wfn.org | Taiwanese Isolation Seems like "Apartheid," Says Church Official

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

15-July-1999 
99230 
 
    Taiwanese Isolation Seems like "Apartheid," 
    Says Church Official 
 
    Ecumenical Leaders Say Formal Recognition Would Jeopardize 
    China Relations 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
TAIPEI--A leading Taiwanese church official has called on churches 
world-wide to help end Taiwan's "invisibility" and "isolation." 
 
    Even though Taiwan in practice functions as an independent country, the 
People's Republic of China, only 130 kilometers away, regards Taiwan as a 
renegade province, and looks forward to the day when it can gain 
sovereignty over the island. 
 
    Referring to the refusal of the world's major powers to support efforts 
aiming at the recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation with a seat at 
the United Nations, William J. K. Lo, general secretary of the Presbyterian 
Church in Taiwan (PCT), said July 1: "We [the people of Taiwan] are 
isolated from the international community.  Only 27 countries have 
diplomatic ties with Taiwan.  Twenty-two million people [the population of 
Taiwan] are isolated from the international community.  It seems to be a 
new form of apartheid." 
 
    William Lo, who became general secretary of Taiwan's biggest Protestant 
church last year, was speaking to the 35 members of the executive committee 
of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) on the first day of their 
11-day annual meeting, one of the most important international church 
gatherings ever to be held in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.  The PCT is 
one of the 214 churches world-wide which belong to WARC. 
 
    The PCT, which  is  also a member of the World Council of Churches 
(WCC), plays a leading role in the campaign for Taiwanese independence. 
 
    For WARC, the WCC and other major church bodies, the Vatican included, 
the status of Taiwan is one of the thorniest contemporary political issues. 
If WARC or the WCC were to publicly call for Taiwan to be given a seat at 
the United Nations - one of the most fervent desires of the PCT and of many 
Taiwanese - they would jeopardize their links with the China Christian 
Council, the main Protestant organization in China. 
 
    Since the 1997 return of Hong Kong sovereignty to China, the 
possibility of Taiwan undergoing the same fate looks all the more tempting 
to China and all the more horrifying to many Taiwanese. 
 
    Taiwan's astonishing commercial success - despite its small size of 
36,000 square kilometers, it is a major manufacturer and exporter - makes 
it all the more attractive to China. 
 
    "According to a recent newspaper report, 100 missiles in southern China 
are aimed at Taiwan," Lo told the WARC delegates yesterday.  "There is 
insecurity in our people's minds." 
 
    A formal declaration of Taiwanese independence is considered likely to 
provoke an invasion by the People's Liberation Army, and Beijing refuses to 
have any dealings with nations which have diplomatic missions in Taipei. 
The 27 nations which recognize Taiwan are mostly small nation-states, such 
as Nauru and some central American countries which receive aid from 
Taipei.  The Vatican also recognizes Taipei and has a diplomatic mission 
here, though there have been recent reports that the Holy See would like to 
switch its diplomatic mission to Beijing instead, in a bid to increase 
contact with Catholics in mainland China. 
 
    According to Lo, the position of the Taiwanese government is that there 
is "one China, two countries." 
 
    At various times over the past centuries Taiwan has been controlled by 
European colonizers, China, and Japan.  After the rise of communism in 
mainland China, the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chiang Kai-shek, 
took refuge here in late 1949 but claimed to be the rightful government of 
the mainland.  In the late 1940s about 1.5 million Chinese, including 
600,000 soldiers, moved here from the mainland. 
 
    But most of Taiwan's ethnic Chinese are descended from people who 
migrated here hundreds of years ago, and many have inter-married with the 
nation's small indigenous population which has lived here for thousands of 
years. 
 
    The members of WARC's executive committee were reminded many times 
during their stay here, both in public meetings with the PCT, which is 
hosting the WARC meeting, and in informal discussions with PCT members, 
that Taiwanese people do not see themselves as Chinese. 
 
    "Taiwanese people are not Chinese," one PCT official announced from the 
rostrum during the official church service to open the WARC meeting. 
"Taiwan does not belong to China." 
 
    Lo told the WARC delegates: "I was born here in 1941 and had a Japanese 
name.  [Japan controlled Taiwan for 50 years until its defeat at the end of 
the Second World War.]  I was educated as a Chinese.  But I pray God to be 
affirmed as 100 per cent Taiwanese.  I am not nobody.  We are not nobody. 
We are Taiwanese.  Pray for us." 
 
    Lo told ENI that WARC had made statements praising the PCT's work for 
social justice -- the church, which has 220,000 members and has a prominent 
social and political role here, is deeply committed to the poor and to 
working for sick and marginalized people within Taiwanese society. 
 
    But Lo said he wished that the support of WARC and the WCC extended 
further.  "We wish these church bodies would speak up for our rights as a 
member of the community of nations," William Lo told ENI.  "We are a de 
facto independent nation.  "My main point is that because of its isolation, 
Taiwan has become a temptation to China.  Taiwan is like a young lady 
walking alone at night." 
 
    He told ENI that, like his two predecessors as general secretary of the 
PCT, he had been "blacklisted" by Beijing and could not visit the mainland. 
"We [Taiwanese] are a peace-loving people.  We are brothers and sisters [to 
the Chinese].  Why not respect each other?" 
 
    In 1895, when it lost the first Sino-Japanese war, China had handed 
Taiwan over to Japan "in perpetuity."  For the Taiwanese, Lo said, this 
meant that China had forfeited its claim to Taiwan. 
 
    He said he had been told by WCC officials that it would cause 
"embarrassment" for the WCC to support Taiwan's call for UN membership, and 
that the issue was too "political." 
 
    "How can a church body divide politics and human rights?" he said. 
 
    Milan Opocensky, general secretary of WARC, told ENI that the issue of 
Taiwan would be discussed during the executive committee meeting.  A WARC 
executive committee member told ENI that Taiwan would be better advised to 
try to achieve its aims by diplomatic means. 

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