20100910 Culture, violence don’t mix

Culture, violence don’t mix

Friday, Sep 10, 2010, Page 8

In your page one story you say that Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu (蔡武) and Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) sort of agreed that cultural relations promote peace and that they are good and well (“Officials propose Taiwan, China cultural exchanges,” Sept. 7, page 1).

My big problem with this is that Sheng didn’t have the courage to stand up to this Chinese official and say that when someone is cultured, they don’t promote violence.

China has more than 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan. How can Cai say China wants to enhance cultural exchanges while holding a gun to Taiwan’s head?

Second, China has not budged on its “Anti-Secession” Law. How is that cultured? Where I come from, you get respect when you show some.

Taiwan greets and hosts all these officials from China who openly tell the Taiwanese things can work out, as long as the “one China” principle is adhered to. I say “Expletive” NO!

Moreover, in other articles in this week’s paper, Cai seems to sidestep particular questions. It almost felt like he didn’t want to rock the boat.

Taiwan and China can be friends, but only if and when China comes to terms with reality. A cultured person is by definition: “civilized: marked by refinement in taste and manners.”

If you threaten a country with war, please don’t ask for improvements in cultural ties. Unless China changes its approach toward Taiwan I see no reason to go beyond economic talks, let alone engage in political ones.

Harry Adamopoulos
Taipei



It was — for me at least — extremely distressing to read your article about Cai and cultural exchanges. There is a line in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, where the First Fury proclaims — “Ha! I scent life!” After reading the article, all that I can say is — “Ha! I scent a trap!”

Taiwan had better beware lest it see its precious culture co-opted by the Chinese, trampled on and warped beyond all recognition.

Cai on Monday proposed “institutionalizing cultural exchanges between Taiwan and China.” Cai suggested “that both sides hold visits by high-level cultural officials and sign an agreement on the matter.”

Hmm ... we can only wonder what this future “agreement” will be called.

Cai told a cross-strait forum in Taipei that “it took more than the economy to sustain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

“The economy is no doubt important, but it is no substitute for cultural exchanges and the sharing of ideas. Now that the two sides have signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA], it is time to begin talks on cultural exchanges to create a situation that is mutually beneficial and will make both sides understand each other better,” he told the forum.

Bullshit. Cai is a viper hiding in the grass, its jaws agape and its fangs at the ready for an unsuspecting victim to expose the heel.

With the “cultural exchanges” that Cai — and others within both the Chinese Nationalist (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — are planning, there can be only unilaterally beneficial results, to China’s great advantage.

Cai said that “he hoped China would push for cultural change, meet the needs of the market, help upgrade his country’s tastes and resist culture that was mediocre, hollow and vulgar.”

We all know what Cai means by this last phrase. Resisting culture that is “mediocre,” “hollow” and “vulgar” means squelching the voices of political dissidents — be they Han Chinese, Uighur or Tibetan.

Cai himself is nothing but a third-rater; a mediocre, hollow, vulgar bureaucrat who knows naught about culture, and who “achieved” his post through bootlicking and toadyism.

However, Sheng was spot on when he said that “culture was an exchange of values and ideas.”

He urged mutual tolerance and respect, “adding that the biggest obstacle to cultural exchanges was forcing individual values on other people.”

Once again, Sheng is 100 percent correct in his assessment.

Paradoxically, this paramount notion is precisely what the Chinese are utterly oblivious to.

For an example I would ask everyone interested to consult the New York Times archives for Oct. 18 last year, in the “Asia/Pacific” section. The article bears the title “Uneasy Engagement,” and it details China’s dealings with officials at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The article begins by stating the truism that China has increased efforts to promote its culture to “counter Western influence and improve its image in the wider world.”

But things did not end up exactly as had been hoped for. When the fair’s German organizers and diplomats urged the Chinese to allow a prominent storyteller and musician, Liao Yiwu (廖亦武), to come to Frankfurt, the Chinese authorities refused to lift Liao’s overseas travel ban, and ordered him to stop talking about it.

Fair organizers withdrew invitations to two dissident writers — Dai Qing (戴晴) and Bei Ling (貝嶺) — whom the Chinese organizers had wanted to exclude, but ultimately caved in to pressure by journalists and politicians and invited the pair at the last moment. When the pair made statements, the Chinese delegation walked out.

The delegation returned, but only after an abject apology — no doubt accompanied by the requisite kowtow — by fair director Jurgen Boos.

Michael Scanlon
East Hartford, Connecticut