I never thought visiting my home after three years away could be so confusing and eye-opening.
After living in the third-best country in the world for expatriates, returning to the chaotic urban life of India was a challenge. I felt the depth of what I usually cite as a hurdle in India-Taiwan relations — cultural and behavioral differences.
Aside from grappling with my not so new surroundings, I also had to deal with a very genuine query — “Where is Taiwan?” — a question people stopped asking last month.
The question did not bother me as I might have expected, but answering it was not easy.
My mother has been asked the same question on various occasions. To my disappointment, she chooses the most unfortunate answer: China.
Her response is because it is easier for people to understand. Although a harmless explanation, it is most telling.
The same people probably also do not know where Thailand is, yet they would never bother to ask the question because popular culture has already come into play.
Taking a page out of my mother’s book, I found solace in another unfortunate answer: “It’s near Japan.”
With all my knowledge in hand, I still feel unequipped to respond.
Having lived in Taiwan, I consider it a responsibility to tell people about this gem of a place.
Indians often ask very elementary questions yet make contrary statements about Taiwan. I understand that not everyone can know Taiwan as profoundly as those who have visited or lived here, but many of my hometown folks feel very sure about its future with respect to China.
The advice I received during China’s military incursions around the nation were interesting. Everyone from grandfathers and uncles to my doctor and his assistant had an opinion.
Thanks to over-dramatized news reporting, the island was apparently attacked to the point of no return.
“You should not go back,” and “if you are going, come back as soon as possible,” some said.
“Live somewhere else. It is not safe,” said others, claiming that “China will attack.”
The straw that broke the camel’s back was: “Russia has already attacked Ukraine, and now China will attack Taiwan.”
The parallels with Hong Kong were also drawn by the avid consumers of television. The concern about my safety was so apparent that it even followed me to the airport. While checking my passport, an immigration officer calmly recommended that I reconsider traveling in such a turn of events.
Although disheartening, such conversations reflect a perspective. The majority of Indians are certain of China’s warmongering character.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has often been championed for keeping a bigger and stronger opponent on its toes.
However, winning a fight is a numbers game and many people are not so sure that the US would step in to support at the hour of need. The complexity of the Chinese threat to Taiwan is not within public knowledge.
Taiwan has found a new place in Indian news media for being at odds with China, taking the opportunity to highlight the goading it experiences on a daily basis.
However, people are not so sure of India’s role in the crisis. It is not seen as a consequential actor.
The state of world affairs is discouraging and overwhelming. Everyone wants to fight their own battles. As the celebrated anthropologist Jane Goodall said, any exercise to make a difference starts from home. It is time to genuinely talk about Taiwan.
Naina Singh is a researcher at the Graduate Institute of International Politics at National Chung Hsing University, Taichung.
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
No state has ever formally recognized the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as a legal entity. The reason is not a lack of legitimacy — the CTA is a functioning exile government with democratic elections and institutions — but the iron grip of realpolitik. To recognize the CTA would be to challenge the People’s Republic of China’s territorial claims, a step no government has been willing to take given Beijing’s economic leverage and geopolitical weight. Under international law, recognition of governments-in-exile has precedent — from the Polish government during World War II to Kuwait’s exile government in 1990 — but such recognition
RSS