On Jan. 2, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) gave a speech in Beijing to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1979 “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” by the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress. Xi said that the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and called on Taiwanese to be “decent Chinese.”
Following this line of reasoning, British Prime Minister Theresa May would be able to loudly proclaim to the rest of the world that the people of the US, Australia and New Zealand are British.
She would also be able to urge people in those nations to be “decent British” and push for national unification. She would be able to do this although the Maori of New Zealand, the Aborigines of Australia and the Native Americans of the US have no relation at all to the Anglo-Saxons of the UK.
Taiwan’s Aborigines settled here more than 7,000 years ago and each of those groups have worked hard to pursue independence and dignity.
The names of these groups are deeply rooted in their lives. The names of many, such as Seediq, Bunun, Atayal, Tao and Pangcah (Amis), actually mean “human being.”
When Xi met with then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in Singapore in 2015, he said of Taiwanese: “We are brothers who are still connected by our flesh even if our bones are broken, and a family whose blood is thicker than water.”
That was a rude, exaggerated and shameful discourse that had nothing to do with fact, and it is rejected by all Taiwanese, Aborigines and nations around the world.
In the course of historical development, Taiwanese, a people including immigrants and Aborigines, have united to become a shared community with a shared future.
The Constitution states that Taiwan is a multicultural and multiethnic country, and the greatest hope of Taiwanese has always been that the nation would be treated as a truly independent entity.
The will and viewpoint that the independence of each individual, ethnic group and nation be respected is an expression of the right to self-determination that is stressed by universal human rights.
Self-centered China is bullying the world. It shows no respect for the rights of people and ethnic groups. The unification that the Chinese talk about will be paid for with blood and guns. Just look at the examples of Tibet, East Turkestan — Xinjiang — and Hong Kong to see precisely how frightening the “two sides of the Taiwan Strait are as close as family” idea is.
At a time when Taiwan is faced with internal and external problems, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan is expressing its support for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in the hope that she will stabilize the domestic political situation, ensure national security and promote unity among Taiwanese to find a way that allows Taiwan to have a dignified existence.
Omi Wilang is a Presbyterian Church in Taiwan pastor.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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