The Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ is carrying yet another analysis of the recent presidential election in Taiwan, "Voice of Taiwanese heard around Asia". Written by Tom Plate, it begins by commenting (as so many others have done before) on China's rising power and status, before turning its attention to Ilha Formosa:
"Another orbiting territory does hold elections — real ones, fiercely fought, as if the people have never known anything else. And one was held there just recently. The result offered dramatic and historic significance. It is Taiwan, the island off mainland China. Yes, its population is but 23 million or so, but nonetheless it's a major player in the evolution of Asia. That's because of tensions with mainland monster China, which considers the island a bratty defector from the otherwise always-close mainland family. That Goliath-David odd-couple relationship helps set the tone of the East Asian region. Whoever Taiwan had elected as its president last month inevitably would be a closely watched event."
The remark about "another orbiting territory" is in reference to Hong Kong. Apparently, with the exception of directly electing its leaders (which the people of Hong Kong are not allowed to do), Pate doesn't see much of a difference between the Republic of China 中華民国 and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region 香港特別行政区. The praise then starts to flow from Plate's pen:
"What Taiwan decided was historic: That it was time for a change. Overwhelmingly, voters said the tactics of confrontation with China, as practiced by the outgoing Democratic People's Party (sic) government, were not getting anyone anywhere, and they said control of the central government should switch to the Kuomintong (sic). The KMT party, for years in opposition, is the very party with which Beijing has repeatedly declaimed as the most comfortable. With this stunning result, you could almost hear a collective sigh of relief sweep across Asia. The triumphant KMT was led by the debonair Ma Ying-jeou. For months he had been expected to win the presidential race. But the resurgent troubles in Tibet had forecasters wondering whether the party that was so committed to negotiation with Beijing would be able to maintain plausibility with Taiwan voters when the world's TV cameras were suggesting that Beijing didn't seem to be in favor of negotiating with anyone right now. Taiwan answered the clubs of Tibet with votes for change — for dramatic movement away from confrontation. With the thundering certainty that only a decisive ballot box result can offer, the vote heard around Asia was a call for sanity, civility and stability."
I've heard Ma called many things, both good and bad, but this is the first time to my knowledge someone has described him as "debonair". Plate goes on to write:
"Even if the result had gone the other way, Beijing would not have learned any lesson; it would not have viewed its Tibet repression as ill-advised. On the contrary, it probably would only have cemented the Communist mind-set that reason has no compelling force of its own and that resorting to force is never unreasonable as long as it is effective. The voters of Taiwan in effect sought to offer their own — dramatically different — message. They anointed a new government that ran on a high-profile platform of negotiation rather than confrontation. The brave voters of Taiwan were not cowered by images of the police and military clubs being used against the protesters in Tibet. Rather, they were saying that had mature and forward-moving negotiations been in place over there, probably the clubs and police would never have had to come out."
Perhaps I'm a little confused, but couldn't the opposite conclusion from what Plate is drawing also be made here? That the "brave" voters of Taiwan actually got scared by what they were seeing happening in Tibet on their TV screens, and decided it would be better to put into office the man more likely to kowtow to China's wishes? If that's the case, then Beijing has, in fact, learned a very valuable lesson: might makes right after all. And the Dalai Lama has offered for years to negotiate greater autonomy for Tibet, as opposed to outright independence, yet China has rebuffed his efforts at "mature and forward-moving negotiations".
Plate then moves on to Asia in general, and of the necessity of trying to get along with the 800-pound gorilla living in its midst:
"Over the millenniums, Asia has acquired much genetic experience in surviving in the shadow of the Han-Chinese giant. But survival requires wise and sometimes wily adaptation, not dinosaur-like blustering. You may not like the fact that Mother China has so much gravity and weight in Asia, but if you don't, in truth, your quarrel is less with China itself than with history. Taiwan's voters understand this unavoidable reality; let us hope the next American president, whoever she or he is, does, too...without negotiation, the worst is sure to come. This is what the voters of Taiwan said, overwhelmingly, this weekend. And they were so right and timely to say it. There's a lesson for China and Tibet."
And that lesson, for non-Han peoples, seems to be to put up and shut up. In Plate's view, history is on the side of the Chinese giant. I've long suspected that the underlying reason for the antagonism felt by many Chinese towards Japan is not just based on the atrocities of the Second World War, but also on the fact that centuries ago, the Japanese stopped paying tribute to the Chinese imperial court. The gall of the "little dwarves" in not knowing their rightful place in relation to the Middle Kingdom (why, they even stood up to the Mongols, as did the Vietnamese, who, coincidentally, also have a long history of antagonistic relations with China)! Could some payback be in the offing as China continues to grow stronger?
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