Tool of oppression
Liu Che-ting’s (劉哲廷) op-ed, (“Silence can be a very powerful tool,” June 28, page 8) on Chang Man-chuan’s (張曼娟) posts about her trip to Xinjiang strikes at a disturbing truth: Aesthetic beauty, stripped of context, can become a tool of erasure.
Some say that Chang’s reflections on her travels are personal, apolitical and should not be criticized.
Had Adolf Hitler’s regime survived and turned Auschwitz into a scenic tourist destination — complete with gardens, museums, hearty meals and polite staff — would we accept a famous writer visiting and praising its atmosphere, without a single word about the atrocities that occurred there?
Of course not. To do so would not be neutral; it would be a subtle, dangerous form of denial, smoothing over unspeakable horror with the brushstrokes of everyday charm. That is exactly what influential voices risk when they depict Xinjiang as a land of flavor and hospitality, while remaining silent on the cultural genocide, surveillance and internment still haunting the region.
Writers have every right to travel and reflect, but with public influence comes responsibility. In authoritarian regimes, silence is not just absence — it is often harnessed to serve the regime’s goals. A glowing description, devoid of political reality, becomes a postcard propaganda could not write better.
Not all scenery deserves praise, and not all silence is poetic. Sometimes, silence helps tyrants speak.
John Cheng
Taichung
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
During an impromptu Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally on Tuesday last week to protest what the party called the unfairness of the judicial system, a young TPP supporter said that if Taiwan goes to war, he would “surrender to the [Chinese] People’s Liberation Army [PLA] with unyielding determination.” The rally was held after former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng’s (彭振聲) wife took her life prior to Pong’s appearance in court to testify in the Core Pacific corruption case involving former Taipei mayor and TPP chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The TPP supporter said President William Lai (賴清德) was leading them to die on
RSS