At the opening ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival on Oct. 23, the head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping (江平), adopted the swagger of a “communist bandit,” demanding that the Taiwanese delegation should have its title changed to “Chinese Taipei” or “Taiwan, China” and be merged with the Chinese delegation.
This was certainly not, as members of the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have claimed, an isolated incident. Rather, it is the grave consequence of accepting the so-called “one China” principle. All China is doing is cashing the check that Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) wrote.
Of course, Taiwanese condemn Jiang’s rudeness and China’s arrogance. All the more worthy of condemnation, though, is the Ma administration for its bungling incompetence in failing to insist that Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to its people and instead accepting the “one China” principle that means Taiwan is a part of China. If this principle is accepted, it leaves no leeway for saying that the Republic of China (ROC) is a sovereign state, or that Taiwan is a sovereign state, or that the nation’s sovereignty lies with its people.
Nonetheless, even before the Tokyo film festival spat was over, bureaucrats from the Ma administration chimed in with an old lie that has become a joke after being repeated so many times in the past 60 years. As a Government Information Office (GIO) press release about the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) dispute put it: “The mainland remains within the constitutionally defined territory of the Republic of China. So, of course, we cannot voice any disagreement with the mainland authorities’ claim that the Diaoyutai Islands are China’s national territory.”
Put simply, this means that “one China” means the ROC. It really takes a convoluted mind and a great deal of nerve to say such things and keep a straight face. If it were true that the ROC was the one, genuine China and that its territory extends to all of China, then the government headed by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in Beijing would be a bogus one, or at best a local government. In that case, Frank Chen (陳志寬), director of the GIO’s Department of Motion Pictures, who headed the Taiwanese delegation to the Tokyo film festival, could have told Jiang Ping to change his delegation’s title to “Chinese mainland” and enter the ceremony directly behind the ROC delegation.
If the ROC is the real China, then when Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) came to Taiwan he should have been arrested as a “communist bandit” and locked up in Tucheng (土城) together with independence advocate, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). So why, in contrast, did we see Ma ordering ROC flags to be hidden away during Chen Yunlin’s visit and not complaining when the Chinese envoy addressed him as plain “you” instead of calling him President Ma?
Nowhere else in the world does anyone accept silly notions like “China is part of the ROC,” “China is part of Taiwan” or “the People’s Republic of China is part of the ROC.” As far as Taiwanese are concerned, the most important thing is to insist that Taiwan is not part of China.
No one understands the KMT’s lies better than the KMT itself. On Nov. 23, 1949, former Shanghai mayor Wu Kuo-chen (吳國楨), who had fled to Taiwan, confided to then-US consul-general in Taipei John MacDonald that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) had written off China after Guangzhou fell to the communists and that Chiang’s most recent visit to Chongqing had been to preside over the China’s “burial service.”
That “burial service” took place six decades ago. Does Ma really think anyone still believes the old lies?
James Wang is a media commentator in Taipei.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
RSS