It was only a few months ago that Chinese nationalist news media in Taiwan berated President Chen over the government's refusal to allow the Olympic torch relay to set foot here. Chen (not China!) was politicizing sport; Taiwan should just take whatever humiliation China throws its way and be thankful that Big Brother China allows Taiwan to participate at all. If I remember correctly, the China Post even concluded one of its editorials by growling that Chen had "better not dare boycott the 2008 Olympics."
(Exactly what humiliations am I referring to? China wished to officially designate Taiwan as "Taipei, China" - an appellation that suggested Taipei is a possession of China.)
Well, what a difference a few months can make! Because suddenly, I see Chinese nationalists jumping on the Chen Shui-bian bandwagon, threatening all manner of boycotts themselves:
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has
vowed to defend the right of audiences at sports games to carry national flags,
adding that if he were elected next year, his government would cancel any games
where Chinese teams refused to cooperate.
A brief explanation is in order here. Several years ago, China twisted enough arms at the International Olympic Committee to get Taiwan banned from the Olympics. Taiwan was eventually permitted to take part in them again, but only after signing an agreement that it would not display its national flag or play its national anthem during the Games. Taiwan was forced to sign similar agreements to allow it to participate in other international games as well.
(Republic of China flag image from Taiwandc.org)
Now, there are two interpretations of this deal. Most Taiwanese accept a narrow interpretation that stipulates that there cannot be any OFFICIAL displays of Taiwanese flags. Say a Taiwanese athlete wins a medal. In such a case, most Taiwanese accept that their flag can't be shown on the podium, and their national anthem can't be played. They're not happy about it, but they know that's the best deal Taiwan could get from the Butchers of Beijing.
The Chinese however, interpret the agreement more broadly. No Republic of China flags - PERIOD.* You, a private spectator, bring an ROC flag to an Olympic game? The Chinese will INSIST you be expelled from the premises:
During the 2005 Asian Figure Skating Trophy at the Taipei Arena, the [Taiwanese] audience
was banned from bringing the national flag and the Taipei City Government --
while Ma was mayor -- failed to defend the audience's right, arguing it was not
the organizer of the event.
A similar situation arose during the Taiwan Auto Gymkhana Grand Prix at the
Taipei Tobacco Factory in 2005, in which the national flag was not allowed to
fly.
But that's not the half of it. Now the Chinese are demanding that Taiwan forbid the display of the ROC flag during a a possible Olympic torch run here. And all at once, even Taiwan's capitulation-minded Chinese nationalists are growing spines and saying this is all a bit much.
Kinda nice to see the Taiwanese rallying around the flag in the face of Chinese insults for a change, instead of the usual sad spectacle of local Chinese nationalists reflexively siding with Beijing. Of course, it's easy to be cynical about Chinese nationalists' sudden defence of their country's flag, it being PURELY COINCIDENTAL that legislative and presidential elections** are less than a year away. But the Taiwanese demos is rightly PO'ed, and politicians are taking note. For once, it feels like the system is actually working.
One final thought. Last year, Chinese nationalists in Taiwan were cosying up to China, and they began to openly espouse a triangulation strategy between Beijing and Washington. Taiwan was to become a neutral country, based upon the dubious theory that Taiwan isn't a piece of real estate greedily coveted by China, but rather, a preference-less bystander trapped between two great powers.
Thanks to this latest act of arrogance on Beijing's part, selling that triangulation strategy to angry Taiwanese voters may not be quite as easy as Chinese nationalists had once hoped.
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* I've often thought that there are obvious ways around the ban. Stadium security would certainly have a difficult time expelling a thousand spectators who had taken it upon themselves to secretly bring Republic of China flags to the venue. It'd be one of those, "I'm Spartacus," kind of moments. Or alternatively, audiences could respect the ban on Republic of China flags at international sporting events, and bring another one in its stead.
After all, the deal says nothing about Republic of TAIWAN flags, now, does it?
(Proposed Republic of Taiwan flag image from Taiwandc.org)
** I may be wrong, but I'm not sure whether the issue of allowing local spectators to bring ROC flags to international sporting events held here is really a presidential issue at all (except in a tangential way, which I'll explain in a moment). To begin with, I'll assume that stadiums in Taiwan receive SOME sort of tax breaks and / or government grants from municipal and national legislatures. At least, that's the way it usually works back home. Furthermore, I'll also point out that it's legislatures that control the purse, and it's legislatures that make the rules governing eligibility for those tax breaks and government grants.
Now, over the last 7 years, we have seen the Chinese nationalist-dominated legislature threaten to cut off funds of numerous government agencies that it felt were not following its directives. And sometimes, those threats were not empty ones. Given that history then, one might have expected similar legislative activism on behalf of Taiwanese spectators denied their right to bring ROC flags into local stadiums. Or rather, one might have expected this, if the legislature had deemed this to be something worthy of its concern.
Since I honestly don't know what executive powers the Taiwanese president has to deal with problems such as this, I tend to think this is more of a legislative issue than a presidential one. But it IS a presidential issue in one sense: the lack of prior legislative action serves as an indictment of the priorities of the legislature's former leader, Ma Ying-jeou.
And that would be the very same Ma Ying-jeou who is now running for the Taiwanese presidency, on the Chinese Nationalist Party ticket.
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UPDATE (Sep 15/07): Over at Taiwan Matters!, Tim Maddog has a good background on Ma Ying-jeou's "evolving view" of the issue.
