The Public Melancholia of Taiwan (part 1)

I thought I had seen everything there needs to be seen in Taiwan.  I've visited my great-grandparents' graves in the northern reaches of New Taipei City.  I've been through my grandfather's hometown of Tainan and seen where he grew up and all.  I know where the best beef-noodle joints are (not subject to discussion), got to known Shilin Night Market and seen it become relegated to the basement of some poorly organized shack.  I've been to the original Din Tai Fung at Xinyi Road, had the most "Q" rice balls in sweet red bean soup.  I've heard people wax lyrical about how great the National Taiwan University is, and how its graduates hung the moon.  You wouldn't know Harvard existed.

This was, however, a while back.  When I was young, Taiwan was one of the four so-called "Asian Tigers."  The Asian Tigers were small economies, some of them small countries, that were formerly considered third-world.  South Korea, for instance, was a small and mostly agrarian economy.  Singapore and Hong Kong were merely glorified fishing villages.  But within the span of 2-3 decades, they became economic powerhouses.  My parents - parents! - grew up in a Taiwan and Singapore of great impoverishment; my mom remembered how she and my uncles had to use pencils up to until it was a mere half-an-inch before they reluctantly threw it away and used a new one - they could barely afford pencils and notebooks.  As Taiwan rode the economic growth crest with the other Asian Tigers, it became the self-considered envy of the Chinese-speaking world.  With freedom and capitalism, Taiwan made itself respectable among the world's peers.  I remember clearly when Taipei Taoyuan Airport (or, Chiang Kai-Shek Airport, as it was known then) was a common airline stopover for many airlines.  Singapore Airlines used to fly to LAX via TPE.  Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, British Airways, Air France, and other airlines had destinations to Taiwan.  The airport was a smorgåsbord of international airlines.

A month before I visited Taiwan most recently (early last June, actually), a Philippine coast guard vessel fired several rounds at a Taiwanese fishing boat in disputed Taiwanese/Philippine waters, and this incident I think excavated what I sense is a Taiwanese "public melancholia."  My mom's friends relayed to me their thoughts: We, Taiwanese, are to be pitied the most.  No public apology came from the President of the Philippines, who argued first that because of Taiwan's non-national status, the Philippines has no obligation to honor the economic waters of Taiwan.  After China's angry criticisms,  all that was given was a personal apology by the President, and was conveyed almost surreptitiously by an ambassadorial clerk.  In fact, it was the Office of the [Taiwanese] President that reported their receipt of the apology, which was subsequently rejected because of its non-official character.  President Ma Ying-Jeou was roundly criticized by the Taiwanese as being weak in the face of conflict.  "He should've threatened the cessation of all economic ties and swift military retaliation," one of my mom's friends exclaimed angrily.

The notion of "reunification" haunted the thick, humid Taiwanese air; the dreaded (or, long-awaited) reunification with the Chinese Communists (or, China).  It seemed inevitable.  The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between China and Taiwan, throwing open the doors to trade and mobility between the two regions, may have brought much needed capital and tourism dollars into Taiwan, but Taiwan would require itself to become more and more reliant on the great economic giant that is China.  The Communist Panda has grown up; the Democratic Ibex that formerly looked down in curiosity at the fledgling cub must now look up and be aware that its goodwill does not mistakenly become a fatal swipe.  And now the Ibex is without strength - without union with the Panda, it has no voice.

This is the status quo, and we don't know how this will continue.  There is talk of independence, but there will be no question that the United States will not tolerate this possible destabilization of East Asia.  This possibility is not politically expedient, of course, and so the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will, of course, try to cover this reality with nationalist rhetoric.  Nationalism, as history has shown, sways very powerfully, even at times over the voices of Truth, rationality, and moral conscience.  More likely is the case that the status quo will be maintained, with Taiwan forging closer links with China, but maintaining its distance by being a vocal ally of the United States.  International interstitiality seems to be Taiwan's fate.

This is where a so-called "Club 51" came in, which is the subject of the video above.  I've never heard of "Club 51."  I am tempted to deem Club 51 reactionary.  According to Kuan-Hsing Chen, the members of Club 51 advance a "rational" argument that it is in Taiwan's interests to apply to be the 51st state of the United States of America.  This is the only way, so it goes, Taiwan can continue to retain its identity without being subsumed by China.  Interestingly, Club 51 argues that if America loses its status as a superpower, it can easily secede from the Union and apply for unification with China.  In the video, to my surprise, the "spokesperson" takes it further, arguing that Taiwan technically remains a territory of the United States and, because there was no official transferring of Taiwan from the United States to China after Japan's surrender in 1945, Taiwan has the right and the incentive to apply to be the 51st state of the United States.  So long as the United States remains a dominant superpower.

Because Club 51 is a reactionary movement, there is an obvious irrationality underlying this rationality, as well as a total lack of pragmatism and entire disregard of history.  Congress would obviously vote overwhelmingly against Taiwan's statehood ambitions especially if there is the possibility of secession.  Yet, as Chen notes, in an op-ed put out by the Club, the argument in favor of statehood is not emotional or nationalist, but "rational."  It is logical and rational to become the 51st state of the United States.  For me, its rationality is questionable, and its practicality unworkable.  I agree with Chen that what is furthermore problematic with Club 51 is that it itself uncritically identifies with Imperial interests.  Far from retaining Taiwan's uniqueness, closer alliance with the US or China will only exacerbate its road towards eroding its uniqueness.  Taiwan, in other words, will end up becoming more Chinese or American.  In the video, the taxi driver enthusiastically proclaims at the end that he is not really a citizen of the Republic of China (Taiwan) but a Taiwanese-American!  Yet, if he went to Los Angeles or San Francisco where there are many self-identified Taiwanese-Americans, few - if any- would assent to his self-description!  One is not Taiwanese-American by calling oneself that.

So what seems to be the case is that Taiwan is firmly entrenched within its "international interstitiality." It is not a country but yet at the same time is.  It is somebody's territory and simultaneously nobody's territory.  As a result, Taiwan is easily utilized to serve non-Taiwanese ends.  My mom tells me that one small country (Belize?) once "asked" Taiwan to fund the purchase and maintenance of a presidential airplane, to which Taiwan readily spent millions of dollars in order to maintain diplomatic relations.  Taiwan is always being used and is devoid of any real international voice.  To the U.S. government, Taiwan remains a ready customer for its second-hand military equipment, which is often sold at its original purchase price.  In the Coast Guard incident, the informal apology only came after China's foreign minister criticized harshly the Philippines for invading Taiwanese territory.

What, then, can Taiwan do?  Or, as I'm more interested in, does the church have any prophetic witness in the midst of this public melancholia?  I think it does.   But how to proceed requires further reflection on the historical, cultural, and geopolitical location of Taiwan.  This reflection is not coming from many churches in Taiwan, particularly the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (PCT).  What I want to steer away from is a muscular* zeal for independence or for complete reunification of China and Taiwan.  This is not to say either is per se "bad," but I worry that if these public connections with geopolitical positions were not preceded with sustained and critical thinking, the Church ends up being co-located with certain positions, along with any residual economic, cultural, ethical, and humanitarian issues that come with those positions.  If independence does, indeed, lead to Taiwan's international marginalization, then the PCT will be seen to have been in bed with this marginalization.  Furthermore, the push towards independence or complete reunification omits important considerations of the truly marginalized in Taiwanese society.  What the Church needs to do is to provide a space for this reflection to take place, and to help society in these important conversations.  We proceed to elucidate what those conversations are.

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*By "muscular," I am driving at the disposition whereby shallow theological thought is often paired  with a tremendous emphasis on public manifestations of spirituality.  Christians from traditionalist and progressivist orientations can veer into muscular zeal when public activism is not accompanied with sufficient critical reflection.