The Dissonance from International Environmental Movements in Taiwan
On the last weekend of November, I joined a blockade action of Ende Gelaende with my friends in the Lautsitz lignite region near the Polish-German border. Around the same time, another friend of mine was making a podcast on a critical review of the differences of Extinction Rebellion strategies worldwide. She asked me why there existed no grass-root organization that promotes radical environmental movement in east Asia, especially in Taiwan.
We had a deep conversation, during which I believed I gave her two reasons. The first was that there were not sufficient left wing bases supporting the environmental movements in Taiwan, such that the concept of solidarity was very weak. So we talk about green economic growth, trends of companies joining RE100, and more local environmental issues such as air pollution when discussing energy transition in Taiwan.
Make no mistake; these are also important aspects to the issue. Yet relatively, environmental movements in Taiwan rarely deal with impacts on a global scale, such as the environmental impacts we would have to the countries that export energy and resources, or the obligation we have towards global climate justice or containment of proliferation. These more leftish narratives are difficult to gain resonance in Taiwan.
We later talked about the reasons behind the lack of left wing political bases in the region. My friend understood why Hong Kong and Taiwan became such: China in every sense, from it dominating politics in Taiwan (thus resulting in a rivalry between two branches of nationalism), to its claim of being a socialism nation leading to a commie-phobia in the Taiwanese society; to some degree a similar situation occurred in Hong Kong (although currently there does not exist a clear HK nationalism). But how should we explain the low participation in climate actions in Japan and South Korea?
I could not give a comprehensive reasoning, but rather, my guess: as economic entities that enjoyed rapid economic growth after world war 2, even if most of them were already democratized and left their authoritarian past behind, the myth of perpetual economic still remained in the hearts and minds of the population, and economic development had still been the main, or even only political agenda here.
Thus, even these mature economic entities already satisfy the definitions of Global North and are in the list of developed countries, their people might still see their nation as a developing one in a global context.
Not to mention that Taiwan has long been oppressed and isolated by China. Thus there is always this kind of voice that asks: “if everyone else does not care about us, why should we care about them?” whenever we discuss global issues. Therefore it is nearly impossible to discuss progressive issues with solidarity in mind.
Such phenomenon was substantially revealed when the initiator of the global climate strikes, Greta Thunberg, was selected as the person of the year by TIMES. To be fair, there existed some flaws in the selection process of TIMES magazine (mainly the role of online voting during the process). Nevertheless this cannot justify the bizarre behaviors some online Taiwanese communities adopted during the voting process and after the results of the selection came out.
During the voting process of the person of the year of TIMES, many Taiwanese fanpages on facebook urged people to vote “yes” only for the people of Hong Kong while vote “no” for any other nominated person or people. This represented a very narrow and competitive view on the events around the globe: whether it was the Kurdish people who were fighting also for self-determination, or the refugees that were fighting also for a better life, their story did not worth our support, because there could be only ONE story allowed on the cover page.
Under such mindset, the sufferings in other places around the world no longer bore authenticity; only Hong Kong, the reference of a possible future for Taiwan, worth our concern. Under these circumstances, whether the results of the online voting was biased due to troll votes from Taiwanese netizens and right wing online communities in the west should be open for questioning.
In fact, if we really adopt this either-or mindset when we view the uprising around the world, the global climate strikes will still be the most qualified to summarize every other action.
Of course, the protests for democracy in Hong Kong allow the world to see the myth of “one country, two system” broken, along with the theory many authoritarian regimes adopt: “people care more about being fed than democracy”; these are the indisputable contribution the people of Hong Kong have brought to the world.
Yet it is only the global climate strikes that can conclude the origins of all the current issues in the world, mobilize people on every continent, and bring real impacts politically to a great number of nations. With these reasons, the selection of Greta Thunberg as the person of the year can be justified (though one can of course argue if we are focusing too much on a single person, rather than the movement itself).
Nevertheless, it is important to realize that climate activists do not fall into this either-or fallacy. Climate activists in Europe generally support the self-determination cause of the Kurdish people, acknowledging the attempts for sustainable development in their autonomous zones; in Lebanon, a major wildfire was the cause of an extensive anti-government demonstration, and environmental issues naturally became an important discussion topic afterwards, enabling climate activists to enter these discussions with climate change in mind.
Not to mention many organizers of the climate strikes are also sympathetic to the protests in Hong Kong. Greta Thunberg herself is an example, and Luisa Neubauer, the person who very often stands beside her, is a youth campaigner of the Green Party, the party that supports both Taiwan and Hong Kong the most within the German establishment. The organizations of Fridays for Future in Hong Kong and Taiwan also supported related logistic demands when the pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong.
Therefore, even if one does not agree with the selection process of TIMES magazine, or conveniently attribute the selection result to “red infiltration”, I still cannot find a single reason why anyone supporting Hong Kong should neglect the progress climate strikes have achieved around the world in the last past year, and make personal attacks on a 16-year-old teenage girl.
Put it another way: should the left wing people in the west denounce the still well-alive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, just because some of the supportive comments Trump has given to the protestors out of strategic considerations?
Perhaps those of us who have put too much attention in Hong Kong have forgotten that the youth are rising up everywhere around the globe; as an entire generation boils amidst the mess their parents left for them, Taiwanese should learn to look from a broader perspective when considering the historical roles of Hong Kongers and ourselves.
