Short Rides: Friday Links

Ebikes: 

Beginning July 1, Taiwan's Ministry of Transportation will be tightening regulations on Ebikes requiring riders to be licensed and the vehicles to be registered with the MoT. The new regulations will view the Ebike as a light motor vehicle as opposed to a bicycle. The move was due to the sharp rise in collisions between Ebike riders and pedestrians. Taiwan's strategy is a bit more subtle than the heavy-handed approach China has taken to address the problem by banning the vehicles in several major cities. 

Travel and Politics: 

A traveller from Hong Kong uses the bike to take a gentle dig at Beijing by contrasting Taiwan's urban development to Hong Kong's recent trajectory. 

On our first stop in Taipei what struck me was the freedom of movement; there are bikes everywhere. 

It’s similar to the mainland in that regard, but you soon notice how the government has been responsive to the needs of its citizens. 

Everywhere you go in Taiwan there are bike paths, sloped shoulders to drive on and off the pavement, and even lights specifically set up for cyclists to bike diagonally at crossing. 

As a tourist I felt I could travel anywhere with little concern for practicality.

 Pollution and Commuting: 

The Guardian has put out a piece that claims the benefits of cycling outweigh the harm caused by inhaling exhaust fumes in traffic.

The researchers modelled the effects of cycling and walking at different levels of air pollution and established a tipping point – the length of time after which there was no further health benefit, and a break-even point, when the harm from air pollution began to outweigh the health benefit.  

For Delhi, the most polluted city on the World Health Organisation’s database, the tipping and break-even points for cycling were 30 and 45 minutes per day respectively, while for walking they were 90 minutes and six hours and 15 minutes respectively.
While the researchers looked at the levels of particulates – PM2.5 – in the air and not NO2, which has also been established as harming health, “we did lots of sensitivity analyses and the message would have been the same”, said De Nazelle.

Personally, I don't feel braving PM2.5 levels over 150 is enough to convince me to test the researchers hypothesis. I do know that my asthma will flare up after riding in that shit and we should all be lobbying to not have to make the choice to bike in it at all. I guess they are trying to get us all to feel better about the realities. 

Disc Brakes: 

Don't throw away that disc brake equipped bike just yet... it appears the UCI has decided to give limited testing another go this June.  

Positive Motion or Political Stunt: CCA Plans Million Rider Event

Why does this blogger write so much from so little?

The CNA and Taiwan Focus recently reported on another cycling event planned at the cabinet level to be held on December 31, 2011. The goal of the event is to arrange for 1 million riders to simultaneously "ride in a clockwise formation" along a specified route around Taiwan.

Emile Sheng, minister of the Cabinet-level council, said at a media briefing that the event would be the grand finale of centenary celebrations and symbolize Taiwan "moving forward" into the next 100 years.

If you have been following my running commentary on the bicycle and its symbolic representations in Taiwanese political life below, you will understand my own skepticism and caution in promoting a cycling event. I would love to be the type who could declare that every bicycle event must be a positive force in the world... but my experience in Taiwan has made me a bit more cautiously cynical. When I read a piece coming from the government, I always must question the motive. A government event is rarely benign and almost always comes with a political price tag. What is the value of this expense? What is the angle? Who is this benefiting and why?

With events like these we really need to be cautious in how our participation may run counter to our own values in the long run or if our participation may actually be to our detriment.

I would like to take a little time to deconstruct this article to uncover a little more about the motives behind this event and the possible outcomes. This provides a very good example of politics at work in Taiwan.

Issue #1: 100 years of the R.O.C

"The event will demonstrate that all Taiwanese people are making a concerted effort to move forward into the next 100 years,"

Here we see the common and problematic conflation of Taiwan into the extrinsic finality of the "Nation".

In 1895 Taiwan was ceded to the Empire of Japan and colonized as a model colony under a program of centralized state modernity that was widely promoted during and after the Meiji restoration period. Taiwanese were subjected to, and active participants in, the colonization of Taiwan by the Japanese. During this period of time the citizens of Taiwan occupied various levels of society with competing and conflicting goals. They adapted their lives to fit within the Japanese colonial structure and negotiated with the state for greater autonomy and opportunities. Under Japanese colonial rule the center of economic, political and cultural life shifted to Tokyo. Times changed, laws changed and people changed to best learn how to take advantage of their realities. Taiwanese, in effect, were becoming Japanese. Many elder Taiwanese I talk to still identify themselves as Japanese.

Meanwhile, in 1911, the Wuchang Uprising finalized the slow decline and collapse of the Qing empire and replaced the dynastic system with a modern republic. The Republic of China was founded without Taiwan or Taiwanese as a part of this new nation. It is also important to note that this is the birth of "China" and "Chinese" as we know them today. Prior there had been no common or unifying culture, language, border, people or anything else modern Chinese nationalists have constructed and projected into the historical past. Prior the the modern Chinese nation, there was simply a succession of empires comprised of cultural and ethnic pluralities undergoing constant cultural change; disparate people living within a system that viewed the world in terms of the center and its periphery. I am always disappointed when I hear people expound on Chineseness without understanding the term's problematic nature or its selective and superficial denial of plurality and change. It would be like calling all English "Romans" because the Roman empire once stretched to what is now modern Britain... or why "Chinese" is indelible when we have no trouble referring to a person from Vietnam as Vietnamese... when they had been Indochinese until very recently.

In 1945 the ROC arrived on Taiwan on behalf of the allies, and by 1949 the ROC government followed after losing the Chinese Civil War. During this period of time the ROC Constitution was amended and then suspended without Taiwanese participation as they were considered "tainted" by their colonial experience under Japan. A period of martial law was declared, which effectively froze the government and suspended elections leaving the ROC dead, lying in state, until 1988 when social forces forced an end to the period of martial law. This is the Taiwanese experience with the ROC.

In 1953 the schools were instructed to focus on teaching ROC ideology. Much of this is still in place today. History was told from the Chinese point of view, which caused much confusion as to who the "we" group represented. For only half of the "100 years" were Taiwanese ever experiencing the ROC... if only in its suspended state, many as second class citizens.

So why is this centenary being so heavily promoted?

I feel it demonstrates the government's own insecurity and the public's obvious ambivalence for the KMT's beloved Republic of China. There is very little in the way of shared positive sentiment for the ROC, when compared to people's pride for "Taiwan". I know many Taiwanese friends who are amazed during the singing of the Star-Sangled Banner, at the spontaneous response to the flag. Many, and I dare say most Taiwanese do not feel the same connection to the ROC. This may be, in part, due to its problematic history on Taiwan as an oppressor or hegemonic entity that sought to suppress local cultures and force ideology down the throats of Taiwan's citizens. The government is trying very hard to make people feel an attachment to "the ROC" in the same way the Chen administration successfully deployed the name, "Taiwan". In the eyes of the KMT, localization is simply the result of political engineering and can be reversed using similar tactics rather than realigning concepts of culture with reality. They deny it is a phenomenon that reflects people's actual identities. Any time a government has a Bureau of Culture, or Government Information Office, then it is clear it does not understand the nature of culture and is trying to artificially construct it.

Item #2: Moving Forward":

"symbolize Taiwan "moving forward"

The second issue is the terminology of "moving forward". I find the underlying meanings to be both a little comical and frightening.

Much of the early philosophy used by the Chinese Republicans focused on the idea of modernity. Sun Yat-sen and his contemporaries at the turn of the 19th century, imagined, like many other thinkers of the time, that the nations of the world were in a constant state of competition and conflict. Only the strongest [fittest] nations would survive. Sun Yat-sen adhered to this Social Darwinist concept and thus constructed a scale of measuring modernity with he and Han people at the fore, and the others being in various states of degradation. Traditionalism became an enemy of the state and was thought to be a weakening force to "the People".

It was not until the 1930's that "Chinese Culture" was identified and defined by the state, and traditionalism found a place within the ROC. Later, during China's Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement was promoted in Taiwan to essentialize the ROC as the vessel and protector for "true" Chinese culture (whatever that means). Kite making, flower arrangement and other activities defined during the late Ming empire were revived and an effort was made by Chinese nationalists to promote their imagined traditionalism. I say "imagined" because it reflects an imaginary time and place that never existed. Still, many confused people fall for this line of thought. "Westerners" are particularly easy bait.

So when I hear how a "Chinese traditionalist" party imagines "time" in terms of forward and backward, I have to chuckle as Confucian thought conceives time from the perspective of falling backward into the future while facing the glorified past... and not the Darwinist evolutionary model.

What I find a little frightening is this phrase's echo of Taiwan's dictatorial past, where the state positioned itself, and those who identified with it, as "modern" and sought to lead the "backward" Taiwanese toward modernity.

The state's monopoly on modernity gave it the pretext to enact its transformative policies on Taiwanese and transform Taiwanese into "Chinese"---something the government felt Taiwanese were lacking as long as they rejected state ideology. The acceptance or rejection of state ideology determined one's opportunities and social mobility. The government unfairly and inaccurately portrayed Taiwanese as ignorant, illiterate and backward, then stepped in to paternalistically "guide/teach" them to accept Chinese nationalism and enter the realm of the "modern" and the loyal. The project was a complete failure.

The use of this phrase may sound harmless, neutral or ambiguous, until it is placed within the context of Taiwan's recent social experience.

What is "forward"?

In this context, forward may very well imply a future relationship with China and the KMT is trying to paternally usher those "backward", "uneducated" and "irrational" Taiwanese toward what the government feels is best for them; a Chinese future. In a white paper issued several years ago, Chinese officials determined that "reunification" (annexation) could be realized by convincing the Taiwanese of its benefits after marginalizing the pro independence voices.

We have seen a similar point of view from the ECFA cartoons released by the GIO, which seemed to criticize Taiwanese for their "unwillingness" to "modernize" by tying their economy to China's.

This terminology leads to a very slippery slope.

Issue #3: Why Bike? Why Now?

One million cyclists are expected to start simultaneously from 100,000 points around the country and ride in a clockwise direction along a route circling the island, Sheng said.

Although this event is supposed to be the finale in centenary celebrations, I really do not think this is the purpose. I feel the real purpose of this event is to initiate the opening salvo of Ma Ying-jiu's 2012 campaign for a second term as Taiwan's president.

Ma identifies very closely with the ROC, as he has always been a beneficiary of its imbalanced existence on Taiwan. A cycling event that draws riders from 100,000 different points from around Taiwan gives the central government, controlled by Ma's own party, an opportunity to effectively conduct an unofficial island-wide campaign event that would allow the government to spread cash (in many forms) to all corners of Taiwan in the name of the ROC. The campaign gifts may come in the form of tourism dollars and other temporary infrastructure projects aimed at this event. It allows the government to purchase labor in all districts. It gives the government a reason to purchase space, materials, transportation and other goods and services (possibly at inflated prices) from strategically important districts and the politicians who run those districts. It gives the KMT an opportunity to purchase patrons.

If we pay close attention to how the centenary and the various related activities will be carried out, we will see a very comprehensive strategy for influencing the election in the KMT's favor at the taxpayer's expense.

So here, in this little article, we can see how the bicycle's use in politics extends far beyond the scope of the semiotic, and into the electoral structure itself: Spreading The Pork!

The Bicycle and the Battle of Identity Politics.

She's Got Good Taste

I just thought I would post this recent picture of DPP Chairwoman, Tsai Ying-wen trying on a bike helmet. Tsai is currently running for the Mayorship of New Taipei City in November's municipal elections. In several posts I have referred to the bicycle as a seme for the Taiwanese identity and Taiwanese national pride, therefore becoming an object of political capital coveted by political actors of various colors. Whoever owns the image of the bike owns what it represents to the electorate.

Update:

Battle of the Bikes

Yesterday the DPP New Taipei City candidate, Tsai Ying-wen, led a bike centered campaign event to draw out supporters. Meanwhile, the KMT candidate led his own event flanked by bicycles. (Liberty Times and China Times articles.) In the New Taipei City elections the bike often deployed as a symbol of a future of sustainability.

It Must Be An Election Year: Ma Ying-jiu Eats the Tour de Taiwan

Looking Into The Future

The CNA (Focus Taiwan) is reporting that the elected R.O.C. president, Ma Ying-jiu, would like to include the annual Tour de Taiwan in his planned festivities to ring in the centenary of the R.O.C.

Some highlights and commentary below:

"We hope that cycling, a sport that promotes energy conservation and carbon emissions reduction, will become a major sport among Taiwanese people, " Ma said.

The first issue is that the record shows Ma Ying-jiu, his administration and his party are no friends to the environment. Ma's government has spent NTD 3 million in taxpayers money to defend and cheerlead the expansion of the petrochemical industry in Taiwan. The latest is to build a new plant in one of the last wetlands along the western plain.

Then there was the unfair attempted expropriation of farmland aided by the president for the construction of an expanded Chunshan Science Park.

Ma's party has used its legislative majority to pass a law that would relax restrictions on land developers. Much of this law is aimed at paving Taiwan for Chinese tourists. The government seems bent on creating attractions for the sole purpose of drawing Chinese tourists, whether there is a need or not. It is a manufactured demand for attractions.

Let's not forget the 5th phase of the Sixth Naphta Cracker plant, which the government's Environmental Impact Assessment Committee determined to be too burdensome to require reduced carbon emissions.

The list goes on...

The Ma administration and the KMT is a tool for very few to become very rich at the expense of the very many. They are not concerned about the environment as long as it does not prevent them from maintaining power. Only when an issue threatens a politicians chances for holding office will the environment be a concern. Fortunately, since the democratic reforms ushered in under Lee Teng-hui, there is now some civil recourse. Unlike the days when the government simply did as it wished under the instruction of a dictator and maybe a little organized crime for the elbow grease. The Number 3 Nuclear Power Plant on a coral reef in Kenting and the 98,000 barrels of nuclear waste for the indigenous Dao people to sit on, are just two examples of this era.

Mr. Ma, you are no friend to the environment and your high talk of carbon emissions rings empty!

"Taiwan is a kingdom of bicycles, not only because it produces high-end bicycles but also because the people use them and have made them a symbol of Taiwan," Ma added.

In effect this quote highlights the fact that Ma Ying-jiu recognizes the fact that Taiwanese have constructed a new national and ethnic identity with their own shared symbols of meaning i.e. culture that is not a part of the Chinese experience. Symbols like the bicycle and its impact in helping Taiwanese imagine their community through shared experiences, in this case an economic experience forged between local, global and unique structural forces, has effectively created a dichotomy between Taiwan and China in terms of "one" vs. "other". The process of othering China under similar social, economic and structural circumstances has been the basis for the Taiwanese identity for over 100 years and an identity separate from Han people on the continent for hundreds of years. (I do not use the term China as it is problematic and anachronistic).

The most surprising quote from the article nearly knocked me out of my chair.

"You feel attachment to the land when you pedal your way over every inch of it," he pointed out.

Ever since the beginning of Taiwan's localization movement under Lee Teng-hui, Ma Ying-jiu has attempted to put on the face of a "New Taiwanese", or a person born in China who feels a separate experience on Taiwan and a shared historical trajectory and destiny binds all people to the land as "local" or Taiwanese. As a matter of fact, Ma was the first politician to openly deploy the term.

For Taiwan neophytes, the localization movement grew in tandem with the democracy movement in the 1970's and 1980's as Taiwanese rejected the Chinese Nationalist ideology that had been brought to Taiwan in 1945 by the Chinese Kuomintang, and enforced under a brutal system of martial law and a single party dictatorship. The KMT attempted to maintain power despite representing only a small minority of other Chinese Nationalists who fled China. Democracy was opposed as was the establishment and promotion of local Taiwanese languages and cultures. Instead, the KMT Leninist state used its power and various forms of intimidation to promote a single highly centralized "national" language, culture and ideology that reflected the philosophy of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

Sunism is a conglomeration of various philosophies, but draws heavily from some of the popular ideas of the time, which also helped to inspire fascism. Sun sought to use the 18th century pseudoscientific beliefs in racialism and social darwinism to accomplish two ends; a) to delegitimize the Qing as "outsiders" and "non-Chinese" through "blood" descent, and b) maintain all the territories acquired by the Qing expansion that pushed the borders of the Middle Kingdom out to two non-traditional places--the desert, and the ocean (Taiwan). Sun classified "Han" as a "pure race" that was bred to be the rightful leaders of the "Asian races" ahead of the "brown and black skinned people" who Sun felt were degraded and "subhuman". Sun believed it was a Chinese nation that would lead the master race of Asia through its superior culture and breeding. The Chinese nation became a civilizing project and a colonizer. We can still see much of this at work in China today. Not only did Sun place Han as ethnically/culturally superior, but he determined that Han equaled modern as well. This gave the Republic of China the pretext to engage in transforming all people's within its dominion into Han and Chinese nationalists. This is how the ROC ruled Taiwan for 45 years; in the relationship of colonizer and colonized.

Ma Ying-jiu hails from this tradition. For his entire career he has advocated this brand of Chinese nationalism, and up until the early 1990's he was an ardent opponent of democracy and localization. Ma, who was born in Hong Kong and grew up in one of the insular communities of other Chinese immigrants (refugees) who enjoyed benefits derived from their ethnic status as "Mainlanders", has always tried to oppose, suppress and deny the separate Taiwanese identity. As a student at Harvard he is widely believed to have been a student informer on the overseas Taiwanese who opposed the KMT's single party dictatorship.

Since becoming president, elected on an economic platform, Ma has made several moves away from the popular Tawan-centered model of his two predecessors, toward a Greater Chinese ideology. Furthermore, he has made little effort in upholding or asserting this identity, or any other for that matter, other than Taiwan as an ambiguous geographic location. For the first time in 20 years Taiwan is being led by a believer in the strong China centered identity espoused by Sun Yat-sen and the Chiang family dictators, the younger being Ma's patron in the KMT political world.

Over the past two years Ma has backed away from negotiating with China from a position of strength and switched to a position of acquiescence, in part to realize the Chinese nationalist dream of the united "fatherland". He backs every measure which erodes Taiwanese sovereignty over their land. Ma even asked Taiwanese to avoid waving their own flags in a sporting event against Chinese teams... in Taiwan, while the Chinese could do what they wished. Ma has twice refused to make even a symbolic attempt at joining the United Nations, he often refers to cultural and economic links between Taiwan and China as "domestic" or "region to region".

Lastly, I resent the use of a cycling event in the centenary of the ROC, as Taiwanese were in no way a part of its founding and only came into contact with the ROC in 1945 after being a Japanese colony for 50 years. For most of the Taiwanese experience with the ROC they has no access to its rights nor its privileges. Right and Privilege was left to people like Ma Ying-jiu... connected party insiders. The ROC is an entity that enables a system of ethnic disharmony and inherent inequality as some citizens are "Chinese" enough and others are not and can never be. The entire enterprise needs to be scrapped and rebuilt around Taiwan as a center and not a periphery. Only this can ensure equality for all people. Unfortunately, Ma is working hard to see this will never become a reality.

I can not look into Ma's heart of hearts to know how he really feels, but if his actions are any indication his words are empty words.

CNN Ranks Kaohsiung Third Best Cycling Metropole In Asia

CNN international has released their rankings of Asia's "Cities for Cyclists", and Taiwan's second largest metropole comes in at number three behind Kyoto and Beijing.

According to the article Kaohsiung boasts, "a growing network of bike lanes that currently add up to 150 kilometers (not bad for a nation known for scooters and busy streets). It’s also the first city in Taiwan to offer self-serviced bike rental kiosks to the public."

I would have to agree in the respect that Kaohsiung has undergone a transformation over the past several years from a chaotic and polluted blight of urban decay, into a very friendly and charming city for cycling as well as other forms of alternative transportation.

I recall my earliest impression of Kaohsiung from the late 90's was something akin to a mash-up between The Road Warrior and Escape From New York. After a couple trips I wrote the place off as simply a place to catch a bus to Kenting.

After many years of mainly avoiding Taiwan's second largest city, I recently went back and the place had totally transformed into a large friendly metropole with a small town feel... like the unlikely mating between Taipei and Tainan. There are now wide, tree-lined boulevards and open spaces. Public art (that is not in the vein of Gimmo worship) and rapid transit. The city was relatively clean and bright. Most of all... I saw people freely moving around the city on bikes.

For my own trip there by bicycle, I rode down in just over 9 hours and quickly navigated through the city to catch the HSR home. It was gorgeous. Most of all... I felt safe.

I think the points highlighted in the article point toward some progressive and visionary leadership that has helped make this all possible. Kaohsiung's Mayorship will be contested later in the year and I hope to see the people of Kaohsiung continue to support the leaders who are taking bold steps to make a transformative difference rather than simply funding projects to enrich themselves (by proxy) and their cronies.

Mayor Chen Chu and former Mayor Frank Hsieh deserve a tremendous amount of credit for Kaohsiung's amazing transformation and I hope this point is not lost on the people of Kaohsiung. I would also like to see an end to the ethnic politics that has kept many Taiwanese from pursuing their own interests in a sustainable future and throw their support behind politicians who make similar moves to improve the quality of life in the Taiwanese city.

Furthermore, in a more abstract way, I feel these concrete changes we have seen in Kaohsiung are both the direct and indirect result of a Taiwan centered outlook. I hope to see more of this in the future. China and Chinese do not hold the keys to Taiwan's future and no amount of increased revenue can turn Taiwan into an island that lives within its environmental means.