The magazine India Today is a popular weekly with a print run of more than 1.1 million copies and a readership of as many as 15 million. On Wednesday it announced that its cover for the latest edition dated July 31 had been selected by the Society of Publication Designers in the US as its “cover of the day.”
The cover depicts a map of China — excluding Tibet and Taiwan — in a shape that resembles a chicken, standing next to a “chick” represented by a map of Pakistan. The title “China’s New Chick” is written beneath.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) on Thursday called it just another “little ploy,” while China’s Global Times ripped into India’s elite for having the “Ah Q” spirit — a reference to the fictional character Ah Q, who excelled in delusional fantasy — “indulging in delusions in the face of strength.”
Ah Q’s greatest asset was his skill at self-deception.
China has a long history, and a long history of disingenuity. In that 5,000-year history, how many years exactly did China have control of Taiwan?
Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty provides the answer to that. In 1684 he declared: “From ancient times, the Taiwan area has not belonged to China and I now bring it into our territory.”
Clearly, then, it was from 1684 — April, to be exact — that Taiwan became part of the Qing empire’s territory, all the way down to the Qing’s defeat at the hands of the Japanese in the First Sino-Japanese War, ending with the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895, in which China ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Japan “in perpetuity.”
China, basically, had control over Taiwan for only 212 years in its 5,000-year history.
After that, for the 50 years until Japan’s unconditional surrender at the end of World War II, Taiwan belonged to the Japanese, and was not part of Chinese territory.
From 1945 onward, the Chinese communists have not controlled Taiwan for a single minute, a single second, and so it is difficult to make the case that Taiwan belonged to China during that period, either.
With the historical background, how is it that China can have the nerve to disingenuously attempt to persuade other nations with “little ploys” of its own, requiring that diplomatic allies, such as the US, the UK and Japan, “recognize” that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory when signing communiques establishing diplomatic relations between them?
Why does China not feel shame when it surreptitiously interpret words and terms, such as “acknowledge,” “understand and respect” and “take note of,” in the communiques as “recognize” just because it suits its agenda to do so.
How can China continue, with obsequious smiles and absolutely no backing, refer to Taiwanese, whom it once controlled long ago, and never since, as “compatriots,” even as it so cruelly disdains to destroy them with the “Anti-Secession” Law?
If the hackneyed “Taiwan and China both belong to ‘one China’” refrain that the Chinese authorities keep repeating, lying through their teeth and living in their own fantasy world, is not “indulging in delusions in the face of Taiwan” and the delusional fantasizing of the “Ah Q spirit,” then I do not know what else to call it.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education and a former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
Translated by Paul Coooper
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