Rabiya Kadeer has been banned from visiting Taiwan because the Chinese Natiaonalists are using the claim that she is “linked to terrorists”.
Strangely the only other country that has seemed to do that is China.
Meanwhile she has been able to visit all sorts of other countries like Japan, the USA, with no problems.
Obligatory article here:
What was she coming for?
Smuck heads … That shows Beijing’s power over Taiwan …
This stuff is really tedious. Yesterday someone was saying that if Taipei city didn’t screen The Ten Conditions of Love, it was a violation of freedom of speech and human rights. So far as I know, the city itself didn’t screen Shrek 2 either. Was that a violation of human rights?
There’s nothing wrong with trying not to piss off China when the elected government’s clearly stated policy is “let’s stop pissing off China”.
It’s not that black-and-white, though. When China gets to decide what movies are shown here, a line has been crossed, one that they should stay on the other side of. It’s not a good sign. Taiwan’s government can be stupid and backward on many things on its own, but we don’t need to go adding to the list with China’s idiocies as well.
By that logic, they could deny Chen Yunlin (or other high level Chinese officials who might draw protests) a visa the next time he wants to come to Taiwan.
This stuff is really tedious. Yesterday someone was saying that if Taipei city didn’t screen The Ten Conditions of Love, it was a violation of freedom of speech and human rights. So far as I know, the city itself didn’t screen Shrek 2 either. Was that a violation of human rights?
There’s nothing wrong with trying not to piss off China when the elected government’s clearly stated policy is “let’s stop pissing off China”.[/quote]
If there is no objective criteria for what pissing off China means then it comes down to the whims of Beijing. Which is all this is. They objected to a movie being shown. A movie! In another country. This is not a reasonable matter to be pissed off about. The government is trying to mend relations with Beijing but it cannot do this by giving in to every demand. That is unreasonable, undemocratic, unfair, and supine.
As for refusing Kadeer a visa, that is also self-evidently unreasonable, undemocratic, unfair, and supine. She is being given refugee status in the US. Claims that she is linked to terrorism are unfounded and merely excuses to cover the real meaning which is to please China. We’re losing our autonomy, does that not concern you?
All of these actions damage Taiwan’s hard won reputation for being a free and democratic country. This matters for several bottom-line reasons. For example, one of the Ma government’s goals is to revive the entertainment business. What’s our advantage according to them over China: our freedom. China makes great WWII documentaries, WWII TV series, WWII soap operas, WWII movies…But overall censorship hurts its industries.
Taiwan, with its shared language and culture, is (and I am paraphrasing the government) in the perfect position to develop vibrant entertainments for the mainland: TV, movies, pop music, video games. If we start going down the road toward censoring movies and banning people China doesn’t like, then our advantage disappears. Our investments go up in smoke.
Another stated goal of the government, including the Taipei city admin, is making Taiwan a more friendly place for foreign talent. Again, freedom and democracy are listed high on the reasons this is such a great place to live. If we let ourselves slide into little more than a second rate China, then talent will go to China.
So you tell me: is pleasing China over something as trivial as a movie a sound thing to do when it will damage much more serious goals?
Sounds like idiocy to me.
Okay, but the movie already has been screened here, down in Kaohsiung, and Hau Lung-bin said a few days ago that he has no objection to it being screened in Taipei either. The city government just isn’t going to screen it itself, and why should it? It isn’t in the movie-screening business.
As for the visa, yes, talking about terrorism was a pretty silly thing to do. I’m not sure that denying the visa was silly, though. As I see it, we know that China is crazy, and has crazy priorities, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go along with some of them if it’s ultimately in Taiwan’s interest to have a friendlier relationship (which I think it is, but that’s neither here nor there). The world makes concessions to plenty of other crazy regimes too, because the alternative is much worse.
My objection here isn’t really that people are pushing for freedom of expression, but that they are doing it because they want to piss off China. All this “concern for human rights” is political posturing, and it isn’t doing anything to help anyone.
Okay, but the movie already has been screened here, down in Kaohsiung, and Hau Lung-bin said a few days ago that he has no objection to it being screened in Taipei either. The city government just isn’t going to screen it itself, and why should it? It isn’t in the movie-screening business.
As for the visa, yes, talking about terrorism was a pretty silly thing to do. I’m not sure that denying the visa was silly, though. As I see it, we know that China is crazy, and has crazy priorities, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go along with some of them if it’s ultimately in Taiwan’s interest to have a friendlier relationship (which I think it is, but that’s neither here nor there). The world makes concessions to plenty of other crazy regimes too, because the alternative is much worse.
My objection here isn’t really that people are pushing for freedom of expression, but that they are doing it because they want to piss off China. All this “concern for human rights” is political posturing, and it isn’t doing anything to help anyone.[/quote]
You have it ass-backwards. There would be no need for “posturing” if Beijing didn’t blow up over every little event that it has no right to comment on. The film was not invited to the Kaohsiung Film Festival to piss off China. It was invited because it is a film and Kaohsiung is having a film festival. If Beijing had shut up there would have been no trouble.
Australia also screened the film. Did it do so to piss off China? No, and when China complained they rightly told it to fuck off. You call for friendly relations. How does caving in equal friendliness? And how do normal actions in a free society become posturing? Or somehow become reprehensible?
BTW, I notice you don’t address my economic point. I would say that those you call posturing are doing far more for Taiwan’s future than the supine KMT officials taking their cues from Beijing.
There already is one China and it has a GDP per capita of about US$6000. We don’t need to emulate them.
The government is like a dog without teeth … just obey commands from Beijing and bark once in while … waiting for the big treat (unification and top jobs) … meanwhile, of course it gets away with something small … a bone … (Dalai Lama) … because China knows it can only suck the bone …
[quote=“Brendon”]
There’s nothing wrong with trying not to piss off China when the elected government’s clearly stated policy is “let’s stop pissing off China”.[/quote]
Why are we giving such touchy human and emotional characteristics to one of the most brutal and least-humane totalitarian governments in history?
I mean going with that pretense, my sheer existence should “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” and I should just off myself.
Heck maybe half the US government should kill themselves too, for their past actions have really “hurt the Chinese people’s feelings”.
Where does it end when all we do must appease the wishes and whims of a brutal totalitarian government for the “feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese people”?
Well, if Beijing didn’t blow up over every little event then the opposition (whoever it was at the time) would find something else to posture about instead. This is just a convenient fracture point.
Absolutely, the film should have been shown at the festival (and shouldn’t have been moved forward, despite alleged Chinese tour group cancellations). And if Kadeer had been invited by the festival, or were at least coming here to take part in it, that would be one thing.
But it isn’t what’s happening here. The invitation was from a private pro-opposition group for her to come here and push her (admittedly worthy) political agenda. Again, my objection is to the motives of those people, and the various anti-China, pro-independence figures now supporting it. Do you really believe they are pure?
Incidentally, this wasn’t exactly uncontroversial in Australia either.
The economic point is valid if we are indeed on a slippery slope to pandering to China’s every whim, but this doesn’t seem like that to me. There’s always going to be give and take.
What?
Yes, like get angry over beauty pageants, foreign immigrant parades, even Rubik’s Cube competitions. Beijing chooses to blow up over these normal every-day occurrences (e.g. controversial films shown at film festivals). Even if Rabiya didn’t exist, that doesn’t break from the reality that China actively works to limit even the freedoms of Taiwanese people living in the USA! (I’ve got endless stories to back this up.)
The point is Beijing will continue to attack on every angle and does their best to limit the rights of everyday people in democratic nations from living the way they want. If its not over Rabiya Kadeer, it’ll be over something else.
Furthermore, to say Pro-Independence people are Anti-China is not correct. No one doesn’t want to engage with China, no one simply wants to give up their rights to do so. I’m not so much anti-China as I’m for the UN Charter in which Self Determination is a right.
If we were against self-determination, I guess we should “reunifiy” the American East Coast to the United Kingdom amongst other things.
Yes, I mean your quote about pissing China off. Sorry but that’s hilarious, you’re humanizing the Chinese government. Beijing loves to go off about how such and such actions “hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese” but only the gullible (not you of course) really fall for that kind of silly ploy.
I’d like to know how an outside power demanding a movie not be shown in another country is a give and take situation.
Furthermore, why do you object more to people exercising their rights in a free pluralistic society than you do about an authoritarian regime trying to undermine that freedom? Really? It is hard to understand your objections as they are slanted toward the authoritarians in this equation. What does it matter if the intentions of people in Taiwan are pure? What does that even mean? Pure? They are the legitimate expression of the freedoms enjoyed in this country. They are not the acts of virgins.
Incidents like this are useful in that they keep reminding people here of the dangers of getting too close to an authoritarian China and the dangers of the KMT offering no credible alternative to such a China.
World Uighur Congress secretary Dolkun Isa was detained for three days on arrival in South Korea, and eventually refused entry, so there is a precedent.
The US of course does not give senior ROC politicians visas.
Are the US and South Korea also being “unreasonable, undemocratic, unfair, and supine”, or just looking after their own interests?
This reminds of my other thread on Should China Torture? I take it your answer is yes, since they are just looking after their interests.
Even if the KMT are looking after THEIR interests in this it does not mean that this is best for the people of Taiwan. People have every right to challenge their government when they think they are acting in ways that are harmful. Furthermore, there is nothing contradictory about a government acting in its interests, and being unreasonable, unfair, undemocratic, supine.
There was a time when the average westerner stood up for the defiant and the plucky. Those days are long gone I guess.
I object because I don’t think that they actually give a flying fuck about Rebiya Kadeer or the Uyghur people or their problems.
We have a government that was elected on a platform of building a closer relationship with China. Assuming democracy works, this means that the people of Taiwan want that too.
For unelected, outside, partisan groups to take it into their own hands to do things like invite politically sensitive figures here for, I believe, the sole purpose of sabotaging that process, is vigilanteism. It’s undemocratic (in that it goes against the will of the democratic majority), and it’s far more detrimental to Taiwan than whether or not Kadeer gives a speech here.
That’s what I meant by questioning the purity of their motives.
(Edit): I’m not even pro-KMT, let alone pro-China. In the last elections I was marching in DPP rallies. But hey, the KMT were elected, and they should get a fair shot at enacting the policies they were elected to enact.
When was that mythical age you were talking about?
We spent most of the last 200 years stomping around the world pillaging the resources of the “defiant and plucky.” People who got too “defiant and plucky” were normally shot.
Oh, and the speculation is that Isa was held in Korea because of pressure from China. So yes, there is precedent for other governments being as supine as the KMT. Er, but that’s not what you meant to suggest was it? 