The Truth about Tibet in the PRC

     I finally watched the 1997 Hollywood production of "Seven Years in Tibet", starring Sean Penn, after starting the paperback autobiography of Heinrich Harrer a few weeks before. I was up to page forty-six and he was about to enter Tibet. The movie is quite different from the British 1956 Great Pan paperback edition of the book I found in a Pittsburgh used book store. I also happened to find and start reading A Tibetan Revolutionary, a book I got last year at an Eslite clearance here in Taichung. It is the autobiography of Bapa Phüntso Wangye, a Tibetan man who lived in the same time period. I trust his point of view more than the movie version's with its anti-China propaganda. I also trust Harrer that the rest of his autobiography will be as fair as the beginning and a lot more truthful than the Hollywood film.

     It is interesting juxtaposing the story of the Tibetan Revolutionary, Phünwang (he is named Phuntsok Wangyal in Wikipedia, the form given in the Dalai Lama's autobiography Freedom in Exile) with the story of the stranded Austrian from Seven Years in Tibet, (1943-1950) Heinrich Harrer, with his degenerated autobiography in the Brad Pitt Hollywood version. It is also bizarre the points-of-view from the introduction in the 1956 paperback from which I read and the introductions of the reissued editions. The 1956 edition had yet to see the Chinese Communist clampdown or flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959. Instead it glories in the British Victorian colonialism Younghusband the Brit that opened Tibet to English interference in 1903 and took it over in 1911 to add it to India, Nepal, and nations subdued by imperialism.

     The Harrer expedition of 1942 after his escape from a British POW camp (he was from a Nazi nation) in India has him enter Lhasa from the southwest while Phünwang enters from the east near the Chinese border in 1950, Harrier from 1943 to 1950. I wonder if they might have passed one another in the streets. In the 1950’s, Phünwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan in the Chinese Communist Party and may have been one of the three unidentified vilified Communist Party delegates sent to meet the Dalai Lama in 1950. Harrer may have seen him then.  Harrier was an athlete and adventurer that grabbed the chance to stay in Lhasa while Phünwang was a Tibetan nationalist fighting to overthrow the KMT and British designs on Tibet. Harrier made short shrift of the arbitrary cruelty and backward superstition that came with the package of Buddhist oligarchy while Phünwang fought to liberate Tibetans from their religious and hierarchical stronghold.

      In the Pitt film, the KMT official is a hapless old man, a Yoda figure, but Phünwang knew Liu Wen-Hui and the KMT (its called the GMD [guomindang] in his book) as oppressors along with the local Derge royal family and Buddhist establishment in Lhasa using Dalai Lama's power for their intentions. China had its hands filled fighting against the KMT, British subterfuge, and the Dalai Lama's complicity; he fell lock, stock, and barrel over western culture (at least the Pitt movie got that right) and agreed with the CIA to help him escape, like the U.S. helped Chiang Kai-Shek out of China, but not to fight their way back; they have  been used ever since as a wedge against China. Phünwang could tell the difference in the sound of the British supplied weapons used against the nationalists and their own supplied by the Chinese KMT; I have to read that over again to get clear who is who in the struggle for Tibet. Who is right? I have my opinions. I think China was right to defend Tibet and demand back and protect Hong Kong and Macao from the British and Portuguese, and will be right in getting back Taiwan in the least violent way. Unfortunately, as we have seen in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan, the U.S. and U.K. are making a peaceful transition to indigenous rule almost impossible. 

          I ordered Freedom in Exile. Now that I’m getting Harrer and Phünwang’s point of view on the occurrences in Tibet after WW II, I should read what “His Holiness” had to say. 

          A few years ago I lost one friend over a difference of opinion about Tibet and I don’t regret it. He picked a fight with me over a joke I made and kept writing I was denying the Chinese “1.5 million murdered” in Tibet. I responded that he should pay attention to what he could do in his community and he lashed out red baiting me into defending China compared to U.S. and European aggression. Today's historical status is proof China was right to secure Tibet and Xinjiang before western powers could meddle there; the living standard there has gone up and poverty nearly eradicated. The absurdity of Western governments defending religious rights in China but vilifying and annihilating them elsewhere. The absurdity of condemning China for giving Han people bonuses for relocating to Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang when gentrification has made many U.S. and European cities unaffordable for the middle class; I want my Brooklyn back! 

 Freedom in Exile; The Autobiography of The Dalai Lama arrived in the mail. To show you where his head is at, one of his earliest childhood memories he wrote about was a destitute Chinese couple begging at his home with a dead baby in their arms; how his gracious mother gave them alms, and then more when they told her they would be eating their baby. My question is why did his mother have sixteen children, more than half passing away in childhood, living in destitution as they did? I will be making mental notes of the defenses he gives and comparing them with Phünwang and Harrer’s accounts of life in contemporary Tibet. 

     The innuendos against China are prevalent in the Dalai Lama's autobiography. On page 31, he writes of a monk that helped him figure out how to use an old movie projector, "...like many Chinese, he had a very bad temper." On page 28 he attributes the exaggeration of ten million tons of tea imports (admitting than no one drinks more tea than the British but Tibetans) "an attempt to prove Tibet's economic dependence on China." On page 10 he is proud of Tibetan's past empire writing vainly how "it included much Chinese territory", and that "Tibetan forces actually captured the Chinese capital where they extracted promises of tribute and other concessions." No doubt, his contempt for China will pepper his entire account. 

I haven't found this prejudice against China so far in Harrer's adventure. Phünwang's motivation for bringing Chinese communism to Tibet is at odds with the gist of the Hollywood movie of Harrer's account. Phünwang is Tibetan, too, and condemns the Kuomintang administration there keeping the theoretical oligarchy in place impoverishing  its people and keeping them backwards. Harrer's account of Tibetan life and cruel justice concurs with Phünwang's. The Dalai Lama admits it as such.  
   I finished reading Seven Years in Tibet. It's quaint how Harrer condones feudalism while admitting the unhygienic backwardness and cruelty of the theocracy. He calls the Red Army invaders, not liberators, but admits the fear the Tibetans have of them in 1950 stems from the carnage inflicted on them in 1910 after the Qing was overthrown and the KMT took over; the Red Army soldiers were disciplined. Harrer left Tibet in 1952 on the same route as the Dalai Lama near the Indian border. He doesn't say why he "had to leave" but it was probably because he would have been considered a spy for encouraging the impressionable nineteen-year-old god-king to look westward. He didn't support communism which makes me think that the Austrian national and his German companion might have supported or tolerated the Nazis; he did participate on Nazi teams in the Olympics. He never mentions his political leanings in the book but found no problem schmoozing with the ruling class in Lhasa. His naive acceptance of social inequality with no more than a 'tisk-tisk’ may stem from his jock mentality. But it is the Dalai Lama himself that is smitten by the modern world; who could blame any child that is cloistered in archaic isolation from playing with toys the 13th Dalai Lama dabbled with? 

     Past god-kings were manipulated by the National Guard; this Dalai Lama was manipulated by the CIA. As early as 1948 his ministers was looking for British or U.S. support when the KMT were dislodged from Tibet and China and fled to Taiwan. Up to 1954, when, with Phünwang translating, he met Mao Tsetung, he was accepting the communist ideals and incorporating them. Even Mao told him to go slow to not ignite the ire of his conservative theocrats. 

          The Freedom in Exile autobiography was published in 1990. A Tibetan Revolutionary was published in 2004 but the interviews began in 2003. There are editors’ notes in ATR that refer to passages in FIE. There are recollections of Phünwang and Heinrich Harrer in FIE, recollections of the Dalai Lama but none of Harrer in ATR. Seven Years in Tibet concludes in March 1951 overlapping time, Harrer arriving in Jan. 15, 1946 and Phünwang in late 1947 to Aug. 15, 1949 were both in Lhasa and had interactions with the Dalai Lama. Phünwang’s interviewers must have asked him about those passages relating to him in addition to all his interactions. Some references specifically dispute what the Dalai Lama said, some concur. 

      I burned through fifty pages of A Tibetan Revolutionary at the riverside yesterday afternoon. Such a good man and communist like Phünwang was the victim of Han chauvinism, despite support from Mao, Chow En-Lai, and others at the top, commanders of the Northwest PLA were prejudiced and overzealous to implement land reforms in eastern Tibet and set him up to get him out of the way, accused him of being a Tibetan separatist. Because of the Dalai Lama's brother's contacting the CIA starting in 1956 and the CIA meddling and weakly empowering independence Karmapa, an aspect that Phünwang doesn't allude to in his autobiography. It is probably a paranoid reaction since so many of Phünwang’s compatriots were recruited to destabilize the PRC in any way, without helping independence, like they still do in Taiwan,  in the name of stopping Chinese progress that would hinder their world domination, calling them communist dominoes in Asia, to keep imperialist capitalist influence here. The documentary I saw, “The Shadow Circus; The CIA in Tibet”, about the secret CIA project up to 1974, was the real domino ruining China’s goal of  eradicating feudalism and the good relationship Phünwang helped establish between the Dalai Lama in Tibet and the PRC, causing the Dalai Lama to flee unnecessarily and killing thousands of guerrillas and local people, destroying temples where they probably took shelter to weed them out, and bombing building in collateral damage; you have to blame the CIA more than PRC paranoia. 

If that wasn't enough to convince me that meddling from the U.S. CIA precipitated a hurried response by the PLA into Tibet, I then checked on-line for other books about the hidden story and found this:

"Into Tibet, by Thomas Laird, is the incredible story of a 1949 -- 1950 American undercover expedition led by America's first atomic agent, Douglas S. Mackiernan -- a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans and to recognize Tibet's independence in the months before China invaded. It recounts a harrowing and unprecedented two-thousand-mile trek on foot and camel across China and the deserts of inner Asia. For the first time, Thomas Laird reveals how Mackiernan helped established a covert intelligence pipeline from China to India; how he gathered atomic intelligence for the United States; how his partner Frank Bessac urged the Tibetan government to request covert U.S. military aid and then carried the signed request out of Lhasa; and, finally, how Dean Rusk and the CIA responded. Laird reveals how the clash between the State Department and the CIA, as well us unguided actions by field agents, hastened the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Commenting on American motivations during this operation for the first time, the Dalai Lama says bluntly, "The courage was not there." U.S. government actions were ultimately a kiss of death for Tibet and Mackiernan -- the first CIA agent ever killed during a covert operation. A gripping narrative of survival, courage, and intrigue among the nomads, princes, and warring armies of inner Asia, Into Tibet rewrites the accepted history behind the Chinese invasion of Tibet."

If not for the initial error of `"Han chauvinism" against better judgement, it is clear to see why the PRC went on its radical course through the failed Great Leap Forward to catch up to western militarism and industry, and then the Cultural Revolution to block western subterfuge. It's a wonder the PRC is as strong as it is now with all it has had to bear, and still with destabilizing propaganda about Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Meanwhile the Dalai Lama, continues to remain in exile, for no good reason, denying Tibetans their religious leadership. Phünwang’s autobiography has shed so much light on what really happened in Tibet to sour the grapes, cause discord, and set back progress. Phünwang’s story is a tragedy. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Tsai Ying-Wen Brings Taiwan to the Crossroad

          The ticket of Tsai and her running mate, former premier William Lai (賴清德), won 8,170,231 votes, or 57.13 percent of the 19,311,105 registered voters, with the Han-Chang ticket garnering 5,522,119 votes (38.61 percent) and the Soong-Yu ticket receiving 608,590 votes (4.26 percent). The only winners in this Taiwan election are U.S. hegemony and driftwood expats using Taiwan as a way station.

For me, with an Alien Resident Card as the spouse of a Taiwanese woman, things couldn’t be better. With a low cost of living (2/3 less than living in NYC) and Universal health care, I can save my money for travel abroad to see my children and the world, but I didn’t plan it that way. Taiwan is great place to live, despite the air pollution and inconsiderate citizenry. I choose not to schmooze with privileged expats on the Westside and have no problem in the backwater called Taichung; I wouldn’t want to live in Taipei again. But the nature I increasingly want to enjoy is slipping away; the Han River bike trail will parallel a mess of highway overpasses as Taichung urbanizes in the blink of an eye in this capitalist hellhole.

I would have liked to live in an independent Taiwan not dominated by clandestine U.S. intelligence and militarism hedging in China. China had  better back off a Hong Kong style one nation-two systems solution to Taiwan, the last vestiges of western colonialism; it didn’t work in H.K. and Tsai Ying-Wen’s DPP is having no part of it, only using it to push China further away, claiming China is Taiwan adversary when in fact the U.S. is.

Time is on China’s side as the U.S. continues its slide and the Chinese economy and standard of living continue to surpass Taiwan’s and even the U.S. Until then, I will accept the underhanded benefits of others low wages and inexpensive services in Taiwan even as I applaud every worker’s gain. Young workers don’t organize themselves unless it’s a campaign to scare them with anti-China, anti-communist propaganda; they are left in the dark. There is no anti U.S. propaganda to be found here; AIT has made sure of that, dominating social English media. Tsai-Ying-Wen’s acceptance speech was bilingual; Mandarin and English (not Taiwanese as it should have been) as it plays into the hands of its real class oppressors: capitalism.

A distant third place finisher, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) said it best in his concession speech. “The nation will face a major change in the global political situation this year,” Soong said.“If cross-strait relations remain unstable and Taiwan takes the wrong side in dealings with Japan, the US and China, all these factors will affect Taiwan,” he said. He also went on to defend the “18%ers”, privileged Chinese interlopers in the 1947 retreat from China that the DPP rightfully suppressed along with the KMT’s “ill-gotten gains.” “This government should stop pitting one party against another, stop destroying the civil service by offering lucrative jobs only to those who agree with it and stop using drastic measures to carry out social reforms,” he added. Taiwan is at a crossroad. The times are changing. To stay the same is impossible. 

The Monday after the election and all the exploited fools are returning to work on their noisy polluting scooters and cars. They’ll work overtime without compensation and then thank the boss next week when they get a yearly bonus at his whim. Whatever bonuses they get will not make up for their low wages and dangerous overwork all year round. The bonuses are used to enslave the working stiffs; they give overtime and don’t take sick days because they’re afraid of losing it. They start no unions to fight for collective higher compensation and benefits; can’t even if they wanted to if their workplace has less than thirty-two employees. Yet these fools are worried about Chinese communism ruining their lives. Let them fuck themselves, suffer in their ignorance, and give consumers like me more than we pay for in this corrupted capitalist hellhole. 

      I see well past my predicted re-election of Tsai Ying-Wen to the chaos that will ensue as Chinese NGO’s give Taiwan a taste of the same medicine U.S. NGO’s gave Hong Kong. But the outcome must be different. It’s only natural that Hong Kong remain a part of China and Taiwan be cajoled into their cohort. The poison of colonialist exploitation and racism will dissipate with the final stages of capitalist imperialism. China need only bide its time. A leader will come along one day in Taiwan who will be worthy of election with the same epiphany that Moon Jae-in and the people of South Korea had that the United States is no one’s ally and cares not for the common man; only the vested interests of its ruling class and corporate interests.

The Gullible Believers in Taiwan's Democracy

           She had her face on TV speaking in English at some U.S. event clearly saying Taiwan supports the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and, by the way, Taiwan is a place with its own government; not the Chinese one. Tsai Ying-wen's DPP is not going to lose the chance to curry favor with the U.S., co-opt the youth of Taiwan again, and win an election to keep Taiwan nation-less.  
     "Taiwan stands behind Hong Kong Pro-democracy protesters," says the new banner on Foreigners in Taiwan's Facebook page with anti-China propaganda posted below. Pretty soon, we will see demonstrations materialize rallying Taiwan's youthful voters, in lieu of and adhered to a domestic Sunflower Movement, to be manipulated, for the mainstream media DPP to propagate. Let the 28% of immigrants come from Hong Kong, the one's that didn't leave for the U.S. with their stash before the turn of the century, the stragglers; the new exodus of those who can leave. China is coming to Hong Kong, sooner than expected thanks to the opportunity presented them. 

Killing the chicken to scare the monkeys is how the DPP
 with U.S. controls support for independence or reunification  

       The Trojan Horse of China - Hong Kong - is now being used to create more distance between China and Taiwan as Taiwan's DPP begins using the chaos to deflect reunification, win the presidential election later this year, and preserve the U.S. overlord; try to encircle China to stunt its growth and deter its ability to defend itself from capitalist imperialism. A parade in Taipei was organized for Sunday, Sept. 29 by DPP sources to show support for the Hong Kong anti-China chaos. Not as many people showed up as they hoped in part because of the rainy wind of a passing typhoon but also because it was not a realistic cause; it was manufactured as was the Sunflower Movement to rally opposition to reunification. In some mostly disused pedestrian underpasses in Taichung and Taipei, 'democracy walls' have propped up and students caught in the whirlwind adding notes and posters showing solidarity with the demonstrators in Hong Kong in another over-the-top effort for the DPP to widen the gap in the upcoming presidential election, this besides the truth that most young adults see the chaos in Hong Kong as a threat to their peaceful Taiwan existence. How much public support exists is a case of the tail wagging the dog. 

     Passing through the pedestrian underpass of Taiwan Blvd. heading to sushi lunch, I was confronted by ball to wall Post-its and flyers some college students were led to display supporting the ‘pro-democracy’ demonstrations and riots in Hong Kong. These gullible impressionable youth aren’t educated to know the democracy they cherish in Taiwan is a sham; that Taiwan is under the thumb of United States against their best interests of independence or reunification with their cultural cohort. The rift is being widened and they are fodder. What a disgusting walk through the underground so over-the-top with clandestine subterfuge on their lives with no full-time jobs awaiting them after graduation; only further exploitation by small businesses in the wake of the great economic miracle up in smoke. What fools they are. How they will be tossed like leaves in the wind by a Taiwan ruling class only out to preserve its power base, at any cost to its real freedom from imperialism.

Lai Ching-Da really supports independence
but has folded back into the DPP

      With Taiwan independence off the table, we have to avoid talking about Hong Kong. I cannot make comments when we watch the propaganda about it on TV without her getting upset, perhaps that I am taking it seriously and getting upset by it. She knows the truth better than I do but she is under the sway of the most “Deep Green” independence supporters, like Lai Ching-Da and the 103 year-old socialist that had given her support before he passed away, that have fallen behind Tsai Ying-Wen’s laissez-faire semi-colonial U.S. occupation.

    The 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China wasn't broadcast in Taiwan. China has done everything they can to keep their communist mission alive, no matter how it detoured; capitalism is what happens to revolutions while they're busy making other plans. Fellow expat carpetbaggers and corrupt politicians, you are the fascist turned neoliberal Republic of China that lost the civil war against the people on the mainland; you are an obstruction to workers' progress. Your circus clowns and peanut gallery make me laugh. Each candidate gets 30 Taiwan Dollars ($1.00 U.S.) per vote after the election, win or lose. It is a good business with meaningless promises, vague references, and a lot of hoopla. The TV news is full of faces and spin doctors. The primary consisted of phone calls made to land lines, of which young people have few, and a flash poll to decide. Actually the decision is made within each party and any primary is a show.  

This demigod from Kaohsiung using his mayoral victory to run for president
 would be a puppet of the KMT the way The Republican Party used Trump. 

           My Taiwanese wife talks about Taiwan while watching the news on TV and I counter what she says. She laughs and says the mayor from Kaohsiung said he graduated from Beijing University and  criticizes ‘deep green’ independence leaders that say Tsai Ying-Wen didn’t graduate from a reputable school in the U.S.; they do not like her, either, because she abandoned hope.

      Let the U.S. have its way dictating their policy to Taiwan; we live here and benefit from their stability, anyway. When young people are scared I know just why. I say the U.S. is trying to destabilize Hong Kong for the purpose of scaring young voters in Taiwan  to help Tsai Ying-Wen and keep it this way.  I live here and have to go along with it, that’s all she wrote. I watched some October 1 parade from Beijing instead of “Dead File” on TV. She watched some Double Ten coverage between innings of a playoff baseball I left on. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Happy Double Ten Day?

The Sacred Tree of Taiwan's Alishan Mountain; long fallen hope for independence

     The Republic of China, established January 1, 1912 after the October 10, 1911 uprising against the Qing Dynasty, should have ended when the People's Republic of China, established October 1, 1949, defeated the corrupt, fascist KMT, but the U.S.  make Taiwan available for their retreat, ignoring the will of the Taiwanese people. The U.S. perpetuate the lie, embargoed China for thirty years, and kept U.S. power in Asia with Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; the spoils of WW II. In 1947 Taiwanese leaders were murdered by Chiang Kai-Shek in the 228 Massacre. Then, expelled from the U.N. in  1979 in favor of the PRC, Chiang's son, the new family dictator, refused to be an independent Taiwan,  A happy Double Ten Day? More like  a sad double loss for independence for the good Taiwanese people.  

     We have to get U.S. military and intelligence off foreign territory and spend those tax dollars improving Staters living standard, but China is doing well despite the obstacles, even with an infiltrated Hong Kong added to the list. China has to keep up its policy of a great firewall to keep western subterfuge out. They have to continue raising the living standard of their people and connecting the world with fair trade; the Silk Road initiative is great. They have to continue leading the world with environmental measures like Three Gorges Dam hydroelectricity and cutting fossil fuel emissions.

      This "Replica of China" in Taiwan with its sham democracy, stagnant economy, dwindling birth rate, elderly population, cannot survive as the behest of the U.S. Taiwan deserves nationhood; a voice in the world, and since the dream of independence has been squandered and denied since martial law ended, China beckons. Why is Taiwan still celebrating Double Ten today? Why have they come up with some gimmicky "Taiwan Forward" campaign when Taiwan is going nowhere? China can wait. 

     Taiwanese will continue to suffer in its pleasant chaos and political circus until someone starts a grassroots movement for reunification; until a critical mass realizes the U.S. presence is more harmful than good. Until then, all China has in Taiwan is White Wolf, a unification mafia head, a bumbling ex-president, and a clown in Kaohsiung voted mayor, but, most of all, Taiwan perpetuates Chinese culture, classic writing, food, music, and customs.  Pity Taiwan or blame Taiwan; it doesn't matter. But love Taiwan, as I have done for forty years, because it is a beautiful place, great place for an expat to start an ESL teaching career, to live in, and to retire.   

Hong Kong’s Great Leap Backward

 It is a great leap backwards for the future as Hong Kong's elite embraces colonialism and falls for the American dream. Who has the audacity to call it “Chinese Mainlander colonialism” in Hong Kong that brings no benefit to any of the forcibly absorbed”? Last I looked, Hong Kong has been part of China forever until stolen by the British in the Opium Wars until 1997, but not before the British had poisoned the populace with elitist sensibilities over their own Chinese cultural cohort. 

If bourgeois Hong Kongers are offended by tourists from China, if they don't want their real estate prices to go down, they are showing their real desire: wealth. They have always gloated they were more sophisticated than their cohorts in China; even better than those in Taiwan. They wanted Hong Kong to be Singapore. In New York City, you feel it. Hong Kong expats wouldn’t speak with my Taiwanese wife in Mandarin using Cantonese instead of the national dialect. The arrogance, mercantilism and lack of desire for assimilation with their American neighbors, especially black or Latino, is well known. It spills into the streets of Chinatowns. They are the elite escapees; native New Yorkers are the ‘wai-guo-ren’-foreigners.

There is a healthy hankering for the good old days. I guess British colonialism is better than “Chinese colonialism” to self-effacing white supremacists. The people of Hong Kong have always had a chance to fight for independence or remain a British colony but willingly, and proudly, returned to China. They are cutting off their noses to spite themselves. I too saw the beautiful colonial building China tore down. It is subterfuge that is agitating the Hong Kong scions to cut loose. They have had a chance to fight for independence or remain a colony since the ‘90’s but willingly, and proudly, returned to China. They are cutting off their noses to spite themselves. I too saw the beautiful colonial building China tore down to stamp their own mark on the territory. It was plain and simple sour grapes and subterfuge that was agitating the elite scions to cut loose.

He dug his prejudices deeper saying, “The handover itself was absurd... Britain should have voided the whole process after the Tienanmen Square massacre, if they had any respect for human rights over corporate profits, or making a killing in Canadian real estate.” I had enough of this adhesion to the old company line.

“The U.S., U.K., France and every imperialist liar should have the progress China has made for its billion people. I say let Hong Kong rot. Put a wall between it and Shenzhen. Take away their Chinese passports and leave them nation-less like Taiwan,” I wrote despondently. I had written my most succinct responses to a Facebook share sympathetic to the anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong. I won't share it on Facebook though because trolls would attack it. 

One fellow wrote that I didn’t sound like a very nice chap for saying that. Then another got personal figuring out I lived in Taiwan and asked, “Why do you live in Taiwan? From your above posts; it seems you should be living in the PRC?”

     It was disturbing to see an old comrade, Liana Foxvog, from Sweatfree Communities in Boston, had joined the China-bashing bandwagon over the Hong Kong riots sharing on Facebook a bumbling Democracy Now report on the riots they called “pro-democracy”. Instead of going to the root of the disturbance, they choose to focus on the long-overdue reaction to the rioting by Hong Kong police. It is amazing that the PLA may not be called in to end the sporadic riots as the U.S. hoped, and that it wasn't done before the PLA birthday on Oct.1 as the Taiwan spin doctors rumored. They both want to make a mockery out of China to the world. China does not want to injure its own people any more than a father wants to hurt an errant child, a child with bad friends urging them on. Liana should be aware, as a defender of workers’ rights, how China has raised its peoples' standard of living. There is no protection for the immigrant workers in Hong Kong or the western businessmen that use Hong Kong and Taiwan as conduits for outsourcing, drugs, and slave trade. Sweatshops have left China for Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even the United States where there are more opportunities to exploit workers. I will not donate to her organization or Democracy Now as I have before. I am insulted that Liana, knowing I am living in Taiwan and aware of politics here, didn't bother to ask my opinion. Now I see she questioned if I had listened to the video she shared like I know nothing about it.

I almost feel depressed but I know it is only fatigue and disgust for the state of the world, in this instance, the way progressive stateside acquaintances are falling over themselves supporting the anti-China riots in Hong Kong. My only reliable Facebook comrades are at Workers World, Telesur, Mao Zedong Thought Discussion Group, Friends Who like New Afrikan Communist Party, China Daily, and a few China cultural groups. I feel more isolated than usual with a few anarchist and Wobbly groups blaming China for Hong Kong’s chaos. All day long, I had to keep the latest casualty of fog, Liana and her proxy off my mind. She doubted my word after I voiced my disapproval of her sharing propaganda without checking other points-of-view and answered her defender who misconstrued what I meant. I let her save face blaming the person she shared the post from for misleading my anti-sweatshop comrade. I am fed up 

As Taiwan media obliges with news angles designed to “kill the chicken to scare the monkey”, coddled Taiwanese youth sit terrified of the violence in Hong Kong and the DPP co-opts them will calls to ‘support democracy’ and get votes for Tsai Ying-Wen in the upcoming presidential election; democracy in Taiwan is a sham. They take out the play book and throw a “Hail Mary” to anyone that would doubt it. Know that the initial demonstration against an extradition law proposed, and since retracted; that any other demands are for clemency from property destruction and causing bodily harm to police. It has never been about unemployment, minimum wage, austerity, or other elimination of social concerns. 

If Hong Kong leader Lin Zheng-Yue’s move is to "lead the snake out of the hole" and make Hong Kong more chaotic to use more emergency law and let Hong Kong enter a state of martial law, so be it.  The Chinese idioms are flying. Western imperialists bent on destabilizing China have their stooges in impressionable youth led astray as NGO's and Western media feed them justifications for  their self-destruction. The "Forbidden Mask" law won’t mind if the people go to the streets because of anger on weekends and Sundays. The more chaotic, the better, so that Lin Zheng can just use emergency laws and more forcible actions like curfews and martial law.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

What "Detention" Doesn't Mention

     The movie I saw at Taichung's Taroko Mall KBro Theaters, "Detention" is a film based on a video game about the "White Horror" in Taiwan from the time the KMT usurped power in 1947, starting with the "228 Massacre", until neoliberal reforms were made with the ending of martial law in the 80's. The big budget Warner Brothers produced film, with fluent English subtitles,  may not be of interest outside Taiwan, except for Japanese that long for the old days in their model colony, and with the exception of Chinese that will pan and ban the film because it criticizes the KMT, their strange bed fellow, their only option in the game of reunification.
         Know that the film's dialogue is completely in Mandarin except for a short scene in Ming-Nan dialect with a student holding a puppet. A large percentage, though not the majority of "White Horror" victims, were from the Chinese exodus to Taiwan after WW II. All the teachers in the film were first generation Chinese. Interestingly, the video game is also popular in China, though the follow-up game was banned because of a depiction of Xi Jun-Ping. The film was made last year supported by Taichung's film development department at an abandoned technical school in Ping-Tung.

      It is a frightening movie; the monster made out of KMT soldiers and school military guards, guards still present in every school, but without teeth to pull out anyone's teeth. The easing of tension, the pleasant Taiwan chaos, is a cover for domination-shared capitalist ruling class that diffuses and controls its students and citizens with low-paying insecure jobs, no union protection, and no nationhood. The terror is still there when they want to bring it out but now it is a mind-control instead of a physical one. 

     The movie shows how three victims during the "White Horror", when anti-Communism was an excuse for zero-tolerance, breakers of the intellectual law were ratted out by their wives, colleagues, and classmates. It showed the torture and disappearance of innocent people that occurred in every day Taiwan life, the marching squads of soldiers with noisy boot-taps, rifle and white helmeted, patrolling every neighborhood, the screams of youth being tortured in police stations, long-hair being sheered involuntarily, the accused being taken away in the middle of the night never to see their families again; that was Taiwan.

      It is amazing there is a video game, played on smartphones by tens of thousands of Taiwanese youth, based on this horror. It is akin to having a Nazi video game about persecuting and killing Jews; I believe there is one in deep-cover enjoyed by Western youths of fascist leanings. What is one to think: It is okay because it happened in the past and it is over? How lucky we are today in Taiwan that it no longer happens? Revisionist history? Hey, yo, the KMT is still among you, but good guys  sometimes wear black; at least they support reunification with the Chinese Mainland. The U.S. CIA is here in full force, its client the new wave DPP of Tsai Ying-Wen, undercutting any errant thoughts on social media, English or Chinese supporting China or insulting the U.S. and Donald Trump. 

     The moral of the movie is: Live, even if you have to confess to something you did that wasn't wrong. Live, so you can tell those in the future about what happened in the past, the safety of sterility. That has been done. There are numerous books, TV shows, and magazine articles about the atrocities perpetrated with the U.S. supported martial law, but U.S. complicity wasn't mentioned once in the movie. Don't think too much of you'll get something you'll remember. 

     The KMT has morphed into a legitimate friendly opposition party in an easy solution of a search for ill-gotten gains. But the tongs still run Taiwan, on both sides, from temples, racketeering, pyramid schemes, and both parties have corruption now, though, individual DPP bureaucrats are perhaps more altruistic in civic matters on the local level. The movie never advocates revenge or reparations; only acknowledges what happened and moves on. "Detention" doesn't mention more than it reveals. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Labor Notes Regional Conference in Taipei

Dear David,

This Labor Day, I’m feeling inspired, uplifted, and as committed as ever to our common struggle for global labor rights. I’ve just returned from Taipei, Taiwan, where ILRF co-organized the Labor Notes Asia Regional Conference. It was wonderful to be surrounded by over 200 rank-and-file workers, activists, and trade unionists from 17 countries and regions, to listen to their stories and share organizing and campaign skills with each other.

Please join ILRF as a Monthly Sustainer this Labor Day so that we can continue to stand with these organizers in advocating for workers' rights.

Across Asia, multinational corporations are pushing an agenda of outsourcing, subcontracting, and short-term contracts to minimize their responsibility for labor rights violations and to keep out independent, democratic unions. Millions of migrant workers have few legal protections and face precarious employment and unsafe conditions. Despite mass dismissals, the risk of arrest, and increasing restrictions on civil society, workers and grassroots labor organizations continue to fight back.

In this context, conference participants explored challenges to organizing precarious workers in repressive contexts and discussed strategies to cultivate women workers’ leadership and address gender-based violence. Conference participants came together across electronics, apparel, seafood, and other industries for skill-building workshops, panel discussions, and cross-sector networking and strategizing.

The conference featured inspirational speakers, including the organizers of the Taiwanese flight attendants’ union who recently concluded a 17-day strike (the longest strike in several decades in Taiwan), Hong Kong labor and union activists who supported the general strike in Hong Kong, and a report from the frontlines of the new wave of strikes in Myanmar.

It was a rare opportunity for emerging and experienced rank-and-file union and labor activists to share and learn organizing approaches, discuss strategies around defending workers and labor activists under threat, and strengthen existing and build new cross-sector and international solidarity necessary to confront global capitalism.

In a show of international solidarity, more than 70 conference participants joined a demonstration at Foxconn’s headquarters in Taipei in support of Filipino migrant workers dismissed at its subsidiary company in Japan. This action gained media interest in Taiwan, not least because the head of Foxconn, Terry Gou, may run as a presidential candidate in the Taiwanese election. Participants also showed solidarity with labor activists in the Philippines who have been organizing under martial law.

This conference would not have been possible without the generous support of our committed donors. This Labor Day, I hope you will support our work at ILRF by joining as a Monthly Sustainer or with a one-time gift.

Many thanks for your support and please let me know if you plan on joining the 2020 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago and would like to connect there. 

In solidarity,

Kevin Lin
China Program Officer