When much-maligned Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) last week insisted on questioning Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Chiu appeared annoyed.
Before answering the question, Chiu told Chen: “Language is a communication tool, if everyone can use the same tools, it will make things more convenient. If you insist on going through an interpreter, then I will follow the rules and have your question interpreted before speaking.”
Things got heated from there, as Chen asked why Chiu was questioning his use of his mother tongue, which he is working hard to protect.
“Would you ask a French person to speak Mandarin?” he asked, before accusing Chiu of being overbearing.
Chen was not forcing Chiu to respond in Hoklo, as he had requested an interpreter to be in attendance.
Chiu stood his ground and said that he was not being disrespectful; he was just making a suggestion so that the communication process could be smoother and faster.
Chen issued a public apology that evening for causing a stir, but continued to defend his right to use his mother language, and called for more communication and discussion on the matter.
This was sad to see, as Taiwan’s various languages suffered for so long under Japanese rule and then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime, and when they are finally allowed to be used in official situations like this, they are met with such disdain.
It is even sadder to see that many Internet users actually supported Chiu, arguing that not everyone speaks Hoklo in Taiwan.
That is not the point.
Chiu was not expected to understand or respond in Hoklo, that is what the interpreter was for, but one should not have their right to speak in their mother tongue questioned; whether Chiu asked nicely or not is irrelevant.
This much should be apparent after the government enacted the Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法) in 2018, but people are still not getting the message.
Yes, Chen is controversial — a recall vote against him is to take place later this month — but there is a larger problem here.
It is true that Mandarin is everyone’s common language in the nation and using it is technically the most efficient way to conduct a discussion without potential misunderstanding, and Chiu was not as rude as the National Taiwan University professors who shut down a student representative who spoke in Hoklo at a 2019 board meeting.
Not only did the professors insist that anyone using any language other than Mandarin would not be allowed to speak, the remarks they made were blatant cultural bullying.
However, Chiu still subscribed to one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the language issue: that language is just a communication tool.
Language is much more than that: It is an important marker of one’s identity and culture. Throughout human history, no matter in what region of the world, one of the first things a new ruler would do to subjugate a conquered people was to forcefully suppress their language — often violently.
Before it is too late, Taiwanese need to do everything they can to reclaim their endangered mother tongues — even if it means taking a little more time to have their message translated. Looking at the big picture, what is a little inconvenience after more than half a century of linguistic oppression?
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
RSS