To argue his case for a new constitution (“Taiwan needs a new constitution,” Nov. 16, page 8), Fu Jen Catholic University assistant professor Yao Meng-chang (姚孟昌) cited Remembrance Day — Nov. 11 — which in the West commemorates those who died fighting since World War I.
Although Remembrance Day is unofficially observed in Hong Kong — a holdover from British rule — it is not observed in Taiwan, where by all rights it should be.
Many Republic of China (ROC) citizens lost their lives as part of the Chinese Labor Corps supporting the Allies in Europe during the war.
Unfortunately, in spite of the protest of the ROC delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, then-US president Woodrow Wilson and the Allies gave the Shandong Peninsula — the birthplace of Confucius (孔子) — to Japan.
As a result of this geopolitical decision, the ROC government, which later fled to Taiwan, refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.
RESENTING THE WEST
Furthermore, the perceived insult infuriated Chinese against the West and it ignited the May Fourth Movement, which Mao Zedong (毛澤東) 20 years later cited as the dawn of communist China.
Although the “Shandong problem” was resolved to China’s satisfaction in 1921, the ROC still refuses to recognize Remembrance Day, preferring instead to forget those in the Chinese Labor Corps who died fighting in a war supposedly meant “to make the world safe for democracy.”
Yao argued for a new constitution by comparing Taiwan’s situation to that of the then-British colonies in North America at the time of the American Revolution, when dissidents and rebels fought for independence against the colonial troops.
Yao’s comparison is apt, but not for the reasons he cites.
What was to become the US at the time was still an alliance of geographically linked colonies — not states — populated by diverse “refugees” primarily from England.
King George III oppressively held the colonies as part of the British Empire and regarded their declaration of independence as an act of sedition.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the oppressive “king” of China, feels the same way about Taiwan.
That Taiwan is a breakaway province — or colony — populated by dissidents and descendants of refugees from China after the Chinese Civil War.
Similarly, Xi would consider a new Taiwanese constitution a provocation fueled by the same “foreign barbarians” who once stole the Shandong Peninsula from China.
However, just as the US’ population in 1776 no longer considered themselves British, Taiwanese no longer consider themselves Chinese.
In this sense, Yao is right, Taiwan needs a new constitution that recognizes the preferred identity of its people by disposing of the name ROC.
After all, the US did not call itself the “Republic of British Colonies.”
RISK OF WAR
Unfortunately, Yao is also right that a new constitution could demand Taiwanese to sacrifice their lives in a defensive war over their sovereignty and democracy.
Should such a war come to pass, one can only hope that a new “Taiwanese Remembrance Day” would follow.
If it does, it would mean freedom and democracy had prevailed over another assault by an oppressive cadre of criminals calling itself a government.
Xue Meng-ren is an adjunct associate professor at Chaoyang University of Technology.
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