When I was studying in high school, I wrote on the blackboard what I thought it was a mathematical aberration; I can't remember exactly but it was something like 2+2=3. It was a kind of rebellion against the big theorems that we had to study everyday during those years.
When the teacher entered the class, he asked who wrote the equation. I decided not to raise my hand, because I thought perhaps the teacher was angry or would scold me.
To my surprise, he told us that what was written on the blackboard was not completely false -- it was even true, he said -- and then he used mathematics to demonstrate that two plus two can be three.
After a long explanation, which I have since forgotten, we discovered that the teacher was indeed right.
The key to his explanation was the numerical system we were using. We usually work in a decimal system, from one to 10, and then another 10, which makes up 20 and so on.
The teacher changed the system -- and with the system, the rules -- and thus it was possible for two plus two to be three.
Perhaps the relations between China and Taiwan are in a similar situation. When we talk about the "two states" theory, about two nations, the motherland, the "one China" principle, maybe both parties are using different numerical systems.
This could be why 1+1=2 looks so clear to us, while the Chinese, with their different system, think they are right in saying 1+1=1.
I am sure that this is the problem. That both systems are different is quite clear.
We could even say that the set of rules that govern their system is opposite to that used by the civilized and modern world to build societies.
We are shaping our society through democracy, freedom, human rights including the freedom of speech and thought, dialogues, peace, pluralism and respect for minorities, and justice.
That our task is not yet complete is true; sometimes it is even painful and there is still a long road ahead of us until we can see that our system is near the ideal.
The system the PRC government uses to control Chinese society rules through dictatorship, extortion, violation of human rights, censorship, monologues, the threat of violence and war, and injustice.
Yet they try to sell it to the world as "communism with Chinese characteristics," or more recently as "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" and some people even buy it.
We live very close to the Chinese (geographically and historically) and maybe no one knows them better than us.
The popular tribunals after the war, the religious and intellectual persecution, the concentration camps, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolu-tion, the Tiananmen massacre were not as surprising to us as they were to the rest of the world. We know what happened and that it was horrible, and we also know something that others do not -- it may happen again.
Hong Kong and Macao had no opportunity to choose; I do not know if we have. But what I am sure of is that both sides of the Strait are trying to solve their problems through two very different systems. On this side of the Strait 1+1 is simply 2, on that side 1+1 is 1.
Nevertheless, the way my math teacher explained it to my classmates and myself looked a lot more convincing than what the PRC government is doing -- yet while it was convincing, we continued to solve most of our daily math problems through the 1+1=2 set of rules and it worked!
Francisco Clarin is a Claretian missionary based in Sanshia, Taipei County.
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