China uses several strategies in its state-controlled media to blot out Taiwan from reality, even though Taiwan is real and here to stay.
In addition to the recent episode across the Strait where the Xiamen Business Newspaper photoshopped a Republic of China (ROC) flag out of a photograph showing Chinese nationals landing in the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) — while leaving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) national flags intact — Beijing propaganda officials also use a Western punctuation device (so-called “scare-quotes”) to blot out Taiwan’s dignity and geopolitical space.
The use of scare quotes has a long history in the West, where the term was first coined in the early 1900s and used by academics as a punctuation tool while doing textual analysis. Basically, scare quotes are words or phrases put inside quotation marks — double quote marks in the US and single quote marks in the UK — to put some distance between the word or phrase and the writer.
Photo: AFP
Scare quotes were originally used as a distancing tool, but the tool is now so ubiquitous and embedded in the English-speaking countries that it threatens to become a “punctuation epidemic’’ in news articles, blog posts and BBC headlines.
In Chinese print media, these are not “quotation marks’’ but “double bracket marks’’ that signal to the average reader that the words inside the brackets stand for something else that the Chinese Communist Party dare not mention: the reality of Taiwan as an independent, sovereign nation with its own president, premier, currency and legislature.
I only became aware of China’s use of Western-style scare quotes to sort of “photoshop’’ Taiwan out of existence after the Central News Agency reported on how the Xiamen Business Newspaper apologized in a post on Sina Weibo — China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform — “for having inappropriately photoshopped the flag, thereby hurting the feelings of its readers.’’
Photo: CNA
In the original CNA Chinese-language report from Taipei, it was noted that Chinese netizens use the initialism of “PS” to stand for the act photoshopping photos. The same story noted that ‘’another Sina Weibo user suggested online that the Chinese news media should also stop using double quotation marks when referring to the titles of Taiwanese public agencies or senior officials such as the Executive Yuan, the Control Yuan, the premier and the president.”
This very self-aware and savvy netizen in China added to his initial Sina Weibo post: “Adding quotation marks around those titles is a form of blotting-out, since those public institutions and official titles [in Taiwan] genuinely exist.”
And the term he used in the Chinese-language post for “blotting out” was “PS,” meaning that in his mind, and probably the minds of many other Chinese netizens, there is little difference between photoshopping [digitally altering] a photo and “photoshopping” text. By using the initialism “PS’’ in his note about blotting out Taiwan’s reality, he was signaling to other readers in China and around the world that Beijing is fooling no one by its use of Chinese scare quotes in Chinese-language news articles about Taiwan, Tibet, the Dalai Llama and other verboten subjects.
Another way to more liberally and better translate the Sina Weibo poster’s words might be like this: “Friends have suggested to me that when the Chinese media write about Taiwan news, responsible reporters and editors should not put words like President, President of the Executive Yuan and other names related to Taiwan in double quotation marks because this is another form of PS. Those titles and departments in Taiwan really exist! When the Chinese media use double brackets to PS Taiwan’s reality out of the news, we netizens know exactly what is going on and you are fooling only yourselves, Beijing!”
Nick Cohen, a British reporter and blogger for the Guardian in London, told the Taipei Times via Twitter: “[Writers] can use scare quotes to indicate satirical disapproval or disagreement. But you shouldn’t throw them around.”
Taiwan, China and Japan, among other nations in Asia, do not have a word for “scare quotes” in either Chinese or Japanese. They are just called “quotes’’ [引號, yinhao] in Taiwan.
When asked, Sveta Lin (林素純), a doctoral student in philosophy at Chiayi’s National Chung Cheng University, said she had never heard of the Western term before. Is there a word for it in Chinese? “I had never heard of the term ‘scare quotes’ until you asked me. But after checking a dictionary, I now understand its meaning. Here in Taiwan, there is no special Chinese word for scare quotes. We just call such writing tools yinhao [quotes] to mean a general quotation or what you in the West now call a scare quote.”
In English-speaking nations, scare quotes are used by those on the right and those on the left to denigrate and criticize ideas and people on the other side of the political aisle. US President Barack Obama’s election campaign team, for example, uses scare quotes to mock Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s ideas and policies. Romney’s team, for its part, uses scare quotes to criticize and denigrate Obama’s policies, putting words like “Obamacare” and “gay marriage” in scare quotes.
To see how China is now using its own version of scare quotes to denigrate the status of the nation and elected leaders of Taiwan, as evidenced by the Sina Weibo post above about using double bracket quotes when referring to Taiwan or President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) or the legislature, is both shocking and revealing.
It’s shocking because it shows just how low China is willing to go to debase its own humanity through arrogance and hubris. And it’s revealing because it shows how scare quotes are now being used in an Asian dictatorship as another Orwellian device to control its population through propaganda and mind control.
“PS’’ (scare quotes intended): It won’t work, Beijing. Even your own citizens see the games you play with double brackets.
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
On Thursday, former Taipei mayor and founder of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Seven others related to the case were also handed prison sentences, while two were found not guilty. It has been a bad week for the TPP. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) with suspicion of taking part in Beijing-directed election interference. Xu has strong links to the TPP, which once offered her a party list legislator nomination. Tuesday also
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
RSS