A week or so before the inauguration of Lai Ching-te as the new president of the Republic of China, the bullying mainland government announced that it was sanctioning five well-known Taiwanese commentators and would also be acting to punish all “separatists” in Taiwan (“China Sanctions Political Pundits in Taiwan to Pressure Lai,” Bloomberg, May 15, 2024).
The pundits’ remarks “deceived some people on the island, incited hostility and confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and hurt the feelings of compatriots on both sides,” Chen Binhua, spokesman for the government department in Beijing that handles affairs related to Taiwan, said at a press briefing on Wednesday.
The five are regulars on political talk shows on the island of 23 million people that Beijing has pledged to bring under its control someday, by force if necessary.
The moves by Beijing are an early signal that its relations with Lai, the current vice president who will be sworn in as the new leader on Monday, are likely to be as fraught as they have been under President Tsai Ing-wen for the past eight years….
One of them, Lee Cheng-hao [shown above], started his show Wednesday with a long laugh over the sanctions…
Sanctions from China have become something of a status symbol within the DPP. “Congratulations!” party spokesman Wu Cheng said on social media to the five pundits.
Chen did not give details of the sanctions, but they may entail being barred from going to the mainland, which, Bloomberg notes, would be “mostly symbolic since the commentators are unlikely to travel to China or do business there.”
It seems that, to China, the feelings of “compatriots”—i.e., persons who don’t mind being oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party—are all-important. How does one soothe the hurt feelings of “compatriots” and make sure not to bruise their feelings in future? The only answer is by uttering only the CCP party line whenever one speaks, including by saying how great it would be for Taiwan to turn itself over to the mainland.
If this kind of abject submission doesn’t seem viable, go ahead and hurt “compatriot” feelings.
Chen Binhua, spokesman for China’s Taiwan-affairs-handling department, also declared that Lai must choose between peace and “the evil path of provocation and confrontation.” Instead, presumably, Lai should be a humble and empathetic reconciler like China and Chen. If there’s anything that the People’s Republic of China and its diplomats, like this Chen fellow, would never ever do is provoke and confront.
Also see:
StopTheChinazis.org: China’s Wolf Warrior Diplomacy and Its Near Relations
StopTheChinazis.org: Wolf Warrior or Thug Diplomat? The Incident at Chinese Consulate in Manchester
