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Monday, December 01, 2008 The China Desk sees my true colors: White, white, and whiteNow, for a little self-flagellation. This is from May. I didn't see it because, at the time, I was in Thailand at the East West Center's Summer Institute for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights: The Only Redhead in Taiwan [sic!] yet another predictable "China is bad" blog by yet another expat Taiwan independence fellow traveler As some of you might remember, at the time, I had referenced some posts written by Mr. Chu at the China Desk, trying to make an argument for why I disagreed with him in hopes of starting a dialogue between two people with different perspectives on the same subject. I got emails from a lot of people saying I was wasting my time with Chu--an American whose late father was Tsing-kang Chu, a long-serving diplomat under Chiang-Kai Shek--but I figured I would try. I didn't expect to change Mr. Chu's opinion on anything, but I supposed that if anyone was going to tell me I was wrong, it would be him. In my search for criticism in what is arguably a green-leaning English blogosphere in Taiwan, I thought I had found the most likely person to school me the hard way in the perspectives of the under-represented. I can't help but think though, that anyone who would files this site under "'China is bad' blog" and me as a "Taiwan independence fellow traveller" has trouble distinguishing anything on the spectrum between black and white. [I'd love proof of these claims, as (1) for some time I've thought (erroneously) that I was fascinated by China and Asia in general, despite having problems with many government policies--as I do with every other country, indiscriminately, especially my own--and (2) it's news to me that being neither for or against China-Taiwan unification is pro-Independence, unless believing that the Taiwanese should be allowed to choose for themselves automatically makes me pro-Independence, which would mean that Chu doesn't believe the Taiwanese would choose to become part of China.] Though Chu never addressed any of my arguments and only did so once that I can find when I left comments on his site, I will say--in my "magnanimity"--that I learned a lot from him and the biting comments that conspicuously started popping up on my site after my indirect correspondences with him: It was, after all, through those comments that I began to see a correlation with what I was studying at the seminar in Thailand. Studying human rights with people from all over Asia, I was concentrating on America's role in many of these issues while also running over the comments about "expats"--who are apparently so similar one to another that they can be easily grouped together--and I got to thinking about all the people who come abroad, hoping to make things better for others, but who rarely are ever anything more than outsiders. It was then that I decided that the best thing for me to do would be to try to change what I can about how America interacts with the world, rather than lending a hand to causes in other parts of the world. Though I already knew I would apply for graduate programs in international relations this coming January, it was there, in Thailand, that I decided that my studies would focus on American foreign policy and how the negative consequences of past exceptionalist policies--which are now arguably greater than they've ever been--can be minimized. In the end, if I tried to go anywhere else, no matter how hard I worked or how good my intentions, I would always be an outsider. Of course, in whatever I do, I look forward to travelling and working with people all over the world on the problems that transcend the borders and identities we draw around ourselves, like terrorism and climate change. This is my passion, and no one should get the wrong idea that anyone can that. Anyhow, thank you, Bevin Chu, for doing that little bit of sorting out for me. Feel free to comment any time, send me emails, or write about me on your site, as I always need to challange my perspectives. However, I hope, next time, you'll take me to task on some of the things that I actually said, poking holes in my dogmatism, so that I can see things from your perspective. Don't be gentle, I love criticism of what I say, and I'll readily admit when I'm wrong. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of the superficial, personal attacks, but I can take those with a smile too. Have a good one! ;-) UPDATE: I neglected to include a link to The China Desk post. |
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