Yes, I already covered that in my post.
But any success they had in leaving an influence in Taiwan is more or less irrelevant to Taiwanâs current identity as whatever Japanese legacy that was left in 1945 was demolished by the KMT in short order. Sure, some people will try to recreate an identity based on aspects of Taiwanâs experience under Japanese rule, but that is not the same as the Japanese leaving their imprint in 1945 and that imprint being allowed to remain a part of local institutions and education, without being intentionally and actively wiped away. Compare that to HK, in which Beijing saw a system that was already working and decided to stick with it. Sure, they donât always seem to understand the beauty of the system, but they have not demolished the system as the KMT did in Taiwan, nor have they rolled back freedoms in HK.
What âprogressâ are you talking about? I wouldnât go so far as to say that ideas about democracy and the rule of law didnât find their way into Taiwan during the Japanese occupation, but as far as I know, there was never any process for implementing democracy or true rule of law.
I donât understand why you or anyone else would say this. Although I believe there are many problems in the way the Hong Kong government is chosen and there are many ways that the rule of law in HK could be improved, I challenge you to explain just how things in HK are now worse than they were under colonial rule and then show how unification has been the cause. You make out as though the institutions the British left were much better than they actually were. The problem in HK is not that Beijing is rolling back the progress that the British and local Chinese made in setting up the legal and administrative systems. HK enjoys no less democracy at present than it did at the handover. Aside from two reinterpretations of the Basic law which were legal (although wrong, in my opinion) by the NPC, the indepence of the HK judiciary is still quite secure-definitely no less secure than when HK was ruled by the British. In my opinion, the problem in HK is that Beijing now seems to want to freeze the system and not allow it to evolve. In essence, they seem to want to run it as their own sort of colony. That is surely a big problem, but it is not the same as intentional, systematic rollback. Although many mainlanders are loath to openly admit it, they recognize quite a lot of the strengths in HKâs system and donât want to do away with them. Whether or not they fully understand those strengths and how to build upon them is another thing.
I firmly believe that HK would benefit from the abolition of functional constituencies. I believe that all of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive should be chosen through competitive elections that all adult citizens can participate in. Many people in HK feel the same way. A fair number of these people also believe that Taiwan is part of China and that Taiwanese identity is just something manufactured by a handful of Taiwanese who donât see unification as being in their interests (as if having âinterestsâ is somehow a corrupt thing :loco: ). In their minds, even though they see themselves as having a different identity from that of mainlanders, they are still Chinese. Some of them figure that if any Chinese had ever had a legitimate case for claiming a seperate identity and then going for independence, it would have been them, not the Taiwanese. To nearly every mainlander, quite a lot of HKers and a good number of Taiwanese, claims of an identity distinct from âChinese identityâ that are based on foreign influence are worthless. In their eyes, since the place that received the biggest and longest lasting foreign influence has already been reintegrated, any identity based on foreign influence or the experience of rule by foreigners is not a strong enough identity to justify independence.
In my opinion, when Taiwanese emphasize different historical experiences in order to describe Taiwanese identity, they are actually just showing how Chinese they are. Mainlanders will ramble on and on about their historical claims to Taiwan. Many of these historical claims, just like many of the claims about Taiwanese identity that emphasize Japanese or aboriginal influence, amount to a thimblefull of bullshit. Iâm not saying that aboriginal or Japanese influence doesnât matter at all, but I believe that it is blown out of proportion just so that Taiwanese can feel that they have a historical basis for their identity. That seems to be a very Chinese habit to me. In my opinion, many of the differences that pro-independence folks emphasize are just as shallow as the identity they are trying to reject.
As has been stated by others earlier in this thread, I believe that the only way a Taiwanese identity can truly prove itself as distinct is for it to be based on political ideals and the rule of law. At the end of the day, those are the only things that Taiwanese will fight and die to retain. Similiarities to all the other little cultural and historical differences can be found in spades on the mainland. The reason that so many seem to care so little about serving and being ready to fight the mainlanders is because even though they do have a Taiwanese identity, that identity still doesnât fully embrace the distinct values that are most worth fighting and dying for: the rule of law, clean and transparent government and a political system with a high degree of accountability. Significant numbers of Taiwanese men are not going to pick up a weapon and fight for aboriginal costumes, Taiyu or vestiges of Japanese influence.