deeply unpopular notion, but most do intend to defend their country against China if necessary. When China gets its hackles up about "separatists" we may roll our eyes, but most Taiwanese do not want to be a part of China. 
A large number -- likely a majority, depending on how you define the issue -- are indeed "separatists" by China's definition. The problem is not the desire for continued sovereignty, but China's definition.  


Taiwan does seek international recognition, even when doing so "angers" China. They do identify primarily as Taiwanese, which China cannot abide. They do reject China's conditions for "peace", which begin with the so-called 1992 Consensus and end with accepting annexation without a fight. They don't give up and accept second-class international status; it may be forced upon them, but you'll always encounter resistance (even if they're just online comments reminding, say, a sporting organization that "Chinese Taipei" is bullshit and everyone knows it).

In everything from calling Taiwan an "independent country (named the Republic of China)", changing the passports, cultivating ties with the US and other countries and any number of small actions, Taiwan tests where China's red lines are.

They do this because those red lines are unjust and do not deserve respect. Taiwan is right to resist them, reject fabricated agreements from decades ago, turn down Beijing's poisoned offer of "peace". 

That's not nothing. It's exercising agency in a thousand small ways: it's nothing wrong. 

By China's definition, Taiwan actually is provoking China. That's not doing nothing. It's just doing nothing wrong: again, the problem here is China's definition.

If we don't believe that, then the logical conclusion is to insist that such "provocations" are wrong simply because China does not like them: that is, giving credibility to the abuser in this messed-up relationship. It's to say that Taiwan should clamp itself down and do less, do nothing. Let itself be a victim. Never raise its voice. Accept ever-decreasing space in the international community, let its autonomy be chipped away.

The ways in which Taiwan's story and agency are being flattened in international media are not exactly the same as Armenia's a century ago. People then either seemed to believe that Armenians were hapless, agency-less victims, or that they deserved what they got for being separatists and revolutionaries. 

In Taiwan's case, the danger lies in portrayals of the country as some unpopulated rock fought over by the United States and China, as though the people of Taiwan haven't made their own decisions about their sovereignty and self-governance. Taiwan's very real desire to remain separate from the People's Republic of China is the entire reason why the conflict exists at all. 

China is indeed threatening Taiwan because of what it deems to be "separatism", not US "provocations" --   it is the will and agency of the people of Taiwan that is central to the issue. Chinese painting of Taiwan's views as US-created constructs is a lie, because they know they don't have a strong argument against the truth: that Taiwan itself wants continued sovereignty, and it has that fundamental right of self-determination.

If it melted away, and Taiwan placidly announced that would do anything at all for peace, including meeting China's demands, there would be no conflict. That will never happen, which may mean war. To steal from a great artist of my parents' generation, Taiwan would do anything for peace, but it won't do that. 

This does not mean -- it cannot mean -- that Taiwan's will and agency are wrong. They are not. 

Taiwanese don't act like Dashnaks or Hunchaks; they don't need to, because the would-be oppressor they fight does not control them. Someday, it might be necessary: while some might submit, others will certainly resist. I hope that day never comes, but if it does, I'll support them. Hell, I might be making Molotovs or growing sweet potatoes for the resistance fighters. After all, they'd be right. 

Nobody desires a Syria-like situation in Taiwan, but that's the most likely outcome if China "successfully" annexes Taiwan. Still, Taiwan will be right, and China will be wrong.

Wanting equality, justice, freedom and human rights is fundamentally ethically sound. That may be revolutionary; in some cases it may be tantamount to separatism. Fine, I say. Let it be revolutionary, let it be separatism if it must. It's our job to understand this, and not rob people facing an oppressor of either agency or compassion, when indeed they deserve both. 

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Taiwan can govern itself, and this should be obvious

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My eyes blurred when I saw the picture: Freddy Lim showing off a selfie he'd snapped with former Secretary of State and horror show of a human being, Mike Pompeo. The former advocates for LGBT+ equality, among other things. The latter spends an inordinate amount of time tweeting furiously about "wokeism" in the military, whatever that means. 

Is Pompeo aware of Lim's politics, beyond continuing to support Taiwan's ongoing independence? I have no idea.

Does Lim know about Pompeo's politics, beyond support of Taiwan? Almost certainly yes. I'm including the "almost" only because he hasn't said.

This was disappointing, of course, coming from Lim specifically. I expected it from most politicians, but Lim seems to actually stand for something, and that something is a society very much unlike the bigoted shitfest that Mike Pompeo fantasizes about. When I say they truly only agree on one thing -- Taiwan's sovereignty -- I mean it. 




I've struggled with this publicly in the past. Is it worth having absolute turds as allies when they otherwise promulgate horrifying right-wing values? My heart says no. My brain points out that Taiwan is losing diplomatic allies, not gaining them; official allies Taiwan has aren't exactly staunch supporters so much as checkbook friends; Taiwan has never been more in the world's eye and never enjoyed so much unofficial support; yet it's still not enough as long as Chinese invasion remains a real threat and potential assistance is only tepidly affirmed.

It's a lot to work through. My head aches with it. Yet I've never been able to fully embrace the idea that trash allies are worse than no allies at all. There are many reasons for this, but one sticks out: Taiwan is choosing this. 

Before, all this worry could be mapped along two axes: the degree to which Taiwan needs international support (quite a bit), and the degree to which its supporters have palatable politics in general (some do, many don't). Even this is no easy grid. It goes beyond lack of a clear notion of point at which Taiwan can be picky about its allies; I'm not even sure how to structure the question, or equation, or whatever it is. I think Mike Pompeo is a bigot and I'm tired of having to think about him, but what of the people who think even Nancy Pelosi shouldn't make the cut, because she's too far to the right or to the left for their liking? 

I'd answered that two-sided question with my own split take: you will never hear me praise someone like Mike Pompeo, but I won't stand in the way of what Taiwan needs to do -- and that includes courting support from influential people who can offer tangible help. To be blunt, it means playing nice with US empire because CCP empire is so much worse, and if Taiwan rejects all problematic support, CCP empire will win. Yes, it will.

And I can personally fume about that as much as I want, which changes nothing.

Of course, there was always a third axis to this: Taiwan's choice to accept that support. I do not believe for a single instant that, say, President Tsai is unaware of Mike Pompeo's, uh, portfolio. I know for a fact that at least some of the Taiwanese political figures who engage with him know what he's about. 

The other guys too. Taiwanese voters aren't stupid (or at least not any more so than other countries), and the government they elected isn't doing this blindly. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Marcia Blackburn, Abe Shinzo, et cetera ad nauseam: they know the deal with these people. And I'd make a real cash money bet that they have similar intelligence as the US, so they're aware of the magnitude and type of CCP threats at all times. 


In short, they don't need to be educated by preening Westerners eager to show off how much they know better. Frankly, it's a little offensive to assume Taiwan is ignorant of all this and needs to be told.

It's still difficult, though, because I remain strongly averse to even the whiff of right-wing bigotry. I criticized Freddy Lim for that photo too -- not because I think Taiwan should tell Mike Pompeo to get bent, but because he's Freddy Lim. I actually agree with everyone pointing out these supporters aren't top-notch. I personally wouldn't even shake their hands.

But, at the end of it, if we're going to talk about Taiwanese agency and self-determination, that the Taiwanese people can and should choose their own future, then we must also admit that they chose a government who is choosing to engage with these people. 

That government is far from perfect, but it has been consistently competent, and paid no political price I can see for that engagement. That's as close as we're going to get to proof of a consensus: Taiwan used its agency, decided it needed that support, and chose to engage. And not every Taiwanese person who makes up one speck of that overall national agency is going to be a leftist, or even a liberal. It's always going to be this way, and frankly whether one agrees or not is irrelevant.


Of course, Taiwan being a free society, one can criticize the government all they want. I share some of those criticisms! Criticize away! But the constant pile-on about whom Taiwan should and shouldn't engage with is not only tiring, it's ramped up to the point that it doesn't read like well-meaning criticism anymore. It comes across as I-know-betterism.  You know, hey Taiwan enjoy all that agency and self-determination but be sure to only use it in the ways I approve of! 

Clearly, I'm not a fan. Maybe I used to be, but not anymore.

I can hear the comments now: you wouldn't think this way if the KMT were in charge! 

You're right, I wouldn't. When they were in charge and did a terrible job, I stood with the activists and progressives who pushed for something very much like the Tsai administration. Now the people we supported are in charge, and generally -- some criticisms aside -- I think they're doing a fine job, especially regarding international relations. The people I supported won a bunch of elections and now are competently running the country, and I'm happy about that, and think the other guys wouldn't do as good a job? Yes! Obviously! 

Taiwan as Taiwan (not Chiang Kai-shek's personal ROC pleasure hole) has never been so noticed, so supported, so popular -- and that's thanks to the government everyone is now yelling at for engaging with international supporters they don't like. To be blunt, I don't care for it. In fact, it'd be suicidal for Taiwan. I don't know exactly at what point Taiwan can turn away support, but surely it is not when they still lack formal diplomatic recognition, and only one country in the world has said anything remotely concrete about assisting them if China invades. 

I have one more thing to say: some of us who've been here a long time do support the current government. When we're not fans of the side that got elected, we tend to stand with local opposition. Adhering to this stance even when Taiwan does things we don't personally like -- such as welcome Mike Pompeo or Marcia Blackburn -- doesn't make us right-wingers or closet Trumpers (as I've been called, but most certainly am not) or putting Taiwan in danger by supporting the "provocation" of China. 

If we're saying most of the analysts not in Taiwan are getting it wrong, and our stance is consistent with the very government we wanted to see as far back as 2014, then we're standing with Taiwan's choices. Not just that, but the choices Taiwan makes with the political intel it has, which we can only guess at. No, we don't want Taiwan to bend conservative. No, we don't want to taunt or "provoke" China. Taiwan is steering this ship, and we're supporting it. We believe Taiwan can govern itself. 

In other words, criticize all you want. But be cognizant of what you're saying and what it implies: are you supporting Taiwanese agency by meaningfully engaging and sincerely disagreeing on some points, or are you playing the Let Me Educate Taiwan Because I Know Better game? 

We should all learn where this line is, myself included. I'm not immune, and I'm sure I've crossed it before. But the line, though hard to see, is there. All you have to do is look. 

Monday, September 12, 2022

What is a country? (Taiwan, for one.)

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There's a lot of tankie and tankie-adjacent horptyglorp about how Taiwan cannot possibly be considered a country. This is wrong, and I am delighted to tell you why. 

This is the first of a two-part post: in a day or two I plan to do a little mythbusting of all the specious claims made about Taiwan by people whose opinions are most likely bought and paid for.

So what evidence actually supports the case for Taiwan nationhood? There are multiple ways to determine this: by internationally agreed-upon convention; by the status of various binding treaties; or by whether or not the state in question is recognized by other states. 

The fact that there actually is more than one valid interpretation or way to come to a conclusion about Taiwan's status is proof, in itself, that there is no singular "international law", "One China Policy" or "UN recognition" that determines Taiwan's status. 

What's more, by any one of those interpretations, Taiwan, or the government that currently presides over it, either is a country (by convention), or its status is undetermined (by treaty). I happen to ascribe to the former view, but the latter deserves some space as well.

Let's dispense quickly with the "nationhood derives from recognition by other nations" argument. A sovereign government on Taiwan does indeed enjoy a small amount of official recognition, which means it is a country. However, t
he convention discussed below explicitly states that official recognition by other nations is not necessary. I don't see a strong argument for it as the final determiner in what makes a country.


Convention, or treaty?

The most obvious support comes from the widely recognized Montevideo Convention. Though it was conceived and signed at a International Conference of American States in the 1930s, it's widely accepted as a standard by international organizations. 

According to the convention, a state is a state when it has a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. 

Taiwan has all of these things, and more (for example, it has a military and a currency). 

Taiwan does need constitutional reform and a name change, but honestly, states amend their constitutions and change their names all the time, and as noted above, the ROC constitution doesn't actually claim all of 'China'. From an international perspective, the ROC as a state, for now, is not meaningfully or functionally different from Taiwan not being part of what just about everyone recognizes as 'China'.

Here's what I find interesting: the "ability to enter into relations with other states" doesn't necessarily entail diplomatic recognition. Relations can take on many forms. In fact, the convention is quite specific about this (emphasis mine): 

The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition, the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts. The exercise of these rights has no other limitation than the exercise of the rights of other states according to international law.


By this measure, there is simply no question. Taiwan is a state. It is a country. Like Czechia or Eswatini, it can change its problematic name without changing the fundamental fact of its sovereignty; like many countries, it can do the same with its constitution. It simply chooses not to (yet) in order to signal that it is not the entity raising tensions in the region -- that's China.

What's more, there's no law, not even a rule, that a country is only a country through admission to the United Nations. UN recognition would be nice to have, but it's not a need to have. Of course, the UN cannot be considered objective on the matter of Taiwan; with China acting the bully on the security council, Taiwan can never expect fair treatment from that international body. 


Taiwan as undetermined?

To me, the convention argument makes sense. It establishes a clear-cut path for a nation to arise and govern itself without other nations needing to validate it. I favor this because it allows for autonomous nation-building and self-determination. It does away with the presumption that only others can tell you what you are, and circumvents imperialist tendencies to look to great powers (or large international bodies bullied by those great powers) to determine the fate of smaller states.

In other words, it's the best possible balance between the importance of nations working together and finding agreement, and the fundamental human right of self-determination.

But let's talk treaties anyway. Another common argument is that Taiwan is a part of China because this or that proclamation, declaration or treaty says so. Usually the reference is to the Cairo Declaration, but that was non-binding. Some refer to the various treaties surrounding Japan's surrender of Taiwan, but neither of these clarifies the status of Taiwan. 

Rather than repeat what's already been said about this, here's a fantastic link, and a few choice quotes for those who hit the paywall:

At the end of World War II, ROC troops occupied Taiwan under the aegis of the wartime Allies. Ever since, the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) has claimed that Taiwan had been “returned to China” and was now part of the ROC. In reality, Taiwan remained formally under Japanese sovereignty until April 28, 1952, when the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 (SFPT) came into effect. Under the Peace Treaty  Japan renounced control of Taiwan, but no recipient of sovereignty was named. This was a deliberate arrangement by the wartime powers. The United States did not want either of the murderous, authoritarian Leninist parties claiming to be the true government of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the KMT, to have Taiwan. Thus, under international law, Taiwan’s status remains undetermined to this day....


I'm not sure I agree fully with this interpretation. It's true that if we go by binding treaties, Taiwan's status is undetermined. But if, as above, we follow broadly-accepted conventions on what makes a country, then Taiwan's status is clear: it's a country. However, the "undetermined" argument has a place in this discussion. Anyway, let's continue:

Only two internationally recognized documents directly bear on Taiwan’s sovereignty are legally binding in the sense that Gao means: the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the Treaty of Taipei between Japan and the Republic of China on Taiwan. The Treaty of Taipei is deliberately subordinate to the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and neither assigns sovereignty over Taiwan to China, whether in its Communist or Nationalist incarnation. Instead, they are silent on the issue of who owns Taiwan, merely affirming that Japan gave up sovereignty over the island....

When then Foreign Minister Yeh Kung-chao was questioned in the legislature after the signing of the Treaty of Taipei, he said that “no provision has been made either in the San Francisco Treaty of Peace as to the future of Taiwan and Penghu.” When a legislator asked him, “What is the status of Formosa and the Pescadores?” He responded:

“Formosa and the Pescadores were formerly Chinese territories. As Japan has renounced her claim to Formosa and the Pescadores, only China has the right to take them over. In fact, we are controlling them now, and undoubtedly they constitute a part of our territories. However, the delicate international situation makes it that they do not belong to us...."


Even the Republic of China knows that there's no binding international law, treaty or convention that renders Taiwan theirs, let alone Taiwan a part of China or not a country in its own right.

This is the same Republic of China that, years after a foreign minister admitted the ROC had no legal right to Taiwan, devised a 'two state solution' and overtly referred to it as such. The same Republic of China whose (non-KMT) presidents routinely call the country they govern "Taiwan" and have, on multiple occasions, defined it as 'independent'. The same Republic of China that meets all the definitions of a 'state', not a province.


Taiwan is a country

What should define Taiwan today? This is easy: it can only be defined by what Taiwanese people want for Taiwan. What they want isn't hard to see unless you are deliberately not looking: most identify as solely Taiwanese, not Chinese. Those who identify as both mostly prioritize Taiwanese identity, and most consider the status quo to be sufficient qualification to consider independent.

Does that sound like 23 million people who don't want their own country? No. It sounds like a populace happy with Taiwan continuing to be independent from the People's Republic of China to me. 

If there's a take-home here, it's that Taiwan's current de facto independence is, essentially, independence, and broadly agreed-on conventions of what makes a nation do indeed apply to Taiwan. By that measure, Taiwan is a country. There are different ways of interpreting this, but no sincere effort to understand Taiwan's status ends with 'well it's clearly part of China'. There is simply no perspective that renders such a claim true: the PRC doesn't govern it, and Taiwan doesn't claim the PRC mainland.

What all of these points of view do have in common is simple: there is no international law that makes Taiwan 'part of China', but plenty of international conventions and interpretations of statehood that support the idea of Taiwan as not just deserving of independent statehood, but already having it. 

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Appeasement Will Work For Taiwan



By Thadtaniel McDorpington III


Several decades ago, while earning my degree in China Studies with a focus on governance in China, I had the privilege of visiting Taiwan for a short period of time. As with young Cao Cao in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I learned much in that short trip, for which I am humbled to say I was invited to give a short talk on China at a conference at the Grand Hyatt. 


My taxi driver from the airport was an affable man. Though I don’t recall his name, I will never forget what I learned about Taiwan from him. Apparently, Taiwan was founded by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who declared it the Republic of China in 1949, before which time no one lived on Taiwan. However, “Taiwan” also means “Formosa”, which is Portuguese for “Beautiful Island”. 


This depth of experience in Asia has caused me to take a deep interest in the discussion around the visit of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, and qualified me to publish this op-ed in a paper of record. 


As I consider the dangerous signal that Pelosi’s visit to the Republic of China would send to Mainland China, I can only think of the wisdom of two great men. Sun Tzu, who said “the wise warrior avoids the battle”, and Neville Chamberlain, who famously avoided war by extolling the virtues of “peace in our time”. 


Indeed, it is peace in our time that we need for Taiwan, as it would be terribly inconvenient if the United States were to provoke a war by sending a high-ranking official to a place that the People’s Republic of China does not govern. 


After all, if America is a great power, isn’t the greatest show of power to listen sincerely? If we listen sincerely with open minds towards cooperating with China rather than creating conflict by pointing out “genocide in East Turkestan” and “threats of subjugation and mass slaughter in Taiwan”, surely there is a path to peace here in which everyone gets some of what they want. Perhaps Taiwan can even keep some of its democracy!


Of course, I did not come to this opinion alone. Many analysts concur, some of whom have even spent up to a year, or even two years, in Taiwan. We all agreed at a local bar — they didn’t recommend the hotel bar, that’s how you know they are old-timers — that Taiwan has no will to fight China, and there is no data whatsoever showing otherwise. 


In fact, Taiwanese believe they are the real Chinese, as stated in the Republic of China constitution. There is no other data showing any other consensus in Taiwan. Continuing to believe this is a controversial topic gives analysts like us relevance. We simply do not acknowledge any other data showing a general consensus on Taiwanese identity as it may require us to find another issue to write about, or even force us to ask Taiwanese people what they think beyond the single poll we always cite. 


The United States should not step into this muddy and unclear situation. Who knows -- maybe some Taiwanese want to be subjugated by China! 


What’s more, international support for Taiwan could be disastrous: it might hurt shareholder value or even create a smartphone shortage. Although I did not ask any Taiwanese for their perspective, surely they would agree that compromise with China would be in everyone’s best interest as well. I can say from my experience of three nights at the Grand Hyatt that the Taiwanese are a friendly and hospitable people, and they would certainly bend over backwards to ensure the US does not suffer any supply issues with its devices.


After all, from my all-expense paid press junket to Beijing, I can state with confidence that Xi Jinping is a man of reason, and will happily grant to Taiwan all legitimate rights and interests that they request. Of course, Xi himself will determine which rights are “legitimate”, but that’s a minor discussion point. 


Perhaps the Chinese on both sides of the strait could agree on a system where Taiwan continues to hold elections, but there is some flexibility vis-a-vis who wins those elections. There are many creative solutions to the Taiwan Problem which has vexed Western analysts for decades.


My experience working for a think tank that publishes and hosts events related to Taiwan which include unique and relevant perspectives from noted Taiwan experts such as Thorp Borpworth, Bradjohn Golfingshorts, Carolinda Catspaw and Jacobscreek McGillicuddy only underscores my concern. As a khaki phalanx, unanimous in our thoughts, these men and one woman agree: if China issues threats due to US actions, that is clearly American provocation and must be opposed resolutely. Even Noam Chomsky agrees, which matters for some reason.


The only way forward, therefore, is appeasement. Beijing is extraordinarily angry that the United States wants to do a thing, and thus the United States must under no circumstances do that thing, as it may provoke a war. Taiwan is very important to China, and therefore all of our efforts should be centered on assuring China that we are not a threat to their intended annexation of the island. That is the only way to ensure peace (for us), and will surely convince Mr. Xi not to invade Taiwan once he knows the international community will not stand in his way.

Certainly, we must not ask the Taiwanese government if they want Pelosi to visit. They might say 'yes' or indicate that they don't fear China as much as we do, and that would not be in line with our views as analysts. We might even learn that they approved of the visit in advance! As our views are paramount, and this goes against them, the best choice is simply not to inquire. 


We must clearly show Mr. Xi and the People’s Republic of Mainland China that we will not oppose any action they take, but rather cater to their will on any action we take, in the hope that perhaps we may kindly request (but not insist) that they not take actions we disapprove of. I believe this will be successful: Mr. Xi is a man of his word and keeps every promise he makes.  


To do otherwise might harm China-US relations, which only the US can do. China, of course, can do whatever it wants up to and including a genocide. To stand up to China would not be in line with my wise, sober and nuanced analysis. Opposition to prioritizing relations with a genocidal dictatorship over solidarity with Taiwan is merely the dark hand of ultraethnonationalism caterwauled by those who did not attend a prestigious university.


If we fail to stop tensions from rising and China starts the war that the United States provoked, then it will be disastrous for both sides — the United States and China. That relationship certainly cannot be soured by something like a visit from a high-ranking official to Taiwan. Otherwise how can these two great powers work together in the future to decide the fate of Taiwan in a peaceful way?


Nancy Pelosi should not visit Taiwan. After all, as the Chinese say, it is best not to climb a tree to seek fish, but rather show kindness like Duke Xianggong. Why not peace with Xi?

Sunday, July 3, 2022

No, the US did not create, fund or support "Taiwanese separatism"

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Past support for these jerks is not the same as support for "Taiwan independence"


More often than seems reasonable, in political discussions I see some variation of this take far too frequently. Recently, a version of it came from someone who claims to teach “East Asian History” — that is, someone who should know what they’re talking about. To paraphrase: 

Taiwan is a part of China. The idea of Taiwanese identity or nationalism is a farce created by the United States in order to drive a wedge between themselves and China, for their own interests in keeping tensions high. They backed the KMT, who were corrupt narco-running gangsters at best, and set up that whole “Nationalist” idea on Taiwan as a thorn in China’s side. 

Maybe there was some blah blah forever war blah blah Raytheon stuff in there, or perhaps some junk about the US funding Taiwan’s “color revolution” splittists; I don’t care to remember. Most of this subtype seems to think the US "gives" Taiwan weapons (it doesn't -- Taiwan buys them) or that the US sends aid to Taiwan (wrong again -- the aid ended in the 1960s). 

Crucially, both of these strains of thought assume that “Taiwanese independence” or “Taiwanese [ethno] nationalism” was either created, supported or funded by the United States of America. 

Although regular readers will already know why this view of Taiwanese national identity is wrong, someone needs to talk about it in English in a clear way and historical perspective, as these takes love to reference history: usually something about how the horrible Nationalists were backed by the US and that’s the seat of everything. 

So, let’s go backward in time, stopping at scenic historical overlooks to discuss why this view is simply, plainly, clearly not true. 

I'm not going to go chronologically here; let's start with the era such people reference most frequently: the KMT occupation of Taiwan and subsequent rivalry with the CCP.


The 1949 Question

A shallow reading of history might lead a dilettante type to think that both the KMT and CCP wanted Taiwan, that they'd both historically believed Taiwan was an inalienable part of China, and that with US assistance the KMT was able to retreat to Taiwan where the US-led Western order supported them simply because they hated and feared communism and wanted to keep Taiwan out of the hands of the CCP for their own selfish reasons.

After all, the Allies said yes to Chiang Kai-shek's desire to take Taiwan in Cairo, and allowed the KMT to occupy Taiwan in 1945. In the early 1950s, they agreed to financial and military support of Taiwan (or at least, to Taiwan as a site for US military bases). If you just ignore a few years in the middle (say,  approximately 1947 to 1952) and assume that support was unwavering, it might look a bit damning, and certainly the US has historically acted in its own self-interest, as all nations do. 

But it's just not true that the US unequivocally supported the KMT. That period of history is complex and can't be covered in one section of a blog post -- entire books have been written about it. It's well-known that Truman didn't care for Chiang Kai-shek, and while he disliked Mao and the CCP, he wasn't much of a fan of the KMT, either. Some of his advisors advocated for defending Taiwan, but plenty also said that the KMT were not worth funding. For several years, the US seemed just as willing to let the PRC take Taiwan as help the KMT hold it. Talk of some sort of international trusteeship for Taiwan was probably destined to go nowhere, but there was indeed talk. The US knew of at least one coup plotted against Chiang and did nothing.

Yes, the US stance eventually changed, but that it had to change means there had been a different stance to change from; they had not always been strong supporters of the Nationalists on Taiwan. 

I can hear my own readers screaming, so here's the bigger problem with this line of thinking: support for the KMT is not the same as support for Taiwan independence.

I honestly can't believe I have to clarify that, but it seems necessary. 

It's easy for someone who has spent zero time actually watching Taiwanese politics think the KMT opposes the CCP, Taiwan opposes China, and the KMT founded the government on Taiwan. The US helped them, and therefore "Taiwan independence" must be the same as that KMT-CCP rivalry in which the US clearly supports the KMT "independence" side. 

Let me tell you, from inside Taiwan, that sounds absolutely bonkers. 

The KMT has believed since around 1943 that Taiwan is a part of China; on this, the KMT and CCP actually agree. The KMT rejiggered an entire educational system to drive home this point and push Chinese identity on Taiwanese people. Not Taiwanese identity, Chinese. They refused to compete in the Olympics as Taiwan (rather than the Republic of China). Although the US tried to propose a seat for Taiwan as Taiwan -- not the ROC -- at the United Nations, Chiang Kai-shek would not have accepted it. (This is a shame, as the UN resolution that allowed the PRC to join as "China" did not explicitly block Taiwan; theoretically, there is nothing save China's recalcitrance barring Taiwan from joining as itself.) 

The KMT attempted to render the Taiwanese language extinct, banned just about any media that might cause Taiwanese to think their cultural homeland might be Taiwan, not China, and continues to push One China narratives on Taiwan regardless of how outdated they are. Their vision is consistent only in the respect that they are oriented towards China, not Taiwan.

Time and time again, when given the opportunity for formal recognition as Taiwan, the KMT rejected it under the belief that they were the sole legitimate government of China.

Even when they talk about fighting for democracy, they point to events that happened in China, not Taiwan: 


Decades of KMT dictatorship saw Taiwanese independence activists surveilled, jailed, tortured and murdered. Anyone who so much as called for a recognition of Taiwanese identity or pushed for democratization on Taiwan was subjected to this; for two generations, the biggest opposition to Taiwanese self-rule was the KMT. From 1947 until the early 1990s (when the imprisonment of political dissidents ended), the KMT systematically hunted and brutalized anyone who even breathed the idea of Taiwanese independence. 

You know, that party the US supported during many of those same decades. 

How does it make any sense at all that the US "support of the KMT" had anything to do with them creating a "Taiwan independence" movement? They quite literally supported the oppressors of that same movement! They bankrolled the guys who murdered pro-Taiwan activists! 

And yet, I still hear it. Occasionally, the person spouting this nonsense seems to think ardent supporters of Taiwanese sovereignty -- myself included -- must therefore support the KMT. Some think it's imperative to tell us how awful the KMT actually are. 

Do they not think we already know? Insulting those corrupt gangster colonizers isn't a searing indictment of the Taiwan independence movement. It's quite literally the opposite. 

This dynamic hasn't changed much since democratization.


The US and Democratic Taiwan

Remember in the early 2000s, when an unabashedly pro-Taiwan president was elected, the first from the "opposition" DPP, and the US political establishment didn't seem especially enthused? Then, do you remember when they seemed to be more generally supportive of the election of pro-China KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou eight years later? 

Does a distant relationship with pro-Taiwan Chen and tacit endorsement of pro-China Ma sound like the tactic of a country trying to foment a 'color revolution' of furious 'splittists'? (No.) 

I'd like to take a little side road here: it's unclear exactly how much balking Chen actually engendered. It was once a widely-spread rumor (in some circles) that US officials had labeled him a 'troublemaker', but I can't find much evidence that this actually happened. President Bush was said to have used the term, but apparently that's wholly apocryphal. Those who say it did point to 'some' officials, but never state who those officials are or the circumstances of it happening. No details, just 'some people said'. That's hardly concrete.

China sure seemed invested in touting Chen as a 'troublemaker' and seemed all too happy to get the US in on this, but it doesn't seem to me that they took the bait. Ma Ying-jeou himself said he wouldn't be a 'troublemaker' like Chen, but then Ma was always influenced by whatever the CCP wanted from him -- of course he'd repeat a rumor like that. So, I have some ideas about the origins and truthfulness of this "Chen is a troublemaker" story.

It's true that the US seemed to warm up to Tsai quite a bit -- the spate of pro-Taiwan legislation and visits to Taiwan by high-level US officials during the Tsai administration at least indicate as much. 

That said, the shiny new AIT complex in Neihu broke ground under the Ma administration in 2009, meaning it was probably planned in the waning Chen years, and opened under Tsai. To me, that shows a US commitment not to any given vision of Taiwan's future -- independence included -- but to the US-Taiwan relationship.

Now that we're back on the main highway, let's kick it forward a bit. It's true that there's been an uptick in supportive rhetoric on Taiwan by the US, with President Biden calling the US's commitment to Taiwan "rock solid" (among other things). 

However, as with the Bush debacle in the early 2000s, these kind words for Taiwan always seem to come with a chaser: "the US doesn't support Taiwan independence". 

What they mean by this is that they don't support Taiwan unilaterally declaring independence, as the Taiwan Relations Act (and the bevy of assurances and communiqués accompanying it) clearly state US support for a peaceful, bilateral resolution. It does not mean that Taiwan independence can never happen, or that the US believes Taiwan is not currently autonomous (they clearly do, if they're selling Taiwan weapons, upgrading unofficial relations and calling their commitment "rock solid"). 

I may not personally be the biggest fan of this particular bilateralism -- I think Taiwan has every right to tell the CCP to eat dirt -- but that's what the policy says, and the US has been consistent in that regard. Even when it sounds like Joe Biden is going "off-script", everything he says can indeed be interpreted within that framework

Again, does this sound like a country that is arming rebel militias in Taiwan with the purpose of stoking separatist sentiment? (No.) 

Frankly, it sounds like a country that is warm toward the current administration and Taiwan in general, but historically has supported stances oriented towards Taiwan being part of China, not separate from it.

I've even heard the absurd claim that the US is "funding" Taiwan independence through all the weapons they "give" and foreign aid they "send" to Taiwan. 

Let me repeat: the US does not give Taiwan offensive weapons. They sell defensive weapons meant for the military of the Republic of China, not roving bands of guerillas. I don't buy into the idea that the Republic of China still claims "all of China" (it doesn't), but the ROC government is simply not the same as Taiwan independence activists, or "color revolutionists", or "separatists", or whatever you want to call them. 

And once again, Taiwan does not receive foreign aid from the US, and has not done so since 1965. The US isn't funding "Taiwan independence" because it's not funding anything in Taiwan. I am sure plenty of people will insist it must all be very covert, but if that's the case I know a lot of activists who'd love more information about all this money they're supposedly making, because if that's happening, nobody on the Taiwan side has heard about it! 


The origins of Taiwanese Identity

A lot of people also make the fundamental mistake of believing that the Taiwan independence movement is only as old as the Republic of China on Taiwan. Therefore, the two must be linked somehow. Memorably, I've even seen reference to 228 as the "birth" of Taiwanese identity. 

Certainly, the 228 Massacre was a pivotal moment. In terms of the modern movement, it could be seen as a birthday of sorts -- perhaps a milestone one rather than an origin point, however. 

And if we're talking about US creation or support of Taiwanese independence, those origins matter.

In Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan, Niki Alsford points out that not much research has been done on the generation preceding the pro-Taiwan generation of the 1920s. Kerr’s Licensed Revolution and the Home Rule Movement speaks in broad strokes about Taiwanese identity and the lack of desire for either Qing or Japanese rule from afar, especially among Indigenous Taiwanese. (And why shouldn’t they have been uninterested in the claims of these colonial powers? By all rights, they were in Taiwan first.)  However, he crucially notes that the average person -- of Chinese descent or not -- preferred both empires to just leave Taiwan alone. The main thing they seemed to want was good governance. 

Consider the Qing-era epithet that Taiwan “has a rebellion every three years and a revolt every five” — restive even by Chinese standards. Reflect as well that the Qing themselves viewed Taiwan as something ‘other’, an ‘Island of Women’, a defensive barrier to the ‘real’ China but otherwise a “ball of mud beyond civilization”, not any intrinsic part of China worth caring about. Emma Jinhua Teng lays this out beautifully in Taiwan’s Imagined Geography. Given those conditions, it makes sense that after a few generations, the families settling in Taiwan from China — who tended to be poor and seeking a better life — would cultivate a sense of distinct identity tied to the island. 

But to what extent? I don’t know. It was enough that when the Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan, those who fought back, and declared a (short-lived) Republic of Formosa, included language in their plans that referenced government coming from the people, not issued from far-away officials. Yes, that republic claimed fealty to the Qing, and the leaders mostly fled to China when defeat seemed inevitable (and sometimes before). The way they talked about it though? It’s not so simple to say they just wanted to be returned to the Qing. They were after some sort of home rule, too. 

Why am I telling you all this? Think about it: if this is an origin point of Taiwanese identity and the fight for Taiwanese sovereignty — unclear, problematic and fraught as it is — how on earth do you think the US funded it, let alone “created” it? 

And frankly, why would they care to? They were still dealing with the Qing and Taiwan was about to be handed to Japan. What would the rationale have been to stoke 'separatism' as a weapon against China? Notably, while a former US Secretary of State got involved in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which handed Taiwan to Japan in 1895, notably the Tripartite Intervention that sought to influence the treaty in Western powers’ favor were Russia, France and Germany. 

If this era indeed provided the seeds that later blossomed into the pro-Taiwan, local identity, nativist, independence and democratization movements, it's simply inconceivable that the whole thing is simply a fever dream of the United States, not a real and long-lasting movement that has always been intrinsically Taiwanese.

In fact, to deny this history in favor of a jejune "everything I don't like is funded by the CIA" is to westsplain the hell out of Taiwanese history. Do these people think Taiwanese have no agency? Do they think only Westerners do? Do they think Taiwanese people are stupid, or easily manipulated, or incapable of forming their own ideas about history and identity without some evil Big Brother from across the sea tempting them with poison candy?

Come on. "It's the evil CIA! The US is funding Taiwan separatism to destabilize China!" may seem on the surface like a social-justice oriented take in which the West is bad and China can do no wrong, but at the end of the day it's just racism.


The Home Rule Movement in Japanese-Era Taiwan

Skip ahead to the 1920s, with Taiwan now an established colony of Japan. A complex web of cultural and home rule associations sprung up, many of them started by Taiwanese students in Japan inspired by modern political ideas they were exposed to there (in fact, some circumvented the Taiwanese colonial government completely and went straight to the Japanese national government). 

I could write an entire blog post just on the New Culture Association (inspired by China’s May Fourth Movement but promoting Taiwanese cultural and identity-related arts and literature), the annual petition to the parliament, the Home Rule Association, the Taiwan People’s Party, Formosa Youth Magazine, and thinkers like Lin Hsieh-tang, Chiang Wei-shui, Tsai Pei-huo and (noted communist) Hsieh Hsueh-hung. 

But the short of it is that, within the strictures of the colonial government — which tolerated their activities at times, but surveilled and arrested them at others — these early thinkers promoted not just home rule (see Kerr again for a firsthand account of their work) but Taiwanese culture through the arts. Lien Heng — interestingly enough, the grandfather of Chinese ultranationalist Lien Chan — wrote the General History of Taiwan and was also involved in promoting Taiwan as a unique cultural entity with a distinctive history worth understanding in its own right, separate from China. 

We can argue about 1895 all day, but these Japanese-era movements for greater home rule and recognition of local culture are essentially indisputable. Sometimes their supporters got tangled up in KMT politics (often to their regret), but at the end, it’s clear what they stood for. 

This link is made explicit in the music and literary history: the magazines these groups produced are held up as a historical reminder that Taiwanese were talking about Taiwaneseness when Japan was trying to make Taiwan more Japanese — well before the KMT came to town. The music, too. A lot of that era’s music was banned under Martial Law, sometimes just because it was in Taiwanese even if the lyrics were not remotely subversive. 

What’s the best way to turn something into a symbolic anthem for pro-democracy fighters? Get the authoritarian regime they’re fighting to ban it! 

Now, dig deep. Do you really, honestly think that when Japan ruled Taiwan, the US was skulking nefariously behind the scenes, training and paying the prominent figures of the era to promote “Taiwanese nationalism”...to stoke a rivalry with China? In an era when China didn’t even consider Taiwan to be Chinese, and it was assumed it would be Japanese in perpetuity? (And they did -- Sun Yat-sen visited Taiwan twice and at no point mentioned any sort of belief that it was part of China. The early CCP, as well, considered Taiwan a separate entity.)

How does that make even a lick of sense? Even if the US were capable of hurting China in this way in the 1920s -- which they were not, because Taiwan was part of Japan! -- why would they want to?

I'm skipping the Indigenous uprisings against the Japanese here because frankly, I think events like the Musha incident do tend to get swiped and used for every narrative other than the ones Indigenous people want to tell. The independence activists want to paint it as Indigenous solidarity. The KMTers want to make it look like they had similar sentiments to brave ROC soldiers. I don't love that, and don't want to join the grabby-grabs, so I'll just point out that Taiwanese of all kinds fought for home rule as they saw fit, and these causes have origins that far pre-date any KMT or US presence on Taiwan. 


In Conclusion, You Don't Make Sense

I mean, I get it. I get the desire to blame everything on the US. It kinda, sorta, if you look at it through a kaleidoscope, seems like you're standing up for the rest of the world by doing so. I get the hatred of the Nationalists -- I hate them too. What I don't understand is the distorted interpretation of history in which all Taiwanese would want to be Chinese if not for the Big Bad United States. 

It just doesn't make sense. There wasn't that much enthusiasm for the Qing, uprisings continued well into the Japanese era, and the KMT were absolutely not supporters of "Taiwan independence", to the point that it's offensive to imply they were. If the US funded or aided anyone in all these centuries of Taiwanese history, it was the KMT -- the brutalizers of those who fought for Taiwan in the 20th century and continue to crap on Taiwanese independence.

Regardless, the idea of a distinct Taiwanese identity and the notion of 'home rule' all pre-date any era in which US involvement in stoking Taiwan "independence sentiment" or some sort of invented rivalry with China would have made a lick of sense. 

Today, this belief that "everything I don't like is the CIA's fault" just looks bad. If you assume that this is a sort of splittist/color revolution thing, you have to assume as well that it's a view held by bands of violent, passionate "separatists" willing to, I dunno, Molotov their own government to get what they want.

But that's not the case. Most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, most don't want Taiwan to be a part of China in any sense, and most view the current status quo as sufficient qualification to consider Taiwan independent. I don't think there's enough money in the world to control public opinion that tightly, after decades of KMT-dictated schooling in which Taiwanese were instructed to accept that they were Chinese.

Even if it were possible, it's simply a racist take to assume it's true. People have agency. Not just the US or China, or the groups you do like, but even the ones you don't support. Taiwanese people are not jarheads just walking around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for someone else to tell them who they are. Quite the opposite, a point which has been proven over and over and over again with every iteration of the long battle for identity and recognition.

So maybe, just maybe, all you "it's the CIA!" folks could sit down, shut up, and examine how unrelentingly racist your take sounds.