In 1871, 142 years ago, 54 sailors from the Ryukyu Kingdom were shipwrecked on the southern tip of Taiwan and beheaded by Aborigines. Japan took the matter up with the Qing court in China, on the pretext of wanting to protect the civilians of the Ryukyu Kingdom. The Manchu government in Beijing had little experience with international affairs and agreed to allow the Japanese to launch a punitive expedition to Taiwan to “discipline the unsubjugated foreigners” in retaliation for the killings.
This led to the Japanese invasion of Taiwan that we now refer to as the Mudan Incident of 1874. The matter was eventually settled by the governments of Japan and China: The Japanese forces left Taiwan, but the Japanese made the Manchu Qing concede that, in their invasion of Taiwan, they had acted in the interests of the subjects of Ryukyu. This would later become the basis for Japan’s claim to the Ryukyu Islands and their incorporation into Japan’s territory as Okinawa Prefecture, following the fall of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Siaoliouciou (小琉球), or “Lesser Ryukyu,” is controlled by Taiwan, administered as Liouciou Township (琉球) in Pingtung County. The fishing boat fired upon by a Philippine coast guard vessel on May 9, killing one of the fishermen on board, is registered in Siaoliouciou. This is an incident involving Taiwan and the Philippines, but China has also seized it as an opportunity to protest to the Philippine government, ostensibly in the interest of “protecting its civilians.”
Of course, Beijing’s intervention is predicated on its “one China” stance, wherein it holds that Taiwan is a part of China. Otherwise, it would not have had the audacity to get involved. Should China take this further and choose to deal with the troublesome Philippine “foreigners” in the “interests of the civilians” of Taiwan, who is to say that Taiwan — to all intents and purposes an independent country — would not go the way of the Ryukyu Kingdom?
It is only natural that the shooting by an official Philippine vessel of a Taiwanese national — the sort of behavior one would expect of pirates — has caused much anger in Taiwan. Still, the government’s dissatisfaction with the way the Philippine government has framed its apology left me wondering whether I should laugh or cry. Do President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his buddies not hold that there is only “one China” and that Taiwan is a part of China? So when the Philippines offer an apology in line with its observation of the “one China” formula, does this not also comply with Ma’s “one China” principle?
Perhaps Ma would like to qualify his umbrage with “when we say ‘one China,’ we mean the Republic of China [ROC].” Ha! Dream on, Ma. Tell me: Does the Philippines have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan under the utterly meaningless name the “ROC”? Its formal diplomatic relations are with the “one China” of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), represented by the government in Beijing. Based on Manila’s interpretation of “one China,” it is only reasonable that the job of apologizing to the Taiwanese falls to the personal representative of the president. Ma should be privately ecstatic that the Philippines made no official inter-governmental, state-to-state apology to the PRC, which it recognizes as the “one China.” Neither Ma, nor his entourage — all of whom advocate “one China” — nor the just less than 7 million people who voted for Ma in last year’s presidential election and therefore implicitly support “one China,” have a leg to stand on in complaining about how the Philippines apologized.
Ma’s fabricated “one China” will only make it more likely that the real, internationally recognized “one China” will annex Taiwan. Taiwan was able to impose 11 sanctions on the Philippines because of its de facto status as an independent nation; it had nothing to do with the idea of “one China.”
I recently heard of a rather worrying, reactionary idea, that if our own government lacks the wherewithal to protect our fishermen, then we may as well unify with “the mainland” and let Beijing take care of things. This is the kind of ignorant and scary idea that the psychologist and social theorist Erich Fromm wrote about in his book Escape from Freedom. People, unable to bear their own helplessness, would rather cede their liberty and rights to an overarching power. This is the kind of mentality that enables despots and dictators to rule.
Are these people unaware of the relentless suppression and violence visited upon Tibetans and the secessionist Uighur group the East Turkestan Liberation Organization, under the dictatorial regime in China? Within this context, the barbaric action of the Philippine vessel pales in comparison. And did they not see how the authorities in Beijing recently issued an order prohibiting university professors from teaching the universal values of freedom and democracy? Only those with a slave mentality would want to live in a country like that.
The other day China made noises to the effect that the combined forces of the People’s Liberation Army and the Taiwanese military would be sufficient to shock and awe the Philippines. I dare say that if China and Taiwan establish formal diplomatic relations and combine their armed forces they would not only overwhelm the Philippines, they could even take on the US. Is that possible? I wonder if China would like to find out.
Lee Hsiao-feng is a professor at National Taipei University’s Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture.
Translated by Paul Cooper
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS