I love Taiwan, but…

 But the politicians there are destroying it!

The first time I visited Taiwan was in 1977 – with my wife and my two-year-old son. We joined a tour group the cost of which was paid by a company who wanted to thank me for having their goods released by Malaysian Customs after the court accepted my ‘expert’ testimony in a product classification case. The tour took us to the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. I particularly remember our boat journey in Sun Moon Lake. My son asked if there were sharks in the water!

My 3^rd Brother Yew Sim did his degree at the National Chengchi University in the early 1960s. My parents could not afford for him to go to Nanyang University in Singapore. In those days, tertiary education was virtually free for overseas Chinese students. I remember he survived with a monthly remittance of fifty dollars from home. I loved to collect stamps those days and stamps from Taiwan were beautiful. Yew Sim would send me new issues from there from time to time.

My next visit was made in the late 1980s, when as the head of corporate development in Guthrie, I suggested that the company should go into rubber glove-making since it is a major rubber producer in the country. Three of us – Datuk Sulaiman Sujak who was the director of the commercial division, Ng Chee Tee who looked the machine-making unit, and I – went to Taichung to look for good suppliers of glove-making machinery and equipment. Taiwan was already a leading economic tiger then. Unfortunately, the visit did not achieve anything.

I was back in Genting in the early 1990s. A political crisis was brewing between China and Taiwan then and there was fear that China would cut off water supply to Kinmen, which is only about 10km east of Xiamen. Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong thought he should play Kissinger. He took a couple of us to fly with him to Taiwan. Obviously, the cross-Straits politics there was much more complex for him to be involved in. We had a good porridge meal there and flew back the same day. (The governor of Fujian during those days was Jia Qinling, who had been trying hard to get Tan Sri Lim to invest in two big-ticket projects in the province. And Jia had once brought all the city mayors in Fujian to visit Genting and I was privileged to be assigned to be the lead ‘receptionist’ and look after the mayor of Quanzhou specifically during their entire stay. City’s status in China is high; the area under a mayor’s jurisdiction can be as big as a state in our context.)

My last visit was about a year before Covid, which was also before Hong Kong was besieged by rioters. My son and his partner were both invited to attend a major medical function in Taipei. Two rooms had been booked at the Grand Hyatt for them. They did not need two rooms; he asked us to go with them.

While he was busy with his meetings, out of nostalgia, my wife and I took a train to the Sun Moon Lake area and put up a night there. After that, we also hired a dedicated taxi to take us to some other parts of the island. We had plenty of time to talk with the driver who also doubled as our tour guide. He was pretty knowledgeable, having worked in China before. He said he was comfortable if Taiwan had to return to China’s fold. My grandfather hailed from the prefecture of Jinjiang, which is in Quanzhou. Min-nan is therefore our dialect. We empathized with each other well.

Taiwan’s countryside is beautiful and clean. You see temples everywhere. Judging from the way they hold their religious processions, less-urban Taiwanese are certainly more “deity-fearing” than other Chinese all over the world. Daily scenes are much like what we have in Malaysia.

Taiwan was in the midst of a local election fever. Tsai Ing-wen’s popularity had plummeted and her party – the Democratic Progressive Party – was in deep trouble. And there was a maverick politician called Han Kuo-yu 韓國瑜 from Kuomintang. Han successfully wrestled the “safe” mayoral seat from DPP. Kuomintang won handsomely across the island. But no sooner, evil forces appeared in Hong Kong and caused the young to riot against the SAR government. Thanks to the power of western and pro-west media, sentiments in Taiwan turned against China and all its “One country, two systems” undertakings.  Han was removed under a “recall” referendum. He was deemed to be pro-unification. Taiwan succumbed to “Green” forces again. And Tsai got re-elected. What a twist of fate!

Covid came in and China became a pariah. Taiwanese have never been more anti-unification than ever.

Tsai has been using the tip of her American umbrella to poke China’s eyes. The so-called 92 Consensus is now as good as dead. (The 92 Consensus is a political term referring to the outcome of a meeting in 1992 between the People’s Republic of China and the Kuomintang-led Republic of China whereby it was agreed by both parties that there is only ONE China, which includes Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China is the sole government of China.) Lee Teng-hui denied the existence of the consensus and it has also been rejected by Tsai.

The tide is turning…

Tsai has proven to be an ineffective president, not to mention her questionable London School of Economics PhD. (Several of her proteges or toy-boys had also fallen by the wayside, thanks to their fake degrees.) The presidential election will be held early next year. Tsai cannot stand for re-election. The current Vice President Lai Ching-te will contest instead. 

But the notion that America is their protector is no longer that appealing to Taiwanese. They can see that Biden and his team are just snake oil salesmen. The sufferings of Ukrainians are there for them to see; and now the US is showing its double-standards in the Israeli-Hamas conflict. Taiwan is just a pawn in the chessboard America is playing with China.

Yes, Taiwan had been ruled by Japan for fifty years. Given to the ‘benevolence’ the Japanese occupiers had shown them, many have already been ‘nipponized’ to look up to Japan. But their cultural roots are still very Confucianist-Buddhist-Daoist”. It is time Taiwanese wake up to think they are Chinese. They cannot walk alone to tell the world that they are different – if China is being subdued like before. The British had destroyed much of Chineseness in Hong Kong; the riots were a wake-up call.

Which country has brought hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty? Which country has diligently helped to bring its minorities to be at par with the majority – socially and economically? Which country has tirelessly tried to bring conflicting governments or regimes to reconcile with each other or one another? China is of course the answer. And the West is talking about human rights abuses in China – when their own physical infrastructure and “democratic” fabrics are breaking apart. They realise China’s system – at least as it stands today – is superior to theirs, hence the fear and all the demonising.

Taiwanese should feel proud to be Chinese! Of course, no system is perfect, and nobody should oppose good change as the world evolves. By being a part of China, it can help push China to even greater heights.

DPP has lost much of its support. However, Lai is still leading at 30%, with Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-je coming in second with 25%, followed Kuomintang’s Hou Yu-ih at 20%. FoxConn’s Terry Gou has about 10% of the electorate’s support. Hou wants to come to terms with Ko to fight Lai, but given the egoism in Ko, this is unlikely going to happen. The trophy is Lai’s to lose.

Why can’t they see the writing on the wall?

Hence the second line of the title of this article.