The government this week stood strong in the face of Beijing’s enmity by reminding the world that “Taiwan is not a province that is governed by the People’s Republic of China [PRC].”
The Presidential Office’s message came in response to Chinese National Health and Family Planning Commission Chairperson Li Bin (李斌) blaming the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for Taiwan not being allowed to attend this year’s World Health Assembly.
It was the DPP that had set the barrier that has impeded Taiwan’s participation by destroying the goodwill basis for “the continuous attendance of the Taiwan region,” Li said.
That sounds like the excuse heard from men who beat their wives: The woman had provoked the abuse by making them angry or failing to behave according to some arbitrary diktats, therefore she deserved to be humiliated, beaten or killed.
Even societies at large have echoed that refrain, teaching girls and young women that they are at fault if they are assaulted, beaten or raped; that it is because of the clothes they wear, the things they say, the activities they enjoy.
At the most basic level, the message is that they are at fault because they exist.
Taiwan has had to bear the brunt of such “advice” for far too long. Everything the government does, or this nation’s people do, is too often viewed only from the perspective of how it will look to Beijing.
Such a viewpoint carries with it the implicit, sometimes overt, message that everything would be all right if Taiwan would just stop doing whatever action it is that Beijing might not like. Rare is the wire agency story, opinion piece or academic journal article about developments in Taiwan that does not include some form of the phrase “in a move sure to anger Beijing.”
Of course, Taiwan is not the only one. Coverage of the actions of the governments of Japan, South Korea and the US, to name but a few, often include the same phrase.
Having to spend your life silently tip-toeing around, often giving up your own identity by foregoing your own needs and desires to avoid drawing the attention — and ire — of an abusive individual is no way to live.
Giving in to a bully does not resolve a problem, it simply encourages the bully to become more abusive and to extend their abusive ways to other victims.
Confronting a bully is scary, especially if the bully is much larger, but it can be done. Thanks are in order for those nations, big or small, that this week were willing to stand up to Beijing’s tactics in Geneva, Switzerland, including St Vincent and the Grenadines, Palau, Burkina Faso, Australia, Germany and the US.
As Vincentian Minister of Health Robert Browne said, it is “simply absurd” for China to claim Taiwan as a province, when Taiwan demonstrates all the conditions of a sovereign nation, including an autonomous government and free elections.
Standing up for one’s principles is not always easy; it is often a thankless effort that is costly in terms of family relationships and friendships. Just ask the families of the hundreds of lawyers that China has detained — and tortured — over the past two years just for doing their jobs, or nations that have lost trade and business deals for actions that have upset Beijing or “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.”
Knowing the costs, Taiwan is willing to stand up for its right to exist, for its breathing room on the international stage, and that — wire agencies, please note — is sure to anger Beijing.
So go ahead and say so in your articles; it is, after all, a fact. Just do not feel the need to mention it in the first couple of paragraphs. Bury it at the bottom, as an afterthought, for that is where it belongs.
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