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
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS