Monday marked the National Day of a country that most of the world community denies exists.
If you are from the island of Taiwan, you live in one of the most densely populated societies in the world, on an island that stands at the forefront in the power struggle between the hegemonic United States and the rising superpower of the People's Republic of China.
Your capital city is home to the tallest building in the world, the world's fastest elevators and the birthplace of the now world-famous "Boba," or bubble tea.
Your island has a phenomenal history as the main hub for Pacific Ocean pirates, smugglers, privateers and other contraband entrepreneurs of the high seas from the third century A.D. until the 1970s.
You have witnessed both the longest martial law rule and one of the most impressive democratic transitions in modern world history.
You are the postcolonial product of oppression from Japan, Holland, Portugal, communist China and Americana.
You live under constant threat from hundreds of armed and aimed missiles lined on the eastern coast of China.
You are among the 23 million people whose voices the United Nations continues to deny, despite the fact that states that repeatedly defy U.N. rule like North Korea and Iran remain U.N. members, and non-countries like the Palestinian Liberation Organization hold observer seats in the United Nations.
Your government is recognized by only 26 countries in the world as "legitimate," even though it is a popularly elected regime with unambiguous power over political, diplomatic, civil, economic and military affairs of Taiwan, and despite its active de facto diplomacy with almost all major countries, including the United States.
Your team would be forced to use the name "Taipei, China" at the Olympics. A white flag would be raised when your team takes gold because your national flag is not allowed to appear anywhere on the premises.
Your citizenship and ethnicity is constantly questioned in customs, immigrations and international organizations. If you are Taiwanese-American, you would need to check either "Chinese" or "Other Asian" on your census report.
Edward Said describes imperialism as "thinking about, settling on, controlling land that you do not possess, that is distant, that is lived on and owned by others." In this light, Taiwan's inability to join the world community makes it one of the incomplete steps in the world's decolonization movement. Unfortunately for us "progressive-minded" U.S. citizens, it seems that many liberals in this country are gluing their eyes closed to the injustice inflicted on the people of Taiwan by righteously and openly condoning its exclusion from the international family.
In 2005, the loudest voices in Congress and in the press that call attention to Taiwan come from the right, if not the reactionary "New Cold War" theorists. Why is that? While occasionally you might find Pat or Ted Kennedy or Sherrod Brown hopping on a plane for a friendly visit to Taiwan, the Democrats remain largely silent on this topic.
In this way, a young, progressive Taiwanese-American citizen like myself is forced to make daily compromises between being an American liberal and my Taiwanese heritage. If my American side wins out, I vote for social welfare and let Clinton publicly endorse the PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan. If my Taiwanese side dominates, I support George Bush's tough stance against PRC imperialism and look the other way when the United States occupies another country without U.N. backing. Taiwan has achieved tremendous economic growth, political liberalization and humanitarian leadership in Asia in the face of international marginalization. Is it just that the world today continues to deny its undisputed status in the global village?
I am not writing this to promote Taiwanese independence, nor do I mean to gratuitously bash the People's Republic of China. I am inviting you to keep your eyes open and feed your tongue substance.
As the Sino-American relationship picks up speed as one of the dominant global issues in the coming decades, the Taiwan situation is something that every U.S. citizen needs to know more about.
Johnny Lin '07 invites you to visit www.straittalk.org.
