President Lincoln used to ask a riddle: if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? He enjoyed revealing that the answer was four…because CALLING a tail a leg didn’t MAKE it one.*
By the same token, the Japanese Foreign Minister decided that calling Taiwan a province of China didn’t actually make it one, and said so in public. Said the FM:
"[Taiwan’s] democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country. In various ways it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan."
Whoa! The KMT and Taiwan’s other capitulationist parties aren’t going to like hearing THAT. For them, the single country in the world most worthy of praise and emulation is CHINA. In response to the Japanese minister, we might soon hear some more Japan-bashing from KMT head Hizoner Ma Ying-jeou. Perhaps something similar to his previously stated desire for a "battle to force a settlement" with Japan over the disposition of the Senkakus Islands.
Shortly after the Japanese Foreign Minister’s statement, China engaged in a little flipfloppery. It was not so long ago – barely a week, in fact – when they called upon the United Nations to spank Taiwan for abolishing the National Unification Council. Interfere in our internal affairs all you like, they told the UN at the time.**
But when the Chinese Foreign Minister heard that his Japanese counterpart had called Taiwan a "country", he got all prickly, angrily responding, "We are strongly protesting against this rude intervention in China’s internal affairs."
Aw, c’mon guys. You’re either in favor of foreign interference in your "internal affairs" or you’re against it. What’s it gonna be?
Interestingly, The China Post had a few more statements from the Japanese FM illustrating the growing resentment the Japanese feel due to China’s bullying:
[The minister likened] Japan to a rich but physically weak child who is picked on at school.
"What do you do so you don’t get bullied? There is no other way than to run away or fight," Aso told supporters last weekend in the central city of Kanazawa, the magazine said.
"You may be able to graduate from school in three years. But when it comes to countries, neighbors will be neighbors forever," it quoted him as saying.
Perhaps then, calling Taiwan a country is a demonstration of Japan’s increasing unwillingness to play the 98 pound weakling in the schoolyard. I can’t help but think that Japan was once a Great Power, and that if it wanted to, it could be again. It may be most unwise to push around the Japanese.
* Of course, the children’s story, "The Emperor’s New Clothes" makes essentially the same point that the truth is the truth.
There is however, a countervailing Chinese story that states the truth is whatever the powerful happen to say it is. In this story, a Chinese emperor sees a mule, calls it a horse in front of his court, and then asks the courtiers what kind of an animal they think it is. Those who answer truthfully are beheaded on the spot for having the effrontery to publicly disagree with the emperor.
(Similarly, Winston Smith in 1984 is told that the Party has new answers for simple arithmetic questions, and is tortured when he gives the "wrong" answers. After sufficient "re-education", he accepts that the Party is always right about such things.)
** Someone at the National Review or the Weekly Standard asked a question relating to China’s request to the UN to upbraid Taiwan "province" for abolishing the NUC. When was the last time, the writer asked, when President Bush went to the UN to call for help in dealing with a troublesome American state governor?
Help me out here, because my knowledge of Taiwanese politics is pretty spotty. Is there still a “Japan is bad because of WWII” attitude there, especially prevalent amoug the KMT? Or is it just that they feel some cultural (?) tie to the mainland? It can’t be ideological, I’d think, as wasn’t it the KMT that fought the Chinese communists in the civil war? Sorry for being so unknowledgeable here.
Also, I’d think Taiwan would want to court Japan as an ally. Japan has a large military that would be of much use against the PLA/PLAN. Certainly I know there has been much US-Japan cooperation of late, especially, not only between navies but in the area of missile defense (re the latter the Japanese want to buy everything we’ve got).
And yes, you’re dead right that Japan is coming out if it’s shell. About time, too. They’d make damn fine allies, in my opinion.
Thank you in advance,
Tom
I’m with you 100% on the need for Taiwan to court Japan. There are, however, complications…
“Is there still a “Japan is bad because of WWII” attitude there, especially prevalent amoug the KMT?”
The feelings towards the Japanese here are highly dependent upon ethnicity.
Many Mainlanders here ABSOLUTELY hate them, and are not shy about saying so. The Japanese were pretty brutal in their conquest of the mainland, so when the Mainlanders fled to Taiwan after the Chinese Civil War, they had very bitter memories of the Japanese.
(I’ve witnessed it first-hand. I was once in a bar talking to an Asian fellow in English, when a Mainlander? woman walked up to him and asked if he was Japanese. When he answered yes, she told him TO HIS FACE that she didn’t like Japanese. Thankfully, nothing more happened, but it was a pretty uncomfortable situation.)
The native Hoklos (often called “Taiwanese”, because their ancestors came to Taiwan from Southern China 4-500 years ago) on the other hand have much more positive feelings towards the Japanese. Japanese colonial policies on Taiwan were much softer than on the mainland. Their plan was to turn the Taiwanese into second-class citizens – which may not be a fate most aspire to, but unlike Mainlanders, the Taiwanese were never used for bayonette practice or as test subjects in germ warfare experiments.
When the KMT came to Taiwan, they were welcomed with open arms as fellow Chinese. Within a very short time (see my February 28 posts), they began to make the Japanese look good in retrospect. The Japanese may have been harsh disciplinarians, but they were very intolerant of corruption, and brought progress with them in terms of public health measures, education and infrastructure improvements.
So there you have it. One ethnic group making up 20% of the population loathes the Japanese and buy DVDs of Spielberg’s “Empire of the Sun”. The other 70% have reasonably favorable views of Japan and end up buying CDs by Japanese pop starlets like Ayumi Hamasaki and Namie Amuro.
“Or is it just that they feel some cultural (?) tie to the mainland?”
In the case of Mainlanders, yes. The China Post constantly puts out editorials appealing to cultural unity, saying, “We are all Chinese”. Sometimes the rhetoric takes on racial overtones, such as when they proclaim, “We are all sons of the Yellow Emperor”. But I’m not sure how seriously the Hoklos take it all, seeing as their culture has had a few hundred years to diverge from that of the mainland.
“It can’t be ideological, I’d think, as wasn’t it the KMT that fought the Chinese communists in the civil war?”
It’s true that the KMT fought the communists 50 years ago, but can the modern government of China still really be considered “communist”? The current Chinese government is dictatorial, allows for only one party, encourages nationalism, and allows government-influenced private enterprise.
That sounds a lot like the KMT of 50 years ago!
This convergence of policies provides the ideological motivation for KMT-Communist rapproachment (which has been going on since the KMT lost the presidency in 2000).
Very interesting, Foreigner. Thank you for the information, as it helps my understanding of the situation.
New poll numbers out here:
“On the question of friendliness toward foreigners, 27 percent of the interviewees felt most friendly toward Japanese, followed by the Americans with 22 percent support, Chinese at 11 percent and Koreans with 9 percent.”
So it looks like it can be said that Taiwanese as a whole have very positive views of the Japanese.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/03/16/2003297584