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China Bans Game Recognizing Taiwan Independence
OhioJoe writes "MSNBC is reporting that China has banned a soccer game that depicts Taiwan as independent. Violators are threatened with $1200 fines. From the article: "The game, 'Soccer Manager 2005', contained content that harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and violated Chinese law, the Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday."
Well I am Chinese though I was not raised in China. Most Chinese I know from the mainland support the reunification with Taiwan. According to Taiwanese, about half of Taiwanese support China and half don't. It's rather funny as there is one Taiwanese here who does support China and the other doesn't and they hate each other's guts. The other funniest moment in the Taiwan debate was in a Chinese forum where I saw someone from the mainland accuse the Taiwanese of being a "Han traitor" (I thought that no-one used that term anymore outside of period dramas. Then again I know mainland Chinese still read classical poems).
Westerners really don't understand the Chinese mentality. Chinese thinking is cyclical and long-term. As the famous line in Three Kingdoms goes,
"Domains under heaven, after a long period of union, tends to divide; after a long period of division, tends to unite." Division and reunification are important elements of how Chinese believe the world works. Many Chinese don't see the current situation in terms of the present, they take the long-term view which for Chinese is that the Han Chinese on Taiwan will eventully be reunited with China because that's how it has always worked in the past. It is true that many times splinter kingdoms of Han Chinese have broken off and were reunited by military force. Anyway, the point is the Chinese on the mainland think that reunification is inevitable. It might not happen soon but it will happen. This puts a cramp on negotiations as you can imagine. The most important thing to remember is that Chinese often see present events as filtered through thousands of years of Chinese imperial history.
The second thing is that to Chinese division is seen as bad and unification is good. (I suspect this comes from the misery of multiple civil wars). Hence there are strong elements of "using force for their (the Taiwanese) own good". There is a strong belief amognst mainland Chinese that the reunification of Taiwan with China will actually *benefit* the Taiwanese because the horrible division will be healed and the Han Chinese can act together as one unit to take on the world stronger than ever, together. They will cite China's growing economic and military power as signs of how the Taiwanese will benefit with joining with China. There is a belief that most Taiwanese support reunification and it is interference of a few mischief makers and US interference that is stopping the masses in Taiwan from joing with China. They take me aside and tell me that patriots in Taiwan are stealing technology secrets and passing them to China as a sign of their loyalty. A similar but different attitude can be seen in regards to places like Tibet. It is believed that before the Chinese takeover, the people of Tibet where barbaric savages living horrible miserable little lives where they are starving and oppressed. Now the Chinese government is taking over, the wonders of Chinese civilisation is being brought to them and they are now becoming educated civilised people who are capable of living in the modern world and are much happier than they were before.
Now before you laugh at this, please compare the Chinese attitude to the US attitude to Iraq.
As for Tiannamen. Many Chinese believe that the government was right in doing what they did. The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact. The students were no more than a filthy band of rebels who were trying to take power as has happened many times in Chinese history. It's sad that the Chinese government had to use force but really the students' brought it on themselves.
There is really very little support for Communism BTW. Most of the support is based on (1) Nationalism (2) Paranoia towards the west derived from Western colonialism in the 19th century (3) Traditional Chinese political values and Confucian principles and (4) Desire for a stable government for peace and prosperity. I sense very little desire for democracy and freedom. As I have been asked, "What will democracy do for us?"
My ex-girlfriend was Chinese. There were some interesting things that came out of that:
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