More on rectification of names in TaiwanFebruary 7th, 2007 by Roy Berman |
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Any HTML gurus know why the hell I have a gigantic mess of white space before the table below? If so, let me know!
A week ago I mentioned how Taiwan’s DPP administration has been editing grade school history textbooks to refer to Chinese history as “Chinese history” instead of “this country’s history” and removing the honorific title “Father of the country” from references to Sun Yat-sen, leaving only his name.
A few days later, there were reports that the Ministry Of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is engaging on a systematic campaign to remove references to China from the names of state run enterprises, and to encourage private corporations to do the same.
Some examples from the article:
Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中國石油) and China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC, 中國造船) would soon be renamed to include “Taiwan” in their company titles in accordance with government policy.
Chinese Petroleum Company ->”CPC, Taiwan” (台灣中油)
Chinese Ship Building Corporation (CSBC) -> Taiwan International Shipbuilding Corp (台灣國際造船)
Another company that has been targeted in the name change campaign is China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), but Chen did not address this yesterday.CAL said earlier that its name was valuable in the greater China market.
Although previously well-known in the international community and with a large number of overseas branches, the state-controlled International Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國國際商銀), is now called Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) after merging with another state-run entity, Chiao Tung Bank (交通銀行).
[From Taipei Times, Feb 3]
Of particular note is this sentence buried in the last paragraph.
The issue of changing the name of state-run enterprises is part of the government’s “name-rectification” policy, aimed at avoiding Taiwanese companies being mistaken for Chinese ones.
My previous post on the revision of history books had mentioned how this concept is central to Chinese thought, at least since Confucianism referred to “rectification of names,” and in fact this phrase concept is extremely common in Taiwanese political discourse.
To get an idea of how common, take a look at the top 10 most emailed articles at Taiwan’s Liberty Times newspaper on today, February 7 2007:
| 1. | 不認同 李筱峰退出李友會 | 342 票 |
| 2. | 李登輝：制憲正名達成國家正常化 | 255 票 |
| 3. | 王又曾被拘留美週內決定去留 | 237 票 |
| 4. | 追討格瑞那達7億貸款 我在美興訟 | 201 票 |
| 5. | 財金高層：央行正名 英文名應去中... | 200 票 |
| 6. | 廉能會調查…馬特別費 300餘萬... | 170 票 |
| 7. | 更名難 綠委促中正紀念堂搬家 | 132 票 |
| 8. | 邱義仁陳唐山互調 許惠祐掌國安局 | 122 票 |
| 9. | 2000萬保釋金不用籌 王家疑有... | 120 票 |
| 10. | 大法官林子儀 股票交易漏報２００... | 120 票 |
Of these, #2 and #5 both include the phrase “name-rectification” (正名) in the headline. #1 refers to comments made by former president Lee Deng-hui regarding Taiwan’s status, which is intimately bound up with name-rectification. #7 about the proposed relocation of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall from Taipei to Taoyuan country, where his mausoleum is located, and the re-purposement of the current building for use as something like a “Taiwan Democracy Memorial.” This same article #7 also mentions the recent renaming of Chiang Kai Shek airport to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. So that makes, out of the ten most popular articles of the day, there are four related to the politics of name-rectification.Let’s look for a moment a bit more about the Chiang Kai Shek issue. While no one denies that Chiang is a critical figure in the history of China and Taiwan, exactly how he should be remembered is a major point of contention between the Taiwanese political factions. As his former party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang/KMT) still respects his memory and praises his role in the original revolution, the birth of the Republic, the fight against the communists, and the development of Taiwan’s economy after the flight from the mainland. On the other hand, the Taiwanese independence oriented Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) tends to look at him as a military dictator, who invaded Taiwan with his ragtag army of mainlanders and spent decades suppressing native culture and liberty on the pretext of national security.
As part of their name-rectification agenda, the DPP administration has already changed the name of the Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, and has now proposed the more radical step of actually removing him from his own memorial hall. In addition, they have also ordered the removal of outdoor statues of Chiang Kai Shek from all military bases, to be placed in storage. The excellent China affairs/media blog ESWN has a short bit on this, with an amusing quote from the defense minister Lee Jye.
Lee: “Why not remove them?”
Reporter: “Why remove them?”
Lee: “You tell me why not remove them? This is a democratized country. I am in an awkward position, right or not? The ruling party has some idea that they want me to carry out. The opposition party also has its own opinion and it does not want me to carry this out. So what do you say that I should do? Removing the bronze statues does not mean discarding them. It is to move them to where they belong. As you say, you are the opposition right now. If you become the ruling party next time, you can tell me to bring the statues back again. It is such a simple issue. Why are you arguing about this all day?”
Reporter: “The blues are not happy, but the greens are not happy either?”
Lee: “Yes.”
Reporter: “Could it that you feel pressed and aggrieved?”
Lee: “Then I ask you to help me. Please do not keep picking up rocks and throwing them at me.”
There is also an article at the Taipei Times about the statue removal campaign. Significantly, the removal of the statues is being accomplished before February 28 of this year, which will be the 60th anniversary of the famous 228 incident, in which military police occupying Taiwan for Chiang Kai Shek’s KMT led Republic Of China government beat an elderly female street peddler (on 2/27), triggering a protest the next day (2/27) in which several civilians were shot and killed by police, which caused rioting and near-insurrection by the Taiwanese, which led to the introduction of military law by the KMT government, and a crackdown against rebels and former “Japanese collaborators,” in which thousands were killed. The 228 incident, now commemorated with a holiday known as Peace Memorial Day, is considered by the DPP to represent everything bad about the decades long period of military law in Taiwan. While the KMT officially does not consider Chiang Kai Shek to be responsible for the 228 violence because he was not in Taiwan in the time and did not order order the reprisals against civilians, there are many who blame him either based on the principal of a military commander’s responsibility down the chain of command, or because they believe that he did in fact authorize the post-insurrection massacres.
Interestingly, despite the history textbook revisions removing his title as “father of the country” the final paragraph of the Liberty Times #7 article from above, on the possible removal of the Chiang Kai Shek memorial from the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, makes a point of saying that because are still many people who respect the great doctor’s principles of democracy and fraternity and all that noone would ever consider doing anything to the Sun Yat-sen memorial hall. Of course, who knows what a future government might find objectionable?
February 7th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Viewing the page source makes it pretty damn clear: you have like 18 “br” (with html tags) marks. How did you paste the HTML code into the post??
February 7th, 2007 at 6:32 am
While the KMT officially does not consider Chiang Kai Shek to be responsible for the 228 violence because he was not in Taiwan in the time and did not order order the reprisals against civilians, there are many who blame him either based on the principal of a military commander’s responsibility down the chain of command, or because they believe that he did in fact authorize the post-insurrection massacres.
The orders came directly from Chiang, and the troops dispatched at his personal command. The campaign to remove him from responsibility is identical in spirit to the campaign to remove Hitler from personal responsibility for the Holocaust, and for much the same reasons.
It’s incredible that the old butcher has a memorial that is a central site in Taipei.
Michael
February 7th, 2007 at 7:31 am
There are no “br” tags in the wordpress editor! I have no idea why it’s inserting them into the post!
February 7th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Michael, who are you to poke comment on Taiwan’s affair. From your name, you are not even a Taiwanese. Keep your big fat mouth to yourself. It’ll made everybody better. Gotcha
February 7th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
keep it polite,buddy.we japanese respect “wa”.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
BeeWay, are YOU taiwanese? if not, are you a hypocrite?
I AM taiwanese and I 100% support what Michael has said. d(o)b
Stop being racist… if your logic is applied, shouldn’t the chinese keep their big fat mouths to themselves??? because well, they aren’t even Taiwanese…
February 7th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
*btw.. that’ was meant to b a smily face with double thumbs up for michael! ___ sorry it didn’t turn out well…
February 7th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Mutantfrog – the problem is if you use tables like this (using square bracket instead of angle ones that will get eaten by WP):
[tr]
[td]field 1[/td]
[td]field 2[/td]
[/tr]
WP gets confused by the above, so you have to instead use:
[tr][td]field 1[/td][td]field 2[/td][/tr]
Which works OK, although is difficult to edit! I use HTMLKit and a custom macro for all that in my blog.
BTW, if you use the new WP2.0 WYSIWIG editor it doesn’t like tables, apparently.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Beeway, you do sound rather racist. Besides that, our friend Michael isn’t butting in at all; he’s just saying what’s going down and his interpretation via similie
February 9th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Racist!! Nope, Nope. I am just what I think I am.
To be fair to a lot of you, people like claytonian, riko are not even born to comment anything on Taiwan. China claimed to Taiwan is not yesterdays or today news. Remember the treaty whereby China was forced to give the Island to Japan. If you don’t own the place, why did China need to do that. In parallel, now that Japan had lost the war, it is MORALLY right that Japan return Taiwan back to China. As simple as that. If Japan refused to take the righteous path and do more good, the day where their evil deeds they did during WW2 will come to haunt them again. And there is no second chance.
Yes, Taiwan has right, So is China. Democracy, votes. Let everybody vote (China, Taiwan) and see whether the right has Taiwan has.
It’s sad to see millions of peoples died during the Vietnam War, Korea War. Who split them in the first place as like Taiwan including? Ask yourself.
February 9th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
im sorry.. but why do u judge a person by their nickname? why am i not born to comment on taiwan? are u even taiwanese urself? coz i can tell you I was born in Taiwan and is 100% Taiwanese… so stop basing thing on someone’s nickname… just because i have jap looking japanese name doesn’t really mean anything…
Actually Taiwan was not given back to China… Taiwan was invaded by the KMT. KMT claimed that Taiwan is the REAL China because they kept on saying that they still ruled china. It’s only due to complication in names that have u confused…
And why does China have a right to vote on the affairs of Taiwan??? I think you don’t even understand the concept of democracy… Seriously, Taiwan is OBVIOUSLY not a part of china… coz well, when we have elections for our president the citizens of china do not get to b a part of the democratic process.
I don’t really understand what u meant by the last paragraph… yes… a lot of ppl died… but a lot of Taiwanese ppl died due to the KMT (chinese ppl) during 228. Also, by point so many missiles at Taiwan, china is the only one who wants to see millions of people die… so yes, its sad…
February 10th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Riko, if you’re educated enough, pls reply why did China need to sign the treaty to secede Taiwan to Japan during the war. Whether KMT invade Taiwan or not at the later time, is secondary.
You believe in democracy. You take democracy as a reason to divorce with autocratic China, right. You take democracy to tell the world how cruel and bad is China, right. Now if you want to be fair, so let everybody vote and see the outcome.
Yes, a lot of Taiwanese died but so is many Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, South East Asia during the Japanese invasion, but do you know that during Japanese illegal occupation in Taiwan, more people died or got slaughter during the period than during KMT period. Get your history right. Otherwise you’re just dumb or blind to see the truth.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:53 am
The Republic Of China signed the treaty because they were one of the allied countries accepting Japan’s surrender. The treaty stated that Japan would give up Taiwan, but as Riko said, it did not explicitly state who would control Taiwan after that. Still, the allies handed Taiwan over to the ROC, because it was internationally considered the successor to the Qing Empire. Keep in mind that in terms of law “China” is not the name of a country, it is just a geographic area. Before the Xinhai revolution, China was controlled by the Qing Empire, and then the Republic of China was recognized as the successor to the Qing Empire. Now, the People’s Republic of China is generally considered the successor to the Republic of China.
In most cases of state succession there is no problem, because the previous government has completely fallen, but the ROC still exists on Taiwan so things are less clear. As for the status of Taiwan, there is one theory in Taiwan that the ROC is an illegal occupying government, and that Taiwan is legally an independent republic. The basis behind this is that, although the ROC was the successor of Qing, when Qing collapsed and that ROC took over, Taiwan was not part of Qing, and so the ROC did not inherit any claim to Taiwan. Therefore, when Japan gave up Taiwan at the end of the war, it should not have been returned to the ROC because the ROC had never controlled it in the past, but instead become independent.
It is interesting to note that the Qing Empire never had very much interest in Taiwan itself. The only reason they had even invaded it in the first place was to eliminate the last stronghold of Ming loyalists, who like the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan under the leadership of the half-Japanese pirate general Zheng Cheng-gong(AKA Koxinga). After Qing destroyed the Zheng dynasty in 1683, there was a debate in the court over whether to make Taiwan part of their empire or to relocate the ethnic-Han population to the Chinese mainland and leave the island to the aborigines. They obviously decided in the end to keep Taiwan, but it was never considered very important, which is why they ended up letting the Japanese take it.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Mutantfrog, you create a lot of ‘if’ and only ‘if’ just to confuse the whole issue.
The salient fact is that the Qing, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, to cede Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan.
Whoever rule China whether it’s Qing, ROC and PROC is just legally a change of Government, it doesn’t change the demographic ownership of the country.
If what you claim to be otherwise, the islands that now make up Okinawa Prefecture which was formerly not part of Japan, should be returned to the Ryūkyū Kingdom.
February 10th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Hey, if the people of Okinawa wanted to elect their own president and secede from Japan I think that would be fine. However, while Okinawans would certainly like to have more local autonomy, I doubt that more than a few would seriously want to be an independent country, or believe that their economy would survive.
And I’m not creating these “ifs” myself. I’m just trying to explain some of the ideas that are discussed in Taiwan.
Yes, Qing, ROC and PRC are all successive governments and Qing was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, but whether it was fair or not, that treaty was considered legal by every single country in the world at the time, and therefore Taiwan was not part of China when the government changed from Qing to ROC.
According to one theory, that means that Taiwan become independent when Japan was forced to give up their claim to it, and the ROC was therefore in invading army and illegal occupier. I’m not saying this is “fact” or even the standard theory, but it is important to understand that this is the theory that some Taiwanese in the school of “Taiwan is already an independent country” believe in. This is probably a much smaller school than people who say that Taiwan is already an independent country because it has had a separate government for 50 years and is now a democracy. And that school may be smaller than the one that says, Taiwan is not quite independent, but it should be.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:00 am
The choice is simple.
If Taiwan considers itself as independence, then the right of everybody should be considered. That means, everybody (China, Taiwan) vote whether she shud go independence. We cannot have the case that people in China is deprived of their right.
If Taiwan considers itself still part of China, then it’s the sole right of the Taiwan people to vote whether they shud be part of China or be independence.
Will the Canadian leave the Quebec to be independence first and then vote.
.
February 10th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Don’t use Canada as an example. Canada will never hold a national vote on Quebec sovereignty and will never threaten violence because of talk about Quebec independence. Quebec self determination is a issue for Quebec just like Taiwanese self determination is a issue for Taiwan.
In any case, since when has the PRC had a nice democratic vote about anything?
February 10th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
If America considers itself as independent, then the right of everybody should be considered. That means, everybody (Great Britain, America) vote whether she shud go independent. We cannot have the case that people in Great Britain is deprived of their right.
If America considers itself still part of Great Britain, then it’s the sole right of the American people to vote whether they shud be part of Great Britain or be independent.
Here we have a great example of democracy——-Chinese style.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Maybe it’s correct that Canada will never hold a national vote on Quebec sovereignty, but will Canada let go Quebec, M-bone.
Self-praise is no praise that you don’t use threaten. You Westerners can use democracy to cheat some people at some time but you cannot cheat all people at all time. For all the selfishness, it’s the Westerners who bring violence to Africa, Asia, Latin America via Colonisation. And they started the WW1, WW2, Iraq War and now with nuclear arsenal stockpile, you can wipe out the world many times. And you call yourself peaceful people, God chosen people. Your God must be funny God, who love to kill people.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Beeway, you claim that more ppl died during the Japanese invasion of Taiwan than during KMTs regimen hows how unaware u are of the situation. Did u know after WWII Time interviewed the Taiwanese ppl, so u know what they said? they said, “The Americans only gave the Japanese 2 bombs, yet they gave us the Chinese”... and the Taiwanese ppl preferred to have Japan ruling it then the KMT.
And i still don’t get how the whole world should get to vote on the Taiwan situation. Why do u think that the whole world can vote on another nation’s issue??? why are u asking other nations to listen and give u a vote on that nations issues??? Shouldn’t u be first telling your beloved Chinese government to give u the vote on ur own nation’s agendas?????
and i think mutantfrog and M-bone have pointed out holes in ur argument and cleared some issues with you, if you don’t accept them and decided to stick to ur own misinformed point of view, that’s really ur own decision… but just to let u know, just because u say 1+1=3 doesn’t really change the fact that 1+1 really equals to 2.
and waht does this have to do with the God we have???
___” All u do is grumble about other ppl’s faults, but u don’t ever turn inward to see the same faults in china.February 10th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Riko, I believe you need to study more to understand the actual situation of what was happening. The claim that more people got slaughtered during Japanese occupation is clearly documented in Wikipedia. It’s not my claim, if you’re naive to the core. In addition, when KMT arrived in Taiwan, they were greeted as liberators by the people of Taiwan. You can’t deny history for your selfish act.
Secondly, did I say the world shud vote. What I did say is that if some minority Taiwan people like to go independence. Then it’s the right of the Chinese people in China to vote as well. Fair to everybody, right.
Riko, since you’re so happy being a Japanese, nobody is going to stop you from migrating there. Name yourself as TinamaPukima, for all I care.
The rest is not important. The key is “Return Taiwan back to China’ Everybody win win. No war, no rhetoric, no unnecessary provocation from your DPP morally bankrupt corrupted govt. Do you understand by the way.
February 11th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
“will Canada let go Quebec, M-bone.”
If you study up on the vote that took place in the 1990s, you will see that Canada did not let Quebec go – there were large marches all over the country – the message was “we want you to stay”. No violence, no threat of violence. The Canadian PM has recently said that Quebec is a “nation within Canada”. In other words, we acknowledge your uniqueness but want you to stay. Is the Chinese stance toward Taiwan (rebel province, must, by law, be pacified by force if necessary) this dignified?
BTW, if you really think that Westerns brought violence to Asia, etc. and that there was nothing but peace there before, you should go back and do grade school history again.
If you consider the war between Japan and China to be a part of WWII, then WWII started in Asia. I don’t really feel like mentioning China’s actions in Tibet, which have been described as a genocide, the bloody havoc of the Chinese civil war, great leap backward, and cultural revolution, the Korean War (I guess America started that one, right?), China’s border wars with India, Soviet Union, Vietnam, etc. Opps, I guess I did mention…. Wow, no violence in Asia without these wicked Westerners to start it.
Does China not have a pile of nukes as well?
February 11th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
yes, the KMT were greeted as liberators but the Taiwanese ppl. This shows of the good naturedness of the Taiwanese ppl. But as u can see, the action and attitudes of the Taiwanese ppl soon changed towards the KMT. As u can see from the events leading up to the 228 massacre, the Taiwanese ppl tolerated the second class citizen treatment from the chinese, until they couldn’t take it any more and protested. How did the chinese solve this problem of a protest? Like a typical chinese solution, they just killed everyone in site, no matter if they were children, females or the elderly. They even killed ppl who were on the way to the hospitals.
Another thing i have to mention is the figures of how many were dead. The KMT fudged the numbers and severely undereestimated the numbers that were killed in the 228 incident. And why were they able to do that? through censorship and disregarding it in the textbooks etc. A little bit like what happened in the Tiananmen incident. It was only later that ppl realised that the numbers were as small as what the KMT proposed.
No i think your proposal of the Chinese ppl voting on a Taiwan issue is not fair at all. As i have stated before, Chinese ppl can’t even vote for their own president (this u cannot deny), so why do they expect other countries to give them a vote when their own country prohits them to vote??? do u see what i am trying to say here? I think if u really want a say or a vote, u should b pressuring ur own government rather than insisting that Taiwan give u a say in her future. Becuase seriously, it really isn’t ur call.
U make it seem like a crime because i like Japanese things… hahahaha making a personal attack doesn’t really contribute to ur argument and it just shows how petty you are. Also, you think the DPP is corrupt? they haven’t even been charged yet. And do u know how corrupt the KMT is?
comparing the corruption of the DPP to KMT is like comparing an ant to a humpback whale. It seems hypocritical that you would condemn the DPP for corruption whilst support the richest (through black money and corruption) political party in the world, called the KMT
February 12th, 2007 at 7:06 am
BeeWay replying to M-Bone:
You’re right, Canada did not let Quebec go and so China won’t let Taiwan go either. Perfectly sensible. Nothing unfair here. Yes, nobody march like the Canadian do, but China does entertain millions of Taiwanese by granting them preferrable tax exemption to open up their factories or business, as well as no limitation in working permit. And millions of them are right now staying in China. In reverse, what the immature Taiwanese Govt does is to ban Chinese investments, ban direct flights, and even made life difficult for love marriage to happen. And now even at the moment, by unilaterally changing all ‘China’ names to “Taiwan”. That’s grave provocation to say to least. Just tell me what the Taiwanese Govt did to lessen the tension across the strait so far. Just give me one good thing they do.
Funny nobody ever say WW2 start in Asia, only you M-Bone for whatever reason want to prove otherwise. Very funny.
Tibet is no doubt a sad story but don’t be so sad of what they did. To go back much earlier, the Qing with the collaboration of Tibetan and Mongols decided to invade Ming dynasty to form an Qing empire covering the whole China. Unknowingly or knowingly they got absorb into China and as such it remains part of China with even the Manchu not knowing who is the real Manchu now. Is it the fault of the Han Chinese if you care to understand.
When humiliated for centuries by the Western Countries and Japan, millions of people suffer untold miseries and disgrace. You divide the land and entertain yourself with the wealth of China. You force thru the opium trade with a bible on one hand, preaching the good gospel of your funny God. And now you dare to preach us what is good for us. Damned you.
There was casualties as a result of Great Leap and Cultural Revolution but is that the full story. What cause the event that the Chinese has to take to the extreme experience. It’s none other than your evil forefathers who destroy a generation of Chinese people and leave them poor and uneducated. Yes, a generation of Chinese people were perished as a result of the Western and Japanese occupation. And yet at this day, they are still friendly to Western countries and even Japan, short of being lapdog like Japan, to Western bully. And you dare to call China evil.
War with India – remember Arunachal. If that sound Greek to you, just forget about it.
War with Vietnam – who invade Cambodia first and how it ends.
War with Soviet – who took Mongolia and Siberia from China.
FYI, China has 200 warheads and US alone has 6,000 multiple warheads.
I hope you are enlighted by now. Otherwise, you’re just another ignorant cow.
BeeWay replying to Riko,
FYI, Riko, the 228 Incident’s statistics are highly exaggerated by all political parties for their own selfish reason. Until now, nobody know exactly what really happen and how it happen except that we know DPP for their lack of any significant achievement until now, will continue to harp on the past, for their cowardly survival.
If the Chinese in China can’t vote on Taiwan, what right does the Taiwanese has that they are allowed to vote themselves. Also who decide that a country must vote for a President. The American, the British…or.the donkey. So you think that by voting, the sin of a person is been cleansed. Dream on, Riko. Look at the dirty hands of the American and British, soak with the bloods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed not of their sin, but the sins of the evil empires.
It’s not a crime to be Japanese but for you, to behave like a Japanese is one hell of moronic behavior. Remember the Japanese will never (ever) take an Asian (lest you a Taiwanese Chinese) as equal partner and status. You’ll sorry if you ever wake up.
Wonder who is Chen Shui-bian’s son-in-law and where is he now? Next will Empress Wu. FYI, too many persons under DPP that I can recalled, are now in jail for corruption. And you accuse me of accussing DPP of corruption. Time to wake up, Rico.—
February 12th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
In your little bit about what nice things China is doing for Taiwan, you forgot to mention the bombers, the warheads, etc. I think that you are missing the point about the Canadian example – there was an outpouring of good will toward Quebec but nobody questioned the fundamental right of the region to make a vote concerning self-determination.
“Funny nobody ever say WW2 start in Asia, only you M-Bone for whatever reason want to prove otherwise. Very funny.”
> It has become pretty mainstream to say this in the American historiographical establishment, actually. The Sino-Japanese war is clearly a part of WWII and it clearly happened first…. The old way of looking at it is just Eurocentric. John Keegan, probably the most famous military historian, has even started to agree with the “Asia first” view.
Anyway, the rest of the stuff that you wrote is nonsense and I already wasted enough time writing to you. I have some advice, if you think that your opinions are worth anything, there are these things called “peer reviewed academic journals”. If any of the nonsense that you wrote (the nuke thing is true, though, although I still think that it is unfair to condemn the USA without questioning the Chinese position) is true, and you can support it with evidence (like why the Opium war means that Western people cannot criticise Chinese human rights abuses at present), you could become pretty famous, get a nice university job, etc. Good luck.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
my my my, beeway… u failed to mention a very very important section about ur touching story about how china is so nice to taiwan by letting Taiwanese ppl open factories there. Obviously you fail to see that this opening of gates by the chinese government is actually in favour of the chinese economy. So of course they will open the gates… coz in the end it’s for their own benefit. So stop making it seem as if the chinese government is so magnamious by doing that, its all for themselves.
Too bad for you, but Im not Taiwanese chinese. So ur argument there doesn’t really apply to most of the Taiwanese ppl.
The KMT never exaggerated the numbers of the 228 incident. They claim that it never happened. or that it happened but with little casualties. Why do they claim that? because its for their political gain to cover up their butcher-like nature. AND you claim of “Nobody knows what really happened” yeah.. that’s because you have been reading too many KMT brain-washing material.
I wonder where all those business/political ppl in Taiwan who corrupt money from their companies and from Taiwan fleed to?
? China, why? because China supports this kind of behaviour.
You are so hypocriticcal, you harbour so much hatred for the Japanese, and you won’t even let the Taiwanese hate u chinese just one little bit. You are so big hearted to go on and on about peace and harmony and democracy. But you are just one big hate bag. Practise what you preach.
Im like M-bone, i’ve wasted too much time writing to ur nonsensiccal posts. You just keep on using the same argument and there is no substance there. The only arguments you have is:
1. Riko (me) is japanese like. (like that even is an argument)
2. China is peaceful (from the amount of hatred that’s coming up from your posts, i’d say that china is anything but peaceful, oh and the number of missiles directed at Taiwan which you conveniently underestimates)
3. Everything is the Western countries fault (yeah… your victim mentality shows nothing but conceitedness, like china can do no wrong, and when they do, its the westerner’s fault anyway)
4. about chinese ppl voting on Taiwan… (I hope u re-read waht u said, 1. it doesn’t follow a logical sense, 2. care about waht’s happening in ur own country first then butt you big fat head in other ppl’s affairs)
for number 4, yeah do waht M-bone suggests, read some “peer reviewed academic journals” and get some knowledge about what is actually happening in ur own country. Why don’t u concern urself with the everyday sufferings of the chinese? I think that would be more helpful to china.
Anyhoo, i have basically refuted most of ur incorrect points in ur posts. Also, like i said before, comparing the corruption of the DPP and the KMT is like comparing ant to a humpback whale. u support the KMT yet criticises the DPP (who is much cleaner than the KMT) and that makes u a hypocrite. If your next post is still littered with the same arguments, im just going to tell u to read all the posts again.. coz obviously u didn’t read them properly. coz i don’t really want to waste my time on someone who is not really worth my time.
February 12th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Back from 3days vacation,away from internets.
BeeWay:
I envy your English.But what surprise me most is that supposed to be an intelligent man like youself is making an argument based on wikipedia and condemn others for not “studying enough”.I found that rather hilarious,think about that some time.
I’ve run into an internet argument with presumably Chinese person in other site.and he was saying Chinse invasion of Taiwan is pretty much same with Abe Lincoln fought the civil war.I thought he was famous of setting the slaves free,not being a great nationalist and a conqueror.What exactly do you guys pick up with your splendid English?
Ｓｏｍｅ ｔｈｏｕｇｈｔｓ ｏｎ ｙｏｕｒ ｃｏｍｍｅｎｔ：
“the islands that now make up Okinawa Prefecture which was formerly not part of Japan, should be returned to the Ryūkyū Kingdom.”
Ｏｋｉｎａｗａｎ ｈａｄ ｃｈｏｉｃｅｓ（unlike Hong Kongers)between a)remain under the U,S trustee b)Indepedence with free elected Ryukyu government c)Returning to Japan.
The popular will chose Premier Yara who were proclaiming “unconditional return to Japan at once”in 1968.They can leave anytime,if they wish.
“War with India – remember Arunachal. If that sound Greek to you, just forget about it.”
Nehlu wanted to avoid the conflict in spite of Beijing’s Tibetan invasion and defended China from his angered countrymen.He found Chinese invasion, a personal betrayal.Ｒｅａｄ Ｎｅｖｉｌｌｅ Ｍａｘｗｅｌｌ’ｓ”Ｉｎｄｉａ’ｓ Ｃｈｉｎａ ｗａｒｓ”．（Ｍａｘｗｅｌｌ ｆａｖｏur Ｃｈｉｎａ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ ｂｏｏｋ,actually）．
“War with Vietnam – who invade Cambodia first and how it ends.”
Actually it was the Khmer Rouge who started the border war and invaded Vietnam first.I recommend you to read “Brother Enemy” by Nayan Chanda.
The current state of Cambodia is land of full of chinese mines takes more than a century to be mine free.If you are interested.
“War with Soviet – who took Mongolia and Siberia from China.”
Ｓｉｎｏ－Ｒｕｓｓｉａｎ ｂｏｒｄｅｒｓ ｗｅｒｅ established by Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and Convention of Peking in 1860.The Russians didn’t just “took”Siberia.I think.
Mongolia was not taken by the Soviets.Russians SUPPORTED Mongolians to fight the Chinese invaders in 1921. Just like they helped Chinese and Koreans against the Japanese.
Russians also sacrificed their life to fight the Japanese Kwangtong Army in the Khalhiin Gol,the Manchuquo-Mongolian border in 1939.
I’m not a Taiwanese,so I’ll let riko to speak about Taiwan.But I found your rhetoric “Whoever rule China whether it’s Qing, ROC and PROC is just legally a change of Government, it doesn’t change the demographic ownership of the country.”is run in clear contradiction when it is applied to Tibet and Taiwan.
Qin dynasty gave up Taiwan in Treaty of Shimonoseki.But kept Tibet as a ally and a vassal.If you are following Qin succession theory,you have to abandon Taiwan.
If you are taking”the sons of yellow emperor”theory,you just have to let go of Tibet.
I think.
“It’s not a crime to be Japanese but for you, to behave like a Japanese is one hell of moronic behavior. ”
I honestly don’t understand what you are saying,brother.
“Remember the Japanese will never (ever) take an Asian (lest you a Taiwanese Chinese) as equal partner and status.”
That is partly true ,but I want to add something else.
We Japanese look down on not just Asians but Europeans,Africans and Latin Americans,heck, we frequently look down on English speaking middle aged white men,calling themselves “English Teachers”!
Japan…..,love it or leave it.
”they(Chinese) are still friendly to Western countries and even Japan, short of being lapdog like Japan, to Western bully. ”
Dｏｎ’ｔ ｋｎｏｗ ａｂｏｕｔ ｔｈａｔ,BeeWay,Maybe you oughta stay here for a while…..
M-Bone:
That was some heated discussion going on here,didn’t know Canadian could fight…
February 13th, 2007 at 7:33 am
BeeWay is busy right now, gentlemen. Will be back in the next few days. Don’t go away if you’re still my friend.
February 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
“M-Bone:
That was some heated discussion going on here,didn’t know Canadian could fight…”
Not really heated at all, acutally. I wrote what I did with a pretty bored look on my face. I know what the academic consensus on these issues is. Even Chinese (ethnic) scholars who publish in leading international journals (not CCP rags) don’t try to pull anything close to BeeWay’s arguments. I know a bad internet discussion when I see one but I’m pretty amused by BeeWay. I didn’t really know what foaming at the mouth rabid Chinese net nationalists think about Taiwan. Now I do. I’m not surprised. A little sad maybe.
BTW, Ace, I don’t think that you should be envious of BeeWay’s English. You may make more errors, but your vocabulary seems better.
February 14th, 2007 at 4:34 am
hey guys!~~~
“I’m not a Taiwanese,so I’ll let riko to speak about Taiwan”
Ace i reckon u can still talk about taiwan if you are not taiwanese
us taiwanese wont mind 
(coz we are not racists… hahahaha :p)
“BeeWay is busy right now, gentlemen”
Beeway, im a girl.. :p hehehehe so gentlemen doesn’t include me?
February 14th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Ｔｈaｎｋｓ ｒｉｋｏ．Ｂｕｔ with the history of 50 years of Japanese colonization,I think it is about time that Taiwanese speak with their own tongue.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
“Ｂｕｔ with the history of 50 years of Japanese colonization,I think it is about time that Taiwanese speak with their own tongue.”
Don’t forget that local languages were also suppressed by the KMT for several decades-between Japan and the KMT it was almost a century. Of course, Taiwan has a lot of native languages. Three kinds of Chinese and about a dozen Austronesian languages, Japanese and English.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
I realize that.I used to be a member of friendship society between Taiwanese aboriginals and Japanese citizen.I just mentioned only on my part,Japanese oppression.
February 15th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Oh, I’m sure that you know, but comments are also for the curious reader.
That’s interesting, I’d like to hear more about that friendship society. Did many of the aborigines you met speak Japanese? How about younger vs. older?
February 15th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Mutantfrog u are right about the large number of local languages that exist in Taiwan. Yes the KMT did suppress them, such as, the various indigenous languages, hakka and taiwanese. Kids who spoke taiwanese at school (during my parents’ generation- and they are only around 50yrs old now- so not so long ago) they were fined by the teachers.
I have to say that under japan’s colonisation there were still killings and 2nd class citizen treatment, however, the japanese did do a lot for us. Such as establishing and education system (which gave us the basis of the education system we have now) and also improved sanitation issues etc. Japan also made taiwan a model colony so i guess they kept the oppression to a minimum.
and yeah, that friendship society is really interesting, how did it get started?
February 15th, 2007 at 1:20 am
Well, the truth of the matter is I got out from the foundation meeting.And only a member namely.
There was this three Aboriginal students in Meiji Univ.who thought about this idea of establishing NGO of aboriginals and Japanese citizens get together in ‘92. Because in Japan,especially in mainstream media,there is a gag rule on things Taiwanese for fear of losing the favor of Beijing( this still continues.That is why you don’t see any interview of Lee Teng Hui or Chen Shui Bian in Japanese TV.)
The aboriginal students were also dissapointed with the fact that information on Taiwan in Japan is leaning waaay Han centric to their eyes.And for some elder aboriginals Japanese are their lingua franca and they would appreciate any Japanese visitors.For those reasons there were needs for a representative organization.
Another trivia.Meiji Univ.happens to occupy an important role in the history of Taiwanese student studying in Japan,because somehow they have attracted a lot of Taiwanese from the beginning of the century.So the three decided to establish the NGO and recruited the members in the small article on the Asahi.
I was a student at Keio,learning ethnology.You can’t talk about Japanese Ethnology
from colonial rule in Taiwan,for one of the best and brightest ethnologists and anthropologists gathered in Imperial Taipei University.the aboriginal uprising霧社事件was the first anti imperial uprising in Japanese empire.
I didn’t have chance to go to Taiwan with this group(or in person),but subscribed the newsletters.According to these newsletters.Older generation use Japanese as lingua franca among the aboriginals and watch sumo via satellite,but younger generation has no ability of Japanese and some have anti Japanese feeling probably because KMT is trying to cultivate ethnic vote to counter nativist discource from greens.There are some funny situations that while old veterans of Aboriginal regiment of the imperial army want to go to Yasukuni.a born-again aboriginal KMT MP named高金素梅who is half mainlander (paternal)and half Tayal is organizing Anti Japanese banner.According to one of the aboriginals she had no interest in her aboriginal ancestry until she decide to step into the politics from showbiz.But what can I say.She does have audience here in Japan.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:12 am
correction:
You can’t talk about Japanese Ethnology without learning about colonial rule in Taiwan.
February 15th, 2007 at 4:23 am
hey ace~
thats really intersting!
I think there was a memorial thing erected in Taiwan by the Japanese government to thank and commemorate the courage of some of the Indigenous Taiwanese who fought for the Japanese. (i can’t really remember where, sorry, my memory fails me here- all i remember is the KMT getting really upset coz the memorial thing was written in japanese…
__“)yeah 高金素梅 had no interst in her aboriginal ancestry until she thought it could grab votes…
___” Sort of like Ma claiming that he is Hakka now… even though he is actually not…btw, i am thinking of going to keio for 1 mth for my elective for uni!
February 15th, 2007 at 4:59 am
“I think there was a memorial thing erected in Taiwan by the Japanese government to thank and commemorate the courage of some of the Indigenous Taiwanese who fought for the Japanese. ”
The monument was not erected by the government but by the voluntary donations.There is a bit confused stories behind this and political dynamics of both Japan and Taiwan are behind.Things just become more complicated when Japan shows up.
Funny thing was when 高金素梅 went to the United Nation as a Taiwanese delegate of indigeneoous peoples congress to accuse Japanese colonialism(and Japan’s bid for permanent seat for the security council) American Chinese internet media made a huge coverage of her and praising she is the champion of the indigenous Taiwanese.
And passionately declare the fraternity between Taiwanese aboriginals and Chinese around the world against the Japanese fighting for the human right of the indigenous people.
During this media stunt Sina.com reporter who was covering this issue had a fight with Tibetan refugee delegation and eventually a tibetan got slapped in the face by
Sina reporter.So much for the human rights of the indigenous!
Glad you go to Keio.rico.Have fun.
February 15th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
hey ace thanks for clearing that up for me!
the incident about 高金素梅 and the slapping of faces vs human right etc is indeed very hypocritical of the ppl involved. It’s so interesting that the chinese are accusing the jap colonialism for breach of human right when it happened 50 or so years ago… whilst ignoring that they are a country which severely breaches human rights even now…
im sure it will b fun enjoying keio… except i don’t speak much japanese… :p but i heard the doctors can speak relatively good english.. so i think i am safe… :p kekeke hopefully!~
February 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
In Japanese, hypocracy is 偽善 meaning “fake good”(or is this borrowed word from Chinese?).Fake good is better than no good,I think.Whether 高金素梅 ’s intention is fishy or not,she did rightfully pointed out that Taiwanese aboriginal’s suffering was underrepresented in the Japanese collective memory.But I was not that amused with her performance at Yasukini with all the spiritual dancings and singings…kinda phony.I thought.
So you “heard”keio people speak good English now?That certaily was not the case back in my days.But calm down, there are a lots of swingers in Keio and they’ll teach you some Japanese!
February 15th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Still i don’t like hypocracy of any kind, coz well, if u can’t do it urself, why do u have the right to make other ppl do it…
Yeah, a lot of my senpais who went to keio for their elective said that the doctors and students are relatively good at speaking english… :p applarently they have tutorials in english… :p did that not happen when u were there? hahaha looking forward to being taught some functional Japanese.
February 15th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
What are you planning to go study at Keio? Not that I have any connection to the school. I haven’t even spent one week of my life in Tokyo.
February 15th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
MF:
That is the most shocking statement I’ve heard on this blog,MF!
Where exactly do you live!?
February 15th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I live in Kyoto. I studied abroad at Ritsumeikan, and I’m currently working here as well. (Although probably not for much longer.) I will be in Tokyo in April for a friend’s wedding though, and I think I may spend a week or two in the area just so I can see what it’s like.
My only trips to Tokyo so far were my very first weekend in Japan, when I was jet lagged and could barely speak any Japanese yet, and about six months later, when my cousin was visiting from London and we decided to go to Tokyo together for a long weekend. So in total, I think I’ve actually spent about 6 or 6 and a half days in Tokyo, but probably not as much as a full week.
February 15th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
hey mutantfrog~
preferably a good one.. :p). Im not quite sure what specialty i will go into. But i heard plastic surgery and hepatic surgery is very good in Japan. So i might choose those terms for my elective ___
I am studying medicine at the moment (trying become a doctor
yeah.. the longest i have spent in tokyo is around 1 wk… and that’s with a tour guide… kekeke
February 15th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
立命館.......徐勝の学校か。国旗が嫌いな理由がわかった>
February 16th, 2007 at 5:09 am
what does that mean?
February 16th, 2007 at 5:55 am
Ritsumeikan is one of the most liberal university in this country,riko.
徐勝 is the director of the Korea center of this university and one of the harsh critics of Japan’s effort to rescue the abducted Japanese by North Korea.He has been testified as an agent of Pyongyang by renegade North koreans .
Flag thing is a little inside joke between me and MF.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:56 am
To clarify, Ritsumeikan has a liberal faculty in certain departments, but the administration of the university is not at all liberal. The management is very anti union and corporate, and is well known for using an unusually high number of temporary workers on shitty contracts. They used to be known as a university for smart kids from working class families, but their left wing reputation is now somewhat out of date, and they have gotten very competitive and market-oriented.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Interesting to know that.
Ｉ ｈｅａｒｄ ｔｈｅｉｒ Ａｓｉａ Ｐａｃｉｆｉｃ Ｕｎｉｖ．ｉｎ Ｂｅｐｐｕ is oretty good,With lots of exchanging students and Sri Lankan dean and all.Or is it completly different management?
Change the turf and come to Tokyo,or you may be thinking about going to China like others,(or retiring in Thailand!).
February 16th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
APU in Beppu is a separate university from Ritsumeikan University, but both are run by the executives of the parent Ritsumeikan Trust. I think the top administrators at APU are all transferred from Ritsumeikan in Kyoto, but there is basically no relationship in terms of ordinary administration, credits are not transferrable any more than normal between universities in Japan, etc.
My current plans are to go home for a little while, and try applying for the Japanese government monbusho scholarship for foreign graduate students. If I get that I’ll come back to Japan to study for a couple of years, and if I don’t then I’ll probably go back to Taiwan and study Chinese more seriously for a little while, and keep doing some freelance translating on the side to cover my living expenses and tuition. Thailand is nice, but I think 26 is a little bit early to retire unless I win the big lottery…
February 16th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
Mutantfrog – as a Monbusho vet, I can’t recommend the program highly enough. Good luck on the application.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
whats the monbusho? (sorry for my ignorance… :p) but it sounds like fun!~~ so good luck!
is 徐勝 north korean?
February 16th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Monbusho is 文部省, Japanese Ministry of Education. They have a scholarship program for graduate studies by foreigners at Japanese universities. I’m sure you’ve heard about it in Japan, and maybe know some people who have done it.
I don’t think that 徐勝 could be a North Korean citizen, because he was in South Korea legally as a student before he was arrested as a North Korean spy. He could be South Korean or Japanese nationality-Wikipedia Japan says he was studying abroad at Seoul University, but since he was born and raised in Japan, and had graduated from a Japanese university, I suppose from an educational standpoint it was still study abroad, even if he happened to have Korean citizenship and not Japanese.
February 16th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
is the Japanese government trying to attract more overseas ppl to work in Japan? is that why there are scholarships?
are there many north korean spies in Japan?
February 17th, 2007 at 3:29 am
I’m sure there must be some North Korean spies in Japan, but if I knew how many I would be getting paid a lot of money by the CIA instead of doing a boring office job. But Su Seon (I have no idea how to properly romanize his name) was not convicted of being a spy in Japan. It was in Korea, well before they became democratic. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about his case to know whether it seemed as if he really was a spy, or if he was just made into a scape goat-but I suspect that Aceface might know more about it.
As for your question about the scholarships, I think it is an interesting enough discussion so I am going to make a separate thread for it. Please go to this new blog post to see my answer and start a discussion on that topic.
Naturally, feel free to continue discussing things over here also.
February 17th, 2007 at 4:37 am
About NK spy case.I’ll type on monday.
It is destined to be a long one.
February 17th, 2007 at 4:47 am
okay! looking forward to it ace thanks!
yep mutantfrog the scholarship thing was very informative! thanks!
February 20th, 2007 at 11:02 am
BeeWay is back. But it’s looked like all of you’re more indulged in Japan and its related topics. In that case, BeeWay is not making much headway as BeeWay had already past that enjoyable age of university life.
Riko, sorry for being offensive earlier to you. Anyway, since you’re not Taiwanese and I ain’t from China either then hey, we aren’t in conflict either. Best of luck, gentlemen and lady Riko.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:38 am
hey BeeWay,
no worries about the offensiveness, it’s okay, i know politics is a topic that makes everyone’s blood boil. And over-reacting is normal, especially when we try to fight for something that we deeply believe in. It just happens that we deeply believe in the opposite things.
But I am actually Taiwanese. I just immigrated out of Taiwan with my family when i was young.
Just wondering, if you ain’t from China, what made you so passionate about this topic?
have fun everyone!
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Many years ago when I was just a kid, my father used to tell me how beautiful is the place called Taiwan. The people who are mired in poverty then, successfully unite to achieve wonderful harmonious nation. The country, with the common people in mind, manage to mobilise the people to work towards a common goal of improving themselves. No rhetorics, no blue green, no racial discrimination, etc. I still remember watching the movies, “Twinkle twinkle little stars” staring a widow with her 5 young kids. That dramatic movies really move me to tears with the widow fallen to cancer when all their kids eventually grown up successful. That period that we can proud of, was under the golden era of Chiang Ching-kuo.
The golden era had since forsaken Taiwan when it was taken over by Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian. The outcome of these selfish fork-tongue politicians is a whole lot of mess created with people dividing to blue, green, aborigines, hoklo/mainlander/hakka and etc. The society turns to selfish and self-serving manias serving their own interests. Democracy is a tool to lie, to cheat and to slander. Just as China who was once the mighty empire fallen to disgrace because of its ego and pride, Taiwan will in day, fall into the trap of self-destruction if the trend of today continue tomorrow. The only best hope that the people of Taiwan can hope of a better governance is via Ma Ying-jeou. The rest like Lu, Frank, Yu are just another has-been, without leadership qualities.
I wish I can write more on the relationship between China and Taiwan but I will leave to next comment.
February 26th, 2007 at 6:27 am
but beeway, do u realise how much of the stuff u absorb has been propaganda? and biased promotional information?
I wasn’t looking for an essay… i was purely interested in what made you so passionately pro-China if you are not Chinese.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Riko, as we learn more (wisdom), we tend to view and analyse events independently. Propaganda, biased promotional information are just not within the domain of all righteous men. A off quote that I hate to repeat by the West is, “The East needs to learn to be civilised.” This is what a fool will think is right.
On China, I have no doubt that they are trying their best to work more actively towards forging peace. What’s wrong being friendly to all nations even those pariah nations? As for Taiwan, I will give them a vote if they cease their useless rhetorics. Negotiate for peace (but nor surrender) instead of trying to think and act as the world own them a living (the Taiwanese). Act positive instead of pursuing (for political gain) the 228 incident. Is that too much to Taiwan, Riko?
February 27th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I think with the 228 incident, the only reason that it has continued to come up is because the KMT still insists that the KMT was not an instigator during that time. Also, we are acting positively, ppl want to know the real truth about 228. I have to say, if the KMT publically acknowledges them being instigators and apologised to the victims of the incident this issue is less likely to be used politically against them.
And if the KMT did that, ppl are more likely to forgive them.
The Taiwanese ppl are not about not forgiving, but we also seek fairness. Fairness to those who were victims of the incident. Many of the family of the victims received a double whammy, not only did they loose a loved one, but the remaining family were often subjected to prejudice and discrimination.
If you believe in fairness, I think you will be able to agree with what i have just written. Since today is 228, I hope one day soon all the 228 victims will be acknowledged and respect paid to them.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:09 am
To seek forgiven is noble but to remain selfish in search of forgiven is sub-human. Let just said when did 228 happen? It’s nearly 50 years ago. Put it this way, a lot of people are not even born or even if they are around, most of them were probably just kids. If you expect the KMT to apologise for something none of them is aware. But for all humility the KMT did apologise and admit that 228 did happen but it’s time to move on.
Justice is fair but when is DPP fair to all who seek justice. Riko, let me just ask you just 2 of the following events; – how many people in their fight for the country, were killed by the
Japanese? What is the island stolen by Japanese until now when
even your DPP govt has no gut even to claim back. And your hardcore
DPP govt continue to fake high moral for 228 incidence
In summary, why do you have so much affinity for the Japanese (a
case of gutless Taiwanese) but you continue to show disdain to own
countrymen. – what happen to the attempted assasination on Chen Shui-bian.
So much suspicious until now but the case remain closed.
Riko, you need to travel more to seek solace with the rest of world instead of hiding behind the DPP diehards as well as the Japanese.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:36 am
And BeeWay, you need to travel more and read more about your opponents before you start preaching others.
DPP never existed when Japanese were around,besides what exactly having affinity for Japanese pop culture got to do with “gutless “.
“To seek forgiven is noble but to remain selfish in search of forgiven is sub-human”
It is easier to say than done,isn’t it.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:41 am
And Beeway, I think you are being hypocritical in what you are saying. Do u not hate the Japanese for what they did to the Chinese? That was ages ago too. It was like so last century. I don’t criticise you for the emotions you hold, wether they are right or wrong. They are your own emotions. So stop being hypocritical.
The Japanese didn’t steal any islands…. it is actually the Chinese who is trying to steal the WHOLE island now… so yeah, the DPP is trying to fight that.
I don’t have disdain for my fellow countrymen, i only have disdain for the Chinese and the Taiwanese born people who think they are Chinese. Totally different.
I believe in justice, and I think the 228 issue should come to justice. For the victims families.
The assassination issue is totally solved. I think you are failing to realise that the detective who took over the case is a VERY VERY VERY STRONG KMT supportor. This means that won’t u think he would have LOVED to proclaimed it all as a hoax??? and why didn’t he? BECAUSE IT WASN”T A HOAX. as simple as that.
I am not hiding, if I was hiding i wouldn’t be here talking to u. You are the one who is hiding, hiding behind your propaganda and your rhetorics. (Which seems to be the SAME in every post…
) Maybe you should take up Ace’s recommendation, “travel more and read more… before you start preaching others”.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:51 am
”The Japanese didn’t steal any islands…. it is actually the Chinese who is trying to steal the WHOLE island now… ”
Well, Imperial Japan did originally steal Taiwan from Imperial China, who had stolen it from the family of a half Chinese half Japanese pirate king who stole it from the Dutch who stole it from the Spanish who had stolen it from the Malay aborigines that had probably settled on the island thousands of years before the concept of a country even existed.
But actually I think Beeway might have been referring to the Senkaku/Diaoyutai/Spratley islands. The islands themselves are totally worthless, but control of the territory involves gas and oil deposits, fishing rights, and sea lanes. I see this as a purely economic/strategic struggle though, and I don’t think that nationalistic feelings or history has much of anything to do with it.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:02 am
Aha! Spratly has nothing to do with Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands,MF.
it was part of the city of Kaohsiung during Japanese days,though.
And I don’t think he meant to say about those pieces of rock.He simply forgot what we wrote about that small treaty of Shimonoseki that Japan “stole”Taiwan from the Manchus….
Look BeeWay,My anger about Mongolians was half joking.But imagine what it sounds to the guy with a Mongolian wife and 8years old Mongolian son hearing
Mongolians brains are not for 21 century….
February 28th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Oops! My bad, the Sp