Hong Kong and Taiwan’s Colonial Legacy

        

Li Peng died a few days ago. He was ninety. With the market reforms of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that reigned in the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and opened a new kettle of worms from the west, Li Peng made hard decisions to declare martial law after out-of-control students, not unlike those in Hong Kong now, could not realize how harmful they were to their nation. How are the protests in Hong Kong related to Taiwan's Sunflower youth?
         At Tienanmen Square in 1989, demonstrators would not go back to school and work; the market was free and so were the fancies. The engine of capitalism is infantile satisfaction in materialism. Its propaganda is used for commercial purposes, to make consumers feel inferior to their competition, indoctrinating us to buy the newest gadgets, co-opting our youth in their rebellious stage of development. China is learning how to deal with this subversion. The Hong Kong protest is anti-socialist. The inciters are non-government organizations (NGO) with the goal of destabilizing Hong Kong and keeping it capitalist. Hong Kong may need a new Li Peng and People's Liberation Army to deal with the subversion.

 Second-class Chinese citizens in undemocratic Hong Kong, a British colony, were easily mesmerized by shiny objects in their cradle of capitalist filth. The pride Hong Kongers felt when the British were forced out after 156 years of colonial exploitation has been eroded by fear-mongers alarming the undisciplined about losing privileges. The greater good of being part of a socialist world against racist, anti-worker U.S./NATO led White Angelo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) fascists is lost on them. The People's Republic of China (PRC) leadership is not good at pointing this out, so Hong Kongers who have forgotten the past are destined to repeat it.

“Manifest destiny” of English WASP supremacy makes people of color indebted to their corporate masters’ greed and religious superiority. Li Peng helped Deng Xiao-Ping stop the counter-revolutionary subversion, what would have turned China into a capitalist hell with worker exploitation forever, but who can help the PRC now? Back in 1989, the CCP did the right thing in counter-revolutionary Tienanmen Square protests and they would be justified to put down the riots in Hong Kong now.

Look at what China has achieved in the thirty years since the so-called “democracy movement” that culminated in the showdown at Tienanmen Square. China is on the verge of becoming the largest economy in the world, one that has made great progress in eradicating poverty, as workers in Taiwan, the last U.S. stronghold on Chinese soil, wallow in a neoliberal two-party political circus. Taiwanese workers remain nation-less, unable to gain independence, or reunification, because of U.S. interference, and real wages are stuck at the same rate as twenty years ago, thirty years since the “democracy movement” in China "lost" and “Free China’s” workers “won”. Won what? Taiwanese, in workplaces under thirty employees, have no right to unionize. Women are still oppressed by their male bosses. A legacy of environmental sickness and occupational hazards remains.

In Taiwan, a sham democracy, one party of corrupt politicians, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) kowtows to underworld bosses and steers the election of populist pro-unification clowns while the other party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) keeps Taiwan in the U.S. sphere of influence with media fear-mongering and biased reports of Hong Kong protests. Which party in Taiwan is raising workers out of their doldrums? Neither. A spark for independence in Taiwan existed during Chen Shui-Bian's (陳水扁) presidency. Now Tsai Ying-Wen's (蔡英文) DPP only wants to hold the line for the U.S. at the cost of reunification with China. A populist mayor from Kaohsiung, Han Kuo-Yu (韓國瑜), or arrogant independent from Taipei, Ko Wen-Je (柯文哲) may be the only way to lead the way back. The "Sunflower Movement", anti-Chinese, was promoted and co-opted by the DPP to win their presidential election over the KMT

Read "Sunflower Movement Co-opted by DPP" here

  What Hong Kongers and Taiwanese have in common is a contempt for immigrants and visitors from China "invading" their territory. If you did a demography of the Hong Kong protesters, I bet you would find a majority of them are descendants of long time Hong Kong residents. Their resentment of the new wave is not unlike the European/United Staters contempt for immigrants. They distinguish between the old and new. In the same way, many Taiwanese disliked the influx of Chinese after World War II, being usurped by a interloping ruling class, KMT Chinese replacing Japanese, PRC Chinese replacing British. Rich Chinese have raised the price of housing in Hong Kong while tourists from China are perceived as 'low-class'. Ironically, In Taiwan, Tsai Ying-Wen and the DPP have no problem with an influx of European and United States expats, in fact it is an initiative. Is that the Anglicization of Taiwan  to keep it in the western camp as the anti-extradition protests a smokescreen for the same western tendency? 

          Protesters in Hong Kong have forgotten how lucky they are to be reunited with the mainland, their cultural cohort, and be represented by a government that shields them from U.S. imperialism. Meanwhile Taiwan remains in its colonial past. At least the interlopers that followed Chiang Kai-Shek to Taiwan remember which culture they stem from. Perhaps only a populist from Kaohsiung can rally them back, but China will take whatever it can to end foreign exploitation of its people. Hong Kongers should count their blessings and Taiwanese should see the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

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