Why Language Matters: Taiwan or Chinese Taipei?
BY Marie Gregory
From the moment that Taiwan entered the international sphere, it has been a source of contention. Following a forty-year stint as a colony of the Netherlands during the seventeenth century, Taiwan was independent until China acquired it in the late 1600s. The island remained under Chinese jurisdiction for another two centuries before being ceded to Japan during the first Sino-Japanese war of 1895. It was not until 1945 when Japan was defeated by the Allied forces during WWII that Taiwan was returned to Chinese control. At this point the Qing dynasty that had originally ruled Taiwan had since been supplanted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang), who dubbed their government the Republic of China. The Chinese Nationalist Party then went on to be ousted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With their government now replaced by the CCP’s own government, the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Nationalist Party fled to Taiwan and set up shop there (“Chinese Revolution“).
For many decades following the initial flight to Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party maintained that its government, the Republic of China, still had jurisdiction over China. Government officials pushed the narrative that Taiwan was part of China, and that the ousted Chinese Nationalist Party was simply ruling over “mainland” China from one of its provinces. During the last couple decades specifically, the main proponent of the “Taiwan is part of China” narrative has been the CCP (“What’s behind the China-Taiwan Divide?”). The People’s Republic of China emphasizes that the island is nothing more than a province of China, despite the considerable independence Taiwan exercises and utterly different forms of government. In essence, the CCP is essentially claiming jurisdiction over what is functionally an independent state.
Because Taiwan currently enjoys strong support from the United States, the CCP has been uncharacteristically light with its gestures of overt force. China is currently striving to manufacture a reality where Taiwan is part of China by controlling the language used to refer to Taiwan, as well as preventing and bullying other countries into not recognizing the island. Notable instances include the Blitzchung Blizzard controversy, the NBA fiasco with Daryl Morey, and the John Cena apology. In other words, China is choosing instead to assert ownership over Taiwan through the more insidious method of discourse manipulation, such as taking control of public narrative and silencing any forms of resistance.
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It is well documented that China has a habit of using language and political and economic clout to influence global situations in their favor. During the past few years there have been numerous instances where the CCP has used, or attempted to use, the considerable heft of their consumer market to make individuals and corporations retract statements that do not align with their accepted narrative. However, in order to understand the first two instances of CCP silencing, one must first understand the history of Hong Kong.
Much like Taiwan, Hong Kong was initially under Qing dynasty rule. Following the First Opium War, the island was ceded to the British during 1841, and remained under British control for approximately 150 years; this is including a brief period during WWII when the British colony was occupied by Japan. In 1997, the territory was “returned” to China— then under control of the CCP—under the “one country, two systems” agreement. This agreement clearly established that Hong Kong was a part of China, but maintained that for the next fifty years Hong Kong and “mainland“ China would have separate judicial, legislative, and economic systems (Little). Over the years, there has been relatively little contention over the arrangement, with both parties coexisting despite their distinctly different forms of governance. However, recent events culminating in immense protests have since highlighted the immense disparity between the autocratic government of the CCP and the liberal democratic government of Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong protests captured the international public’s imagination for months during 2019 and 2020, with many people online expressing support for the students and Hong Kong citizens marching in the streets. The main point of the protests was initially to forestall a piece of proposed extradition legislation that would have allowed people in Hong Kong to be extradited to China. Citizens of Hong Kong feared that such legislation would serve as a pretense for increased Chinese overreach and influence in local legislature and jurisdiction, and thus took to the streets in protest en masse. Following vigorous backlash by the CCP, the Hong Kong protests’ focus then shifted to a more general, anti-China, pro-democracy stance. The CCP redoubled its efforts to subdue and quash the protests following the aforementioned shift. The situation escalated to the point where a twelve-year-old girl who was peacefully protesting was tackled and pushed to the ground by a militarized police officer (“Hong Kong Protests”). The situation in Hong Kong garnered considerable support online, with public figures large and small alike supporting the citizens’ cause. One such proponent of the liberal democratic cause was professional Hearthstone player Blitzchung. Hailing from Hong Kong, the e-sports player made the mistake of voicing support for Hong Kong during a postseason official Taiwanese Hearthstone livestream. He purportedly said, “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age.” This brief phrase was enough to see the entirety of his monetary winnings that season revoked. The punishment meted out also included a one-year ban on playing Hearthstone competitively—a move which effectively severed Blitzchung’s source of income (Clark).
The Chinese market offers immense financial gain to the companies that are able to tap into it; however, it is also a market that is under strict control by the Chinese Communist Party. To avoid negative repercussions, corporations often strive to maintain a China-friendly image that aligns with current CCP propaganda. This is exactly what happened in Blitzchung’s case. The gaming industry is especially lucrative when it comes to China because of the nation’s massive population coupled with the popularity of mobile gaming within the country. Gaming giant Blizzard, the company responsible for publishing the game Hearthstone, was acutely aware of the negative impact that a professional Hearthstone player’s comments could have on their relationship with the Chinese government, and subsequently on the company’s coffers. Blizzard made the decision to officially cut ties with Blitzchung because they knew that continued association with him would be interpreted as implicit endorsement of his anti-Chinese comments by their main market in China. What happened to Blitzchung is a prime example of the way that the CCP utilizes threats of limited access to the Chinese market to censor non-party-approved messaging.
Another instance of a seemingly innocuous gesture of support being met with a quick and vicious pushback is a short tweet posted by Daryl Morey. In 2019, the Houston Rockets’ General Manager posted “fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong” on his private Twitter account, and the backlash from the CCP would go on to cost the National Basketball Association around 400 million dollars (Helin). In characteristic fashion, the CCP swiftly denounced Morey via their Houston consulate, along with the actual owner of the Houston Rockets. Despite Morey quickly deleting the incendiary tweet in addition to the National Basketball Association issuing an official apology establishing that the tweet did not represent the position of the Rockets or the NBA, the Chinese National Basketball Association decided to suspend association with the team and went so far as to halt broadcasting of NBA games on Chinese state television for a period (Yglesias). The magnitude of the repercussions the CCP was willing to levy on an entire sports sector for a single tweet speaks volumes about the importance the Chinese government places on controlling the public narrative not only within its own country, but outside of it as well.
While the last two examples of the CCP’s extrajudicial censorship center around the issue of Hong Kong independence, the next incident deals with the sensitive situation surrounding Taiwan. While John Cena, a former professional wrestler turned movie star, was doing public relations for his upcoming film at the time, Fast and Furious 9, he stated that Taiwan would be the first “country” where the film would be available. Immediately, his statement was met with backlash from Chinese fans, with one user going so far as to request that Cena “please say ’Taiwan is part of China’ in Chinese, otherwise we will not accept.“ The actor was quick to rescind his initial statement and issue an apology in Mandarin where he said that he deeply regretted his “mistake” and “loves and respects Chinese people” (“John Cena”). John Cena has a very large audience in China, having at least 600,000 followers on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo, and he chose to deliver his apology in Mandarin, a language he has invested his time in learning for the past several years. Regardless of how much respect Cena holds towards “Chinese people,” it is undeniable that the risk of alienating a significant portion of his consumer base played a large factor in the rapid turnaround of his apology. This incident is yet another example of the CCP strong-arming corporations and public figures into embracing Chinese government propaganda.
Another detail about the apology John Cena issued that is noteworthy is his specification that he loves and respects the “Chinese people.” This particular wording stands out because the group that Cena actually upset was the CCP, not the Chinese citizenry. Why then does Cena make a point to apologize and reaffirm his “love” for the Chinese citizenry when he actually offended their government? It ties back to another way that the CCP maintains power: constructing homogeneity.
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Despite the richness and diversity of ethnic and cultural groups contained within Chinese borders, the Chinese government repeatedly emphasizes the idea of one unified China. They do this by restricting religious practices to “acceptable religions” and persecuting and locking up those who do not adhere to their strict guidelines, such as practitioners of the Falun Gong sect. The CCP also does its best to produce and maintain a single dominant “Chinese” culture, interring minority groups such as Uighurs within “reeducation camps” and conducting what is effectively cultural genocide. The reasoning behind the CCP’s insistence on false homogeneity is that it facilitates autocracy, as a single culture with shared norms and values is much less likely to produce dissenting opinions. The CCP’s attempts to portray China as a single unified whole do not stop at the Chinese people, as the Party insists on conflating the Chinese citizenry with the Chinese government. This delegitimizes valid criticism of the government by reducing it to a criticism of Chinese people as a whole. By making critiques of the CCP seem equivalent to racist arguments founded in reductionary ethnocentrism, the Chinese government brushes off egregious violations of human rights as mere instances of cultural relativism.
Cultural relativism is the idea that because all cultures are unique, one must first strive to understand a foreign culture before evaluating and making judgments about its values and customs. This mindset emphasizes that when it comes to dealing with cultures different than one’s own, it is paramount to consider possible variances in cultural values. There are certainly instances where backlash against China is revealed to be unreasonable when one approaches the issue from a cultural relativist standpoint; one example is Americans’ widespread disgust towards certain dishes (usually involving more “exotic” animals such as bats, or involving viscera) (Lange). While cultural relativism is an important weapon against ethnocentrism, it can too easily devolve into moral isolationism.
Moral isolationism takes cultural relativism to the extreme, arguing that because of cultural differences, it is impossible for an individual to make judgments about another culture. The CCP overwhelmingly adopts a moral isolationist stance, even going so far as to claim that universal human rights are a “Western ideal” and incompatible with Chinese values. Not only does that position provide an obvious loophole for the justification of human rights abuses, it also serves to highlight the CCP’s hypocrisy. It is egregious enough to claim as a government that your culture is non-conducive to the concept of basic human rights; however, the Chinese government takes it one step further by asserting that position while at the same time holding a seat on the United Nations Council of Human Rights. Why is a country who does not espouse belief in universal human rights a part of the global ruling body that rules on violations of said rights? It is positively paradoxical.
Given the swiftness and sheer magnitude of the CCP’s response to any instance they perceive as a breach of their approved narrative, it is clear that the Chinese government views policing public discourse as a matter of key importance. The tight control the Party exerts over discourse regarding ongoing conflicts is accomplished domestically through overt censorship via the Great Firewall and high government enmeshment with domestic corporations. The CCP also does its best to maintain a China-friendly conversation internationally through financial coercion of foreign corporations and public figures. One could argue that language has a less significant role in shaping the discourse and situation, and that China’s economic and political influence play a much larger role in the way that China has been able to advocate its position. However, in all of the instances discussed above, the CCP’s actions reveal a tendency to employ economic influence as a means of controlling rhetoric. Instead of its economic clout being used in tangency with control over language to advocate the CCP’s position, China’s economic and financial power is deployed as a tool to censor non-approved language and shape the public discourse.
An increasingly pertinent issue is the escalating tensions between China and Taiwan. The US is a major player in this conflict and has largely supported Taiwan against its economic “frenemy,” China. As China becomes more aggressive with its attempts to intimidate Taiwan and more direct in its assertions that Taiwan is a part of China, the US has shown significantly more support of Taiwan. Because China regards the US support of Taiwan (and the subsequent failure to adhere to the CCP’s narrative) as a betrayal, the strengthening of US-Taiwan bonds only further inflames the tension between China and Taiwan. If Taiwan were to become a fully assimilated part of China, that would mean the end of what is essentially the only true liberal democracy in the Sinosphere, especially given the recent crackdowns on democratic proceedings and free speech violations occurring in Hong Kong (Horton). As the US has consistently maintained that it is the protector of liberal democracy throughout the world (and consequently opposed to human rights violations), it would seem the US has an ideological obligation to step in and defend Taiwan (Coffin). However, US support of Taiwan can also be seen more skeptically, as the US has historically viewed communism and communist countries as the enemy, and oftentimes valid criticisms of the atrocities committed by China are adulterated by “Red Scare” and “Oriental Enemy” motivations.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no quick solution when it comes to the issue of Taiwanese independence. Although certain measures can be taken to rectify the US position on the Taiwan-China issue, the current diplomatic ambiguity and nebulousness is useful in buffering the economic backlash (and actual physical threats) that will inevitably result from declaring concrete Taiwanese independence. Given the importance of using the correct language in discourse in order to mitigate the possibility of any sort of “doublespeak” situation occurring, and also to prevent a single party from dominating the discussion, it is crucial that the other nations correct the CCP’s attempts to foist their own terms on the debate. The CCP has continuously reaffirmed the importance of rhetoric through its swift crackdowns on non-authorized talking points, both inside and outside of its borders. The US in particular has a responsibility to push back against China’s attempts to dominate the discourse. Not only has the US consistently insisted on its role as a “defender of democracy,” it is also one of the few countries that has the economic and military power to contend with China and oppose it without suffering immense damage.
Works Cited
“The Chinese Revolution of 1949.“ Office of the Historican, Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev.
Clark, Peter Allen. “What to Know about the Esports Backlash to Blizzard over Hong Kong.” Time, 21 Oct. 2019, https://time.com/5702971/blizzard-esports-hearthstone-hong-kong-protests-backlash-blitzchung/.
Coffin, Jocelyn. “Rhetoric and Reality: Taiwan’s Democratization and Its Effects on US-Taiwan Relations.” American Journal of Chinese Studies, 24.1 (2017): 1-12.
Helin, Kurt. “Daryl Morey on Hong Kong Tweet: ’I’m Very Comfortable with What I Did.’” ProBasketballTalk | NBC Sports, 23 Dec. 2020, https://nba.nbcsports.com/2020/12/23/daryl-morey-on-hong-kong-tweet-im-very-comfortable-with-what-i-did/.
“Hong Kong Protests: Updates and Latest on City’s Political Unrest.” CNN, 1 Aug. 2019, https://www.cnn.com/specials/asia/hong-kong-protests-intl-hnk.
Horton, Chris. “The World Is Fed up with China’s Belligerence.” The Atlantic, 9 Nov. 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/11/china-taiwan-democracy/620647/.
“John Cena: Fast and Furious Star Sorry over Taiwan Remark Backlash.” BBC News, 25 May 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57241053.
Lange, Karen E. “What You Need to Know about Wildlife Markets and Covid-19.” The Humane Society of the United States, https://www.humanesociety.org/news/what-you-need-know-about-wildlife-markets-and-covid-19.
Little, Becky. “How Hong Kong Came under ’One Country, Two Systems’ Rule.” History.com, 3 Sept. 2019, https://www.history.com/news/hong-kong-china-great-britain.
Phillips, Steven. “Why Taiwan? ROC Leaders Explain Taiwan’s Strategic Value.” The US Strategic Pivot to Asia and Cross-Strait Relations (2014): 159-177, https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137360779_9.
“What’s behind the China-Taiwan Divide?” BBC News, 26 May 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34729538.
Yglesias, Matthew. “The Raging Controversy over the NBA, China, and the Hong Kong Protests, Explained.” Vox, 7 Oct. 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/10/7/20902700/daryl-morey-tweet-china-nba-hong-kong.
About the Author
Marie Gregory is a rising sophomore at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus. Despite majoring in Chemistry, Marie’s favorite subjects are her liberal arts courses. Politics, especially those relating to her Taiwanese side, have always been discussed around the family dinner table, so when it came time to choose a topic for her research paper, the Taiwan-China dispute was the obvious choice.