Let's face it: Despite its best diplomatic efforts and a just cause, Taiwan has been losing the battle for international recognition.
Strive as it might, no amount of moral suasion is likely to change anything at the UN or in the ivory tower of global diplomacy. For when it comes to making a place for Taiwan, what is required most on the part of those who would grant Taiwan that recognition is imagination -- and how precious little there is of that at the UN and in the foreign ministries of this world.
Nothing better exemplifies this than the customs officer in an otherwise vibrant democracy who, upon perusing a foreigner's passport, asks him how long he has lived in China. Or, worse still, for that same customs officer to meet an indignant response to the effect that the foreigner has lived in Taiwan, not China, for almost two years, with a general shrug of indifference.
This calls for a shift in approach, a brand awareness campaign that starts from the bottom up rather than the top down and focuses on a different customer -- people.
Forget letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon or missives to the General Assembly, as they are so beholden to narrow interests as to make them incapable of summoning the imagination that is required to address the problem.
But much work needs to be done to make this new strategy effective, for as every expatriate who has lived in Taiwan can testify, people back home know precious little about it. Ask anyone to locate Taiwan on a map, or whether it is officially a country, or a province of China, or a member of the UN. Absent that knowledge, it becomes a feat to imagine what it must be like to be Taiwanese -- and to empathize with them, let alone care about their fate.
This dearth of imagination, in turn, is the worst enemy of a people, as it does not allow for the emotional bond that compels individuals -- and in turn governments -- to act for the sake of someone else. Such a lack allows for all types of transgressions to be visited upon people, from genocide in Rwanda to ethnic cleansing in Sudan. Or Beijing's growing repression of Taiwan.
So what can be done? One secret weapon, perhaps, lies in the expatriates who live in Taiwan who have come to know and love its people and appreciate its democratic accomplishments, and who wish for it to succeed. All can mobilize to act as ambassadors. When they visit home, for one, they should never allow a customs officer to belittle Taiwan by ignoring its existence. Instead, they should express their outrage and deliver the necessary correction. The worst that can happen is that their luggage will be more thoroughly searched because they rubbed the officer the wrong way -- a temporary setback that, in the grand scheme of things, is minor compared with what Taiwanese would have to endure should Beijing have the upper hand in the battle for identity.
It is no coincidence that courses on how to react in hostage-taking situations teach participants to show pictures of their spouses and children so that an emotional bond can be created with their captors. By giving himself a face, a history, the captive is making it more difficult for the hostage-taker to treat him as a faceless individual who can be subjected to violence, or someone whose fate can be ignored.
Friends of Taiwan should therefore speak up to give its people a face, for they are indeed hostages on a grand scale.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Last week, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) unveiled the location of Nvidia’s new Taipei headquarters and announced plans to build the world’s first large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer in Taiwan. In Taipei, Huang’s announcement was welcomed as a milestone for Taiwan’s tech industry. However, beneath the excitement lies a significant question: Can Taiwan’s electricity infrastructure, especially its renewable energy supply, keep up with growing demand from AI chipmaking? Despite its leadership in digital hardware, Taiwan lags behind in renewable energy adoption. Moreover, the electricity grid is already experiencing supply shortages. As Taiwan’s role in AI manufacturing expands, it is critical that