Why using the correct terms of “Taiwanese immigrant” and “Chinese immigrant” is so important
There’s a currently ongoing debate about the identity of the gunner in the Taiwanese Church Shooting in California. Some people suggested that the term “Benshengren” and “Waishengren” should be used instead of “Taiwanese immigrant” and “Chinese immigrant”. Unfortunately, it only introduced unnecessary confusions by misusing these terms.
The colonial terms of “Waishengren” (mainlanders) and “Benshengren”(natives) actually originated from the division created by the Chinese colonial rule to distinguish between “true Chinese” and “the people yet to be converted into Chinese”.
Explaining the correct historical context requires even more further historical details on Taiwan’s colonial history, which is often too overwhelming for foreigners. That’s why using the correct terms of “Chinese immigrant” and “Taiwanese immigrant” in the first place is so important. But I’ll make an easier example here:
Imagine that Germany was occupied by Russia after WW2, but instead of creating a puppet state of DDR like in real history, the Soviet Union annexed Germany to become its own territory in this fictional world. Then Russia declared that they’ve found German people in fact a branch of west Slav peoples, and German language is “a west dialect of Russian language”.
To preserve the integrity of Mother Russia, the “west dialect of Russian language” must be wiped out, and everyone must speak and write in true Russian. People who spoke and wrote the “west dialect” would be publicly punished, fined or even jailed. The “west dialect” was despised and publicly portrayed as inferior people’s language through all means of propaganda, such as education systems, movies, TV shows, news reports, literature works, etc.
The “West Russians” must consider themselves Russians wholeheartedly. Whoever dared to read “the fake history of Germany” would be sentenced to death by fire squad. Germany never exists. It’s just a geological term to describe what is now called “Union Republic of West Russia” under the Soviet Union.
And to help the Soviet Union’s great confrontation against their Western foes in the Cold War, the West Russian people must sacrifice and provide 50% of GDP to support Mother Russia, which had left the general West Russian people in poverty, while the ruling class of “true Russians” enjoy many special privileges, and many of them eventually immigrated again to Mexico and other countries to live a comfortable life with the wealth they obtained in West Russia.
Then after the Soviet Union collapsed, West Russia became a democratic country just like many other former Soviet republics, and the German people took power again through democracy. They carefully changed the name of the former Soviet republic to “West Russia(Germany)” in order not to provoke an all-out Russian invasion. But inside the “West Russian(Germany)”, while the former “West Russian” people gradually found back their German identity, and the majority of the 3rd-generation locally-born “true Russian” descendants also self-willingly embraced this new national identity, the former ruling class of “true Russians” are extremely angry about the current situation.
“How dare the West Russians take power? They are not qualified as true Russians from every single aspect! They are not supposed to stand equal to us! They are now promoting their fake German history, acting as if Germany were a country and they were the owner of it. Next, they may even remove ‘West Russia’ from the name of the country! They are even stealing our children through brainwashing and calling them ‘New Germans’! We must do something! Justice must be done!” And the anger grows day by day among the “true Russians”.
One day in Mexico, a “true Russian” immigrant, who immigrated from former “Union Republic of West Russia” to Mexico during the Russian colonial times, went to a German-speaking church (which was a serious crime in Russian colonial times and the reason why the German immigrants escaped to Mexico in the first place) with guns, trying to kill every “West Russians” in the church and then burn down the whole place with gasoline. He even wrote confession letters to describe how much he hated these “West Russian separatist monsters” and sent them to the local media.
However, his plan didn’t work out. A brave German immigrant wrestled him right after he fired the first shots. The brave German, a reputable doctor and a leader of the local German immigrant community, got 3 shots in the body and died. However, the gunner was wrestled to the ground by other Germans. All other people in the church were saved.
So here come the big questions: Is the “true Russian” gunner German immigrant or Russian immigrant? Is it an internal conflict inside the Russian immigrant community? Or inside the German immigrant community? Or is it even proper to call it an “internal conflict” at all?
In fact, it was pretty much what happened in Ukraine. That’s why a lot of international observers are comparing Ukraine with Taiwan because of the astonishing similar historical backgrounds. China and Russia are like two countries in a mirror, one in Asia and one in Europe. And so are Taiwan and Ukraine.
