I certainly enjoyed Lung Yingtai’s intellectual brawler style when she wrote “The Taiwan That You May Not Know About” for the infamous China Youth Daily supplement Freezing Point, whose editor wrote another classic about the fallout of that and other articles entitled “It’s Lung Yingtai again, f**k!”. And who could forget her open letter to Hu Jintao, “Please Use Civilization to Convince Us”. She’s said quite openly that “As a matter of fact, I am just someone who refuses to believe that human rights must not be distinguished by political position. The Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, whatever f*cking party, if human dignity is not your core value and if you permit human rights to be determined by the powers-that-be, then you are just an object upon which I spit. You do not intimidate me”, and, in probably my favorite, compared the reductionist idea of “Asian values” to a pool of dead water.
But I totally think she’s been phoning it in lately. In a speech at Cambridge this past week (the bulk of which she’s been repeating since December 2006), entitled “If You Want Peace, You Must Not Keep Hurting Taiwan”, Lung used some pretty lazy rhetorical devices. Moreover, her argument essentially seems to be that to be denied a nation-state is a violation of one’s human rights, which strikes me as ludicrously problematic.
The first thing that really caught my eye was this:
The 23 million people in Taiwan went through a martial law period of 37 years. Martial law meant a form of siege. After the martial law period, there was another 35 years of international blockade up to now. After 37 years of martial law and 35 years of blockage, there has to be some “symptoms.” In 2006, the survey results from a certain Taiwan magazine are astonishing.
- 80% of the Taiwanese do not know where the United Nations headquarters is located
- 80% of the people do not know in which city the Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded
- 80% of the people do not know where the largest rainforest in the world is located
- 60% of the people do not know the name of the currency in Germany
- 60% of the people do not know which continent Athens is located in
You should not think that this survey was conducted in some remote village. No, the principal sample came from Taipei, and the people of Taipei are supposed to have the highest educational level in the Chinese world.
Alright then. So the results of this survey are intended to prove the dire consequences of “international blockade” of Taiwan, dating back to the handover of Taiwan’s UN seat to the PRC. Lung is claiming that Taiwan’s lack of membership to this and many other international bodies has created “cultural isolation”, resulting in a very geographically-challenged citizenry.
First off, there’s nothing in Lung’s argument showing how one (“isolation”) causes the other (poor geography skills). Second, my girlfriend and I are university educated, European and American respectively, and have traveled to well over a dozen countries each – and both of us blanked on what city hosts the Nobel. Third, I’m guessing Lung has never watched Jay Leno’s “Man on the Street” bits on American TV, nor has she seen the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy, which demonstrated that embarassingly high numbers of young Americans, even amongst college graduates, could find neither Iraq nor Louisiana on a map. Or the Pew Research Center’s 2007 report on American political knowledge indicating that 64% of respondents couldn’t name the president of Russia, or my personal favorite, that over 70% of Americans didn’t know plastic was made of petroleum. The United States belongs to all of the international bodies that Taiwan’s absence from, according to Lung, leads to bone-headed ignorance, but membership hasn’t made us any better informed.
But apparently the Taiwanese peoples complete and total inability to survive even one round of quiz night in a British pub, or an opening round of the American TV show Jeopardy!, is proof positive of how damaging the 35 year old “blockade” of Taiwan by cold, indifferent foreign nations has been. I am not saying that this means Taiwan shouldn’t be recognized; I’m simply saying that if Lung is going to use this sort of argument in addressing Western audiences, she must take us for idiots (as the above mentioned statistics would prove, so I guess she’s on the right track).
Even worse, I don’t think Lung is mentioning everything the Taiwanese survey in question discovered. My guess is that Lung was looking at a 2004, not 2006, survey by Taiwan’s Commonwealth Magazine (天下), the findings of which are shown on this blog (in Chinese) and match all of Lung’s cited figures and questions. But the survey also says that 60% of Taiwanese respondents have been abroad, 45% have been to two or more countries, and 40% speak two or more foreign languages. This is an odd sort of “isolation” – not alot of countries can claim to be that well-traveled or multilingual. Even if it only means everybody speaks English and has been to Disneyland, that’s way more than most of the world. Taiwan is also one of the most wired countries in the world, with something like 63% of the population having Internet access, and over 70% or so having a PC in the home. No Great Firewall to boot, I’d add.
I find Lung Yingtai’s argument that national sovereignty is some sort of human right more problematic. She states:
“Perhaps you wonder, Is there a human rights problem with Taiwan?
Put it this way — suppose we have a small community here. For what reasons do we have to not permit the people from this community to attend any conference or participate in any decisions. We do not allow them to appear at any important festive, mourning or memorial functions. Furthermore, we forbid the leaders of this community to step out of their community and enter our area. Worse yet, if there is a huge fire, we will not notify them. We don’t even allow them to call themselves by their own name.
Please ask yourselves: Why is this not a violation of human rights?”
Well, my first thought is that what she’s talking about here is not that people from the community are forbidden to do these things – its representatives of the government of Taiwan that are forbidden. Now that might be unfair or wrong, but last I checked human rights are not extended to governments or nation-states, which is what she really saying. She then gives concrete examples, more or less, such as that Taiwan doesn’t belong to international bodies and Chen Shuibian has trouble getting visas. Fair enough, but again I don’t know if this qualifies as a human rights issue. An issue, certainly, but human rights? That’s tricky. I would be curious to hear Lung Yingtai (or anybody’s) thoughts on Article 15 of the Declaration of Human Rights stating everyone is entitled to a nationality – what on Earth does that mean? Which nationality, who chooses? If you can choose, does that mean we have to give all those micronations seats at the UN too? By Lung Yingtai’s argument, the community of Sealand has their human rights violated because they too are not represented in the UN. And what about Taiwanese Aborigines, while we’re at it?
But her other examples are worse. She then proclaims “The international community knows about the political isolation of Taiwan. But I think that the international community has no awareness whatsoever about the depth and breadth of this isolation and the degree of damage done to the people of Taiwan.” The survey mentioned above is given as “astonishing” proof of this. Another example is “Using art an example, Taiwan cannot be represented in the public national museum venue at the Venice Art Exposition. Instead, it must find another venue for which it has to worry about being able to retain for the next year.” I assume that Lung is referring to the Venice Biennale, where actually alot of countries don’t get to be in the national museum, the Giardini. The PRC isn’t in it either, or Hong Kong or Macao, which also have separate venues, or Portugal, Argentina, Turkey or quite a few others. All of Africa is shoved into one pavilion, while Central Asia is crammed in another. The PRC has only been there a few years, with a SARS interruption, while Taiwan appears to have been ensconced quite safely since 1995 in the Palazzo delle Prigione, where it is again situated this year, and for the foreseeable future. It’s also amusing to note that in 2003, the “isolated” Taiwanese artists shown all lived abroad save for one, though selected by curators and artists in Taiwan. The curator Lin Shu-min noted, “Where you are doesn’t really affect your cultural roots”. I wonder what Lung Yingtai would make of that remark.
Back to the quote I gave in the beginning and Lung’s thinking on human rights:
“As a matter of fact, I am just someone who refuses to believe that human rights must not be distinguished by political position. The Nationalist Party, the Communist Party, the Democratic Progressive Party, whatever f*cking party, if human dignity is not your core value and if you permit human rights to be determined by the powers-that-be, then you are just an object upon which I spit. You do not intimidate me”
Spitting, cursing and bravado aside, what does it mean for human rights to be independent of political position? How can one say that and simultaneously say that recognition as a nation-state, a purely political notion, is a human right? How would one apply this to any civil war or territorial dispute? If recognition of national sovereignty is a human right, then who gets Jerusalem? The answer appears to be whoever Lung Yingtai thinks really, truly holds “human dignity” as a “core value”, because I can’t see who else the arbiter is supposed to be.
Statitics? Hey, you haven’t even touched on the 90,000 mass demonstration statistic in 2006 cited by her …
I know, I saw that one. But sometimes you just get bored of whacking the same pinata, right?
Lung — a faux democrat who supports the anti-democracy side in Taiwan’s politics — she votes Blue. ESWN posted two telling pieces from her last year — one a vicious attack on Chen Shui-bian for being corrupt, the second a revolting, fawning piece on Ma Ying-jeou excusing him for doing the same thing Chen did. Lung reminds me of the Brits in Nigeria or Kenya who fondly imagined that they could give the Nigerians something like democracy but that it wouldn’t affect their colonial rule and they would go right on ruling. She has the rhetoric of democracy down, but ultimately doesn’t get it. It’s not that she’s mailing it in, it’s that she’s never had it to send in in the first place.
Lots of the mainlander democracy figures from the 1980s ran into this problem when democracy actually appeared — Li Ao is another case, and then there are people like mainlander Lin Chen-chieh, who was actually in a democracy case with Chen Shui-bian back in the 1980s, but now supports annexing the island to China. I can’t tell whether they really believed Taiwanese would choose to become part of China when democracy appeared, or whether they have chosen blood over principles, so to speak.
Nice takedown of her argument, BTW. IMHO the international cluelessness of Taiwanese stems from the educational system, not lack of international status.
Michael
@Michael: I only know about Lung from following stuff like Freezing Point and her comments about the mainland. I saw the Ma Ying-jeou bit, and I’m looking at the Chen Shuibian piece (and your commentary) now. I don’t really know how to parse this stuff, since I don’t follow Taiwan politics. I will say, however, that I can’t help but notice that she invokes “astonishment” and “moral” issues just like she did here, which doesn’t impress. I’m also interested in your points about impeachment not being mentioned and Lung Yingtai’s avoidance of what the voters other choice was, focusing solely on Chen.
Self-determination is such a limited philosophy that it’s almost always problematic. Messy questions arise as to who’s in, who’s out, and who gets to decide (see Bosnia). There are a few places where I’d call lack of national sovereignty a human rights issue–Kurdistan and Kosovo come to mind–but they’re more the exception, I think. And as much as the Quebecois and Hawaiians might disagree, having your own country doesn’t necessarily confer all those coveted rights upon (all) your citizens.
We think of ‘human rights’ largely in terms of individual rather than collective impact, but there’s an obvious overlap between the two in many areas – particularly in matters of being able to give expression to one’s political will. In a world of nation states, being recognised as a nation state does confer certain advantages – even if they are largely psychological rather than practical. The denial of legitimate and reasonable political aspirations can, I think, be seen as impinging on the sphere of individual human rights. The issue, of course, is whether the political aspirations of the Taiwanese in regard to statehood are “legitimate and reasonable”.
Lung is obviously a bit cracked, but I think you are kind of sinking to her level, Dave, in throwing in the facetious example of the “micronations”. There are numerous important differences between the lone backyard crackpot and a large, stable, and well-defined territory with a substantial population (Taiwan’s got a similar population to Canada or Australia, hasn’t it??) and well-developed organs of self-government.
An English text of the “1992 Consensus” that was published in Beijing Review a few years ago only stated that the Taiwanese “authorities” would undertake never to assert ‘de iure’ independence, which – to an English lawyer, anyway – implies a tacit acknowledgement that they already have (and have always had) de facto independence.
What annoys me about the widespread lip service paid these days to the ‘One China’ policy around the world is that it is so craven and so insincere. I don’t think anybody really believes it; it’s just sucking up to the CCP now that China is perceived as an “economic powerhouse”.
“I think you are kind of sinking to her level, Dave, in throwing in the facetious example of the “micronations”. There are numerous important differences between the lone backyard crackpot and a large, stable, and well-defined territory “
@Froog: I completely agree there is a difference. But when Lung argues in terms of human rights, which are universal and applicable to individual human beings, not governments, there can’t be a difference. Which is why her argument sucks.
Political expression is a human right. But this is the political expression of individuals under a nation-state, not a nation-state under the UN.
The UN seat is the probably the least important aspect. Full recognition of statehood from other nation states is more the issue.
Statehood is the one political aspiration (well, I certainly can’t think of any others off the top of my head) which cannot be realised by a national government alone, but depends on the attitude of other governments.
Lung’s arguments were ludicrous because of the evidence she employed, not because the point she was arguing for was in itself ludicrous.
I’m not sure that I’d necessarily advocate that “a right to a nationality” should be regarded as a basic human right (part of me dreams wistfully of a ‘Star Trek’ world where nation states are no more – but I think that’s probably still a millennium or two away), but it is at least an arguable proposition. And if it is so regarded, then people who are unfortunate enough to live in a country (territory, area, call it what you will) whose status as a nation state is denied by other governments are having that right infringed by those other governments (just as people in countries under a blockade are arguably having their rights to freedom from hunger or access to basic medical care infringed).
As a (former) lawyer, I naturally qualified my suggestion that an aspiration to statehood might be regarded as human right with the proviso that such aspiration should be legitimate and reasonable (I should perhaps have said “and/or reasonable” – shows how out of practice I am!). Most people would accept that it’s clearly neither in the case of the “micronations”.
Of course, as another of your commenters here has pointed out, there are all sorts of problems with recognising such aspirations as a human right (or any other kind of political right) because of the difficulties in defining the territory in which a self-determination might legitimately take place. Established nations and their governments are naturally wary of the danger of secession and fragmentation; and also, of course, of the danger of highly localized civil wars and ethnic cleansing.
Most lawyers, I think, (indeed, most people) would accept the need for restrictions on any “right of self-determination” for territories which are both de iure and de facto under the control of a larger nation state. But that’s just not the case with Taiwan. The People’s Republic’s claim to de iure sovereignty is tenuous, at best (ludicrous and desperate in some of the arguments the CCP seeks to rely on). Taiwan has never been de facto under the control of the PRC. Taiwan is quite obviously, by any commonsense definition, an independent nation state (and has been so longer than the current PRC); and it is only being denied general and open recognition as such because the CCP is such a pathetic bully (and because other nations are too afraid or too greedy to dare to tell it so).
@froog: “Lung’s arguments were ludicrous because of the evidence she employed, not because the point she was arguing for was in itself ludicrous.”
Right, that’s why I said “I am not saying that this means Taiwan shouldn’t be recognized; I’m simply saying that if Lung is going to use this sort of argument in addressing Western audiences, she must take us for idiots”
I like your argument much better.
Any chance your powers of lawyering can shed any light on the interpretation and precedent for the Declaration of Human Rights Article 15, wherein everyone has a right to nationality?
Sorry to have been away for so long. Crazy times here in Froogville.
I am a long time out of the lawyering game. And, in fact, I only barely completed the qualifying stages, and never practised independently. So, I may have the temperament and the education for it, but not the practised expertise or the detailed knowledge.
I imagine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written in a mad rush: it seems to represent a triumph of optimism and idealism over prudence and practicality. It’s just a noble-sounding statement of nebulous principles, with no detailed definition, and no attention paid to how such rights can be guaranteed.
The European Convention on Human Rights is rather more carefully drafted, and does establish a judicial apparatus to interpret and enforce its provisions. (And it has been “incorporated” into UK law by the 1998 Human Rights Act.) Significantly, it omits a “right to nationality”.
I would suppose the UDHR clause was aimed primarily at discouraging countries from arbitrarily revoking someone’s nationality/citizenship status (meaning primarily the right to a passport, but also perhaps other common rights and benefits of citizenship too).
Defining who is entitled to citizenship/nationality, and what rights that might entail, soon gets to be pretty complicated, and will vary from country to country. Obviously, no country would sanction the idea of people being able to choose whatever nationality they wished for themselves. I don’t know whether there are any generally accepted international guidelines on granting new nationality to refugees who have become ‘stateless’.
Thus, I think the UDHR clause here is unworkable and poorly thought-out. It is almost certainly directed at preventing people from being deprived of nationality by their own governments. A more comprehensive and more practicable concept of a “right to nationality” would have to include a consideration of what should happen when someone is so deprived, under what other circumstances and with what restrictions someone should voluntarily be able to change their nationality, and under what circumstances territories should be able to attain nationhood and enjoy international recognition as nations.
I think Taiwan is probably a unique example of a place which clearly is an independent nation state but is denied full international recognition as such. Other aspirant nations are seceding territories which are still, or have been until recently, at least partly under the control of a parent country.
lung is a writer, a typical chinese writer who writes in chinese style of argumentative essays.
she had some good essays when the idea is simple and straightforward and she raised some good points. often she was right in the conclusion but sketchy on her line of thought. and you are right, her logic often got messed up.
we had some discussion in the HK blogs a few months ago on the ‘chinese style of logic’ — or more precisely, chinese argumentative essays and education. i am going to use you dissection as an example.