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Time to end these
futile charades
By Jerome Keating
There are charades and then there are charades. So too there are pretentions and
then there are pretentions.
While political, economic and even social necessities often dictate that nations
and their people are periodically involved in some form of political charade and
pretention, there also comes a time when those nations say: ¡§Enough is enough;
this is becoming ridiculous.¡¨
That is what recently happened at the Olympics in London in what could be called
the Regent Street Affair.
The businesses on Regent Street decided to decorate their area with the flags of
the many nations involved in the Olympics. Why not? Regent Street is a
non-Olympic venue, and is not governed by Olympic Committee laws; it is their
choice.
Further, flags are decorative and festive; what better way to attract tourists
and customers to the area?
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how one views it, one of those flags
belonged to Taiwan, a newly democratic nation whose 23 million people for the
first time elected their president in 1996.
However, Taiwan as a nation is not without the baggage of a complex past. Part
of that baggage is its outdated Constitution, its inappropriate official name
and a questionable flag that was brought here by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The KMT, driven out of China after a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), established itself forcefully on Taiwan and set up a one-party state, the
Republic of China (ROC), replete with martial law.
Thus began the post-World War II charades and pretentions of which there are so
many it would take volumes to point them all out.
However, to sum up, even though the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1952) never
stated to whom Taiwan belonged after World War II, Chiang Kai-shek (½±¤¶¥Û) and the
KMT claimed it while simultaneously maintaining the charade that they were and
have always been the legitimate rulers of China.
Some members of the KMT, including Taiwan¡¦s current president, still insist on
this pretention despite being kicked out of China in 1949 and the ROC¡¦s UN exit
in 1971. The US has played its own part in preserving the ambiguity by
maintaining to this day, 67 years after World War II, that the true position of
Taiwan is ¡§undecided.¡¨
On the other hand, though the number of nations officially recognizing Taiwan
has dwindled to 23, a different form of charade exists. Almost all nations still
trade with Taiwan, and maintain normal relations with it as a nation. Yet to
preserve their preferential trade with China, they do not challenge China¡¦s
claim to Taiwan. They just ignore that claim in certain practices. So where do
the Olympics come in?
In 1981, the charade began when the KMT¡¦s one-party state wanted to enter the
Olympics. The Olympic Committee was not adverse to that, but it would not let
the KMT use the name ROC, because in the eyes of the UN and an insistent China,
the ROC did not exist.
However, KMT rulers did not want to use the offered names Taiwan or Formosa,
because that would undermine the status of their one-party state, which
pretended to support democracy.
To preserve the charade of their rule without allowing a democratic Taiwan, they
compromised. The name they settled upon was ¡§Chinese Taipei¡¨, an ambiguous name
that, while detested in Taiwanese circles, would allow both the KMT and the CCP
to pretend they had legitimate claim to Taiwan. Thus began the practice of
Taiwan using the name ¡§Chinese Taipei¡¨ and flag at official Olympic functions.
Fast-forward to the present. If shop owners on Regent Street, when putting up
the flags of all the Olympic nations, had originally put up the Chinese Taipei
Olympic flag, most would have probably accepted it and there would have been few
protests. However, they did not.
With the ROC flag waving in the wind, officials of the People¡¦s Republic of
China (PRC) then commenced their part in the charade. They insisted that Regent
Street follow the laws of the Olympic Committee, laws to which Regent Street was
not bound. The PRC pressured the British government to get in on the act.
Here comes the crucial part: When the Taiwanese flag was taken down, its space
was not immediately filled; the space was left empty. If it were immediately
filled with the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag, there would have been some
protests, but not what followed.
Leaving the space empty was a slap in the face to the citizens of Taiwan as well
as to all who went along with the Chinese Taipei charade. It amounted to saying
¡§you, Taiwan, don¡¦t exist, not even as Chinese Taipei.¡¨ That was a stretch too
far; it was an absurd pretention that Taiwanese and even British citizens could
not accept.
Here was China extending its remit beyond the Olympic rules, and pressuring the
British government to support it. For Taiwanese, it was time to tell the Chinese
emperors that they had no clothes. They, the Taiwanese, were not only tired of
the old pretense, but they also were not going to let China extend it beyond the
Olympics.
The Olympics are supposed to be about a common humanity, the competitive spirit,
fair play and the fellowship of nations. They have been politicized in the past,
but over much more serious matters than Regent Street displaying a flag that
China was not happy with.
Here is the irony; by insisting on removing the flag, the PRC not only exposed
its role in the whole debacle, but also China¡¦s true face. Meanwhile, by
offering only a meek protest, Taiwan¡¦s government ended up seeming weak and
powerless.
The people of Regent Street who put up the ¡§wrong flag¡¨ must be quietly
chuckling with their notoriety.
As a result of all this, instead of disappearing, more and more Taiwan flags
have appeared throughout London and Taiwanese athletes are making a point of
saying ¡§I am Taiwanese.¡¨
True Taiwanese, as well as other citizens of the world, are saying: ¡§Enough is
enough, this is becoming ridiculous.¡¨
Jerome Keating is a commentator in Taipei.
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