From Chiang-era anti-communist propaganda on Green Island to the .tw suffix on tourism Web sites, Chinese sensibilities are being hurt, and Taiwanese are under pressure to rectify the matter, or else risk being marginalizedDespite the touted economic benefits of flourishing Chinese tourism to Taiwan, it is becoming increasingly clear that the dividends are coming at a price — one that, sadly, some seem willing to pay.
With some People’s Republic of China nationals able to travel independently to Taiwan beginning later this month, the Yilan County Business and Tourism Department last week announced it wanted to open a Web site in China and, in doing so, would likely drop the “.tw” suffix to make itself more palatable to Chinese authorities.
A representative from the Yilan County Lodging Association also said that homestays and bed-and-breakfast operators in the county would probably encounter severe difficulty attracting Chinese tourists if they insist on using the “.tw” suffix, an indication that operators and officials may have little compunction in making such a sacrifice in the name of business.
Ostensibly seen as a small compromise on the part of Yilan officials, their willingness to abandon yet another symbol of Taiwan’s sovereignty nevertheless risks engaging the nation further down what could be a very slippery slope. Not only is this flexibility voluntary, it sends a signal to Beijing that a simple nudge or threat will likely suffice when it wants to exact further concessions from Taiwan in the future.
My unsigned editorial, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.
3 comments:
Oh please, this is so irrelevant. You're just writing something anti-China to fit your narrative. This blog is seriously regressing with every written post.
Then stop reading, I'm certainly not forcing you.
Taiwanese business people can sell out to their hearts content to bring in the cash they need. They do not own the piece of real estate they inhabit.
Zhongnanhai and Chinese Taihoku know and have known, as we know, for many, many years that the sovereignty of Taiwan is an undecided question.
What could either the Chinese of both persuasions or even a hoodwinked native-born President of the Taiwan Governing Authority do to harm a sovereignty they do not hold? An act of war? Overt rebellion?...
Japan owns Taiwan. She got it impounded (SFPT 2a) in exchange for a resumption of her sovereignty over the rest her territories after WWII. And the deed confirms the US as the SFPT art. 23a interim administrator of Japanese Taiwan.
I would not worry too much over the sovereignty of Taiwan. The sovereignty of Taiwan is safely stashed away at the Pentagon.
In keeping true to their hearts, all Formosa natives ought to rally around their Formosan Japanese identity on a territory of Japan the US occupies through its proxy. That could compel the remote administrator to a candid acknowledgement of the Formosan Japanese's status under SFPT. That could also reveal that the Chinese on Taiwan are exiled aliens and political refugees
US administrations since the early 1970s all have pursued a policy of rooting the Chinese refugees on the US-held Japanese island of Taiwan. That was confirmed when Congress passed the TRA that erased a nation’s moniker as of January 1, 1979. Hopes were high under Lee Deng-hui’s tenure that the policy was at last bearing fruits.
But the China-centric inclinations the KMT has displayed from 2000 onward in engineering its reconciliation with its arch-foe of yore have given the lie to that inclusive slant the US wanted to impress on the Chinese on Taiwan.
Those exiles, their government and the deluded Taiwanese appointees therein could not do worst to themselves than forgetting where they stand in the food chain under their SFPT art.4b USMG proxy occupiers’ status.
Considering the unity newly sealed between the former civil wars foes, how about a speedy cancellation of both an obsolete policy of asylum and a proxy administrator status they have failed to live by?
Jerome Besson
Valenciennes - France
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