Troubling double standards
“If you kill a Chinese person, it is not as bad as arresting one for fishing.”
Why would I start this letter off this way? Sounds provocative, doesn’t it? But it seems that this actually happened. On June 4, North Korean border guards were accused of shooting three Chinese and wounding another near Dandong City in China’s Liaoning Province. They were accused of illegal cross-border economic activities.
The Chinese government demanded a quick and thorough investigation. Since then, little has been heard from the Chinese side.
Before this, in May, one should remember that the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan took place during a period of North Korean saber rattling and old bonds between Beijing and Pyongyang being renewed and solidified.
Looking a media reports from June on, it’s difficult to find anything other than the celebration of the friendship between China and North Korea and the struggle against imperialist aggression.
Now let’s move on to something fresher in our minds. On Sept. 7, Japanese authorities seized a Chinese fishing trawler and arrested its captain for illegal fishing and colliding with two Japanese Coast Guard vessels off the Senkaku or Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台).
This clash resulted in mass protests, heightened political tensions and increased economic pressure, which appears to have continued to this day, with China continuing to withhold rare earth mineral shipments to Japan.
Now, it’s understandable the Senkaku/Diaoyutais would get pushed prominently to the forefront as it involves two traditional rivals, while the deaths of three compatriots at the hands of a friendly neighbor would be water under the bridge.
The Chinese have had a rough year of sorts in its surrounding region, beginning with the Cheonan sinking, the East China Sea isles dispute heating up once more, and later with the Vietnam-US rapprochement and its implications for the South China Sea.
On top of this, this was supposed to be the year of the Shanghai World Expo, but it has become a side note. Needless to say, this year has not gone in China’s favor.
On a people level, these contrasting responses by Chinese authorities and the subsequent coverage by Chinese media involving its citizens accused of “illegal” activities in each case have been starkly divergent, yet have pointed out the focus of the Chinese government.
Follow-up stories involving the deaths of Chinese citizens along the North Korean border seem to have not merited the time and effort.
The eventual release of the Chinese captain by Japan basically ended in favor of the Chinese, though how favorably probably will not be known for some time.
The Japanese public has shown a level of dissatisfaction rarely seen with both Beijing and its own government, and whether this will be a growing trend is anybody’s guess.
The two incidents involving Chinese accused of illegal activities seem to raise questions given what Chinese citizens are worth in the Chinese political machine and likely highlights that the political goals of decisionmakers will not be tempered by how its citizens are treated.
PHILIPPE MCKAY
Pingtung City
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS