北京無權奪取美麗島的土地與人民

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此時此刻，這篇專文在華盛頓郵報刊出，有如荒漠綠洲，曠野甘霖，讓美國讀者了解，為何台灣最近這麼夯！

http://www.peoplenews.tw/news/833feb10-1ed8-43ae-be06-a5363e54ea81

楊小娜：北京無權奪取美麗島的土地與人民

許銘洲/編譯 2016-12-13 04:25

近來美中2國眾聲喧嘩，紛紛藉台灣大做文章，甚至將台灣視為2國貿易談判籌碼。以英文小說《綠島》（Green Island，2016）聞名的台美人女性作家楊小娜（Shawna Yang Ryan），12月9日於《華盛頓郵報》（The Washington Post），發表一篇文章，名為「擁有人民與歷史的台灣國，並非（美中）的外交麻煩」（Taiwan is a country with history and people. It’s not just a diplomatic nuisance.），內容指陳，台灣人民與歷史主體性，不應在美中角過程，遭到淹沒；北京也沒有正當性「和平統一」或「武力收復」臺灣；因為中國並不擁有台灣主權，不論是國民黨或共產黨政權；真正擁有台灣的是，美麗島住民以及島上人民的意向與願望。

依照《馬關條約》，日本於1895年從清朝手中取得台灣統治權，直到1945年日本戰敗，宣佈放棄台灣主權為止；隨後，台灣落入當時控制中國全境的國民黨（KMT）手中

國民黨取得台灣統治權，並非透過國際條約授權，而是1948年內戰敗北之後，這個流亡政權，強行佔領台灣。K黨佔台之後，把台灣當成反攻中國大陸的跳板，全面進行洗腦教育，強力推行華語，禁止公開講台灣話、方言；還用中國史觀取代台灣史觀，這套蔣家王朝的專制統治，直到1987年才宣佈解除戒嚴。

台灣、中國互不隸屬

台灣並非從中國分離出去的一省，台灣本來就是個獨立區域；蔣介石政權帶著200萬流亡軍兵百姓，逃到台灣強行進駐。當時早就有600萬台灣人，住在這塊土地，而且深受日本50年來的文化影響。雙方由於文化歷史差異（例如，中國經歷了8年抗日），造成不少磨擦衝突。

專文指出，許多外媒用1949年做為中台關係的分界點，並用「分離」（split）、「重新統一」（reunification）觀點，來界定中台關係，並不符合事實（譯註：即將台灣界定為中國內戰恩怨歷史之延伸），也形同「消除」台灣做為「歷史實存」的主體性。

悲愴記憶

台灣這個島上數千年來總共住著16支南島語族（Austronesian）；其中的莫那魯道是南投賽德克族的領袖之一，他在1930年發動一場反日本殖民的武裝抗暴；日本則派遣2倍的優勢兵力，並動用駭人聽聞的芥子毒氣（mustard gas，即糜爛性毒氣彈），來殲滅賽德克的武裝反抗者；莫那魯道戰到最後，寧死不屈自殺身亡；其遺體甚至還被拿出來公開展示，以昭炯戒；莫那魯道的圖像目前被鑄進台灣20圓硬幣，表示對於先賢的尊崇。

日治時代的痛苦經歷，還包括台灣被迫講日語，取日本姓名；年輕人被徵調上戰場，以生命血稅償付來證明自己的忠誠；一些年輕女性也被強徵淪為戰士洩慾的慰安婦。

戰後

1945年日本戰敗後，部分台灣人期待有朝一日能夠實現美式民主；結果卻遭到K黨政權的血腥鎮壓。

1947年的二二八事件導火線，起因於台北專賣局武裝查緝員，查獲一名育有一子一女的40歲寡婦林江邁販賣私菸，查緝員欲沒收林婦全部香菸，以及身上所有錢財，導致群情激憤，衝突中造成民眾一死一傷，史稱「緝菸血案」。隨後，台灣全島暴動，K黨則展開長達月餘的大屠殺，約有3萬台灣人遭謀殺，或被迫失踪。

二二八大屠殺事件之後的白色恐怖時期，起碼仍有20幾萬台灣人，遭監禁、執刑或強迫失踪。長達38年的軍事戒嚴，導致台灣人的言論空間，滿佈著尖刺鐵棘藜；甚至到了戒嚴解除，長期遭到噤聲的創傷恐懼，仍在台灣島嶼上空，縈繞徘徊。

展望

僅管，憶及過往先人悲痛足跡，我們卻不該忘卻歷史。被雨洗刷過的天空逐漸浮出清晰圖像，如今的台灣已蛻變為民主國家，擁有新聞自由，全民健保，總統民選，並在今年1月間選出台灣第一位女性總統，這是台灣韌性活力所獲致的可觀成就，值得認同、喝采。誠然，改變外交空間，以及恢復台灣應有的國際地位，勢難彈指之間得到翻轉；我們能夠做的是，理解台灣歷史困境，並從中凝聚台灣人民對於未來的真切熱望。

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/09/taiwan-is-a-country-with-history-and-people-its-not-just-a-diplomatic-nuisance/?utm_term=.77e8f830af3a

Taiwan is a country with history and people. It’s not just a diplomatic nuisance.

Trump's controversial phone call is a chance for us to talk about Taiwan for Taiwan's sake.

By Shawna Yang Ryan December 9 

Shawna Yang Ryan, a former Fulbright scholar, is the author of “Water Ghosts” and “Green Island” and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

In third grade, I received a school assignment to interview a family member. I chose my mother, who had immigrated to the United States after marrying my white American father. We began with a simple question.

“Where were you born?”

“Taiwan,” my mother answered.

No, I argued. I had seen it with my own eyes: “Republic of China” in sharp black ink on the letters and packages my grandmother sent. I insisted that she was from China. She tried to explain the difference between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China, but I could not comprehend how a place could be called China but not be China. The interview ended there, at the first question, with my mother frustrated and me in tears.

This past week, reading news accounts and analysis of President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial phone call with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, it was my turn to feel frustrated. Taiwan was discussed primarily as an appendage of U.S.-China relations, an irritant in the delicate relationship between two countries. “Bargaining chip” has been a common descriptor of Taiwan’s role. A flood of headlines reorients the attention on China: “Trump’s Phone Call To Taiwan’s Leader Risks China Tensions.” “Trump’s Taiwan call shows China he’s not a pushover.” “The Taiwan call was no ‘courtesy’—Donald Trump means to wreck US–China relations.” A former Asia director at the National Security Council, Evan Medeiros,said of the call, “Trump is setting a foundation of enduring mistrust and strategic competition for US-China relations.” Even those who supported the call made it about China. On Twitter, New York Representative Pete King called it a “strong message to China.”

What is the story behind Trump's phone call with Taiwan?

The Washington Post’s Jia Lynn Yang explains the back story on relations between the U.S., China and Taiwan and the ramifications of Friday's telephone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. (Alice Li, Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Even though Trump’s repudiation of diplomatic protocol is troubling, this is a long overdue chance for us to return our attention to Taiwan for Taiwan’s sake and reconsider America’s outdated position on it.

When I started working on my novel “Green Island,” set in Taiwan during the second half of the 20th century, I had to wade through the history of words used to describe it. Free China. Chinese Taipei. Republic of China. Taiwan. Reunification. Unification. Province. Country. I have watched the media struggle through this negotiation around language in the past week. In the clamor to parse what China will do, orwhat this means for America, the perspectives and stories of the people of Taiwan have been ignored.

From 1895 to 1945, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Taiwan was a colony of Japan, acquired from the Qing Empire. When Japan gave up its colonies at the end of World War II, the Kuomintang (KMT), also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party, which then ruled China, took control.

One of Chiang Kai-shek’s most successful projects after the KMT occupied Taiwan was revamping the educational system. Not only did the KMT enforce Mandarin language use, but it also replaced Taiwan’s history with China’s. This erasure continued throughout Chiang’s authoritarian regime and over 38 years of martial law.

The end of World War II also saw the resumption of the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT. Losing the Chinese Civil War, the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949, establishing the island as its base for the Republic of China with a plan to return and rule China again. There was no “split” but rather a retreat by KMT members and their families, around 2 million people, to Taiwan, where nearly 6 million people already lived.  Having recently emerged from 50 years of Japanese colonialism, the Taiwanese encountered considerable friction with the newly arrived Chinese, who had spent eight years fighting the Japanese.

This is why words matter when it comes to Taiwan. Much of the coverage describes Taiwan’s history as if it began in 1949. Using words like “split” and “reunification” effaces the history that existed before that. I can’t help but think about what stories get lost.

For example, the story of Mona Rudao, chief of the Seediq tribe, one of 16 indigenous groups of Austronesian heritage that have inhabited Taiwan for thousands of years. In 1930, Rudao led an armed resistance against the Japanese colonizers. The Japanese countered with double the forces and mustard gas bombs in such an appalling display of violence that their policies regarding the indigenous population would subsequently be revised. Rudao killed himself to avoid being caught, and his remains were put on display as warning to other would-be rebels. His image now graces the 20 Taiwanese-dollar coin.

We lose the story of the painful Japanization movement, during which Taiwan’s people were forced to speak Japanese and take Japanese names. Young men conscripted into the Japanese army paid a “blood tax” by proving their loyalty to Japan with their lives. Young women were forced to serve soldiers as sex slaves.

Also gone is the story of the people who wished for American-style democracy after the Japanese colonists left in 1945, only to have their hopes crushed by the Kuomintang forces.

A narrow view of history makes it easier to forget Feb. 28, 1947, when protests began in response to the beating by Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents of a young widow selling black-market cigarettes — the kind of tragic encounter that surely resonates in contemporary America. The KMT responded with a month-long massacre in which as many as 30,000 Taiwanese were murdered or disappeared to suppress resistance to its authority.

And it erases the tens of thousands imprisoned and executed during the decades of terror that followed the massacre. For nearly 40 years, the people of Taiwan had barbed wire wrapped around their tongues as they were forbidden to speak of the horrors committed by Chiang and his men. The sorrow of that era still lingers: Martial law ended only in 1987. Claiming that Taiwan’s history begins in 1949 is a second silencing.

Finally, we can’t forget that despite this painful history, Taiwan transformed itself into a democracy, with freedom of the press, universal health care and a democratically elected female president. These are achievements of resilience we should recognize and applaud.

We can’t change policy in a day, or reinstate recognition of Taiwan with a snap of our fingers (or a phone call), but we can at least do the honest work of understanding the nuances of the history of Taiwan and its people.