On Monday last week, China Film Co, the distributor of the Taiwanese film Missing Johnny (強尼‧凱克), abruptly announced that the film has been indefinitely suspended. That followed claims on Chinese social media that its male lead, Lawrence Ko (柯宇綸), supports Taiwanese independence.
Four days later, the Beijing branch of HIM International Music, the record label of Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin (林宥嘉), issued a statement denying claims that Lin supports Taiwanese independence.
The company “guarantees and promises that Lin is not a pro-Taiwan independence member; he has never in private or in public supported Taiwanese independence nor made any remarks relating to or in support of Taiwanese independence,” the statement said.
While Beijing might be patting itself on the back for “scoring” another point and “dampening” the morale of supporters of Taiwanese independence, the latest incidents serve only to widen the gap between democratic Taiwan and communist China.
Those incidents, which occurred after China’s Feb. 28 announcement of 31 measures and economic benefits for Taiwanese wishing to work and live in China, reveal not only Beijing’s hypocrisy, but also its autocratic nature.
As befits a communist country that persecutes religious dissenters and curtails civil and political freedoms, Beijing has made it clear to the Taiwanese public that its claims of allowing Taiwanese to enjoy “national treatment” in China means nothing more than “facing discrimination and restrictions on their freedoms and rights to political expression.”
China’s actions bring to mind similar incidents, such as Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the Taiwanese member of South Korean girl group TWICE, being forced to apologize in public for holding a Republic of China (ROC) flag on a South Korean television show, and Taiwanese actor/director Leon Dai (戴立忍) being replaced in the Chinese film No Other Love (沒有別的愛) after failing to clarify his political stance. One can only expect similar incidents to increase in the future.
China obviously is the main intimidator in all these cases, bullying Taiwanese entertainers and forcing them to make public their political stance. However, many cannot help but wonder: Where is the Taiwanese government in all this?
As Missing Johnny director Lin Cheng-sheng (林正盛) said in his response to the Chinese ban: “It is the government that should express its opinion.”
Indeed, the government needs to be more active and approach the matter pragmatically.
Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said that Taiwan’s niche in its bid to venture into international public broadcasting is its democratic values and freedom.
“The best way to prevent risks is to bolster one’s strengths and let people realize that opportunities await them here in Taiwan,” Cheng said.
However, talk is cheap. The public is sick and tired of the Democratic Progressive Party government making empty promises or offering meek protests and rhetoric, all the while casting the blame on China.
Cheng and the DPP administration as a whole need to know that the vision of a thriving Taiwanese entertainment industry lies not in flowery and empty speeches; what the public wants to see is concrete actions to develop the industry and cultural sector, and extend and broaden the reach of Taiwan-produced creative content beyond China.
If the government remains passive and leaves the nation’s artists and cultural workers to take the hit from Beijing, the Taiwanese values that the minister of culture spoke of would never be showcased, but remain in China’s shadow.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS