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Time to get rid of
this timid slave mentality
By James Wang 王景弘
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) main representatives in negotiations with China —
Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and Straits Exchange
Foundation Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) — are both very inexperienced in
cross-strait affairs. For example, this month, Wang failed to identify pictures
of all but two members of the standing committee of the Chinese Communist
Party’s (CCP) politburo, and last month, Lin revealed that, aware of his lack of
knowledge and experience in cross-strait matters, he had initially declined Ma’s
appointment.
Despite this, the two seem to think they are succeeding in their jobs. Lin is
not an altogether inexperienced man: He has been hiding in the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) bureaucracy, and his mind is already well trained in the
KMT’s culture of “reporting to one’s superior.”
Such KMT bureaucrats have been trained to respect and follow authority and to
always report to their superiors throughout their career — from their first
section chief all the way to the premier and the party chairman as they climb up
the ladder. The better they are at it, the better they do for themselves. It is
not very strange then, that when they are finally appointed emissaries,
continuing to “report to the chairman” comes easily — the phrase Lin used in an
exchange with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Jia
Qinglin (賈慶林) — one of the people Wang failed to identify.
The feudal culture of blind respect for authority and always reporting to one’s
superiors can be seen throughout Taiwan’s bureaucracy and military and it has
even spread to business. Both the political bureaucracy and the military are
strongly hierarchical, but while blind respect for authority may be both feudal
and outdated, it will not damage national dignity. However, when someone behaves
in the same way toward officials of an enemy state, they are betraying the
country.
However, Ma doesn’t even seem to notice.
In the US, managers and their subordinates often address each other by their
first names, and the only formal language used are phrases such as “Mr
President” and “Mr” or “Mrs Secretary.” When officials from the American
Institute in Taiwan meet Ma, they will never think of saying they are
“reporting” to the president.
The CCP built its power on revolution and is accustomed to using the term
tongzhi (同志, or comrade), a word that has a completely different connotation in
Taiwan. However, when Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited the White
House, he would never have thought of addressing US President Barack Obama as
“comrade,” nor did he say that he was “reporting” to Obama. He did not even use
“Mr,” simply calling Obama “you.”
Behavior differs at domestic and international events. How foreign affairs
officials address their counterparts, how they adhere to protocol and how they
express their points of view affect national dignity and national interests.
These things must therefore be carefully planned out and strictly adhered to.
Senior KMT bureaucrats lacking a sense of propriety and telling the enemy that
they will “report to the chairman,” and a businessman who does not understand
the role of the press in a democratic society, but is buying up Taiwanese media
outlets because he wants to help China understand Taiwan, and then traveling to
Beijing to “report to the man in charge”: These are all expressions of a slave
mentality.
Abandoning power and humiliating the country by “reporting to the chairman” and
trampling on freedom and media independence and dignity — such traitorous and
shameless actions are completely unacceptable to all upstanding Taiwanese.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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