“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
Since May 20th 2008, Taiwanese have been the recipients of a slurry of claims and factoids that have been propagated without so much as a cursory nod to supporting evidence. Here are some of the big ones I can recall. Please feel free to add your own in the comments:
- The Taiwanese economy collapsed because of DPP President Chen's policies. Actually, GDP rose and unemployment fell during Chen's terms in power all the way until the global financial crisis of late 2007-2010. The 2001 market crash was also blamed on Chen but it fails to note that it was an Asian financial crisis, not just Taiwan suffered.
- Taiwan will be able to sign FTAs after ECFA is signed. In reality, the Philippines just announced that they are not interested in an FTA and no other country has even made noises that they are too. For its part, Beijing has clearly indicated that IT will decide whether to allow (by not blocking) or block Taiwan's FTAs with third parties. Taipei said nothing in response.
- ECFA is needed to rescue Taiwan's uncompetitive and struggling economy. Except that in the last seven months the Taiwanese economy has rebounded from the Global recession and financial crisis all without 'enjoying' even one of the 'concessions' the ECFA has provided.
- ECFA is not a political agreement. Politics / Economic 101 - they are both intimately linked. To suggest that an economic agreement has no political dimension is either a demonstration of severe stupidity or the most convenient and transparent lie ever told.
- The Legislative Yuan will provide democratic oversight of the ECFA agreement. It would if it wasn't overwhelmingly controlled by the Government's party (KMT) and if the President hadn't effectively ordered the Legislature to pass or reject the whole ECFA agreement rather than examine it clause by clause.
- ECFA is a 'quasi-treaty'. Please find me the relevant international law that defines what a 'quasi-treaty' is supposed to be. ECFA is not a treaty. It is a private agreement between two non-governmental organisations working for two separate states, written and negotiated on a party to party basis, and carried out in a veil of secrecy that has meant its content is still largely unknown to the public. ECFA is not a domestic treaty or agreement either since both the PRC and ROC are administered separately with separate customs, currency, police, military, language form, education etc etc etc
- Taiwanese universities will benefit from Chinese students. How so? Most of those students will be hand picked and ultra loyal to China thus negating any effect Taiwan's democracy could have on them. The small number of students to be allowed in will not help universities falling attendance rates (falling birth rate anyone?). The University system in Taiwan doesn't need more students, it needs less universities and professors who go into Government jobs without a clue about how to administer their own department effectively.
- ECFA will herald a Golden Decade. This wins the prize for The Most Retarded And Undeliverable Political Promise of the Century. First, golden for whom? The KMT? Their clients in the official and unofficial economies? Gangsters affiliated with the KMT? Terry Guo and other super-billionaires? Companies who plaster Taiwan with concrete? You know those Buddha statues in Thailand where people put on little strips of gold paper as prayer. That's what this 'Golden Decade' rhetoric is to Taiwan's future.
- Chen Shui-bian provoked the Chinese Government and angered the Chinese people. This old chestnut has been completely proven to be utterly, and dangerously, misleading. PRC anger is a policy not a visceral reaction as my friend MT has pointed out many many times. Chen did not provoke China. China provoked the USA to abandon Chen and label him a troublemaker. Washington and the State Department are completely incapable of dealing with Chinese politics and are in too deep to care about upholding democracy or silly ideas like political freedom. Their China friendly policies encourage the PRC to push for further concessions but they still don't get it. Those who died in the Pacific to repel the Japanese nationalists must be rolling in their graves as they see how Washington has rolled over for Beijing to the point of fingering Chen when they should have been supporting him and Taiwanese democracy.
- Chiang Ching-kuo was a 'benign dictator' who rebuilt Taiwan's economy and founded its democracy. Is that why as head of the Secret Police he ordered the arrest, detention, beating, torture and murder of hundreds of Taiwanese in Taiwan and abroad? The US rebuilt Taiwan's economy through its huge and constant funding from the 1950's to the 1970s. The economy was also built by the hard work of Taiwan's SMEs. Chiang at best facilitated this. Chiang certainly wasn't the founder of Taiwan's democracy. President Lee and the Tangwai share that honor. Chiang resisted US pressure to open up and only conceded in his dying years to finally allowing other political parties to exist. Sure, he did partially 'Taiwanize' the KMT but only because the policy of 'Mainlander first, Taiwanese second' in government jobs and contracts had led to a severe personnel supply problem.
- In 1992, the ROC and PRC came to a consensus in Singapore, they agreed to disagree about the meaning of 'One-China'. This claim was both made and later refuted by Su Chi, a KMT hardliner who was present at the meeting. There was no agreement and no '1992 Consensus'. That the Ma Government has built its policies on the myth of this consensus demonstrates its desperation to take Taiwan back to 1992 so as to crudely reboot Taiwanese relations with the PRC almost as if the intervening period never happened.
- Taiwan split from China in 1949. This is about as inaccurate as a historical byline in journalism can be. In reality:
1624 - 1661. Dutch control of the south west and later a bit in the north.
1661 - 1682. Koxinga occupies previous Dutch holdings.
1682 - 1885. Qing forces defeat Koxinga junior. West Taiwan is a prefecture of Fujian Province.
1885 - 1895. Taiwan declared a Province of Qing Empire to deter French interest / aggression.
1895 - 1945. Taiwan is a occupied colony of the Japanese Empire.
1945 - 1949. Taiwan temporarily administered by the ROC on request of the US and allies.
1949 - 1991. Taiwan occupied as a Chinese colony by the ROC State in exile.
1991 - 2008. Taiwan develops its own democracy and national identity separate from China.
2008 - 2012. KMT undercuts Taiwanese national identity, sells the economy and annexes Taiwan to PRC as a Special Administrative Region with Extended Autonomy. Permanent KMT political ruling class established and installed. Presidential Elections renamed to Chief Executive Selections.
Ooops, got a bit carried away at the end there!
