Kevin Yin's Blog #1 for POLS 170, 2/1/22

 Kevin Yin’s Blog #1 for POLS 170, 2/1/22


We have been discussing so many concepts and examples in these two weeks. The most interesting part that comes to my mind will be the relationship between China and Taiwan, or Hongkong. As a person who grew up in China for 20 years (had been studying in the U.S. for four years for high school, though), I have a wide angle to observe the reaction of different forces and the trends in those kinds of problems.

As the discussion we had in our class and the idea Prof. Shirk stated, Taiwan is supposed to be treated as an independent country(state) because it has its own government. Furthermore, that government is able to keep the whole place in order, which should not be defined as the term “anarchy”. This should not be a snarled problem, at least not a complicated issue to observe from the sideline. However, the join of some international relationships makes the purpose and the property of this case chaotic.

Public opinions, as we all know, are an extremely influential tool for the governors of a state or a country. I lived in China for quite a long time, and I have heard surrounding people or social media accusing the power trying to split Taiwan from China heaps of times. When I was just a kid, I did not have the ability to think about the nature of those phenomena. Actually, even for lots of adults, they will not ever rethink the things and trends that were told by the media. Owing to the existence of international relationships, the media sometimes has to be a tool to instill something into the people in this country. On this kind of conceptual argument, what the media in China did was to shift from the focus of Taiwan’s political situation to the American manipulation, which could arouse the nationalist sentiment easily. 

The reason why I am so concerned about the international relationships here and the power of the media is the consequences and the current situation. Majority of the people cannot stand on a relatively objective standpoint to discuss news topics, they might not want to be objective, either. That is an unhealthy condition for those unresolved international problems. The ordinary people will find it even harder to think in a logical and conceptual way about those topics. Reducing the ability and motivation to do intellectual thinking of people is a convenient way to manage them. In a word, the only thing here is to incite hostile emotion towards “hostile country(forces)”: in this case, the force will be considered as the U.S.. Whether we admit it or not, Taiwan has built its own government and operated by itself for quite a long time. Interestingly, if the news mentioned words like “The Ministry of Education” or “The Ministry of Economic Affair”, those words will be “quoted” in Chinese media or news reports. Why? Because those words sounded like an independent country, but those ministries, in reality, did exist in Taiwan for years. For the word like “The Ministry of National Defense” would be even worse. 

I am glad to have the chance to step into an objective platform to discuss those IR and political problems. Even though this blog is kind of distracting from the reading materials, I just feel a lot to write down when I heard classmates mentioning this argument. Also, I want to throw a question here: “Does this argument still have reference value in the following history process? I feel like the conceptual and reasonable part in this case is getting weaker and weaker. The remaining part is mainly about the ‘dirty’ political conflict of national interest.”

Comments

  1. Grant VoytovichFebruary 2, 2022 at 6:06 AM

    Great read Kevin! Can you please further explain what is going on in China and Taiwan? Does Taiwan want to be its own separate country, but China doesn't want them to leave?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kevin YinFebruary 7, 2022 at 9:45 AM

      Thanks for reading! Yes, but actually there are more complex than we imagined. Taiwan has been in that situation for quite a long time, and China doesn't want that to happen, as you said. You might be curious about the truth here. I will say: there is no real justice in this issue. Lots of powers have taken a hand in already. In the early time, as you heard of, the invasion toward China took a lot including several places. However, during the renaissance, several lost places actually developed much more comfortable than they were belong to China. The injustice here currently, in my opinion, is mainly because Taiwan became a “chess piece" of the U.S. and China. The GDP of Taiwan has decreased gradually for a long period of time, the governor in Taiwan gave up on resisting China from retrieving it back. All the actions of Taiwan nowadays are based on the U.S.'s support. Therefore, the problem now is not simply "want to be a separate country but China doesn't allow" but related to the interests of diverse forces.

      Delete
  2. John WallaceFebruary 8, 2022 at 2:10 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John WallaceFebruary 8, 2022 at 2:11 PM

      This is a really interesting take on Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. It makes a lot more sense when it's put this way-

      If Taiwan 'declares' independence and renounces its claims on china proper. It would put an end to the political limbo that it's existed in four decades, but it would also firmly place it into the American sphere of influence. If this happened, the USA would have a sort of 'shield' to contain China with Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.

      Both sides are against the current status quo, yet it seems that no solution will be found for the foreseeable future. What do you think? Will it continue? Will Taiwan unite with China or will it declare itself as an independent nation?

      Delete
    2. Kevin YinFebruary 9, 2022 at 6:12 PM

      In my own opinion, I believe the situation will last for at least a decade. It is both painful and ashamed for the U.S. and China to make any concession on Taiwan's problem. As I said in the passage and the reply to Grant, this problem has already been complicated way too much. What I strongly feel here is that, as a common person, I don't feel comfortable with any sides on this argument. "Politics is often dirty." Upper people always use any available resource to take control of common people, especially of their minds. Sorry to be a little pessimistic and mean here. :)

      Delete

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