European words words used in Taiwanese Political Discussions

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

In the Taipei Times editorial EU style integration offers hope the author discussed many proposed models for Taiwanese cooperation or affiliation with China. (See taipeitimes.com/News/edit/ar … 2003174391)

I found this interesting sentence: All EU member states strive toward achieving a European “Gemeinschaft” without anticipating a particular political framework such as a federation, confederation or European commonwealth.

In an online German-English dictionary, the word “Gemeinschaft” was defined as community. This German word appears to be a non-English language term which may be brought up in Taiwanese Political Discussions.

I assume that we could say that: Taiwan and China would be well advised to strive toward achieving a Sino “Gemeinschaft” without anticipating a particular political framework such as a federation, confederation or European commonwealth.

I was thinkng of doing a study of European words words used in Taiwanese Political Discussions, and wonder if posters to this Forum could suggest others. If you could clarify which language they are in, and the approximate meaning in English, as well as giving a sample sentence or two, that would be helpful. Thanks.

2

David Huang is using mysterious German words to mislead his readers. Gemeinschaft does indeed mean “community”. I am sure David Huang is aware that the European Economic Community (europaeische Wirtscaftsgemainschaft) was renamed the European Community (europaeische Gemeinschaft), and then renamed again to become the European Union (europaeische Union) in 1993. The European Community is not, as Huang asserts, a future goal, but a stage that has already been superceded.


Europaeische Union

There are just a few political figures in Taiwan who have studied in Germany and are therefore inclined to use German vocabulary from time to time. One of them is Ju Gaojeng (Zhu Gaozheng 朱高正), who studied philosophy in Germany and wrote his thesis about Emmanuel Kant and the I-Ching (Yijing 易經).

p.s. England is in Europe. English is a European language.
:uk: :eu:

3

What Taiwan needs to do if it is to improve its international position is to develop its own form of realpolitik. The way in which the negotiations were conducted between Taiwan and Hong Kong could set the tone for a more realistic approach to cross-strait relations. If Taiwan and China want to achieve a breakthrough in direct links talks, they will both need to adopt flexible strategies and find face-saving mechanisms.
– taipeitimes.com/News/edit/ar … /12/147980

www.dictionary.com defines realpolitik as “A usually expansionist national policy having as its sole principle advancement of the national interest”.

realpolitik n.
“realistic politics”: practical politics, usually a euphemism for machtpolitik. See also ostpolitik.

machtpolitik n.
“power politics”: international diplomacy in which each nation uses or threatens to use military or economic power to further its own interests. The English term power politics is a loan translation of Machtpolitik. Machtpolitik is sometimes used as a singular noun as it is in German and sometimes in the plural, as power politics is. [< German Macht “power, might” + Politik “politics”].
“In fact, the People’s Republic of China is the indomitable enemy of the Western democracies, and the PRC’s calls to the Taiwanese for territorial integration is a weapon of the CCP leadership’s machtpolitik only.”

ostpolitik n.
“politics toward the East”: in the following example Ostpolitik refers to politics toward Eastern Europe, but with reference to the PRC, one supposes it could refer to politics toward the eastern hinterland, namely Taiwan.
“The PRC leadership’s ostpolitik has not wavered since the promulgation of the Shanghai communique in 1972.”

P.S. I believe that Jimmy probably knows that England is in Europe, but the point of his posting is to obtain information on non-English language expressions.

4

I think Jimmy would be a lot better using an English-English dictionary. The word might be German but it is being used not in its basic German sense but in a technical sense within the field of sociology – there a raft load of German terms in sociology probably because of the pioneering role of German intellectuals in the field. For what it is worth, the relevant American Heritage definition of “Gemeinschaft” is: “a society or group characterized chiefly by a strong sense of common identity, close personal relationships, and an attachment to traditional and sentimental concerns.”

5

schadenfreude n.
the “joy of harm”: the malicious pleasure one feels at someone else’s misfortune.

“Like Adolf Hitler, the PRC President Jiang is easily tickled by what the Germans call schadenfreude, the feeling of joy at another’s misfortune.”

“So when my friend John called a few minutes later from Shanghai and mentioned that a mutual friend of ours, who previously had a very successful manufacturing operation in Taiwan, and later set up a big factory in the PRC, was in bankruptcy, all of a sudden, talking on my cellphone as I gulped down some Taiwanese red wine, I had a dazzling bout of schadenfreude.”

Stop the presses. Indeed, it has been said many times: “Schadenfreude is the preeminent pastime among journalists.”

“Never underestimate the power of schadenfreude!” (Quote attributed to anonymous Taiwanese Ministry of Defense officials during discussions of planned bombing of China’s Three-Gorges Dam.)

Schadenfreude was not peculiar to the Middle Ages, but it was a dark variety indeed, induced by plague and successive calamities, that found expressions in gruesome scenes of the tortures on the cross, with the soldiers shown spitting on the Redeemer of man.

“Nothing raises the spirits like a little schadenfreude.” (Quote overheard at Jesus Christ’s LAST SUPPER . . . . . )

6

Juba:

That’s being generous.

7

Wasn’t the EEC one of three “European Communities” (along with the European Coal and Steel Association and the European Atomic Energy Agency)?

Interesting, though, that with the EU other countries have to bow and scrape in order to be allowed to become applicant countries, while in the case of the Greater Chinese Co-Prosperity Sphere the satellite countries are being pressured. The closest European parallel would therefore be with the Commonwealth of Independent States (which is not a successor organization to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, though the Soviet Union itself would be geographically closer).

Heh, maybe the Taiwanese should be aiming at something like the Council of Europe (which is basically meaningless)!

8

[quote=“Undertaker”]schadenfreude n.
the “joy of harm”: the malicious pleasure one feels at someone else’s misfortune.[/quote]
Otherwise known as “the central premise of [i]America’s Funniest/i Home Videos”

9

weltpolitik n.
from Weltpolitik “global politics”: the theory that politics is global in scale [< German Welt “world” + Politik “politics, policy”]. See also Machtpolitik, Ostpolitik, Realpolitik and Westpolitik.

10

gleichschaltung n.
from Gleichschaltung “equalization”: the standardization of political,
economic, and social institutions in authoritarian states [< German
gleich “same, equal” + Schaltung “switching” < schalten “to switch”].

“Simultaneously, the ‘Gleichschaltung’ (equalization) started; that is
to say that the personnel of all offices and institutions of the
Government or under Government control became subject to substitution
by reliable members of the German National Socialist Party.” Gabor
Baross, Hungary and Hitler, 1964.

“After Taiwan was seized by the PRC in 2006, simultaneously, the ‘Gleichschaltung’ (equalization) started; that is to say that the personnel of all offices and institutions of the Taiwan governing authorities became subject to substitution by reliable members of the Chinese Communist Party.” Adaminski Tickletwatt, Taiwan After Forceful Reunification, 2009.

                • additional quotations from German sources - - - - - - - - -

“The findings of this study are not dramatically new, but they provide
a nicely nuanced outline of both the complexity of the time and the
diversity of the individual actors and their disillusionment as they
came face to face with the full implications of Gleichschaltung, which
gradually demonstrated an unanticipated authority and discomfiting
militancy and brutality.” Larry Thornton, On the Road to the Wolf’s
Lair: German Resistance to Hitler, review of the book by Theodore S.
Hamerow, Historian, Fall 1999.

“Throughout these first years of the Third Reich, Hitler imposed a
process that the Nazis called Gleichschaltung, which means
standardization or making things the same.” “Road to War”, Time, Aug.
28, 1989, p. 40.

“Not much comfort here, then, for those now busily intent upon a
historical Gleichschaltung of all Irish ‘traditions’.” K. Theodore
Hoppen, “An Ascendancy Army: The Irish Yeomanry, 1796-1834”, English
Historical Review, Jun. 1999.

“This remarkable gathering at Germany’s most hallowed literary shrine,
the town of Schiller and Goethe, was in fact a tradition that had
survived Nazi Gleichschaltung.” Gerwin Strobl, “Shakespeare and the
Nazis”, History Today, May 1997.

“In the name of modernization, Reza Shah mounted one of the most
frightful manifestations of fascist statism in modern history,
eliminating all autonomous centers of voluntary association,
generating a Gleichschaltung program very similar to Hitler’s agenda
in the contemporary Germany.” Hamid Dabashi, “The End of Islamic
Ideology”, Social Research, Summer 2000.

“Axel Goodbody, Dennis Tate, and Ian Wallace refute a simplistic
equation of the German Democratic Republic with the NS-politics of
Gleichschaltung, or mass control through ideological uniformity, by
charting criticism internal to that state.” Karen H. Jankowsky,
“German Cultural Studies: An Introduction”, Criticism, Winter 1998.

              • Notes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The reader may feel free to edit the above quotations to put them into more of a Chinese mode. For example –

“After the reunification of Taiwan, and in the name of modernization, CCP President Jiang’s henchmen mounted one of the most frightful manifestations of fascist statism in modern history, eliminating all autonomous centers of voluntary association, generating a Gleichschaltung program very similar to Hitler’s agenda in the pre-WWII Germany.” Horatio Kakahutchi, “The End of Taiwanese Ideology”, Social Research, Summer 2011.