Category: Asia

Taiwan rectifies names in new history textbook

Article first, comments below.

Textbook revision draws criticism

STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
Tuesday, Jan 30, 2007, Page 4

The Ministry of Education has revised a high-school history textbook to more accurately reflect Taiwan’s development as an independent nation, media reports said yesterday. Under the ministry’s orders, the title of the textbook was changed from National History (本國史) to Chinese History (中國史), reports in the Chinese-language daily China Times and by the state-funded Central News Agency (CNA) said.

In the textbook, terms like “our country” (woguo, 我國), “this country” (benguo, 本國), and “the mainland” (dalu, 大陸), were changed to “China” (zhongguo, 中國), to indicate that Taiwan is not part of China, the reports said.

To put Taiwan and China’s relationship into context, the textbook now uses neutral words to describe events in China’s history, such as describing the 1911 Wuhan Uprising that toppled the Manchu Dynasty as a “riot” (qishi, 起事) instead of a “justified uprising” (qiyi, 起義).

In addition, the Republic of China’s first president, Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), was referred to as the “founding father” (guofu, 國父) in previous versions of the book. The revised textbooks merely refer to him as “Sun Yat-sen.”

Another change condensed ancient Chinese history, but includes a section on the Taiwan-China separation. The section includes a passage that reads: “Taiwan’s future remains a big question mark. Will Taiwan’s independence bring war? How to protect Taiwan from being swallowed? How to maintain the status quo? How to deal with China? Taiwan’s people are frustrated.”

“School textbooks must reflect social changes, regardless of the era or the nation,” National Institute for Compilation and Translation Director-General Lan Shun-teh (藍順德) was quoted as saying in the CNA report.

Some teachers, however, are opposed to the revisions.

“In the compilation of the history textbook, there was strong political intervention from the government and only one voice was allowed. This is control by the state apparatus,” Wu Chan-liang (吳展良), head of the history department of the National Taiwan University, was quoted saying by the China Times.

In recent years the government has undertaken many “desinicization” measures, such as removing the word “China” from the names of some state-run enterprises.

Currently, Taiwan’s executive branch is controlled by the pro independence Democratic Progressive Party, while the legislature is controlled by the pro-China (but not pro Communism) Nationalist Party (Kuomintang: KMT for short). The two parties continually struggle for the political upper hand, and there has been a tendency for the party in power to promote their particular vision of Taiwanese identity, in great or small ways. For example, the DPP administration has made great progress in desinicization and promotion of local Taiwanese culture, such as the promotion of the Taiwanese and Hakka dialects and aboriginal languages and culture, the recent creation of a cabinet level Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, the currently under debate Aboriginal autonomy law.

On the other side, we have seen the KMT controlled Taipei government institute standard correct pinyin signs, while much of the country continues to use virtually random alphabetic spelling of Chinese names and words. (Incidentally, Taiwan needs to adopt pinyin universally on public signs. Since pinyin is present purely for the convenience of foreigners, making the signs actually legible should not be a political issue.)

This textbook revision is just another example of the same type of action. Interestingly, while the actions of the pro-independence faction are generally looked at as anti-China, the thinking behind their textbook revision is probably best described using the Confucian idea of rectification of names.

Confucius believed that social disorder resulted from failing to call things by their proper names, and his solution was “Rectification of Names/Terms” (zhèngmíng, 正名). When Duke Jing of Qi asked about government, Confucius replied, “There is government, when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son.” (Analects XII, 11, tr. Legge). He gave a more detailed explanation of zhengming to one of his disciples.

Tsze-lu said, “The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing to be done?” The Master replied, “What is necessary is to rectify names.” “So! indeed!” said Tsze-lu. “You are wide of the mark! Why must there be such rectification?” The Master said, “How uncultivated you are, Yu! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.” (Analects XIII, 3, tr. Legge)

Xun Zi chapter (22) “On the Rectification of Names” claims the ancient sage kings chose names (ming 名 “name; appellation; term”) that directly corresponded with actualities (shi 實 “fact; real; true; actual”), [Japanese readers may recognize this characters as 実] but later generations confused terminology, coined new nomenclature, and could no longer distinguish right from wrong.
The blues (KMT) continues to claim that Taiwan is in fact part of China, and they therefore must continue to refer to Taiwan as part of China. Likewise, the greens (DPP) can not allow Taiwan to continue to be referred to as the Republic Of China, since they do not believe that it is in China at all. While most of them are still too scared of China to offically declare independence and change the constitutional name of the republic from China to Taiwan, there is a movement to apply for membership to the UN under the name of Taiwan. (As their application as “Republic of China” has been rejected for 13 years running.

The two sides may disagree over whether Taiwan is in fact part of China, but they are doing so in a very Chinese way. To paraphrase, names are rectified by the winner, but in Taiwan’s tempestuous democracy there is unlikely to be a clear and decisive majority party in the near future. However, recent polls show that the number of Taiwanese self identifying as Taiwanese, instead of Chinese, has increased from 36% when the DPP president Chen Shui Bian was elected in 2000 to over 60% today. If this trent continues, reality may become undeniable, with even the KMT being forced to rectify names.

NK Defector Dresnok on 60 Minutes

Watch the video here to see an interview with the “last living American defector in North Korea,” Joe Dresnok. It’s quite a thing to see. Some reactions:

  • Who are these filmmakers and why are they OK with making documentaries that are flattering to North Korea?
  • I can’t believe this guy. While he denies it, Dresnok is the guy fellow defector Jenkins, who now resides in Japan with his wife the former NK kidnapping vicim, described as having beat him mercilessly when they were living together. And somehow he’s proud of his life, in which he’s been a drunk, violent man who was bred with another white person specifically to train spies (his son wants to be a “diplomat”? Sure…) and exploited as a propaganda tool. Maybe as someone who caught few breaks in life (and has no real family ties to the US) this is comparably a better lifestyle. But it’s impossible for me to feel any sympathy for a man who, when confronted with a question about why he was fed while millions of North Koreans perished of famine, cries tears of gratitude for his rulers rather than shame. I mean, the announcer has a point that the NK defectors thought more about where they were running from rather than where they were running to, but at least Jenkins has some perspective on this issue.
  • I’m not sure why 60 Minutes left out the detail that the defectors were paired up with women to try and breed them and produce spies. Maybe it would have been rude to Dresnok’s son?
  • Those propaganda radios have got to be annoying as hell. I wonder if they have a special battery-generator system in place to keep them going during blackouts.

You can also watch the July 2006 interview with Jenkins here.

Harvard-educated Burma democracy activist Adam Richards, 1996

Back when I was just 14 another Adam Richards was making a difference. From the Burma Library Archives:

FBC: HARVARD DUMPS PEPSI: CONCERN OVER CONNECTION TO
FORCED LABOR
April 8, 1996
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Cambridge, MA

Cambridge: Harvard University dining service has scuttled a $1 million
contract with Pepsi after Harvard students raised concerns over Pepsi’s
activities in military-run Burma.

Harvard is not the only top university where contracts with PepsiCo are
under fire: Stanford University Burma democracy activists have more than 2000
student backers for an effort to keep Pepsi-owned Taco Bell off their
campus. Dozens of high school and college campuses across the US are
involved in similar efforts.

“I’m a businessperson who says that we have to be socially and ethically
responsible” says Harvard Food Services director of dining services
Michael Berry. Regarding Pepsi he says “I do think there is a problem
doing business with such a company.”

As recently as Feb. 22, a Pepsi memo sneered at the Harvard students,
noting that a Harvard demonstration against Pepsi “involved a mere 25
students.” “This shows the power of the information we provided on
Pepsi,” says Harvard senior Adam Richards.

“What you have is America’s ‘best and brightest’ challenging PepsiCo based
on the facts” says senior analyst Simon Billenness of Franklin Research and
Development. “Students are at the heart of Pepsi’s target market. Pepsi
is extremely vulnerable.”

Pepsi entered Burma shortly after military authorities quashed an
overwhelming (82%) May, 1990 election victory by the NLD party of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. NLD spokespeople have repeatedly
called for Pepsi to cease operating in Burma. Pepsi’s Burmese partner is
also chairman of a joint venture with the military called JV3. In Burma,
“the army controls all major businesses. Not even a small scale merchant
can survive without solid army connections” says the authoritative Far
Eastern Economic Review.

To repatriate its profits from Burma, Pepsi engages in “counter trade” by
purchasing agricultural goods for export. Recent reports by the United
Nations and human rights groups note that forced labor has become pervasive in
Burma’s agriculture sector. The Burmese army has a practice of confiscating
farmland and using the evicted farmers as forced labor.

Despite several enquiries, PepsiCo has not disclosed the parties from
which the company buys farm products or provided any evidence that
PepsiCo is trying to avoid buying from farms that use forced labor.
Despite rising concern over its presence in Burma, Pepsi’s lawyers each
year work diligently to keep such issues off of the shareholder ballot at
its annual meetings.

Pepsi’s revenues in Burma, $14 million in 1995, are dwarfed by US sales of
over $10 billion.

Other US companies, including Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, Eddie Bauer, Liz
Claiborne, Amoco and Columbia Sportswear, shun Burma. UNOCAL, Texaco and
ARCO remain, and along with Pepsi are the targets of consumer and shareholder
activism.

F R E E B U R M A C O A L I T I O N
For More Info Contact: Adam Richards

What might have been?

Speaking of the Philippines and historical predictions, there is a great discussion going on over at the blog Coming Anarchy over the past, present and future status of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were all transferred from Spanish to United States control together, with the 1898 December 10 signing of the Treaty of Paris that concluded the Spanish-American War (as well as a payment of $20 million from the US to Spain.) Both Puerto Rico and Guam remain unincorporated territories of the United States of America, but the US and the Philippines parted company long ago. Reading this discussion gives you a pretty good idea of why the Philippines was spun off into an independent country instead of being either incorporated into the union or kept in colonial status. Today Americans are concerned about being demographically overwhelmed by Hispanics, but true annexation of the Philippines would have been a massive and sudden demographic shock that would have profoundly changed the subsequent development of both. For the people who think the Puerto Rico situation is complicated, try and imagine what might have happened if the Philippines, with a population twenty times that of Puerto Rico, and speaking a polyglot of languages, had all become US citizens overnight.

If only they had known…

You know that feeling you get watching a suspenseful scene in a movie, where you know for example that the vampire snake is on the other side of a door, a hapless character says something like “gosh, I’m glad that vampire snake went back to Las Vegas,” puts his hand on the door and you just want to yell out STOP to the screen before certain doom commences?

For the non-English majors out there, I’m talking about dramatic irony, defined so on Wikipedia:

Tragic (or dramatic) irony occurs when a character onstage is ignorant, but the audience watching knows his or her eventual fate, as in Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King.

This morning I encountered something much like dramatic irony when reading a 1966 article about the foreign relations of the Philippines. Within the piece were two specific statements that made me wish I could send a telegram back through time warning Mr. Onofre D. Corpuz about the horrible misfortune to come.

First was this one, in his section discussing how an orientation in economic relations towards Southeast Asia would be good for development.

The Philippines is well situated to play a leading role in this process, and economic interests, therefore, promise to lead the nation’s foreign policy closer to Southeast Asia. Barring a sudden deterioration which could result from escalation of hostilities in Vietnam, we are presently on the threshold of a period in which the necessary economic underpinnings of diplomatic projects, such as ASA and Maphilindo, will emerge.

[Note: ASA is Association of Southeast Asia, predecessor to ASEAN]

So, how did that Vietnam thing go after 1966? I forget now. Anyway, I’m sure it couldn’t have destabilized the regional economy or anything.

The second quote mixes retrospective irony with a case of be careful what you wish for.

As a result, political power is widely dispersed and the bases of power are fragmented. No Philippine president has ever been re-elected after a full presidential term of four years. There are no political institutions in the Philippines that have enabled a leader to stay in power as long as have Indonesia’s Sukarno, India’s Nehru, Burma’s Ne Win, and Malaysia’s Tungku Abdul Rahman.

1966 was the second year of Ferdinand Marcos’ first term as president, after which he would in fact be re-elected, just like Mr. Corpuz was hoping. What Corpuz probably was less happy about was when Marcos declared martial law in 1972, and continued his Presidency until 1986, when he was driven from office by mass protests indirectly in response to the assassination of opposition politician Benigno Aquino.

Zainichi Korean History textbook: Timeline

A couple of months ago I picked up The History of Zainichi Koreans, a Japanese language middle school text book intended for use either by ethnic Korean Japanese residents at Mindan (South Korean) affiliated schools, or as a supplemental text for history teachers in Japanese schools. It was published by Akashi Shoten in February 2006, and written by the history textbook creation sub-committee of Mindan and can be bought through Amazon Japan.

Looking at how history is presented in textbooks is, as readers may know, something that I find rather fascinating and so I would like to translate some small sections of interest in this text for everyone. Today I will start with the timeline of key events in Zainichi history. It is divided into two parts, Pre Liberation and Post Liberation, with the respective timeline being placed at the beginning of that half of the book. Notice which events, some of which are probably unknown to over 99% of Japanese citizens (i.e. the details of foreigner registration) are selected as key to Zainichi history.

View the entire post to see the timeline.

Continue reading Zainichi Korean History textbook: Timeline

The Japan-Korea tunnel gets revisited

Goh Kun, a former prime minister of Korea, is proposing a Japan-Korea tunnel as part of his campaign for president. With this tunnel intact, Japan and Korea would be directly linked by rail and highway, and assuming that North Korea comes out of its isolation in the future, it would be possible to ship goods between Japan and Europe entirely by rail (through the trans-Siberian).

This is hardly a novel idea. Back during World War II, the Japanese government had a long-term goal to run high-speed rail service from Japan through Korea and into the Asian mainland. Transport historian Roderick Smith:

The need for expansion of capacity [in the Tokyo-Osaka-Fukuoka corridor] was recognised, and work actually started on a new standard-gauge (4 ft 8 1/2 in. or 1,435 mm) line in 1940. A key part of the motivation behind this new line was to link Tokyo with the western part of Japan, which, in turn, linked up with Japanese-held territory in China and Korea. It was planned that fast electric trains, already nicknamed dangan ressha (Bullet Trains), would speed along this line towards Kyushu and perhaps even through an undersea tunnel to the Asian mainland via the Korean peninsula. Although the undersea Kanmon tunnel was completed between Honshu and Kyushu in 1942, thus directly linking two of Japan’s four main islands for the first time, the Pacific war had started in 1941 and it was to be some time before the railway network could be further expanded.

A few of the tunnels blasted as part of this plan were eventually used for Japan’s first high-speed railway line, the Tokaido Shinkansen, which opened in 1964.

Anyway, they could be on to something with this tunnel. Besides freight, an overnight high-speed train from Tokyo to Seoul could prove very popular, and in the future, it could even be extended to Beijing or farther. A big investment, sure, but perhaps not as hare-brained as it might initially sound.

Terrorist attacks in Bangkok

This is what I’ll be returning to next week:

A series of bombs exploded Sunday evening December 31, 2006, and Monday morning, January 1, 2007 in several locations in the Bangkok metropolitan area. The explosions killed two persons and caused numerous injuries. The US Embassy has confirmed that no American citizens were injured or killed in the explosions.

The Department of State and the American Embassy in Bangkok urge all American citizens in Bangkok to stay indoors whenever possible, to avoid all public gatherings, and to remain extra vigilant as they travel in and around Bangkok. Please monitor local news channels or CNN for further information.

They hit a police box near the Big C supermarket in Saphan Kwai. That’s where I shop! I think my life from now on will be a straight line from my apartment to the fried rice restaurant, at least for the time being.

China’s animation industry set to overtake Japan’s?

The latest issue of Japanese news weekly AERA (more like a Japanese version of Time magazine than many other weeklies) contains an interesting bit on China’s animation industry that fits in nicely with my last few posts. Full translation follows:

Anime to make a comeback in China, where it started

by Reiko Miyake

China has been “invaded” by Japanese-made animation, but in fact this was the former world power that taught animation to Japan

China as a nation is currently putting its efforts into developing “Donghua.” Donghua is Chinese for animation and comic books. In the past 3 or 4 years, 19 cities nationwide including Shanghai, Changchun, and Hangzhou have been equipped as “Donghua headquarters” or centers for the animation industry. Schools to develop talent and studios are being established in earnest.

According to sources close to the issue, the scale of China’s animation character market amounts to as much as 100 billion yuan (approx. 1.5 trillion yen). Japanese animation such as Pokemon and Case Closed are enormously popular, and up to now a multitude of pirated versions have been distributed. While dominated by Japanee animation and Disney, here and there original Chinese-made animation has started to come out such as “Indigo Cat.”

A longer history than Japan’s

Inspections of imported animated works are strict, in part because of protection of domestic works. The first company to truly attempt to export to China was Mulan Productions. They are very skilled at the business of managing copyrights in China. They have produced many hits, starting with Crayon Shinchan in 2002 and following up with Dragonball and Fruits Basket.

Takashi Mita, chief of the company’s International Business Headquarters, explains: “First of all, the quantity of foreign animation that is shown in China is is restricted as a whole. It is subject to a strict inspection from the perspective of public order and morality, and works that contain many portrayals of sexual activity or violence are taboo. All in all, the condition for export is that the works are healthy for children.”

Looking just at the situation in the past few years, Japan looks like a developed country while China looks like a late bloomer in terms of their respective animation industries. However, it is not very well-known that China’s animation history is actually longer and had a major impact on the developing stages of Japanese animation.

At a Tokyo cinema in 1942, a young Osamu Tezuka watched “Princess Iron Fan,” an animated film based on the Chinese epic Journey into the West that was produced in Shanghai, which was an animation production center at the time. The fact that the intense emotion he felt at that time formed the basis for Tezuka to produce animation is an anecdote known by those in Japan’s animation industry. After becoming a comic book artist, Tezuka met with Princess director Wan Lai-Ming time and again.

After WW2, Wan and others gathered in 1957 to create the Shanghai Art and Film Production Studio, a nationally-run animation studio. These are the roots of Japan’s animation industry as well as China’s.

Decline due to the Cultural Revolution

Subsequently, Japanese animation has developed as both an art and an industry to take a 60% share of the $25 billion animation market. Meanwhile, China’s industry declined due to the Cultural Revolution after peaking in the 60s and 70s.

So, Chinese animation industry is now attempting to revive itself once again. The works that the Shanghai Art and Film Production Studio created from the 60s to the 80s will be shown from December 16 at the Shanghai International Film Festival.

Features gaining the most attention are 4 ink-painted short films. The Tadpole Searches for His Mother, made in the 60s, is a classic in which the movements of frogs and tadpoles are drawn in ink style, which though slightly blurred is very lively. It was shown at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, where it won Honorable Mention.

Almost 50 years later, focus is once again on ink expression in China’s animation productions as students of a Chinese technician development school produce a 3-D animation using the techniques of ink animation. Director Wan’s long-format “Sun Wukong on the Rampage” will also be shown.

LDP faction wants to deny forcing of comfort women

I don’t normally like to just cut and paste news articles (translation is of course a different story) because it’s just a lame way to blog without having any ideas, but The Yomiuri does not keep their stories accessible online for an indefinite period, and this one from today’s edition is a critical followup to my little essay of two days ago. Ask yourself, what would these men consider “conclusive evidence”? About a month ago I attended a lecture at which three old women from Taiwan came to speak about their experiences as sex slaves to the Japanese army, which I personally found extremely convincing. (I have been meaning to write a long blog entry about that lecture, so someone people remind me to do so.)

LDP split over ‘comfort women’ / Lawmakers plan to seek revision of 1993 statement on culpability
Continue reading LDP faction wants to deny forcing of comfort women