In December 2018, my siblings, my brother-in-law, my girlfriend and I embarked on a trip to Taipei and Bangkok for the holidays. Starting in the Fall of 2018, I began periodically sending out a periodical for our group, The Taipei 5, in order to get us informed and excited about the regions we’d be visiting. Each volume contained just a handful of recent media links that I would then provide thematic background for. Posted here post-trip for posterity are the four volumes I prepared. In each volume, I may add some new comments in italics that reflect a deeper or revised understanding of what I thought before the trip.
August 6th, 2018
Members,
Below are two articles from this weekend with Taiwan related news. Interestingly, the three largest cultural influences on the island (The Mainland, Japan and the USA) are tangible forces in each story.
Fascinating plans for a China “Chunnel” that will not happen anytime soon. Even though it may not be financially or politically feasible, this type of project tells you a lot about the kinds of pressure and control China would like to have over the region.
Something like this project seems farther away than ever. President Xi and President Tsai recently traded barbs over the fate of the island and tensions are higher than normal. Even more interesting: though Tsai presided over massive electoral losses in the November election, recent polling suggests that more Taiwanese than ever (approximately 47%) expect Taiwanese independence to take place in the future and reject the “one-China” principle. I suspect cross-strait tensions and support for independence are linked and are likely to temper down, but the long term trend points to some sort of independence referendum down the line. If such a referendum were to happen, this would become the most important story in the world and the most challenging nexus point yet for the US and China’s struggle for geopolitical dominance.
Really funny piece. I did not know that Baseball was transmitted to Taiwan by Japan and not the US. One thing that you will see when you watch the Taiwanese movies pre-trip is how much Japan shaped the island in its imperial image and how (and why) this image lingers to this day. We tend to use shorthand and think of Japan as a major importer of US culture and ideals, both in the industrial revolution and in the post-war era, but this missed a lot and is by no means the end of the story. Perhaps we should really be thinking about Japan as both a cultural synthesizer and exporter. Not only is Japan historically a major conduit for “western” values and trade in East Asia, you could argue that what they are demonstrating (or demonstrated decades ago) to Taiwan, South Korean, Vietnam, etc is that you can absorb these western values, achieve great prosperity and not lose your identity along the way.
On a separate note, I didn’t know that aging MLB baseball players go to Japan and Taiwan to retire. You see the same thing with NBA players in China and obviously soccer players here in the US. When you’r rich but suck at the sport, just overpay for old stars! We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for some Elephant Brothers jerseys. . .
I also devised a list of Taiwanese films and books to read pre-trip, hence the reference to movies. On the Japanese front, I did not have the data to back up my assertions at the time, but I do now. Joe Studwell’s How Asia Works is an excellent primer on how and why North-East (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China) and South-East Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines) developed so differently in the 20th century. One of the major takeaways is how the northern group followed Japan’s and Germany’s pre-war developmental examples in employing land reform and “export discipline,” while the southern group did not. It’s obviously more complicated, with Western intervention playing an important supporting role, but the fundamental story is consistent on an economic level for each stage of development. We did not see any Elephant Brothers jerseys. . .
Enjoy!
-Max
Partial Review 