Anti-China Protests - November 2008

Politics Taiwan Politics
21

We have seen large numbers of riot police, brutality and barbed wire and water cannons before. Used to be a regular sight not too long ago.

Its the same old tussle. DPP vs KMT. Taiwan independence vs China.

Southern Taiwan vs Northern Taiwan (again DPP vs KMT)

The police tactic is again to let the protestors run amok and cause trouble. The KMT does this time and again to show people that the DPP brings trouble. Gangsters are always employed for this purpose and heaven knows Taiwan is 10pct made up of gangsters and hooligans who just LOVE a chance to riot and get back at the police.

Whats the protestors position? Dont talk with China or what?

I think though that Ma shouldve insisted that he be addressed as Mister President and that the Chinese envoys be warned that OF COURSE the country will be full of ROC flags, what did you expect?

I can understand the ROC flag is not allowed to fly in China , but we aint in China buddy.

Is this what the protests are all about? Is it because the people havent been told and dont agree with talks?

Is expanding flights between Taiwan and China not what the people of Taiwan want? SAme for expanded trade?

Dont people remember there are over a million Taiwanese in China who could suffer persecution if China decides on that? And they wont even be able to return to Taiwan either.

Violence is wrong. But TAiwan must respect itself in its dealings with China.

Or is this part of a grand scheme hatched by Lien when he went to visit that trouble will be brewed in Taiwan that finally will result in Chinese forces being allowed over to TAKE CONTROL???

Whats really going on here. Whats the power play?

22

This was my experience as well. I was there yesterday in the afternoon and rode by again after 10pm and there were just many angry older people standing around listening to speakers on a podium. One crotchety old woman came up to me and stated quite firmly that this was HER country (in English). Another man talked to me and answered some of my questions, but mostly he was happy to see a foreigner taking interest in their cause. The youngest people I saw were the two guys handing out the yellow ribbons, who gleefully gave me a handful of them.

Tonight, the old folks had moved on, but the younger ones set up camp in front of some gov building on ZhongXiao E (忠孝東) around the corner from the train station. A fellow onlooker told me they were TaiDa students. Just people milling around, listening to the speaker, and talking quietly.

Agreed. I dont get why people here on F.com expect Taiwanese to be peaceful. I hope they fight back, fighting for their freedoms. Scream, shout, push…it’s what people do in the States – perhaps the few of you who say violence isn’t the answer forget about people pushing and shoving “back home.” Being passive doesn’t get results. Now, I’m not saying we should do it ‘American style’ and take out guns, but a little shouting and screaming is called for. Without our voices, what are we?

The squeaky wheel gets the most oil.

23

This is a risk one takes when one goes to another country or does business with a country that has definite qualms with their home country. No?

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[quote=“Mer”]Watching the news this afternoon, my wife and I were thinking along much the same line as you LostSwede.

One thing is clear, Taiwanese still have yet to embrace or understand the concept of peaceful protest.[/quote]

Fine for you to say. Never had protests in Europe then eh? Perhaps you don’t care as it’s not your country that might get sold down the river? Maybe there are many people of all political persuasiions who are against the current administrations moves. I know of quite a few KMT members who have invited me to come along and protest… after I’m Taiwanes e and have that right.

Perhaps when Sweden is given to Finland there won’t be any protests at all eh?

I suppose the USA gained it’s independence by peaceful protest then too?

25

Enemy? Dude, this isn’t a war and going around calling the police pigs isn’t exactly going to get you any favours. Take a chill pill as this kind of violence isn’t going to solve anything.

Sure, there’s been a “cold” war for a long time, but at least no-one got hurt, now people are being hurt for stupid reasons.
I don’t agree with the fact that the Taiwanese flags were taken down and yes, Ma should stand up for his country and the fact that he’s the president of it.
This still doesn’t justify the kind of things I’ve been watching on the news for the past hour and it wouldn’t be allowed in any country.
What’s going on isn’t going to solve anything, it’s just going to make things worse and it’s going to make the world think that Taiwan is full of crazy people that want’s to pick a fight with the Chinese.
I would never support a communist government, but China isn’t Taiwan and Taiwan isn’t China and hopefully will never be a part of China the way things are now.
Even my girlfriend said she felt ashamed to be Taiwanese while we were watching the news, which is quite sad.
Sure, the people who cause the problems tonight aren’t your average Taiwanese people, but who outside of Taiwan is going to know that when they’re watching this crap on the news?
This country needs to sort itself out big time before it’ll ever be taken serious by anyone, China included and it’s a very very long way to go before Taiwan even gets close to that.

26

Enemy? Dude, this isn’t a war and going around calling the police pigs isn’t exactly going to get you any favours. Take a chill pill as this kind of violence isn’t going to solve anything.

Sure, there’s been a “cold” war for a long time, but at least no-one got hurt, now people are being hurt for stupid reasons.
I don’t agree with the fact that the Taiwanese flags were taken down and yes, Ma should stand up for his country and the fact that he’s the president of it.
.[/quote]

Maybe he won’t be President after the next election. Thats if he doesnt get shot first.

27

and so the revolution begins . . .
or maybe not, depends how much momentum this has gained on the people

But I completely agree with the protesters, and watching them protest, makes me proud to be born from Taiwan and proud to be living a democratic society. Thomas Jefferson once said that if the government has gone wrong than it is up to the people to revolt…or in this case taking it to the streets

28

The news made my girlfriend quite proud. Her country has people who fight for what they believe is right. She couldn’t be prouder to be Taiwanese right now, come to think of it.

29

Being Taiwanese is subject to further definition:

  1. Are Taiwanese citizens of China because they are citizens of the Republic of China?

  2. Are Taiwanese citizens of the Republic of China?

  3. Does the Republic of China consist of Chinese territory?

  4. What exactly does it mean Republic of China? What does it consist of?

  5. Are there two Chinas or one China and one Taiwan?

  6. Should there be two Chinas? The Republic of China and the Peoples Republic of China.

  7. Or should there be an agreement its the same country just two different jurisdictions/governments?

  8. Has the Republic of China ceased to be meaningful because the same does not control any part of the China mainland?

  9. Should there be a Republic of Taiwan?

  10. Should the island really be considered as part of the USA?

  11. Should the island be considered as part of Japan?

  12. What does it mean to be a citizen of the Republic of China when it doesnt have anything to do with the China mainland?

These fundamental problems are the core of todays protests and the protests over the last few decades. We have Republic of China supporters who feel that TAiwan is a part of China but not a part of the CCP government that runs China. And that perhaps the One Country- Two Systems concept may work. As long as the CCP leaves us alone , we are happy with our situ. The Status Quo concept.

Then theres the Republic of Taiwan (DPP) supporters who feel that we have nothing to do with China now and havent since WW2. That mandarin should be banned as japanese once was (when the KMT came over). That Taiwanese should be the lingua franca (nevermind its the same language as spoken and written in the province directly across the straits).

NO wonder being Taiwanese is such a headache for the Taiwanese. They must be asking themselves Who Are We Exactly??

30

This has been discussed elsewhere – TaiU (ha – should it be “TaiYi”?) has it’s own (albeit archaic) writing system and is therefore is linguistically not a dialect but a separate language from Chinese (whereas, to a great extent, Mandarin and Cantonese follow the Chinese writing system are therefore qualify as dialects).

31

This has been discussed elsewhere – TaiU (ha – should it be “TaiYi”?) has it’s own (albeit archaic) writing system and is therefore is linguistically not a dialect but a separate language from Chinese (whereas, to a great extent, Mandarin and Cantonese follow the Chinese writing system are therefore qualify as dialects).[/quote]

Yes I forgot that China now uses Simplified Characters whereas the Rep of China uses Traditional Characters. So essentially the written Chinese now found on TAiwan is different then that found on the China mainland.

32

tommy525, it was not that Japanese was banned over here… Taiwanese was also banned, and I guess Hakka went down the same path. I said this many times before: go to places who had their local culture banned during dictatorships, and you will feel that Taiwanese are too lenient… try to be a proud Spanish in both the Basque Country or Catalunya…

I went to all the 3 protests today (afternoon, Legislative Yuan and ZhongShang North Road, and didn’t see any violence - even when I was taking pictures of the cops behind the barbwire in ZhongShang N. Road…

What you see on the news is just what they want you to see… what about being there, and feeling it?

What about being with about 200 people and watching more than 400 cops crossing the bridge, watching water tanks coming in and people with video cameras filming everything (but just the protester side, not the police side)?

Before you can even talk about violence, I’m still waiting for a legislator to move on top of a Varica and go against the barbwire fences…

And be happy that Taiwanese are not 1% of what South-Koreans are, because then it would be even better…

33

This has been discussed elsewhere – TaiU (ha – should it be “TaiYi”?) has it’s own (albeit archaic) writing system and is therefore is linguistically not a dialect but a separate language from Chinese (whereas, to a great extent, Mandarin and Cantonese follow the Chinese writing system are therefore qualify as dialects).[/quote]
I’m not sure why you think the linguistic relationship between Cantonese vs. Mandarin is significantly different than Taiwanese vs. Mandarin. If anything, Cantonese is closer to Taiwanese than it is to Mandarin. Perhaps you can provide some examples.

34

[quote=“cjc444”]I was there all night and just now go home and until I left it was a peaceful protest with a lot of angry people. After 8 hours of it though I was exhausted and went home. However, I could feel the tension and to be honest I agree with everything the protesters felt and stated. I guess I missed the violence since I left at about 10:30, but all I can think is that if it was MY country involved I would have committed quite a few acts of ultra-violence myself.

I will be back tomorrow if they are still there… Fuck Ma, Fuck China. And for those of you who say violence is wrong, let you be faced with that many pigs protecting your enemy in your OWN country and see how you feel.[/quote]

Yep. You set up a perimetre that takes almost two fucking hours to walk around, put cops in riot gear all over the streets, and barbed wire walls, well, this is provocation. Seriously, everyone should get out there and see just how many cops are about and the ridiculous level of overkill.

When a government stops trusting the people, then the people start acting in like fashion.

cjc444, I am interested to know if you saw any violence at all. I saw one incident which was tiny but obviously from the way some people reacted on Fcom the news made it seem monstrously out of control. I also have my suspicions about the guys who started fighting with the police as I was not 30m from the incident. When the walls came down a groups of tough looking guys just suddenly ran around the corner and rushed over to start trouble with the police.

It was very suspicous as everyone else just hung back or crossed the barrier and proceeded to hang out on the street. You’ll see in my pics later.

Don’t know about the stuff tonight as I wasn’t watching TV.

35

[quote=“mr_boogie”]…I went to all the 3 protests today (afternoon, Legislative Yuan and ZhongShang North Road, and didn’t see any violence - even when I was taking pictures of the cops behind the barbwire in ZhongShang N. Road…
[/quote]

Oh there was definitely some violence but it was about 10 people and it lasted a short while.

I left around 6.30pm. Did you stay later? Zhongshan was practically deserted at that time and I couldn’t hear any other protesting going on (and I had walked all around the city from 4.30 to 6.30)

36

Because I couldn’t resist, about the violence…


People use horns to make noise against the police. On top of that building, police is filming every movement so they can come after protesters…


The only piece of “violence” I saw…


Although this picture is dark, one can see how many cops there are against protesters… and they have barbwire fence “protecting” them…

When I arrived, my wife decided to turn to the left on Ren Ai road, so we were bound for a 1 hour walk to get back to where we should be… crazy all that “protection”… I went to the Legislative Yuan at 8:30 then to Zhongshan North Road until 10:30.

I didn’t see any violence, but the sheer amount of cops on the streets makes you think you are somewhere else in the world…

And to those who think I have no idea, I was in the opening match of the Euro 2004, and there wasn’t 1% of this… at least 10 matches between english teams (even in their hooligan big days) and never saw anything this size…
The only thing I saw comparable was when there was a manifestation of Arcelor employees in Luxembourg, and police were carrying sub-machine guns (but were only something like 2000 of them)…

37

So where exactly is all this taking place? I left Zhongshan and Ketagalan, at the south gate, at 6.30pm. No one was there.

And yes, it took me about two hours to walk aroudn the perimetre as well. Absolutely ludicrous.

What does it remind me of? Lhasa two months ago with police on every corner and the entrance to every lane.

38

Okay some pics:

Wow, it looks serious:

People are battling the police:

Er, well, a few anyway. Notice that the crowd is not joining them at all.

Most people just want a good pic:

When the media is this close is does tend to look like anarchy:

Opps, let’s look down the road three minutes later:

Not exactly a mob is it?

A few pics of the overkill:

Do you think it’s proper to set up barbed wire fences outside an MRT?

The stormtrooper gear up. They appear to be very frightened don’t you think?

Some of the Taiwanese characters:

Complete radicals these folks:

The walls come down:

After the walls came down the atmosphere was so tense the ice cream seller had to move in to smooth things out:

This pretty much says it all:

I don’t know what happened tonight but I saw 50-100,000 people march loudly but peacefully save 10. Make of that what you will.

You can see the whole set of my pics as a slideshow here:

flickr.com/photos/53879542@N00/s … 712069997/

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This is how violent it was… I have no more words…

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taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003428014

Aint that peaceful was it?

Why so much DPP protesting when its only a delegate from China here to sign cross straits agreements that will benefit many Taiwanese?

Should Taiwan pretend China doesnt exist and not have anything to do with it? Then it must withdraw all its investments from China and withdraw its more then a million Citizens from China.

And a state of war should continue.

As it is, how is Taiwan to set up an office in China and China one in Taiwan?

How are meetings to progress every six months?

I think we need to work with China, not cut off all ties as the DPP action suggests.

China is the big bad wolf in our neighborhood, we cant ignore it is there. We need to work with it. Not give in to it, but to work out parameters where we can co exist.

Not wanting to talk to the wolfs delegate isnt in our best interests.

China doesnt protest when we send people over to talk.

Taiwan has perhaps become impossibly divided. Roughly half want outright declaration of independence and war if need be, while the other wish to remain Chinese and work with China’s CCP as a legitimate entity.

Half of TAiwanese hate the KMT and the ROC and this isnt going away. The KMT has ruled Taiwan for decades by force. The DPP is the voice of the native Taiwanese who want the KMT OUT and the ROC OUT>

But this direction will only result in two things:

  1. Victory and the establishment of a Republic of TAiwan. Where all education will be in TAiwanese and a strong emphasis will be on the TAiwanese nationality and character. A witch hunt will favor all those deemed TAiwanese enough and shut out those that came over with Chiang. The reverse of what the KMT did decades ago.

  2. TAiwan as it is will cease to exist. War will break out with China and the nation of ROC will cease to exist as it is finally conquered in whole by the CCP’s China.

Taiwan will be laid to ruin by the Chinese missiles and the Chinese forces will take over the island.

Both of the above scenarios I dont personally favor. A Taiwan thats run by ruffians under a DPP dictatorship isnt what I would want for Taiwan. The DPP has shown itself to be as corrupt as the KMT was (is). Chen is a prime example. The leader of the DPP and once leader of the ROC is himself extremely corrupt. Not a good example of DPP leadership is it? We have been run by the DPP , should we want to be owned by that party?

Ideally Chiang was right, take back the mainland of China from the hands of the CCP. But thats a huge pipe dream now isnt it?

Unless China breaks free from its shackles from within.

The sane course of action for Taiwan now is as it has been for over five decades and that is INACTION. The status quo.

We remain the Republic of China, an alternate China.

WE are already independent of the CCP’s China. And we will rejoin the mainland of China when it too becomes a multi party government.