It’s easy to lose track of the number of occasions in the media where one encounters language that seeks to create a moral equivalence in the Taiwan Strait. The conflict, as anyone who bothers to learn the facts will quickly realize, is not symmetrical and does not involve two belligerents. Only one side, China, threatens the other, Taiwan, through economic or political absorption — or, in the extreme, war.
Still, even in the supposedly apolitical realms of, say, education and culture, one often comes upon language that not only politicizes the matter, but also portrays Taiwan as the aggressor or unjust, irresponsible party.
Our exhibit today is an article by the government-owned Central News Agency (CNA) published on Saturday — and later carried in this newspaper (“Policy on China students needs change: experts,” March 26, page 3) that discusses the prevailing divisions among Taiwanese on how to treat Chinese students, who were last year for the first time allowed to enroll full-time in local schools.
Following a series of uncontroversial and self-evident remarks about the need to make the Taiwanese education system more global and competitive, the article turns to Yu Zelin (余澤霖), a Chinese student at the Chinese Culture University, who voices a number of complaints about the system.
After bemoaning the fact that students like him were afraid to see a doctor when they got sick or did not dare get sick, as they could end up paying expensive medical bills because of their exclusion from the national health insurance plan, Yu then complains that Chinese students’ hard work at school is not rewarded, as they are not allowed to receive scholarships from the Taiwanese government.
The article then says that the environment of free speech in Taiwan can create pressure on young people in their 20s thanks to “ignorant” and “xenophobic” comments on the Internet, such as “swim back if you’re upset,” directed at Chinese students by some Taiwanese (remarks that pale in comparison with a recent one I received in which the anonymous writer recommended I should “gtfo of Taiwan”).
We should note that the complaint about free speech had no attribution. We do not know whether this is still Yu talking, or the reporter or the CNA editor as a “father figure,” perhaps speaking on behalf of the government (and which one, I could fairly ask). Free speech, furthermore, is portrayed negatively in the article, as it allows for “ignorance” and “xenophobia” (as if societies where free speech isn’t exercised, such as in China, for example, did not have media or youth that spew their own xenophobia).
Taiwanese who do not agree with state assets sponsoring students from a country that threatens them and denies their existence are “ignorant” and “xenophobes,” or ostensibly “pressured” to adopt language that reflects such views. And yet, the article remains silent about the racist, xenophobic and authoritarian policies of the Chinese government and about the Chinese students in Taiwan who, on some occasions, have verbally assailed, or completely overtook, their Taiwanese counterparts or lecturers such as Chinese activist Wang Dan (王丹).
The article is not done with us yet. An academic, who we are told studies cross-strait affairs, but who remains unnamed, tells us that Taipei’s current policy on Chinese students is “uncivilized.”
So now Taiwanese are not only ignorant and xenophobic, they’re also “uncivilized.” Whereas, of course, negating the separate existence of 23 million people, threatening them with hundreds upon hundreds of ballistic missiles and an increasingly formidable military, or engaging in a hostile takeover by force of trade and investment, is perfectly civilized. This, of course, is not to mention the Chinese Communist Party’s civilized treatment of Tibetans, Uighurs, Falun Gong practitioners, prisoners of conscience, rights activists, dissidents, lawyers, environmentalists, investigative journalists — all of whom, we can assume, are as “uncivilized” as those pesky Taiwanese.
Voicing opposition to policies that were imposed without proper consultation with the legislature and the public is not, as the CNA article implies, xenophobic, ignorant or uncivilized. It is a right exercised by citizens of a democratic society in which free speech is not only permissible, but sine qua non.
J. Michael Cole is deputy news editor at the Taipei Times.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS