In my second day in Taipei, I visited the Chang Kai Shek Memorial. As a random side note, Chag Kai Shek in Chinese is 蒋介石 but posthumously (after he died) they gave him another name, Zhong Zheng - 中正。 I should do some research on why this is so, but in reality probably never will (but I can still say it on this blog because I can be a doofus!). I don't really know why this is so and found this really strange....
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| Here's the memorial |
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And the dude that lives inside.
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It's a really pretty place. And there was all kind of activities going on there. Mostly looked like high schoolers.
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| One dance troop that ended their dance by screaming "WE'RE NUMBER 1!". |
There were many choreographed dances, people playing guitar, hip hop dances. And on the far side of the memorial - these guys.
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| Some protestors only I don't know who's side they were on. |
Two days before I arrived, Taipei concluded a demonstration against the new law the Taiwanese government had signed or maybe was going to sign with the Chinese government. The Taiwanese government tried to slip the law under the table by trying to limit the amount of public scrutiny and discourse.
The protests have taken place at the Chiang Kai Shek memorial and in front of the main government buildings nearby.
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| Here is the police station next to the memorial. Note the blue riot shields. |
For those of you, like me, who didn't absorb all the info in high school, here's a brief history of Taiwan. Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese until the end of WWII. I'm not sure how long the Japanese controlled the island before that though. It likely was went back and forth for centuries.
Taiwan was part of China from 1945 until 1949. After WWII China had a civil war between the ruling KMT party and the Communist party. The KMT government was pretty inefficient and corrupt, so despite having control of most of China to begin with, having a far superior army, and support from the US, the KMT ended up losing the civil war. They retreated to Taiwan and the Communists couldn't capture Taiwan, so that is why China and Taiwan are separate countries.
(I also wondered why you would build such a large monument for a guy that lost the civil war...)
Funny for me, the international community has been hesitant to officially recognize Taiwan as a country because that would piss of the Chinese government, so many countries, India included, don't have official embassies in Taiwan. That means if you aren't a Taiwanese citizen or have a residency permit, you can't get a visa for India.
Sadly, I didn't know this before coming to Taiwan, so I was SOL upon the first day I landed. I now have to fly to Hong Kong and hope that I can get a visa in the 8 working days I have there. As goes the theme of these recent posts, I'm a doofus and should have gotten a visa in Beijing. (I thought the Indians would like Taiwan better and so it would be easier to get in Taipei than Beijing.... Doofus...)
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| Protestor's camp outside of the policy station. |
I walked by the shirts that you can maybe see on the table in the bottom left of the picture above , took that picture, and thought, "you know those are some cool shirts". So I walked back took the picture below -
And asked them how much they were. 三百块 - $300 the lady responded, which is 10 USD. I was going to buy one, but then a man next to me offered to buy me one instead! He asked me where I was from and then wanted me to wear the shirt in the USA. He wanted to spread the awareness of their struggle, which was an effective method because that interaction and the t-shirt in part prompted this blog post.
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| More police standing watch. |
I'll describe the law the Taiwanese government was trying to slip through based on what the man told me. It has provisions that gives Chinese companies, specifically state-owned enterprises (SOE's) greater access to Taiwan. The Taiwanese are afraid Chinese companies are going to flood their market with cheap good from China that the Taiwanese may not even want and undercut the domestic industries.
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| Barbed wire around the government buildings |
Another provision the man mentioned was that Taiwanese employees of the SOE's would answer to the SOE's and not to the Taiwanese government. I'm not really sure about the specific details (whether that mean SOE's can circumvent Taiwanese employment laws) but it just gives SOE's greater control, and since SOE's are state-owned that means giving the Chinese government more control.
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| My first thought in seeing this was, "I don't blame you for helping the bad guys Mr. Solar Panel!" |
Taiwan is sort of in a bit of a catch-22. Taiwan, while being a really wonderful place to live - the quality of life is really awesome, doesn't have a booming economy. China, while having a really shitty quality of live, does have a booming economy. Why this circumstance gives China more power is perhaps a deeper philosophical question that needs to be pondered about our global values...
But hat issue aside, Taiwan does a lot of it's trade with China and in many ways is still deeply connected with China. It would be great for Taiwan to be able to trade more with China and therefore boost its economic growth, but behind this trade deal, the Taiwanese people see the central government in China licking it's chops. They know that China deeply wants Taiwan under their control and has done and will continue to do whatever they can to further that aim. And I don't blame them for being wary.
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| Barbed-wire around another police station. |
For my part, I suspect foul play behind this trade deal. I would guess the Chinese government paid off the Taiwanese government in one form or another. Otherwise the Taiwanese government wouldn't have tried to sweep it under the table. While perhaps technically not considered bribery, using money to grease the wheels is a common practice in China. It wouldn't surprise me of the Chinese government tried to grease some Taiwanese wheels.
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| I think they had a sign about "protecting the people", or maybe I just wanted them to have a sign that said that.... |
The protestors eventually won. The Taiwanese government scrapped the law and are going to rework it with more say from the people. To me it seems like a triumph of democracy! Especially as many of the people in the Middle East have been struggling to reap the benefits of peaceful demonstration, it is wonderful to see peaceful demonstration showing results.
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| Rocking the t-shirt that I probably will only wear inside the safety of my home. I'm not really much of a rebel... I sat in the front of the classroom... |
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| They call themselves the Daisy Revolution |
I really hope that the Taiwanese people are able to find a way to co-exist with the Chinese that boosts economic growth while respecting their rights and sovereignty. In another posts I'll describe the beautiful Chinese festival I saw the other day. I would hate to see what is left of the old Chinese culture destroyed by the central government in China.
(Sorry for the heated political remark. I try not to be a China basher, but it does make me sad to see how the Communist party has the Chinese people in a choke hold. Mao was such a bad dude and while the current government is a lot better, there is still a long way to go....)
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| After all of the barbed wire, I came upon a nice little meadow in the middle of Taipei : ) There is always hope for the future. |
