President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is in full electioneering mode, focusing on the issue of national identity and saying in Chinese, “I am Taiwanese.”
One can imagine his soul shrieking as he uttered those words, but when he said it in English he chose not to use the word “Formosan” or the word that came into common usage in the 1960s, “Taiwanese.”
Instead he declared himself to be an “R.O.C.er,” an invented phrase that is neither here nor there, a play on Republic of China (ROC), which could also be pronounced like “rocker.”
For those in the know, the idea is that he is a citizen of the ROC, but for outsiders it just looks like a harmless pun.
For Beijing, his master, the phrase indicates his adherence to the concept of “one China” and essentially says that he really belongs to China.
Ma was born in Hong Kong, but few people from Hong Kong would respond in this way to their current circumstances.
The former British colony was “returned” by the UK government to China, but the vast majority still consider themselves to be “Hong Kong people” (香港人).
Taiwan has got absolutely nothing to do with China. We do not belong to China. It is a matter of preference whether you call yourself Taiwanese, or some ill-defined, wishy-washy definition of “Chinese.”
The real question is where the small minority who consider themselves to be “Chinese” get off accusing people who say they are Taiwanese of “mincing words over ethnicity.”
There are people out there who think they are really smart, who believe that this distinction is not really all that important, imagining themselves to be something in-between, or simultaneously Chinese and Taiwanese.
This is simply not the case. Whether you call yourself Chinese or Taiwanese is of huge significance in an international sense.
On March 11, 1972, an article by the journalist Milton Viorst titled “Has Anyone Asked the Taiwanese?” appeared in the Washington Post.
In the article, the author asked then-US president Richard Nixon on what basis he claimed in the Shanghai Communique that “all Chinese people” on both sides of the Taiwan Strait had agreed that there was only one China and that Taiwan was a part of China.
This question pointed to the different perspectives of Taiwanese and Chinese and their understanding of national identification.
John Holdridge, who was present at the drafting of the communique, said that the Americans had used the phrase “all Chinese people,” and not “all people,” in recognition of the fact that there were those in Taiwan who neither counted themselves as Chinese nor agreed that Taiwan was a part of China.
The incontrovertible facts of the matter are that neither of the two “Taiwanese” presidents, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), agreed that Taiwan was part of China and that “Chinese” Ma accepts the “one China” principle and that Taiwan is a part of China.
Internationally, it has already been established that “Taiwanese” is distinct from “Chinese,” and for Taiwanese to refer to themselves as such, or indeed to be referred to by others in that way, should feel right and natural.
If Ma still feels a bit uncomfortable with the term, I hope that the next time he shows his face in public with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), the two of them will hold hands and declare, “We’re a pair of R.O.C.ers.”
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
RSS