From: joe@athena.mit.edu (Joseph C Wang)
Subject: Re: Taiwan News (late)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 08:28:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.210821.25457@doug.cae.wisc.edu> kao@cae.wisc.edu (Chengheng Kao) writes:

[responding to Tim Chuang]

>You still live in the mind set of 1980s. 
>Times change, the world change, KMT change, why people like you can't change.

As an overseas Chinese, I always try to keep track of the changes that
are occurring in Greater China, because I'm quite aware of the danger
that overseas communities have of losing touch with the homeland.
Overseas communities sometimes imagine the homeland to be exactly like
it was when they left (or when their parents left), when in fact, it
like everything else in the world changes.

This seems especially relevant to overseas Taiwanese attitudes toward
Taiwan Independence.  About a year ago, I was criticizing TI attitudes
toward the idea of Chinese, and Jeff Chu posted back a response
arguing that TI people didn't believe that.  I responded by quoting a
Taiwan Tribune article which illustrated my point.  Jeff Chu replied
that maybe some overseas Taiwanese thought that way, but few people
living in Taiwan did.

Taiwan has changed greatly in the past five years, and it seems that
unless pro-TI overseas Taiwanese are very careful, they run the risk
of becoming completely out of touch with what is going on there.  The
two major changes in Taiwan in the past five years are:

1) The democratization of the ROC and Taiwanization of the KMT.  ROC
has released all its political prisoners and allowed relatively free
speech in Taiwan.  This not only has considerably reduced the appeal
of TI as an opposition force, but it has perhaps also changed the way
people think about politics in Taiwan.  It seems from the postings in
s.c.t., that people are less likely to agree 100% with one political
party and more likely to construct their own views of a situation and
to find fault with both KMT and DPP.  It also means that people are
more likely to respect the arguments of those that they disagree with
and are less likely to label those with dissenting viewpoints as
"evil."

2) The opening of the Mainland.  Before 1985, for most Taiwanese, the
idea of "China" was an abstract concept existing only in KMT
propaganda.  Since then, many Taiwanese have visited or open business
on the Mainland and contact and trade is increasing each year, and so
"China" is no longer an abstract concept, but a real place with real
people.  This not only means that it is harder to psychologically
break free from the idea of China, but it also means that the Mainland
and Taiwan will influence each other and thus grow more and more
similar as time passes, and it will become increasing difficult for TI
to argue that Mainlanders are fundamentally different from Taiwanese.

My general impression of the political situation on Taiwan (and as
always I welcome people to correct me if I am wrong) is that while
there may still be a lot of argument over what Taiwan's political
status is exactly, most people there seem generally satisfied with it
(whatever it is) and don't see much reason to change it right now.








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