During Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, which is observed by China’s Uighurs, the Chinese government used the promotion of Chinese culture as an excuse to force students to eat zongzi, glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves that are traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Threatening students who did not eat zongzi, local officials told them that their families would be punished.
In terms of Beijing’s use of state violence to persecute people for their religious beliefs and culture, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
On Monday, when questioning Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Icyang Parod in the legislature in Taipei, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) used an extremely disparaging tone of voice as he mentioned the minister’s name and said that it implied chucao (出草) — the Chinese interpretation of a phrase in many Aboriginal languages that describes a head-hunting tradition.
To openly adopt an attitude dripping of Han chauvinism in the halls of the legislature to ridicule Aborigines is no different from the way the Chinese government treats ethnic minorities in China.
The Republic of China (ROC) government has been in exile in Taiwan for almost 70 years. In addition to the past language policy prohibiting the use of the Hoklo language [commonly known as Taiwanese] and culture — which covers a majority of Taiwanese — the ROC rulers of that period also persecuted Aboriginal culture.
Last year, a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to Bunun hunter Tama Talum — for possession of a rifle and for killing a wild boar and a Formosan serow in 2013 — was upheld by the Supreme Court, but fortunately, an extraordinary appeal against the sentence is to be filed.
However, for a long time, the dominating values of the Han people and the zhonghua minzu — Chinese nation — have controlled all ethnic groups in Taiwan. Aborigines have been forced to learn Mandarin and take Chinese names, as well as give up their traditional ways of life. This longstanding persecution continues to this day.
As the government is preparing to initiate a procedure of transitional justice for Aborigines, they are being ridiculed by a lawmaker from the opposition KMT in the legislature. The fact that the party that had been in power for many years is oblivious to the past and even tries to block such legislation makes it clear that deep-rooted bad habits continue among ethnic Chinese in Taiwan.
The KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have long promoted Han chauvinism, ignored the ethnic identity of non-Han ethnic groups, grabbed the land of ethnic minorities and even attempted to wipe out cultures and beliefs to boost the impression of fundamental ethnic unity. The actions of the KMT and the CCP are so similar that they almost seem to be agreed upon.
Hopefully, President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration will promote Taiwan-centered education and avoid being trapped in Chinese ethnic thinking. If it does not, Aborigines will face yet another great calamity.
Lin Yu-lun is deputy secretary-general of the Northern Taiwan Society.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers