I understand your point of view and many will probabaly feel the same. Except you need to be clear on your position on the KMT party, because they are as foreign as Koxinga.
Now the differenece in my opinion is this, why should the Taiwanese peopel still carry such a resentments towards the Japanese, and be catogorized as a disgraceful Japanese collaborators by the Chinese people?
That’s like saying we should hate the Dutch, Chinese, Americans, French and Spanish based on our past histories. And that the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan should hate us all, because we are as foreign to them as the Dutch to us based on historical events.
The point is after a certain period of time, reconciliations should be made, otherwise the circle of hatred just carries on forever. You can not tell me to hate someone just because he is a WSR, that’s just broad racial discrimination based on things happened during our past generations.
Sure, the reconciliation process doesn’t happen overnight, but if the people in Taiwan has decided that they already reconciliated with the Japanese, there’s nothing wrong with that. The ethnic conflict that still exists in Taiwan means people in Taiwan still hasn’t fully reconciliated, and such conflicts is usually highlighted and reflected in our political situation. But that’s based on a difference circumstance such as the history being more recent, the brutality and discrimination being more fresh in our memories, ethnichisotry hasn’t been totally resotore, and that the external threats such as China still exist.
But at least I believe everyone agrees that we should reconciliation between ourselves islandwide sooner or later and move on.
[quote=“Yi”]What does a soccer match between China and Japan have to do with Taiwan politics? :eh:
Side note:
But last year, relations nose-dived further after a three-day sex romp involving hundreds of Japanese tourists and Chinese prostitutes at a hotel in south China. Some Chinese were convinced the orgy was timed to humiliate China as it coincided with the eve of the anniversary of the start of Japan’s occupation of China – September 18, 1931.
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I for one want to go on record as saying that I intentionally time all my orgies just to humiliate the Chinese.
Remember the KMT modeled their narrative of koxinga as a Chinese national hero who’s intent in taking Taiwan was to restore it to China…
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…That’s the kind of stuff they put up on historical sites to “educate” visitors.
China is quickly becoming a clone of Meiji Japan.
This China Times report raises an interesting suspicion: China’s soccer association may have deliberately arranged for the Japanese team to play in Chongqing, which was devastated by heavy Japanese bombing in WWII when it was still run by Chiang Kai-shek.
The tournament was played in four cities – Beijing, Chengdu, Jinan and Chongqing. The Japanese team happened to be in group D, which played in Chongqing (except for the Oman-Thailand match in Chengdu). Japan also played its quarterfinal with Jordan in Chongqing. Their semifinal was in Jinan.
The report basically said the soccer association tried to use the Chinese fans to sap Japan’s morale and boost the home team’s chances.
Does it make sense? Would it have made any difference in any of the three other cities? Anyone?
[quote=“Col Kurtz”]The report basically said the soccer association tried to use the Chinese fans to sap Japan’s morale and boost the home team’s chances.
Does it make sense? Would it have made any difference in any of the three other cities? Anyone?[/quote]
I find this hard to believe. Generally speaking, such draws are handled by the governing body of the event, in this case the AFC (Asian Football Confederation.) Of course, the host team can place their team in the city of their choice, in this case, Beijing. Japan wouldn’t have played in Beijing as both Japan and China were seeded teams (Japan as defending champs and China as hosts.) It is quite likely that Japan would have ended up in Chongqing just by the draw as conducted by the AFC, NOT the CFF.
Must just point out that the Chinese soccer team’s coach 哈恩 is Dutch.
[quote=“The Xinhua News Agency”]China’s head coach Arie Haan, apparently in a low spirit, found himself hard to accept the way his team lost the game.
“I don’t want to comment much about the game. My players are not as experienced as the Japanese players. The Japanese players were more clever when body contacts happened. I am happy with my players’ performance, But I am disappointed at the way we lost,” the Dutchman said.[/quote]
Source: Japan beats China in Asian Cup final
Must just point out that the Chinese soccer team’s coach 哈恩 is Dutch.
[quote=“The Xinhua News Agency”]China’s head coach Arie Haan, apparently in a low spirit, found himself hard to accept the way his team lost the game.
“I don’t want to comment much about the game. My players are not as experienced as the Japanese players. The Japanese players were more clever when body contacts happened. I am happy with my players’ performance, But I am disappointed at the way we lost,” the Dutchman said.[/quote]
Source: Japan beats China in Asian Cup final[/quote]
Translation from Soccerese to English: The Japanese were better divers!
Perhaps Haan forgot how one of his players dive gained them a one-man advantage against Iran in the Semifinals, and they were still drawn at full time.
After the Chinese embassy bombing during the last Balkan War, a fellow I know who was close to the diplomatic community in Beijing reported that the "spontaneous’ protests of the US embassy by students and citizens was tightly controlled by the authorities for maximum expression without getting out of hand. Students were paid and bussed to the US embassy by the government and protested in shifts with coffee and snacks provided back on campus. Some students were simply rushed around the corner and exchanged with new ones. Only the anti government protest have not been choreographed by the government. The soccer protests can be read as a semi-official Chinese protest against Japan. A similar thing happened when the US switched recognition from the ROC to PRC… Warren Christopher’s car was attacked by a controlled mob.
Is this how the '08 Olympics are going to be?[/quote]
Dang, this is EXACTLY what occurred to me. The international community had BETTER make sure China gets all the Golds, they have nuclear weapons, after all .
Is this how the '08 Olympics are going to be?[/quote]
This is an example of where, if you’re not Chinese, it’ll be really hard to understand. Only people who have shared experiences of similar brutalities would understand. My Jewish friend who visited both the Holocaust memorial and the Nanjing memorial finally realized the kind of atrocities the Japanese did to the Chinese as the Germans did to the Jews. He didn’t understand why no one in the US knew about it.
There are many Chinese people who feel that the (continued) Taiwanese love affair with the Japanese is entirely disgraceful. Not unlike how people viewed German collaborators in WW2.[/quote]
So, you would then expect the Japanese to riot after the U.S. won a baseball game. This would be retaliation for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no explanation or excuse for this. I am quite familiar with Nanjing, have researched it in detail. However, that was 50 years ago under a different government and was not the fault of the Japanese people (something many Vietnamese friends point out when asked the question “Why don’t more Vietnamese hate Americans?” is that the American people were not responsible for the atrocities in Vietnam, the government was…)
I was living in Shanghai at the time of the bombing and I observed pretty much the same thing. There was also a sign hanging from the British consulate reading:
[quote=“steve101”]This makes you wonder if Beijin is really fit to host the 2008 Olympic games. I suppose we ought to hand out all the gold medals in advance to their team before the games are even played to avoid a national riot by the Chinese if they loose.
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Perhaps we should let China completely embarrass itself at the Olympics (that it hosts, no less) with this kind of display.
Then again, who said the Chinese is capable of being embarrassed…
I actually find myself agreeing with AC. The behavior of the Chinese fans in Beijing was not bad compared to Latin American or West European football fans. I`d feel a lot safer at that match than I would at a comparable game between arch-rivals in Sao Paulo, Manchester or Munich.
That’s ridiculous. The behaviour of UK/Euro football hooligans is done by extreme fans in support of their local team.
This Chinese stuff is of a different league altogether as it is due to National chauvinism and race hatred.
The PRC government must take the lion’s share of the blame for their decades-old practice of cultivating xenophobic nationalism and manipulating this for their own ends whenever they see fit.
The match was less violent, not because the fans are more civilized, but because of the 10,000 cops with their snarling alsatians.
I can only say that Beijing got away easy this time with intimidation. The Olympics will be much harder to control, with so many events happening around the country. Things may not implode, but we can expect small incidents here and there.
But then Beijing can rally 2 million troops and cops and declare a state of olympian war, can’t it?
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