Chinese state media on Tuesday criticized US talk show host John Oliver for a satirical sketch that offered a brief history of Taiwan and explained its political situation.
That a US talk show that delivers its message through satire discussed Taiwan highlights the ridiculous nature of Taiwan’s plight — in which Taiwanese cannot represent themselves at international organizations due to pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), despite the nation never having been ruled by the PRC.
In an op-ed, the Global Times said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are damaging the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, claiming it was a situation that most Taiwanese want to maintain. It also accused the US of pushing “autocracy and ideological values” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Clearly the piece was written for English-language speakers living in China where access to international media is limited, not for a global audience that has seen China send dozens of warplanes near Taiwan over the past several months without any provocation. It also fails to mention how the PRC has been threatening Southeast Asian nations over the past several years by militarizing the South China Sea.
It is understandable that Chinese state media would twist the facts, even in English. What is perhaps even more telling is that Beijing felt the need to respond at all to a satirical sketch, highlighting its fragility in the face of facts and the importance it places in maintaining its disinformation campaign.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is threatened by anything that challenges its official stance, which is vastly different from the situation in Taiwan. The CCP is unable to fathom the idea of free thought and dissent, which is highlighted in the Global Times, when it cites as a failure of Taiwan’s democracy fighting in the legislature in November last year over US pork imports.
The piece argued that Tsai decided to import US pork despite opposition, and that she threatened the health of Taiwanese. This demonstrates the CCP’s lack of understanding about how such decisions are made in a democracy, and overlooks that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) opposition to the policy is acceptable only because Taiwan is a democracy. The KMT is bringing the issue to a referendum in December, when the public is to vote on whether to reverse the decision. Perhaps the CCP could give examples of when its policies were challenged, or when its people voted on government policy.
The Chinese government would have been better off not responding at all to Oliver’s sketch. In doing so, it emphasized its confusion over facts, the illegitimacy of its position and its weakness in the face of free speech.
The growing support for Taiwan internationally shows that as people around the world experience Chinese aggression themselves, they are more aware of Taiwan’s plight and the importance of supporting it. The most powerful examples of this are Taiwan’s friends in the Czech Republic, France and elsewhere who were personally threatened by China for simply visiting Taiwan.
Even in the non-political arena, Taiwanese diver Mia Hou (侯一明) had her flag removed during a competition in Cyprus, which prompted divers from 11 other countries to remove their own flags in solidarity.
China’s baseless response to Oliver’s truthful and entertaining take on Taiwan highlights the CCP’s weakness and vulnerability. The DPP and other parties that have Taiwan’s best interests in mind should encourage more international programs to discuss the country’s plight.
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
The Hong Kong government on Monday gazetted sweeping amendments to the implementation rules of Article 43 of its National Security Law. There was no legislative debate, no public consultation and no transition period. By the time the ink dried on the gazette, the new powers were already in force. This move effectively bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The rules were enacted by the Hong Kong chief executive, in conjunction with the Committee for Safeguarding National Security — a body shielded from judicial review and accountable only to Beijing. What is presented as “procedural refinement” is, in substance, a shift away from
Taiwan no longer wants to merely manufacture the chips that power artificial intelligence (AI). It aims to build the software, platforms and services that run on them. Ten major AI infrastructure projects, a national cloud computing center in Tainan, the sovereign language model Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine, five targeted industry verticals — from precision medicine to smart agriculture — and the goal of ranking among the world’s top five in computing power by 2040: The roadmap from “Silicon Island” to “Smart Island” is drawn. The question is whether the western plains, where population, industry and farmland are concentrated, have the water and
The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates of this year have placed Beijing in a profound strategic dilemma. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) prepares for a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump, the traditional power dynamics of the China-Japan-US triangle have been destabilized by the diplomatic success of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington. For the Chinese leadership, the anxiety is two-fold: There is a visceral fear of being encircled by a hardened security alliance, and a secondary risk of being left in a vulnerable position by a transactional deal between Washington and Tokyo that might inadvertently empower Japan
RSS