Letters from Taiwan

Historical sovereignty won’t wash

By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水

One of the ways that westerners exoticize China is that we accept these completely laughable, simpleminded, and historically inaccurate and anachronistic claims, whereas if Italy demanded the Mediterranean and France based on Rome, or Ankara was claiming the entire North African seaboard, Bulgaria, and Saudi Arabia based on the Ottomans, or the Macedonians wanted a chunk of India because Alexander once battled there, everyone would immediately realize how fantastically archaic this kind of thinking is. There is no “East Asian World Order”; that is merely a modern Chinese fantasy retrojected into the past to bolster up modern Chinese expansionist claims.

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About

Letters from Taiwan is an online diary of what engages and interests me about Taiwan as well as a record of my journeys and discoveries in the region. It is an extended letter of admiration and gratitude to this beautiful country that has so hospitably been my home for over a decade.

Originally from the UK, I arrived in 2000 as a teacher and now work full time as a professional in the field of medical devices.

This blog does take an active, passionate and often partisan interest in Taiwan's current affairs, with particular emphasis on its history, politics and economy. I believe that Taiwan is geographically and politically situated at an important juncture of global hegemonic struggle.

The very identity of the nation and the peoples living here, and the ongoing contest over the definition and meaning of those identities is a field study in contemporary nationalism and nation building. It is because this contest is far from resolved that I find the word 'contingent' the most suitable current descriptor.

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