China and change
Allow me to comment on Ai Weiwei’s (艾未未) insightful opinion piece (“Think sanctions hurt China? Then you are stuck in politics,” April 8, page 9).
China appears to have been in Friedrich Hegel’s mind when he was saying that quantity changes quality. China is a massive human quantity, a tiny proportion of which is elite. The elite, if it gains power, can transform the whole. No matter how many ideological slogans the West may shout out to China, even with sanctions, China, with its quantity, need not budge much.
In his article, Ai does not expect the Chinese regime to collapse because of some doings by external forces. However, a regime change might occur in China because of an implosion.
According to famous Chinese novelist Jiang Rong (姜戎) the fate of a nation hangs on its culture, not its politics or economics.
China’s history seems to indicate that it can change only after it experiences trauma. Once a change is forced, China reverts to uniformity and rigidity and corruption among the powerful elite, which builds up resentment toward another implosion.
One can find the explanation in the Chinese character itself nurtured by its culture. If one uses colorful language, China is a colossal solipsist. It does not really care about what lies outside its borders as long as it is left alone.
There is a glaring contrast between China and the US. The latter must keep telling the world that it is No. 1 to believe in its raison d’etre, while the former is happy if it does not even have to address the world. The ideology/religion/moral agenda of China seems to be that of China’s absolute being.
A challenging question for contemporary China and the world is how to transform mainland China into a country where diverse cultural, ideological and political forces can vie peacefully to accommodate a governance structure that serves the whole, with a mandate from and responsibility for it.
Democracy is multivocal. Proof of democracy is the presence of a flexible structure that allows and appropriates diversity as exemplified by Taiwan’s experiences.
One could dare say that mainland China will have changed when it stops threatening Taiwan, releases Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, frees all political prisoners and sheds its illusion that it has suzerainty over its small neighbors.
Throughout its long history, China produced remarkable humanitarian thought systems such as Taoism, Confucianism, and (Ch’an) Buddhism. It is sad to note that today’s mainland China seems to have thrown away its cultural legacy in the endorsement of mammonism, the cold interests of state power over and against human dignity and freedom, and the cultural and demographic genocide of Uighurs and other minority ethnic groups.
Yeomin Yoon, Professor, Seton Hall University
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
A single photograph can cut through a lot of noise, but it can also be used to misrepresent the truth. At the very least, it can concentrate the mind on something that requires further investigation. On Monday last week, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) and former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) held a news conference in which they showed a photograph of former foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), now Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy chairman. In the image Hsiao is seated next to Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association chairman Han Ying-huan (韓螢煥). The two men were holding
I first met Professor Ray Jiing (井迎瑞) as a film and documentary student at Shih Hsin University’s (SHU) Department of Radio Television and Film in 1988. The following year, he went on to become the director of the Chinese Taipei Film Archive — forerunner of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI). Over his eight-year tenure, Jiing rescued and restored over 200 classic Taiwanese films. In 1997, he established the Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary and Film Archiving at Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA), and I joined the program in his third cohort of students. Beyond a
A recent report concerning a student who is suing his teacher posed the question in its headline: Does failing a student in two subjects constitute bullying? The college student in Chiayi County apparently sought NT$2 million (US$63,603) in state compensation, but a court dismissed the case. The first reaction of many might have been to ask: What has happened to students nowadays? Some say that teachers have lost their authority, while others say students are overindulged. Some even start reminiscing over the days when “whatever the teacher says goes.” However, the real issue might be overlooked if emotional reactions like that are the
RSS