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| Isaac Feinn ('19) |
Minutes into the lecture, I knew I would leave having formed an opinion one way or the other regarding whether the United States should actively facilitate a deal integrating Taiwan into the PRC or continue occupying it for strategic reasons. Proponents of the first advocate for what is called Taiwan Reunification, while the group advocating for the latter refer to themselves as Taiwan Card Players. Just because of my personal bias towards US advantage, I thought I would leave calling myself a Card Player, as the group gets its name for leveraging Taiwan – or “playing their cards” - against China to check its growing global dominance.
My intuition failed me. After an hour and a half, I found myself seriously considering why the United States had not made a deal to relinquish any control over Taiwan and aid in its reunification with the Chinese mainland in return for American interests. For instance, some scholars have argued that because Taiwan cannot escape China’s grasp, the United States should negotiate a cancelation of its $1.4 trillion debt to China in exchange for canceling arms trade to Taiwan. If the financial prospect were not enough, this would also free the US from arguably one of its most contentious disputes with China and consequentially allow future international relations to shift from a zero-sum competition to a trusted cooperation between the two nations.
Excited about my newly-formed, educated opinion, I discussed my thoughts with a classmate after the lecture. He warned me that the setting that I had felt enhanced the lecture (i.e. the lecture took place in China by a Chinese professor) may actually have malformed the information into propaganda, ultimately swaying me intentionally to my new opinion not by objectivity but manipulation.
Startled, I later returned to the hotel and subsequently my VPN to research the issue online. I found that the debate contains far more facets conveniently not included in our lecture, and that most scholars currently argue for maintaining the status quo of Taiwan affairs. The lecture contents did not emphasize enough Taiwan’s strategic importance to the US, nor how Taiwan itself felt about the issue. President Trump has reportedly considered negotiating a deal, but a favorable one must somehow land the US in a comparably advantageous, strategic position to China while also accommodating Taiwan’s interests. Both of these outcomes cannot currently be achieved by supporting reunification. Potential financial benefits from a deal surely do entice me, but losing an unsinkable aircraft carrier and abandoning Taiwan against their will sufficiently deter.
Interestingly enough, I have seen this tactic used in China outside of the classroom. While riding the subway, I looked up to see ads on a screen transition to a series of short animations of a young, Chinese girl demonstrating virtues such as working hard, remaining loyal to family, and obeying the state. By removing access to the internet, the Chinese government has attempted to replace even modern education with its tailored alternative not only for the cultivation of academic viewpoints - such as my experience - but also the subconscious value system of its population en masse.
Propaganda’s most lethal check is the unfettered sharing of ideas. The Free Press has done more to cripple the authoritarian’s grip than any other societal force, and only in recent decades has it evolved into the more broadly reaching platform we call the internet. Unfortunately, the internet has also enabled the authoritarian because people often assume that whatever information, if it has made its way to the internet, is true. Either through omission of facts or promulgation of falsehoods, the authoritarian can manipulate the platform intended to smite him into a vessel for subjugation.
I spoke to one of our student guides this past week, and he expressed pride that the Chinese people view the government as a parent, while its citizens are all family. Just like any normal family, its members receive everything they need from the parents: food and shelter, but also even a package of beliefs. Whether they are aware of it or not, the evidence shows that parents generally indoctrinate their children not necessarily by being right, but either through sheltering them from unwanted ideas or repeatedly exposing them to their own. Sounds oddly familiar to how the authoritarian utilizes the internet, does it not?
Don’t miss my point: parents doing so isn’t necessarily bad. The government absorbing this role, however, is bad.
The Chinese government has unashamedly become the parent to its people and adopted the attributes of the authoritarian in the process. Familial discipline gone large to direct an entire populous requires extraordinary measures. This governmental parent shelters the Chinese child from unwanted ideas by censoring the internet, regulating religion, and dictating peoples’ utterances. It repeatedly exposes them to its favored ideas by schooling them in subway transit, or perhaps even in a lecture on Taiwan.
I pray for an age where truth continues to penetrate Chinese culture and ages its parents into grandparents. Old, weak, and regressive, its influence would diminish as a stronger, more independent, generation takes hold and challenges the world with an un-indoctrinated China.
Isaac Feinn, of Louisville, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2019. He studies biology and political science at the University of Louisville.
I pray for an age where truth continues to penetrate Chinese culture and ages its parents into grandparents. Old, weak, and regressive, its influence would diminish as a stronger, more independent, generation takes hold and challenges the world with an un-indoctrinated China.
Isaac Feinn, of Louisville, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholar Class of 2019. He studies biology and political science at the University of Louisville.