Taiwan: independence/(re)unification/status quo/referendum?

[hsinhai78]

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]

PS: Calling all waishengren thieves is borderline racist and demeans their suffering. [/quote]

Various quotes from Michael Danielsen’s Taiwan Corner (DPP branch in Denmark):

“Taiwan Yes! China No!
Taiwan was never part of China! The KMT is a foreign party!
Taiwanese were so happy being Japanese!
Lee Teng-hui is the father of Taiwan. These 30 years or so in KMT he always fought for our Taiwan!
We are already the independent Republic of Taiwan, but actually Japan is such a nice place we should be part of it! Let’s kick out all Chinese KMT and their children from Taiwan! Go back to China if you like KMT!”

So yes, the same people who say Taiwan as part of ROC is a forceful, illegal and oppressive occupation spread the idea that being part of Japan was like paradise and waishengren or KMT voters should go to mainland China.

[Hokwongwei]

While I don’t think the “Let’s be a part of Japan again” rhetoric is main stream in the DPP, I’ve met a number of people so full of hate for the KMT that they have said similar things. (Incidentally, most were women, and I really wanted to comment: well then you would have a bright future as a comfort woman for Japanese troops. I have always chosen the higher path, though.)

Anyway this belief is really ridiculous coming from “independence” activists. Anyone who pines for Japanization isn’t independence-minded, they just blindly hate on the KMT and will take any alternative. Not a very healthy attitude.

[yuli]

[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“headhonchoII”]Yep the Japanese didn’t just roll into Taiwan on a magic carpet, there was stiff resistance from local Taiwanese and many died.
The aboriginals also rebelled against the Japanese.[/quote]

Careful, now. Soon you will be calling it the Japanese Occupation Era. [/quote]

Nothing wrong with that - Japan made no beans about occupying Taiwan…

[quote=“Mucha Man”]Japan did not occupy Taiwan. Taiwan was ceded by a legal treaty.

Taiwan was a colony. Not occupied territory.[/quote]

Legally there may be a difference between being ceded and being occupioed, but for most of the people in Taiwan the intial experience (and for many the expereince up to 1945) was no different from being occupied.
That does not make the occupation on part of the KMT any less disagreeable for those who suffered from it…

[yuli]

@Hokwongwei

Things haven’t changed because the small window of opportunity passed a long time ago.

I think we agree: i read your comment to mean that things have changed insofar Taiwan no longer claims the territory of the PRC, but the governments in the “west” and allied countries (like Japan and Korea) won’t acknowledge Taiwan as a country now because they are afraid of losing trade with the PRC (it looks like these governments have lost their guts from worshipping at the altar of capitalism)…

But then, even a bunch of cowards can be strong if they act together…

[Mucha_Man]

[quote=“yuli”][quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“headhonchoII”]Yep the Japanese didn’t just roll into Taiwan on a magic carpet, there was stiff resistance from local Taiwanese and many died.
The aboriginals also rebelled against the Japanese.[/quote]

Careful, now. Soon you will be calling it the Japanese Occupation Era. [/quote]

Nothing wrong with that - Japan made no beans about occupying Taiwan…

[quote=“Muzha Man”]Japan did not occupy Taiwan. Taiwan was ceded by a legal treaty.

Taiwan was a colony. Not occupied territory.[/quote]

Legally there may be a difference between being ceded and being occupioed, but for most of the people in Taiwan the intial experience (and for many the expereince up to 1945) was no different from being occupied.
That does not make the occupation on part of the KMT any less disagreeable for those who suffered from it…[/quote]

I don’t think people realize why deep blues use occupation. They want to claim that Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China. If it was ceded, and lawfully governed as a colony that argument falls apart.

This is not about me nitpicking on definitions. This is about bigots and fanatics trying to rewrite history and distort reality for their own gain.

So yes it matters, it matters very much whether you use occupy or colonize. It’s very much similar to how certain right wing groups in America try to distort the constitution and history to “prove” that there really is no legal grounds for separation of Church and state.

Or how in Japan right wing nationalists try to deny WWII atrocities.

Not surprisingly, the same people who want to restore the term occupy, also want to deny the mass killings of 228, and rehabilitate some of the key players.

Strange eh, how the term occupy seems to attract the bigots and fanatics whereas colony seems to be the consensus term of educated historians after much debate.

[Mucha_Man]

@hsinhai78

[quote=“Muzha Man”]Glad you admit the first generation of wsr were thieves.

What I am saying is that if we call WSR thieves, we must also call Benshengren thieves. Their deed to the island is as valid (or invalid) as that of the Waishengren population. What about the Aboriginal people? Why do we see hysteric old men from Tainan in front of the Presidential Office yelling “Dai ouan! Dai ouan!” who think they own this island yet Aboriginals are marginalized as drunk Disneyland attractions? “Oh she is aboriginal, she is very dark but her voice is so good!! I also heard they hunt boars and all have crazy sex in the mountains”.
[/quote]

Funny how easily bigotry falls from your lips even if you are pretending to paraphrase.

In any case, you are wrong again. The bsr are not called thieves as they came to Taiwan largely legally according to conventions at the time. First the Dutch, rightful rulers at the time (at least by the standards of the day) brought over tens of thousands and later many came over as legal immigrants (such as the group that settled Wahua after petitioning the emperor).

Even those who came over illegally still had to purchase land according to laws and customs at the time. Aboriginal land rights were largely upheld throughout most of the Qing era, and land deeds representing purchase of land from aboriginal groups are easily found. Of course there was theft, but largely things went in accordance with customs and laws at the time.

Contrast this with the carpetbagging of the KMT after 1945. It was not the law of the ROC that one can arrogate oneself into a position simply because one had the power to, nor that one could legally confiscate a business or property.

So no, bsr and wsr acquisition of land and property were largely not the same.

I don’t think the government of Ma Ying-jeou had the nationality act amended. In fact a few weeks ago a black athlete became a Republic of China citizen and last time I checked Satellite TV and Poagao were white. Not even to mention the thousands of South East Asian brides who naturalized and have the same rights and responsibilities as ethnic Chinese ROC citizens.

You are missing the point. Presidential tone matters, as does the fundamental assumptions the ruling party makes. Both CSB and Ma have the ROC constitution with respect to cross-strait relations but they have interpreted it wildly differently.

Or to give an analogy regarding immigration, both Republicans and Democrats have to follow the laws and constitution but there is a difference in policies (more at state level) that result from one party thinking America is a white Christian nation and the other a multi-ethnic entity.

When Ma stands up and claims Taiwan is a Han nation, disregarding the 2% aboriginals, the hundreds of thousands of SE Asian women and their kids, then that means something. I don’t think it’s sane to dismiss it as irrelevant because the law still allows white guys to become ROC citizens.

[Mucha_Man]

[quote=“Hokwongwei”]…PS: Calling all waishengren thieves is borderline racist and demeans their suffering. A good number of the soldiers (the ones not in power) who came over here didn’t want to, but had no choice in the matter. If you look at statistics, the white terror era “disappeared” more waishengren than benshengren. But if you want to call the ROC government thieves, I don’t take any issue with that.
[/quote]

I get your point, and I am well aware that most wsr were poor and had nothing to do with atrocities or theft. But WSR are not a race. At best they are an ethnic group, or as the Ma admin now says, a sub-Han ethnic group (Hoklo and Hakka are also now sub-Han whereas under the DPP they were simply ethnic groups).

[Hokwongwei]

[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]…PS: Calling all waishengren thieves is borderline racist and demeans their suffering. A good number of the soldiers (the ones not in power) who came over here didn’t want to, but had no choice in the matter. If you look at statistics, the white terror era “disappeared” more waishengren than benshengren. But if you want to call the ROC government thieves, I don’t take any issue with that.
[/quote]

I get your point, and I am well aware that most wsr were poor and had nothing to do with atrocities or theft. But WSR are not a race. At best they are an ethnic group, or as the Ma admin now says, a sub-Han ethnic group (Hoklo and Hakka are also now sub-Han whereas under the DPP they were simply ethnic groups).[/quote]

Well, you’re right in that, but race is ultimately a really arbitrary construction. We tend to think of it in the West as something modeled on physical appearance, but it could also be based on linguistic and cultural cues. At any rate, perhaps “discriminatory” and “prejudiced” would convey my point better.

[Mucha_Man]

[quote=“Hokwongwei”][quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]…PS: Calling all waishengren thieves is borderline racist and demeans their suffering. A good number of the soldiers (the ones not in power) who came over here didn’t want to, but had no choice in the matter. If you look at statistics, the white terror era “disappeared” more waishengren than benshengren. But if you want to call the ROC government thieves, I don’t take any issue with that.
[/quote]

I get your point, and I am well aware that most wsr were poor and had nothing to do with atrocities or theft. But WSR are not a race. At best they are an ethnic group, or as the Ma admin now says, a sub-Han ethnic group (Hoklo and Hakka are also now sub-Han whereas under the DPP they were simply ethnic groups).[/quote]

Well, you’re right in that, but race is ultimately a really arbitrary construction. We tend to think of it in the West as something modeled on physical appearance, but it could also be based on linguistic and cultural cues. At any rate, perhaps “discriminatory” and “prejudiced” would convey my point better.[/quote]

Yeah, but it’s a pretty ridiculous charge to make at someone who has been here as long as I have, has mostly WSR friends (obviously as I live in Taipei), married a WSR (though now divorced), learned their language and culture and history (the latter better than most of them), and so on.

I understand your standing up for them, but you really don’t need to do that with me just for the record. I really don’t despise 80% of the people I have been close to for this past decade and a half.

[hsinhai78]

@Mucha Man

[quote=“hsinhai78”][quote=“Muzha Man”]Glad you admit the first generation of wsr were thieves.

What I am saying is that if we call WSR thieves, we must also call Benshengren thieves. Their deed to the island is as valid (or invalid) as that of the Waishengren population. What about the Aboriginal people? Why do we see hysteric old men from Tainan in front of the Presidential Office yelling “Dai ouan! Dai ouan!” who think they own this island yet Aboriginals are marginalized as drunk Disneyland attractions? “Oh she is aboriginal, she is very dark but her voice is so good!! I also heard they hunt boars and all have crazy sex in the mountains”.
[/quote]

Funny how easily bigotry falls from your lips even if you are pretending to paraphrase.

In any case, you are wrong again. The bsr are not called thieves as they came to Taiwan largely legally according to conventions at the time. [/quote]

Were the Aboriginal people ever asked?
Did the Aboriginal people invite Fujianese settlers?
Did the Aboriginals invite the Dutch or the Spanish or the Chinese?

Nothing about that was legal. It was theft, oppression and genocide. Aboriginals were expelled from the plains into the mountains so that Chinese families have farmland.
And while rulers changed, no administration has seriously sought to compensate aboriginal people for their centuries of suffering in their homeland. In fact they had to witness the invaders claim the term “Taiwanese” for themselves.

So please, stop dreaming your chauvinist Hoklo dream!

[Mucha_Man]

@hsinhai78

…So please, stop dreaming your chauvinist Hoklo dream!

Oh please like I give a shit about Hoklo land claims. But most were legal according to standards at the time. Note that aboriginal tribes displaced each other back then all the time too and current land claims are simply what existed by Japanese times.

That’s the way the world was. However, in 1945 it was certainly not that way, even under the loose rule of law standards of the ROC.

Really, you need to just stop this. It is painfully obvious you don’t give a shit about aboriginals, nor about 18th century land theft but are just looking to excuse mid-20th century theft.

If you want to redress past wrongs, and get just compensation for aboriginal groups, I am all for it. But that’s not want you want is it?

[Hokwongwei]

[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“Hokwongwei”][quote=“Muzha Man”][quote=“Hokwongwei”]…PS: Calling all waishengren thieves is borderline racist and demeans their suffering. A good number of the soldiers (the ones not in power) who came over here didn’t want to, but had no choice in the matter. If you look at statistics, the white terror era “disappeared” more waishengren than benshengren. But if you want to call the ROC government thieves, I don’t take any issue with that.
[/quote]

I get your point, and I am well aware that most wsr were poor and had nothing to do with atrocities or theft. But WSR are not a race. At best they are an ethnic group, or as the Ma admin now says, a sub-Han ethnic group (Hoklo and Hakka are also now sub-Han whereas under the DPP they were simply ethnic groups).[/quote]

Well, you’re right in that, but race is ultimately a really arbitrary construction. We tend to think of it in the West as something modeled on physical appearance, but it could also be based on linguistic and cultural cues. At any rate, perhaps “discriminatory” and “prejudiced” would convey my point better.[/quote]

Yeah, but it’s a pretty ridiculous charge to make at someone who has been here as long as I have, has mostly WSR friends (obviously as I live in Taipei), married a WSR (though now divorced), learned their language and culture and history (the latter better than most of them), and so on.

I understand your standing up for them, but you really don’t need to do that with me just for the record. I really don’t despise 80% of the people I have been close to for this past decade and a half.[/quote]

I don’t mean to be critical of your viewpoints. I just wanted to note, for anyone who later comes along to read these pages, that such an argument can become a slippery slope in the wrong hands.

BTW, I lived in Taipei for almost all of the last five years, and nearly every single friend of mine is bsr. Guess it depends on what circles you run in?

[hansioux]

can we stop using terms such as BSR and WSR? The term themselves suggests that Taiwan is a province of China. To me those terms are about as offensive as calling a Native American or a First Nation Canadian Indian.

Just say one is an early immigrant, and the other is later immigrant, and for those just becoming Taiwanese now, they are new immigrants.

[Mucha_Man]

@Hokwongwei

…I don’t mean to be critical of your viewpoints. I just wanted to note, for anyone who later comes along to read these pages, that such an argument can become a slippery slope in the wrong hands.

OKay, good point.

I also agree with Hansioux. I hate the terms and find they are passe these days. Younger Taiwanese almost never use them.

[Dirt]

[quote=“headhonchoII”]PPP is a rubbish statistic, but please tell us how RICH Taiwanese are with 22k per month salaries for graduates and 19k minimum monthly pay and 30k per month average salaries central and south Taiwan.

Ridiculous.[/quote]

PPP means Purchasing Power Parity. Please look it up because I’m fairly sure you do not know what it means.

[quote=“hansioux”]can we stop using terms such as BSR and WSR? The term themselves suggests that Taiwan is a province of China. To me those terms are about as offensive as calling a Native American or a First Nation Canadian Indian.

Just say one is an early immigrant, and the other is later immigrant, and for those just becoming Taiwanese now, they are new immigrants.[/quote]

The ROC is a free country, people have the right to use whatever terms they wish. I have both waishenren and benshenren in my family tree.

@Mucha Man

I also agree with Hansioux. I hate the terms and find they are passe these days. Younger Taiwanese almost never use them.

You’re right. But I ain’t no spring chicken.

[Dirt]

Whoa. This forum adds a “g” to waishenren but not benshenren.

[Dirt]

@Hokwongwei

While I don’t think the “Let’s be a part of Japan again” rhetoric is main stream in the DPP, I’ve met a number of people so full of hate for the KMT that they have said similar things. (Incidentally, most were women, and I really wanted to comment: well then you would have a bright future as a comfort woman for Japanese troops. I have always chosen the higher path, though.)

Interestingly enough, whenever I say I’m from Taiwan around mainland Chinese women, they always get a little tiffed. I never get that reaction from mainland Chinese men.

[brawnypandora0]

I’m with the voting majority here. I am opposed to the process of Taiwanization however since the Taiwanese are not a distinct people, much like the Palestinians.

[Mucha_Man]

@brawnypandora0

I’m with the voting majority here. I am opposed to the process of Taiwanization however since the Taiwanese are not a distinct people, much like the Palestinians.

I don’t think you understand what Taiwanization means. The majority are certainly in favor of it. Voting for Ma was not a vote in favor of a KMT-style pan-Chinese identity that is about as traditional in any case as General Tso’s Chicken.

[hsinhai78]

@Mucha Man

[quote=“brawnypandora0”]I’m with the voting majority here. I am opposed to the process of Taiwanization however since the Taiwanese are not a distinct people, much like the Palestinians.

I don’t think you understand what Taiwanization means. The majority are certainly in favor of it. Voting for Ma was not a vote in favor of a KMT-style pan-Chinese identity that is about as traditional in any case as General Tso’s Chicken.[/quote]

Oh right. This story again. Just because someone identifies as 台灣人 doesn’t mean they don’t support pan-Chinese identity. For the time being, I have no other choice but to conclude from voting behavior as on the election day polls become worthless. If I was against a pan-Chinese identity and for the eventual independence of Taiwan, why would I vote KMT, especially considering their alleged crimes and desire for eventual unification or at least their staunch opposition to independence.

Your theory is hence inconclusive. Taiwanese vote KMT because deep under all that “we are Taiwanese, we are so different” they pull for naive foreigners, they enjoy having an edge over foreigners in the Chinese market, they enjoy having citizen rights when it comes to working and running companies in Mainland China and they definitely do not want to part with their own history and culture. Taiwanese might dislike Mainlanders for political or etiquette reasons, but consider that to most Taiwanese you sill always be a hairy white monkey foreigner - whereas the Mainlander from Shanghai will not be considered a foreigner by the vast majority of Taiwanese.

Otherwise Taiwanese would vote for TSU and DPP - but I don’t remember these guys winning much lately.