When establishment academics, whose funds too often come from Asian sources, attempt to discuss the US' China policy, one knows one is in for a rollicking good time. Robert Hathaway's recent commentary on misconceptions among Taiwan's leaders about US policy ("Dangerous misperceptions about Taiwan still abound," Jan. 23, Page 9) was one of the funniest articles the Taipei Times has printed in quite a while.
Hathaway's claim that the Clinton administration has not sold out Taiwan is fantastic. He says US policy exhibits "remarkable continuity." The US' China policy has the continuity of a plane crash -- at least the trajectory is straight. Clinton's acceptance of the Three No's means that US policy has changed from accepting Taiwan as ruling China, but not being part of it to accepting China as ruling Taiwan and Taiwan as part of China.
It is easy for an objective observer to see the long slide from the Nixon Communique, which said Chinese on both sides of the Strait should solve the problem, to the Clinton position that Taiwan should have no independence. This is essentially a commitment to the destruction of Taiwan's economy and democracy, yet all Hathaway can say is that it makes the people of Taiwan "uneasy."
Meanwhile, the Chinese funnel money into US politics and Richard W. Bush runs around warning the Taiwanese that the US will not defend Taiwan. At least Bush is honest. Hathaway says Lee's state-to-state relations claim was "provocative." Let me get this straight. China has promised to obliterate the island but Lee is being "provocative." Taiwan is struggling to survive and, regardless of what Lee does, China is coming, and that should be obvious even in places like the Woodrow Wilson Center. As for the US having no preferred candidate, when I stop seeing James Soong (宋楚瑜) praised as a reformer in the Washington Post (by the Beijing correspondent, no less), appearing on CNN and being named in several establishment publications as the leading contender, I'll stop believing that there's a favored candidate. Similarly, anyone can see that the US would be mortified if Chen Shui-bien (陳水扁) were elected since he is more likely to promote real democratization. It's not merely Taiwan at stake here. Washington's policy of appeasing Chinese imperialism in Taiwan, Tibet and elsewhere will lead to a major war. Is the US establishment really dumb enough to think that Chinese expansion is going to stop with Taiwan? After that, there's Mongolia, northern Vietnam and so on. China has the complete package: a militant nationalism, anthropology which maintains the unique difference, even superiority, of its people, a history full of manufactured "humiliations," territorial claims on all its neighbors, a military eager to test its prowess and a tottering one-party state.
In a few months I will be leaving Taiwan after spending more than a decade here. It will be a sad leave-taking, for I know that thanks to the work of men like Hathaway, the Taiwan I know and love faces a dismal future.
Michael Turton
KaohsiungThe New Party's last gasp
If there are still die-hard New Party members around, I wonder how dignified they feel facing one of the most bizarre political jokes in Taiwan. There he is, a non-New Party member supposedly representing the party in a very serious presidential election, who vigorously advocates against the party platform he repre-sents -- and better yet is encouraging his supporters to cast their vote for his supposed opponent, James Soong (宋楚瑜). What a political clown Li Ao (李敖) is. As for the New Party, it has been raped and trashed. The sad part is that they asked for it. The die-hard New Party members must be swallowing their pride and humiliation with tears. James Chou
Vancouver, Canada
More than just talk needed In a recent commentary ("To keep a mother tongue, teach it," Jan. 22, Page 8), Matthew Ward makes an excellent case for the rightful place of mother tongues in the education system of Taiwan, or indeed of any country. He mentions a number of countries, including Wales, where serious commitment is being shown before taking you to task for your recent editorial arguing that the teaching of mother tongues is best left to market forces. A few years ago I had a professional involvement in the educational provisions for two mother tongues in the UK, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. The historical comparisons with Taiwan are not hard to find: the UK government squeezing native mother tongues out of existence, denying them a place in schools, broadcasting and elsewhere. Then, following determined grassroots resistance, a late but welcome conversion at the top and measures of reform, the long-term results, in terms of the survival of Welsh and Gaelic, are still unknown. I am interested in the plans for mother tongue teaching in Taiwan. If the teachers -- even if native speakers -- have not been taught to read and write them, who will teach them over the next 18 months, before they get down to teaching the children? If it is simply that teachers are permitted to chat to the children for a couple of hours a week in the mother tongues -- oral lessons only -- although an improvement, this would hardly be a revolution. Reading and writing raise bigger questions. Hokkien (called by some, Taiwanese) and Hakka are languages -- not Chinese dialects, since they are unintelligible to monoglot Mandarin speakers -- and have important unique sound features that differentiate them from Mandarin. The question of how teachers are to represent these differences is difficult. The same applies no less to the aboriginal languages. I know that untold hours over many years were spent in the UK fashioning Welsh and Gaelic writing systems into suitable education vehicles. So, in short, what is the gist of the new plans -- is it simply to allow the mother tongues to be spoken from time to time in classrooms, or to seriously teach reading and writing, the benchmark of civilized languages? Colin Spencer
Hsinchu
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