[hijack]I haven’t lived in Taiwan for 15 years, but I think there are fewer people now than 20 years ago that identify themselves as the radical “Taiwanese”. A lot more mixed marriages these days (Taiwanese and the waishengren mainlanders), fewer and fewer of the waishengren younger generation speak their native mainland dialect, Taiwanese is required in school now (unlike before where 6 year olds were beaten and fined in school for speaking Taiwanese anywhere on school grounds), and the balance of power shifted with DPP being elected.
To be clear, what I’m saying is that the “Taiwan identity” if you will is shifting from only being a radical opposition to a broader more mainstream identity. I think you’ll find fewer “Taiwanese” that want to deport all the Mainlander waishengren back to China than you did say 20 years ago. By the same token, you also find significantly fewer Mainlander waishengren that think Taiwan is the legitimate ruler of China.
[/hijack]
Oh, I’d make that “nearly none,” and whatever ones are left are dying off. I was there 98-99 and loved talking politics; I think once I met one person who said he actually knew somone (g’father, IIRC) that wanted to retake the mainland.
OTOH, China Guy I think you underestimate the degree to which people are going to resist assimilation. Yes, the economic ties are there, but especially to young people, the mainland is seen a threat as much as an opportunity. I hope you’re right about some sort of peaceable solution, but I honestly don’t see it anytime soon.
rngadam, I’m no KMT flack, but there are several reasons people might vote KMT:
[ul]
[li]There are some people that do want closer ties with the mainland, in some shape, especially the businessmen CG has been talking about.[/li][li]Fear of DPP leaders provoking China into armed conflict.[/li][li]KMT pols are more experienced and better-known. [/li][li]There is a perception, and probably a reality, that the KMT is better at making the trains run on time.[/li][li]Money. KMT has it and uses it to shape opinion.[/li]Believe it or not there are some other issues in Taiwan besides cross-Strait relations. ;)[/ul]
Yah, I actually have first hand experience with this… Here in Montreal, they have a building bought by the KMT where activities are organized for Taiwanese… You can be damn sure that all those activities include a nice slice of propaganda! I actually went there a few times because my father-in-law was involved in the organization, but let me tell you that I became disgusted by the whole idea when I learned a little bit more about Taiwan history. It is just crass politics!
I must add to all this that althought there is some built-in disdain for mainland China from my wife (not for mainlanders in Taiwan), she still feels strongly related and proud of Chinese culture and history. If you ask her what she is and where she comes from, she will tell you “Chinese… from Taiwan” even thought her family is there since well before the KMT. So that is why I believe that there really shouldn’t be any problems of unifying China and Taiwan once China becomes democratic. If again, China doesn’t screw up first… Or the US decides to f*ck-up the whole deal to undermine a potential competitor.
Apos, I mention you in this thread where we are discussing how some people can be quite self-centered in their understanding of other peoples, countries and cultures.
BTW, it would be interesting to know how much time you have spent in China and what other sources of information you handle. Do you have personal or business contacts there? Travel there with any regularity?
Don’t bet on it. You’re “North American … from Canada”, so there shouldn’t be any problem with your merging with the US, right? The Irish shouldn’t have any problems with reunifying their island either, then.
Seems to me more that the Taiwanese people have gotten used to, and fairly good at, running their own country, and just might not see any good reason to become an outpost province again. Taiwan has a strong historical and cultural identity of its own independent of the mainland (it’s been a part of China for only 4 years out of the last 109, didja know?) and the generation of mainlanders that came over with Chiang and expected to go back is pretty much dead by now anyway.
This statement from Beijing looks like more of the usual cross-strait mind games, targeted more at mainlanders who might think they’re getting soft than at Taiwan itself.
For various reasons I’d rather not post a link here. One reason is that I move my pages around or delete them as I need the space and the links become obsolete. In the past threads have been resurrected which contained invalid links and I’ve had to email the mods to delete the links because people were complaining they did not work. But I will be happy to email you the link privately if you email me at alfgon(at)hotmail(dot)com
Not to dispute your point (I have not the expertise to do so), but this analogy simply doesn’t work. There’s no such thing as ‘North American’ except as a geographical descriptor. ‘Chinese’, on the other hand, has a meaning that extends far beyond geography, particularly in the context given.
Wow, you mentioned me in a thread? Shiver me timbers. :rolleyes:
You seem to be operating under the delusion that I expressed the sum total of everything I think about China and the Chinese people in a single offhand post. At least, that’s what your laughably off-topic diatribe against me ssems to assume. But we weren’t discussing whether the Chinese people are happier than Americans with their system of government, just whether or not we can really get balanced and informed opinions on things like Taiwan from a country with carefully managed state media, state indoctrination and revisionist history in schools on precisely this sort of topic, and an inability to have critical free debate that diverts too far from government-approved lines of thinking. People might like that a lot. But what does that have to do with anything? You yourself conceded the very point I was making in the course of lecturing me on my deep ignorance.
But no, simply pointing out how the government distorts debates like Taiwan are apparently evokes diareah diatribe about how an ugly American just doesn’t understand those inscrutable Chinese. Yeah, I know that most Chinese citizens don’t live in constant fear of government knockdowns. People live their lives, and China has always, long before the Party, been a place where authority has been understood and dealt with in ways that most Western people don’t understand. But that doesn’t change the basic facts. You can’t freely be pro-Taiwan’s idepedance in China and seriously expect to get anywhere, and if you’re too loud about such views, you are going to be in trouble. So, yeah, most Chinese people do play along and not worry too much about politics. A lot of them have enough to worry about on their own. But that doesn’t make the intellectual culture any freer, or political debate open and honest.
And yeah, I just happen to think that the far too accepted racialist jingoism that gained popularity among many Chinese intellectuals and visions of grand Chinese destiny is just as ugly as Manifest Destiny is and was. So sue me.
For all it matters, my main contacts with China were living in Hong Kong for four years. I was in a certain Square rather soon after a certain famous incident. I’ve biked through smaller, non-touristy Chinese cities and countryside, had a 96 year old woman in whose village I was staying shove cabbage up my nose to cure a nosebleed. I sadly have neglected any study of Mandarin and have forgotten everything I knew, which was sort of silly anyway because almost no one in Hong Kong actually spoke Mandarin conversationally.
I wrote my two Senior college thesises on the transition of Taiwan from dictatorship to a democracy and how Singapore’s democracy differs from the conventional liberal model in ways that might make it far more functional in the face of inevitable but society-questioning social issues.
That’s it. Sorry I don’t have the apparent insight and cred you allude to, perhaps I need to hobnobb with some more plutocrats?
What Gorsnak said… When someone from HK, China, Taiwan or an expat says he is Chinese, he is not referring to it’s geographical location but to a common (at least written) language, history, superstitions, etc…
There is also lot of distinctness between South and North of China… But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t all proud Chineses also!
And althought yes, they haven’t formally been part of China much, these years were either past under Japanese occupation or under the rule of a Chinese government-in-exile so there is, was and always will be a lot of society “investment” in Chinese culture.
Yes, I agree with this, but as other have mentionned - it is a very dangerous game to play.
Ok, smartypants: please point me to a public forum in China in which someone is openly promoting the idea that Taiwan should be free to decide for itself whether or not it should re-unite.
Like what, really? There are strong commonalities and strong distinctivenesses in both continents, and both cultures with their sets of subcultures. I’d even go so far as to suggest there is *more * cultural/historical/linguistic difference between southern and northern China than between the US and Canada. All you two have said reinforces the point I tried to make, and I don’t see a basis for your demurring.
But anyway, the nub of it is still: Why would the people of Taiwan *want * it to become a province of the mainland again?
I don’t think he said or implied or meant that in his post and I do think he has said the opposite so no need to argue.
As an aside I will say that it is possible for different people who are well informed about a country to have very different views and interpretations but, obviously, if you can establish that you are well informed about the topic at hand, that lends weight and credence to your opinions. Also, merely spending time in a country does not necessarily mean having learnt a lot. I am sure there are many foreigners who have spent long periods in China and have acquired little knowledge and I am also sure there are scholars who have learnt a lot about China even though they live elsewhere.
Merely being an American does not make one an authority on the topics of American history, American law or American culture and it could well be that someone in another country knows a lot about these topics.
I guess what I am trying to get to is that opinions born from ignorance and prejudice can be discounted as irrelevant while opinions born from knowledge may be contrary to our own but need to be given consideration. So it is reasonable to ask questions about the background of the psoter when we disagree. That helps us understand where the opinion is coming from.
What are my views? That Chinese nationalism, a sentiment that the government uses and abuses to great extent is an ugly facet of popular culture in China. It’s ugly in the US, and I criticize it harshly here, and guess what: it’s still ugly in China. Is he denying that nationalist and even quasi racialist views have wide, easy, mostly uncontested, and government supported trade in China? I’m not sure what timewarp I’m supposed to be in.
That there is no real free debate about political issues because the government sees them as challenges to stability and power, and is willing to abuse both the legal system and use force to impose its views. The Chinese people might not care as much as Americans would (and frankly, I don’t think that’s true: if Americans were in the position of the Chinese, I’m not sure they really would make any more of a stink about things), and they certainly don’t want to rock a boat to prosperity, but that was never the issue in the first place. The issue is whether Chinese people are well informed about Taiwan and can publically pronounce views antithetical to China’s eventual absorbtion of it. I’m of the view that people cannot be well informed or have free opinions when there can be no open and free criticism of all positions in public.
But apparently, these views are suspect as ignorant and backwards. And of course, the self-serving line of argument that, geez, those way way different Chinese just don’t care if they don’t have political freedom are of course the height of honest, uncolored discourse. I mean, all the oligarchs in China assure us that it is so!
I guess, but I think you jumped all over me mostly because you didn’t get enough satisfaction out of kicking Millum’s ass around the room. And you exposed your own ignorance and bias in doing so: unlike the more nuanced views you just expressed, you took disagreement for a sign of American stereotype. Your request for my background was a snide dig at me, not an attempt to understand where I was coming from.
*( Mmm…that Sailor fellow seems to think that I haven’t posted here for the last few days because of my shame at being thought stupid by Americans and Non- Americans.
Maybe I should explain to old Sailor that I give not a whit what Americans and non-Americans think of my degree of stupidity, rather, I instead came to realized the folly of having a worthwhile chat with a person who believes in the accuracy of opinion polls and in the integrity of personal conversations of a people whose access to information is strictly controlled by a non-elected autocracy.
I mean, what does one say in the face of such doublespeak or innocence?
Wait! I know. I’ll impress Sailor and all the non-Americans with my knowledge of China. Yes, that’s it…I’ll summarize the pertinent facts about today’s China and answer the pressing question about the likelihood of an attack on Taiwan by the Peoples Republic of China. Yeah…great idea! )*
What is China? A Civilization? A Culture? A Nation? A Confederation?
China today is at once all these things… and not.
Almost 90% of China’s population of over a billion are cultural Chinese, but more than 60% of the land within China’s borders is occupied by ethnic and social minorities that would just a soon be independent of China, and as such they are a bit of a bitch to properly control and govern.
Tack on to this to the difficulties that the CCP has in governing the Han Chinese; a people who themselves are living extensions of social mechanisms that took root almost 3000 years ago.
Further, over 2000 counties, imbued with the impetus of traditions born in imperial China, muck about daily, oblivious to the party mandates that spring from Beijing.
Meanwhile the Chinese people learn of a better world, that is, a more material world, over a yet-to-be-completely-censored Internet.
Of the top ten most polluted cities in the world, nine are in China.
The mines in China have the world’s worst safety record, and many nuclear weapons are stored about in mines and bunkers though out several outlying provinces against the possible chance that they will be needed quickly to squelch a sudden popular uprising.
Against this backdrop the CCP has little time or interest in engaging Taiwan in a hot war.
But in the modern world Communism, as a unit of government, has become passe; so capriciously, pragmatically, the Hu Jintao communists might launch an attack at anytime if they perceive that they are in need of a cause celebre to dis-focus the timely unfolding of dire events that threaten their ability to govern at home.
There are numerous chatrooms and anonomous (sp?) internet cafes. Grant you there are not public websites but if you want to discuss the issue on line there are plenty of places to do so where the ISP is physically based in China. If you want to discuss the issues in person, no one in the average bar, restaurant, street corner will care.
Since you studied at Chinese University in Hong Kong and did your little trips to the mainland, China’s economy has more than doubled - twice. Your experience from 15 years ago is valid in some respects and not valid in others.
Back to the OP, I still am a firm believer that some sort of political settlement (and not from the barrel of a gun) will come out owing to the increasing economic integration of Taiwan and China. I’ve put money on it happening in 5 years.