Bevin Chu
October 18, 2005
In a previous article entitled "How to Read the Taipei Times" I wrote, "Once one catches on to the fact that the Taipei Times' preemptive editorial opinion pieces are inadvertent admissions of guilt, one need no longer painstakingly rebut each and every Pan Green lie. Once one learns "How to Read the Taipei Times," one can sit back and chuckle as the Pan Green spin doctors on the Taipei Times editorial staff outsmart themselves, and unwittingly lay bare every DPP misdeed for the world to see."
And so it is with a Wednesday, Oct 13, 2005 Taipei Times editorial entitled "Speak out against injustice":
After receiving a letter of concern from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECRO) in San Francisco, amid protests lodged by Taiwanese legislators and complaints from expats based in the US about a map reference to Taiwan as a "province of China," Google finally yielded to the pressure over the weekend and removed the offensive description from its maps service. While it is less than satisfactory to see the portal site choose to remove the reference rather than right the wrong with the correct listing -- the term "Taiwan" -- the move by Google has at least cleared up the misunderstanding that Taiwan is a portion of its authoritarian neighbor across the strait.
Google's Map of the Chinese province of Taiwan
If there's one thing you can count on, it's that the Taipei Times will reflexively invert the truth, and by doing so, unwittingly telegraph to the reader what the real truth is. The real truth is invariably the diametric opposite of whatever Taipei Times editors say it is.
If the Taipei Times insists that Google was wrong to refer to Taiwan as a province of China, the reader can safely conclude that Google was absolutely correct to refer to Taiwan as a province of China.
Sure enough, a quick check of the Republic of China Constitution that governs the "Free Region of the Republic of China," including but not limited to the offshore Chinese island of Taiwan, confirms that Taiwan is indeed "a province of China." China's "Mainland Region" fell under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China (PRC) government and the PRC Constitution in 1949. China's "Free Region" however has remained under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China (ROC) Government and the ROC Constitution.
Taiwan independence Quislings have, by their own admission, not succeeded in overthrowing the ROC government. The Taipei Times editors, along with "Vice President" Annette Lu and "Foreign Minister" Mark Chen, know perfectly well that until and unless they succeed in doing so, Taiwan will remain a province of the Republic of China, i.e., "China." That is why they continue to demand the authoring of a "Republic of Taiwan" Constitution in 2006 and the founding a "Republic of Taiwan" government in 2008.
The Taipei Times: If the people of Taiwan [the old Fallacy of the Ambiguous Collective again] hadn't raised their collective voice and made themselves heard, would Google have even been aware of the incorrect [sic] listing on its Web site? Most likely not. In fact, Google had initially chosen to ignore the complaints and refused to make the correction on the grounds that it was consistent with international naming conventions, such as those used by the UN.
This is rich. Taiwan independence Quislings desperately want the United Nations to recognize Taiwan as "a sovereign and independent state." They consider official UN recognition the final word on issues of national sovereignty. But when Google quite reasonably abides by official UN convention and correctly refers to Taiwan as "a province of China," the Taiwan independence Quislings throw infantile temper tantrums.
The Taipei Times: It wasn't until news of the protests and complaints was picked up by the international media, namely the Asian Wall Street Journal and the San Jose Mercury News and Vice President Annette Lu's interview with the Voice of America (VOA) during which she lent her voice to the protests, that Google decided to remove the incorrect [sic] listing.
The chain of events that led to Google's removal of the phrase "a province of China" merely confirms that Google removed the phrase not in response to any reasoned appeal to objective facts, but to hysterical threats of endless harassment.
The Taipei Times: Taiwan is an independent nation and is not a province of China. It does not claim to represent China, but China wrongly claims to represent Taiwan. Taiwan is a sovereign state with its own government, own elections, own currency, own territory and it negotiates its own treaties and has its own president. It is even clearly listed in the CIA World Factbook 2005 that Taiwan is independent of any country, and that it has its own national flag and capital. The only country in the world that avidly thinks that Taiwan is a province of China is China itself.
Taiwan is not an independent nation. Taiwan is a province of China. Taiwan obviously cannot claim to represent China, anymore than Tasmania can claim to represent Australia. Taiwan is merely part of China, the way Tasmania is merely part of Australia. A part of a nation naturally cannot claim to represent the entire nation.
China, however one chooses to define the term, can rightly claim to represent Taiwan. Both the Republic of China based in Taipei and the People's Republic of China based in Beijing can rightly claim to represent both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. Who in fact winds up representing both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland will hopefully be determined by peaceful negotiations between the two rival regimes.
Taiwan is not a sovereign state. The only government Taiwan has is the Taiwan Provincial Government. Taiwan has no central government. There is a central government on Taiwan, but it does not belong to Taiwan. It belongs to the Republic of China. Taiwan belongs to the Republic of China. The Republic of China does not belong to Taiwan.
Taiwan does not hold its own elections. The elections held on Taiwan, with the exception of those for the currently frozen Taiwan Provincial Government, are either Republic of China central government elections, or local level county and municipal elections, not "Taiwan" elections.
Taiwan does not issue its own currency. New Taiwan Dollars (NTD) are issued by the Republic of China Central Bank, not by any non-existent, would-be "Republic of Taiwan" or "Nation of Taiwan" government.
Taiwan does not have "its own territory," not in the sense the Taipei Times means. The only territory Taiwan has is provincial territory, not national territory.
Taiwan does not negotiate its own treaties. The central government of the Republic of China negotiates its own treaties.
Taiwan does not have its own president. The Republic of China has its own president.
The CIA World Factbook 2005 does not indicate that "Taiwan is independent of any country." A quick gander at the CIA's online map of China indicates that Taiwan is part of China. In fact, it indicates that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China, as opposed to the Republic of China.
The CIA's online map, from the Taiwan independence Quislings' perspective, is far more offensive than the Google map. So why aren't Taiwan independence Quislings camped outside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, chanting angry slogans at "The Company?" Because Google, a peaceful and innocuous private sector internet company, is an easier, not to mention safer target than the powerful and dangerous Central Intelligence Agency, especially in George W. Bush's post-9/11 Police State.
See:
CIA World Factbook 2005 Map of China
And even supposing the CIA World Factbook had indicated that "Taiwan is independent of any country" on its webpages, just exactly what would that prove? That the CIA is engaged in malicious efforts to subvert foreign nations, as usual? Gee, what a surprise. Besides, who appointed the CIA the official arbiter of the political status of the nations of the world?
Taiwan does not have its own national flag and capital, for the simple reason that Taiwan is not a nation. The Republic of China has its own national flag and capital.
Finally, every one of the two dozen odd nations that maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei knows that Taiwan is a province of China, i.e., the Republic of China. These nations recognize the Republic of China government as the legitimate government of all of China, including the Chinese mainland. According to the Republic of China Constitution, they are correct in doing so.
Ironically this is not what the Quisling Chen Shui-bian regime wants. The Quisling Chen regime wants these nations to play along with the Taiwan independence Big Lie that "the Republic of China = Taiwan" and "Taiwan = the Republic of China." That's why the Quisling Chen regime was upset when some of these nations correctly referred to the Republic of China as "China."
And we haven't even mentioned the one hundred plus nations that maintain diplomatic relations with Beijing and also consider Taiwan a province of China, in this case, the People's Republic of China. But don't worry, the Taipei Times editors will mention it for us. In in their eagerness to preempt any rebuttals, they will invariably wind up discrediting their own case.
The Taipei Times: While it may be out of Taiwan's hands that so many countries in the international community kowtow to China's leadership, it is however a sorry state of affairs to see Taiwan's people subjected to such incorrectness and then staying silent -- and that statement goes for Taiwan's diplomatic stations abroad as well. It is sad but true that for so long, Taiwan -- having long been oppressed in the international community -- has seemingly grown numb to such blatant incorrectness day in and day out.
In the previous paragraph the Taipei Times insisted that "The only country in the world that avidly thinks that Taiwan is a province of China is China itself." In this paragraph, the Taipei Times contradicts itself by complaining that "So many countries in the international community kowtow to China's leadership."
So which is it? Is it "only China" that thinks Taiwan is a province of China, or is it "so many countries" that think Taiwan is a province of China? As I noted before, one need not painstakingly rebut each and every Pan Green lie, one can simply sit back and chuckle as Pan Green spin doctors outsmart themselves.
The Taipei Times: A lie told once remains a lie. A lie repeated 100 times eventually starts to sound true.
This comment amounts to a classic case of the "Freudian Slip." The claim that "the Republic of China = Taiwan" and "Taiwan = the Republic of China" told once remains a lie. Repeated 100 times however, this lie has begun to sound true to many in the West.
See:
The Republic of China is not Taiwan
The Taipei Times: While it hasn't yet got to the point of harboring an "if you can't beat them then join them" mentality, given Taiwan's struggle with China's incessant campaign to marginalize it internationally, how long will it be before such a mentality starts to really take hold? As Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said, "If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you." "Self-respect gains respect" is the lesson to be drawn from this recent Google incident. Silence is not golden in Taiwan's plight, especially in its diplomatic fight against international injustice. The Google incident has taught us that justice can be done -- so long as Taiwanese use their voice to get themselves heard.
Of all the psychological confessions Taiwan independence Quislings have unintentionally let slip while snowing Westerners with glib Taiwan independence sophistry, this has got to be the most pathetic.
As I wrote in "Diaoyutai and Pan Green Self-Delusion":
Respect entails self-respect. Before others will respect you, you must first respect yourself. Self-respect in turn, entails self-affirmation. If one respects oneself, one will have no hesitation affirming who one is. A reluctance to affirm who one is, a determination to pretend one is something one is not, is symptomatic of a deep-seated lack of self-respect. If one is reluctant to affirm who one is, if one is determined to pretend one is something one is not, one has already invalidated oneself at one's very core. Nothing one can do subsequently will ever make up for this initial act of self-invalidation.
The reluctance of Pan Green Quislings to affirm that they are Chinese, their stubborn insistence that they are "Taiwanese, not Chinese," their pathetic attempts to spin themselves as "quasi-Japanese," are all symptoms of the Pan Green Quislings' profound lack of self-respect. Pan Green Quislings who refuse to affirm that they are Chinese, who insist on pretending they are something else, anything else but Chinese, have already invalidated themselves at their very core. Nothing they can do subsequently will ever make up for this initial act of self-invalidation.
If Taiwan independence Quislings ever get serious about exhibiting self-respect, Honorary KMT Chairman Lien Chan, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou, New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming, and PFP Chairman James Soong will be deeply gratified to hear them reaffirm that "We are indeed Chinese as well as Taiwanese" and that "Taiwan is indeed a province of China."
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