Your books and essays have been popular for more than 40 years in the Chinese-speaking world. In mainland China, you are one of the most well-known writers as well. In 2019 your books have been banned there. What happened?
Before 2019, only some particular books of mine were banned, for instance, Big River Big Sea: Untold Stories of 1949, a book on the Chinese civil war, a war which still lives on today. I wrote a short piece in defense of Hong Kong in 2019 and that caused all my books to be taken off the shelves in bookstores and in some school libraries, which was what I had expected. But yes, I still get emails and letters from readers in China. They use VPNs and send me messages on Facebook, for example. Compared with before 2019, of course, it’s a lot less.
In many of your books, you have tried to give a voice to Taiwanese people. How do you feel about the current geopolitical spotlight on Taiwan? Are foreign delegations who want to shake hands with President Tsai Ing-wen more of a curse or a blessing for the island’s security?
It is ironic. Because of political contentions with China, Taiwan has been isolated by the international community for 50 years. And now foreign delegations and correspondents swarm in, only because all of a sudden our home has become the ‘front line,’ what the Economist called “the most dangerous place in the world.” Is that a fortune or a misfortune?
The visit of Nancy Pelosi was just one act in a larger theater play. The main actors in this play are the USA and China. Taiwan doesn’t have much to say. Yes, the danger of an invasion is real. It hasn’t been this real since the 1950s, but how close it really is no one can predict. There are too many factors at play. We don’t know how the China-US relations will move forward. We also don’t know what the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian war will be. How the Russian-Ukrainian war unfolds is going to have a huge impact on the fate of Taiwan.
Do the people of Taiwan feel more threatened today than ever?
The world is just wakening up to discover Taiwan is the front line and many people are surprised at how calm and relaxed the Taiwanese appear. Outsiders are not aware that Taiwan has been the front line for over 70 years. We grew up with the sense that war could break out at any time. Especially my generation – I was born in the 1950s – grew up with a siege mentality. Look at the ocean in front of us: Taiwan is surrounded by the ocean, but many Taiwanese do not swim. Do you know why? As children, we didn’t dare to play on the beach, let alone jump into the ocean. The 1200 km-long coastline was a military zone guarded by soldiers with rifles and bayonets. We grew up in fear of the ocean. Children were told to stay away from the beach because frogmen from China would swim across the strait and sneak up the beaches with a knife between their teeth. Even today, many waterfronts are not open to the public; you see traces of the siege mentality.
Do people feel the danger more than before? Yes and no. Several generations of us have lived with the possibility of war for so long that we become “numb” to the reality of it. How can you be on the alert for 70 years? Taiwan has been a peaceful and prosperous society for so long that it is difficult to imagine war. Yes, people are aware of the danger, but it feels unreal.
The government wants to extend military conscription. Meanwhile, civilian defense groups such as the Forward Alliance are forming to better prepare Taiwan’s citizens for a potential assault from the Mainland.
The extension of the compulsive military service occurred probably more due to the pressure of the US than to the wishes of the Taiwanese people. There are several civil defense organizations springing up recently, such as the so-called Black Bear Academy, founded by a businessman who believes that Taiwan should fight the Chinese with all means. They are teaching whoever wants to be prepared for battles. For most people, however, peace is still the main goal and war is hard to imagine. And that probably even applies to the Taiwanese government. How prepared are we for war? Look at our Ministry of National Defence. In 2022 the Ministry finally published a guideline for national emergencies such as a breakout of war. In case of a power outage, the guideline says to call the service line of Taiwan power. It became a joke.
Do you think the Taiwanese would be as united against a Chinese invasion as the Ukrainians against the Russian invaders?
If you are talking about taking up arms, I doubt it. There is a shared consensus among the Taiwanese, that is, a belief in the democratic system and the way of life in Taiwan, but how to safeguard this faith and maintain our way of life, people are divided.
The Taiwanese are still very much divided because of memories defined by history. You have people who feel totally alienated from China and devote themselves to the cause of Taiwan’s independence ‘at any cost’. You have also people who think that the Taiwanese and the Chinese are brothers and sisters despite ideological differences and that war should be avoided at all costs. You have people who promote mutual understanding across the Taiwan Straits and hold the current government responsible for having brought Taiwan to the brink of war, and then you have people who believe that it’s the US who is the culprit for the crisis and Taiwan is a victim of the game of hegemony. Then you have the farmers and fishermen. To many of them, the only thing that matters is whether their produce and fish can sell on the Chinese markets. They don’t think it’s important whose flag is flying over their heads. They want their livelihood and their children safe.
So, I’d say yes, the Taiwanese are very united in their faith in democracy, but if you ask whether they are united in war, I am not sure.
On which side do you see yourself?
I am anti-war. No matter what. And for that position, I have received massive verbal abuse online. I believe it is important that Taiwan arms itself to create effective deterrence, but we should never forget that deterrence is only part of a larger and genuine effort to avoid war. At the moment only military build-up as deterrence is talked about; little or no attention is given to how to avoid war.
Would you prefer the role of the USA to be more critically discussed?
The US position is that Taiwan has to arm itself to the teeth. Therefore Taiwan is buying a lot of weapons from the US. And the US wants to sell a lot of weapons to Taiwan. My position is simple: To arm yourself is the right thing to do only when it is part of a larger effort to avoid war. If you only concentrate on building up your military without other efforts like negotiating – under a different administration Taiwan used to have a working relationship with China on law enforcement, trade agreement and many other areas – you are on a very dangerous path. But the way it has been going and is still going on is the idea to turn Taiwan into a porcupine. That bothers me very much.
What are your hopes for negotiations with China?
Life is not all politics. What about opening ports or setting up direct flights? There are over 1 million Taiwanese living in China. When you count in their family members, it would mean there are 4-5 million Taiwanese – and the total population is 23 million – who have their loved ones residing and working in China. How about opening up more airports to make their home journey easier? How about allowing more Chinese students to come to Taiwan to study? How about welcoming tourists to come? How about letting Chinese writers and artists come for cultural exchanges? Of course, this goes both ways. Many of the barriers are built from the Chinese side. But my point is, both China and Taiwan should try hard not to fall into the spiral trap of hostility. Goodwill and soft communication can prevent war.
How did you feel about the protests of young people in Hong Kong in 2019 and in China at the end of last year? Should younger generations in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China try to connect more, since many obviously share the same ideals, like freedom of speech?
There was widespread and robust networking between the young people in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the protest movement in Hong Kong. Many of the Hong Kongers who took part in the protest went to exile in Taiwan after the crackdown, although not all of them were welcomed by the Taiwanese government. But the sentiment for Hong Kong lives on in Taiwan. With China, it’s different. There are many young people in China who are critical of their own government, but there is no public sphere to speak up. As Hanna Arendt said, the first thing an authoritarian government does is make you feel lonely. They silence you and separate you from your peers so that you never know how many like-minded people are out there, and you are deprived of the opportunity to share your ideas or to be inspired by others. The Chinese government has been doing this very effectively with the help of hi-tech. I think Chinese intellectuals are among the loneliest people in the world today.
Lung Ying-tai 龍應台 has been shaping social and political debates in the Chinese-speaking world as a writer for over 40 years. Her books “Wild Fire” and “Big River, Big Sea” are considered milestones on the road to Taiwanese self-awareness. From 1987, she lived for several years in Germany, where she taught Taiwanese literature at Heidelberg University. From 2012 to 2014 she served under President Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan’s first Minister of Culture. Today, Lung Ying-tai lives on the southeastern coast of Taiwan.