max14; Do you live in Singapore? My mom does and I can tell from visiting her and also from research I've done on Singapore that Mandarin is replacing English especially among the Chinese population. You might be correct that the total population is speaking more but that is factoring the nearly 35% Malay and 5% Tamil population too. If you look at roughly 70% of the population that is Chinese you will find Mandarin has almost completely taken the place of English and Hokein. And so do the Welsh, its called Welsh. For that matter the Taiwanese have their own dialect too that is nearly incomprehensible to a Mandarin speaker. As for Taiwan having way more freedom than Scotland and Wales, of course it does because it is an independent country. What is going on in the UK is a devolution of central control to a state where Scotland and Wales might gain the same status as England and Ireland under the European Union. I have a hard time buying that the CCP will be gone in a few years.
This maybe a bit off topic. The upper class of Singapore like the lawyers and doctors ALL speak English. They are pushing the education system to use English more so their kids can have better grades. Most kids find Chinese very hard to learn and rarely being used. I think the long term trend is towards English. Granted Chinese won't disappear and may have comebacks as China is coming strong. But even now you can talk daily Chinese with a Singaporean alright but anything in detail they'll use English, however you can speak rocket science with a Taiwan person with ease. Anyway the whole point is Taiwan is no Singapore. yeah maybe Singapore speak English because 30% are non-Chinese. I mean America speaks English because 99% are non-Chinese. That's not the point. The point is Taiwan doesn't have that 30%, and doesn't have English as official language etc etc. I don't know which dialects are you talking about and how many people speak them. But they came from Chinese and mostly have their counterparts in mainland China. It's not the source of cultural conflicts. China has tons of dialects. Even the relative new and standard northeast Chinese have dialects can't be understood by the rest. An Irish-Britain comparison probably fit Tibet but certainly not Taiwan. All these Scotland stuff are irelevant either. It's like asking Yao to beat big Z, he's already better what do you want him to do ? CCP may not be gone in a few years. That was a bit far-fetched from me. But Taiwan won't be independent for a while either. Let's not be hot-headed, realisticly it's not going to happen in a long while. Both sides need to be more mature and clear up all these artificially created history, cultrual difference and hatred. Which are not really there. There's no fudermental differences. Like somebody said in the other thread, it's mostly just ego playing.
Is that safe to say now Taiwan ceirainly don't want the direction of where that referendum is heading?
On the first ballot, which asked: The People of Taiwan demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should mainland China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defence capabilities? The vote was: For: 6,511,216 (91.8%) Against: 581,413 (8.2%) However, it was invalidated because only there was only a 45.17% voter turnout on this issue. ----------------------------- On the second ballot, which asked: Would you agree that our government should engage in negotiation with mainland China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-Strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides? The vote was: For: 6,319,663 (92.0%) Against: 545,911 (8.0%) This vote was also invalidated because of low turnout (45.12%). ============================ The opposition KMT had crippled the referendum bill by instituting a crazy 50% turnout requirement for validity. I'm not sure what the turnout requirements are for a US referendum (or if there even is one), but I'm pretty sure these two referenda would have been valid in any Western democracy. As for the results, I think the numbers speak for themselves. China should use these numbers as a reference and work on winning Taiwanese voters, not alienate them.
This statement is incorrect or at least misleading. There are probably as many people in mainland China who speak Taiwanese dialect as there are people in Taiwan. And most of the them are madarin speakers too.
The topics of the referendum is quite meaningless. For how the questions were set up nobody would vote no. Yeah "do you agree we should negotiate with the mainland ..." Duh? Also the Anti-missles systems are not cost effecient. And with the distance between Taiwan and the mainland, there's no way you can intercept. That's just another dumb question. Western democracies will never have a popular vote with stuff like that. It's just Chen's political game.
OK I personally believe the first one is dumb, but I fully respect some Taiwan people hoping for more security and voted for. But like I said with the questions set up, you can't vote no. If I ask "since America don't dismantle their missle systems and don't promise to not use nuke first, do you agree we build more nukes ? " People would vote yes although it's not feasible. People are voting yes more on the part to urge the other side to dismantle the missles rather than to build their own. The question is just a setup.
not sure what you were trying to say with this. i supported the iraq war initially because i thought we went in to depose a tyrant . but when it became apparent that there wasn't any consistency in this supposedly active moral foreign policy, i turned against the war. but on the other hand, i don't recall a referendum on the war. and even if there was one, i think the relevant number is not the 45% participation rate (which is around the ballpark of most US presidential election turnouts), but rather the 90%+ votes for the measures. this ain't iraq or north korea we're talking about here, but a multiparty democracy. a 90% vote on ANYTHING is HIGHLY indicative of popular sentiment.
The whole TW election is turning into a soap opera. Rumors about CSB assassination as a publicity stunt. No suspect, gun or witness. Ballot fraud with 300K invalid votes. Failed referendum. Riots and Protest. Plunging stock market. What a zoo!
The whole TW election is turning into a soap opera. Rumors about CSB assassination as a publicity stunt. No suspect, gun or witness. Ballot fraud with 300K invalid votes. Failed referendum. Riots and Protest. Plunging stock market. What a zoo! Yep, Sounds about like the Bush/Gore/Florida fiasco... We should send some Floridians over there to look for Dimpled or preganant or hanging chads..
Lil: Thank you for opening this thread. At times, I was led by people like you to believe independant sentiment at TW has turned the tide. Well, I shouldn't. A 50.1% vs 49.9% margin in a questionable election is anything but a clear indication of what TW wants. In fact, the U.S. government has not officially acknowleged the new winner yet. In fact, from talking to my TW friend and doing my own research, Ive learned this election isn't as much about the independence issue as you people want others to believe. If Pan Blue (KML) were to showcase a stronger leader such as Ma Yingjiu, they would have won easily. In stead, they had Lien who is old and perceived as incapable and linked to the old corruption politics. Best of wishes to people in TW as I continue to watch this dama unfold. I hope they can have a leader who will focus on imrpoving TW's economy and competitiveness, and bettering TWese living. Thank you again.
No you misunderstand me. Its not surprising that there are many in mainland China that understand Taiwnese dialect since it is closely related to Fujianese dialect, like Welsh is related Gaelic, the difference is that like Gaelic on Ireland vs. English in England the Taiwanese speak a dialect that is incomprehensible to the major language of the mainland. To argue that just because there are a lot of people who can comprehend Taiwanese on the mainland to diminish the claim for Taiwanese independence is like saying that since there are probably as many Spanish speakers in the US as the population of Cuba that Cuba shouldn't be independent.
The US Fed. doesn't have a referendum system short of an ammendment to the Constitution that requires 2/3 of Congress to ratify and 3/4 of states to ratify. Different states have different referendum requirements with many states having no referendum process. I can't speak for other countries but since the US national elections have recently pulled around or less than 50% of eligible voters I think if there were a national referendum there wouldn't be that sort of requirement.
thanks for your noble sentiments. i think if there were more people like you in china, things would be a lot less complicated and ugly. i think the 50.1% isn't significant because of the slim majority it represents, but rather because it represents a HUGE increase in the votes received by the reform-minded and pro-Taiwan DPP over the last few elections, a trend which looks to continue into the foreseeable future. and your friend was right on lien and soong as terrible candidates. it is just indicative of the old KMT's woes stemming from its archaic leninist party organisation (much like the CCP), that clean, democratically viable candidates like Ma are passed over in favor of more senior party members like Lien and Soong, who besides having little popular charisma also have a ton of historical baggage with them. the fact that many less charismatic/popular DPP elders were leapfrogged by Chen (many of whom have henceforth left the party in anger) is proof that DPP is far more prepared organisationally for democratic politics. Chen Shui-bian's own comment during the presidential debates said it best (i paraphrase) : "Over these past four years, has the KMT reformed itself? Has it gotten rid of corruption? Has it returned its ill-begotten party assets? Has it gotten more Taiwanese? Has it gotten more democratic? The answer is NO on all these accounts. The only thing they have changed from four years ago... is to expel Lee Teng-Hui (perhaps the most popular taiwanese politician of all time), and to join hands with Soong Chu-Yu (corruption, deficit spending, oppression of taiwanese culture, etc.)." That comment devastated Lien's election campaign. Until the KMT demonstrates its ability to change with the times, their grip on power will only continue to erode.
1. It does not make sense to say that a language is "incomprehensible" to another language. People comprehend languages, not language itself. You can only that that they are different to a degree. And even that they are not as different as English vs Spanish. They are probably like Irish vs Ebonics, same writing systems, shared most of the words, but with usage differences and they pronounce differently. 2. I didnot misunderstand your point. I did not even promote unification just because they share similar languages as you have claimed. On the contrary, you are promoting Taiwan independence using language difference as a factor. So calm down.
the allegations for an unfair election are awfully suspicious. first off, after the shooting incident, the KMT/PFP (the sore losers in this election) did NOT call for delaying the vote, but instead urged their supporters to vote the next day. The KMT party secretary, campaign manager, and organisation secretary all reiterated their commitment to the election. then right after they lose by 20,000 votes, the same people come out and say "the election should be invalidated because of the shooting." http://decision2004.chinatimes.com/report/Decision2004/struggle/htm/930320n3.htm (if you read big-5) secondly, the allegation of ballot fraud. the determination of invalid ballots were determined by the central election commission, a bi-partisan independent agency, with more leanings towards to the KMT/PFP. case in point, the KMT raised protests at the CEC's original plan of determining invalid votes and arranging the ballot boxes and whether the referendum and presidential candidates would go on the same ballot. the CEC accepted the KMT/PFP's own proposal on ALL THREE of these issues. the verification of the vote count and reporting are attended by monitors from both sides, and the supervision of the whole process is by the provincial govts, which are dominated by the KMT/PFP. and in fact, the percentage of invalid votes in both KMT-run and DPP-run provinces were basically the same. basically no irregularities were reported during the election itself. despite universal media coverage (and the fact that most of the mass media are controlled by pro-KMT/PFP interests), the only instances reported were certain KMT officials blocking referendum voters in offshore islands). yet these allegations suddenly erupted the moment the KMT found out it had lost and its candidates had decided to fight the election. it is absolutely disgusting how five minutes earlier the same KMT officials were speaking on TV about how they must learn from this defeat, how the KMT must go on reforming its organisation, how unfortunate the shooting was, the epitome of a gracious defeat. and then the moment their candidate announces that they are fighting the result, the same KMT TV representatives changed their tone. "this election is unfair" "recount the ballots" "invalidate this vote" etc etc etc. most media sources have ascribed the three-fold increase in invalid ballots (from 100K to 300K) from the last election to two things: 1) the "Million Man Invalid Vote Protest" which was a protest launched by activist groups against the ugly campaign smearing and acute partisan politics obstructing taiwan's reforms. 2) new measures introduced by the Central Election Commission (and endorsed by both sides before the election) to tighten and clarify the definition of invalid ballots (in anticipation of a close race). in another 2-3 days, the KMT party will come to realise that it's actions do not benefit its image one bit. taiwanese people aren't stupid. they see a bunch of sore losers whining about the refs when the refs had called far more fouls on the opposing team, complaining about the crowd when they were playing on their home court. i anticipate a mini-coup within the KMT then, and these two losers Lien and Soong are going to be tossed out.
dude Lil, you are so full of it. the election results are so fishy anyone can see it. they didn't want to delay they voting, so you cry foul. had they wanted to delay the voting, what would you have done? b**** about how delaying it favors the KMT because public sentiment is with Chen. whatever man. you are right. the taiwanese people aren't stupid. they'll realize that Chen is actually a great leader, and that the Taiwanese economy is propering under him, and his foriegn policies are bring respectability and peace to Taiwan. and he'll be re-elected over and over again. the people that want independence have a valid argument, but people like you who blindly twist the facts and repeat cliche after cliche make it seem so cult like. are you, by any chance, a practitioner of the Falun gong too?
The language/dialect issue doesn't support or destroy the argument for independance. It's called dialect for a reason. Should we allow canton to be independant, since it is "incomprehensible" to "the major language of the mainland"?
