The Four common mistakes most people make regarding the current discussion about Taiwan's independence.

The Four common mistakes most people make regarding the current discussion about Taiwan's independence.


Here is the complete written version of the speech we presented at a FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

November 15, 2008


I would like to first say that it is really wonderful for me to have this great opportunity to meet and speak with you all here today.

I find it very encouraging to see that so many people are coming together and talking about Taiwan in these dark days where we have seen communist flags in Taipei, brutal police repression and a judiciary that arrests political voices of opposition.

Its perhaps even more important that people are now starting to seriously talk about democracy and freedom and human rights in a brand new way.

There is an urgency here.

There is a growing mood in the air that the ideals of human rights and freedoms are in grave peril today in Taiwan and stand to be lost maybe forever should Taiwan suddenly become yet another province of Beijing’s brutal control against the wishes and aspirations of the 23 million Taiwanese people themselves.

Lose these freedoms once and it may take years of torment, fear, suffering and tears to ever get them back. And that is if you ever can.

This is why I am here today in front of you all.

I see a world today where human rights and freedoms are under constant suppression in China and all too often ignored by the world at large. No Beijing Olympic fanfare, mega-profit trade deals or corporate sponsorships can cover this up any more.

The voices of those who suffer must be heard and heard today.

From the high Himalayas in Tibet to the plains of Uyghur. From organ harvesting from Falun Gong practicioners to wide-spread religious persecutions against anyone who dares to have a religion not controlled by the State.

Chinese human rights abuses are vast and immense in all of their dimensions. From the Chinese Civil War to the Cultural Revolution and to today; the killing and abuse has never stopped.

People of conscience and action must now speak up and be heard. The time for being asleep is over.

Please make no mistake here in ever thinking that I myself or my views here are in any way anti-Han Chinese at all as far as the people or ethnicity are concerned. They are a wonderful people with a tremendous heritage that needs to be truly respected and celebrated within the human family of peoples. They are not their government and suffer along with the rest who are not Han Chinese who have got caught up in this unfortunate storm of human suffering at the hands of the PRC state.

What does all of this mean for Taiwan and the Taiwanese. It means you better wake up and wake up fast!

For Taiwan, the worst part is that its all happening only a few short miles away at the other shore.

Taiwanese people have got to be much more awake and aware about just what their giant Chinese neighbor is up to and what this represents to them. If they do not wake up here they face the risk of becoming yet the newest victims in a long sad history here.

It’s a big problem. But, it’s also a problem that was created by human beings and therefore can also be solved by human beings as well. One person at a time. One action at a time; no action being too small.

Just don’t sit by and do nothing.

Make no mistake about it these are difficult days we are in the midst of, and it will be up to us to make a difference and make a better world. For me, I believe this better world includes a free Taiwan whereby the 23 million Taiwanese people themselves decide their own self-determination, not some imperial communist Chinese state or anyone else.

FAPA is pretty new to me, but thinking about Taiwan is not. As such I look very much forward to getting to know you all better and doing some good work together to help Taiwan.

I also look forward to learning more from you all, because knowledge is a powerful tool for change.

Focusing specifically on Taiwan now:

I would like to share the following four major mistakes I think many people around the world make when thinking and talking about the current Taiwan situation. I have noticed these four mistakes everywhere. I have seen them in print, on the net and on TV.

I think its really high-time that they are all put to rest so that the real work of helping Taiwan can finally get started. These mistakes are based on my own observations and opinions and I welcome anyone’s thoughts here to correct and improve upon what I am have to say.

COMMON MISTAKES ABOUT TAIWAN


Mistake Number 1: “Taiwan has always been a part of China.”

Not a reality.

Taiwan has its own culture, language and history.

These facts are self-evident.

Even to me and I was not even born in Taiwan and am not ethnically Taiwanese.

The closest Taiwan ever came to being ruled by China was during the Qing dynasty during the 1880’s and 1890’s and many would even consider this to be a stretch. The Qing dynasty was not even Han Chinese, but were actually Manchu coming from Manchuria. The Qing dynasty had held control over of the Han Chinese since about 1645.

The Qing dynasty during this period was never able to really expand its control solidly on the off-shore island of Taiwan. During this time Taiwan had been a loose lying area inhabited by mostly aborigines and traders. Sometimes the Dutch tried to rule it, sometimes the Portuguese and sometimes the Spanish. The Qing dynasty shared this common heritage with the Europeans here in their failed efforts to solidly rule and govern Taiwan.

Only after the Qing dynasty lost its war with the Empire of Japan in 1895 and the island was ceded over to the Japanese with the Treaty of Shimonoseki that organized rule by any entity ever came to Taiwan for any sustained period of time. Even this took years of fighting on the part of the Japanese to completely subdue the island of Taiwan under their control.

It is interesting to note here that for about a month in the summer of 1895 during a brief power vacuum between the Qing and incoming Japanese, the Taiwanese themselves set up a brief Taiwanese Republic with its own flag; thus becoming Asia’s first republic.


Mistake Number 2: “Taiwan is a renegade province which split away from China in 1949”

Also not a reality.

Back in 1945 Taiwan was still part of the Japanese Empire according to the treaty of Shimonoseki. After the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, Taiwan found itself again occupied. This time by one of the victorious allies of WWII; the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek.

In fact the term victorious ally really doesn’t apply to the Chinese Nationalists as they had been losing wars one after the other. First against the Japanese and then against the Soviet backed PRC.

These wars as they were fought and conducted by the Chinese Nationalist government and its armies really had nothing to do with the Taiwanese and did not impact or involve them in any real way. This was to changed forever.

And so in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek eventually found himself chased out of China completely by the communists. From here he retreated to Taiwan and set up his Chinese Nationalist state in Exile and established a rule of martial law that was to govern over the people for four decades. Lets only hope that recent events do not lead us back to those not too distant days again.

It was during this period that the Chinese Nationalist government in exile (the Kuomingtang) created the fiction of the Republic of China on Taiwanese soil. It was fiction because it took massive repression of human rights and freedoms to force it on an island that was never more than 15% ethnically Chinese!

This type of repression, on a much more massive scale, occurred and is still occurring in communist China’s continued brutal occupation of Tibet.

We know that the creation of communist Chinese Tibet and nationalist Chinese Taiwan are ficticious and invalid because both constructs required the use of systematic killing, torture and tears to keep them stable and in place.

On their own without the use of brute force they could not exist, because they bear no reality whatsoever to the desires and wishes of the people with whom they try to rule.

Given freedom and the will of the people, both artificialities would perish like smoke in the wind.


Mistake Number 3: “The future of Taiwan should be decided by the Chinese on both sides of the straits.”

This also is missing any reality.

85% of the people on the island of Taiwan do not even consider themselves to even be Chinese! What Chinese? Where are they?

This is, of course, unless we start seeing massive Chinese population transfers into Taiwan from the PRC. This is why we should be particularly afraid of Chinese students coming into Taiwan to study and Chinese labor coming into Taiwan to work. It’s a small island and there’s not a lot of room to make a mistake.

If there ever were to be population transfers. Given enough people and enough time, Taiwan would cease being Taiwan. This happened to Inner Mongolia and Manchuria in the 1950’s and 1960’s by the PRC state. The ethnic populations in these places have been devastated and their indigenous cultures mostly destroyed.

This process is in high gear today in mineral rich Tibet especially with the new Lhasa railway completed in 2006.

Also of note:

The 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan is another point to look at relative to this third common mistake.

This treaty states and I quote: “that the future status of Taiwan will be decided in accord with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nation’s Code 1.2.”

This code states and I quote again: “that the purpose of the United Nations is to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”

This pretty much says it all right here:

ITS UP TO THE TAIWANESE PEOPLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE!

Take a look at this:

Japan who had held Taiwan until the 1945 occupation, in 1952 formally renounced its claim and ownership of Taiwan in accordance to the United Nations Charter code 1.2 as mentioned just now. The Japanese have actually complied with the UN mandate here by relinquishing their claim to Taiwan. It is a wonder why the Peoples Republic of China does not and has not been seriously challenged by the international community to do so?

The Peoples Republic of China is a member of the United Nations. And as a member they are bound by this treaty and therefore logically compelled to comply!


Mistake Number 4: “Advocating Taiwan’s independence heightens tensions and will provoke a Chinese attack on the island.”

More realities here.

The communist PRC government never ruled Taiwan for even one day, not even one minute; nothing.

The cause for whatever conflict that may or may not transpire is caused by the “Taiwan is part of China and / or China is part of the ROC” mentality and rhetoric.

This has been the constant mantra from both the PRC and the Kuomintang.

These are both out-dated fantasies.

The Kuomintang lost the civil war in China in 1949.

The PRC also lost its battle 50 years ago when it tried to capture the island way back then and has been held in check ever since.

Its over, and now its time for the world to move on to the realities of what exists today and what the people in Taiwan actually want. Nothing should be allowed to stand in the way here; least of all fear!

The reality is that Taiwan has been a separate entity all along, and that the Taiwanese people have now achieved democracy themselves. Nobody gave it to them and they did not find it hidden somewhere under a rock. They created it themselves out of nothing with hard work, sweat and tears.

If Taiwan’s independence is to ever be viewed as provocative; what of America’s and India’s independence from the British Empire. Where these provocative?

Since when have human rights and freedom ever been provocative?

These are the absolute minimum requirements we all need as human beings to live happy and healthy lives.

These are not luxuries worth trading away for corporate greed and profit, but necessities much like water and air to sustain survival itself.

If all of this is a provocation?

Then that’s a provocation that’s well worth it, because the alternative means being a slave and nothing is ever worth that!!!


the snow lion