Letters from Taiwan

Reading Between The Lines

J. Michael Cole has a new piece out today in The Diplomat in which he addresses the Taiwan-Philippines spat.  (Mr. Cole is deputy news editor, columnist, editorialist and a reporter at  Taiwan’s largest English-language daily newspaper, the Taipei Times, and has a blog in which he discusses, amongst other things, issues related to politics, economics, defence and news from the intelligence community.)  

There are a number of points in the article that I think raise questions:

1. “in disputed waters between the two countries. As a joint investigation had yet to materialize, it still wasn’t clear whether the ship had ventured into the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).”

Something curious about reporting on this event has been the amazing inability of everyone to agree exactly where it took place despite the Taiwanese Government releasing the alleged coordinates. How long do we just pretend that we don’t know the coordinates and can’t use a map?  This image was made from Google Earth showing the location.  It feels as if the idea of ‘disputed waters’ and debate over the EEZ is being used as a way to maintain the innocence of the victim regardless of the facts on the ground.  In my eyes, there is no reason to fire on a vehicle unless that vehicle’s actions immediately threaten your own safety or you are being fired upon.  Neither of these two conditions seems to apply to this case so it would appear that the PCG over reacted and are guilty of manslaughter by severe negligence.  That would remain the same in any waters, regardless of whose EEZ it was.  The ambiguity in the media and from the Government surrounding the location and other facts (See No.2 below) leaves me with a feeling that fuel is being added to the fire rather than the conflict being managed and settled.  If true, confusion about location and the exact series of events helps facilitate this.  If the Government were to admit that the Taiwanese boats were fishing illegally, I suspect that much of the touted ‘public indignation’ would evaporate.  People would still sympathise with the victim but little more.

2. “the 45 bullet holes discovered on the hull of the Kuang Ta Hsing”

I thought it was 57, no wait … it was 55 or was it 47?  Why is there all this inconsistency?

3. “a disproportionate response by the Philippine authorities.”

If we admit that it was a response to something, what then were the PCG responding to and why is this absented from most narratives?

4. “including some outspoken members of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party”

Why mention that the DPP is ‘pro-independence’ here?  How does this relate to the Ma administration’s diplomatic communications with the Philippines being undermined by the One China Principle?

5. “Up until then, the Ma administration had handled the crisis relatively well.”

I know I also argued this point on my blog but I’m starting to feel that nothing about this incident has been handled ‘well’ - to the contrary I am starting to feel that this crisis has in part been constructed and inflated.

6. “the weaker player in the dispute, the Philippines, was now the injured party.”

How was the Philippines ever the weaker party in this dispute? I don’t think they even saw themselves as morally weaker.  I think they regret the incident and the loss of life but they have been the stronger side in this dispute from the start, as evidenced by the fact that they are a member of the international community and a full recognised diplomatic ally of the US and Japan whereas Taiwan and the ROC on Taiwan is almost invisible and lacks any real diplomatic influence on the world stage.

7. “Given Ma’s low popularity ratings, he would understandably seek to ride the wave of nationalism that, almost spontaneously, had taken over the whole of Taiwan.”

I really do not think that ‘spontaneous’ is an apt descriptor. This wasn’t some viral youtube video of a cat kissing a rabbit. Incidents like these are deliberately inflated and reconstructed and extended - its called the business of media and the business of politics.

8. “Its intransigence is unlikely the product, as some commentators have suggested, of “Han chauvinism.” It is instead the result of something much more granular, such as local legislators’ political ambitions in fishermen’s constituencies, as well as by opposition parties’ efforts to criticize Ma no matter what he does, especially at a time when he is vulnerable.”

I guess it can’t be han chauvinism since that’s such a tenuous and ephemeral phenomenon. In the same way, Chinese claims on Okinawa are not Han Chauvinism, neither is the fact that in Taiwan immigrants of Han descent have different paths to citizenship than others and nor is President Ma’s repeated assertion that Taiwanese are all Descendants of the Yellow Emperor with shared blood with the people of China.  Mr. Cole is probably somewhat accurate in his pointing to local political exploitation of the incident and the natural biopolar tendency of political parties in duopoly democratic legislative systems but that is no reason to completely disregard the role of ideology as a mechanism for mobilising sentiment and for legitimising political action. 

9. “It also isn’t the result of a conspiracy to cooperate with China, even though both claim the South China Sea in its entirety (Taiwan is bound by the Republic of China constitution, in which such claims are enshrined). There is practically no tangible support in Taiwan for joint efforts with China on sovereignty disputes, or for an aggressive regional policy such as that adopted by Beijing. After all, some of the most hardline comments regarding the dispute with Manila came from within the pro-independence green camp, not within Ma’s “China-friendly” Kuomintang (KMT) administration.”

Why mention a ‘conspiracy’? Why not explain Beijing’s role and how it is more directly influencing the course of events? Taiwan is not bound by the ROC constitution to a claim over any territory.  There is nothing in the constitution or the six revisions that explicitly define the territorial claims of the ROC. That there may not be tangible support for cooperation with Beijing doesn’t magically absent Ma’s Diaoyutai games last summer and autumn - that just happened to manifest themselves at the same time Beijing was playing cat and mouse with the JCG. The public might not be interested but the Government is a;ways, whether it likes it or not, engaged in ongoing activities designed to balance, counteract or complement the diplomatic, military and territorial manoeuvres of neighbouring countries.  That;’s why we have a Department of Defence and National Security and intelligence operatives and a Navy.  The DPP are unquestioningly pro-independence but the KMT are “China-friendly” - why not just pro-China and without the quote marks?  

10. “Not everything the Taiwanese government does involves ulterior motives or conspiracies. Sometimes the reasons for its actions are much more mundane.”

Or sometimes they are much more complex and multi layered thana person has time to coherently convey within a word limit.

11. “A lack of worldliness, of understanding Taiwan’s position within the international community, and of how its actions will be interpreted abroad, better explain what happened.”

Who didn’t understand Taiwan’s position? Ma? After his elections based on improving and supposedly having improved Taiwan’s position in the international community? This doesn’t make much sense to me.

12.  ”Depicting Taiwan’s actions as a plan by a secret cabal of “Han Chinese” chauvinists to take over the region simply doesn’t help us understand what ultimately went wrong with Taiwan’s handling of the situation.”

This appears to be the central contention of the article. But who is depicting Taiwan’s actions in this way?  Who is claiming this? What secret cabal?  Why is Beijing’s maritime adventurism and rising regional nationalism of maritime asian countries like Japan largely absented from the analysis?  What went wrong with Taiwan’s handling? More like what is going wrong - this isn’t over yet so it feels a bit premature to be conducting the post-mortem.

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Final note:  when it comes to the topics of Taiwan and Taiwanese history in regards to identity, politics, diplomacy and its interactions on the world stage most media and analysis is published with not upsetting the KMT and CCP in mind - it is already self censored so it avoids the elephant in the room; namely the fictitious and recently constructed claims that Taiwan is Chinese and an inalienable part of China since ancient times and the fiction of the legitimacy and authority of the ROC to exist on Taiwan.This self censorship however avoids the elephant so assiduously that the outline of the shadow of the elephant is still clearly visible.  In fact it’s that very outline which provides all the internal coherency for the self censorship - otherwise it wouldn’t make sense.  It would induce cognitive dissonance in the reader and the necessity of self censoring would collapse like a house of cards.