Wansui (萬歲, “long live,” literally “10,000 years old”) is the most feudal, hypocritical and cheap phrase. No state, government or dynasty exists for 10,000 years.
Still, members of the postwar generation that received party-state-dictated education share a deeply felt memory of chanting “long live the Republic of China (ROC)” together with Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and cheering “long live President Chiang,” despite not understanding his Ningbo dialect of Mandarin Chinese.
Many years have passed since Chiang died in 1975. In China’s history books, the ROC existed for 38 years, one year longer than the Sui Dynasty (隋朝), (581-618) and not even comparable to the Qing (清朝), (1644-1911) that Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) wanted to expel and that ruled for 267 years, or the Yuan (元朝), (1279-1368), which ruled for 97 years.
Unbelievably, even after Taiwan’s democratization, some people still chant the decades-old slogan “long live the ROC,” using it as their political platform.
For the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a foreign party that never acclimatized itself to Taiwan, the habit of using this cheap slogan is so ingrained that its presidential candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), says he does not want votes from people who support Taiwanese independence.
Han’s statement may make him sound strong, but it is misdirected. When Han was just two years old, Chiang signed a joint communique with the US, in which he renounced the use of force to “reconquer the mainland.” That was when Chiang’s version of Taiwanese independence started.
At the time, Chiang emphasized that he was China’s legitimate ruler and said it was his sacred mission to “reconquer the mainland and liberate and rescue fellow compatriots.” Then-US secretary of state John Foster Dulles made it plain to Chiang that he did not have to renounce the “mission,” but should not try to accomplish it by force.
Without US military support, Chiang lacked the strength to retake China, and the US made it clear that it would not use its armed forces to help him at the risk of starting a war.
To maintain the facade, Chiang could not publicly renounce the use of force, so he resorted to vague language, stating: “The task of recovering the mainland will be accomplished by 70 percent political and 30 percent military effort.” He also said he would not return to China unless a revolution broke out and a new regime invited the KMT government back.
After Chiang died, his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) was determined to protect Taiwan, so he proposed the “three noes” policy of no contact, no compromise and no negotiation to avoid surrender. From this point, the ROC title became a fig leaf for the exiled KMT government’s monopoly on power and its refusal to democratize, but Taiwan’s eventual democratization ended this charade.
The definition of “Taiwanese independence” is ambiguous, but everyone knows that it means to “refuse unification.” If the phony politicians who chant “long live the ROC” had real backbone, they would say: “I don’t want those who oppose Taiwan’s annexation by China to vote for me, I only want the votes of those who want unification.”
James Wang is a senior journalist.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
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
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of