Native Taiwanese is the same as the dialect spoken in southern Fujian province in China. You may want to use other excuse(s) to support your view. Language (dialect, more appropriately) difference is not a good one. Shanghainese, for instance, sounds completely different from Mandarin Chinese as well. Does that mean Shanghai is not part of China?
"roight mate" Austrailians and British and Americans speak the same language.. are they all the same country as well? Dialect-wise, it's still the furthest removed, grammatically speaking.
Everytime I was told the younger generation should be forgiving and forgetting, but reading this still brings tears to my eyes. Guess having neutral mind against japanese are just impossible.
#1 - You claimed: different dialect = different country #2 - Others refuted that point: different dialect != different country (shanghai vs. beijing) #3 - Now you claim: same language can exist in different countries. #3 has nothing to do with the debate. If you are making this statement to support your argument, you are sadly mistaken. A refresher course in logic might be required.
MartianMan, If you studied the logic, my statements and arguments are not contingent on each other. 1) B/c people share the same language in writing doesn't mean they are the same country. 2) That being so, Taiwanese is furthest from Mandari when analyzed in style and dialect. Fair?
Wow, all this excitement and I've been missing out... ~heech cracks his knuckles and wades in~ First off, let's dismiss all the suggested differences about culture and language. Few of you are properly informed, and the minor differences brought up are exaggerated by political operatives with an agenda. "Taiwanese" is spoken by tens of millions of Chinese in Fujian, and "grammatical differences" are no greater than you see in any other dialect. Shanghainese, Cantonese, Hakka etc... are all very distinct dialect groups, all of which fall within the classification of Chinese because of their close similarities, and not because they're identical. Ultimately, I think one of the earlier "summaries" was about 50% correct. So far, so good. And just precisely how many PRC citizens, and how many members of the PRC government did you personally poll before you reached this fascinating conclusion? You know how I, and the rest of the forum, can tell that you know not of what you speak? Because I know you're not a PRC citizen. Even without you having identified yourself in any meaningful way, just based on the substance of what you've written... I already know you're not from mainland China. If you *were* from mainland China, you'd know the above is a crock of BS. If you *were* from mainland China, you'd understand that any Beijing government that "permitted" Taiwanese independence would be burned to the ground, tomorrow. You'd understand that the Chinese are as likely to accept Taiwanese independence, as they are to accept the Forbidden Palace being torn down for a giant bowling alley. The two are in fact similar in many, many ways. Let's face the truth. You possess no insight of mainland China. You're blessed with ignorance and an ego which permits you to draw meaningless conclusions on the basis of this ignorance. You have no idea what it meant when hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese flooded the streets of Beijing, Xi'an, Nanjing, and Shanghai to welcome the Taiwanese politicians that visited during this past Spring. This "dreamy nationalistic talk" is anything but dreamy; it is precisely what has made China an unique civilization within the scope of recorded history. It is precisely what has empowered her growth over the past 5 decades when other, similar developing nations have collapsed into fragmented pieces. And it's exactly what will power her to success through the rest of this century. Many Taiwanese today are cursed with this overwhelming cynicism from a political point of view. You can call it fatigue from 5 decades of over-wrought, meaningless political self-image which is finally being torn apart. Or, you might prefer to call it realism. But mainland China is a different land. In many ways, it's naive, it's innocent, and it remains idealistic. Mainland China deserves a lot of the criticisms aimed at her, but you dismiss her righteous desire for national rejuveneration and reunification at your own risk.
Just chim in before it's locked. Your first reason that Taiwan is not part of China simply because that they speak a different language. Numerous posters pointed out that it's simply a dialect not a new language, which is used in some places in China as well. Your only reason was refuted, therefore, your conclusion was not proven. You can certainly come up with other reasoning. YOu are right that speaking the same language doesn't mean that those people should belong to the same country, but it doesn't mean that people spaking same language can not be in the same country. So it's IRRELEVANT. The dialect you called Taiwanese is not something new, and certainly not the furthest from Mandarin. In fact, there are 56 nations in China, although 95% being Han-Chinese. Different dialect and languages are spoken and even written everywhere across China. You do know that some people in Northern China speak Korean, don't you? Honestly, how certain piece of history says that Taiwan at most of the time in history belonged to China, and it was out of China in certain period, is irrelevant either. Whether they can be recognized as an independent country is simply political power struggle between China and other countries, especially US. If US simply supports Taiwan's independence, although Taiwan, China and US might face severe loss, they might eventually succeed. On the other hand, if US supports the mainland China's unification idea by all means, Taiwan doesn't stand a chance to refuse. It all depends on US now, maybe it will change in the future. People in Taiwan don't really have a say. It's sad, and disgusting, but true.
Really? And you speak as a linguist? I thought that, I don't know.. Icelandic is pretty far from Mandarin when analyzed in style and dialect. Or maybe Swahili? But I guess I learned something new today. Taiwanese is the "furthest thing from Mandarin"? Even further than the languages of the natives of central America? How well do you know your Mandarin "style" and "dialect"? Are you prepared to step up here and share your wisdom? And just what does it mean for a dialect to be far from another dialect in... dialect? And finally... why does it matter? Who cares if it *is* different? The language of the Chinese Miao (also known as the Hmong) is actually classified as a different language by actual linguists (not just internet posters pretending to one)... and yet, the Miao are Chinese, at least the last time I checked the State Department. What was your point, again?
Isn't the "Taiwanese" dialect the same dialect spoken in Fujian Province of China, which is located right across the Taiwan Strait? Of course, trivia facts like this doesn't matter in a debate.
Um yeah. Just out of curiosity: [b1tchslap]Taiwanese wouldn't happen to simply be a variant of Minnan dialect in Fujian Province, China would it?[/b1tchslap] As far as not speaking "mandarin," there isn't a single damn Chinese person who's first dialect is mandarin. Not even those in Beijing.
To counterweight the US sitting in China's backyard? The Chinese wouldn't happen to want Taiwan back because it's Chinese territory instead of any other dirty business would it? I mean, the Chinese only fought wars in the past to reclaim Taiwan when it was a dirt poor hellhole (Zheng Chengong's war against the Dutch as well as the Qing Dynasty's retaking of Taiwan come immediately to mind). But I did get a good laugh out of it. China wants Taiwan because of money. LOL. That is good.
Something for you to read then: http://freekorea.blogspot.com/2001_05_20_freekorea_archive.html Certain excerpts: Imperial Japan's conquest of China was just as brutal as that of Korea. And China endured the longest war of all. If you ask an American when World War II began, they will inevitably reply: "December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor." Ask a European, and they will state: "September 1, 1939, the invasion of Poland." But if you ask a Chinese, they will say: "July 7, 1937 at the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing." China's resistance to Japan, however, can be traced at least as far back as May 4, 1919. Just as Koreans had been engaged earlier, on March 1st of that fateful year, China's young people were enchanted by the siren song of "self-determination" coming out of the mouths of Western political leaders gathered to make peace in Versailles after the devastation of the First World War. Self-determination, however, was really intended only for Czechs and Poles and not for Chinese or Koreans. When Chinese students learned that the final Peace Treaty at Versailles had granted the former German concessions in China to Imperial Japan, rather than returning them to Chinese sovereignty, they felt a sense of betrayal and erupted in massive demonstrations in Beijing and other cities. And so China was engaged in its long twilight struggle against Japanese militarism. Actually this part I disagree with. I would have traced it back to the Jiawu War of 1890's. "In a museum film, Pearl Harbor is described as a 'battle for Japan's survival,' while one exhibit blames the 1937 Nanjing Massacre - in which Chinese officials say Japanese soldiers slaughtered 300,000 people -- on the Chinese leaders who fled the city while ordering their men to fight to the death. After the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese, the museum noted 'the Chinese citizens were once again able to live their lives in peace." A colleague from the International Relations Committee and I made a visit to this museum in January of last year. Our conclusions were contained in a report of our staff delegation visit to Taiwan and Japan, which was submitted in March of last year to the Committee's Chairman, Henry J. Hyde. Our findings included the following: "A staff[] visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and the neighboring Yushkan Museum supported reports that Japan has a long way to go before it makes peace with its neighbors over World War II atrocities . . . . The Yushukan Museum further supports the accusations of Japan's neighbors. The museum gives an account of modern Japanese history, from the Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II, that justifies Japan's military aggression and trivializes gross human rights abuses. While this is not a mainstream Japanese interpretation of the war, it appeals to a wide enough audience that it has been given prominence in a major museum . . . . A clear indication of the unique interpretation of history put forward at the museum is a wall near the exit containing photographs of leading Asian leaders of independence movements, most prominently being Mahatma Gandhi. The caption connected to the photographs noted that, although Japan's ambitions for a "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere" failed to be realized, various independence movements sprang up after the Second World War to continue the struggle for an end to racial discrimination and colonialism in Asia." Whatever profound political and ethical differences existed between Mahatma Gandhi and the British Raj, there has never been any indication to my knowledge that the apostle of nonviolence ever supported Japanese militarism as a viable alternative to India's colonial status. And given documented Japanese cultural attitudes of racial superiority with regard to their Asian neighbors at the time, one finds the museum's claim of support by other Asians for Imperial Japan's concept of a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" to be ludicrous. Tokyo's slogan of "Asia for the Asians" was a cruel deception with tragic results. Given the brutality of Japanese troops, especially of the Kempeitai (Imperial Japan's version of the Nazi Gestapo), it is difficult to conceive of many Asians, even under the yoke of European colonialism, ever rallying to the flag of the Rising Sun. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- No less a figure than Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has written, in his memoirs, his recollection of Japanese colonial rule: "However, once the Japanese lorded over us as conquerors, they soon demonstrated to their fellow Asiatics that they were more cruel, more brutal, more unjust and more vicious than the British. During the three and a half years of occupation, whenever I encountered some Japanese tormenting, beating or ill-treating one of our people, I wished the British were still in charge. As fellow Asiatics, we were filled with disillusionment, but then the Japanese themselves were ashamed to be identified with their fellow Asiatics, whom they considered racially inferior and of a lower order of civilization. They were descendents of the sun goddess, Amaterasu Omikami Sama, a chosen people, distinct and separate from the benighted Chinese, Indians and Malays." So much for present day claims in Japan that Imperial Japan's militaristic adventure in the first decades of the Twentieth Century was a noble crusade to free its Asian neighbors from Western imperialism and colonialism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- President Roosevelt made reference to the then Emperor of Japan in his address to a Joint Session of Congress requesting passage of a Declaration of War - the last such declaration ever passed by an American Congress. It seems clear that President Roosevelt assumed the Emperor had some culpability for the events at Pearl Harbor or he would not have evoked his title in his December 8, 1941 statement. Yet, according to the Washington Post, in an article last weekend, Japanese legislators overwhelmingly approved a controversial bill on Friday, May the Thirteenth - an inauspicious date - creating a national holiday to honor Hirohito, Emperor of Japan during World War II, a move that critics called the latest in a series of steps to glorify Japan's militarist past. By a vote of 202 to 14, the Upper House of Japan's Parliament passed the bill to give the country a day off on Hirohito's April 29th birthday. This vote reflects the depths of denial and the degree of insensitivity with which considerable portions of the Japanese government and people continue to view their nation's imperialist past. In fairness, as the Post reported in the same article, some Japanese lawmakers did raise objections. Seiji Mataichi of the Social Democratic Party, stated that "this is inviting opposition from neighboring countries such as China and South Korea." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Symbolism is important, especially in Asia. I would hope that, at a minimum, the American Embassy in Tokyo and U.S. Consulates in Japan would remain open on April 29th each year and conduct business as usual in silent protest and in honor of the American dead at Pearl Harbor and in Bataan. This holiday for Hirohito, however, follows a growing trend of historic revisionism in Japan. The top earning domestic film in Japan in 1998, for example, was "a controversial movie that depicts Japan's top war criminal as a hero. . . . "Pride," a film about World War II leader General Hideki Tojo. . . . immediately provoked an outcry from neighboring countries, including China and South Korea, which were occupied by Japanese troops. . . . The film portrays Tojo as a peaceful man who went to war in self-defense, and to liberate Asia from Western colonialism - a popular view among nationalist Japanese." Perhaps the Italian film industry should undertake the filming of "Il Duce and the Second Roman Empire?". . . although I doubt it would have much box office appeal in Rome, where I once lived. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A key question, which many in Washington raise, is: has not Japan apologized enough? Aren't its Asian neighbors just being unreasonably stubborn? Why can't we just move on and allow Japan to assume the role of a normal state with a sufficient military apparatus to reflect its economic power? Prime Minister Koizumi, in a Jakarta speech on April 22, stated: "In the past Japan through its colonial rule and aggression caused tremendous damage and suffering for the people of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations. Japan squarely faces these facts of history in a spirit of humility." Well said. However, on the exact same day as the speech, eighty-one Diet Members visited the Yasukuni Shrine for its spring festival. The Shinto shrine honors fourteen Class-A war criminals. The Diet delegation intends to visit the shrine again on August 15th, the sixtieth anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific War. A South Korean newspaper carried a cartoon lampooning this odd juxtaposition of events. Titled: "Is this an apology?" the cartoon showed the Diet Members at the Yasukuni Shrine. A legislator says: "The Prime Minister was not available to come here since he was on a trip." Can one imagine German or Italian Parliamentarians ever going to a commemorative ceremony for Nazi or Fascist leaders? How sincere is an apology given in such circumstances? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is the inclusion of the spirit tablets of Class A war criminals, including Hideki Tojo, in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japan's war dead, that has been the source of such controversy. The webpage of the Yasukuni Jinja Shrine raises questions about the impartiality of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, and ponders whether those convicted are, in fact, guilty. It states: "This matter is drawn upon the judgment professed by the Military Tribunal for the Far East that Japan fought a war of aggression. Can we say that this view is correct? We must pass judgment on this matter in the same manner of a tribunal that passes judgment after gathering credible proof. We cannot help but feel that the possibility of ulterior motives has not been discounted. Isn't it a fact that the West with its military power invaded and ruled over much of Asia and Africa and that this was the start of East-West relations? There is no uncertainty in history. Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia. We cannot overlook the intent of those who wish to tarnish the good name of the noble souls of Yasukuni." This is a clear assertion, in a circumspect Japanese manner, that the IMTFE, held under the authority of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General MacArthur, was a case of merely "to the victor goes the spoils" without having a valid legal foundation in actual fact. The participation of Japan's highest political leaders in ceremonies at the Yasukuni Shrine is an indication of endorsement of these views expressed by the Shrine's authorities. Such an assertion cannot be left unchallenged. It should not be met by continued silence in Washington. Either the U.S. government should reassert the correctness of the judgment at Tokyo and the sentences rendered or Washington should offer an apology to the Japanese government and people for carrying out a crude act of political vengeance after the war. As the Yasukuni web page notes "there is no uncertainty in history." And there is no uncertainty that Hideki Tojo and those who collaborated with him were war criminals, the same as their Nazi and Fascist allies in Europe. This is a historic fact that the government and people of Japan should accept if Asian history is to move forward as has been the case in Europe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The "comfort women" issue should be a subject of concern for the U.S. government which, over the last decade, has made the "trafficking in persons" issue a top foreign affairs priority. It would seem impossible then to ignore an unresolved issue which involves the most extensive case of government-organized trafficking in women in the entire Twentieth Century. That injustice is compounded by the Japanese government's continued insistence that the trafficking was carried out by private contractors without the specific sanction of the Japanese Imperial Army. The continuing refusal to offer apologies or to compensate the now elderly victims should be a source of national shame. The fact that it took decades for these women to come forward, long after World War II settlements were reached between governments, should not be an issue. The psychological scars must be immense and the sense of shame, especially for women from socially conservative Asian cultures, must be overwhelming. One woman of conscience, a former Japanese teacher at a Korean middle school during the colonial period, returned to Korea when I was American consul in Pusan a decade and a half ago. She visited her old school and, with tears of remorse, she examined old school records, remembering the virginal young Korean school girls who were taken away to be "comfort women." This Japanese woman was the exception to a general attitude of denial and disdain. Please note the following: "On March 29, 2001, a Japanese court overturned the first and only compensation award ever ordered for former World War II sex slaves or 'comfort women.' Hiroshima's High Court reversed the landmark April 1998 ruling by a lower court under which the Japanese government was to pay 300,000 yen (2,440 U.S. Dollars) each in damages to three South Korean women." I have been given a declassified U.S. government document from 1945 which challenges Japanese official claims of lack of involvement of the Imperial Army in the recruitment of comfort women. An interview by the U.S. military with a prisoner of war, a civilian brothel owner in Burma, confirms official Japanese involvement: "A prisoner of war, a civilian brothel owner, captured with his wife and twenty army prostitutes near Waingmaw on 10 August 1944, stated: "Prisoner of war, his wife and sister-in-law made some money as restaurant keepers in Keijo, Korea, but, their trade declining, they looked for an opportunity to make more money and applied to Army Headquarters in Keijo for permission to take 'comfort girls' from Korea to Burma. According to prisoner of war, the suggestion originated from Army Headquarters and was passed to a number of similar Japanese 'businessmen' in Korea." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of all the horrors inflicted by Japanese Imperial troops during their march toward empire, first in Manchuria and then in the rest of China, none can surpass for savagery what occurred in the Chinese city of Nanjing: After Nanjing fell, on December 13, 1937, the Japanese military ran amok in the city and surrounding areas until February 1938, when relief garrison forces finally relieved the frontline fighters. Until that time, the soldiers continued with acts of arson, torture, murder, and rape on a scale that has few parallels in history. Buildings were looted and burned. Tens of thousands of presumed Chinese soldiers were rounded up and summarily executed. Civilians of all ages were tortured and executed. Women were raped by the thousands. The late author, Iris Chang, originally from Illinois, wrote the definitive work on the Nanking Massacre. Her discovery of eyewitness accounts in the West, from American missionaries who were in the city at the time, as well as from the diary of the Nazi Party member John Rabe, provided definitive evidence that a wholesale massacre of Chinese people took place in the city during those two months. One of the eyewitness accounts which Iris Chang recorded was provided by American missionary Minnie Vautrin, aged fifty-one at the time of the massacre. Vautrin attempted, with other missionaries, to establish a "safety zone" around her Ginling College's campus. Iris Chang recorded: "That evening Vautrin saw women being carted away in the streets and heard their desperate pleas. A truck went by with eight to ten girls, and as it passed she heard them scream, 'Jiu Ming! Jiu Ming! (Save our lives!)' ...As she accommodated the stream of wild-eyed women, she heard stories of the Japanese raping girls as young as twelve and women as elderly sixty, or raping pregnant women at bayonet point." Another American eyewitness was missionary surgeon, Dr. Robert Wilson, who had been born in Nanjing. He was raised in China, where he learned geometry from Pearl Buck. After receiving a degree from Harvard Medical School, he returned to the city of his birth to practice medicine at the University of Nanking Hospital. Iris Chang records Dr. Wilson's account: "One of the worst scenes Wilson saw in Nanking - a scene he would remember for the rest of his life - was a massive gang rape of teenage girls in the street. A group of young women between the ages of fifteen and eighteen were lined up by the Japanese and then raped in the dirt, one after another, by an entire regiment. Some hemorrhaged and died, while others killed themselves shortly afterwards. But the scenes in the hospitals were even more horrifying than those in the streets. Wilson was mortified by the women who came to the emergency room with their bellies ripped open, by the charred and horribly disfigured men whom the Japanese tried to burn alive, and by numerous other horrors he barely had time to describe on paper. He told his wife that he would never forget the woman whose head was nearly cut off, teetering from a point on her neck." The Japanese Ambassador to Washington at the time of publication of Iris Chang's book, Kunihiko Saito, did not display the usual culturally expected Japanese reticence and politeness in verbally attacking Chang's work as "inaccurate," "distorted" and "erroneous." Ms. Chang responded by challenging the Ambassador to a televised debate. (On The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Iris challenged Ambassador Saito to apologize to the victims of the Nanking Massacre. He declined.) I was living in Beijing at the time and remember that the debate was widely broadcast via cable television. I have a very close personal friend, a Chinese-American businesswoman, a partner in a major U.S. corporation, who is usually extremely cool-headed, conducting business in Japan and elsewhere in a highly professional manner. She rushed over to see me a day or so after the debate, however, to ask me rhetorically "Would the German Ambassador to Washington ever dare to criticize a Jewish writer who published a work on the Holocaust?" She was shaking with rage. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A site of particular concern in this era of renewed interest in chemical and biological weapons is the infamous Unit 731. Located just outside of the Chinese city of Harbin, this is where biological and chemical weapons experiments were carried out on Chinese, Korean, Russian, and other nationals, including American POWs, between 1938 and 1945. My children and I visited the Harbin museum, which records the 731 war crimes, in 1997. The biological weapons experiments conducted on helpless prisoners there included anthrax, an agent with which we on Capitol Hill are now familiar. One description of what happened there: "The noise was like the sound when a board is struck. On the frozen fields at Ping Fang, in northeast China, chained prisoners were led out with bare arms, and subjected to a current of air to accelerate the freezing process. Then came the noise. With a short stick, the arms of the prisoners would be struck to make sure their limbs had indeed frozen. In the gruesome world of Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, experiments with frostbite on human subjects became a favorite in a macabre litany of cruelty. . . . Apart from the frostbite experiments, prisoners were infected with diseases including anthrax, cholera, and the bubonic plague. To gather data, human vivisections were performed. Whole villages and towns were infected with the plague and cholera. In the end, at least three thousand prisoners, mainly Chinese, were killed directly, with a further 250,000 Chinese left to die through the biological warfare experiments. It is called the Asian Auschwitz and, in terms of inhumanity and horror, it certainly warrants this description. Yet there remains a fundamental difference with the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against Jews. While Germany has shown deep contrition and remorse, the leaders of the country that spawned the evil of Unit 731 still struggle to come to grips with what occurred. This week (August 2002) in a Tokyo court, the world was again reminded of Japan's inability to deal with its march across Asia. In courtroom 103, three judges of the Tokyo District Court rejected a claim for an apology and compensation by one hundred and eighty Chinese, either victims or the family of victims of Unit 731. . . . The judges claimed all compensation issues were settled by a treaty with China in 1972." Yes, your honors, and what about the apology part? What is so hard about saying "We are sorry for what you suffered?' A Japanese man of conscience, Yoshio Shinozuka, came forward in 1997. A former member of Unit 731, he gave testimony and declared his remorse. Some of his harrowing testimony: The Chinese victims were known as "logs" and it was Shinozuka's job to scrub them down before the vivisection. "I still remember clearly the first live autopsy I participated in," he recalled. "I knew the Chinese individual we dissected alive because I had taken his blood once before for testing. At the vivisection, I could not meet his eyes because of the hate he had in his glare at me." The victim had been infected with the plague, and was totally black. Shinozuka was reluctant to use the brush on the man's face. "Watching me, the chief pathologist, with scalpel in hand, signaled me to hurry up." He recalled. "I closed my eyes and forced myself to scrub the man's face with the deck brush." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some in Washington are dreaming an impossible dream. They wish for Japan to become the Great Britain of Asia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a partner of the United States in securing the peace in Asia and beyond. We Americans, at least, would like to see this happen. But without an honest accounting of its history, as was done in Europe, Japan can never become a Great Britain. Japan, despite its immense generosity in the funding of international organizations, can never secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Japan will be excluded and marginalized unless Tokyo makes some great historic _expression of remorse, like that of German Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1971 kneeling at a memorial in Poland to the victims of the Nazis. Without such a sincere act of contrition there is very little Washington can do to help Tokyo achieve its diplomatic goals. For Japan must first help itself. Confession, as the Catholic Church teaches, is good for the soul. But a true confession requires both contrition and penance toward those who were offended. Only then can historic sins finally be forgiven. Those who contend that the discussion of historic legacy issues regarding Japan's role in World War II is simply manipulation by hostile neighboring governments or an expression of fanatics who will never be appeased demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the perceptions of the peoples of East Asia. I have lived among the Korean people for eleven years and the Chinese people for four years. Their feelings about what happened to their people are deep and genuine. Americans have proclaimed that we will not forget what happened on September 11, 2001, presumably not even after sixty years have passed. How can we then ask others to be less true to their historic national tragedies than we ourselves are? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are the three hundred thousand Chinese men, women and children slaughtered in Nanjing of less human worth than the twenty-seven million Soviet citizens who died in the Nazi onslaught? The historic accounting of atrocities must be color blind. In any event, we will not be able to forget. Over seventy million Koreans will not let us. Nor will 1.3 billion Chinese. Then there are the Singaporeans and the Filipinos who also will not be silent. In this sixtieth commemorative year of the Second World War, Japanese government officials and Diet Members who go to the Yasukuni Shrine to pay homage to the memory of war criminals hurt the feelings of the families of their victims. If the Yasukuni Shrine is to be a national memorial to a nation's war dead, like Arlington Cemetery, then the spirit tablets of Tojo and the other Class A war criminals should be removed. Otherwise, such acts of veneration will continue to disturb the tranquility of the Chinese people, the Korean people, the Philippine people, the Singaporean people, the people of Hong Kong, and the Indonesian people.
The situation is that complicated if you get the basic facts right. The Taiwan Province was a part of China under the ruling of the Qing Dynasty(the Qing Dynasty ended at 1911). The Qing Dynasty fought a naval war against Japan in 1985. China lost most of its navy and was forced to cede the Taiwan Province to Japan. Japan enacted colonial reigning in Taiwan island for about 50 years, and raised many local Chinese Taiwanese as its watchdogs in the process. Until 1945, Japan lost WWII and surrendered to China and her allies. The Taiwan province was returned to the Republic of China, a regime found and ruled by a party known as KMT, after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. Shortly after the WWII, a civil war broke out in China between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party(CCP), the KMT lost the war, lost mainland China, and fled to the Taiwan Province, which was already taken back by China from Japan for FOUR years at the time of escape in 1949. The People's Republic of China was established in 1949, acknowledged now as the legimate regime of China, and as the successor of the Republic of China, claims all territorial rights of the ROC, including that of the Taiwan Province. The KMT was in delusion that one day it can retake China, and didn't denounce the Republic of China. Until today Taiwan still claims itself as the Republic of China, although the Republic of China has long lost whatever legitimacy it has. The KMT has done relatively a good job in developing the Taiwan Province, now it's one of the developed areas in the world. The situation puts the Taiwanese into a position that's easy to look at the mainlanders as inferior neigbhours, they are poor, uneducated and living under communistic dictatorship, so they are likely to be backward, uninformed or even stupid. The military confrontation between the Taiwan straits doesn't help either. Although China is no longer actually communistic and is getting more inclined to democratic ways, it takes time for the Chinese Taiwanese to catch up with status quo. Rejoining a communistic dictatorship isn't an exciting idea, although China is willing to promise any condition except China's sovereignty over Taiwan, making Taiwan a total autonomy after reunification, it takes time to build trust. For average Taiwanese, reunification, even if accepted has a long way to go. Yet the Taiwanese watchdogs for the Japanese aren't going to sit there and do nothing, watching the power and interests they once had under Japan's ruling being taken by the KMT. After the Republic of China taking back Taiwan, these watchdogs without their Japanese masters have brewed a grudge towards China and Chinese. They spread anti-China propaganda and tried to advocate Taiwan's independance, they distort history and current events to belittle Chinese and demonize China, so that they can first alienate the Chinese Taiwanese from China, emotionally. Then they came up with crap to justify Taiwan not being part of China, such as neglecting the succession of entity from ROC to PRC, such as depicting the KMT as the outside cruel invaders that does nothing good but mischief to Taiwanese, so they can alienate the Chinese Taiwanese from their motherland, rationally. Under the governing of the KMT, the voice of these Japanese watchdogs was suppressed, yet when Taiwan was moving towards democracy and multiple parties sprang up fighting for "presidency", a party called Ming Jing Dang(The Democratic Progressive Party) found out it's very easy to win support based on hatred, disdain and a sense of superiority. It's their proven strategy to win support from Taiwanese not satisfied with the KMT, since the KMT came from China, with leaders consisted of mainlanders. Ming Jing Dang, aided by one influential Japanese watchdog Lee Deng Hui(a former Japanese imperial army soldier), successfully alienated those people by depicting the KMT as Outsiders, and depicting themselves as the Insiders(since the leaders of this party is mainly locally born). By advocating independance and discriminating against all things Chinese Ming Jing Dang found a niche that fans Taiwanese hatred towards the KMT(the Chinese invaders) and China(the poor communistic country under dictatorship). Hatred and disdain is a proven strategy Adolf Hitler once used to win support in elections. Ming Jing Dang has grown a lot through this way, and due to internal conflicts Lee Deng Hui inflicted within the KMT, the KMT lost "presidency" in the previous two elections, although the KMT is still taking charge in the "parliament". I wrote this not to argue about Taiwan's status, but to hope those interested in this topic can find something useful. Whatever others may call this post I really don't care.
