Topic: Why can't Taiwanese people accept their Chinese heritage?

godofthunder9010 · April 12th, 2005

The contrast is at least interesting. China seems to still have the "Middle Kingdom on the brain." By that, I mean that there is still a strong sentiment that nothing outside China is useful to China and everything from China is better than anything the rest of the world has. It seems less prevalent now that it once was, certainly. Yet there seems to be this strange sentiment that, "Someday we'll once again be the Middle Kingdom. All the world will once again bow before us and we can then return to our comfortable attitude toward the outside world: 'We are better than all other nations and there is nothing useful that the rest of the world can offer China.' "

The Boxer Rebellion and Opium War and a long list of other events were the wakeup calls that China and her government missed completely. Even worse, they brutally subdued anyone promoting the idea of "Westernizing" or "modernizing" in any fashion. After getting pumelled time and time again, the Qing Dynasty crumbles and Sun Yat-sen rises to power. Sun works to try to modernize. He, Chaing KaiShek and Mao Zedong all had one helluva fight to try to get the Chinese people to accept the idea of modernizing. Now contrast that with Japan, who very quickly recognized that they were WAY behind. So what did they do? They made the determination that they would adopt Western Culture as the means to surpassing the West in every way possible. Beating them at their own game, in essence. That attitude has worked to make Japan one of the most modern and technologically advanced nations in the world. There have been many wrong steps, but the end result can only be called a brilliant success, overall.

So my main point: Why cry "traitor" at Taiwan for adopting the things that made the Western Powers truly powerful? Why call names at all? Would it not be better to learn from them?

April 12th, 2005
godofthunder9010	The contrast is at least interesting. China seems to still have the "Middle Kingdom on the brain." By that, I mean that there is still a strong sentiment that nothing outside China is useful to China and everything from China is better than anything the rest of the world has. It seems less prevalent now that it once was, certainly. Yet there seems to be this strange sentiment that, "Someday we'll once again be the Middle Kingdom. All the world will once again bow before us and we can then return to our comfortable attitude toward the outside world: 'We are better than all other nations and there is nothing useful that the rest of the world can offer China.' " The Boxer Rebellion and Opium War and a long list of other events were the wakeup calls that China and her government missed completely. Even worse, they brutally subdued anyone promoting the idea of "Westernizing" or "modernizing" in any fashion. After getting pumelled time and time again, the Qing Dynasty crumbles and Sun Yat-sen rises to power. Sun works to try to modernize. He, Chaing KaiShek and Mao Zedong all had one helluva fight to try to get the Chinese people to accept the idea of modernizing. Now contrast that with Japan, who very quickly recognized that they were WAY behind. So what did they do? They made the determination that they would adopt Western Culture as the means to surpassing the West in every way possible. Beating them at their own game, in essence. That attitude has worked to make Japan one of the most modern and technologically advanced nations in the world. There have been many wrong steps, but the end result can only be called a brilliant success, overall. So my main point: Why cry "traitor" at Taiwan for adopting the things that made the Western Powers truly powerful? Why call names at all? Would it not be better to learn from them? "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." - General Robert E. Lee Warning, critical pebkac error in the iD10t!! pebkac\wtflolurpwnzd\snafuroflmao.exe called iD10t, iD10t failed to respond!! System in danger!! "It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong. I am NOT a big man." -Chevy Chase