Although there is no historical evidence that it was invented by the Chinese, it may be appropriate to note that one of the oldest forms of coercion is known as “Chinese water torture.” By continuously dripping water on a victim’s head over an extended period of time, it is said that the technique can drive a victim insane.
Nowadays, it seems like those drops of water are being applied to Taiwan’s forehead, with each droplet taxing the nation’s identity a little more each time. What’s worse is that — like a real victim of torture — Taiwanese appear to be strapped to a chair and fated to a long period of suffering. And the torturer is a tag team: the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Drip: “Chinese Taipei.” Drop: “Chunghwa Post.” Drip: No WHO or UN application under the name “Taiwan.” Drop: Our elected president is but a “Mr.” Drip: The possible renaming of National Democracy Memorial Hall, after the murderous dictator the monument was built for. And drop: In the Dominican Republic over the weekend, where President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) delegation was referred to — for all to see and without as much as a complaint — as “China, Taiwan.”
This latest instance, however, may just be too much to bear, as it was not only unacceptable but also an insult to the intelligence. Queried by reporters about the name, a Taiwanese embassy official in Santo Domingo (the ambassador could not be bothered to meet the media) said that “China, Taiwan” had no ideological connotation because when people in the Dominican Republic say “China,” they mean “Taiwan.”
National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi (蘇起), who was part of the delegation and who himself seems to find it difficult to differentiate between the two countries, echoed those comments.
Not only are we supposed to swallow that asinine explanation, but Su and the official’s comments were insulting to the people in our allied country, who are said to be unable to tell the difference between Taiwan and the country next door, in the glare of the Olympic Games media frenzy as we speak, 267 times the size of Taiwan and whose population is about 57 times bigger. To think that people in the Caribbean cannot tell the difference between the two countries is condescending and fails to explain how using “China, Taiwan” could help those supposedly ignorant people differentiate between Taipei and Beijing.
At the minimum, it is no way to treat a diplomatic ally who has stood by us for more than 60 years. At the worst, it is consistent with a blurring of the lines the Ma administration has undertaken and the confusing signals that make it increasingly difficult for the rest of the world to tell the difference between Taiwan and China.
If those signals continue, the world could very well reach the conclusion that Taiwan just doesn’t care whether people can tell the difference between the two countries, which can only result in further isolation for Taiwanese.
Before the penultimate drop drives us insane, let’s give those straps a good yank and get up from that chair. The torturers have had enough fun.
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
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they