Anyone with a minimal understanding of democratic values and the ethnic diversity of this country would shy away from promoting ethnic nationalism. But Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) is apparently not one of them.
“One consensus between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT is that both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait are all yan huang zisun [炎黃子孫, descendents of emperors Yan and Huang] and shoulder a common responsibility to revive Chinese culture,” Wu said in a speech at Nanjing University in China on Sunday.
“We belong to the same culture, and such is the might that glues the relations between the two sides of the Strait that it cannot be obliterated,” he said.
Wu said both sides of the Strait would use Chinese culture as the foundation to promote cross-strait exchanges and integration in areas such as education, academics, sports and arts and to “enhance the common existence and pride of [the Chinese] nation.”
Wu’s speech reveals a pride in Han Chinese “superiority” as well as a lack of understanding of Taiwan’s diverse culture.
Wu must be unaware that a genetic study by Marie Lin (林媽利), director of Mackay Memorial Hospital’s immunohematory reference laboratory, suggests that although only 1.5 percent of people in Taiwan are Aborigines, 85 percent of Hoklo and Hakka in Taiwan are genetically linked to Austronesians through hundreds of years of intermarriage with Aborigines.
Aside from a history of colonization by Dutch, Spanish and Japanese that has left its own mark, this nation consists of Hoklo, Hakka and Aborigines along with a growing population of immigrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Indonesia and many other countries. National Immigration Agency statistics show that one out of eight newlywed couples are cross-border couples and one out of four newborns have an immigrant parent.
“Chinese culture” is undeniably one part of Taiwan’s culture today, but Taiwan has created a culture that is rich and diverse.
In 2007, then-premier Yu Shyi-kun coined the term “Chinese Taiwanese” to describe Taiwanese of Han ethnicity. Then-KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) attacked Yu, accusing him of harming ethnic harmony.
“How cruel are they to continue their attempts to divide instead of pursuing unity,” Ma said at the time.
Ma’s failure to chide Wu for neglecting the other ethnic components of Taiwan’s diverse culture should come as no surprise given the KMT’s reputation for double standards.
Wu also described what he said was a trend in Taiwan to eliminate all references and links to Chinese culture. But Wu told his Chinese audience that such an effort would never succeed because it went against mainstream opinion.
Wu got it wrong once again. There is no groundswell for eliminating all Chinese influence in Taiwan, simply efforts to reduce the over-riding role given to it during the KMT’s authoritarian era, just as there have been bids to limit the KMT’s linkage of the party to the state.
The ultimate goal of exalting Han blood ties between Taiwan and China is unification.
Taiwan is Taiwan, not China. Taiwanese take pride in their unique cultural blend. Taiwan’s future must be democratically determined by its people, not considered a foregone conclusion because of the racially conceived “China-centric” view of the KMT.
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) has said that the armed forces must reach a high level of combat readiness by 2027. That date was not simply picked out of a hat. It has been bandied around since 2021, and was mentioned most recently by US Senator John Cornyn during a question to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday. It first surfaced during a hearing in the US in 2021, when then-US Navy admiral Philip Davidson, who was head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said: “The threat [of military
RSS