T45 & 46 - it’s politics, but not as we know it

Well these two days have been quite quiet, filled with the usual church activities. Thursday I spent time preparing for the sermon I’ll be giving in a couple of weeks, having some discussions with Hsinte about Nehemiah, and even getting round to more of my translation of Ephesians. In the evening we led Bible Study. Friday was much the same with planning for the English Class on Saturday, praying with Mr. Chen (on of the elders) in the flat he is about to let ‘downtown’, visiting some Christians in a tea house and more Ephesians.

Breakfast is turning into the discussion time again, and these last couple of days I have been learning more about politics in Taiwan. It has been very interesting and a little history is necessary to give background. Basically Taiwan has never really been itself, but has constantly been passed from other ruling nations. The Spanish came first, then the Dutch in 1642. Twenty years later in 1662 the Ming Dynasty from China defeated the Dutch and took control of Taiwan. They were defeated by another Chinese Dynasty, this time the Qing’s. Their influence in Taiwan continued right up until 1895. This was the first war between Japan and China, and Japan won. This meant they took control of Taiwan. This continued right up until the second war between China and Japan, which was still in full flow when the second world war broke out in Europe. Taiwan was used as a military base for Japanese troops, and many Taiwanese people were enlisted to fight for Japan. When Japan lost out the allied forces, the treaties released Taiwan, gave it some nominal protection, but handed it over to Chinese rule once again. In 1949 the KMT (the ruling party in China) lost control of mainland China and so came to Taiwan and declared martial law. Chinese forces came over to Taiwan, and were oppressive to the Taiwanese. Important, controversial, popular or successful people just disappeared. There were massacres and at one point the Chinese forces stormed one of the PCT theological colleges and staff disappeared. After 40 years of martial law under the single-party KMT reforms came about and in 1996 the first presidential election was held and the non-KMT party were elected (DPP). Recently (last year) power shifted again back to the KMT. It is very complicated, but in general the KMT work for unification with China and the DPP for indepence. At the moment, whilst the government is independent and elected democratically, China still holds many of the puppet strings. Because China is a member of the UN, Taiwan isn’t - apparently China are able to ‘look after’ Taiwan. Recently a film was shown in Taiwan about the plight of a Tibetan Nun. China didn’t approve of the film and so threatened that they would damage Taiwan’s tourism industries. Flights to Taiwan only began a few years ago, controlled by China. And so the subtle list continues. But a word of caution is needed here - I am hearing but one voice. It is an important voice to hear, but it is only one.

And so I’ve been told several times now in Taiwan that ‘politics’ is only politics if you oppose the current government. If, as a group or organisation, you support the current government then you are simply existing and can do good work. However if you oppose the government, you are being ‘political’ and are often told to stay out of ‘politics’.

The stories that Hsinte tells me from the news continue to baffle me. It is a democratic society, yet on the day before elections there are means and ways of recieveing payments to cast a vote in a particular way, through the Mah Jong or through, suprisingly, weddings. I didn’t realise this when I went to the wedding last week, but each guest prepares a ‘red envelope’. This, I presumed was like a wedding present. Which it is, except it goes to pay for the banquet. However its up to you how much money you give - so if you want to pass a large some of money to someone you attend their daughters wedding, and put as much as you like in the red envelope. hmmm.. Another nice element of political corruption is the financial markets and banking. When a member of the government retires they get a lump sum payment, a considerable lump sum payment. They can put this in a bank account, and because of they were in governemnt they can recieve an 18% fixed interest rate while everyone else struggles by with the flexible 1% at the moment. Another little snippet… opposition parties (I think this was during the last opposition campaign by the KMT, who are now in power) get their very rich members (and their old members who have the lump sums stored in 18% bank account) to get the money into the stock market. Before they do so the politicians work to disable the economy thus lowering share prices, they buy, then magically the stock market recovers and grows, and they sell. All of sudden they have the money they need for a political campaign. Nice. It makes me ashamed of the UK getting so angry at the politicians for fiddling housing benefits and who pays for the moat to be cleaned.

And so my meanderings on the liberation view continue. I have a lot of respect for the PCT, despite feeling uncomfortable about its involvement in ‘politics’ (the taiwanese definition, ie in opposition). Before I theologise and theorise it has been important for me to learn of the history. In a way the PCT was thrust into the political sphere when the KMT troops stormed their theological college and their staff and students disappeared in the 40’s and when they arrested the General Secretary and his secretary in the 70’s.

As for Taiwan itself, it has the label of being democratic and so perhaps the world is blind to the political situation here, and perhaps internationally more needs to be said about the freedom of the Taiwanese people. But there is a whole new phrase ‘Taiwanese people’ - Who are they? The indigenous populations, those whose families originate in China, those whose families originate in Japan? And at this point its beginning to sound too much like a dissertation for a geography essay on identity, and so I hand over to Jo…..

This entry was posted on 31/10/2009 at 04:51 am and is filed under Paul's diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.