[quote=“sojourner”]If the president of a country that is made of mostly Taiwanese speaking people chooses to speak in Taiwanese, isn’t that ok?
Why is Mandarin more valid? Because Taipei city residents and bilingual foreingers can better understand?
Yes, the North is more pan-blue and Manadarin speaking, but so what? Numbers of Taiwanese speakers are more in Taiwan as a whole, no?[/quote]
I don’t think the issue is the number of speakers. It should be the number of NON-speakers.
I’d venture to guess <2% of the Taiwanese public would have a hard time understanding CSB if he had spoken in Mandarin. I’d venture to guess probably ~20% of the Taiwanese public didn’t understand him at all when he chose to speak in Taiwanese. (EDIT: Not to mention ac_dropout’s point that a larger percentage of the population didn’t understand the speech in its entirety.)
So, what does it say about a President that he chose to speak in a language that a significant percentage of the population does not understand?
well, let us not forget all the foreign spouses who probably couldn’t understand it if it was in Mandarin also, and all the aboriginal who also don’t speak mandarin. For god sake, if the man would make the speach in mandarin everyone would be pissing him off because he was not speaking to be people who elected him.
Ethnic, not racial – unless you want to retract your last bit about this being a Han-on-Han thing. The KMT’s sad practice of using ethnic politics to divide the island has resulted in two generations of politicians who play those games because that’s all they know. Sucks. Chen should have spoken in Mandarin – not to mention because that’s the language that people outside Taiwan who are interested in Taiwan also speak.
Yup. I’d quibble about the 2% – there are lots of older people who don’t speak it very well, I run into them from time to time – but cctang’s point is dead on. Probably somewhere between 10-20% of the electorate didn’t get the speech.
But even if everyone got the speech, the political stupidity of speaking Taiwanese in a major Presidential speech would remain. It’s dumb to speak in the language of a specific ethnic group when you are attempting to communicate your position to a whole nation, and further, when you represent that nation, and further, when your long-term goal is to build bridges to ethnic out-groups and bring them into your party. The KMT’s divide-and-rule tactics get a big boost from such stupidity.
Just look at the flip side…when the KMT began losing power as Taiwan democratized, mainlander politicians went out and learned Taiwanese. When the DPP came to power needing to break up the KMT ethnic coalition, did they go out and learn Hakka?
uh, I thought it was Chen Shui-bian who was famous (or infamous) for manipulating and stoking ethnic tensions for his own political gain. The 2004 presidential election was where he achieved that notoriety.
uh, I thought it was Chen Shui-bian who was famous (or infamous) for manipulating and stoking ethnic tensions for his own political gain. The 2004 presidential election was where he achieved that notoriety.[/quote]
You thought wrong. It was the KMT who originally invented the identity politics we see today in Taiwan. The mainlander regime divided the island along ethnic lines, co-opting the Hakkas and aborigines into its power structure, and erecting the “mainlander” identity as an idealized Chinese identity to suppress the local Taiwanese identity and unite the disparate Chinese groups that formed the mainlanders. The island’s “ethnic” politics are the tragic result of earlier KMT policies. Chen’s skillful stoking of his Taiwanese backers was a key in the 2004 success, but let’s not forget, the KMT chose the most unpopular politician on the island, Lien Chan, a proven loser, as its Presidential candidate, and then mailed in its campaign, while the DPP overcame a 20 point deficit from the 2000 election to emerge victorious.
I think you are giving the DPP too much credit in 2000. It was a 3 way split among what is now called the Blue camp, which allow the DPP to slip by.
I don’t agree with your view on ethnic politics being created by post-1949 Han immigrants on Taiwan. Because even before the Japanese arrived on the island. Hakka, Hoklo, and aboriginals were fighting on the island already.
Each side looked down upon the other, especially post 1949. So to say WSR brought the entire ethnic division on Taiwan is not entirely correct.
Not to mention the seed of hate for all thing Chinese were planted by the Japanese. Which is probably the most destructive element of the more radical TI ideology. Since it is just some sort of strange convoluted form of self-hate.
Finally the KMT brought over identity that all on Taiwan could subscribe to given Sinafication. However, Tai-hua (Taiwanese acculturation) is not an inclusive identity. Coming from one of the most hardcore Hoklo centric towns in Northern Taiwan as a half taro, I can tell you from personal experience acceptance as a Taiwanese on Taiwan does not come automatically if one looks Han and speak Minnan fluently, it is a birthright.
[quote=“Vorkosigan”]
You thought wrong. It was the KMT who originally invented the identity politics we see today in Taiwan. The mainlander regime divided the island along ethnic lines, co-opting the Hakkas and aborigines into its power structure, and erecting the “mainlander” identity as an idealized Chinese identity to suppress the local Taiwanese identity and unite the disparate Chinese groups that formed the mainlanders. [/quote]
I think much of this debate is “opinion” and any sort of objective conclusion is probably impossible.
But just for historical context, I wanted to point out that Mandarin isn’t native to Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen either. The “WSR” and “BSR” definitions are strictly a Taiwanese creation, and I doubt one that was created by the WSR. You can’t say the WSR “co-opted” the Hakka and Aborigines as it were a strategy to isolate the Hoklos: the ROC co-opted everyone who spoke any dialect of Chinese into sharing a common dialect… even though CKS didn’t speak it very well either.
This wasn’t a native Mandarin-speaker trying to force a system down the throat of native Hoklo-speakers; this was a non-native speaker trying to force a common system down the throat of other non-native speakers, with the intention of making it possible for everyone to communicate. If CKS was as selfish (and myopic) as the Hoklo nationalists appear to be, he’d be forcing everyone in Taiwan to speak his native Zhejiang dialect (which is just as unintelligible to everyone else as Hoklo is).
I would have to whole hearted agree with cctang on that point. Look at the leadership on both sides of the Strait. All the same when it came to spoken Mandarin. It is not till recently that there is a crop of leadership that can demostrate more “standardized” pronouciations of Mandarin.
I’m glad you think that, cctang. But I get my viewpoints by consulting relevant research on the sociopolitical aspects of KMT history. Yours appear to come hot off the KMT propaganda mill presses.
I never said it was!
Didn’t say they weren’t! The “mainlander” identity is a political construction created by the KMT. That is not the same as the WSR/BSR distinction, which predates the KMT arrival in Taiwan.
More misdirection. The KMT has a very clear and very effective policy of co-opting ethnic minority groups in Taiwan (I wasn’t talking about China; your mention of it is mere misdirection). Ethnic Hoklo politicians from powerful local families were also brought in. But in the KMT regime on Taiwan the Hoklos remained an outgroup. Had the KMT not attempted to suppress Taiwanese culture, and construct a more inclusive view of what “being Chinese” meant, there would never have been a local opposition to its rule.
More misdirection, as the issue of whether Chiang was a mandarin speaker is not relevant to the KMT’s policy of co-opting minority ethnic groups to buttress its rule of the island. Hoklo nationalism is the direct result of the policies of two colonial regimes, the Chinese and the Japanese.
And if Chen were as selfish and myopic as Chiang, he’d have his opponents murdered.
You appear to have taken my post as some kind of attack. My comments weren’t meant to be a “rebuttal” of your statements. I was just making my separate, but related point.
Your reply just reinforced my statements that you’re only expressing opinion… as your analysis of BSR/WSR affairs requires some mental gymnastics, just so we can isolate history + geography + perspective to purely the perspective of the Hoklo’s who feel oppressed. I don’t necessarily deny the “truth” of this perspective, but clearly it’s opinion that this is some how the perspective that matters.
In essence, your opinion is that in order to understand Taiwan “ethnic” issues, we should ignore the perspectives and motives of the WSR who were doing the oppressing, as well as the Hoklos who joined the WSR regime. In my book, that doesn’t meet the definition of “understanding”… that meets the definition of willful denial.
Again, we don’t have to come to an agreement on the conclusion, but let’s at least come to an agreement on the factual context. In Taiwan, Chiang was pushing a dialect that he himself, and a majority of the WSR, did not speak natively. True enough?
You cannot compare wartime leadership with peacetime leadership.
This part I would have to agree with you on. However, the Chinese and Japanese identity were mutually exclusive at the time. They were at war. They killed each other on the battlefield for years.
If I was a sweet potato who was taught since birth that the Chinese were basically sub-human, what are the chances that I would accept their authority. What do you do with these individuals as their new leader?
Perhaps in your mind there was a magic solution. But I don’t see one.
Well, does anyone understand that if there wasn’t a policy of protection of all the soldiers and affiliated that fleed China with the KMT, that there would might have been a lot of civil unrest?
The KMT simply used Mandarin, because most of the ranks where speaking it. Why would they use a language they are not familiar with?
Also, if you want to protect your own people, why should you give the good jobs to Taiwanese, and not to the people that bravelly fought for you?
And if you want to go back to China, why should you even bother to learn Taiwanese?
So let us all speak Chinese, bring civilization to the island, give “jobs for the boys” and keep everyone in a tight leash. That was what Chinese allways did with Taiwan, to prevent uprising.
So you ask me, why there are separations? Who did separate people first?
Don’t you even forget that to be official you had to pay the KMT - how can a country be more corrupt than this?
How can people not begin to ethnically divide themselves, when one part of the population is getting all the benefit?
And this is not solelly a matter in Taiwan. A little everywhere in the world where an ethnical society imposed into another, this division occurs.
You cannot compare wartime leadership with peacetime leadership.[/quote]
A KMT apologist. Yawn. I guess I can defend Hitlers action the very same way!!! During peacetime, Hitler brought the country together and improved the economics of Nazi Germany! He was a good man, a very good man indeed!
This part I would have to agree with you on. However, the Chinese and Japanese identity were mutually exclusive at the time. They were at war. They killed each other on the battlefield for years.
If I was a sweet potato who was taught since birth that the Chinese were basically sub-human, what are the chances that I would accept their authority. What do you do with these individuals as their new leader?[/quote]
Whatever you think about the those Japanese parents and soldiers and whatever that taught their children since birth that the Chinese were basically sub-human is irrelevant because they are mostly DEAD.
Meanwhile, you, whom has never experienced any of this mistreatment will undoubtably rant on for years to come about the Nanjing massacre and so forth even though Japan paid for 1/4 of China’s infrastructure in the mid 90’s.
Anyway, I’ve seen Chinese parents teach their kids since birth that the people of Taiwan need to be reconquered. What about that?
You know what I see? I see Chen Shui Bian stepping down and replaced with someone like Chiang Kai Shek. You know, someone who knows that people are stupid and shouldn’t be allowed to make their own decisions, thats why Martial Law is so important. Forums like Forumosa should be closed for excessive freedom of speech. Its been 50 years now, we must take back the mainland! Right. Nationalism for the supreme Chinese race! Woohoo! Lets work together AC Dropout, we can make it a reality!
You’re wrong, of course. The vast majority of the KMT soldiers and the KMT leadership did not speak Mandarin as a native language. The army that fled to Taiwan was mostly made up of units that came out of southern/coastal China, where Mandarin was very limited (and definitely not native).
I’ve spoken with numerous ROC veterans. I’ve yet to meet a single ROC veteran who’s oral Mandarin was better than Chen Shui-bian’s.
If you want to call Mandarin “Chinese”, then you best understand that the “Chinese army”, the Chinese KMT, and Chiang Kai-shek didn’t speak Chinese natively. They spoke what you unintelligently call “Chinese” because it was the only way people speaking 5 distinct dialect families and 20+ mutually unintelligible dialects could communicate. It was an inclusive choice, not an exclusive one.
I think Chen Shui-bian’s recent performance is a great reinforcement of this message, of the difference between division and inclusion. Chen Shui-bian chose to speak in Taiwanese because he didn’t want 20% of the population to understand his speech. Chiang Kai-shek chose to speak in Mandarin, even though it wasn’t his native language either, because he hoped that a greater percentage of the population could understand his speech.
And for all the accusations that it was the WSR that were the racist folks that tried to keep the Hoklos down… why are there so many Hoklo’s in leadership positions in the pan-Blue political parties (Lien Chan, Lee Tung-hui, Wang Jingping)? Why are there no WSR in leadership positions with the Green parties? Why is it that the WSR that were involved in the dangwai opposition movements, responsible for founding the DPP, have all left the DPP in the past 6-8 years?
This isn’t to say CKS was necessarily a better person. He was also a great embezzler, a thief, a murdering autocrat, etc, etc… but if you’re looking to blame someone for trying to create ethnic divides, then he’s not the one you should be looking at.
Your immature ranting really reflects well on your arguments.
Are you referring to CSB or CKS as Hilter?
So you do agree that there were Japonphiles on Taiwan post 1949 who basically believed the KMT authority were sub-human. That’s a good starting point and offers insight to your own lineage. But you do understand that Hoklo extremist view Hoklo-Japanese mixes as non-Taiwanese as well. Even famous Hoklo-Japanese entertainers on Taiwan are viewed as outsiders.
I think you miss the point, Chinese nationalism advocated the “unification” of the two China’s. I don’t know of any Chinese nationalism literature that teaches hate in terms of looking down on Chinese from Taiwan. On both sides of the Strait it is usually advocated that TI supporters are confused not sub-human.
When CSB step down, VP Lu will be his replacement. How is VP Lu like CKS?
I believe the military exercise to take back the mainland is not feasible at this time. However, there are other way ROC citizens can influence the mainland these days to promote ROC interest. As long as there is interaction with ROC citizens and PRC citizens, I believe there can be bridges built on a personal level, that overtime will result in a mutual political solution.
Just like you would never act to deliberately harm, or support political causes against Japan because of your personal background. Do you believe an individual of PRC and ROC descent would act rashly to harm either country?