A protest can't be very serious when even the riot police are relaxed, sitting behind a hastily erected razor-wire barrier "smoking and joking."
So it was with bemusement that I watched a group of Taiwanese independence supporters stage a small protest between the Legislative Yuan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday in Taipei. I didn't have time to get all of the details about who these people were or what they were protesting about, and an intense downpour quickly scattered the demonstrators better than the police could ever have done. In fact, the protest was so small -- only a couple hundred people -- and the rain so hard that barely any media showed up.
I watched a lone cameraman from TTV walk around, grow bored and then hop in a van when it was clear that the protesters had no intention of charging the razor wire or trying to drive their sound truck through the mass of riot police, a la demagogue-traitor Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) back in 2004.
Is it wrong of me to note that unificationists just seem more ready to turn to violence than independence activists? I guess that this is part of the reason that, when I'm in a taxi, I'd rather have a betel-nut chewing "Taiwan duli" activist with a Taiyu medley blaring on the stereo -- even if he is straight from Hualien and doesn't know the first thing about the streets of Taipei. Such a driver doesn't make me feel nearly as uncomfortable as I do when I'm being chauffeured about by a clean-cut guy with impeccable Beijinghua, wearing a button-down collar, a fleece vest and a baseball cap (why do the pan-blues sport the vest-and-cap combo? Is it some kind of code? A secret society? Some kind of Mainlander Illuminati?) and sporting a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) logo on his windshield.
I know we have a democracy now, but there is just something about all of that worn-out symbolism that reeks of oppression, massacres, torture and summary executions.
Speaking of China, I was intensely amused by the recent "summit" between the US and Chinese presidents. It was with great glee that I watched Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) carefully choreographed trip to Washington quickly turn into a debacle. Having the March of the Volunteers, the People's Republic of China's national anthem, described as the Republic of China's national anthem was funny enough. But watching George W. Bush manhandling Hu -- who appeared to be hiding a Dong Feng-II ballistic missile up his ... um ... Special Administrative Region, as it were -- was hilarious.
And then Falun Gong struck.
Boy, I don't know what it is about these guys, but they're everywhere. Maybe all of that taijiquan and qigong really does give them magical powers -- the ability to appear within 50m of any Chicom official and make a scene. Watching pathologist Wang Wenyi (
The anchor on "Taiwanese" cable station TVBS was quick to say that it couldn't be a mistake that White House security took so long to respond, but that's a bit too conspiratorial for me. Still, at least commentators on both CNN and the BBC World Service pointed out that Wang could never have protested in such a way in China. Thanks, guys; I couldn't have figured that one out for myself.
But there were some people who had insightful things to say about the "Boo-Hoo summit," as the local media have taken to calling it. China expert Ross Terrill, writing in the Wall Street Journal, delivered what was in my estimation a well-aimed smackdown of Beijing and its kleptocrats: "We should, above all, avoid wishful thinking about the Chinese state. We should be aware of the asymmetry in cultural exchanges. We should resist the Chinese divide-and-rule policies by a stance of solidarity with those whom Beijing singles out for attack or exclusion. We should talk back every time the Communist Party mocks the freedoms of the US or denies the repression of its own rule."
For all the faults of my beloved Formosa, at least I can be thankful that we have managed to shed the autocratic ways that Beijing loves so well. But Terrill is right about how the Chinese Communist Party has sought to divide its enemies -- including Taiwanese. Walking by yesterday's protest, and thinking about Wang's "outburst," the thing that struck me the most was the sheer tolerance shown by the authorities. Now, the National Police Agency isn't my favorite institution, but they're no People's Armed Police, ever ready to keep the peasant/worker/comrade-of-convenience in his place: under the iron heel of oppression.
Toward the end of his piece, Terrill wrote: "Our quarrel over the manipulation of news and views is not with Chinese culture or people, but with the Communist Party state. It manipulates because that was its political upbringing. It strokes the feathers of sycophants and ditches independent spirits because that has been the Leninist way in every country where a Communist Party has held a monopoly of power. ... Political systems do matter."
They most certainly do. And it would be nice if we here in Taiwan could keep ours. But maybe we could do something about the scooters.
Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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