Houzhang’s “ruby rush” began a few days ago when a netizen wrote on his WeChat account that residents of Houzhang village had found small rubies in the earth, some of which were allegedly worth up to 25,000 RMB (around 3,800 USD). Local villagers began excavating the ground, hoping to make a fortune overnight, but as the news spread, they were soon joined by scores of people from outside the town.

According to local reports, over a thousand people rushed to the village on June 19 alone, digging not only at daytime, but also during the night; they have heard that in the darkness the rubies are easier to spot because they reflect the flashlights. Whether young or old, male or female, all take part in the treasure hunt.

However, local villagers complain that the hundreds of ruby-diggers are destroying their crops: tea leaves, corn, watermelons and peanuts. But they seem resigned to the fact that they cannot stop the tide of daily visitors.

The authorities in Pan’an County, to which the village belongs, asked experts to go to the site and analyze the composition of the rubies. They experts found out that what the stones the villagers have excavated are red corundum, a crystalline form of aluminium oxide. On the market these rubies are worth just around 100 RMB (around 15 USD) apiece.

Due to the environmental damage that the excavations are causing to the farm crops, the local government has urged the ruby-diggers to return home, thus putting an end to their short-lived dreams of wealth.

The post Hundreds Rush to China’s “Ruby Village” in Hopes of Finding a Fortune appeared first on The Nanfang.

The original idea was to take a ferry in the morning, but because I slept miserably the previous night I ended up leaving home at 3 p.m. The weather was hot and humid, the sky grey. Around one hour later I arrived at the Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. After buying a ticket and going through the immigration control, I joined the unavoidable long queue largely consisting of mainland Chinese tourists: young and old, fancy and sporty, all invariably holding shopping bags with names of fashion or food brands written on them.

Riding a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau may seem like an enjoyable and relaxing experience – to those who have never taken one. The reality is quite different. Ferry pilots in Hong Kong either love speed or they are always in a hurry, which is alright as long as the sea is calm, but when it is rough, the unaware passengers suddenly find themselves trapped on a boat which, rocked by the powerful waves, restlessly pitches and yaws.

Shortly after we had boarded the ferry, the staff made an announcement that went approximately like this: “Due to bad weather conditions we will stop serving hot drinks. For your own safety, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened at all time”. Soon afterwards two old men in white uniforms began to check that all passengers had their seat belts fastened. That’s when I knew that there was something wrong. I’ve had quite a few awful experiences on Macau-bound ferries, but there were never any announcements, and no one ever bothered to check if the passengers had fastened their seat belts or not.

Except for me, nobody else seemed worried. People cheerfully chatted, laughed and ate snacks. Around ten or fifteen minutes after we had departed, however, the first big wave rocked the boat. “Wooo…“, the passengers roared. I looked at the faces of the people around me. At first they seemed amused, yet it didn’t take long before they realized that that was going to be a bumpy ride; their smiles vanished and their screams grew louder as the waves pounded ever stronger against the ferry, which bounced like a plane that is taking off and then abruptly plummeted.

Some people began to look for sickness bags. But the worst was yet to come. Violent waves hit the boat so hard that its bobbing up and down and rolling back and forth became unbearable, many passengers’ faces turned pale or yellowish, some people began coughing and vomiting, while the shouts became louder and louder. At last, even the pilot understood that sailing so fast under such weather conditions was sheer madness, and the passengers – unaccustomed to the rough movement of the sea – could not possibly endure sixty minutes of that, and he finally slowed down, almost bringing the vessel to a standstill for a few minutes, perhaps in order to give us some respite, before steering the ferry forward at moderate speed.

It was around 18:30 when we arrived at Macau Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal. Most passengers looked exhausted, but some of them still laughed and joked about the turbulent journey that had just ended. Although I had planned on returning to Hong Kong that very evening, I made up my mind not to go through the same torture again. Although I had not thrown up, I didn’t want to challenge the Sea Goddess.

In Macau one is greeted by signs written in Portuguese and some Eurasian faces. The immigration control is the easiest I’ve ever seen. You don’t even need to fill in an arrival card. You just go to an immigration counter, show your passport, and the officer hands you a small ticket. That’s all.

My meeting was at 19:20 in Tap Seac Square, in front of Macau Central Library – one of the least touristy and most traditional parts of the city. The ferry had arrived late and it was already 19:00. I went outside and took bus number 3. Unfortunately, it was rush hour, and we were bottled in the traffic for a while. A journey that usually lasts around fifteen minutes took more than half an hour. I got off at Mercado do Patane and then walked uphill to Sao Lazaro district.

On my way to Tap Seac it started raining heavily. Luckily, I always bring an umbrella with me, since I have by now learnt how unpredictable the weather in this region can be. I was wondering if my friend would still be waiting for me, since I was almost forty minutes late, and I couldn’t even call her because my Hong Kong sim card didn’t work in Macau.

But she was patient and friendly enough to wait for me in the rain for so long. I told her about my bad journey on the ferry. “Of course”, she said, “there is a typhoon today. Didn’t you read the news?”. I had not. Finally I understood why the sea was so exceptionally rough.

I and my friend hadn’t seen each other for almost a year. We had a lot to talk about and chatted until half past midnight. She was quite surprised when I told her I wouldn’t go back to Hong Kong. “Where are you going to stay?” she asked. “I have no idea,” I answered, “I’ll probably hang out at McDonald’s all night.”

“Are you sure? I think you should take a ferry and go back. You just have to stand it for sixty minutes, and then you’ll be in Hong Kong.”

“No, no way. I’m not going to do that again tonight.”

After she took a bus back home I tried to take a walk, but it was raining too heavily and the wind was too strong, so I went straight to McDonald’s. I hung out there from around 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., had a couple of coffees and a taro pie for breakfast. There were a few homeless people there – and that night I was one of them – but also many young party-goers having a late night snack. I am glad that Macau is just as safe as Hong Kong, and you never have to worry about being robbed or assaulted, even in the middle of the night.

The weather gradually improved and it stopped raining. At 5:30 I took a walk around the city, which I hadn’t seen for a year but which was still familiar to me.

At 8:30 I went back to the Outer Harbour. The ferry ride this time was peaceful and pleasant. I was happy and relieved when we arrived in Hong Kong, as I was looking forward to a nice shower and a few hours’ sleep. In the end, meeting my friend and being stuck in Macau for one night without a place to stay was quite an interesting experience, and the charm of the city more than compensated for my sleepiness and temporary discomfort.

The post Pro Tip: Don’t Take the Hong Kong-Macau Ferry During a Typhoon appeared first on The Nanfang.

The video shows a number of protesters waving flags of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). They seem to belong to the so-called Chinese Patriotic Association (中華愛國同心會), a group that supports the incorporation of Taiwan into the PRC according to the “one country, two systems” (一國兩制) framework that Beijing already uses for Hong Kong and Macau. This is not the first such demonstration organized by “Chinese patriotic” groups. Taipei 101 used to be one of the patriotic association’s favourite spots, before an incident involving peaceful Falun Gong demonstrators led Taipei mayor Ke Wenzhe to intervene.

Taiwan-based blogger Jenna Cody argued that pro-Communist protesters have the right to demonstrate just like anyone else. “That’s not a reason to deny anyone freedom of speech, of course,” she wrote, “and they have the right to do this in public as much as, say, any of us have the right to demonstrate for Taiwanese sovereignty. I’m also not going to join the calls to ‘deport them back to China’ because, well, they are citizens too. I’d love to deport Ted Cruz to Canada but he is as much an American as I am. Every country has its jerks.”

I am not a big fan of Taiwan independence and all the fuss people make about identity, flags and names – as I believe that state-sanctioned identities, whether Taiwanese or Chinese, are per definition anti-democratic (I will explain this point in another post).

But while the Taiwanese independence movement is legitimate because it’s peaceful, the Chinese Patriotic Association and the like are not legitimate because they are violent. Their violent attitude is demonstrated by the incidents they provoke – like the Falun Gong incident I mentioned earlier or this one. Furthermore, they are violent because they justify Beijing’s threats to use force, instead of condemning them. What these groups want is the subversion of the Republic of China (ROC) and the incorporation of Taiwan into the PRC, either by force or by the threat of the use of force.

While a democracy should tolerate public debate, we should not forget that freedom should be granted to those who respect other people’s freedom. After World War I, for example, the Communists and the Nazis of the Weimar Republic participated in democratic politics – but their aim was to destroy the Republican state, not to serve it. Therefore, they used freedom to abolish freedom.

Demonstrations should be allowed as long as they not imperil democratic values. One would not allow supporters of ISIS or of Nazism to protest freely and to shout out slogans demanding the overthrow of the state. Similarly, pro-Communist groups should be prosecuted and banned according to law.

Let us remember one thing. Democracy doesn’t mean anarchy, and freedom is always ordered freedom. Acting against groups which advocate violence is not anti-democratic, it is the only way to safeguard true democracy. If the Weimar Republic had banned Communists and Nazis, then Germany might have been spared two oppressive dictatorships, and the world would not have witnessed another world war.

The post Why Taiwan Should Ban Pro-China Demonstrations appeared first on The Nanfang.

“My hands were swollen and I felt so much pain that I didn’t want to live,” he told Amnesty International. “The police officers repeatedly yanked the handcuffs and I would scream.”

Two days before his arrest, Yu had submitted a request to Beijing Fengtai Detention Centre for meeting one of his clients. The authorities had rejected Yu’s request without reason. As an act of protest, he stayed in front of the detention centre and later published a post online describing the incident.

At around midnight the police forced him to leave, and on October 13 the Beijing Daxing District Public Security Bureau arrested him on charges of “disorderly behaviour” (寻衅滋事罪). Yu was denied access to his lawyers and his family. According to Albert Ho, chairperson of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “it is not uncommon for a lawyer to be made captive as a result of conducting his legal duties.” Cases of lawyers arrested without due procedures and tortured by state organs are numerous. It is estimated that since last year approximately 250 human rights lawyers have been detained or mysteriously went missing.

On 17 October 2015, 51-year-old Gui Minhai disappeared from his home in Pattaya, Thailand. Gui was a shareholder of Hong Kong-based publishing house ‘Mighty Current‘, which published salacious gossip books about high-rank officials of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Gui was born in China‘s Zhejiang Province and studied history at Beijing University. In 1988 he moved to Sweden and earned a PhD at Gothenburg University. After the Communist Party put down the Tiananmen student protests in 1989, Gui remained in Sweden and became a naturalised citizen. As the political climate relaxed in the 1990s, he returned to China and worked there for a few years, before entering the publishing business in 2012. A camera in his Thai condo showed him on October 17 as he came back home carrying groceries. Shortly afterwards, he drove away together a man who had been waiting for him in the garage. 

According to Gui’s daughter, he suddenly stopped communicating with her. She did not know what had happened until she received an e-mail from Lee Bo, one of her father’s business associates: “Your dad has gone missing,” Lee wrote. “We’re afraid he was taken by Chinese agents for political reasons.” It has been suggested that Gui’s alleged abduction may be part of “Operation Fox Hunt“, launched by Xi Jinping in 2014 with the aim of forcibly repatriating Chinese citizens wanted by the government, including political dissidents.

On January 17 Gui surprisingly resurfaced in a televised “confession” broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV). He claimed that he had returned to mainland China because he “missed his homeland” and because he wanted to face charges of drunk-driving that date back to 2003, when he allegedly hit and killed a woman in the city of Ningbo.

The government in Stockholm expressed strong dissatisfaction with Beijing’s handling of the Gui case. A Swedish task force was sent to Thailand to aid local police in the investigations. There were no immigration records showing that Gui had left the country, a fact which clearly contradicts his claim made in the televised confession that he had returned to China voluntarily. The request of the Swedish embassy have an interview with him was turned down by China’s authorities.

The cases of Yu Wensheng and Guo Mihai are just two examples of the vast number of human rights abuses perpetrated by the government of the PRC. Against this backdrop it seems surprising that Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the importance of the rule of law, calling for a reform of the judicial system. At a meeting held in January 2016, Xi Jinping admitted that China’s judicial system is undermined by unfair trials and corrupt judges, and he criticised judges and prosecutors who manipulate trials in exchange for bribes or favours. A decision adopted at the meeting “vowed to ensure the independence of courts and prosecutors, while promising the supreme authority of the Constitution,” wrote Xinhua News Agency.

On the other hand, Xi Jinping made it clear that his vision of ‘judicial independence’ has little to do with the liberal model of division of powers. In October 2014, Xi explained that the relations between the Chinese Communist Party and the rule of law is “the core issue for the building of a country with the rule of law.” He stated that adhering to the Party’s leadership, socialism with Chinese characteristics and implementing the theory of socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics are the keys to the promotion of the rule of law. “Party’s leadership is the most essential feature of the socialism with Chinese characteristics,” he was quoted as saying, “and the most fundamental guarantee of socialist rule of law.”

But what is ‘socialist rule of law’? And how can a fair judicial system be developed when its first allegiance is not to the law itself, but to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party?

After the end of Soviet-style Stalinist orthodoxy as advocated by Mao Zedong, the PRC introduced a market economy which de facto annulled the main tenets of Communist ideology. The core of Communist doctrine – class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat and the end of economic inequality and exploitation – were given up in favour of a state-promoted market economy, in which a large state sector coexists with private businesses and in which economic growth has brought about inequality. Such economic reforms have made Communism a hollow promise. China’s leaders have integrated into their Leninist one-party dictatorship key elements of nationalist ideology and of China’s feudal past in order to fill the ideological vacuum.

It will be the purpose of the following posts to show that the PRC’s legal system is incompatible with the notion of rule of law because it is based on an incoherent blend of elements which derive from China’s imperial past and Soviet-style Communist law. The article shall be divided into the following five posts:

1) Law in imperial China,

2) The ‘capital crimes’ then and now,

3) Rule of law vs rule by law,

4) Fear as an instrument of control,

5) Voluntarism.

The post China’s Legal System: Communist or Feudal? appeared first on The Nanfang.

Yuepao is a neologism that describes a sexual relationship between two people who typically have met through social media or dating apps (徵友). The term yuepao (約炮; often also spelled 約砲), is the contraction of the words 約會 (meeting) and 放鞭炮 (to set off firecrackers). It can be roughly translated as “sex meeting”.

What is peculiar about the yuepao is that this trend spread on Taiwanese universities campuses, revealing a side of students’ lives which public opinion had ignored (or had chosen to ignore) for a long time. Numerous fan pages and groups sprang up on social media to meet the demand for this kind of meeting. The first one of such pages, called ‘Yuepao Shixin’ (約砲世新), was launched by a female student of Shixin University (世新大學) in 2014. Her aim was to break with tradition and end men’s sexual ‘hegemony’.

The yuepao phenomenon soon spread to other universities. According to Taiwanese media, in 2014 students of over 20 universities started their own yuepao pages, among them National Taiwan University, National Zhongzheng University, Furen University and Donghai University.

Last year, students of Zhengzhi University founded a group called “Gender Equality Workshop” (性別平等工作坊, abbr. GEW). Their slogans, such as  “Yuepao is not a crime” (約砲無罪), called for sexual emancipation and self-determination. In May 2015 they stuck up posters on walls of the university campus. The posters portrayed naked men and women as well as couples having sex. Although GEW’s bold actions provoked public criticism, they also sparked a public debate on an issue that used to be taboo. According to Cheng Yunjia (程雲佳), president of GEW, people usually consider yuepao a dirty thing because of their “moral viewpoint”. However, he argues that if two adults agree to have a sexual relationship and their actions are not illegal, people should not judge them. “Every person is a unique individual,” he told Taiwanese tabloid Apple Daily, “as long as one does not commit sexual assault, society should respect [it].”

According to a recent poll conducted by Apple Daily, over 20 percent of Taiwanese students have had sex meetings, double the number compared to 14 years ago. However, only roughly 50 percent of the interviewees used a condom. The poll reveals that 95.5 percent of the participants know the word yuepao, over a half have thought about doing it, and 23.4 percent have done it. Law faculties have the highest number of students who had sex meetings, while the lowest rates are among students of sciences and engineering.

Most people get in touch with potential sex partners on the internet. That is the case of Maya, a 26-year-old student who began contacting men on WeChat. When a guy asked her to see a picture of her, she posted one on which she was holding a plush giraffe. Though she was naked she showed neither her intimate parts nor her face. That is “a basic principle,” she said. She began chatting with several men on a daily basis, flirted with them, but nothing happened until one of them told her that he would visit Taichung. “I have no place to stay tonight,” he said, “can I stay at your place?” She had no feelings for him, but that day she suddenly felt that she needed someone to cuddle, so she agreed to host him. At first, she told him they could only hug, but afterwards she could not “stop” and they had sex. Since the guy had not used a condom, the next morning she went to buy morning-after pills. After her first experience, Maya began having sex meetings regularly. Overall she had nine sex partners in five years. According to Maya, relationships between men and women are not as lofty as she had imagined, while sexual meetings are not as shameful as she had thought.

A-fei had his first yuepao experience when he was a 3rd-grade student. Afterwards he installed an app and had around 30 sex meetings. He usually tries to make an appointment as fast as possible, ideally he chats with a girl in the evening and they meet up the following day. If a girl doesn’t agree to meet him after chatting with him for more than a day, he will give up and try with another one. The success rate is quite high. According to him, people choose their partners only on the basis of the appearance. For men, height is a plus.

Alice, a girl interviewed by Apple Daily, had sex meetings despite being in a relationship. Her boyfriend had gone to study abroad, and after some time she needed sex, so she looked for a sex partner on the yuepao Facebook page of National Taiwan University. She received around 100 replies. After singling out three possible candidates, she chose one of them and went to have dinner with him. They dated a few times, she thought that they got along well, and one day they went to a hotel. After having sex, Alice felt “revitalized”. Satisfying her biological desire made her feel happy and she continued to go out with the same guy, who she viewed as just a sex partner. She needed a man, but she did not want to fall in love it so that it would be easy for her to part from him eventually. When her boyfriend returned to Taiwan, she stopped seeing her sex partner. “Although I think that sex and love are two different things,” she said, “if you love someone you won’t have a relationship with another person. You need to respect your boyfriend, otherwise it would be selfish.”

The post Taiwanese Students Drawn to “Sex Meetings” Despite Moral Concerns appeared first on The Nanfang.

According to local media, on April 20 at around noon a middle-aged couple got on the Wuhan metro. The wife put a bag on the seat next to hers. Shortly afterwards, an older couple, about 60 years of age, asked the woman to free the seat. However, the woman refused. The old man insisted that she ought to yield her seat to elderly people, but she would not back down. At that moment, the woman’s husband intervened and started cursing the old man, who instead of turning away yelled back. In a fit of rage, the younger man pushed the other man away, thus giving start to a fight between the two couples.

According to the account of an eyewitness who filmed the scene with his phone, the middle-aged man went so far as to slap the elder woman in the face. The other passengers, seeing that the altercation had got out of control, intervened, trying to separate the two parties. After two passengers gave their seats to the elder couple the fight stopped.

Both couples spoke a non-local dialect. During the argument the middle-aged man claimed that he and his wife had come to Wuhan to see a doctor, and they showed a medical certificate to the other passengers as a proof.

The post Passenger Films Ugly Fight on Wuhan Metro appeared first on The Nanfang.

“Listening to the masses” – whatever this may mean – has become a common catchphrase of Xi Jinping‘s new vision of Communism. In perfect Maoist rhetorical style, Xi coats his ideology in vague high-sounding phases, a vagueness that suits a Party leader who doesn’t have to engage in debates with opponents and who needs ideological ambiguity in order to rule.

Xi’s last attempt at reviving the old Maoist principle of “listening to the masses” is the strengthening of Communist China’s system of popular petitions, the so-called xinfang (信访). The xinfang system dates back to 1951, when the Government Administration Councilissued a “Decision regarding the handling of citizen’s letters and visits” (关于处理人民来信和接见人民工作的决定). Building upon the premise that the “people’s government at every level belongs to the people themselves”, the document stated that every county and city government and all governments above the county and city level had to establish reception offices or complaint departments to handle citizens’ complaints.

For these reasons, the xinfang system is a highly ineffective and contradictory institution which has so far not been able to meet citizens’ demands for justice. In 2003, for instance, only 0.2 percent of petitioners’ cases were settled. The cause for this inefficacy is obviously the fact that the People’s Republic of China lacks an independent supervisory body. The Party must supervise itself.

Nevertheless, on April 21 Xi Jinping instructed government authorities at all levels to “solve issues emerging from petitions and settle the reasonable and lawful demands of the masses”, stressing that petitions promote “the interest of the masses, social harmony and stability” (群众切身利益，事关社会和谐稳定).

Since the late 1980s, the Shanghai government has made unprecedented efforts to solve its well-known housing shortage by building a large number of new neighborhoods in the countryside. BG is one such neighborhood, built in the early 1990s and designed to house 21,000 residents.39 It consists of four subneighborhoods, two in the south and two in the north. The southern half contains dozens of six-story buildings surrounded by bamboo, while in north BG, in addition to some six-story buildings, there are twelve twenty-six-story buildings surrounded by approximately 8,000 square meters of open ground. The open area was designated as a greenbelt by the city urban planning bureau. Because of its beautiful environment, more and more people moved to BG from downtown Shanghai. BG residents were proud of their neighborhood because it was named a “Civil Residential Neighborhood” by the central authority in 1993.

The life of BG residents was disrupted over discussions about the 8,000-square-meter open area. Although BG is far from downtown, the expansion of the city increased the value of the land on which it is situated. As a result, both real estate companies and the district government coveted the open area, and protecting the greenbelt became a constant problem for residents. From 1993 to 2001, residents in BG engaged in a nine-year collective action to protect the open area under the coordination and leadership of two leaders from their community …

In September 1993, the real estate company that developed BG was preparing to build a twenty-six-story building on the 8,000 square meters of open ground. Fang, a retired teacher living in one of the two subneighborhoods (Neighborhood A) of north BG, initiated resistance to the plans. The reason for Fang’s resistance was simple: If a new building were built, her fifth floor apartment would see little sunshine. Fang first approached the residents’ committee of her subneighborhood, hoping that the committee would report the problem to the X Street Office. Because the real estate company was owned by the city government, however, the office refused to help.

Fang decided to present petitions to the next upper-level district government. As individual petitions may be ignored, Fang planned to mobilize more participants to present a collective petition. She then tried to contact the heads of residents’ groups, as they were familiar with the households in their groups and could mobilize participants. She began by visiting the group heads in the two subneighborhoods of north BG. However, those heads and many residents did not know her and were suspicious of her motives. Fang had to convince them that she needed their participation because a collective petition would be more effective. She assured them that she would take the lead in presenting the petition and take the risk.

Fang’s insistence and residents’ worry about the construction of a new building finally convinced some to participate. One day in September 1993, Fang led about forty residents to present a petition against the proposed construction to the district government, but they were barred from entering the office yard. It was not until Fang happened to see one of her former students, a high-ranking official in the district government, that they were allowed to present the petition. A leader of the district government ordered the estate company to stop construction, but the company ignored the government’s order and continued construction. Fang then organized a petition to the city people’s congress. A leader in the congress ordered the district government to investigate the issue, claiming that resident resistance might cause social disruption. As a result of the pressure from both the district government and the city people’s congress, the real estate company had to address residents’ concerns.

The company believed that, because it was a state firm, the district government and the city’s people’s congress would turn a blind eye to its illegal occupation of the open ground if it could manage to silence the residents. It first presented a fake construction plan to convince the district government that its construction project was legal. It then proceeded to discredit Fang in the BG community. In early 1994,the company conducted discreet negotiations with Fang, promising to provide her with a new apartment elsewhere if she stopped organizing resistance, thereby undermining her determination. The company then leaked news of the negotiations to the community. The residents felt betrayed, and their trust in Fang evaporated. Having discovered the trap, Fang tried to clear her name and organize another collective action but failed.

The post Xi Jinping Wants the Party to Listen to the Masses, but Remains Silent on “How” appeared first on The Nanfang.

The Republic of China (ROC) was a founding member of the WHO, but after the United Nations shifted diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Executive Board of the United Nations passed resolution EB49.R37 recommending to the WHA to adopt a similar decision. As a result, on May 10, 1972 the WHA decided:

“to restore all its rights to the People’s Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the World Health Organization, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-Shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the World Health Organisation.”

From then on the ROC has never been able to participate in the WHA as a sovereign state.

The rapprochement between Beijing and Taipei under the Ma Ying-jeou administration allowed Taiwan to participate in the WHA, albeit with a lower status. However, the recent electoral defeat of the Guomindang and the triumph of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen seems to have prompted the PRC to harden its stance.

As of April 23, Taiwan has not yet received an invitation to participate in the WHA. The Taipei Cultural and Economic Delegation in Geneva said that it remains optimistic it would receive an invitation, although Taiwan’s Central News Agency had earlier announced that the government expected to receive it by April 10.

According to Taiwanese reports, a mainland Chinese scholar visiting Taiwan has warned that Taipei may not receive such an invitation. Zhu Weidong (朱衛東/朱卫东), deputy head of mainland China’s “Institute of Taiwan Studies” of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was invited by the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies to speak at a conference on April 18.

Zhu stated that this year Taiwan will not receive an invitation from the WHA. He explained that mainland China is observing with great concern Tsai Ing-wen’s attitude towards cross-strait relations. The WHA will start only three days after Tsai officially takes over the presidency on May 20. According to Zhu, Beijing “cannot accept” Tsai’s ambiguous stance and her failure to unequivocally adhere to the 1992 consensus. If Taiwan should be excluded from the WHA, this may be viewed as an attempt by Beijing to humiliate Tsai and isolate Taiwan. In this way, it hopes to exact important political concessions and promote cross-strait relations on its own terms.

However, professor Kuo Jianwen (寇健文) of the Institute of East Asian Studies of Zhengzhi University said that mainland China’s think tanks were only trying to exert political pressure on the new administration to acknowledge the 1992 consensus. He said that based on the previous seven years there was still time until the end of the month for Taiwan to receive the invitation.

The post World Health Assembly the Latest Battleground in Taiwan-China Relations appeared first on The Nanfang.

In his article about the independence issue Cole explained something that I have been arguing for quite some time. In a nutshell, it is not true that the Guomindang is pro-Beijing (in the sense that it supports unification with the People’s Republic of China) while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in favour of Taiwan’s independence. Both the Guomindang and the DPP oppose unification with Beijing. But while for the Guomindang independence means that the Republic of China is an independent sovereign state, the DPP holds that Taiwan is an independent nation. For the first, China is the Republic of China; for the second, China and Taiwan are two separate nations. Cole rightly argues that both camps fundamentally oppose Beijing’s unification policies with Taiwan. He uses the terms taidu (Taiwan independence) and huadu (ROC independence) to define, respectively, the DDP’s and the Guomindang’s standpoint.

Interestingly enough, some Taiwan-based bloggers such as Michael Turton have criticised Cole’s analysis. Over the past few years I have discovered that Taiwan’s English-speaking (or English-writing) blogosphere has almost unanimously adopted an unreflected and irrational concept of Taiwanese nationalism as its guiding principle. It is impossible to have a normal and relaxed debate with many Taiwan-based bloggers or with Taiwanese who support the idea of a Taiwanese national identity, so I have given up trying long ago. An honest debate presupposes that one can explore different points of view, and many people are just not willing to do that.

Taiwan independence and ROC independence are – for all practical purposes – one and the same thing as long as the Communist government in Beijing does not collapse or repel its infamous anti-secession law. Why am I saying this?

The Republic of China (ROC) administers Taiwan and outlying islands, so de facto this area has an independent government. What we may call “the Taiwan consensus” should be based on the common enemy: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). So, no matter if one feels Taiwanese, Hakka, Eurasian, Chinese, Christian, Taiwanese-American etc – every citizen of the ROC lives in a democratic and independent state which will defend itself from attempts by the CCP to annex it. The question of what should happen with the ROC would be relevant only if the Communist regime in mainland China collapses.

However, many people disagree with this statement and reject a “Taiwan consensus”. They argue that the ROC is a “foreign colonial government”, that Taiwan is not part of China, etc. Such notions are based on a naive concept of nationalism.

First of all, what is a nation? Many scholars and thinkers have tried to explain this concept, but they always fail because – to put it simply – nations do not exist. Nations are constructed by people who theorize their existence. I shall now examine four examples to illustrate my point: Germany, Korea, the United States and Taiwan itself.

The first unitary German state was founded in 1871 – prior to that date there were a myriad of German states. So, if Germany existed prior to that point, it existed only in people’s imagination. The German state founded in 1871 did not comprise Austria, although there was a pan-Germanic movement advocating that Austria should be part of the German Reich. Austria was annexed by the German Reich in 1939 and a plebiscite confirmed the annexation.

After the Second World War, the German Reich was dismembered. East Germany (Prussia and other Eastern provinces) was ceded to Poland; middle Germany became a separate state (The German Democratic Republic under a Communist regime), West Germany, too, became a sovereign state (The Federal Republic of Germany). In 1989 there were therefore three “German states”. There was also a significant German-speaking population in Switzerland.

As we all now, Germany was “reunified” in 1989. Now, why was it unified? And why was Austria not included? Linguistically, culturally and economically Austria is more similar to South Germany than South Germany is to Northeast Germany. Moreover, let us not forget that Germany has a large immigrant population from Southern Europe, Asia, Turkey and other countries. This immigration constantly changes the culture and ethnic composition of the country. So, why is Germany a country? The truth is: there is just no objective criterion to define it. Each German federal state could be considered a separate country or a part of it (just like Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland).

Let us now examine Korea. There are two Korean states. It is funny how public opinion in many countries supports Korean reunification (as it had supported German reunification). But North and South Korea have been separated for so long. Why should they be reunified? Why do North and South Korea belong together, while Taiwan and mainland China do not?

Some will argue that the answer often lies in the “feeling” of the people. The Koreans want reunification, the Taiwanese do not. But how can a people unanimously want something and share exactly the same identity? The history of independence referendums shows the contradiction of national feelings.

Let’s consider last year’s Scottish independence referendum. To the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, 55.3 percent answered “no” and 44.7 percent answered “yes”. So what does this referendum actually tell us about the “Sottish identity”? It just tells us a simple fact: identity is not collective. Identity is an individual issue that does not fit into nationalistic and simplistic patterns. 2,001,926 Scottish people feel they belong to the UK, while 1,617,989 feel they do not. A lot of time and money has been wasted to reach this conclusion. This year it is the UK’s turn to vote whether to stay in the EU or not, whether the UK is more or less European. And some Scottish politicians have announced that if the UK votes to leave the EU, Scotland will hold another independence referendum. Canada’s Quebec province held two independence referendums, one in 1980 and another one in 1995:  in the first one 59 percent voted to remain part of Canada, while the second referendum was even more ambiguous, 50 percent voted against independence. But even if 20 percent vote no and 80 percent vote yes, you will never satisfy everyone, because identity is not objective, collective or immutable.

The United States is another interesting case. I have heard supporters of Taiwan independence claim that the American war of independence against British rule is a good example of why Taiwan should be independent. The American colonists, they say, were ethnically and linguistically “English” or “British”, but they felt “American”, so they wanted to have their own nation.

Unfortunately, this interpretation is wrong. The American colonists did feel English, in fact, they broke away from Britain because they felt too English to accept to be treated like second-class citizens. As John Philip Reid has explained:

The [American] colonists began the controversy with the mother country because they feared losing English rights, and they declared independence only after being convinced that English rights would be lost or drastically curtailed should they remain within the British Empire”.

Writing in the 19th century, American historian John Fiske argued that even a few years before the war of independence,

[n]o American had as yet felt any desire to terminate the political connection with England. Even those who most thoroughly condemned the measures of the government did not consider the case hopeless, but believed that in one way or another a peaceful solution was still attainable. For a long time this attitude was sincerely and patiently maintained. Even Washington, when he came to take command of the army at Cambridge, after the battle of Bunker Hill, had not made up his mind that the object of the war was to be the independence of the colonies. In the same month of July, 1775, Jefferson said expressly, “We have not raised armies with designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states. Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure.” The Declaration of Independence was at last brought about only with difficulty and after prolonged discussion. Our great-great-grandfathers looked upon themselves as Englishmen, and felt proud of their connection with England. Their determination to resist arbitrary measures was at first in no way associated in their minds with disaffection toward the mother-country.

Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States (1869–77) and Commanding General of the United States Army during the American Civil War, in his memoirs written in 1885 still called England “the mother country”:

England’s course towards the United States during the rebellion [i.d. the secession of the Southern states] exasperated the people of this country very much against the mother country. I regretted it. England and the United States are natural allies, and should be the best of friends. They speak one language, and are related by blood and other ties. We together, or even either separately, are better qualified than any other people to establish commerce between all the nationalities of the world.

At that time, the people of the United States were still predominantly of British stock, and they were well aware of that.

If that is so, why did the American colonies break away from Britain? And why did the federal government in Washington prevent the Southern states from seceding? If nationalism had been the root of the American war of independence, then the Confederate States that seceded from the Union in 1861 would have had the right of “self-determination”.

Abraham Lincoln explained the difference between the two wars. In 1775, the thirteen colonies revolted against a tyrannical government which denied the free colonists of America their birthrights as Englishmen. In 1861, the Southern states seceded because they did not accept the outcome of the presidential election. Lincoln’s argument was that as long as the citizens are given the same rights, secession is tantamount to anarchy and chaos.

Let us now return to Taiwan. Except for the aborigines, the great majority of the people living in Taiwan have moved there from mainland China. Similar to what happened in former Western colonies, settlers arrived to Taiwan from the mainland and either drove away the natives or assimilated them through intermarriage. There are three main groups of Han Chinese in Taiwan – the Hoklo, the Hakka and the so-called “mainlanders”. The last group came after the Second World War. The others were already in Taiwan prior to 1945. Both the Hoklo and the Hakka exist as ethnic-linguistic groups in mainland China. The culture and language of the Hoklo – the majority of Taiwan’s Han Chinese population – are very similar to those of Fujian province.

So, how can Taiwan be called a nation? The Hoklo, the Hakka, the “mainlanders” and the aborigines are all different from each other. Moreover, there is a constant flux of foreign nationals changing the culture and ethnic composition of Taiwan. If one believes in the concept of nationalism, then why should the aborigines not be independent from the Han Chinese? Why shouldn’t Kinmen – located so far away from Taiwan – be independent or be handed over to the PRC? Or why should the mainlanders and the Hakka share the same state with the Hoklo? Why shouldn’t, for instance, the aborigines have their own state, with their own language and customs?

There are states in the world which are very small, for example the Principality of Monaco, Liechtenstein, or San Marino. Kinmen has a population of around 128,000, while San Marino’s is only 31,000. Geographically Kinmen is closer to Fujian province than to Taiwan, and it was not ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Therefore Kinmen has been part of the ROC since 1912. The aborigines amount to about half a million people.

If we really think that “national feelings” should lead to state-building, then why don’t we hold independence referendums wherever there is a community that’s culturally, religiously or ethnically different from another, or whose members simply “feel” they want to be independent?

My point is that this whole discussion about Taiwanese identity and independence is irrelevant. The real question is: do the people who hold a ROC ID want to be ruled by the Communist Party? It doesn’t matter whether one feels Taiwanese, Chinese, aborigine or Western – the ROC is a democratic state, and the most important thing is to defend each person’s individual rights, not to look for an impossible collective identity. What the people in the ROC should really care about is to unite for the common cause of opposing the Communist Party vehemently and with all political, economic and military means at their disposal. “Identity” – whether national, sexual, religious or social – is unrelated to state-building.

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The bookstore is called “Causeway Bay Books” (銅鑼灣書店) and it’s located on the second floor of a building on Lockhart Road. I and my friend went upstairs and, of course, the bookstore was closed. Next to the entrance door there were messages written on the wall by sympathetic citizens.

My friend had actually gone to Causeway Bay Bookstore last year and had met one of the owners, when that was still a thriving business. While we were there, two mainland tourists arrived and started to take pictures. It seems that the news of the booksellers’ disappearance has spread across the border despite censorship.

Causeway Bay Bookstore was founded in 1994 by Lam Wing-gei (林榮基), and it specialised in books about political leaders of the People’s Republic of China. The bookstore was popular among mainlanders who wanted to have access to information about their rulers, whose biographies are usually censored and embellished by mainland authorities to fit into the image the Communist Party wants to project towards its subjects. The bookstore’s titlesinclude: “Jiang Zemin defeats Xi Jinping” (江澤民大勝習近平),  “2017- Xi Jinping’s Downfall” (2017習近平崩潰) and “The Secret War Between Peng Liyuan and Song Zuyin” (彭麻麻暗鬥宋貴妃). But exactly because of the salacious and irreverent content of the books, Causeway Bay Bookstore was a thorn in the side of the Communist Party. For some time people thought that under the “one country, two systems” framework Hong Kong would continue to be a safe haven for intellectuals, as it had been under British rule. But now it appears that Hong Kong citizens no longer enjoy the protection that the laws and judicial system of the Special Administrative Region are supposed to grant.

Between October and December last year, five booksellers associated with Mighty Current publishing house and Causeway Bay Books went missing. Communist authorities later confirmed that the booksellers were held in custody on the mainland on charges of “illegal activities”. The booksellers are:

• Gui Minhai (桂民海, 51), a mainland-born Swedish citizen. He disappeared from his home in Pattaya, Thailand, in October 2015. Gui published gossip books about the private lives (and vices) of senior Chinese Communist Party leaders. It has been suggested that his abduction may be part of “Operation Fox Hunt“, launched by Xi Jinping in 2014 with the aim of forcibly repatriating Chinese citizens wanted by the government, including political dissidents. Gui surprisingly resurfaced in a televised “confession” broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV) on January 17. He claimed that he had returned to the mainland because he “missed his homeland” and because he wanted to face charges of drunk-driving that date back to 2003, when he allegedly hit and killed a woman in the city of Ningbo.

• Cheung Chi-ping (張志平, 32), assistant general manager of Mighty Current. He disappeared from mainland China in October 2015. Communist authorities claimed that he was ordered by Gui Minhai to smuggle 4,000 banned books to the mainland. At the end of February he was interviewed by Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, one of the few private broadcasters that are allowed on the mainland. “I voluntarily accept the legal punishment”, he said after admitting to having helped Gui Minhai in “illegal activities”. Cheung resurfaced in Hong Kong on March 6 and asked the Hong Kong police to drop the missing person investigation that had been filed after his disappearance. He reportedly went back to the mainland hours afterwards.

• Lam Wing-gei (林榮基, 61) is the founder and manager of Causeway Bay Bookstore. He disappeared in October and is the only one of the four Hong Kong residents who has not yet returned from the mainland.

• Lui Bo (吕波,47), Mighty Current shareholder and general manager, also disappeared from the mainland in October. Lui also admitted to smuggling banned books to the mainland in a televised interview broadcast on Phoenix Television.

• Lee Bo (李波, 65), is a shareholder of Causeway Bay Bookstore. He holds a British passport. In late December he was last seen in Chai Wan before going missing. On January 4 he faxed a message to a bookstore employee. “Since I am in urgent need to handle the related issue”, he wrote, “and as it cannot be told to the outside world, I have returned to the mainland by my own method to assist the investigation by related authorities – it may take some time”. On January 18 the Hong Kong policereceived a reply letter from the Interpol Guangdong Liaison Office of Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department, confirming that Lee Bo was on the mainland. At the end of February Lee Bo gave an interview to Phoenix Television, claiming that he had “smuggled” himself to the mainland. “After what happened to Mighty Current, I wanted to secretly go to the mainland to resolve whatever issues there were with the company and then secretly go back to Hong Kong”, he said. “I came to the mainland to assist with the judicial investigation, and I had to incriminate some people. I was really scared that if these people found out, they will cause harm to me and my family, so I didn’t want anyone to know, and I didn’t want to leave any immigration records. So I chose to smuggle [to the mainland]”. He added that he would renounce his British passport. On March 24 Lee entered Hong Kong via the Lok Ma Chau border using his HKID. He asked the police to cancel his missing person report and returned to the mainland less than 24 hours later. He re-emerged in Hong Kong on March 30, went walking near his home in North Point and took selfies, which he later posted online. “It feels so good to be back home”, he wrote. “I went to the office, walked around on the street, went to the bank, got some snacks from the supermarket, totally autonomous and without interference from anyone. Life is all well, I’m so happy! Thank you to everyone for caring about my family, I am so grateful!”

The case of the missing booksellers has shocked Hong Kong, showing that no one who dares challenge the Communist Party is safe from political persecution. Even Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, an unpopular leader who is often seen as a puppet of Beijing, said at a press conference that “it is unacceptable if mainland legal agencies enforced law in HK as it is against the Basic Law”.

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