It appears that the unification pandas from China 中國 are having trouble unifying. Turns out that male Tuan Tuan is not showing any interest in Yuan Yuan despite the latter having reached the time for getting jiggy and being all in the mood. Zoo keepers at Taipei Zoo have had to take sperm from Tuan Tuan in case he fails to get unifying within the window of time best suited for it.
I mean no ill to the magnificent a-political creatures themselves - they don't know what China and Taiwan are or understand the way they have been carted away from their natural habitats to be used as political pawns - but I couldn't help but smile when I read the news since I am the kind of person who takes perverse joy in seeing how nature blows apart our plans to use it for symbolic and political purposes. What do they say? "Never work with children or animals".
So ... on that note ... let's run with the analogy:
Yuan Yuan (China 中國) wants to get with the unification plan. She feels it as a natural urge and is getting all hot and bothered that Tuan Tuan (Taiwan 台灣國) isn't playing ball. There's limited time available to make this work (1-2 presidential election terms) so the zoo keepers (Ma administration) are taking Tuan Tuan's sperm (economic and political sovereignty) so they can artificially inseminate Yuan Yuan and get her pregnant (synthetically lock Taiwan into a pathway to gradual annexation 團圓). The zoo keepers imagine that artificially inseminating Yuan Yuan (democratise China through reunion) will ensure that a baby panda (autonomous ROC within Greater China 'Federation') will be born in Yuan Yuan's current oestrus cycle (before Taiwan's 2016 Presidential Election). But Yuan Yuan's offspring is going to have half her genes and be raised (controlled) by her and Tuan Tuan won't get much say (do as China 中國 say or face PRC displeasure and economic retaliation).
Here's the Wiki for some background and context to my post:
Tuan Tuan was born on September 1, 2004, and was assigned as no. 19 in the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province. He is a male panda. Yuan Yuan was born on August 31, 2004, and was assigned as no. 16 in the Wolong National Nature Reserve as well. She is a female panda. Their names, "Tuan Tuan" and "Yuan Yuan", were chosen in an unofficial public poll in mainland China the results of which were revealed live on national television during the 2006 CCTV New Year's Gala. Approximately 130 million mainland Chinese viewers cast their votes. Together, the names produce the Chinese phrase tuan yuan (simplified Chinese: 团圆; traditional Chinese: 團圓; pinyin: tuán yuán), meaning "reunion".
The gift of the pandas was first proposed during the 2005 Pan-Blue visits to China, when politicians from the then-Opposition Pan-Blue coalition, which is comparatively pro-unification in stance, visited China. Chen Yunlin, then the head of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, announced on May 3, 2005, that Beijing would present two giant pandas to Taipei as a gift.
The two pandas to be sent to Taiwan were chosen after 218 days of observation and discussion by experts from both China and Taiwan, and were officially announced on January 6, 2006. The Chinese Wildlife Protection Society then began seeking nominations for the names to be given to the pair of pandas. These were announced on the eve of Chinese New Year, 2006 on the CCTV New Year's Gala live on national television. An opinion survey in Taiwan conducted by United Daily News in response to the gift proposal found 50% of respondents in favour of accepting the pandas, and 34% opposed.
However, the gift proposal soon met political resistance in Taiwan.
On March 31, 2006, the Agricultural Committee of the Executive Yuan in Taiwan decided not to issue permits for the importation, ostensibly on the grounds that the zoos in Taiwan applying for the importation did not meet facility and resource requirements for the proper care and rearing of the pandas, and that importation would not be in the best interest of protecting pandas. However, commentators generally observed that political considerations underlay the technical decision, with the independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian being opposed to what he saw as a propaganda move by Beijing.
In 2008, Ma Ying-jeou, of the Kuomintang, was elected President, and over the next few months has forged stronger economic and political relations with China under his presidency, and was willing to accept them (3 months after becoming President). The offering of pandas a gift from China is often known as "panda diplomacy", and Taipei Zoo expects to draw around 30,000 visitors a day as a result of their arrival. The move was criticized by supporters of Taiwan's independence and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, who said that "Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan means a reunion, which perfectly matches Beijing's goal of bringing Taiwan into its fold."
Although Taiwan is not a CITES signatory and is therefore not obligated to report to the CITES Secretariat, the Secretariat of CITES said in response to the transfer that it viewed the transfer as an intra-state matter, and thus would be governed by whatever procedures and documentary requirements that are agreed upon by the Beijing and Taipei authorities. Both sides adopted procedures similar to standard CITES procedures for international transfers. On the import-export permits, the origin was listed as the Wolong Nature Reserve Management Office, while the destination was listed as the Taipei City Zoo.And In Other News:
A ROC loyalist woman in Kaohsiung accidentally exposes how Nationalist propaganda led her to conflate her nation with her party:
Side Note: Here is a definition of 'patriotic':Merchandise featuring the Republic of China (ROC) flag is becoming increasingly popular as the ROC celebrates its 100th anniversary this year — and so is the owner of an ROC flag merchandise shop in Greater Kaohsiung, Yang Yu-mei (楊玉梅). A decade ago, she began to collect anything with the ROC flag on it, starting with a watch featuring the national symbol. So far, she has collected hundreds of items. When Yang worked in the campaign headquarters for KMT candidate Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英) in the 2006 Kaohsiung mayoral election, her “ROC flag” outfit — including clothes, small accessories and a backpack — caught the attention of other volunteers, earning her the nickname “the national flag girl.”
As a descendant of a veteran soldier, Yang said she was taught to be “patriotic and loyal to the [Chinese Nationalist] Party [KMT]” since she was a kid.
patriotic |ˌpātrēˈätik|
adjective
having or expressing devotion to and vigorous support for one's country My question: Can one be patriotic to a political party if that party is truly and appropriately separate from the State and makes no claim against or upon it? By the definition above, I don't think so. So Yang's patriotism for her party makes no sense unless one understands how the ROC nationality has been constructed and maintained on China and then on Taiwan.
Yang was taught to be patriotic to her nation through her party. Her loyalty was to the party because that's where the nation originated and lay. Outside of that party (the KMT) the ROC had less ideological appeal mostly owing to the catastrophic way it mismanaged China and colonised Taiwan.
In Yang's mind her nation was all of China 中國 and Taiwan but in her lived reality, she perhaps has felt like an immigrant to a foreign and strange land - the KMT and its ROC are the substantive physical and symbolic ties she has to her ancestral home as she re-imagines it - a large element of the matrix of her political identity. Filial piety has likely meant that the veteran soldier descendant's loyalty and patriotism to party and nation have been carried down to Yang's generation where it has found, in Yang, its most overt expression.
