Culture of Enmity: The Discursive Struggle For Taiwan in The Making of The New Cold War

Alain Brossat
Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado
Culture of Enmity:
The Discursive
Struggle for Taiwan
in the Making
of the New Cold War
Culture of Enmity: The Discursive Struggle
for Taiwan in the Making of the New Cold War
Alain Brossat · Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado
Culture of Enmity: The

Discursive Struggle
for Taiwan in the Making
of the New Cold War
Alain Brossat Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado
Emeritus Professor Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Department of Philosophy Venezia, Italy
Paris 8 University
Paris, France
ISBN 978-981-99-4216-9 ISBN 978-981-99-4217-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
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Acknowledgments
As any book, it is a collective effort supported by multiple individuals and institutions,

before, during, and after its completion. We want to show gratitude to everyone who
has shared, publicized, and provided feedback on our work, like Jon Solomon, Chung
Hsiu-mei, Lin Shen-jing, and Duccio Basosi; and to those who have helped for the
documentation or translation of some texts, like Léo Brossat, Li Ya-chao, Chen Wei-
syun, and Elsa Daniels. Also, thanks to the Taiwanese institutions that have offered
us funding during this period in the form of the Jade Mountain Scholar Project, the
Taiwan Scholarship Program, or the Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology
Scholarship; as well as the institutions that have hosted us and offered academic
assistance: National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and National Cheng Kung
University. Last but not least, to our families in Taiwan and Europe, especially to
Carole (Lo Hui-chen) and Alice (Li Chia-jo), who deserve a special mention for their
unwavering love and effort in supporting our work.
v
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part I Resisting the Culture of Enmity

2 To Resist Within Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 To Eradicate the Culture of Enmity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Part II A War of Words: The Construction of the Anti-China

Narrative
4 The Schmittian Turn of Global Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5 A Pandemic of Sinophobia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6 What Is Happening in Xinjiang? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7 The New Clothes of Hegemonism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
8 “Large Space” and the New Cold War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Part III The Effects of the New Cold War in the Taiwan Strait
9 The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese Sovereignty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
10 Taiwan as a Field for Disinformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
11 The Little Soldiers of the New Cold War in East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
12 Taiwan in a Comparative Perspective: Is It Gibraltar,
Switzerland, or Ukraine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
13 How Wars Fall on Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
vii
About the Authors
Alain Brossat is a French teacher, researcher, and long-time activist. Between 2018
and 2022 he has been visiting professor at the Department of History at National
Cheng Kung University (Taiwan) and visiting professor at the International Institute
of Cultural Studies at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (Taiwan). He is
an Emeritus Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University Paris 8, where he
also received is Ph.D. in Philosophy. His teaching is focused on political philosophy
and contemporary philosophy.
Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow at Ca’

Foscari University of Venice. Previously, he has been Postdoctoral Research Scholar
at the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica
(Taiwan, 2023), and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of History,
National Cheng Kung University (Taiwan, 2022). He received a Ph.D. in Social
Research and Cultural Studies at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
(Taiwan, 2021). His area of expertise is contemporary political theory and discourse
analysis.
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction
In the present epoch, characterized by the ascent of populist politicians and extreme
internal socio-political polarization within the “Global North”, there appears to be a
singular issue on which consensus is both ubiquitous and unwavering: the percep-
tion of China as a formidable threat. This notion, which has a profound historical
background, has been escalating further over the last two decades in the wake of
the so-called New Cold War. Today crystallized as the hegemonic political imagi-
nary among the “Global North”, this worldview presents a reductive interpretation
of the geopolitical landscape as a contest between “democracy” and “autocracy”.
Put simply, this dichotomous perspective has fostered a perilous Manichean narra-
tive based on an irreconcilable conflict between virtuous friends and evil enemies: a
paradigm that is particularly palpable in the case of the conflict around Taiwan.
This book discusses how the operation of construction of the People’s Republic
of China as the “enemy” articulates specific discursive strategies and tactics, being
operated and led like a war. We focus on the manner in which those narratives are
crafted to cultivate sentiments of animosity and intolerance within a given popu-
lace, thereby establishing firmly antagonistic relationships as the normative common
good. We refer to this as the culture of enmity, a political practice whose under-
lying goal is to reinforce the perceptions of fear and distrust vis-à-vis a discursively
constructed “enemy”. Throughout the various chapters of this book, we undertake
a comprehensive examination and critique of the diverse ontological characteristics
and ontic developments constitutive of such a culture of enmity.
The perspective promoted in this work relies on a combination of interdisciplinary
academic endeavors and commitment to produce an “ontology of the present”: what
we relentlessly question is what the singularity of our present is made of and what
its dynamics hypothetically lead to. Presently, Taiwan is not merely one of the most
dangerous places on the planet, as the Western mainstream media insistently repeat.
It is also one of the premier observation posts in the world for trying to decipher what
This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat and Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 1
A. Brossat and J. A. Ruiz Casado, Culture of Enmity: The Discursive Struggle
for Taiwan in the Making of the New Cold War,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_1
2 1 Introduction
our very intricate and enigmatic present is essentially made of. It is, at the same time,
a primordial enclave from which to propose a policy of empathy and pacification in
the face of the growing risk of polarization, militarization, and war.
It would be tempting to simply take a halfway position and equally blame both
warring camps for their missteps. Or simply incriminate the “wolf warriors” of the
mainland for everything that goes wrong in the world today, a safe stance in line
with most journalists, academics, and politicians from the “Global North” today. On
the contrary, and precisely because the prevailing narrative ignores or dismisses the
underlying dynamics behind the scenes, we consciously choose to focus our critique
on what is wrong with the narrative itself. This does not mean that we normatively
deny China’s capacity to do harm or act in a pernicious manner. Rather, it only means
that we problematize and deconstruct the hegemonic common sense dictating that
whatever the United States and its allies do in Taiwan is necessarily right, true, and
constructive. The present asymmetries of power in East Asia, where a distant regime
abrogates itself with the authority to police and determine what can or cannot be
done in the region, as if it were its divine right, have to be questioned as a prior
step to criticizing the actions of the opposing side in the face of such inequality.
Our position, therefore, will appear controversial and staggering to many. We do not
wish to play “devil’s advocate”, but we feel it is our duty to make sense of what is
obscured by this dangerously polarizing dominant narrative.
Nonetheless, it is not a question of maintaining the illusion that with rational
arguments we would be able to bring to their senses those who are already convinced
and dragged into the spiral of war, urging in a desire to clash with the hereditary
enemy that they invented for themselves. This would be pure presumption. Historical
experience tends to show that the words of reason by intellectuals, in their critical
function, do not weigh heavily against the combination of overarching forces that
strive to construct the figure of an external and all-powerful enemy with whom
confrontation appears not only inevitable but even desirable. This seems precisely to
be the disposition of many of those who currently hold the reigns of power in Taiwan
and, equally so, most of those who inspire them from the other side of the Pacific
and elsewhere in the “Global North”. Thus, our ambition is not to futilely erect, on
our own, a wall of reason to neutralize these emotional reactions. Instead, our main
purpose is humbler in nature: to acknowledge and recognize these phenomena as
they are, without overestimating our ability to fully control, influence, or eliminate
them. Drawing inspiration from Victor Klemperer, our chief endeavor is to document
the current situation and set a record of events for those who might study them not
only now, but also in the future.
Even in the face of the worst, which is never certain but still probable, we fail to
succumb in the face of the passions of war and the militarization of everyday life. In
this regard, we continue to believe in the value of critical thinking as an essential tool
to boost our endurance and resistance. The experience of the twentieth century has
shown that critical thinking can survive not only crises but also historical cataclysms,
that it returns to the scene of the most heinous, the most massive crimes, and the
most obscure disasters, and that it thus contributes to relaunch life possibilities in the
world that comes afterward. We bet on critical thinking against all odds, resolutely
1 Introduction 3
in the minority, because we believe, on the one hand, because we inscribe our work
in a temporal line that extends beyond the presentism and immediacy prevalent in
most contemporary commentary; and, on the other hand, because we still maintain
the hope that even in the compact body of monolithic thought there are always tiny
cracks through which we can rush in to nourish resistances of all kinds.
We might scream in the desert, but it is not enough for discouraging us. We do
not lament, we do not content ourselves with jeremiads, we instead pull the alarm
signal stubbornly, for want of being able to operate the emergency brake as Walter
Benjamin suggested. It is in this regard that in all modesty we try to situate ourselves
and resist, to the extent of our weak forces, the tide of disasters anticipated in East
Asia and, particularly, on this “tiny spot” on the map of the world where we are
pleased to dwell: Taiwan.
This book is made of a collection of articles initially created by the authors during
the years 2020–2022 while researching in Taiwan, first at National Yang Ming Chiao
Tung University and then at National Cheng Kung University. Each of these texts
has been thoroughly edited, combined, and some of them have been reshaped from
the perspective of this publication. The articles, organized in different chapters,
are variably placed under the rubric of political philosophy, geopolitics, history,
discourse analysis, or anthropology, due to the diverse educational backgrounds of
the authors. Despite their diversity, all chapters are deeply connected with the conflict
over Taiwan.
The book is structured into three blocs. Part I develops the philosophical and
theoretical notions that constitute the backbone of the book and our ethico-political
position, whereas Parts II and III are more empirical and analyze the discursive
construction of China as an enemy (the anti-China narrative) and the effects of the
New Cold War on the Taiwan Strait, respectively.
In Part I, the second chapter, “To resist within language”, discusses the diary
of Victor Klemperer, “LTI: The Language of the Third Reich”. It emphasizes the
power of language to shape people’s perceptions and beliefs, and how this was used
as a tool for Nazi propaganda and brainwashing. The diary is important because it
not only provides insight into the mindset of the Nazi regime, but also serves as a
warning for future generations about the dangers of tyranny, monolithic thought, and
the importance of speaking out against it. Klemperer’s diary is seen as a meditation
on the illusion of eternity held by oppressors and a guide for critical thinking about
the world and the use of power.
The third chapter examines the concept of the “culture of enmity” and its impact
on political discourse and behavior. It discusses how the notion of creating one’s
own identity through the fabrication of an enemy has been prevalent in the formation
of European nation-states, but it has recently shifted towards “internal enemies”
such as Muslims or immigrants more generally. It then criticizes the continuation
of this practice in East Asia, specifically Taiwan, where anti-Chinese sentiment is
perpetuated by political and media elites, and fuelled by the interference of the
United States’ discursive power. This culture based on the construction of an “enemy”
is a manifestation of paranoia in politics, perpetuating historical hatred, limiting
individual liberties, and keeping people locked in the repetition of the past.
4 1 Introduction
Part II begins with Chap. 4. It analyzes how current global politics have shifted
from a Machiavellian approach based on division and conflict to a Schmittian outlook
that prioritizes defining and discrediting the enemy. This shift is attributed to the fall
of the Soviet Union and the rise of Western hegemonism led by the United States.
There is a critique of the use of the term “rogue state” by the latter to justify its
military actions, which is linked to the philosophy of sovereign exception and anti-
revolutionary thinkers like Burke and Schmitt. The role of language in maintaining
false dichotomies in politics, oversimplifying complexities in the interest of power,
is also discussed. The chapter finally argues for the importance of challenging this
approach in order to dismantle the “culture of enmity”.
Chapter 5 connects the “culture of enmity” with the “pandemic of Sinophobia”
during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the pandemic emerged, there has been a
discursive struggle for hegemony around the origins of the virus, the role of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the pandemic, and its repercussions within
China. This article examines some of the events that occurred during the pandemic
and the interpretations of them made by hegemonic narratives, which often aim to
establish the xenophobic notion of the “China Virus” and to portray China as a
common threat to the “free world”. The chapter also describes the contradictions of
the Taiwanese and the US governments when addressing racism against Taiwanese
or Asian Americans, respectively, as they fail to address the root cause of Sinophobia:
the sharp increase in anti-China discourses.
In Chap. 6 we tackle the contemptuous issue of what is happening in Xinjiang.
The chapter analyzes the narrative surrounding the human rights abuses in the region
and points to the subjective nature of reports on the situation and the lack of impartial
analysis. It is argued that the media’s role in shaping public opinion is clouded by
propagandistic issues and the concept of the Uyghur “genocide” is being used as an
indispensable political tool by the likes of Mike Pompeo to set a New Cold War. The
authors highlight the challenges of maintaining a fair judgment in times of conflict
and political polarization, as the antagonistic discourse around the issue makes it
difficult to have an open and fair discussion.
The seventh chapter explores the use of soft power and storytelling in international
politics, with a focus on the Western powers. It argues that storytelling is a new form
of hegemonism that is just as effective as classical propaganda in shaping collective
memory and experience. The moral implications of such storytelling are questioned
and the need to be vigilant against manipulative tactics is emphasized. In the context
of Taiwan, this chapter examines the potential drawbacks of using soft power to
construct a nation’s image, such as oversimplification or manipulation of public
opinion.
Chapter 8 deals with the concept of “large space” or Grossraum, as introduced
by Carl Schmitt in 1939 to provide a theoretical and legal basis for Hitler’s expan-
sionist goals and the quest for Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. The chapter argues
that Schmitt’s argumentation, although written for Nazi purposes, is still topical
and crucial today. It discusses the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine and its impact
on international politics, arguing that the United States became a global empire
projecting itself onto all continents and claiming a “great space” on a global scale.
1 Introduction 5
The chapter also highlights that Schmitt’s concept of “universalist imperialism” sheds
light on the amalgamation of imperial interests with the name of the universal. The
concept of “great space” highlights the fact that what is at stake are not simply issues
of influence but hold, territorialization, and the practical exercise of power. Examples
are provided of how this concept played out in international events such as the US
intervention in the Vietnam War and the rise of mainland China’s quest for “great
space”.
Already in Part III, Chap. 9 tackles “the thorny issue of Taiwanese sovereignty”.
The question of sovereignty in Taiwan is a complex and elusive one that has been
plagued by ambiguities and inconsistencies. On the one hand, there is the idea that the
current de facto sovereignty on the island, the Republic of China, is the legitimate heir
to the 1911 Revolution and has aspirations of eventually reclaiming its sovereignty
over the mainland. On the other hand, there is a growing sentiment in favor of
independence on the island. This independence, however, would only be possible
with the support and guarantee of the United States, which would put the hypothetical
new independent country at risk of a major confrontation with China.
Chapter 10 studies the phenomena of disinformation with regard to the Taiwan
Strait conflict. To begin with, it examines the incursions of Chinese aircraft in
Taiwan’s “Air Defense Identification Zone” (ADIZ), a contentious and heavily politi-
cized issue with varying interpretations. China criticizes the Taiwanese ADIZ as an
illegal violation of its freedom to fly through the area. Contrarily, Taiwan and its allies
view the sorties by Chinese military aircraft in its ADIZ as aggressive intrusions and
use these events to further demonize China. However, Western mainstream media
commonly oversimplifies the issue by misinforming or leaving aside undesirable
facts that do not fit such a narrative. The second section of this chapter focuses on the
cancelation of CTiTV’s license in Taiwan, which has triggered debates on censorship,
freedom of the press, and media ownership in a democratic society. Additionally, the
discussion explores the phenomena of disinformation about China’s disinformation,
which is driven by the discursive strategy seeking to relentlessly tarnish China’s
reputation.
Chapter 11 tackles the Taipei Times newspaper’s rhetoric promoting anti-Chinese
sentiment and portraying the Chinese regime as an enemy of mankind, a form of
propaganda oriented to justify a potential war against China. The newspaper has
become a conduit between Taiwanese pro-independence elites and anti-Chinese party
activists, as well as a laboratory for testing political proposals and ideas. The actions
of the Taipei Times and similar media outlets are one more mechanism for certain
elites and “experts” in the United States and Taiwan to incite antagonism and trans-
form the island into a proxy or mercenary state, an advanced military base in their
strategy to contain and roll back mainland China in order to maintain US hegemony
in East Asia.
Chapter 12 performs a comparative study that identifies patterns, inconsistencies,
and contradictions in the customary analogies employed by pundits when comparing
Taiwan to three other territories: Gibraltar, Switzerland, and Ukraine. It argues that
these analogies are not innocent and are generally intended to construct a particular
meaning of what Taiwan is and what its relationship with China should be. The
6 1 Introduction
“Gibraltar of Asia” analogy portrays Taiwan as aggressive and militaristic against

China, benefiting Western hegemons and Taiwanese elites but not the common
Taiwanese. The comparison between Taiwan and Switzerland commonly focuses
on Switzerland’s military strength and nationalism but neglects important factors
like neutrality and diplomacy. Finally, the analogy between Taiwan and Ukraine in
the context of military threat from large, autocratic neighbors is flawed and one-
sided, as it ignores how the role of the United States in Taiwan is analogous to that
of Russia in supporting the independence of the Donbass and Crimea for their own
geopolitical benefit.
Lastly, Chap. 13 discusses the dangers of propaganda and its impact on people’s
perception of war and other dangerous events. The constant rhetoric about potential
threats, such as the “Chinese threat”, has become background noise, and people
have become numb to the dangers they are being warned about. It criticizes how the
culture of enmity results in one side denying the other the same rights and privileges it
demands for itself. Thus, it advocates for understanding the perspectives and interests
of all parties involved as crucial for avoiding war. The authors also express concerns
over the growing militaristic worldview in Taiwan and suggests that the focus should
be on avoiding war altogether and considering the consequences of warmongering
and escalation for the people of the island.
Part I
Resisting the Culture of Enmity
Chapter 2
To Resist Within Language
Can we detect converging points between two widely different books: Michel
Foucault’s (1971) The Order of Discourse and Victor Klemperer’s (1996) Language
of the Third Reich: LTI? Under which conditions can we intertwine these authors’
thoughts on the relations between discourse, power, and truth, knowing that they
can both enlighten us in their own specific way on these matters? Foucault’s inau-
gural lesson at the Collège de France on the 2nd of September 1970 abounds in
formulations that seem to perfectly fit in with the object of Klemperer’s work,
at least superficially—the language of the Third Reich, Nazi jargon: “discursive
police”, “discourses’ constraints”, “ritualization of speech”, “systems of discourse’s
subjugation”, etc.
However, if we take a closer look at Foucault’s text, we realize that an alignment
based only on such expressive formulations would be fundamentally misleading. The
“order” Foucault is drawing our attention to is the order of discourse, or discourses,
in general, within modern societies. It is an order which includes discontinuous and
heterogeneous types of discourses. What’s more, the discontinuities are registered
within the actual principle of this general order: “Discourses should be analyzed as
discontinuous practices which intersect, sometimes adjoin, but just as well ignore or
exclude each other” (Foucault, 1971, pp. 54–55).
Foucault never proposes to isolate one type of discourse, known as “a language”
(une langue) in Klemperer’s terminology, by differentiating it from the others, by
underscoring a specific feature of violence, of rigidity, a principle of “police”, author-
itarian and fanatical, which would be inherent to this discourse and would mark it
with a seal of exception—as “totalitarian” language, in the vocabulary of Jean-Pierre
Faye (1972), and not Klemperer’s. Foucault, on the contrary, intends to show that
every discursive formation, under all circumstances, requires a “police”—the imple-
mentation of a principle of exclusion of other types of discourses, of other rules
of formation, as well as entanglements with power issues and a specific regime of
This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_2
10 2 To Resist Within Language
truth. Foucault insists in The Order of Discourse that all discursive formations are in
relation to a “will to truth”.
Therefore, we could say that the entanglement of discourse, in whatever form,
to an element of violence is a kind of general principle. Discourses do violence to
things, for they are “a practice that we impose on them” (Foucault, 1971, p. 55). They
are violent towards other discourses, by repressing or excluding them. They violently
operate irresolute divisions. They potentially exert violence towards the speaker by
imposing their “police”. Here, one can see the difference between Foucault’s and
Klemperer’s analysis. By becoming the ethnographer of the LTI, Klemperer implic-
itly locates his reflection within a regime of exception, with a discursive machine that
was entirely subjugated to exceptional conditions, a monstrous machine character-
ized by its capacity to poison, corrupt, deflect and divert, suppress, and exterminate
the “true” language or, in other words, the “normal” one. Klemperer is certainly
concerned with the way the LTI disease diffuses its poison—it is so insidious and
inexorable that even the victims and the enemies of Nazism have been contaminated
by it. He is haunted also by the nightmare within which an unchecked perpetuation of
this disease of language continues beyond the fall of Hitler’s Reich. It would consist
of an opportunist continuation of the politicization of language, going viral. But at
the same time, the “fieldwork” he is doing day by day, in the midst of darkness, sheds
light on the properly delirious agitations brought on by the capture of language by
a general apparatus of terror and propaganda—when the discursive machine goes
insane, and having escaped any kind of control starts to look like the machine in
Jacques Tati’s film Mon Oncle (1958). A machine that, after being wrongly operated,
starts producing kilometers of odd multicolored plastic tubes. Quirky and wicked
objects are manufactured by this machine. In LTI’s vernacular, the linguistic equiva-
lents of these tubes would be monstrous neologisms such as Laufjude and Fahrjude
(a Jew condemned to walk because he is not allowed on public transport, and a Jew
authorized to use the tram …), Zahnjude (dentist of Jewish origin), and so many
others (Klemperer, 1996, p. 219).
It becomes obvious to Klemperer, as he sees day after day how the houses where
Jews were gathered are deserted, that the wrong inflicted upon language is closely
interwoven with the outbursts of violence against bodies—those persecuted within,
those subdued by the Reich. This state of things becomes all the more unbearable
and paralyzing for Klemperer since his classical training as a philologist (today we
would say linguist) draws him towards an idea of language as conservatoire or haven
of culture, as the living fabric of common life, the medium itself of civilized life.
What he experiences with the viral proliferation of the LTI strikes him as constant
profanation, something like the onslaught by a herd of barbarian riders, but this time
in a city of words, phrases, syntax, and grammar.
This is certainly not the approach to the discursive issue proposed by Foucault
during his inaugural lesson. For him, the problem is not so much that a language can
be enslaved and used as a war machine, or rather a machine of death, but rather that
we can notice, from the side of power, of “order”, a structural intolerance towards the
notion of the free proliferation of discourses itself. Therefore, the potential coercion
of these discourses, their manipulation, and their corruption would not be the main
2 To Resist Within Language 11
issue. Foucault’s concern is rather for their subjugations (assujettissements), that is,
not so much their seizure by external forces, but their configuration within a horizon
of power and truth. At the very start of the lesson, Foucault asks this question: “But
what is so perilous in the fact that people talk and that their discourses indefinitely
proliferate? Where is the danger?” (Foucault, 1971, p. 10).
The response, Nietzschean in tone, is obvious: discourse is inherently dangerous,
whatever its form or type, because of “its link with desire and power”. Thus, any
discursive production entails a normativity to take form, what we would call a
“police”. “I assume that in every society, the production of discourse is controlled,
filtered, organized and redistributed by way of a certain number of practices whose
role is to avert its powers and dangers, to master its unpredictability as event, to
avoid facing its burdening and fearsome materiality” (Foucault, 1971, pp. 10–11).
Such an “assumption”—more a kind of axiom—is open to a form of relativism: in
that perspective, the distinction between more or less appropriate or inappropriate
discourses, true or false, tolerable or not, honorable or infamous, does not exist,
except if they are considered as determined by normative systems and regimes of
truth whose plurality excludes any universalizing condition. In that perspective, the
LTI should not be looked at as the absolute and terrifying exception, but maybe
studied as a singularity, a kind of “other space” (“espace autre” or heterotopia). This
singularity would be characterized precisely by its capacity to show that any discur-
sive machine imposes its own and strictly constraining horizon of truth (in close
relationship with the constitution of a power field that traces the condition of its use)
on its speakers, even when the violent divergences with other discursive productions
might make it appear absurd and the “discipline” imposed on its speakers unbearable.
On the issue of relativism, in spite of all the differences, we can still acknowl-
edge a “meeting point” between Klemperer and Foucault. Klemperer is continuously
highlighting the substantial long-term effects of the German population’s attachment
to the Reich and the Führer’s destiny, even when the most elementary principles of
reality should have brought them back to their senses. In other words, within the
fabric of a language seized by a totalitarian power, a horizon of truth is established,
more genuine than all “real” certainties—that requires (or should do so) to be veri-
fied by direct experience, by observation, by the most basic modes of reasoning or
logical deductions. Here, the enlightened man, or the very “classical” rationalist that
Klemperer is, might concede some arguments to the relativism of a “genealogist”
Foucault insisting on the variety of the regimes of discourses—something different
from the anti-rationalist or irrationalist tendency suspected by Habermas (1988).
With the LTI, a lesson is surely embedded in the depth of language: the split
between true and false, between the sensible and the absurd, can only work within a
given regime or system of truth. All those years, Klemperer was overwhelmed by the
terrible encounter with misery in language (perhaps even more so than by hunger,
the fear of being beaten, humiliation, the possibility of deportation, or the anxiety
caused by the Allies’ bombings). He cannot but acknowledge that, in a given situation,
humans have no natural limit based on common sense nor any kind of universality
in their capacity for judgment that can prevent a people, a society, to be captured
by a discursive system or police which has been fully integrated into a large-scale
criminal enterprise. From within the space drawn by the triangle discourse–power–
truth, a logical machine is set up, both logical and mad, a blind articulation of thought
and language that nothing can stop—except a higher power that would destroy its
substructure.
Thus, it seems that discursivity has its “reasons” that (political, as well as moral)
reason completely ignores. In that respect, the LTI as a totalitarian discourse or
language, would not represent the pure exception, but rather a startling opportunity to
ascertain this primordial feature of the order of discourse: its efficiency is not so much
found in the scope of the verifiable, of the experimentable, of the universalizable, or
even of the probable, but simply in the fact that it “meets certain requirements” as
Foucault says. The order of discourse is notably characterized by the way it manages
to assert its rules on the formation of statements and the divide between true and
false.
A fundamental affinity would then be revealed between the approaches proposed
by the philologist and the philosopher. In LTI, Klemperer takes on time and time
again the Schillerian pattern of a language that “thinks and poeticizes on our behalf”,
which overthrows the illusion of the sovereign subject, substituting it for the figure
of a speaker endued with language and carried away by its flows (flux, stream,
etc.). The LTI is certainly a kind of stream of mud that flooded Germany between
1933 and 1945 and was regurgitated through the mouths of millions of stunned and
anesthetized “speakers”. This language is first and foremost an uncontrollable “it
speaks”. It undoubtedly owes its existence to a lot of spasmodic and cold “engineers”
such as Goebbels and Himmler, but it also emerged as the product of an abject process
of continuous creation. I’m thinking here of the staggering passage in Klemperer’s
book when he mentions the neologisms forged by the workers in the factory where
he worked. Neologisms that were sometimes used by the victims themselves and
which, as usual, were meant to separate. In that case, the Waschjuden, the Jews who
take showers after work, and the Saujuden, which literally means “Jew pigs”, those
who wait and wash themselves at home … (Klemperer, 1996, p. 251).
It turns out that this radical operation of destitution or decentering of the speaking
subject is at the heart of Foucault’s inaugural lesson. He takes up the notion of the
author-function (of the text or of discourse) developed in several other texts, of the
“author” considered as a changeable and provisional text attribute. He argues that the
“foundational subject” is nothing but a way to “elide discourse reality” (Foucault,
1971, p. 30). Yet, the discourse is constantly what “carries out the event” ( fait
événement), as he says, because of its eruptive faculty, since it is able to arrange
ruptures and discontinuities. By contrast, our (Western) will to master this random
discursive proliferation (the subject playing sovereign over its own discourse) is
essentially manifesting a deep logophobia rooted in our culture.
Nevertheless, here is also the threshold where Foucault and Klemperer once again
brutally split. On the one hand, Foucault summons Nietzsche, Bataille, Artaud, etc., to
provide coherence to the indeterminate but stubborn nostalgia of a discourse released
from any kind of order, a free fleeing speech if you will, at the margins of the dense
networks of power and regimes of truth. On the other hand, Klemperer faces this
Medusa-like monster: a language broken free from the codes of civilization, a drunk
2 To Resist Within Language 13
and mad language, staggering and rambling, holding a torch in the streets of the
city, and not just any city in his case, but Dresden, a rich historical and cultural city.
It seems that, by definition, Foucault’s approach to the order of discourse excludes
the teratological perspective which would be applied to an object like the LTI. But
if it does not, if such a discursive machine, if such an ideologically ridden jargon,
requires a kind of medical gaze (Klemperer as a diagnostician of the madness of the
Nazified German language), then it is only on an explicit political level: provided
that for Foucault, Nazism, like Stalinism, is a “disease of power” (Foucault, 1994a,
p. 535).
It is here then that their analyses clearly converge: both seek to draw out the
obscure place where the desires of the subjects couple with the Nazi’s machine of
terror. Klemperer writes in his journal multiple times, all the way up to the end of the
Nazi regime, about his disbelief in the enduring phenomenon, that is, of the popular
support for an iconic figure, in this case, the Führer, and not for a particular program
or an ideology. These forms of belief and identification (“I believe in him” is the title
of one of the most striking texts of the LTI, see Klemperer, 1996, p. 143) seemingly
convey an obscure desire for authority and for mindlessness, a propensity and an
affect the philologist associated to religious fanaticism. The corrupted language of
the Third Reich is the cement of this sectarian and blinded “enthusiasm” (on the
association of enthusiasm and fanaticism, see Shaftesbury, 1711).
In a similar manner, Foucault criticizes the analysis of Nazism which exclusively
focus on economic and social determinations; he accentuates the subjective constitu-
tion of individuals whose desires have been captured and reimplanted in the networks
of power. For him, the Nazi or totalitarian disease is related to the extreme inten-
sification of the link between people’s desire and power, between games of desire
and power. “Nazism never once provided a pound of butter for people, it never gave
anything but power” (An assertion made in relation to Louis Malle’s film Lacombe
Lucien, in Foucault, 1994b, p. 655). It is essentially a power to harm, but diffused
among all:
When we think back to the power that an individual could possess under the Nazi regime
as soon as he becomes a S.S. or a party member! One could actually kill his neighbor,
appropriate his wife, his house! (…) As a matter of fact, contrary to what we usually under-
stand as dictature, that is as the power of one alone, we could say that in such a regime the
most despicable part of power, which is in a sense also the most exhilarating, is given to a
considerable number of people. (Foucault, 1994b, p. 654)
Even though Klemperer’s analysis, being based on immediate observation, seems

more balanced, more inclined to highlight the irresolute inconsistencies of the
regime’s friends and followers, it still gives ground to Foucault’s argument: the
potential persecutor is everywhere—he has the face of the S.S. organizing raids, the
police officer controlling tram passengers, the foreman in factories, the subaltern
public officer ruling at his own discretion the destiny of “quarter-Jews” married to
“Aryan” women.
Power here is not the “magnificent beast” once mentioned by Foucault, but a
machine of death distributed in the hands of the masses (Foucault, 1994c, p. 212). In
the end, however, the position of the survivor keeping a record of his survival and that
of the genealogist inaugurating his chair at the Collège de France cannot ultimately
overlap.
A Handbook of Resistance
LTI is humbly named by its author “a philologist’s notebook”, while it is actually in

the truest sense of the word a handbook of resistance.1 What remains of the solitary
individual who is isolated from everyone by the manic rule of racial discrimination,
who is marked and bullied, who is grappling with bans, and is crushed by misery?
What remains of this castaway after he has been stripped of what constitutes a human
being in a civilized society? When is he gripped by the constant fear of deportation
and bombings?
Klemperer’s Stoic answer (and of his wife, Eva, a non-Jew who stayed by his side
despite the persecutions against him, thus preventing his deportation), which was
also tested during twelve years of Nazism, is inner freedom. It is a modest form of
resistance formed through the obstinacy of intellectual vigilance against insurmount-
able odds. Such vigilance is manifested here by the witness of the disaster. “Observe,
study, engrave in your memory what is happening”. This is the self-exhortation and
command ruling the conduct of the university professor that has been reduced to an
outcast since the first day of the catastrophe (Klemperer, 1996, p. 32).
The resistance which is displayed here does not take the form of a radiant exploit,
of a warlike action. It embodies rather, and despite the constant danger, a strategy of
endurance, of perseverance against the most extreme hardships. Klemperer, the mute
resistant who seems submissive and passive, issues the most senseless challenge:
maintain and embody the continuity of reason, of critical thought, of civilized identity
when everything else is falling apart, when everything “is floating in the same brown
sauce” (1996, p. 34). At the risk of death (for if his notes had been discovered, he
certainly would’ve been thrown into a camp or even a gas chamber), he bets on the
intellectuals continuing their clarifying work, even though the poison of words and
distorted opinions are everywhere and the “epidemic” affects everyone.
Endurance is fundamental for such a challenge. We could even call it a quixotic
task, since it involves such disproportionate forces. The paradoxical heroism
embodied by Eva and Victor Klemperer is entirely oriented towards this doubtful
future, towards the eye of the needle survivors of gas chambers and phosphorous
bombs are passing through at the beginning of the year 1945. To outlive the Nazi
machine of death, to survive its erosion and apocalyptic destruction: this is the
“insane” bet of the frail and powerless outcast.
In one of the most outstanding analyzes of this book, Klemperer examines the
distortion of the meaning of the word “fanaticism” as it is operated by Nazism.
By parodying the LTI, we could say that this book is entirely driven by a double
1Originally published as Afterwords in Klemperer, V. (1999). LTI: la langue du IIIe Reich. Carnets
d’un philologue, trans. Guillot Elisabeth, Pocket, pp. 363–373.
A Handbook of Resistance 15
“fanaticism”: of reason and hope, both, in turn, being the conditions of the resistance
of the author. Actually, Klemperer compares this silent practice of resistance in a
desolate situation (Hannah Arendt) to the perilous art of a tightrope walker advancing
over an abyss and “clinging” to his balancing pole. For the persecuted man marked by
the yellow star, each day earned is like a step further on the tightrope—which we now
know amounted to more than four thousand days. His strategy of endurance reminds
us also of the poor and simple man depicted in Brecht’s apologue. A messenger
arrives and tells him: “My almighty Master asks if you want to be his subject”. The
man does not answer and kindly requests the messenger to sit down. He feeds him
and takes care of him for years and years. Then one day, the messenger who is now
old, dies. And it is finally at this moment that the poor man utters this simple word:
“No”.
This type of resistance implies a most arduous asceticism: it is performed against
the perpetual fear felt by a condemned man living on borrowed time. It requires
self-control and an unwavering composure all the while “dirty daily life” induces
surrender and resentment. It imposes the mobilization of every intellectual capacity
while the general tendency leans towards intellectual exhaustion and surrender to the
prevailing apathetic stupor.
A typology of courage and virtues of resistance would shed light on two symmet-
rical attitudes. On the one hand, we would put bravery with no prospect of victory,
which is for us (in France) embodied, for example by the MOI (Main-d’Oeuvre
Immigrée), a small group of youthful “clandestine immigrants” who, in the depths
of the darkest moments of French occupation, managed to revive the passion of the
vanquished by turning terror against the victors. And on the other hand, we would
have the bravery of the already aging scholar who has been downgraded to the status
of quasi-slave, but who is also reversing the dialectic of terror by transforming the
terrorist brute (the Nazi state and its minions), the almighty persecutor-subject, into
an object of observation, a topic for the deepest reflection of the totalitarian side of
twentieth-century history. The heroes and the righteous men and women of the “red
poster”2 embody for posterity the “remaining part” of the anger, and the dignity which
cannot be crushed by terror, a dignity reconstituted in liberating counter-violence. In
the same vein, Klemperer’s “notes” are here to attest to the endurance of reason and
culture in the face of any operation of dehumanization and de-civilization. Figures
such as the philologist facing catastrophe armed only with his pen and the kids of
the MOI with their homemade bombs are extremely precious to us, because they are
among the rare heroes and righteous people we can wholeheartedly refer to and iden-
tify with. It is certainly no coincidence that they were persecuted weak “foreigners”,
rather than important people or recognized commanders of war.
In that respect, the “notes” that Klemperer places like dikes in front of the catas-
trophe can be likened to Zoran Mušič’s (1995) graphic “accounts” of the concentra-
tion camps, or to Hanna Lévy-Hass’ (2015) Diary of Bergen-Belsen. They constitute
2 See in Wikipedia de article on the Affiche Rouge. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiche_rouge.

our “treasure”,3 in the sense, of course, that they are the stenographer’s record of the
disaster and that they stand between us and any desire to forget. They stand between
ourselves and any “distraction” from the past. But they are our most precious “goods”
in an even more radical sense: they bear witness to the persistence of humanity’s spark
in the most extreme conditions, when the intellectual, the artist, or the simple human
subject documents, like Goya, what they saw in an attack against civilization.4 Yo lo
vi, I was there, I saw it, and I kept records for you who will come later.
Klemperer defined his work as that of a philologist, an occupation on the road to
extinction, much like the clog maker or the wolf hunter. Be that as it may, being settled
at the crossroads of language study, in its history or morphology, and of literature as
the vehicle of culture, the philologist is thrown into the heart of the Nazi disaster. His
most precious thing, what he examines as a professional, language, bears witness to
all that is collapsing around him. It is the sensitive plate on which all the crimes and
atrocities were fixated, even when the culprits believed that they could conceal, deny,
and erase them. By setting up his observatory of survival in the language which has
been abused and drafted by Hitlerians, that is the language of daily life, Klemperer
grasps the inner dimensions of Nazism, terror, and brainwashing, as they fall through
the cracks of a systemic or event-driven historical analysis. He collects the poisoned
sap of the distorted language that “poetizes and thinks” behind the distraught subject’s
back, surreptitiously enfolding and enraging them against their own will. It is not so
much the “unconscious” dimension of Nazism that Klemperer grasps in the LTI, a
language spread by the anesthetized and possessed subjects of the Third Reich, but
rather its texture, the living tissue of the monster.
Here, the ascetic work of the philologist unfolds on two different levels. On the
one hand, he must behave like a true scientist under extreme conditions. He must
overcome the natural horror he feels as he faces the corruption of the language
and thought devoured by the LTI so that he can listen and read without difficulty,
collecting from the gutters the revolting flowers of this rhetoric, relentlessly resisting
the urge to close his eyes and ears. Nevertheless, it is not enough for him just to play
the role of curator in such a museum of filth. He must also continue to think against
the uninterrupted gusts of spoiled language. Once again, the philologist joins Bertolt
Brecht who observed that: “In the periods of time which impose deception and favor
mistakes, the thinker strives to rectify what he reads and hears. He rectifies as he
is slowly repeating what he hears and reads. Phrase after phrase, he substitutes the
truth for the untruth […] The thinker moves forward one phrase after another so that
he can slowly but fully correct what he read and heard, by following the sequence.
Thus, he forgets nothing”.5
3 “Mušič is often questioned about the cathartic dimension of his paintings—if he purges himself
or liberates himself through his work—by ‘shaking the nightmare he went through’. To this he
answers in his calm and humble voice that it is something that you should in no case be willing to
liberate yourself from: it is a treasure that he carefully safeguards and that he would never want to
lose” (Gibson, as cited in Mušič, 1995). On this point, see also Hannah (2006).
4 The reference to Goya is borrowed from the text of Michael Gibson quoted in Mušič (1995).
5 Translated by the author from Bertolt (1970).
The language observatory set up by the philologist allows him to detect with
acuity what differentiates the Third Reich from classical forms of tyranny and brutal
dictatorship. He quickly perceives the “totalitarian difference” of the Nazi regime
when it turns out that it cannot only mistreat and slaughter its enemies (real or
imaginary) but also spoil the speech and thought of its victims via the muck that is its
jargon and propaganda. As an observer who is both horrified and ruthless, Klemperer
often evokes the persecuted Jews as being continuously molded in the language of the
persecutor. Even the well-intentioned people who manifest their empathy convey the
venom of ideology and hurt the people they address, thus making them no less violent
and insulting than the thugs of the Gestapo. Language is this strategical position
from which the philologist witnesses the dissolution of reference points which, in the
traditional diagram of enmity or war, is used to operate the divide between friend and
enemy, good and evil, righteous actions and crimes, civilization, and barbarity. When
words such as “fanatic” or “blindness” are reconditioned so that they are purposely
assigned a positive value, when cats belonging to Jews are shunned as artvergessen
(literally: lost for the species, that is degenerate) and therefore banished from the
feline species, when the mention “characteristically good” tends to unfailingly mean
Nazi and thus ready to commit all sorts of crimes, then the magnitude of the disaster
on the desolate battlefield of language is fully unveiled. Under the watchful eye of
the philologist, the “LTIzed”, “commandeered”, and contaminated German language
becomes then, because of the effect of ideological arsenic, the residue/depository of
the catastrophe (dépôt de la catastrophe), the place where the concentration of poison
is most constant. Is it possible to imagine a more irrefutable and depressing sign of
this than when even Klemperer himself, the vigilant hero of language, is sometimes
referring to his wife as an Aryan? Without even using quotation marks?
It is needless to say Klemperer demonstrates the most humble and magnificent
tenacity. Every morning he woke up before dawn and, before going to the factory,
recorded the barbarisms of the lingua horribilis he heard or read the day before.
He knew that this noxious “music” was volatile. The memory of the crimes and
of the high-ranking Nazi criminals would remain. But no Nuremberg Tribunal will
ever adjudicate the collapse and denial of humanity which occurred at the heart of
language, in the depth of words which “think” or rather de-think by themselves and
spoil minds. As a result of this, the false currency of poisoned words kept circulating
even after the executioners disappeared, like a perverse legacy for posterity. So the
philologist stands here, like a sentinel watching over the dead who are also assaulted
by language (exterminated, for example, as Untermenschen). He too must wake the
sleeping living beings when the LTI once again infects their statements years after
the fall of the empire of the Lemures.
The distinctive acuity of Klemperer’s gaze on Nazi society goes along with the
position he occupied in it as a Jew, as the outcast, at the very bottom. His notes
converge with Hannah Arendt’s thoughts. She characterizes Nazi society as a set of
concentric circles of terror arranged around a kernel formed by the concentration
camp system, and at its heart, the extermination camps where the Final Solution is
taking place. Under Klemperer’s gaze, Nazi society also appears as a concentration
society in the sense that it is entirely pointing towards the camps and extermination.
Its terrorist features find their highest density in them. The ordeal the author of the LTI
went through is one of a persecuted man who, during a decade, remained suspended—
with his philologist beam and his Stoic consciousness—at the edge of the abyss,
that is, the path to the camps and from 1941 to the gas chambers. His condition is
composed of an unbelievable aggregate of proscriptions, deprivations, debasements,
and humiliations (though previously a chair holder in Dresden University, he is now
only allowed to read (borrow, own, etc.) “Jewish books” [sic]). To go to the factory,
he must stand on the tram platform that separates him from “Aryan” travelers. In his
workplace, he must stay away from his “Aryan” colleagues as much as possible. This
includes the moments when he eats, washes, and changes clothes. He is allowed to
leave his home only during specific hours—obeying a specific kind of curfew. He
cannot get ration or clothing coupons, the kind “native” Germans are entitled to.
From the 19th of September 1941, he is obligated to wear the star (the darkest day of
all these years, he writes). He is then at the mercy of the first informer or henchman
of the Gestapo. One violation of this set of “rules” and bans, and he could be sent to
the camps, to death by “respiratory insufficiency”.
And yet, in spite of the unbearable nature of this downgrading, of this partitioning,
and of the maniac ranking of victims which are registered by the LTI through the
utmost staggering neologisms, Klemperer’s records of the horror constantly shed
light on the distinction between the terror-laden, poisoned world of Nazi society
and the landscape of the camps and extermination. At the edge of the abyss, the
persecuted intellectual who is reduced to the most despised condition manages to
preserve, despite everything that is happening, his inner freedom and his faculty of
judgment. When the Gestapo henchmen curse and beat him, he silently endures and
documents the scene in his notes. When his close friends, his previous colleagues,
and some fellow Jews who share the same destitute condition, are themselves caught
up by the “epidemic” and adopt the brown (khaki, the color of the Nazi uniform)
vernacular and its ready-made thought, he mourns and he is outraged. But he clenches
his teeth and tirelessly keeps records of the disaster. His wife then hides these records,
page after page, in a safe place. Such confrontation with adversity, as weary as it
is, remains an experience of the negative, a struggle. Klemperer is able to make
sense of his perseverance, of his will to survive under such extreme conditions. His
intellectual work of critical analysis goes on.
The condition of the prisoners in the Nazi camps is for the vast majority of
them radically different. For them, the “nightmare” that is Nazism does not take
the shape of an experience, but rather that of an ordeal without compensation—the
ordeal of their brutal animalization. Those who survive, who resist by participating
in clandestine reunions or revolts, will remain after the camp the castaways of a very
particular “species” (Primo Levi showed this with unparalleled strength), marked
forever not only by the “hell” of the camp, the suffering endured and the lived
atrocities, but overall by the exclusion from the human condition that they underwent
in the camp, and thus by the stigma of their transformation into experimental material
in the laboratory that was the camp, where the bureaucrats of the crime tested the
sustainability of what Hannah Arendt refers to as a human society without humans.
Primo Levi notes that the survivor of the camp is definitely a victim but, whatever
the reasons and circumstances of his deportation are, he will never be “innocent”
again. He will be tormented over and over by the question “why me?” Haunted by a
pang of paradoxical guilt, he/she remains within the grips of the curse of the camp.
Klemperer’s condition is different though. Despite the awful outrages and cruelties
he went through (he had to comply, keep quiet, take the beatings and humiliations,
suffer hunger and other’s contemptuous gaze or pity), the condition of his survival
did not mean the death of the others, of the friend, the neighbor, the relative who was
taken “instead of him” according to a selective process. After the war, Klemperer
was able to come back among the humans inasmuch as he owed his survival to
something akin to a pure miracle. On the morning of the 13th of February, he was
taken with the last Jews of Dresden so that they can be deported and exterminated. But
in the evening, after the convoy had already left the city, he was saved by the Allied
bombing which destroyed Dresden and its population, disrupting simultaneously
the Nazi death machine. Perhaps only in the life and work of Walter Benjamin can
we see such a close affinity between the catastrophe (the apocalyptic fire falling on
Dresden) and the miracle (the salvation of the righteous and enduring hero). The
conditions under which Klemperer turns his survival into something productive and
enlightening during twelve years, along with the conditions of his relief at the end of
the war, make his survival a miracle, and of him an innocent in the strongest sense
of the word. In that respect, the papers saved from the disaster and which compose
this book with its sarcastic title, LTI, are touched by some sort of unique grace.
Readers who are immersed in the kind of regulatory thought in which the unprece-
dented and unparalleled Crime committed by the Germans against the Jews found
its natural reparation in the creation of the Judenstaat called for by Herzl, will
certainly be stunned by the recurring developments in Klemperer’s book on the rela-
tion between the emergence of Zionism and the birth of Hitler’s obsession, as well as
the emphasis on the relationship between the furore of German pre-Nazi nationalism
and the Zionist “eccentricity”. But, and it is the same for many other authors, this
convergence is not only dictated by the obvious cultural contiguity and morphological
kinship which can be located in Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Double Monarchy
at the end of the nineteenth century (see Schorske, 1979). It is also based on the inner
knowledge of someone who suffered under the yoke of triumphant Nazism, and who
knows that not all victorious historical “solutions” must irrevocably become “true”,
rightful, and necessary merely because they have been enforced. For Klemperer, as
well as for a majority of European Jew intellectuals during the inter-war period,
Zionism and the resolution of the so-called Jew question by way of the creation of
a State and a Nation of Jews is considered a kind of whim that is essentially driven
by the “darkening” of the world, the same one which gave birth to Nazism. Looking
back at his existence with a deep and explicit universalist faith (“I would like to blend
in the general and follow the great stream of life”6 ), Klemperer writes in his diary as
early as 1933: “The most deplorable thing of all is that I am forced to constantly deal
6 Klemperer refers to this sentence, taken from Karl Gutzkow’s theater piece Uriel Acosta, 1847,
as cited in Klemperer (1996, p. 220).

with the madness that is the racial difference between Aryans and Semites, that I
am obligated to consider all this horrendous darkening and subjugation of Germany
solely from the perspective of what is Jew. It appears to me as a victory of Hitlerism
over my self. I do not want to concede to it” (1996, p. 56).
This remark is not the least important signal reaching our present time. He
is certainly presenting himself as someone who “is right” against the oppressive
Third Reich because he embodies the tenacity of reason against the crystalliza-
tion of madness into tyrannical power. But he is also showing in advance a critical
consciousness regarding the world after Auschwitz, which is established in the insid-
ious comfort of the “reparation” for the wrong done to Jews, in the founding of a
Jew power bloc installed at the heart of the Arab world, like a guard of the Occident.
Klemperer urges us not to kowtow in front of the order to acknowledge the rational
principle of history at work in the deployment of real power and to relentlessly
redress the haunting statements which are bound to this situation. As a manual of
intellectual survival against tyranny, LTI constitutes a meditation on the illusion of
eternity harbored by the oppressors, the impostors, and the important people who
follow them. In that sense, far from being only an irreplaceable “document” on
Nazism, it also reaches us as a manual of critique of and for our present.
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men, manners, opinions, times (Vol. I, treatise I, pp. 3–55).
Tati, J. (Director). (1958). Mon Oncle.
Chapter 3
To Eradicate the Culture of Enmity
The expression “culture of enmity” is ambiguous—so I should begin by clarifying

what I mean by this: it is not the culture of a particular or generic enemy, but rather
an operation that consists in making the production of one’s own identity inseparable
from the confrontation with an enemy. The fabrication of the enemy and the repro-
duction of the collective existence of a given human set are part of this continuous,
dynamic process. It is a loop, a matrix, a structure all at once.
This figure is infinitely familiar to us Europeans. It is in fact the one that presided
over the formation of the system of nation-states, a system that has never strictly
speaking stabilized—insofar as it was perhaps caught up in the very movement of
this operation. The construction of European nation-states is consubstantial with
the establishment of a culture and policy of the enemy. Under the clash of empires,
another figure pierces through, that of the struggle to the death (at least it is conceived
as such, as it is a discursive figure) between hereditary enemies—the French and the
Germans, the Poles and the Russians, Hungarians and Romanians, Austrians and
Serbs or Italians. European nationalisms thrive on the notion that the condition for
the nation to live or survive lies in the neutralization of the other nation which
represents for it a perpetual existential threat, or the opposition to the deadly tutelage
exercised by a given imperial power over one’s enslaved nation. Certainly, the modern
figure of the hereditary enemy comes from the remobilization and reinstatement of
an immemorial motif—that of the war of the races and the philosophy that goes
with it and whose genealogy Foucault reconstructs in Il faut défendre la société
(Society must be defended). But where politics is essentially placed under the regime
of nation-states, a whole modern “grammar” and “syntax” of the “culture of enmity”
is elaborated, and it is still haunting entire areas of the planet.
This, precisely at a time when what is particular of West European history (and
which we would expect to display a prognostic demeanor) is the passage to the era
of the “post-”, the passage to the age that will be designated as the post-culture of
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_3
22 3 To Eradicate the Culture of Enmity
enmity and all the ambiguities that come with it: every figure of the “post-” is born
and lives on under the sign of ambivalence and ambiguity.
Here, the paradigm is distinctly Franco-German. After three Franco-German wars
since the mid-nineteenth century (and, since the disappearance of the GDR, the two
nation-states, to which Austria may have been added), the two nations have entered
the era of post-nationalism, that is, beyond the culture of the hereditary enemy.
Neither in France nor in Germany is the identity factory (seized up, in crisis, but
that’s another problem) “working” today in designating its great neighbor as an elec-
tive enemy and perpetual threat. Conversely, the structuring enmity has become a
structuring political friendship, in what is abusively referred to as the “European
Community”—the Brussels thing, quite sinister in so many aspects but, nonetheless,
a convincing manifestation of the advent of the post-war era.
To sum things up a bit crudely, one could say that the European construction
has failed in just about everything, that the European Community is everything but
a political entity or even a sovereignty in the making, capable of keeping up with
powers such as the United States and China. One could say that it is essentially the
guardian of neoliberal orthodoxy in the European space—and, as well, the sum of
the dissensions which undermine it, whether in international or domestic politics.
But in its own way, this failure in European construction, in the promotion of a
culturally and politically integrated Europe, only serves to highlight what is epoch-
making in the evolution of this space since the end of the Second World War: the
disconnection, in the space of the great European nations, particularly in Western
Europe, of the mechanism destined to produce the culture of enmity. In the context
of the successive crises that have affected Europe since the turn of the century, there
is no lack of reasons for tensions between the great Western European nation-states
(Brexit being the latest reincarnation), but the fact remains that in this space, with all
these dissensions, the culture of enmity, understood as a regime of hostility placed
under the nationalisms born in the nineteenth century, no longer works.1
Neither States nor populations feel, in this topography, the existence of a close
stranger, at the borders, as a perpetual and vital threat. On the contrary, borders have
become thin (though not for non-EU migrants). Border towns such as Strasbourg
and Menton are “invaded” by cross-border commuters who come as neighbors on
weekends, vacations, and festivals—and for work, of course. These transient migra-
tions are not perceived as dangerous or even inconvenient, quite the contrary, they
make trade work, as does intra-European tourism (school exchanges and European
cultural programs, in particular) which, since the Second World War, has contributed
more than anything else, at the level of populations, towards the deactivation of the
culture of enmity.
This in no way means that an “active culture of the friend(s)” has substituted itself
for that of the enemy—the tired motif of Franco-German friendship, for example, is
a motive for the chancellery, European diplomacy, and transactions between elites,
1 This is the reason why European elites and Eurocrats resolutely opposed in 2017 the independence
tendencies in Catalonia whose promoters were surfing an anti-Spanish nationalism and perceived
by them as totally untimely.
3 To Eradicate the Culture of Enmity 23
especially political ones. It does not correspond to anything substantial and deep,
organic, at the level of populations. The French as a whole care very little about
German domestic policy, they do not speak German, read little German literature,
see few German films, and hardly go on vacation in Germany. But this distance
and this relative indifference that is maintained, on a general scale, only serves to
underline a turning point in civilization, that is, the neutralization of the negative
affects that, for nearly a century, in the time of nationalist fevers, poisoned Franco-
German relations. The Franco-German axis, which is supposed to be the backbone
of communitarian Europe, is in pretty bad shape, but for all that, the efforts of a
few old-fashioned, win–lose, unpopular politicians to awaken the old anti-German
rhetoric have never found a wide resonance among the population. The spontaneous
regime that has imposed itself in this matter is that of “enough is enough (three wars
with Germany…), we are done with it!”.2
The pacified and “civilized” Franco-German relationship is here the expression
of Western Europe’s entry into an era that is not so much an era of forgetting the
disputes and wrongdoings accumulated throughout the history of the construction
of nation-states and their confrontations in Western Europe, but rather of their de-
intensification. The Spaniards have certainly not forgotten the Napoleonic campaigns
that ravaged their country. The Italians are not ignorant of France’s behavior on the
conquered ground in their country and how it hardly favored the unification of the
Italian nation, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century—for the least. The Belgians
are well aware that Germany violated the neutrality of their country in August 1914.
The British also remember the London Blitz and the bombing of Coventry. The
Germans, conversely, have not forgotten anything about the destruction of Dresden
and Hamburg at the end of the Second World War. But these deeds and misdeeds
are no longer casus belli of any kind, they are no longer motives that one “awakens”
(except in the rarest of cases) to do politics today, to try to gain ascendancy over
one’s neighbor or to put him in his place.
For all that, the memory of the wrongs suffered is now as if untied from a traditional
culture of enmity. We cannot analyze this unboundedness in pure and simple terms of
cause and effect—as an effect of “never again!” inspired by the horrors of the Second
World War, or simply by the passage of time. More generally, it is a change of epoch,
a change in the regime of neighborliness between Western European nation-states—
the effect of which will include, as well, relations between France or Germany and
Spain or Portugal, countries that remained outside the Second World War. Other
factors, such as intra-European migration and, as mentioned above, tourism, play a
role in this change in the neighborhood regime.
The advent of a new era of neighborliness in Western Europe has resulted in
an essential change in the regime of discourse—in public and political discourse,
in the press. Vituperations and invectives against the neighbor, words of poisonous
propaganda, and pejorative and insulting designations of the “other” as the enemy,
2 Many were the precursors of this period change, especially in the interwar period. See for example
on this subject the political writings of Klaus Mann (2011), son of Thomas Mann, and in particular
the text entitled Is Franco-German friendship possible?
have become incongruous, unfortunate, from another time. The characteristic of a

change of epoch is not so much the going beyond, the overcoming of past forms as
their forgetting, the fact that they fall into disuse, that they become ridiculous, pitiful,
out of time, for what remains of them is waste or aftermath of the past. It is not so
much that it would henceforth be prohibited, resulting reprehensible to relaunch all
the rich slang and insulting denominations of other nationals. It is that this is no
longer done. It has been removed from the moral code and has thus become a matter
of public decency, such as the banning of jokes about Jews, concentration camps,
and homosexuals.
That is why, in general, it is necessary to avoid giving these changes moral content
in the first place. A certain form or stake of morality certainly enters these processes,
but it is certainly not the good moral dispositions of one or the other, nor is it the
moral imperatives enunciated by some unknown authority that commands them. The
same applies to the vast field of iconography, and caricature in particular—one can
caricature Merkel in the French press, the newspapers do not deprive themselves
of this—but it would be better to avoid doing so in a way that is too close to the
traditional stereotypes of the Teutons and Teutonnes of the anti-Boche (“Huns”)
propaganda of the beginning of the twentieth century.
Unfortunately, it is not that this register of discourse on the culture of enmity
has disappeared in this space. It is more precise to say that it has moved and that,
now out of the way in the treatment of the close foreigner, it no longer stops, on
the contrary, it has intensified in the treatment of the interior enemy, the parasite,
the dangerous undesirable that is the “Islamist” and, more generally, the real or
imaginary “immigrant”, the bad post-colonial subject. The change of epoch is not
the disappearance of the culture of enmity, it is its reprocessing, its reconditioning.
This is, of course, a major restriction. For all that, what prevails from the configu-
ration on a Western Europe scale of an area of integration whose main characteristic
is not that it functions as a single market, with a single currency, placed under the
sign of supranational institutions, but rather that it works under a code of pacified
neighborliness, untied from the culture of enmity. As we have seen, the migratory
crisis, followed by that of COVID-19, led Western European states to re-establish
border controls of varying intensity—yet this return of borders has not brought with
it the rhetoric of enmity back to our doorstep. The one who is now placed under this
(discursive) regime of enmity is, on the one hand, the migrant, and on the other, the
Islamist assimilated to a terrorist, as well as, increasingly, the Chinese—not (yet?)
the boss of the local Chinese restaurant we are used to, but the ethnic Chinese who is
perceived as related to the rising Chinese power and the Chinese state (see “‘DIRTY’
cuisine”, 2020).
These mutations affecting the code of hostility and neighborhood relations are
now an integral part of the state of mind and behavior of the vast majority of people
in Western European countries. When French people go to Germany or Italy, they
do not feel in any way that they are on enemy soil or in a hostile country—as people
of colonial origin, recent immigrants or not, can feel in France today. The effect of
this is that when Western Europeans travel to East Asia and stay there for a long
time, they cannot but be deeply affected, shocked to find that these countries live
under a regime of hostility and the culture of enmity that painfully reminds them of
something—this sort of tyranny of enmity between neighbors whose expiration they
feel, in their own latitudes, as a relief.
This experience is particularly trying for a Western European person living in
Taiwan. The hold exerted there by the culture of enmity, first and foremost directed
against mainland China, and present especially among the political, media, and
academic elites, appears to any observer from this old European world whose mind
is not clouded by partisan fevers as being incredibly confusing. He/she cannot help
being struck by the blatant kinship maintained between this regime (form, kind)
of animosity and the regime (forms, kind) of hostility we Europeans have finally
dismissed at the highest price. The feeling of déjà vu invades us as soon as we open
those newspapers, hear those speeches, see those billboards (those where hate propa-
ganda usurping John Lennon’s name used to be displayed) where, obsessively, the
rulers of mainland China are insulted, vilified, caricatured as disgusting or ferocious
beasts, bloody monsters, called Nazis, executioners, exterminators, enemies of the
human race—it’s all so familiar to us!3
But this familiarity, precisely, has for us the taste and smell of a nightmare—of
those times when in our hyperbolic propaganda the neighbor, the designated hered-
itary enemy, could only be a barbarian of decadent or retarded morals, a monster
thirsty for conquest and blood, speaking uncivilized jargon, a “people” of morons
with dubious origins. And what is just as familiar to us, because our parents, grand-
parents, and great-grandparents experienced it first-hand, is the rigorous association
of this hate speech, this ideology of criminalizing the neighbor to the mass graves
and ruins that have constellated Europe throughout the second half of the nineteenth
century and the first half of the twentieth.
Because of this shared historical experience, of the extreme violence in the twen-
tieth century in particular, we have a strong intuition that the tyranny of the culture
of enmity is what leads to war; that, much more than a policy or a strategy, it is a
collective disease, a curse that weighs on the peoples on whom it falls, a sleepwalking
factory.4
Of course, it is not a calamity that falls from the sky. The culture of enmity is
manufactured, maintained, renewed, and intensified on purpose—it does not exist
without machines and discursive factories—you only have to open the Taipei Times
and other equivalent publications every day to be convinced of this. The fabrication
3 The embarkation of university elites in these enemy-making processes is certainly one of the most
distressing and worrying aspects of this phenomenon. Recently, the president of one of Taiwan’s
most reputable universities, the National Sun Yat-Sen University (Kaohsiung), advocated in an op-
ed published in the Taipei Times (Cheng, 2020) the establishment of a reserve officer corps, aimed
at young people with a university education, so that through their periods there, it “would enable
university students to change track and join the armed forces”.
4 We must make the difference here between sharing the experience or the attempt to make travel
a collective experience and administering history lessons from a determined point of view—Euro-
centric in this case. Europeans are not the only ones to have experienced historic disasters in the
twentieth century—but what can be shared, as food for thought, and not exported as a “lesson”,
is how the European disasters of the 1930s and 1940s led to the disenchantment of the culture of
enmity.
of the culture of enmity is a form of political criminality like any other, the crime
has its name(s) and address(es). This is obvious when one reconstructs, for example,
the genealogy of the First World War in Europe: in the background of the chain of
events, as it accelerated from the beginning of the summer of 1914 until it completely
escaped the control of the chancelleries, is the untiring agitation of the discursive
manufactures bent on keeping the culture of enmity alive (see Clarck, 2015).
It’s like a spiral, and when the moment arrives, when the peoples themselves (and
not just certain elites or interest groups) are on board, nothing can stop the infernal
machine. It is therefore no exaggeration at all to say that those who have specialized
in promoting the culture of enmity and day after day provide the fuel for it, are
not only irresponsible agitators or purveyors of tension, but also war-makers. What
they aspire to is a good war that puts the enemy “in its place”—turbulent Serbia for
Austria-Hungary in August 1914, Communist China today in the hate propaganda
of the agitators in the United States and Taiwan.
It cannot be overemphasized that the culture of enmity is like an oil slick: when
it has fallen upon a people, has engulfed it, enveloped it, infiltrated its historical and
political subjectivity, polluted its language, then a great deal of hardship and pain
is required for this people to emancipate itself from this subjugation. The culture of
enmity becomes, in the long run, an ethos that sticks, not only to their language but
to the skin of the people, thus opening up breaches into which all the escape lines
into the imaginary, all the passages to the act, are likely to be engulfed.
All this is what historical experience has taught us Western Europeans. This collec-
tive experience is too recent for it to present itself to us, all generations combined, as
antiquarian history, pure school subject—inert knowledge as such. On the contrary, it
is what triggers alarm signals and aversion reflexes in all of us as soon as we witness
any kind of manifestation that could be likened to the return of the rhetoric of enmity
proper to the era of wars between European nation-states. This is why the carica-
tures of the Chinese leaders, the imagery intended to designate “China” as a land of
barbarism and bloody tyranny, do not only appear to us to be out of place or out of
date, but are also in fact repulsive. We feel pain and constant anxiety, seeing them,
(knowing/thinking?) that the disparity of the regimes of hostility is what prevails
on the scale of the planet; and, more particularly, it appears to us that East Asia is
a kind of conservatory of forms that we would so much like to say belong to the
past. All this is for many of us Europeans living in East Asia a perpetual factor of
disorientation and disarray.
The decline of Europe (economic and political, in particular) is, for us, a very
familiar topos, and it is not necessarily something that we as Europeans should
necessarily feel sorry for—if Eurocentrism and, more generally, Western-centrism
(and all the presumptions that go with it) were to lose a few feathers, we might see
it as a good rather than a bad thing. But if there is one thing whose return we cannot
imagine without dismay, it is, for us French, the time of Barrès and Déroulède, that
age when the swill of patriotic and chauvinistic imbecility saturated the sewers of
public life—that time when the German only was correctly represented in the shape
of the spike-hated, predatory, semi-Asian barbarian Boche.
Now, when we read the editorials of the Taipei Times and discover the accom-
panying sketches, this is what we see. And we wonder not only what the morons
who do that are playing at, but also what kind of time they live in. To be perfectly
fair, it would not be reasonable to forget that these fools are influenced, that their
bellicose ardor and culture of enmity is relentlessly fueled by those who blow on the
embers across the Pacific Ocean. What is characteristic of East Asia today is that
the culture of enmity is constantly being rekindled by the interference of the United
States, which since the end of the Second World War has considered the entire Pacific
as its Mare Nostrum and has included East and Southeast Asia in its “great space”.
The culture of enmity thrives on the tyranny of the inexpiable—the maintenance
of a figure of the enemy understood as the perpetrator of crimes that cannot be
forgiven. It is interesting to note that the motif of the inexpiable was heated up
in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first part of the twentieth
century by nationalist and chauvinistic discourses in a context where all nationalisms
resembled each other and practiced, each for its own account, similar outbidding,
looking at and insulting each other in the mirror. It was only with the rise of fascism
in southern Europe and, above all, of Nazism in Germany, that the motif of the
inexpiable became inseparable from that of the systemic—to its enemies the crimes
of Nazism (understood as the pure antagonism of democracy) did not appear as
soluble in German nationalism; they presented, in comparison with it, an irreducible
surplus to Prussianism, to the spirit of Grossdeutsch conquest, to the presumptions
of Pangermanism, etc. The crimes of Nazism were considered unique and singular,
not a simple extension of the failures and impasses of German modern nationalism.
It was indeed classical nationalisms that inscribed in the order of discourses of
hostility between European peoples and states the motif of the inexpiable, nourishing
it with the memory of wars, invasions, occupations, spoliations—the whole stock of
supposedly traumatic images, from the bombing of the cathedral of Rheims with
heavy artillery to the occupation of the Ruhr and the rape of Belgian women by the
Prussian occupier. The motive of the imprescriptible attached to the memory of the
collective crimes committed by the Nazi state as a totalitarian state outweighed that
of the inexpiable, forged in the crucible of white-hot nationalisms.
Here again, the emancipation from the tyranny exercised by the culture of enmity
is achieved by de-intensification and de-linking: on the one hand, the peoples once
pitted against each other by nationalist passions stop throwing at each other’s faces
the crimes committed by one another during the hostilities that opposed them, and
one does not make politics, in the present, with these memories. On the other hand,
if there is no question of de-intensifying the memory of crimes against humanity,
and even less so that of the genocide committed during the Second World War,
this memory of imprescriptible crimes is not intended to perpetuate the notion of
a guilty people, a criminal people—the condition for this operation of de-linking
being, of course, that after WWII, the Germans themselves have been dissociated
from the crimes committed by the Nazis by the very fact that they condemned them
unequivocally (see Jaspers, 1990).
Under the regime of enmity that persisted in East Asia, the opposite was done:
the inexpiable, indistinguishable from the imprescriptible, flourished more than ever,
understood as a machine, a mechanism intended to put “the other” in his place as a

criminal, guilty, intrinsic enemy. This instrumental use of the memory of historical
crimes, committed in times of war as in times of peace, is omnipresent: the sexual
slavery of women in colonized or occupied countries by the Japanese Imperial Army
during the Second World War, the mass exterminations during the occupation of
Nanking (November 1937), the US bombing of North Korea during the Korean War,
the Great Famine in China following the “Great Leap Forward”, the violence and
abuse committed during the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square massacre,
the re-education camps for Uyghurs, the White Terror under martial law in Taiwan,
etc.—these are all memories associated with state criminality, war crimes attributable
to each other, the grain to grind in the mills that are busy restarting, endlessly recycling
mutual accusations.
It is like a spell cast on the relations between peoples, by those, of course, who
make sure that the machine of resentment never stops—it could be called a discursive
industry, with its foremen, workers …. You only have to read the Taipei Times to
understand how it works, and the ascendancy of the fixed idea (the enemy as a fixed
idea) over those who practice this sad profession full-time.
One does not need to be an assiduous reader of Carl Schmitt to understand that,
in modern societies, the maintenance of the culture of enmity goes hand in hand
with its criminalization, with the dismissal of the honorable enemy—the one with
whom peace can be made, once the quarrel that leads to armed confrontation has been
concluded. The criminalization of the enemy targets both states (political regimes)
and peoples. This is why racism is the inevitable accompaniment, in the neo-imperial
wars led by the United States, in hegemonic propaganda, as in the agitation against
mainland China led in Taiwan.
If we needed a striking manifestation of the fact that racism, in modern societies,
is not the permanence or the return of the archaic, ancestral disputes between peoples
and races that everything opposes but, above all, a discursive production of states and
elites, it is in Taiwan that we find it today. This country, this State whose association
with the term “nation” remains more than hypothetical, is almost entirely populated
by ethnic Chinese and Sinophones, where the foundation of Chinese culture and
traditional customs remains deeply rooted in the people; still, this de facto sovereignty
is taken hostage by political and media elites that succeed in the tour de force to
produce ad usum populi et mundi, an anti-Chinese racism as virulent as it is vulgar
and entirely destined to cut the cultural and historical link that unites the island to
the continent.
The fabrication of this synthetic racism is obviously inseparable from the criminal-
ization of the regime in place on the mainland, designated as the enemy of humanity,
but the rhetoric that supports it does not frequently back away from the deprecia-
tive characterization of the Chinese on the mainland, a people of slaves prostrated
before the despot—converging in this, very often, with the xenophobic propaganda
(anti-Han or North Chinese) of the Hong Kong movements of the past.5
5 During the brief period when mainland Chinese tourists flocked in compact groups to the island,
this racism was abounding in the sidewalk press and on commercial television, stigmatizing “bad
Let us simply recall for the record that the criminalization of the enemy is what
is intended to justify the use of all means, not so much to defeat him in an armed
confrontation or otherwise, but to ensure his pure and simple destruction. In Taiwan,
the culture of enmity and anti-Chinese racism convey one message and one message
only: Cartago delendam est, liquidate the Chinese regime, work to precipitate its
downfall by all means, destroy the Chinese Communist Party, dismantle the state
it has built, erase all traces of the Chinese Revolution—the victory of the Chinese
Communists over the Kuomintang. The characteristic of the culture of enmity is
to freeze historical situations on constantly reactivated disputes and, in so doing,
harden antagonisms and turn oppositions into all-or-nothing questions. It is to ignore
diplomacy understood as a means of fluidifying incompatibilities between a priori
incompatible “modes of existence” (Bruno Latour).
Transposed into Western European terms, the Sinophobic anti-politics that the
Taiwanese leaders are leading today vis-à-vis continental China would be Madame
Merkel and the CDU–CSU united behind her as one, bringing together the entire
policy of the FRG around the single motive to return the “stolen” provinces of
Alsace, Lorraine, the eastern territories, and the rest, up to Königsberg (Kaliningrad)6
to Germany. Anyone in Germany who would not align himself with this agitation
would immediately be awarded the title of member of the Fifth Column and agent of
the enemy. A nightmare image for any Western European in possession of his mental
faculties—and the reason why we (who live in this minority part of the Chinese
world and cannot resolve ourselves to see Taiwan permanently become an American
excrement floating in the China Sea) are so repelled when we witness these grotesque
re-enactments of the worst of our modern history.7
Our historical experience is that armed borders such as the Maginot lines, the
Berlin Walls, and the Iron Curtains, all these symbols of repeated wars between
nation-states and cold wars, are destined to crumble into dust and dissolve in the
course of time; that the frontiers formerly or drawn once again in the blood and flesh
of peoples are made to crumble and become sufficiently “white”, transparent enough
for the Germans of Freiburg (Freiburg-in-Breisgau) to keep their Sunday habits in
education”, boisterous mores, and the conquering ways of these “invaders”—a godsend for the
tourism sector and commerce nevertheless ….
6 What I have in view here is a “freeze frame” on the image of a wrong suffered, real or imaginary,
the effect of which is to perpetuate the image of the enemy as an abuser and to preserve all its
intensities. For the rest, it is true that in appearance, Taiwan is something like the Alsace-Lorraine
of mainland China. But things are not that simple: according to its current Constitution, Taiwan
(Republic of China) still claims sovereignty over mainland China, Tibet and Xinjiang included, so
that it might be considered, as a whole, as the (giant) Alsace-Lorraine of the ROC itself.
7 It goes without saying that in Taiwan the culture of enmity has a long history and that it was
in particular institutionalized during the time of the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship—as such, the
separatists who are in business today are perfect heirs rather than the embodiment of a radical
historical bifurcation. It is, curiously, under the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, elected in 2008 and
again in 2012, a perfect apparatchik from the bosom of the Kuomintang, that the only attempt to
loosen the grip of the culture of enmity was produced. A reorientation crowned by the meeting
between Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping in November 2015, in Singapore—reorientation promptly
canceled as soon as the DDP separatists came to power in 2016, with the victory of Tsai Ing-wen.
the Vosges farmhouses across the Rhine, for the thousands of French border crossers
who pass every day “on the other side”, on the Saarbrücken side, to go to work in
Germany, that I preferably do my shopping on the Italian side (where food products
are cheaper) when I stay in Menton, where my parents live.
The Taiwanese entrepreneurial class, which at the turn of the century took full
advantage of the opening up of the Chinese productive apparatus and market to its
expertise and capital to invest and do business there, is well aware of these processes
and dynamics—business and the circulation of capital playing here the same role
in blurring or attenuating the culture of enmity as tourism did in post-war Western
Europe. And then, with the changing economic data and political conditions, with
the premises of the New Cold War and the rise to power in Taiwan of separatist
clients of the US Administration (like an Ancient Rome), these entrepreneurs, having
unscrupulously extorted all possible surplus value from the proletariat of mainland
China, repatriated their capital and profits and, often, rallied to the anti-Chinese party.
This is a striking example of the sacred egoism of the capitalist class, which only
does business and “no -politics”: it turns out in retrospect that the breakthrough of
Taiwanese entrepreneurs on the mainland, which could have been part of a dynamic
of pacification, lowering of tensions and de-intensification of the culture of enmity,
was only an economic raid, with no lasting impact on the state of relations between
the two China(s). Today, the Taiwanese business sector is actively taking advantage
of the new context—the Sino-”American” Cold War—by investing in other markets,
developing trade relations and industrial partnerships in other directions—in the
United States, India, Australia, and so on. So no, the capitalists are definitely “doing
politics”.
The culture of enmity is also a whole device of chains of associations: from
the hypostasized enemy (who, as in schizophrenic delirium, becomes the object
associated with unbearable stridencies and intensities), to the figure of the criminal,
the enemy of humanity, and then, in the next stage, to the production of an alternate
reality, a reality of synthesis in which propaganda, the discursive delirium tremens,
has become a substitute for reality. The criminalization of the enemy is what opens
the floodgates to what a little more than a century ago, during the First World War,
was called lies and today is more generally known as fake news—the imaginary
barbaric mass crimes committed by the Germanic soldiers in the occupied regions
in one case; the hundreds of disappeared, the torture chambers in Hong Kong during
the movement of 2019–2020, in the other.
In other words, the peculiarity of the culture of enmity is that it is a powerful factor
of emancipation from reality (more soberly: from the present understood as real,
from the past as woven of unquestionable facts …). Under the regime of expression
instituted by the culture of enmity, one can profess literally anything and do it with
impunity, as long as the public, the receivers of the discourse bend to the rules of
this regime. It can be said that Germany’s invasion of Belgium in August 1914 was a
preventive measure against an imminent attack on Germany by Belgium (or France,
ready to violate Belgian neutrality); it can be said that today the ships of the US 7th
Fleet patrol the Taiwan Strait in the China Sea to enforce the freedom of the seas.
We can say that the health diplomacy practiced by China towards African or Latin
American countries on the occasion of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the cheap sale
of vaccines and the construction of hospitals, is pure and simple expansionism—
another (sneaky) way of waging war. One can say anything, because the culture of
enmity is an enormous paranoid machine whose purpose, like any paranoid speech,
is to always get back on its feet and never run out of “reasons” and arguments.
The culture of enmity is a disease of politics, just as paranoia is a psychosis. When
paranoia takes hold of the ruling elites of a country, of a state, it results in what was
known as McCarthyism in the United States, indiscriminate witch hunts, public life
placed under conditions of widespread policing, surveillance, and distrust—and this
remains, rightly, in the annals of the country, as a dark period. It is not for nothing
that McCarthyism entered the language (and not only English) as a kind of repulsive
concept for such a regime or practice of widespread suspicion and policing; it is
not for nothing that it has become a natural part of the conversation when it comes
to characterizing the infringements of liberties in Taiwan today in the name of the
struggle against the “infiltration” of the communist and continental enemy into the
island. In the United States, the collective memory of the McCarthyist period is
that of years when the great stupidity of the state and its servants obsessed with a
fixed idea (communism) imposed its conditions on public life, when intellectual life,
culture, and the arts suffered from censorship and the most stifling conformism.
The way in which the stranglehold of immemorial hatred pitting neighbor against
neighbor, nation-states against each other, has been loosened in Western Europe
shows that historical fatalities do not exist.8 The flame that burns under the Arc de
Triomphe has a vocation (fairly de-intensified) of national gathering and of a relic of
patriotism (but what is left of patriotism in a country like France?). It is not intended
to maintain the hatred towards Germany. It is not the flame of hatred of the wrong
neighbor. When one erects a monument or produces something that fosters hatred
of the enemy—exterior or interior or both—one does so knowingly and one takes
responsibility for this gesture in the present and before the human community—this is
what the Taiwanese film Detention (Hsu, 2019),9 a mediocre work of fiction inspired
by the spirit of factionalism, hatred of the intimate enemy, does, blowing into the
embers of civil war. A typical gesture of a slave of memory, as Nietzsche would say,
locked in the repetition of the past and crushed by the burden of resentment.
A collected and striking image of the plurality of worlds and the omnipresent
unifying culture of enmity in different latitudes: I bump my forehead here against the
anti-Chinese cartoons published in the Taipei Times as I do against the Islamophobic
cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo when I am in France. I find the same abjection,
8 To introduce here a brief counter-point: from the perspective defended by this article, one can
only feel sorry for the way in which the Chinese and Vietnamese states remain today still captive
to the culture of enmity and to alleged historical fatalities to the point that the Vietnamese leaders
are led to offer military facilities to the US Navy in the hope of protecting themselves from China’s
encroachment into what it considers to be its sovereign space.
9 Film by John Hsu which, under the pretext of paying homage to the victims of the white terror
exerted by the Kuomintang under the regime of Martial Law, aims to criminalize the main opposition
party while serving soup to the government elites. An opportunist cinema at the service of agitation
and hate propaganda.
the same symptom, the same disease of the present—and this depressing image of
the finitude of our world—wherever one runs away to, nihilism is always at one’s
door.
References
Cheng, Y.-Y. (2020, December 16). Universities can do their part to boost our defense. Taipei Times.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/12/16/2003748791
Clark, C. (2015). The somnambulists. Flammarion.
“Dirty” cuisine? Racism targets Asian food, business during COVID-19 pandemic. (2020, December
22). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2020/12/22/2003749155
Hsu, J. (2019). Detention. 1 Production Film Co & Filmagic Pictures.
Jaspers, K. (1990). La culpabilité allemande (J. Hersch, Trans.). Editions de Minuit.
Mann, K. (2011). Aujourd’hui et demain, l’esprit européen. Editions Phébus.
Part II
A War of Words: The Construction
of the Anti-China Narrative
Chapter 4
The Schmittian Turn of Global
Democracy
After the decisive victories of Stalingrad on the Russian front, Al Alamein in the
desert war, in North Africa, and Guadalcanal and Midway on the Asian front,
the Allies had good reasons for banking on a defeat of the Axis and consider a
future with victory colors. From the second half of 1943 to the announced collapse
of Nazi Germany and then of Japan, there were plenty of meetings and confer-
ences that brought Allied leaders together: the Cairo conference brought together
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek (November 1943); the Tehran conference
brought together Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill (November–December 1943); the
Moscow conference (preceded by three other meetings in the Soviet capital) where
Soviet, British, American, and Polish delegations (representing the two competing
Polish governments, in exile) met in October 1944; the Yalta conference with Stalin,
Roosevelt, and Churchill (February 1945); and, finally, after the German surrender,
the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Attlee, Truman, and Stalin (July–August
1945).
During these meetings, the Allied leaders discussed the future of Germany, and
more vaguely the conditions that would be imposed on defeated Japan (the Soviets
only declared war on Japan after the German surrender). For the most part, the main
object of their common concerns was constant: what would the post-war period look
like in terms of the respective influences of the two major components of the Allied
coalition, the United States and Great Britain on the one hand, the Soviet Union
on the other—each of the two parties embodying a political system in principle
incompatible with the other—and nevertheless condemned to active collaboration
during the years of the war.
In practice, whether surreptitiously or explicitly, the motive that haunted these
meetings, inseparable from the anticipation of victory over the Axis, was that of zones
of influence; variable geometry, differently assessed according to the temperament
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_4
36 4 The Schmittian Turn of Global Democracy
and convictions of the protagonists (Churchill, viscerally anti-Communist and anti-

Soviet anticipated the Cold War, just like de Gaulle, a secondary protagonist of these
debates; Roosevelt was more confident in the future of a cordial understanding with
Stalin’s USSR), sometimes cynically expressed in terms of percentages, with a pencil
in hand, sometimes more vaguely when the interests of one side or the other clashed
too directly.
In any case, concerning both Europe and East Asia (the rest of the world was
almost entirely ignored, until the San Francisco conference at which the victors laid
the groundwork for the UN), a guideline appeared here, on which all parties clearly
agreed: the war efforts made by both sides within the framework of the victorious
coalition must, in the post-war period, be continued on the ground. The power rela-
tions that had been established between allies, and as these allies embodied mainly
antagonistic political systems, must find their outlet in the form of distributions
inscribed in the territories and the life of the peoples. The Allies fought against Nazi
Germany as the latter availed itself of the right of conquest, revoked as barbarian.
For this reason, the former must invent a decent—looking codification for sharing
and distribution that would enable them to avoid appearing purely and simply as
conquering victors—hence the success of the keyword of “zones of influence”—
Stalin did not annex Poland, and Greece would not be explicitly an Anglo-American
protectorate, but the key idea is there: Europe was doomed to become the body on
which the balance of power between the two allied and antagonistic powers would
be inscribed.
The rest is known, even if, on the field, it took quite a different turn from the
general figures outlined by the leaders of the coalition during their various meetings.
The notion of divide/sharing without conquests or annexations strictly speaking—
with the exception of some border rectifications and, on the Asian front, of the
annexation by the USSR of part of Sakhalin and the Kurils, without forgetting the de
facto restitution of Formosa (Taiwan) to China—was the basic idea which governed
the production of the geopolitical configuration of the post-war period in Europe and,
more unstably, in East Asia (the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the first act of
the Cold War, shows this sufficiently): the zones of influence were emerging quickly
in Europe, with the formation of the Soviet glacis in Eastern Europe; the crushing of
the popular movement resulting from the resistance animated by the Communists in
Greece; Germany was divided into two zones destined to become two separate state
entities, one placed under Western influence and the other Soviet; Japan became a
US protectorate, etc.
The question I would like to focus on here is the following: how do we pass, (in
the perspective of the Western powers and first and foremost the United States) from
a topos, from a discursive register in which the notion of divide/sharing with an ally
(a friend—Stalin “Uncle Joe”, in US propaganda throughout the war) who is also
intrinsically an enemy (of yesterday and tomorrow—the embodiment of communist
evil, of a totalitarian ideology, to such an extent that even staunch anti-Communists
like Churchill or de Gaulle could not question the strategy, even if they did doubt
that this division could find stability and be based on a balance)—how do we pass,
4 The Schmittian Turn of Global Democracy 37
then, from this system of evidence to the one that has prevailed for several decades
now and which relies on such different axioms?
According to the most recent system, for the Western powers (first and foremost
the United States, again) any notion of divide/sharing with a political system declared
incompatible with “democracy” and embodied, henceforth, by an ascending power,
China, would be heresy and forfeiture. The only conceivable historical horizon, for
the immediate present and the distant future, is the democratization of the world, a
political globalization and normalization placed under the exclusive sign of liberal
democracy.
The question within the question would be whether or to what extent this contrast
is soluble in the historical conditions—can it be reduced purely and simply to the
contrast between historical situations that are so different from each other? War,
and especially a conflict like the Second World War, was a merciless indicator of
power struggles: the Allied landings in Normandy and Sicily and then in Provence
were certainly successful, but the Soviet Army was progressing rapidly in eastern
Germany when the Americans were still embroiled in the Battle of the Bulge. Of
course, Stalin and Churchill put their signatures on a sheet of paper on which was
scrawled: “Yugoslavia 50/50”, but on the ground, it is the partisans of Tito and not the
Chetniks who really challenged the Wehrmacht …. The military balance of power on
the ground dictates the fate of the powers engaged in combat, including those on the
winning side: it shapes the post-war geopolitical landscape in the most constraining
way possible.
This is one of the effects of modern total war, in contrast to the dynastic wars
of the Ancien Régime: it is not sovereigns who are fighting over disputed territories,
it is people and worlds which are clashing—when the conflict ends, it is not only
a few border lines that have been altered, it is the fate of the peoples that has radi-
cally changed. The balance of power established during the war, by force of arms,
draws the unsurpassable horizon of the post-war period—the domination that the
USSR exercised over Eastern Europe having driven out the Wehrmacht (the meeting
between Soviet troops and US troops took place on the Elbe, on German soil) is not
open for discussion, diplomacy can only endorse the results obtained on the ground.
But what is immediately noticeable at the same time is this: these elements of
reality, at the very moment when they outline the unsurpassable horizon of statesmen
and politicians’ actions, are converted into principles, rules of conduct, and matrices
of thought—into schemes of political rationality, into the basis of political strategies.
It is here that the amphibology of the French term partage reveals all its resources:
the notion of dividing (Europe and potentially the planet) into “areas of influence”
becomes an idea of sharing, that is to say, the diagram (the inscription surface) in
which the allies of yesterday and the adversaries of tomorrow (from the configura-
tion of the Second World War to that of the Cold War) are both found circumscribed,
despite everything that opposes them. What holds attention in this figure is the way in
which partage, as in divide (what opposes, separates), is the object of a sharing (what
we have in common, in share). In a sense the unique feature of the Cold War was orga-
nized around this amphibology—being a war with multiple episodes, some of which
are very violent and armed (the Korean War which inaugurated it, and the Vietnam
War which heralds its fading away, passing through the blockade of Berlin and a
number of memorable episodes) and which, however, did not globalize, intensify, or
generalize nuclear confrontation in the post-Hiroshima-Nagasaki world.
It is therefore blatant that what acts as a moderating principle in the conflicts
between the two superpowers that clashed through their respective allies and subor-
dinates, is the regulatory idea of partage—divide and sharing—or, in other words,
the idea according to which the zones of influence remained, in the very configuration
of the Cold War, an idea of political reason, a regulatory principle—which explains
why the Western powers placed under US hegemony abstain from intervening in the
major political crises that occurred in Poland and Hungary in 1956, that the rocket
crisis in Cuba (1962) was resolved without armed confrontation, and that the Soviets
(and even the Chinese) did not intervene directly in the Vietnamese conflict, etc.
Throughout the Cold War, including its moments of greatest tension, the notion
of partage (in the sense of what separates, divides) between what is apologetically
designated as the “free world” and what is its opposite remains an idea of polit-
ical reason. The West must, in one way or another, coexist with the great political,
ideological, and civilizational Other, designated by the master signifier “commu-
nism” (“Soviet totalitarianism” in its pejorative name). At the time when the Cold
War was ending and the rise of the motif of Peaceful Coexistence, driven in partic-
ular by Khrushchev, this notion even found a resurgence of strength, visibility, and
hold over the minds of those in power as well as those governed. During the Cold
War, even the most committed of politicians and intellectuals in the crusade against
communism were not animated by the phantasmagoria of complete democratization
of the planet; their dream was to contain and rollback the reds, of communism, in all
its forms and states, which is quite different—the proof being that they were ready
to arouse and support bloody tyrannies, military dictatorships, touted as ramparts
against the red peril—from Suharto to Pinochet and so many others. In this era, even
the most frenzied crusaders of Western democracy remained sensitive to the motive
of political otherness, of difference: in order to suppress communism in the world,
Western democracies could not do without intermediary “useful” dictatorships and
tyrannies.
The establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China
in 1979 clearly showed that soon after the interminable and disastrous Vietnam War,
intended to block the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia (at least, this
is what the narrators of the “free world” say), the spirit of the camp retained this
turn inherited from the Second World War. The perpetual struggle against the other
camp, the opposing camp, paradoxically implies its recognition and, what is more,
the recognition of its full political otherness: it is indeed with Communist China,
the China resulting from the Chinese Revolution, the China of Mao that the ultra-
reactionary Nixon has chosen to contract, by inaugurating this new era in which
China becomes a full member of the international community. Great Britain and
France had long shown the way (1950 and 1964, respectively).
This well-known sequence placed under the sign of Realpolitik, from the Western
point of view, shows how foreign, in this historical configuration, the very notion of
an infinite democratization of the world remained to the strategists and ideologists
of Western democracies: they had to acknowledge that difference and division did
exist, they are components of the global political arena, communism as the irre-
ducible great Other of Western democracy (or Western way democracy, as in Japan),
or, in the theological-political terms cultivated by the great providentialist narrative
of American democracy, a tenacious figure of political evil—the figure of the enemy,
by contrast with all those other figures of evil, relative and necessary, that are the
tyrannies and military regimes armed and supported by the Western powers, begin-
ning with the United States—friends, political friends, clients, proxies, subalterns,
etc.
In other words, in this world of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, we
were in a configuration where mechanisms and processes of recognition remained
active, over and over again—infinitely contrasted, tense, exposed—but never denied
or disabled in the face of crises and political challenges. The mode of relations
between camps and in particular between the two superpowers grappling at the time
the (supposed) equilibrium of nuclear forces (known as the balance of terror) is not
at all Schmittian—it is a model in which the interactions between the two opposing
forces and poles also suppose forms of complementarity, some sort of conflictual
complementarity which is reminiscent of the type of relationship that has been
established between the capitalist bourgeoisie (the state and the employers) and
the workers’ movement, in Western Europe, from the end of the nineteenth century
to 1970–1980.1
This is the reason why, in this flexible configuration, we can see how figures
of extreme violence (the Vietnam War) coexisted with or alternated with figures
of detente (peaceful coexistence, the souvenir photos on which Khrushchev and
Kennedy display their good understanding). We have here a matrix (political, discur-
sive, etc.) that is not at all Schmittian insofar as it challenges the figure of the enemy
doomed to pure and simple destruction, elimination, extermination—this for multiple
reasons, this interminable post-war period being, among others and simultaneously,
the world after Auschwitz and Hiroshima—a world, therefore, in which the figure
of the pure and simple extermination of the enemy continued to arouse a staggering
effect. In this contrasting world where the agon is placed under the sign of the most
constant of ambiguities, the enemy is fought relentlessly, but “we” also talk with him,
“we” deal with him, “we” make compromises and, when tensions reach a dangerous
paroxysm, the people in charge activate security mechanisms whose effectiveness
has never been denied (see on that the rocket crisis in Cuba—a kind of paradigm).2
1 “Not at all Schmittian” means two things here: on the one hand, a configuration in which reflection
and political action cannot find their exclusive basis in the distinction between friend and enemy
and, on the other, a topos in which the figure of the enemy is not reducible to that of a pure and simple
criminal. “Not at all Schmittian”, therefore, means here a little more complicated (and plastic) than
what we usually remember from Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy.
2 On this point, see Andrew Cockburn’s (2021) article “Defensive, not Aggressive”, whose author,
returning to the missile crisis in Cuba, believes that there was never, during this episode, any real
danger of war, Kennedy and Khrushchev being equally determined to avoid it and masters of the
game in domestic politics.
Failing to be Schmittian, the model (the figure) which prevails here would be
rather Machiavellian: the division, by converting itself into rivalry, competition, and
emulation, is the dynamic factor that ensures the rise in power of the two rival forces,
this like the incessant struggle between patricians and plebeians in Rome, but also the
young Roman city to neighboring and rival cities.3 In this regard, it should be noted
that the competition which, from the end of World War II until the collapse of the
USSR and the dismantling of the Soviet bloc, pitted the “Western” camp against the
Eastern bloc was based on an optical illusion: throughout the Cold War and beyond,
the arms race appeared as the manifest form of this dangerous competition. But in
the end, it turned out that it is cultural and economic factors that are decisive, that
the environment in which the fall of the Soviet “Empire” occurred was not a war but
rather the dereliction of a model of economic development, of the way of life and of
the cultural forms that are linked to it. The lost arms race derives from these factors
and sped up the downfall.
It has been said over and over again during this sort of volatilization of the Soviet
world in the early 1990s that it was, above all, the manifestation of the superiority
of forms of life, of the organization of production and of Western consumption,
of the ethos and political forms that envelop or accompany all this, the society of
individuals, liberal-democratic civilization, public freedoms, and all these beautiful
things. It is not the weapons which have settled the “debate” between the two worlds,
the two competing political civilizations; it is life, so to speak. Athens has, in the
duration and in the test of reality, proven to be more sustainable than Sparta, despite
all the faults and traits of barbarism, and de-civilizing impulses that run through
it. Of course, there have been substantial interactions between the military and the
economic domain, the USSR had exhausted itself challenging the United States in
the arms race (and the race to the Moon), and the latter, under Reagan in particular,
knowingly rushed the USSR downfall by maintaining this costly competition.
What therefore takes us away from the Machiavellian model here is the fact that
the dynamics of the struggle (agon) between the two opposing forces did not lead to
a process by which a power would have been formed and extended, common to both
protagonists, say, the Western patricians and the Eastern plebeians. On the contrary,
what occurred was the collapse of one part (the Eastern plebeians) in favor of the
other …. But we could quite easily “recover” and reinterpret the Roman story (model)
here: after all, over the course of the formation of Roman power, the difference in
nature which, at the origin, opposes the two human species (for Vico, originally, the
Roman plebeians are defined and treated by the patricians as semi-animals, beast-
men, bestioni), has become more indistinct, especially since the plebeians could no
longer be reduced to debt bondage and were able to access land property, and also
because the institution of tribunes of the plebs got lost in the twists and turns of the
3 It is in Livy’s Discourse on the First Decade that Machiavelli affirms that the divisions and
“tumults” which, throughout Roman history, brought patricians and plebeians into conflict, far from
being factors of weakening, are associated with the passion for freedom and are the foundation of
Roman power—an idea later taken up by Montesquieu. Division and struggle, antagonism, are
presented here as a dynamic factor rather than as a vector of weakening or destruction.
formation of composite oligarchies that monopolized economic and political power

in the advanced days of the Republic and then of the Empire.
In the same sense, the “oriental” (post-Soviet) plebeians were not treated as
vanquished at all after the fall of the Soviet bloc, having to choose between death or
servitude in exchange for the saved life, but rather becoming “guests” in the world
of the winners—distinguished ones for the tiny minority of those among them who
quickly became the new elites of the post-Soviet era, poor subalterns for the vast
majority of the others …. The European Union opened its doors without delay to
Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, former Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic coun-
tries, and inherited with it the mafias, the corrupt and incompetent post-communist
elites, the Orban-style facho-demos, and all the rubbish of the fall of the Soviet
world. In other words, and to still follow the Machiavellian thread, Western Rome
found in its long confrontation with the competing superpower (set up as an opposing
Empire) the opportunity to fortify itself, to strengthen its own imperial constitution
and, after the fall of the Soviet Carthage, to establish a hegemony without equivalent
or precedent in modern history—a domination of the world which is reminiscent, in
more than one respect, of that exercised by the Roman Republic and then the Empire
over the Mediterranean Basin and beyond.
It is precisely the volatilization of the opposing principle and, with it, of the
agonistic configuration organized around the complementary conflictuality of the
two competing blocs, that the disappearance of the Machiavellian paradigm resulting
from the Second World War begins. With the hindsight now available to us, it is
obvious that the constitutive feature (constituting, if not explicitly instituting) of the
new world order which emerged with the fall of the Soviet empire was not at all the
advent of the age of global democracy but a form of Restoration and permanent
counter-revolution whose specificity, in theoretical terms, is based on the substitu-
tion of the Machiavellian-Vichian paradigm with a Schmittian-type paradigm.4 A
Schmittian paradigm that appears so adequate to the dominant features of the current
period that it has come to exert a powerful influence over political science researchers
(or what is akin to it in the local context) even in mainland China (see Mitchell, 2021).
What ensures the passage of the Machiavellian paradigm to a more compelling
Schmittian motif is the massive delegitimization of the figures associated with divi-
sion, divide and sharing, camps, zones of influence, competition, peaceful or not,
between regimes or incompatible systems, legitimate interactions, diplomacy, etc.
What ensures the placement of the present era—defined as topicality (actualité, in
French), in its political, historical, moral, cultural texture, etc.—under the sign of the
Schmittian “lesson”, is the advent of the One-only as an exclusive figure of political
civilization—the One-only of democracy, as it had been announced with trumpets
over the last two decades of the previous century, with the exemplary heralds that
were Reagan and Thatcher. The One-only of democracy is an exemplary Schmittian
figure because it ipso facto entails the criminalization of the enemy; for it is based
4 Vico (1953, p. 89) considers, developing a reasoning process similar to that of Machiavelli, that
“The rivalries which, in the cities, oppose the orders between them with a view to obtaining equal
rights, are, for the republics the most powerful means of development”.
on the refusal to recognize any status or legitimacy of the enemy as a variable and
contrasting figure of adversity. It challenges its power, its legitimacy, and its inscrip-
tion in a given space, a territory, in its very principle. The advent of the One-only
(and the fact that it is, here called “that democracy” only adds, quite involuntarily, a
touch of macabre irony to the thing) inevitably correlates to the essentialization of
the enemy who becomes a hypostasis of infamy and a new embodiment of absolute
Evil.5
We go from the complex but dynamic figure of the incompossible—and with
which it is nevertheless necessary to deal and trade, for he or it belongs to reality—
to this other, static, simplified, and compact, enemy of humanity, the rogue enemy,
of which only disappearance (the annihilation of its power) can ensure the salva-
tion of the human community—an inherently totalitarian figure, of course, to use a
misguided vocabulary. The disappearance of the enemy is defined as the imperative
condition for the salvation of the true human community, the one guaranteed by the
world democratic police.
The ongoing radicalization of what must be called democratic Schmittism, under-
stood as this diagnostic and prognostic sign under which the present (the epoch) is
placed, can be detected by multiple clues. In domestic politics, in the democracies
of the Global North, the criminalization of any opposing force lying on the outer
edge of administered politics and controlled power apparatuses (state policy, to put
it simply) is taking a crash course: the intensity of police violence and the media
to which the Yellow Vests movement in France has been relentlessly exposed is
convincing proof, as does the treatment inflicted on all movements in which racial-
ized and post-colonial people are involved. As many areas of conflictual negotiation
with legitimate opponents (parties and unions in particular) were numerous in the
field of the class struggle as it was structured in these spaces from the end of the
nineteenth century, as much in the present configuration, any opponent resistant to its
institutionalization under the conditions of police and market democracy is doomed
to be treated as an outlaw, a pirate, a delinquent, and, as long as it finds its place in the
appropriate chains of equivalence (immigration, Islam, terrorism, etc.), as an enemy
of humanity.
In the field of international politics, nothing more blatantly exposes the Schmittian
future of globalized Western democracy than the evolution of discourses about China:
the statements, the reasoning (by antiphrasis) that, just yesterday, applied to these
supposed rogue states that are North Korea or Iran now tend to become the norm
when it comes to China. The sophism, both crude and irrefutable, which tends to
take here the force of law is this: the rise in power of China today is inseparable
from the form of the political regime which is its engine. However, this system is,
in principle and in practice, not only incompatible with democracy but constitutes
5 Some examples of headlines borrowed from articles in the New Cold War organ Taipei Times:
“Understanding the nature of the wolf”, China, of course (“Understanding”, 2020); “China is enemy
of the free world” (“China is”, 2021); “Facing the nation’s enemy within”, an abolition of the
distinction between the enemy outside and inside (Lin, 2020), “Global response to CCP aggression”
(Fisher, 2021), “World War II unfinished business” (Keating, 2020a); “Carl Schmitt and Taiwan’s
future” (Keating, 2020b); “Time for US carriers in the Strait” (Bosco, 2020), etc.
a mortal threat to it. Ergo, to ensure the salvation of planetary democracy (the only
acceptable form of civilization of politics and mores), we must put this force of
evil out of harm’s way—we must democratize China and, to do this, overthrow the
Communist tyranny currently in place. The only way to do this is through military
confrontation. To democratize China, we must wage war on China…6
No exaggeration or caricature in this summary of the now well-established posi-
tion of the Schmittian democracy vis-à-vis China—this is what one can read every
day in the Taiwanese press which, for obvious reasons, is at the forefront of this new
discursive production. Here is an example among a hundred: “The transformation of
Germany and Japan from offenders [that is malefactors, delinquents—the enemy as
a criminal, the main motive of the Schmittian complaint against Anglo-Saxon impe-
rialism] as notable protagonists of the free world after WWII is legendary, although
they were occupied by the Allies after their defeat. In the absence of military occupa-
tion or of unconditional surrender, how could the free world force China to comply
with civilized codes?” (Hsu, 2021).7
We can clearly see here what characterizes in the very first place this type of
statement: the disappearance of any possible space of interlocution with the enemy,
frozen in his position of the offender, the hyperbolic enemy insofar as it is not only an
adverse force opposing our camp but, much more generally, peace and civilization.
The imaginary chain of equivalence based on the rapprochement between “dictator”
Xi Jinping’s China, Nazi Germany, and militarist and expansionist Japan completes
the picture. It is no longer a question, of giving the best of oneself by standing in front
of the adversary, and showing the superiority of political civilization and the forms
of life that one embodies and promotes; what is at stake, in a context of absolute
urgency, is to eradicate a mortal peril, an evil force bent on our downfall and that of
all civilized humanity.
The horizon of this figure is, of course, in one form or another, all-out war,
confrontation to the death under the conditions of contemporary military technology
(something the North Korean leaders, for historical reasons, have always perceived
with great acuity and what makes them Schmittians too in their own way) what the
leaders of the United States have consistently pursued is the pure and simple disap-
pearance of the unbearable heterotopia that they embody, not envisioning any form
of long-term coexistence—the reason the Kim dynasty tirelessly practices perfecting
the weapon of terror they have equipped themselves with—the nuclear strike force.8
6 For the leaders and, probably, the man /woman on the street in China, the very notion of a
supposedly civilizing intervention by the Western powers in the affairs of their country obviously
has an unfortunate appearance of déjà vu: For them, it would be above all a resumption, a repetition
of the predatory actions carried out throughout the nineteenth century by these powers taking
advantage of the decline of the Chinese Empire…
7 The author, a retired professor of physics, is part of the innumerable cohort of “pathfinders” of the
rhetoric of the outrageous criminalization of the enemy, that flagship of the new captive thinking
(Czeslaw Milosz).
8 The North Korean example shows convincingly that in reality the Machiavellian paradigm still
covers, in a variable way, the Schmittian paradigm: the atrocities perpetrated by the United States
against the population of the territories controlled by the communist regime, during the Korean
To tell the truth, the replacement of the Machiavellian paradigm by the Schmit-
tian paradigm became effective during the collapse of the Soviet system: instead of
Eastern Europe becoming—as a consequence of the sudden and unexpected release
of tensions arising from the dismantling of the Soviet military system in Eastern
Europe—a neutral and exemplarily disarmed zone, it was immediately the scene
of an aggressive reconquest. It was a triumphal march by NATO, which, there-
fore, taking advantage of the chaos in which tattered Russia was plunged during the
dark and ethylic hours of Yeltsin, installed at once its rockets on the very steps of
Russia, in the Baltic countries, and in Poland.
Like their North Korean comrades, the Chinese leaders have learned all the lessons
from the political ineptitude of Gorbachev, “returning” East Germany and the rest to
an armed and revengeful West without a counterpart and thus ushering in a Global
Restoration accompanied by the impetuous ideological rearmament of the West—this
at the same time when all the exportable “models” shaped by the West (productivism,
consumerism, liberal democracy, frantic individualism…) were leaking on all sides.
It is high time to say the real name of what has been relentlessly celebrated since
the early 1990s as the divine democratic surprise that resulted from the demise of
the Soviet Empire: the colossal backlash of Western hegemonism placed under US
command. It will undoubtedly be necessary to wait for the Chinese “problem” to
have been tackled in one way or another so that this definitive “the king is naked”
can be clearly stated. It was in fact only when the contours of the configuration
organized around the newly elected enemy, Communist China, “sure of itself and
domineering”, became clearly distinct, that the Schmittian line of democracy as a
global hegemonic device could become fully effective through the promotion of the
War (urbicides, bombing of dikes and dams, destruction of hundreds of villages …) were enough to
definitively convince the North Korean power (in dynastic form) of the inexpiable nature of the fight
to the death that opposes it to this conquering Western barbarian, a conflict whose very form excludes
any development towards a lasting peaceful coexistence, based on mutual trust. In this case, the
Machiavellian paradigm never came to relieve or overcome (Aufheben) the Schmittian paradigm,
and the stinging failure of the sandman diplomacy imagined by Trump has sufficiently shown it.
North Korean leaders are not megalomaniacal, delirious tyrants but realists who rightly believe that
the United States (along with its Western allies and East Asian clients) has never pursued and will
never pursue another aim as their elimination, their political and, probably, physical disappearance.
The turn adopted by US and Western international policy at the beginning of this century,
sanctioned by the overthrow of the Iraqi and Libyan regimes, in particular, and the extermination of
their respective leaders, continued by the vain attempt to reserve the same fate for Bashar al-Assad
and his regime could only strengthen them in this conviction: now, the leaders of the hegemonic and
neo-imperial Western bloc no longer discuss or seek sharing of influence with the “systemic” enemy,
they treat it as a homo sacer, rejected by the human community, and whose elimination without
trial is, unlike a crime, a work of public salvation. The commando operation in which Bin Laden
and his entourage were eliminated in Pakistan tends to become a general model for the strategists
and thinkers of the Schmittian democracy of the present. The “special operations” conducted by
the Israeli services, against Iran in particular, also show the way in this area: the less contemporary
democracy appears as an institutional as well as a civilizational model capable of being exported
peacefully, the more it presents itself as a citadel besieged by the barbarians, and the more it places
its defense and its strategic actions under the sign of absolute urgency in the face of vital threats—a
displacement capable of justifying the radicalization of the enemy’s uses as well as “ anything goes”
to prevent it from harming.
imago of the absolute enemy, hyperbolic, the “universal” enemy of mankind, as the
big Other of democratic civilization.
On the scale of a country like Taiwan, the effects and benefits, for the reigning
elites, of the government “running on” the absolute enemy, that is to say of the
focusing of public attention on the “Chinese threat”, the “Chinese aggression”, the
supposed imminence of the” Chinese invasion” are quite obvious: the fabrication of
anti-Chinese hysteria is a formidable device to neutralize class struggle in one of the
countries in the world where working hours are the longest and the income of the vast
majority of employees are kept at their lowest,9 where migrant workers face shocking
discrimination,10 where working conditions in certain sectors (fishing, construction,
domestic work, etc.) are often close to slavery, where the religion of growth and the
omnipotence of large-scale industry perpetuate the most brutal devastation of the
environment, etc.
In such a configuration, “democracy” takes shape and consistency not by imple-
menting any positivities (the political debate between the party in power and the
opposition is reduced, most often to the exchange of invective and low punches) but
by blowing on the embers of anti-Chinese rhetoric. Deprived of this perpetual manna,
the “vibrant” Taiwanese democracy would deflate like a balloon in an instant, reduced
to the sad spectacle of a brawl between ragpickers over the shreds of an economic
miracle grafted on the most cynical and predatory of the models of development.
But it is not only that; it is also a question of the violence that this Schmittian
turning point in contemporary democracy promises and heralds: it is not difficult
to imagine what could happen if, in this country where public opinion is heated
by warmongering and anti-Chinese propaganda, the effects of even the slightest
“incident” (on land, in the air or at sea) bring the protagonists of this regional conflict
into direct confrontation: the continued stigmatization of Beijing’s supposed Fifth
Column on the island (including the main opposition party) and other “infiltrators”,
“Chinese agents”, “collaborators” of the enemy in this country would find (even if
Taiwan would not be directly involved in the clash), its immediate extension in a
violent, indiscriminate repression of all those who are likely to appear as agents of
the enemy. This would also be inevitably accompanied by abuses perpetrated by
more or less improvised gangs of vigilantes and rabid pro-independence activists in
a climate of civil war prepared for a long time.
The loop would then come full circle when those who have established their
legitimacy on the denunciation of the crimes committed under the Chiang era, at
the time of martial law (1949–1987) and more particularly during the White terror
that followed the events of February 1947, who are now firmly established at the
helm of the State to prove, in terms of the criminalization of the designated internal
enemy, the worthy and most trustful heirs of the Generalissimo … all this, naturally,
9 Minimum salary: 24,000 Taiwan dollars, or approximately 745 euros.

10 Their minimum wage, set by law, is lower than that of nationals. When the government sets up
a system of vouchers intended to stimulate the consumption of people with modest incomes, at the
time of the pandemic—the subordinates from the South—East Asian countries were excluded, a
discrimination even Taipei Times found hard to swallow.
in the name of defense and promotion of both local and global democracy—but, in
all cases, booted and helmeted ….
“Rogue State”: The Adventures of a Rotten Concept
There are rotten concepts in the language of politics, just as there are rotten fruits
hidden at the bottom of the tray at the supermarket. The difference is that the latter
are generally identifiable at first glance, whereas detecting the former requires an
effort of analysis and critical distance. This is what this article tries to do.
Drawing lessons from the second US war against Iraq, Noam Chomsky convinc-
ingly explains why, in this context and beyond, the US administration has set its
sight on the term “rogue state”. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime
begins with a discursive operation: the regime must be declared rogue, and with it
the state that Saddam is the head of. As Chomsky opportunely reminds us, this has
not always been the case, far from it: at the time of the interminable war between
Iraq and Iran, the United States constantly supported Saddam’s regime, notably by
providing him with military equipment and not being overly formal about the use of
toxic gas against the Kurds. It was therefore after a long period of companionship
with the dictator that, having broken the rules of the game by invading Kuwait, the
US administration changed its mind and decreed Iraq to be a “rogue state”.
This stamp allows the most rapid and massive amalgamations—with the regime,
the state apparatus, the Iraqi nation, the Iraqi people, also declared as “rogue”—
which will provide the basis for total war, an exterminating violence for which the
population will pay a high price: indiscriminate bombing, destruction of economic
and urban infrastructures, communication routes, blockades, concerted production of
social and economic chaos leading to massive shortages, epidemics, a health disaster.
The adjective “rogue”, however vague, displays its performative powers here—it
is the discursive peg that is intended to banish a people from the “concert” of nations,
to outlaw it. It is also what allows the masters of language to enter into a register of
comparisons devoid of any historical consistency, but producing assured rhetorical
effects—Saddam, the new Hitler, followed by Xi in today’s anti-Chinese propaganda.
But above all, and this is the key point, qualifying the regime of a country with
which the United States is in conflict as “rogue” is what gives it unlimited credit
for intervention against it, outside any legal framework. This is what, in the eyes of
the US Administration, authorizes it to intervene militarily against such a country in
the name of its national interests, as if it were, in all circumstances, a flagrant case
of self-defense, a legitimate response to a direct attack against it, jeopardizing its
integrity.
“Rogue”, “rogue state”, these are the magical expressions that allow the United
States to emancipate itself from all international conventions and treaties, disre-
garding the elementary principles of international law. Not only the UN Charter but
also the US Constitution, set distinct restrictions on this type of military interven-
tion against foreign sovereignty, a type of intervention that dangerously revives the
“Rogue State”: The Adventures of a Rotten Concept 47
traditional right of conquest that international law so vigorously sought to reject (for
obvious reasons) after the Second World War. “Rogue state” is the safe-conduct that
the hegemonic power grants itself and which makes possible the bypass of all these
tedious (and still uncertain) procedures, including votes in the UN General Assembly
or Security Council.
It is here that a close relationship is established between the exercise of unilat-
eralism as it forms the basis of the United States’ international policy (it is we who
decide what we are entitled to do in terms of interventions in the world theater—an
impeccably decisionist formula that seems to be borrowed from a treatise by Carl
Schmitt) and the promotion of what must be called these spongy concepts of which
“rogue state” is the perfect example. The more indefensible a case appears to be from
the point of view of legal (and possibly moral) norms, the more it is led to surround
itself with this kind of intellectual fog. The all-purpose ritornello of the “rogue state”
is the twin of the perpetual contempt for the rule of law in the relations between
States, nations, peoples; that is to say, the very notion of international relations is
founded, among other things, on the respect for national sovereignties, whatever their
respective powers.
Here, more than ever, words are important, especially the words of politics, of
international politics. “Rogue”, in the context after the end of the First Cold War,
after the fall of the Soviet bloc, is a bit like “outlaw” in the classic Western—a term
intended to designate a hyper-enemy in a space where the rules of law (Legal State,
Rule of Law) and the relationship between law and order do not appear to be very
well established. But the difference between the two contexts is obvious: as much
as it is true that in the shifting world of the conquest of the West, a vast grey zone
stretches between founding violence, fait accompli based on force, and the rule of
law (the original marshall often being more of an expert in the handling of weapons
than a representative of the law, a magistrate, strictly speaking), as much it is obvious
that the unilateral military interventions of the United States in Iraq, in Panama, in
support of the contras in Nicaragua, the bombardments in Libya and Afghanistan,
the active support given to the occupation of East Timor by Indonesia, etc.—it all
occurs in deliberate contravention of rules of international law that do exist and have
been validated by the international community.
It is therefore a question of restoring or perpetuating in the world, after the clash
between the two superpowers, something akin to an international Western policy,
the specificity of which is to blur (and not impact the hegemonistic policy of the
United States) the elementary rules of law founding relations between States, peoples,
nations. Decisionism, in order to force its decrees through, needs to mobilize an
adequate vocabulary, it engages language and, in doing so, as Victor Klemperer has
shown very clearly, outrage it. This is why it will always give preference to the
affective over the normative. “Rogue” is, in this respect, the perfect word, charged
with affect, plastic, and intensifiable at will—we can still hear in French the attenuated
echo in the only common expression where this word remains, to my knowledge—
”d’un ton rogue” (in a rogue tone).
The mobilization of this kind of affective vocabulary goes through the relent-
less subjectivism that accompanies and supports indefensible causes, that is to say,
unpresentable under the conditions of a rational argument, based on norms that are
the object of broad consensus: for example, the idea that the bombardment of Tripoli
and other Libyan cities in 1986 by the United States, Chomsky recalls, constitutes
an “act of self-defense”, intended to prevent future attacks against the United States
or, by extension, its vital interests.
It is clear here what the appropriate use of vagueness in the mobilization of
words—where do the “vital interests” of the United States begin and end?—means
for such a decisionist policy.
The same goes for unilateralist coups de force, unconceivable without powerful
ritornellos, without mantras: one can no longer imagine today, in retrospect, the joint
intervention of the United States and Great Britain against Iraq without the accom-
panying music of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Impeccable discursive
construction, an exemplary statement for an object that is not even virtual … and
whose equivalent, today, in the context of East Asia is distinct: the permanence, what
shall I say, the phantasmagorical imminence of the invasion of Taiwan by the armed
forces of popular China—The Chinese Invasion Threat.
The expression rogue state is inseparable from great-power politics in a double
sense: it is we who decide who is a rogue state (and therefore who is not—Suharto’s
Indonesia, despite all …), but also when a power will be, will become, or will cease
to be so, according to the conditions of opportunity we define. Thus, Mao’s China
cannot be a “rogue state” when Nixon and Kissinger decided to establish diplomatic
relations with it. Nevertheless, this China bears all sorts of stigmas which, under other
circumstances or other considerations of expediency, would likely lead it through the
front door into the hell of the rogue states—the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing
famine, the Cultural Revolution and its spillovers, etc. But this was not on the agenda
at the time China became a diplomatic partner. In the same way, the China of the
beginning of the twenty-first century, the China with whom economic relations with
the United States are developing at full steam, the China to which the United States is
opening the doors of the WTO, the China that finances the American trade deficit—
this “partner” China cannot be a rogue state. The Trumpian turning point must have
taken shape, the configuration of a New Cold War must have emerged, which in many
ways is separate from the first one (the ideological “background” of the confrontation
has become blurred, the mantras about totalitarianism fall flat in this context, as does
the cult of a quintessential “democracy” of which Trumpian America appears to be
a rather pathetic incarnation), for the devil of the “rogue state” to emerge from its
box.
It could not be clearer that what we are talking about here (which is, the anchor of
one of the key statements of US international policy) is not a concept, not a notion
that makes sense in a discourse placed under a descriptive or legal regime. It is only
a red rag that the power of the powers (which can only be perceived as such) takes
out of its pocket at its convenience. The wild card brandished by this referee, whom
we have every reason to believe is judge and jury. It is clear here that the choice of
keywords as well as their very status is what reveals a policy’s secret and exposes all
its flaws and abuses.
For this very reason, it is vital that we (let us say the opinion we try hard to
enlighten!) do not let our thoughts and reflections on the present be captured by that
corrupt vocabulary of which these uses of the word “rogue” or, in the French version,
“voyou”, are a perfect example. What we see is that we are dealing with a compact,
hegemonic discursive block, formed primarily by the political and media elites,
imposing a particularly draconian set of rules, producing very restrictive automatisms
and systems of evidence—who will come, under our latitudes, to quibble whether
North Korea is a “rogue state”? Or Cuba, with its single party and its post-Fidelist
folklore? Or Iran, with its bearded theocracy? But it is precisely there that the worm
is gnawing at the fruit, where our grasp of the present is beginning to be infected by
this decisionist vocabulary, nihilistic at heart, because it is designed to prevent any
critical and understanding approach to singularities and heterogeneities.
The intellectual operation based on the use of keywords of this kind (“rogue state”)
consists in replacing the descriptive and analytical capacity of a statement with an
imprecision; it consists in replacing the instance of judgment (based on reference to
principles, values, and norms) by anathema. This is low-cost religious (discursive)
thinking—and it is, in this respect, typically US-made.
This is why, in a context where academic thought is increasingly being diligently
colonized by the spongy concepts of decisionalist (neo-Schmittian) democracy and
the procedures of communicational hypercapitalism, resistance in concepts, the battle
over statements, the war of language, in short, are more than ever a major issue
for anyone who intends to assert, against all odds, the rights of critical thought, an
ontology of the present based on a genealogical, diagnostic and prognostic approach.
The battle for the autonomy of critical thinking involves the production of our own
concepts, the defense of our own conceptual apparatus, the tireless criticism of flaccid
and pasty, purely utilitarian concepts put into circulation by the knowledge powers
that have a deal with hegemonic formations and the misfortune of the world.
One could say that the notion of the “rogue state” is literature, understood here
as what opens the doors wide to the subjectivism of power. “Literature”, in this not
very advantageous sense, is a whole field of statements, the very nature of which is to
oppose statements and modes of enunciation that refer to norms. In this very respect,
“rogue state” is what is opposed to criminal state or “state crimes”. If the United States
and its followers put forward the phrase “rogue state” in preference to that of “criminal
state”, it is because they are not unaware that the use of the latter inevitably summons
a normativity—that which rules on state crimes and manifests itself in the existence of
a whole constellation of solemn declarations, charters, regulations, treaties, standards
whose authority is supposed to be implemented by many international bodies, the
UN, international courts, etc.
What defines in itself the culture of conquering and expansionist sovereignty of the
United States, the culture of the hegemonic great power of that country, is the absolute
continuity in its refusal to admit its involvement in state crimes and, a fortiori, its
refusal to have to appear in any way before international courts or tribunals called
upon to rule on state crimes. This is the reason why the United States is not a party
to the main international courts and does not recognize their decisions, so great is
its fear of backlash—if other States can be prosecuted by an international court for
bombing civilian populations or encouraging genocidal actions, then why not the
United States as well, in connection with so many contentious actions undertaken in
defiance of international law and human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, or by
proxy regimes such as Israel, etc.?
The United States has always held the view that its law is in all circumstances
intended to prevail over any kind of international law or regulation resulting from
agreements between other powers and sovereignties referred to as a “community”.
Thus they have made the Monroe Doctrine, originally intended to place America out
of the (colonial) grasp of European sovereignties, a pure and simple instrument of
the Pax Americana on the American continent and beyond. Thus, very recently, they
unilaterally emancipated themselves from the Iranian nuclear agreement in defiance
of their previous commitments. It is also an inviolable principle of US foreign policy
never to admit to the criminal nature of the actions carried out in the past, no matter
how great and overwhelming they may have been—Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of
course, but also the dumping of toxic substances in Vietnam, the bombing of dykes
to flood inhabited sites (North Korea, North Vietnam), etc. The United States cannot
be nor has it ever been involved in criminal actions, for the good and simple reason
that, being the providential embodiment of Law, it has the vocation to direct humanity
towards the greatest good, by expanding the “American model”. It is therefore this
fallacy that underlies the exclusion of the notion of a criminal part of their history,
particularly in the course of their actions in foreign theatres.
This is the reason why the more external interventions accumulate and faits accom-
plis imposed in the international field by the hegemonic power happen, the more the
US administration tends to become hysterical and succumb to pure despotic presump-
tion as soon as a situation arises in which the “principle”, the law (as it understands it,
in accordance with its interests) that must prevail as universal law—the one to which
all must submit—is called into question. Thus, those who refuse to comply with sanc-
tions unilaterally imposed on states targeted as “rogue” by the United States—Cuba,
Iran, Venezuela, etc.—are equally exposed to sanctions. This is the very reason why
the Huawei heiress was “held” in Canada, which in this case behaves like a vassal
of the United States.
But this is also true for all matters relating to international jurisdiction—an area
the United States is particularly sensitive to being immune to. In September 2020,
Washington imposed sanctions on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
in The Hague (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, as a consequence of the Court’s decision to
investigate war crimes committed in Afghanistan (and in which the United States
may have been involved) and in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (thus implicating
the State of Israel, Washington’s protégé nº1). Not only did these (economic) sanc-
tions hit the Prosecutor of the ICC and another senior official, but Mike Pompeo,
Trump’s foreign policy henchman, also issued a warning that “any individual or
entity that continues to materially assist these individuals is also subject to sanctions.
We will not tolerate illegitimate attempts by the ICC to bring the Americans under
its jurisdiction”.
Western justice (clan vindictiveness extended to the friends of our enemies) and the
unvarnished assertion of the “American” exception—the United States, for times and
times to come, is destined to stand beyond the reach of any international jurisdiction,
of any judgment of the international community, of the human community.
The relationship that is established between the birth of the nation (and state) that
took the name of America is inseparable, on the one hand, from genocide (that of
the first peoples living on the territory of the forming state) and, on the other, from
a crime against humanity (plantation slavery in the southern US States and what
must be called a delusion of perpetual innocence)—this relationship is quite clear.
It is precisely because state criminality and the founding violence (of the nation), as
exterminating and supremacist violence, are rooted deep within this historical entity
(the United States), that innocent hallucination and hysteria shape the discourse of
authority and, to an essential extent, of the part of the population that is at one with
the history of the nation, as a white, conquering and hegemonic nation.
When we speak of a criminal State or, more commonly, of State crimes, we
are referring to institutions, mechanisms, and activities that can be qualified from
the point of view of a system of norms with a validity recognized by the human
community—human rights, essentially international law. According to this system
of reference, State crimes are comparable to each other and chains of equivalence can
be introduced between crimes that different sovereignties or State powers may have
committed in different circumstances. No State, even the most powerful of them, can
exempt itself from this regulation. This general normativity is, very precisely, what
the philosophy of power and its role in history, that of the United States, is head-on
opposed to; indeed, it is entirely based on the notion not only of a singular path
or a particular destiny but of pure exception. This is why the United States never
apologizes for the state crimes that it has committed and, what is much worse, it
constantly puts what it considers to be its greatness (“make America great again…”),
its honor, above the established facts. “I will never apologize for the United States of
America—I don’t care what the facts are”, said President Bush (quoted by Chomsky)
after the 1988 destruction of an Iranian airliner by a missile fired from a US warship
in Iranian territorial waters.
The infinite capacity to deny the best-established historical facts, which according
to Hannah Arendt is the trademark of totalitarian regimes (and thinking), is the natural
outlet for this philosophy of sovereign exception—the very substance, the very matrix
of conquering hegemonism and supremacism. The corollary of this use of exception
is, of course, the cult of force as the basis for impunity—my might, my right—force
as the source of “law”, power relations and faits accomplis as “force of law”.
The immoderate use of the expression “rogue states” by the US administration
(and all its “globalized” consequences) is therefore closely linked to this philosophy
of exception. This use is intended to permanently fuel a policy of the enemy—and
hegemonic power cannot live without enemy(s), as the production of new enemies
by the United States after the end of the First Cold War clearly shows. The concept
of the “rogue state” is what makes it possible to unilaterally decree, always in the
name of the best interests of the United States, who is an enemy of humanity as
an enemy of the United States. This is the hegemonic operation par excellence and
opens unlimited credit for violence to the power that implements it.
Clearly, the foreign policy of the United States or, in less agreed terms, its expan-
sionism (as it took shape from the nineteenth century onwards and its hegemony
as it appeared in the aftermath of the First World War) is linked to sources, inspi-
rations, and traditions totally foreign to those which usually bear the stamp of the
American Revolution understood as a source of democratic and liberal inspiration
for the whole world. These “hidden traditions” inspiring US imperial policy are those
that embody their belief in the sovereign exception in a particularly cynical, open,
and relaxed form. Traditions, therefore, that fascist regimes made the most exten-
sive use of in the twentieth century—especially the anti- and counter-revolutionary
tradition which goes from Edmund Burke to Carl Schmitt passing through Joseph de
Maistre. It is of course not for nothing that Carl Schmitt is such a shrewdly critical
and fascinated observer of US expansionism and the universalist imperialism that
accompanies it like a shadow—he feels it on familiar territory, in his capacity as the
theoretical inspirer of Hitler’s conquering projects, and the “American” precedent is
quite suitable for founding a kind of jurisprudence on the constitution of a “large
space”, which the Nazi Reich could refer to when it envisages the conquest of Eastern
European territories to the detriment, among others, of the Slavic peoples.
In his article, Chomsky makes a stimulating connection between the enemy policy
as practiced by the United States, based in particular on the perpetual renewal of the
“stock” of enemies of humanity as the enemies of the United States (“international
terrorism”, “Hispanic narcotraffickers”, “rogue states”, etc.) and a notion attributed
to Richard Nixon under the name of “madman theory”. It is the idea that the armed
power (or reserve of military violence) at the disposal of the United States can
only have a real deterrent capacity in the face of the enemies it designates if these
enemies are convinced that the hegemonic power is perfectly capable, in specific
circumstances, of acting in an “irrational and vindictive” manner if it feels its vital
interests are threatened—including, therefore, the use of nuclear means. For the
existence of available weapons to be an effective deterrent, the enemy must likely be
paralyzed, frightened by the idea that the US leadership might be crazy enough to
unleash nuclear fire, resorting to the most die-hard, the most disproportionate means
of force without reckoning in order to reduce their enemies to nothing.
This “theory”, says Chomsky, has haunted the US political and military staff ever
since the defeat in Vietnam, and it obviously takes on its full meaning in the horizon
where the threat, real or imaginary, embodied by this or that “rogue state” is taking
shape. It is a matter of convincing the adversary that US foreign policy cannot be
confined to the sphere of rational calculations of interest, which obviously excludes
the nuclear risk; of convincing them that it cannot be taken for granted that the leaders
of this country are reasonable enough, over time and on a continuous manner, to avoid
launching destructive terror operations whose consequences they cannot measure.
The specter of Dr. Strangelove must haunt the head of the enemy, whomever he may
be.
The tradition to which Nixon’s “madman theory” probably unknowingly belongs
is as old as it is distinct: the tradition evoked by Machiavelli in Le Prince when he
associates the hyperviolent moment, as a moment of pure terror intended to provoke
fear, with the creation or consolidation of sovereignty, is taken up by Joseph de
Maistre as that of the executioner, as the abject double of the sovereign in Les soirées
de Saint-Petersbourg. In both cases, it is a question of showing that sovereignty
is validated, whether in its founding moment or in that of its reassertion, by an
immoderate, disproportionate, excessive use of force—an excess or surplus which,
according to a traditional economy of violence, manifests itself in the spectacular and
terrorizing shedding of blood; in a modern economy of violence, it will be a possible
exterminating violence, hanging over the enemy’s head like a sword of Damocles and
not differentiating between the rulers and the governed that will be put forward. This
is what Nixon promoted, himself portrayed by some observers as half a madman in
the context of the Pentagon Papers and his impeachment. This is what the American
Dr. Strangelove does, speculating on the first-degree use of nuclear terror.
Under Trump’s presidency, “madman theory” regained an unexpected consis-
tency: the swings in its foreign policy, particularly on the fronts of more or less open
crises (the Middle East, relations with China) made excessive use of force inspired by
a mixture of “Nixonian” calculation and pure inconsistency, even mental aberration,
perfectly conceivable. The great lesson of these four years of Trumpian presidency is
that the “madness” of varying intensity of the Guignol (Marx), which is at the heart
of the force of hegemonic power, is far from being contained or refrained by the
Reason of State embodied by the true professionals who surround the unpredictable
buffoon. This “madness” embarks on and stimulates all sorts of intensities to give it
the force of law—Trump’s rantings are promptly relayed by a colorful assortment of
warmongers from Israel to Taiwan, who see it as an opportunity to put into practice
their dream of inflicting a lesson on Iran or China.
Here we see once again the organic relationship between madman theory (under-
stood as the hard core of a doctrine of sovereignty that relies on demonstrations of
force, the right of conquest, the great space, and guarded hunts, making a mockery
of any contractualist approach to the question) and the nomenclature in which the
notion of the “rogue state” occupies a prominent place.
The struggle to maintain hegemony finds its necessary and vital complement in the
maintenance of false dichotomies, it must constantly tend to depict the present in the
terms of a nomenclature reduced to its simplest expression. The discourse of hege-
mony is rudimentary, based on a coarse conceptual tool, because it must constantly
work to oversimplify and bring the field of politics into summary oppositions—
where the thinking of complexities is reduced to the most inconsistent formulas of
agitation in “either” … “or well”—democracy versus totalitarianism or autocracy,
therefore, rogue states versus the free world, etc. It is a question, by reducing the
whole analysis of the present to these simplified equations, of constantly summoning
the massive and influenced public (the media complacently relay these operations)
to choose its camp. This conditioning, as we can see, involves a perpetual battle
in language—here, for the fabrication and circulation of a kind of ultra-simplified
idiom of politics, a kind of pidgin of hegemony.
This is why we must fight relentlessly against this disease of language in order to
restore the rights of complexity along with the rights of criticism and free thought—
which means defending, restoring and reviving (re-creating) in perpetuity a vocab-
ulary, a conceptuality that strives to live up to these challenges. An example comes
to mind here: when an idiot French minister (of National Education, an aggravating
circumstance) wants to prohibit a teachers’ union from using the notion of state racism
(raised in particular by Foucault in his lectures at the Collège de France on the genesis
of modern forms of power), my companion in arms Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison is
led to make a fine analysis in which he carefully illustrates the necessary distinction
between State racism and the racist State. In France today, State racism is firmly
entrenched, but for all that, the State as such cannot be qualified as a racist State,
on a par with, for example, the Nazi State or the Vichy regime. In order for such a
distinction to prevail, it is necessary to work with sharp conceptual tools, which is
precisely to avoid oversimplifications and confusion (see “Distinguer”, 2020).
The basic problem is that thought, its procedures and requirements, especially the
thought of the present, is and always has been the least of the concerns of the crusaders
of hegemony. Their problem, their unique passion, is power and its exercise without
limits. The rest (ideas, concepts, statements, etc.) is stewardship whose vocation is,
as a famous general (de Gaulle) once said, to follow ….
PS: The bottom line of Chomsky’s thinking, in the article that inspired me here,
is that the worst of the rogue states is still and always will be the United States.
The thing to do, therefore, is to hold out the mirror to them and tell them: de te
fabula narratur. Which is a somewhat paradoxical but nevertheless tangible way of
validating the concept. I disagree with this approach and it seems to me that this
disagreement raises a fundamental question, both philosophically and politically. I
don’t think that one effectively fights the enemy by borrowing his rotten concepts.
On the contrary, it seems to me that it is essential to make a difference by challenging
them and explaining why they are useless tools, inseparable from the indefensible
cause they serve.
The amusing thing, in the context of this disagreement between “friends” (in the
political sense of the term), is that, on a question of language and words, I find myself,
as a negligible Islamo-leftist philosopher (in the corrupt language of the people who
rule my country presently), struggling with a world-renowned linguist whose name
is already engraved in gold letters in the hall of fame of his discipline… How can I
get out of this predicament? I appeal to the readers’ discernment—what else can I
do?
References
Bosco, J. (2020, July 30). Time for US carriers in the Strait. Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.
com/News/editorials/archives/2020/07/30/2003740798
China is enemy of the free world (2021, April 21). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/
News/editorials/archives/2021/04/21/2003756062
Cockburn, A. (2021, September 9). Defensive, not aggressive. London Review of Books, 43(17).
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n17/andrew-cockburn/defensive-not-aggressive
Distinguer racisme d’Etat et Etat raciste (2020, October 20). Orient XXI. https://orientxxi.info/mag
azine/distinguer-racisme-d-etat-et-etat-raciste,4214
References 55
Fisher, R. D. (2021, April 19). Building a global response to CCP aggression. Taipei Times. https:/
/www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2021/04/19/2003755939
Hsu, J. J.-y. (2021, November 6). Democratizing China key to peace. Taipei Times. https://www.tai
peitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2021/11/06/2003767393
Keating, J. (2020a, June 23). World War II’s unfinished business. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
times.com/News/editorials/archives/2020a/06/23/2003738687
Keating, J. (2020b, July 18). Carl Schmitt and Taiwan’s future. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
times.com/News/editorials/archives/2020b/07/18/2003740107
Lin, P. (2020, August 14). Facing the nation’s enemy within. Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.
Mitchell, R. (2021, October 18). Schmitt in Beijing. Critical Legal Thinking. https://criticallegalth
inking.com/2021/10/18/schmitt-in-beijing/
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Vico, G. (1953). La science nouvelle (A. Doubine, Trans.). Nagel.
Chapter 5
A Pandemic of Sinophobia
The articulation of China as the “enemy” by the Trump administration greatly

expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite initially praising Xi and China
for “their efforts and transparency” and their hard work “to contain the Coronavirus”,
this perception underwent a sudden change when the pandemic hit the United States
(see Löfflmann, 2022). Trump then moved to envisage China as a corrupt and crim-
inal country. He stated that “[t]he world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance
of the Chinese government” and even suggested that China had willingly “instigated
a global pandemic” (Trump, as cited in McNeil & Jacobs, 2020). By doing so, he
made China the target of blame for all the difficulties that the United States faced. The
Trump administration also made an effort to spread this discursive strategy beyond
its borders. For example, during a G7 meeting, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
insisted on including the term in the official documents in order to solidify the idea
that “[t]he Chinese Communist Party poses a substantial threat to our health and way
of life, as the Wuhan virus clearly has demonstrated” (Finnegan, 2020).
While this approach failed to gain traction in other Western nations, it did take root
in Taiwan. Along with the far-right press in the US and the Trump administration,
the majority of Taiwanese mainstream media, as well as the government and its
institutions, have also been among the few who willfully continued referring to the
pandemic as “Wuhan coronavirus” (Everington, 2020a), “Wuhan virus” (“A tale”,
2020), or, more commonly, “Wuhan pneumonia” (“Taiwanese need”, 2020). For
obvious reasons, referring to it as the “China virus” was not a viable alternative
in the Republic of China. Ironically, this occurred at a time when the Taiwanese
government raised concerns about its exclusion from the WHO, the very organization
that insisted on referring officially to the virus as COVID-19 to avoid stigmatizing
people of Chinese origin.
The conscious discursive operation regarding the naming of the virus should
not be taken naively. For instance, on February 13, 2020, the Taiwanese Central
This Chapter was contributed by Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_5
58 5 A Pandemic of Sinophobia
Epidemic Command Center took the deliberate decision to keep identifying the
virus as “Wuhan Pneumonia” with the implausible argument that “people are used
to calling the disease ‘Wuhan pneumonia’, so they might be confused by the name
COVID-19” (Lee, 2020). In this vein, Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang defended
that “Wuhan pneumonia” was an accurate term, and supported to continue calling it
that way officially while criticizing “China’s efforts to ‘bleach’ its image” (Lin et al.,
2020).
This stance can be understood as a short-term diplomatic maneuver aimed at
distinguishing Taiwan from China in the international arena, highlighting the exem-
plary pandemic management on the island. In this manner, the ruling bloc in Taiwan
politicized the outbreak to capitalize on the anti-China sentiments prevailing in the
“Global North”, where China was not only regarded as the origin of the pandemic
but also as its purported knowing facilitator. It is understandable that Taiwan would
seek to leverage the situation to promote its international standing. However, upon
closer examination, this stance reveals the underlying imaginaries in Taiwan’s posi-
tioning during the New Cold War, manifesting allegiance to the most extreme factions
within the United States and contributing to the discursive construction of China as a
common global enemy. This antagonistic logic, clearly articulated during COVID-19,
deserves an in-depth analysis of the performative power of hegemonic imaginaries.
In April 2020 a study by Professor Cary Wu, from York University, showed that
Chinese citizens “hold very high levels of satisfaction with the performance of their
national government during the pandemic”, with over 80% of popular support of
the national government’s response (Wu, 2020). Also in April 2020, a survey of
citizens of 23 countries carried out by Blackbox Research, an independent research-
centered agency in Singapore, placed the CCP as the government most supported by
its nationals, with 85% of support, whereas the Taiwanese government only enjoyed
a 50% support (Gilchrist, 2020). By contrast, during June and August 2020, the Pew
Research Center conducted a survey which revealed that even in countries of the
“Global North” the level of dissatisfaction with the United States’ management of
the pandemic was higher than that towards China. Specifically, 84% of respondents
expressed disapproval of the United States’ response, while 61% held negative opin-
ions of China’s handling of the pandemic (Silver et al., 2020). However, this survey
also revealed that it was the unfavorable attitudes towards China that had escalated
to unprecedented levels among the developed nations of the “Global North”.
How to explain this perception of China and its management of the pandemic?
The discursive strategies of the Trump and Tsai administration, as well as the main-
stream media in the “Global North”, including Taiwan, have to be pointed out as
the source of the resultant political imaginary, importantly defined by their cultural
power to control the narrative. As Chomsky contends, power shapes “the ideological
framework that dominates perception, interpretation, discussion, choice of action…”
including in free societies (Chomsky, 2015). Analyzing these discursive practices in
depth it can be explained that the levels of distrust towards China have reached
record levels among citizens who, in their vast majority, based their knowledge of
China during the pandemic on what the dominant media and prevailing political
discourses installed in their collective imagination. The discursive machinery of the
5 A Pandemic of Sinophobia 59
dominant countries has defined a playing field where everything China does is evil
and everything China says becomes a lie. Undoubtedly, the CCP also disseminates
its propaganda extensively within China. As a result, the perceptions of China by the
Chinese differ significantly from those held by citizens of the “Global North”, thus
contributing to a polarized confrontation between the two sides.
For instance, an article published by Taipei Times on April 1, 2020, described how
Control Yuan member Peter Chang, a public health specialist, questioned China’s
success in quickly controlling the pandemic in Wuhan, wrongly claiming that “[f]rom
a scientific perspective, figures about the number of new COVID-19 cases in Wuhan
must be fabricated, as it is impossible that the numbers are dropping as quickly as
China claims they are”, and arguing that it was just the result of not conducting tests
(Lin et al., 2020). Nonetheless, the lockdown in Wuhan ended seven days later on
April 8. In the same vein, Taiwan News noticed on October 2020, not without certain
satisfaction, that “as the coronavirus continues to rage across the globe, with the
odd exception of China, where local infections have been allegedly brought down
to ‘zero’, the perception by outsiders of the world’s most populous country has
rapidly deteriorated” (Everington, 2020b). The word “allegedly” is an example of
the intrinsic need to seed doubt whenever positive information about China emerges,
although not when negative speculations are suggested on a diversity of topics, such
as the origins of the virus (as we will see below).
It is also relevant how the pandemic was discursively constructed to mean China’s
Chernobyl. At the beginning of the pandemic, when it was virtually only affecting
China and the death toll had gone over 1,100 Chinese citizens, Western media such
as the Washington Post and the Financial Times started calling the outbreak “China’s
Chernobyl” (Anderlini, 2020; Tharoor, 2020). By the beginning of March when the
pandemic was still largely limited to China, an article in The Diplomat insisted that
although there were “plenty of differences”, the similarities between the USSR and
Chinese governments should make Xi worry that the pandemic could “represent a
Chernobyl-like historic turning point for the Chinese leadership” (Topaloff, 2020).
The Asia Times, among others, continued to use this metaphor until the end of April,
suggesting that the pandemic would lead to the downfall of the CCP (Hutt, 2020).
Beyond questioning whether this event could have meant a real turning point for
the existence of the CCP in the event that it had not been able to stop the pandemic fast
enough (it could have potentially been the case), we can draw two conclusions behind
this historical comparison. The first one is that these initial reports contributed to the
construction of an idea: that the Chinese government was ineffective and inferior to
the model defended by the United States and its allies. Because of this, in part, it can
be understood why the opinion regarding how the CCP tackled the pandemic was
so negative outside of China, despite the fact that when Pew’s survey was carried
out in the summer of 2020, the spread of the virus had already been completely
halted in the country. The second issue is that the comparison linking the pandemic
to Chernobyl—or whatever its equivalent is for non-communist countries—had been
mostly absent when it was time to describe the inability of the “Global North” to
stop the pandemic, not only in its first wave but also its successive ones. The same
sources that suggested the end of the CCP because of its ineptitude and disrespect
for the lives of its own citizens, were then not suggesting parallel statements with
the strength that should be expected in light of the millions of deaths in the “Global
North”.
“China’s Chernobyl” was a supremacist exaggeration, a stereotyped and simplistic
analysis of those eager to despise China on every occasion. This type of reaction is
that of those who at the slightest opportunity draw comparisons to the Tiananmen
Square incident of 1989 as a valid analogy by which to explain any event that happens
in China today. In this vein, it was written that “the coronavirus presents the Chinese
leadership with its biggest test since the revolt of Tiananmen Square in 1989” (van
der Putten & van Middelaar, 2020). The way things turned out, the Chernobyl—and
the Tiananmen Square—comparison could be understood as a sheer irony of fate,
an innocent mistake that needs no further thought, if it were not for the fact that it
was precisely this position of ideological supremacy that encouraged the rest of the
world not to take the pandemic seriously enough in the first place, thus hindering
the appropriate decisions in the face of the real dangers that eventually cost the lives
of millions. At the top of the list of those who were victims of their own racial and
ideological prejudices, we should place many Western countries where the pandemic
was disparaged as something far-off, related to undeveloped countries, or, since what
was going on was equivalent to Chernobyl, to communist and totalitarian regimes.
The case of the US administration of Donald Trump is the most suited to exemplify
the foolishness of some actors in regard to this metaphor. Against all odds, the
National Security Adviser and top White House official, Robert O’Brien, still kept
defending the Chernobyl comparison up to the month of May, mentioning that “the
cover-up that they [the CCP] did of the virus is going to go down in history, along
with Chernobyl” (“Coronavirus”, 2020). At a time when the United States accounted
for more than 100,000 deaths by COVID-19, Trump and his entourage kept depicting
an alternative reality where the problem was not the United States but China. The
most reprehensible aspect of these acts of hypocrisy (or historical ignorance) is that,
legitimized by the prevailing anti-China narrative, the news of the supposed Chinese
Chernobyl was not disseminated with lament but with joy, delighting in the enemy’s
misfortune—since for long it had been constructed as an evil and dehumanized
“Other”. As such, reading the comment sections of online news articles at that time
was a heartbreaking example of dehumanization and racism against China and the
Chinese people.
The pandemic was portrayed as an example of how in times of emergency liberal
democracy and freedom of the press were more suited than authoritarian states to
act efficiently. Again, a discursive strategy to shore up the hegemony of neoliberal
democracy as the universal supreme good towards which everyone must wish to
converge. By the end of February 2020, The Diplomat mentioned how “Taiwan’s
example proves that the free flow of information is the best treatment for the coro-
navirus outbreak” (Pu, 2020). Others insisted on how “liberal democracies handle
these things better” (van der Putten & van Middelaar, 2020), or that “democracies
are better at managing crises” (Ben Ami, 2020). Similarly, The New York Times
stated that the pandemic showed “China’s governance failure”, criticizing the Chinese
political system and falsely suggesting that its citizens were starting to question it
(Yuan, 2020). These sorts of simplistic and prejudiced analyzes were commonplace
before the outbreaks of the pandemic severely affected liberal-democratic coun-
tries. Afterwards, when reality demonstrated that the cliché did not work like anti-
China critics would have desired, Taiwan persisted as the excuse of choice for those
radicals defending a trembling position: “Taiwan’s democratic success belies Xi
Jinping’s assertion that China’s techno-authoritarian model is superior” (Twining,
2020). Freedom House, a US “think tank”, stated in a tweet that “[y]ou don’t need
dictatorship to fight COVID-19. It is useful only for oppression”, while comparing
the pandemic data from Taiwan, New Zealand, and South Korea with that of China
and adding the unrelated information of one million Muslims in “internment camps”
(Everington, 2020c).
While this discursive operation of propaganda faced its first contradictions,
leading experts on epidemics offered more measured and realistic accounts, oblivious
to anti-China propaganda and Manichean narratives. For instance, Richard Horton,
editor-in-chief of the medical journal The Lancet, stated that
Despite the uncertainties about what took place in December, Chinese doctors quickly warned
their government and their government warned the world. Western democracies failed to
listen to those warnings. There are certainly questions for China to answer, but to blame
China for this pandemic is to rewrite the history of COVID-19 and to marginalize the failings
of western nations. (Horton, 2020)
Freedom of the press or democratically elected governments did not grant in all cases
a faster or more accurate response than that of the Chinese government. Moreover,
we have to state that not all countries departed from the same situation: whereas
China was the first country to face the new virus, without any previous knowledge
of its features or alert of its presence, the rest of the world already counted with
solid information about its severity. As explained by Gregory Poland, director of the
Vaccine Research Group, China “moved very quickly to stop transmission. Other
countries, even though they had much longer to prepare for the arrival of the virus,
delayed their response and that meant they lost control” (Burki, 2020). The rest
of the world, including most of Western Europe and the United States, had extra
time to prepare and act appropriately. The WHO raised the alarm regarding cases of
“pneumonia of unknown cause” on January 5 (“COVID-19—China”, 2020); Chinese
scientists announced that the cases of pneumonia were caused by a novel coronavirus
on January 7, which was widely reproduced by Western media (“Pneumonia cases”,
2020); a draft genomic sequence of the virus was shared by Chinese scientists on
January 10, being praised by the international scientist community (Cohen, 2020).
In an article titled When COVID-19 meets centralized, personalized power,
published in the journal Nature, Yuan (2020) argues that “the debate over whether
autocracies or democracies are better at fighting epidemics is misguided”, contending
that the CCP has both succeeded and failed at handling the pandemic. Thus, while the
Chinese government has been able to deal with the coronavirus with great success,
according to her, it “failed to stem the outbreak before it went global”. This being
true, it is necessary to emphasize that this failure to prevent the pandemic outbreak
is not exclusive to China: many other countries (the vast majority) have failed to
tackle the pandemic promptly after the first cases started to appear in their own terri-
tories, adopting ineffective decisions. Every country faced a first case, followed by
a series of initial community transmissions that could have been halted regardless
of what the CCP did in China before. After “China’s Chernobyl” took place, no one
could maintain the excuse that China was hiding the seriousness of the virus. But
most countries did not quickly resort to drastic measures such as the lockdown of
Wuhan, letting the virus spread in their countries in a way that China did not let
happen. The realization of its severity became public knowledge after the extreme
lockdown of China’s seventh most populous city, Wuhan, on January 23. That day
China completely halted flights out of Wuhan, both domestic and international. In
this regard, Trump’s “China Travel Conspiracy” emerged to falsely claim that China
had allegedly canceled domestic flights while allowing international flights from
Wuhan for spurious reasons (Farley, 2020).
In any case, we have to consider whether the inability to stop a coronavirus with
the characteristics of COVID-19 is a failure or the “normal”. In other words, had this
virus emerged in any other country in this globalized world, would the outbreak have
been stopped before going global? If the authorities in China failed during the initial
two or three weeks to act more decisively against the virus, it was not exclusively
because of its system of government but due to the bureaucracy that is an essential
component of the modern state. This element—bureaucracy as an apparatus that
fears taking unpopular decisions because bureaucrats fear paying the price—is not
exclusive to China, as the cases of countries such as France or Spain, among many
others, exemplify.1
In this sense, the risks inherent in making radical decisions based on mere initial
clues, without strong scientific evidence to back them up yet, prevented Chinese
bureaucrats from taking the radical measures that a virus of these characteristics
required early on (as it happened in most other countries, with few exceptions). We
could speak of the fear of being reprimanded by superiors; causing public outrage by
canceling or, at least, affecting important events (such as the Chinese New Year); or
provoking unnecessary panic in the face of a virus whose severity was still unknown
and could perhaps be controlled without requiring hefty measures.
To say this does not mean that the Chinese system is normatively better than liberal
democracy when it comes to dealing with emergency situations. On the contrary, this
only counteracts the opposite widespread affirmation: that liberal democracies are
always better than other forms of government, as if it was a divine rule written in
stone. It remains an open matter whether countries ruled by “the markets” have
the ability to take strong actions against a pandemic—or climate change, for that
matter—when it damages the economy or goes to the detriment of voting surveys.
This seems the most accurate explanation for the reluctance of many countries when
it came to imposing confinements, the half measures with which the lockdowns were
1I.e. lack of masks and lack of will to use them; permissiveness with demonstrations or football
matches when community transmission was suspected; the announcement of confinements 48 h
before imposing them, allowing citizens to stampede out before confinement takes place, thus
spreading the virus, etc.
designed, and the hurriedness to lift them, which in turn engendered subsequent
waves and many more deaths.
If anything, what has been shown to be most vital when facing the pandemic
are vigorous and unambiguous decisions putting health above economy and the
collaboration of society understood as a responsible community, regardless of the
political system of the country in question. But Western societies were incapable
or unwilling of adopting such actions. This partially explains why the governments
of East Asia have been among the most exemplary in the world when tackling the
pandemic. But, as Chengxin Pan puts it, during the COVID-19 pandemic the West’s
“epistemic racism” failed “to learn valuable lessons and experiences from its Others
who are routinely viewed as civilizationally and scientifically inferior and backward”
(Pan, 2021).
Some critics’ lack of touch with reality only provokes a backlash from Chinese
society, which does not understand the double standards embedded in the criticism
of China when other countries have done a significantly worse job due to their
governments’ mismanagement and disregard of scientists’ advice. This anti-China
narrative further polarizes the way of understanding the world between Chinese
and Western citizens. It is often, therefore, not the propaganda of the CCP that
promotes anti-Western ideas in Chinese society, but the moralistic, incoherent, and
hypocritical Western critique of China regardless of facts. We could assess some of
the unsustainable accusations done against China and the CCP, particularly those that
put the blame on China for knowingly hiding information and silencing scientists.
For instance, an editorial in Taipei Times stated that:
The world has been anticipating a pandemic for many years. That it emerged in China should
not be blamed on the CCP given the globalized nature of the world. The CCP’s attempts
to cover it up, though, ensured that the worst-case scenario happened. (“Understanding the
nature”, 2020)
The dominant narrative is one tainted with malevolence and conspiracy. Control
Yuan member Peter Chang stated that “had China not silenced whistle-blower Li
Wenliang […] the WHO could have responded earlier” (Lin et al., 2020). However,
Dr. Li Wenling alerted about the virus on December 30 and 31, just one day later,
China informed the WHO of the discovery of the virus and continued the established
protocols (“Novel Coronavirus”, 2020). WHO later declared that “in contrast with
its secrecy over the 2002–2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) […],
China’s communist government has provided regular updates” (“Wuhan lockdown”,
2020). Chang continued to state that “the WHO did a great job during the SARS
epidemic because it paid attention to Carlo Urbani, an Italian doctor who gave early
warnings of the threat posed by the outbreak, bringing it under control within just six
months [emphasis mine]” (Lin et al., 2020). Needless to say, China got the COVID-
19 pandemic under control in eleven weeks. Unfortunately, COVID-19 proved to be
much more contagious than SARS and other countries were not capable—or were
unwilling—to bring it under control as China did.
Due to the WHO’s initial endorsement of China’s actions, the anti-China propa-
ganda machine accused the institution and its president of being a puppet of China.
At a UN session in September, Donald Trump accused China in this vein: “they

falsely said people without symptoms would not spread the disease… The United
Nations must hold China accountable for their actions”, while accusing the WHO
of being a tool in the hands of China (“China: Trump”, 2020). After his words, the
WHO communications director had to go on the defensive, claiming that “On January
14 our #COVID19 technical lead told media of the potential for human-to-human
transmission. Since February, our experts have publicly discussed transmission by
people without symptoms or prior to symptoms” (Stern, 2020). In relation to this,
Li Lanjuan, from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, alerted Chinese insti-
tutions on January 12 of his suspicion of human-to-human transmission, but these
were not made public until January 19, when these were certified. “Announcing that
the coronavirus could be transmitted between humans before being confirmed would
have caused panic in the population. Only after we had verified the facts could we
reveal the information to the public”, explained the aforementioned scientist to the
BBC (“Origen del”, 2020).
The fact that viruses require careful study and that institutions are hesitant to
release potentially incorrect conclusions is not unique to China. By the end of
September 2020, months after the pandemic had arrived in the United States, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published an update of their
guides in which they pointed out that airborne transmission was the main mode of
contagion of the coronavirus. However, later on, the CDC reversed its statement and
said that the guidelines it posted on coronavirus airborne transmission were wrong—
despite actually being right, as it was found out later on (see Elfrink et al., 2020).
Months after positive cases of the coronavirus had been detected in most Western
countries, epidemiologists continued to affirm that the virus did not float due to its
weight and therefore fell to the ground, so the use of masks was not necessary. Only
by July 2020, the WHO addressed the possibility of the airborne spread in the face of
the “growing evidence that the virus can spread indoors through aerosols that linger
in the air and can be infectious even in smaller quantities than previously thought”
(McAuley & Rauhala, 2020). It took many months to know for certain what China
was being requested to identify and disclose since the first days of the pandemic in
2019.
It is reasonable to suggest that Chinese institutions were overly cautious, did not
follow protocol, and aimed to contain the new virus without resorting to a complete
shutdown of the country. The early handling of COVID-19 in China was indeed not
perfect, but still more decisive and effective than its subsequent handling by most
of the rest of the world. Indeed, if we are looking for an example of “cover-up” and
indifference, we do not need to look further than the United States and the negationist
Trump administration. They provided an example of blatant lying while ignoring
scientists. The Washington Post summarized it well: “Trump minimized the danger
of [the] virus, encouraged the reopening of US society even as the virus was spreading
rapidly and continues to hold campaign rallies where few wear face masks or practice
social distancing” (Riechmann, 2020). He did so knowingly, understanding the risks
privately, as he admitted in September when he stated that “I don’t want to create
panic, as you say. And certainly I’m not going to drive this country or the world into
a frenzy” (Phillips, 2020).
Some scientists and politicians—like Trump—also claimed for a long period that
it was not such a serious virus, that it was a little worse than the flu, even after “China’s
Chernobyl” (e.g. Linde, 2020). This evidences that a comprehensive understanding
of the new coronavirus was not possible for China by the month of December or
early January: science requires time. But facts seem to be not reason enough to spoil
the alternative reality in which the Chinese government has to be always depicted,
as the Taipei Times often does, as having shown a “catastrophic mismanagement of
the COVID-19 pandemic, which […] has once more revealed the CCP’s incapacity
to ‘problem solve’” (Pajunen, 2020).
The distortion of reality about China’s actions can only be understood in the
animosity created once the pandemic hit other countries; when other governments
began to blame China in order to evade their own responsibility, ineptitude, and
unwillingness to adopt unpopular measures such as severe lockdowns or mask
mandates. In a show of double standards, for them China had suffered a pandemic
because it silenced doctors and scientists, and because it acted slowly and inefficiently
as communist dictatorships purportedly always do. On the contrary, the rest of the
world was affected by the pandemic because it was a completely new and highly
transmissible virus that no one was prepared for, a unique event in modern history
(these were the preferred excuses of the Spanish Government, for instance). One
could certainly argue that the pandemic could have been initially contained within
China if all its authorities had acted resolutely and implemented the most strin-
gent measures in response to the initial yet uncertain circumstances. However, it
feels hypocritical to require China to have acted in such a blunt way when other
more developed nations failed to take equivalent actions when the severity of the
situation was already apparent and had weeks to prepare.
Truth and critical thinking have been other victims of the pandemic of Sino-
phobia. Spurred on by a profound ignorance and loathing of China, clouded by
mystical orientalism and exacerbated by antagonism against the unknown “Other”,
half the world has been engulfed in such hatred of the perfect enemy—communist
China—that a new playing field has been shaped for the consolidation of alternative
truths. Disinformation and rumors that China had purposely fabricated the virus,
lied about having stopped the pandemic, exported it on purpose, and concealed its
severity as a strategy to conquer the world, were able to spread at ease. As late as
September 2020, the most fanatical press such as Taipei Times still maintained this
fantasy narrative: “Its unleashing of the COVID-19 pandemic, first on its own people
and then on the world—whether by strategic design, or cruel and reckless disregard
of the consequences of its actions—has added to the gathering shame and doubts its
rulers have earned” (Bosco, 2020).
The argument that suggests a deliberate “cover-up” by China to facilitate the
spread of the pandemic is more rooted in a desire to blame China than in actual
evidence. The anti-China narrative is always thirsty for stories of heroes fighting
wicked villains, and this production of myths is often intertwined with misinforma-
tion, idealization, and hidden agendas. The widespread culture of enmity incentives
the propagation of accusations against China as true regardless of evidence, whereas

factual information that supports China’s position is often dismissed as suspicious or
undesirable. By a large degree, this is the product of an army of “armchair quarter-
backs” who, in hindsight, offer criticism and judgment of past decisions or actions
without taking into account the context and knowledge available at the time.
Within this Manichean view of the world, in which whatever comes from China
automatically acquires an imprint of evilness, any conspiracy theory involving this
country is publicized by even the most reputable Western media (Ruiz Casado, 2023).
The same media that shout out to the wind their desperation for the lack of journalist
professionalism and the credibility that conspiracy theories gain thanks to fake-media
websites or Facebook groups, then disseminates information about China without
following the same journalistic standards. The validity of certain information or
investigations against China is doubtful and clearly refuted as disinformation or fake
news, but nonetheless enjoys an aura of legitimacy due to the anti-China consensus
in the “Global North”. This has often been the failure of journalists who forward
information (particularly coming from the White House) without fact-checking it,
but also by actors who have done it willingly. The perfect example of this phenomenon
is Yan Li-Meng, a Chinese scientist who ran to the United States claiming to be a
whistle-blower daring to reveal the wickedness of the CCP: that COVID-19 had
been created in a military lab and she had proof. Eventually, the world saw how
a woman promoted by Fox News and with ties to Steve Bannon spread lies that
were disseminated by traditional mainstream media all around the Western world
before being refuted by the scientific community as a fraud (Kuznia et al., 2020).
Taiwan News was one of the media disseminating this fake news, with headings like:
“Chinese whistle-blower alleges coronavirus originated from People’s Liberation
Army military lab” (Everington, 2020d) or “Chinese virologist accuses Beijing of
coronavirus cover-up after fleeing Hong Kong” (“Chinese virologist”, 2020).
The notion of China as a malevolent force has become deeply ingrained in the
collective imaginaries of the “Global North”. Hence, discourses that portray China
in a negative light tend to be implicitly validated by a perceived truthfulness that
undermines critical thinking (Ruiz Casado, 2023). According to this, those who
propagate the anti-China narrative, whether they be scholars, journalists, or politi-
cians, are given increased visibility and their arguments are automatically legitimized
due to the preconceived ideas and expectations of society. This dynamic creates a
strong incentive to exaggerate, manipulate, or misrepresent information related to the
“enemy”, as such behavior is rewarded. Conversely, works that challenge negative
accusations against China are often dismissed as sheer “propaganda” promoting a
pro-China agenda, while their authors are perceived as having been co-opted by the
PRC. Consequently, the proliferation of negative news about China and the tendency
to aprioristically disregard China’s perspectives, reinforce an ideological framework
that portrays China and the Chinese people as the embodiment of evil, positioning
them as the new global enemy.
The pandemic has provided an ideal opportunity to examine the underlying
supremacism and racism that pervades the hegemonic discourse against China and the
Chinese. The main danger of this trend lies in the absence of political incentives for
Sinophobia, the Result of a Dehumanizing Anti-China Narrative 67
certain governments to refrain from attributing blame to China as a convenient scape-

goat, thereby deflecting accountability for their own missteps and difficulties. Within
the framework of the culture of enmity, these sweeping discursive practices against
the demonized “Other” contribute to the escalation of hatred, racism, and an over-
simplified binary perception of the world, thus fostering the development of a New
Cold War.
Sinophobia, the Result of a Dehumanizing Anti-China

Narrative
In March 2021, after the succession of notable attacks against individuals with Asian
features in the United States, President Joe Biden issued a Memorandum Condemning
and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance against Asian Americans and
Pacific Islanders in the United States, calling out against “vicious hate crimes against
Asian Americans who’ve been attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated” (Brown,
2021). The elements of this discourse, which became a trending topic at the time,
deserve additional scrutiny.
First of all, we observe how President Biden, an advocator of displaying a tough
stance against China, an approach that is Trump’s legacy and which enjoys bipar-
tisan support in the United States (being the only one or, at least, the major one),
only referred to racism against “Asian Americans” in the United States, as if non-
American-born Asians living in the United States—let’s say, Chinese students in US
universities—did not suffer from racism or racist attacks or these did not need to be
condemned. With this discourse, he also disregarded racist attacks against Asians
outside the United States.
Contrary to most journalistic and political commentary, despicable discourses
referring to COVID-19 as “kung flu”, the “China plague” or the “Chinese virus”,
common in the United States during the pandemic, did neither merely “channel
the cause of the virus towards the Asian community” or the “Asians around the
world”, in general, nor “Asian Americans”, in particular [emphasis mine] (Elan,
2021; Vazquez, 2020). Instead, those discourses clearly promoted, first of all, hatred
and xenophobia against China and the Chinese. In this regard, there also seems to be
a “phobia” against accepting this reality within the Trump and Biden administrations
as well as the societies of the “Global North”. The prevalence of Sinophobia, driven
by individuals who harbor hostility towards China and its people, has not only led
to discrimination against those of Chinese ethnicity but also towards other Asians
who are often mistaken or conflated as being Chinese. This is due to the fact that
racists frequently fail to distinguish between people of different Asian nationali-
ties such as Japanese, Korean, Honkonger, or Taiwanese—even Filipinos have been
recently attacked during the pandemic wave of racism (Lopez, 2021). In essence,
current manifestations of anti-Asian racism have to be largely seen as a byproduct
of Sinophobia.
Furthermore, what current discourses in the United States promote is not a sheer
critique against the CCP as a governing elite. The constant repetition of messages
against “China” as a country that willingly spreads a deathly virus, that purport-
edly commits “genocide” against Muslims (see this chapter of this book), that acts
aggressively against its neighbors, and that is a threat for world peace more broadly,
those messages do not just create a negative perception of the State institutions and
its government, but, rather, against a nation-state including its citizens. In modern
politics, there exists an unavoidable conflation between the state and the nation that
populates it, in such a way that the dehumanization of the former irremissibly trans-
lates into the dehumanization of the latter. In the words of Aynne Kokas, from the
University of Virginia, “By just using the blanket term ‘China’, rather than ‘the
Peoples’ Republic of China government’, it conflates Asian Americans and the
Chinese people with the policies of the PRC government” (Zhou & Fang, 2021).
What many citizens hear (at least those more prone to fanaticism and racism) is
“the yellow peril is here again, we have to eliminate it before it is too late”. Soon
enough, and not by chance, we find ourselves in a wave of attacks against innocent
Asians of all nationalities being committed around the world. Most importantly, this
is not a phenomenon exclusive to “Western” countries, since it even takes place
in other Asian countries as well. I personally experienced this wave of Sinophobia
during a personal trip with my Taiwanese spouse in India, when the pandemic broke
out and attacks against ethnic Chinese became widespread. Also within Taiwan,
where discrimination against Chinese citizens is increasing and can be felt in daily
discussions and media messages.
This is the real underlying issue and is one that continues to be currently exacer-
bated by the US hegemonic narrative based on the contempt for China. We must thus
reject Sinophobia and avoid any euphemisms or distractions—such as exclusively
talking about “Asian Americans” or Asians in general—that could serve as an implicit
validation to maintain the current narrative against China and the Chinese. Put differ-
ently, the problem cannot be solved if, under the narrative that positions China and
the Chinese as the insurmountable “enemy”, asking for respect for China and the
Chinese becomes a taboo or a sign of weakness that forces us to instead use “Asian
Americans” as a euphemism. Biden’s claim to stop racism against “Asian Americans”
is either a clear sign of hypocrisy or simple ignorance, because racism against this
group will not recede unless the exacerbated propaganda against China (its govern-
ment, its growth, its influence, its nationalist people supporting the country) does not
cease.
At the same time that attacks against China and the CCP ensued last year, we
observed many Black Lives Matter protests all around the world. While the US pres-
ident spewed attacks against the “China virus”, few dare to lift a finger to rally behind
Asians to admit that institutional racism against China and the Chinese were also
utterly wrong. A quick review of the comments section in news articles about China
demonstrates the widespread prevalence and higher degree of societal acceptability
of Sinophobia compared to other forms of discrimination that are considered taboo
to some extent. Implicit racial and ideological beliefs about (communist) China and
Sinophobia, the Result of a Dehumanizing Anti-China Narrative 69
the Chinese are prevalent and arguably are considered less egregious compared to
those held against other ethnic groups.
While discrimination against Black, Jewish, or Hispanic individuals is widely
condemned in Western societies, prejudice and hatred towards the Chinese (and, by
extension, Asians who are mistakenly identified as Chinese) seems to be subcon-
sciously considered as less socially unacceptable. Only by uncovering how hatred
towards China is entrenched and naturalized in the social imaginary can it be under-
stood how an Asian American journalist, when condemning racism against Asians
these days, can proclaim things like the following without anyone raising their hands
to their heads: “It doesn’t matter if they’re from Wuhan or not. It never seems to
matter” (Jordan, 2021). Does this mean that it would make more sense and would be
more understandable if the persons attacked during the pandemic were indeed from
Wuhan? Does it mean that racists should first make sure that the person they want
to kill is actually from Wuhan because that way it would be legitimate? The implied
connotations of these sorts of unconscious assertions are certainly grotesque, but
dangerously widespread. This is only possible because even for Asian Americans
the lesser value of China and the Chinese is felt as “true”, as they are embedded
within the unwavering hegemonic imaginary of the “Global North”.
Even in Taiwan, a country in which the majority of the population paradoxically
shares the same Chinese ethnic traits despite having a different passport, hatred
towards China and the Chinese is thoroughly prevalent. Probably as a consequence
of his strong anti-China narrative, Taiwan was one of the few places in the world where
Trump enjoyed majority support over Biden during the 2020 election (Yang, 2020).
As mentioned earlier, Taiwan is perhaps the only country whose institutions, media,
and government officially referred to COVID-19 by making a reference to “Wuhan”
for months and years after its outbreak. In this context of anti-China sentiments, when
the Taiwanese government changed the size of the names on the passport reducing
that of the “Republic of China” and increasing that of “Taiwan” in order to avoid
racist attacks against Taiwanese people during the pandemic, the state apparatus
did not condemn racism against ethnic Chinese per se but merely condemned those
actions against the Taiwanese who were unfairly confused as Chinese (Ruiz Casado,
2021).
This contradiction reached an absurd level during the pandemic. Let’s examine
two news published on the same day, March 19, 2021, by the largest English-language
newspaper in Taiwan, the Taipei Times. The first article, titled Jeremy Lin speaks
about violence against Asians, transcribes an interview with basketball player Jeremy
Lin, a superstar in Taiwan. The piece refers to the recent attack on Asians at the
massage parlors in Atlanta and quotes Lin lamenting being called “coronavirus” on
the court and describing a climate in which there are “a lot of Asian Americans
who are looking over their shoulders when they go outside, when they go to the
grocery store” (“Jeremy Lin”, 2021). The second article is an inflammatory editorial
titled “Facing up to the Chinese threat” (“Facing up”, 2021). This example clearly
illustrates how ignoring Sinophobia and solely referring to racism against Asians, in
general, limits the ability to act against the root of the problem. On the one hand,
the Taipei Times laments that there is racism against Taiwanese in the United States,
but on the other hand calls for stopping the “Chinese threat”—not even the “China
threat”. What a paradoxical way to stop the wave of Sinophobia affecting Taiwanese
people!
As a final analysis, I would like to make note of some of the unpalatable propa-
ganda going on in most political analyzes and most journalistic reports coming from
the “West” in general and the United States in particular. By way of illustration, I
would like to focus on an article I recently found in Foreign Policy, which states:
“Meanwhile, China is intent on reshaping the world to serve its interests, often at
the expense of the values that Americans hold dear: respect for economic fairness,
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law” (Chang et al., 2021). Has the United
States not reshaped the world to serve its interests, often at the expense of those very
values that Americans purportedly hold dear? Has the United States not dominated
the world through a system that favors its economic dominance? How is it economic
fairness when the United States uses dollar hegemony and its economic power to
buy all kinds of wills? We can find hundreds of examples of a lack of respect for
democracy, human rights, or the rule of law (international and local) by the US
government. However, when the Chinese diplomats recently asked these questions
to their US counterparts in Alaska, Antony Blinken answered that at least they do
not try to “sweep them under a rug” (“How it happened”, 2021), as if accepting the
crime would erase its existence, make it less despicable, or legitimate the resulting
“international order” of dominance that these actions facilitated.
The Foreign Policy article continues: “Beijing would love nothing more than to see
a United States in disarray—unable to maintain democratic cohesion and protect the
rights of its own people”. Would the United States not love to see a China in disarray
and unable to protect its citizens and sovereignty? Is that statement not, perhaps, a
mental projection of how Washington (including both Republicans and Democrats)
desires to see the CCP lose power and China be dissolved into a multitude of small
states (a “Balkanization”), with the official independence of Hong Kong, Xinjiang,
Tibet, and, of course, the consolidation of Taiwan as an enemy at its door?
As the Chinese representatives mentioned very recently in the talks taking place
in Alaska, the United States can criticize China for many of the things it does, but
not from a condescending position of strength, as if China was a perfect evil and
an ignorant brute that should be taught how to behave, whereas the United States
portrays itself (and its political and journalistic allies follow accordingly) as the
savior of the free world and the trustworthy and irreproachable world police (“How
it happened”, 2021).
The world should overcome this Manichean and overly simplistic narrative if
we are to avoid an escalation of the current New Cold War and maintain peace in
East Asia. But how can you stop Sinophobia if you only try to cut its branches and
not its roots? What should be abolished is the culture of enmity against China, its
indiscriminate demonization and dehumanization based on prejudices and normative
assessments of the role and quality of the West vis-à-vis China. In this vein, a recent
statement by Anthony Blinken is a clear example of where the crux of the conundrum
resides: China, he said, is “the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military,
and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international
References 71
system—all the rules, values and relationships that make the world work the way we
want it to” [emphasis mine] (Toosi, 2021). The crux of the issue lies in the assumption
that what the United States wants represents the universal good and thus should not
be challenged. How it is possible to avoid Sinophobia if the United States wants
the world to be a place where they can maintain a position of dominance and thus
sees China’s growth and search for a more balanced international system as a threat?
Perhaps the solution is to make the “international order” more democratic, instead
of a unipolar system with a self-appointed leader.
One idea came to my mind after reading the magic solution proposed by the
article in Foreign Policy: “U.S. leaders must formulate a coordinated, tough, and
comprehensive strategy toward China that also demonstrates that it is Washington—
not Beijing—that offers a more just, equal, and hopeful vision for the world”. Maybe
the problem is precisely this, that even after several decades of US “world vision”
(hegemony) dominating the world, it is fundamentally clear that it has not created
a more just, equal or hopeful world. It is simply not a vision that many people
believe in anymore, and that is what opens the window to China as an alternative to
Washington. It is not simply China’s “aggressiveness” (a mantra repeated once more
in this Foreign Policy article), but US imperialism that has made the world a more
dangerous place during the last decades.
In the end, the authors of that article did exactly what they had proposed to avoid:
“It is incumbent on not just government officials but also foreign policy analysts
to decry the racism that is occurring, avoid language like ‘Chinese virus’, and think
carefully about how they talk about Washington’s China policy and how their actions
impact Asian Americans”, they said. Again, they do not worry about Chinese people
and not even Asians in general, only Asian Americans matter. They could have started
by setting an example and not describing the struggle between China and the United
States in terms of angels against demons, as a fight to preserve “our way of life”,
conceived as inherently superior and threatened by that lesser enemy. The anti-China
narrative and the conception of the United States as the universal good and savior
of the “free world” is so ingrained in their imagination that they are not even able to
perceive their own contradictions and contribution to Sinophobia.
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Chapter 6
What Is Happening in Xinjiang?
A Discourse Analysis of the “Genocide” Narrative
On his final day of service as Trump’s Secretary of State in January 2021, Mike
Pompeo disregarded the conventional tradition of refraining from significant policy
decisions prior to handing over his office. He became the first prominent voice
to declare that China was perpetrating an “ongoing genocide” against the Uyghur
minority in Xinjiang (Borger, 2021), a far-reaching escalation in rhetoric that lacked
substantial evidence to support such a claim. What was the reason for the sudden
urgency at the last moment, and what was the intended objective he sought to achieve?
Pompeo’s statement was particularly surprising given that the United States had
not yet acknowledged the genocide of the Rohingya people despite the abundance of
well-documented evidence, such as mass killings and a flood of refugees fleeing
ethnic cleansing—unlike in the Xinjiang case. In fact, the United States would
only recognize the Rohingya genocide on March 2022, more than two years after
Pompeo’s words. This serious departure from established diplomatic protocol could
have been interpreted as an illustration of the tendency within Trumpism to fabri-
cate attacks against perceived adversaries, or as a calculated effort by Pompeo to
bolster his already solid anti-China image with an eye towards his political future.
However, in March of the same year, his successor, Anthony Blinken, doubled on
Pompeo’s flimsy claim and labeled China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide in a
report issued by his office (Quinn, 2021). This decision went against the conclu-
sions of State Department lawyers who had recently determined that there was not
sufficient evidence to support the genocide claims (Lynch, 2021). As usual, the hege-
monic media propagated this news without further critical examination of the facts.
As it transpires, the instrumentalization of the signifier “genocide” represented yet
another successful discursive operation employed by dominant powers to institute
China as the indomitable embodiment of evil.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_6
76 6 What Is Happening in Xinjiang?
Given Pompeo’s fervent anti-China stance, it would have been reasonable to

raise suspicions regarding the ideological motives underlying his accusation. His
subsequent visit to Taiwan in March 2022, where he urged the United States to offi-
cially recognize Taiwan (Madjar et al., 2022) and supported the further militariza-
tion of the island (Gibson, 2022), evidenced a desire to fuel an anti-China campaign
and potentially incite conflict in East Asia as a means of personal advancement.
Nonetheless, in the already crystallized imaginary of the New Cold War, where
China portrayed the perfect villain, Pompeo’s narrative was rapidly embraced rather
than questioned. And yet, on what information did Pompeo base his grave (for there
is hardly a heftier word) allegation of genocide?
The first reputable report on the situation in Xinjiang was published on August
2018 by a United Nations panel on racial discrimination (“CERD”, 2018). In the
document, the Committee confessed it was “alarmed” by the “numerous reports” of
arbitrary detentions and “re-education camps” aimed at Uyghurs and other Muslim
minorities in the region. Using those reports the committee estimated that “the
number of people detained ranged from tens of thousands to over a million” (Ibid.).
The committee also regretted the lack of official data “on how many people are in
long-term detention or who have been forced to spend varying periods in political
‘re-education camps’”. Because of this lack of official data and the absence of inde-
pendent researchers in Xinjiang, analyzes seeking detainee data could only be based
on often unverifiable and biased accounts—not necessarily untrue, but unavoidably
partisan and sometimes controversial or contradictory—of activists and self-exiled
Uyghurs, questionable interpretations of mere satellite images, or unbalanced anal-
ysis of purported official documents of the Xinjiang government. Despite being
commonly portrayed by Western media as “independent reports” (E.g. Westcott &
Wright, 2021) and “independent tribunals” (E.g. Gunter, 2021), they are nothing of
the like.
Accordingly, we find three steps of subjectivity affecting the conclusions of the
panel: first, the subjective presentation of facts by individuals directly implicated in
the problem; second, the subjective interpretation of those “facts” in “numerous
reports” by organizations suspected of lacking genuine neutrality; and, finally,
another subjective step when the panel analyzes and puts all those multiple pieces
together. Unsurprisingly, the range of people allegedly detained became preposter-
ously broad, and the statements of the members of the Committee evidenced the lack
of impartiality and fact-based knowledge.
During a press conference held to present the report, Yemhelhe Mint Mohamed, a
Committee member, referred to the “arbitrary and mass detention of almost 1 million
Uyghurs” (Nebehay, 2018), choosing to establish a definitive number at the top of the
broad range initially offered in the report. Meanwhile, Gay McDougall, vice-chair of
the same Committee, shared that the number of Uyghur detained was “two million,
although she offered no source for that figure” (Vanderklippe, 2018). How can such
disparate numbers come from the same committee? The flimsiness of all these anal-
yses, reports, and statements turned out to be inconsequential: within the collective
imagination in which China is the communist ogre capable of everything, any lack
of neatness and precision is forgiven as irrelevant. In the immediate aftermath of this
A Discourse Analysis of the “Genocide” Narrative 77
report, the “ethnic repression of more than 1 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang” emerged
as the preferred label employed to describe China in Western public debate. Refer-
ences to China since then and for the following years almost invariably mentioned as
an established fact that, at least, “a million of the Muslim minority group are being
held in camps” (“China dismisses”, 2020).
Since 2020, the US State Department insisted that there were “one million
Uyghurs and other members of predominantly Muslim minority groups in extra-
judicial internment camps and an additional two million subjected to daytime-only
‘re-education’ training” (“2020 Country”, 2022). Some of the most outspoken critics
of China among activists and media outlets, like Taipei Times, Epoch Times, or Radio
Free Asia, have added such round numbers together to claim without solid proof that
there still were “more than 3 million Uyghurs imprisoned in concentration camps
and that hundreds of thousands have over the past four years likely died of torture or
starvation in those camps” (Hoshur, 2021). The flippancy with which these extremely
serious accusations have been launched and disseminated only supported on a limited
basis of truth, amounts to a flagrant case of post-truth and misinformation that remains
understudied.
Not only are these numbers exaggerated based on the available evidence, but they
are chiefly presented in a manner that implies all the arrested individuals are currently
and consistently in detention. They do not refer to how the majority entered and exited
in a matter of weeks or months (as studies and many personal accounts of former
detainees demonstrate, see Zenz, 2019), or that the re-education policy appeared to
be mostly ended by 2019 (Kang, 2021), but instead, they state that there are currently
millions of Uyghurs confined in camps. The idea that all those who were arrested
never left is a crucial element in constructing the narrative of “concentration camps”
and “genocide”. How credible are those numbers then? Why are these statements
still reproduced by the media without any critique?
The prevalence of a hegemonic discourse that demonizes China has created a
situation where any information, regardless of its veracity, is deemed credible as
long as it reinforces the negative portrayal of China as the enemy: it is what the
public wants to believe, what fits into the prejudices and stereotyped images of
the demonized “Other”. For those already convinced of the intrinsic malevolence
of the “enemy”, the questionable data and the inflated numbers—and later on, the
weak claim of genocide—either are true or could be true. Crucially, the constant
repetition of this narrative and its reproduction by established actors make the story
feel true and legitimate. One piece of news, one report, one political declaration at a
time, the construction of this political imaginary becomes the product of the synergies
created between the international institutions dominated by Western hegemony, the
government of those countries, and the media supporting the system. Starting from
a foundation of verifiable truth—the undeniable human rights abuses taking place
in Xinjiang—these discursive practices crystallize a disproportionate and distorted
“reality” (the so-called “post-truth”) that present in a believable manner what those
identified as enemies of the free world arguably plan and execute. From one embel-
lishment to another, the next step was to rename the “re-education camps” into
“concentration camps”, and then what in 2019 was a campaign of “mass arbitrary
detentions and related violations” became, after the pandemic, one of “genocide”.
One person was instrumental in furthering this discursive step: Adrian Zenz. A half
a year before the declaration of “genocide”, on June 2020, when the pandemic of the
“China virus” was already running wild in the United States, Pompeo issued a brief
official statement in which he mentioned the studies of Zenz by name:
The world received disturbing reports today that the Chinese Communist Party is using
forced sterilization, forced abortion, and coercive family planning against Uyghurs and other
minorities in Xinjiang, as part of a continuing campaign of repression. German researcher
Adrian Zenz’s shocking revelations are sadly consistent with decades of CCP practices that
demonstrate an utter disregard for the sanctity of human life and basic human dignity. We
call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end these horrific practices and ask
all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanizing abuses.
(Pompeo, 2020)
A lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of

Culture and Theologyand a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial
Foundation, the profile of Zenz and his studies have become extremely controversial
since then. Notoriously, Zenz is also considered to be a fundamentalist Christian
that has declared to feel led by God to fight communism (Chin, 2019). This aspect
raises concerns regarding his ideological motivations and suggests a more activist-
oriented role rather than that of a purely scholarly endeavor. Most importantly, the
perceived strength of Zenz’s research importantly lies, as stated by Pompeo, in it
being “consistent with decades of CCP practices”. In other words, because Zenz’s
accusations fitted the prejudices and stereotypes of the narrative depicting what the
Chinese government does.
Drawing upon various sets of “estimates” derived from unverified data provided
by two well-known partisan organizations, Radio Free Asia and “a Uyghur exile
media organization based in Istanbul”, which published detainee figures “reportedly
leaked from a reliable source”, Zenz felt sufficiently assured to determine the total
“internment figure” at just over one million (Zenz, 2019, p. 122), magically reaching a
figure that holds a certain rhetorical significance by resonating as a compelling and
impactful number, thereby lending weight to the claims. However, Zenz always
offered a disclaimer for his academically flimsy arguments: “The accuracy of this
estimate is of course predicated on the supposed validity of the stated sources”,
claiming that “[w]hile there is no certainty, it is reasonable to speculate that the
total number of detainees is between several hundred thousand and just over one
million” [emphasis mine] (Ibid., pp. 122–123). Once again, the individuals in charge
of shaping the narrative opted for the highest number in the range. Published online
in September 2018, shortly after the UN report, this article interestingly matched the
numbers and conclusions of the Committee aired not much earlier. These conclu-
sions were presented as an irrefutable fact by Western media and, thereafter, Zenz
became the preferred source and the ubiquitous expert supporting any claims about
Xinjiang in Western media.
On May 2019, a report by Zenz titled Sterilizations, IUDs, and Mandatory Birth
Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uyghur Birthrates in Xinjiang, published
by the suspicious Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, went one step further

to lay the ground for the claims of “genocide” (Zenz, 2020). This report was again
quickly echoed by mainstream Western media such as CNN, who stated that Zenz had
“quoted official Chinese documents showing a surge in the number of sterilizations
performed in the region—from fewer than 50 per 100,000 people in 2016 to almost
250 per 100,000 people in 2018” (Watson et al., 2020). What these claims tend to
obscure is that prior to 2016 the number of sterilizations in Xinjiang was significantly
lower than the national average in China. The birth policies that until recently did
not apply to ethnic minorities in Xinjiang had previously been impacting the rest
of the population, including the majority Han ethnicity. For the whole of China,
sterilization ratios had been significantly high in general: for instance, in 2010 it was
143 per 100,000 inhabitants in China as a whole, while it only was 20 per 100,000 in
Xinjiang (Ibid.). The gap in this statistic started to reverse after 2014, peaking in 2018
when Xinjiang reached 243 per 100,000, in contrast to only 33 per 100 thousand for
the whole of China (Ibid.).
Put in perspective, it is indeed paradoxical that ethnic minorities in Xinjiang
witnessed a significant rise in the proportion of sterilized women while, concurrently,
the Chinese government was undertaking initiatives to encourage higher birth rates in
other demographic groups due to the low fertility ratios observed throughout China.
But the contextualization of these policies cannot stop there either. For instance,
the abovementioned CNN report added that “up until 2015, the Chinese govern-
ment enforced a ‘one-child’ family planning policy countrywide”, whereas “ethnic
minorities, such as the Uyghur people, were typically allowed to have up to three
but Xinjiang expert Zenz said that families from these groups often had many more
children”. As a result, “In the decade to 2020, the population of China’s ethnic minori-
ties grew 10.3 percent, while the Han majority expanded at just below 5 percent”
(Leng & Zhou, 2021). The measures adopted by the CCP therefore could repre-
sent an attempt at equalizing or narrowing the gap between the birth rates of ethnic
minorities in Xinjiang to that of the rest of the country. Naturally, it is legitimate
to be against these discriminatory policies and condemn the fact that behind this
later “equalization” is hidden an intention to control the demographic growth of the
Uyghur minority for political and economic reasons. It is irrefutable that the birth
rate of Xinjiang’s population has swiftly decreased as a result of the harsh policies
implemented towards ethnic minorities there, even if this drop somehow coincides
with an overall but more gradual downward trend seen in the rest of China. While the
birth rate in Xinjiang has drastically gone from 15.88 per thousand in 2017 to 8.14
per thousand by 2019 (no more official data after the “genocide” hype hit the scene),
the birth rate for the whole country was 10.48 by 2019, 8.52 by 2020, 7.52 by 2021,
and 6.77 by 2022 (Leng & Zhou, 2021; Mullen, 2023). The fundamental question is
whether this demographic control signifies a genocidal intention aimed at eradicating
an ethnic group or “just” aims, as the Chinese regime often contends, to counter reli-
gious extremism and to promote inclusion, development, education, and increase the
opportunities for the members of such ethnic group—and, again, we can vigorously
argue against this cruel capitalist logic of modernization.
Beyond the subjective and free interpretation of these controversial and tangled
facts as a case of genocide or, instead, as severe human rights abuses, the deonto-
logical integrity of Zenz’s research has frequently been questioned—which might
explain why he had to publish them in dubious “think tanks” such as the Jamestown
Foundation or in less reputable academic journals such as the Journal of Political
Risk. For instance, a misleading—or directly false—claim by the article mentioned
above was that “in 2018, 80 percent of all net added IUD placements in China (calcu-
lated as placements minus removals) were performed in Xinjiang, despite the fact that
the region only makes up 1.8 percent of the nation’s population” (Zenz, 2020, p. 2,
emphasis mine). The trick, camouflaged between the parentheses, misguided main-
stream Western media to disseminate without further consideration the fake number
that 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were carried out in Xinjiang. Among
many other examples, CNN resorted to Zenz’s study to contend that “according to
local government statistics, there were almost 1,000 new IUD implants per 100,000
people in Xinjiang in 2018, or 80% of China’s total for that year” (Watson et al.,
2020).
The New York Times followed suit by stating that “some 80 percent of China’s
IUD insertions have been in Xinjiang, home to less than 2 percent of the country’s
population” (Kristof, 2021). Zenz’s trap was that, while other regions had historically
implanted IUDs and now had significant numbers of both insertions and removals
(the net number of insertions minus removals being thus much lower than the number
of insertions alone), in Xinjiang the number of removals was minimal as IUDs had
hardly been inserted in the past. Therefore, when comparing only net numbers, Zenz’s
statistics showed a radically distorted picture. This was simply an ideologically-
led mathematical trick to cook the data, which, nevertheless, remains commonly
repeated to support the claims of genocide. In fact, the correct share of IUDs inserted
in Xinjiang in 2018 was 8.7 percent of the total in China; still a high number for the
relative population of Xinjiang, but understandable if we bear in mind the originally
very low number of IUDs insertions in the region until recently (see “China Focus”,
2020). The fact that these post-truths have passed undeterred through the filter of
the most recognized mass media and some academic institutions is indicative of the
underlying reality: that the anti-China narrative eagerly seeks this sort of data and
embraces it without question, and that everything negative said about China carries
an aura of imminent legitimacy.
For Zenz “these actions fell under the United Nations definition of ‘geno-
cide’ specifically ‘imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group’”
(Watson et al., 2020). However, this alone does not seem sufficient evidence to clas-
sify it as genocide. According to the UN courts, the definition of genocide requires
proof of intentional physical destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
group at a very high standard of evidence (see Sachs & Schabas, 2021). Article 6
of the Rome Statute of 1998, which establishes the following five actions as consti-
tutive of genocide: killings, serious bodily or mental harm, subjugation to living
conditions that seek physical destruction in whole or in part, measures aimed at
preventing births or forcibly transferring children from one group to another group
“with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group” (“Rome Statute”, 2011). In accordance with this, “because courts require
proof of intent to destroy the group physically, it is hard to make the case in the
absence of proof of large-scale killings” (Sachs & Schabas, 2021). As such, while
it is possible to argue that the “re-education camps” resulted in significant physical
and mental harm, along with harsh living conditions, it remains extremely difficult
to justify with a high standard of evidence that this sought the physical destruction of
those individuals and not, for instance, their indoctrination or acculturation—which
we might condemn but do not entail genocide. What about the measures to prevent
births then? As was argued before, it is not clear whether those birth control measures
were implemented with the intent to destroy Muslim minorities in Xinjiang or just
sought to control birth rates within the group in a similar way it has been done in the
rest of the country Will it be just a temporary campaign that ends when the group’s
birth rate is assimilated to that of the rest of the country or will it go further? We
cannot say at this date, but knowing this is essential to ascertain whether this case fits
the definition of genocide. Furthermore, to fully comprehend the decline in births, it
is necessary to consider measures that extend beyond mere family planning:
Chinese authorities have invested heavily to provide 15 years of free compulsory education
in Xinjiang, compared with nine years nationwide. As a result, Xinjiang’s high-school gross
enrollment rate increased from 69% in 2010 to 99% in 2020, while the nationwide rate rose
from 83% to just 91%. Uyghurs have suffered from forced sterilization, of course. But it is
this forced cultural shift that appears to have had more serious consequences for the birth
rate (Yi, 2022).
Of course, the “voluntary” disposition—as the CCP claims—of Uyghur women to

adopt those birth control measures remains a crucial ethical question. The evidence
suggests that many women in Xinjiang were coerced into undergoing sterilization
and other birth control measures, which is a profoundly reprehensible violation of
fundamental rights. The central issue here is that those abuses over women took
place in China for decades due to the one-child policy and can hardly be deemed
a sudden innovation exclusively created for the Uyghurs. If we were to affirm that
policies aimed at preventing births “in part” are unquestionably implemented with
the ulterior intention of destroying a “people”, it would logically follow that the one-
child policy, when broadly applied to Han Chinese throughout China while excluding
Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, could also be construed as an attempted geno-
cide against the Han Chinese. This, of course, would not make the slightest sense,
since we understand that the objectives of this stringent policy were tied to the
management of a rapid population growth that posed risks to the well-being and
progress of the nation.
This is not to say that nothing happened in Xinjiang and that all claims are the result
of a conspiracy. On the contrary, it is obvious that a campaign that aimed at Muslim
minorities and abused their most basic rights definitely took place. However, the often
exaggerated numbers, the way those numbers are presented—constantly repeating
that millions of Uyghurs are being still and forever detained—and, principally, the
unsubstantiated accusation of genocide, have to be criticized and presented as an
attempt to accelerate the demonization of China to progressively bring it into submis-
sion through sanctions and international isolation. An example of this can be seen in
the effective imposition of sanctions against Xinjiang-related trade or the pressure on

the European Union to cancel the trade deal with China then under negotiation. What
we have seen in Xinjiang could be described as forced cultural assimilation or “Sini-
cization” of those communities to allegedly include them (forcibly) in the system.
That operation obviously targets an ethnic/religious minority and has been harsh and
discriminatory: the arbitrary arrest of Muslims and their forced “re-education” is a
shameful event, as it is the destruction of mosques and harsh punishment of religious
leaders tying religion to extremism. One could argue that the conditions experienced
by those detained in Xinjiang were deeply troubling and severe, with alleged cases
of sexual assaults and psychological torture being particularly alarming. However,
equating the detention facilities in Xinjiang with the concentration camps of Nazi
Germany or the Soviet Gulags reflects a considerable manipulation or ignorance
of history (E.g. see Wintour, 2021). Indeed, on many occasions those who went
through the “re-education” centers/camps are presented as “survivors” (E.g. Mc.
Cartney, 2021), implicitly suggesting that a significant number may have perished
during the process, despite the lack of evidence to support the idea of widespread
deaths. By labeling the Uyghurs who have undergone “re-education” as “survivors”
while simultaneously raising accusations of “genocide”, there is a perpetuation of
the misleading notion that China is involved in the deliberate extermination of a
population through methods comparable to gas chambers or labor exploitation akin
to that of Soviet Siberia.
All this is mainly an opportunistic “wording” to exacerbate the New Cold War,
taking some traces of truth and then turning it into something that it is not. The label
“genocide” waved by Pompeo on his last day at work perfectly illustrates the nature
of the “post-truth” prevailing in US discourse since the arrival of Trump, which
has continued after their replacement by Biden and Blinken. Moreover, despite the
lack of evidence, these statements created a chain reaction and found wide support
among US allies. It is crucial to point out that there was no nuanced talk of a “cultural
genocide” (which could be argued with more compelling reasons), but of plain geno-
cide with intent to destroy a people, in its entirety. As Human Rights Watch had to
reluctantly admit in 2021,1 “it had not yet documented the existence of the necessary
‘genocidal intent’ to make a finding of genocide, as the Canadian, Dutch and Belgian
parliaments, the US state department, and legal groups had done” (Davidson, 2021).
Similarly, the United Nations mission to Xinjiang in May 2022, although quite limited
in its access, did not reveal any novel information and its final report was primarily
grounded on prior discoveries, stating that China was accountable for “severe human
rights abuses” in the province of Xinjiang (“China responsible”, 2022).
When one side is genocidal and the other is the defender of freedom, open discus-
sion is curtailed and critical thinking becomes self-censored out of fear of being
singled out as a traitor or supporter of evilness. The indiscriminate use of the signifier
1Reluctantly because they immediately made a disclaimer to let us know that “nothing in this report
precludes such a finding and, if such evidence were to emerge […] could also support a finding of
genocide”. Quite a twisted and ridiculous way of saying, in other words: there is no reason to talk
about genocide, but if there was, there would be (see “Break Their”, 2021).
An Epistemological Challenge 83
“genocide” therefore threatens to undermine its meaning and its value in the present
and the future. Especially when considering that China was following the example
of “anti-terrorist” rationale set by the US, and when everything indicates that more
innocent Muslims may have died in detention in Guantánamo than in Xinjiang—in
addition to the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
other countries during the US “war on terror” (see Adayfi, 2023). In this regard,
it becomes challenging to ascertain which approach, between the methods of “re-
education” and family planning versus the employment of tactics like “shock and
awe”, waterboarding, and black sites by American democracy, was more destructive,
criminal, and in violation of international law. Due to these unconscionable accu-
sations and double standards, those who have hastily accused China now encounter
significant challenges in upholding a coherent and resolute judgment. As a way of
illustration, if the United States officially claims that the CCP has committed geno-
cide, how can President Biden subsequently meet in Indonesia with his Chinese
counterpart, Xi Jinping, “excitedly prancing across a stage to shake hands” with a
leader his administration accused of being a genocidal dictator? (see Cunningham,
2022).
An Epistemological Challenge
When Hannah Arendt wrote her long article From Lies to Politics—Reflections on the
Pentagon Documents, inspired by the New York Times revelations on the manipulation
of opinion by the political authority on the Vietnam War, she could still denounce the
State’s lies through the independent press and its vocation to reveal imposture and
re-establish facts (Arendt, 1972). For her, a free and uncorrupted press has a mission
of considerable importance to fulfill, which allows it to rightly claim the name of
fourth power. She emphasized the right to truthful and unmanipulated information,
without which freedom of opinion is nothing but a cruel mystification.
Today, in the context of the New Cold War between the United States (with the
“Global North” in tow) and China, a confrontation that is increasingly taking the
form of a “war of the worlds” à la H. G. Wells, the last hope of the defenders of the
rights of truth in the political arena has, for some time now, been shattered. What
Arendt calls the independent press, which is now a capitalist press in the hands of
economic and financial powers who are concerned above all with their market share
in the communications business, has long since ceased to be the remedy or solution,
but is rather the problem or part of the problem.
Already, in her article, Arendt underlines the fragility of facts in the face of the
logic of political action, in the face of the regime under which the latter is placed:
the propensity to lie, she says, is consubstantial with action, and action is obviously
the very substance of which political action is made. Lying has always accompanied
political action like its shadow, as truthfulness has never been among the virtues
of politicians. In the political domain, the permanent temptation to falsify, Arendt
reminds us, is not so much related to proven facts (as are, in part, those relating
to the historical past) but to “a contingent reality”, moving and open to divergent
interpretations. From this, she states, “it follows that no factual statement can ever
be beyond doubt-as secure and shielded against attack as, for instance, the statement
that two and two make four” (Ibid., p. 6). This “matter” on which politics aims to
exert its action, does not carry an intrinsic and intangible truth. It follows that no
statement about facts can be entirely free of doubt—as invulnerable to any form of
attack as, for example, this assertion: two and two make four.
But with all of this, she says, in an open society where there are checks and
balances and other sources of discourse on politics in the present than that of execu-
tive or military, where critical thought has its own channels of expression, state lies,
especially when they reach a certain state of saturation and violently collide with
whole swathes of reality, can be exposed in the public arena—and it is here that the
independent press in particular is called upon to play its role. By exposing dissimula-
tions, deliberate lies, falsifications, by publishing documents that attest that the rulers
lied in order to “save face” in the context of the disaster in Vietnam, the independent
press, as part of the same movement, re-establishes the facts and redresses the harm
inflicted on both public opinion (“the people”) and American democracy.
It suffices to examine the way in which a very sensitive issue such as the policy
of forced assimilation of the Uyghurs conducted by the Chinese central power in
Xinjiang presents itself to us today, to understand that we have radically changed
times, in comparison with the picture described by Arendt. The Xinjiang issue can
be defined as particularly sensitive in more than one respect: as one of the major
bones of contention in the New Cold War, first; but also in so far as it is exemplary
of the difficulties we have in orienting ourselves in this dispute, and of the obstacles
we encounter in the quest for reliable information, giving us access to elements of
reality and assured facts.
Indeed, the first thing we experience here is our condition as hostages in the
war of discourses—two apparatuses and two propaganda discourses confront each
other, and everything leads us to challenge both of them just as rigorously. In the
configuration in which Arendt’s reflections on lying in politics are situated, she can
identify a vanishing point out of the saturation of public spaces by the lie of the
state: the independent press is able to play, on this stage, the very positive role in
the American culture of the righter of wrongs whose intervention provides a kind of
saving happy-end—it has, in extremis, saved “American democracy”, in spite of the
dirty war lost on the other side of the world ….2
In the present configuration, on the contrary, what strikes us and exhausts us is
the absence of such a line of escape, because we cannot rely on any authority or
source of information to produce a narrative that can be considered a priori true
about the situation in Xinjiang. All the transmitters of discourse, including those
with a status that is in principle disinterested—academic or humanitarian—appear
2It will be remembered here that whoever, in the present world, has played an identical role by
publishing information and documents revealing the turpitudes of the administration and the US
military apparatus is treated as a high-level criminal, assimilated to a terrorist and hunted down
accordingly—Snowden, Assange ….
to varying degrees but distinctly “under influence”, that is to say, overdetermined by

the speaker’s perspective, his or her position in the field of the global confrontation
in which Xinjiang is the object at stake. Western academic discourse is particularly
preempted by all sorts of ideological, sometimes caricatural, a priori.
When we try to form an opinion on the situation in Xinjiang,3 we feel that we
are living under a regime of tyranny of discourse and communication apparatuses of
a very particular type. Unlike in totalitarian conditions (what Czeslaw Milosz calls
logocracies), it is not the monopoly of information held by a single power that kills
information and with it any chance for the ordinary human subject to having access
to reliable and truthful sources—on the contrary, we have access to a profusion of
transmitters, written and oral press, TV, online news, social networks, etc., with a
well-drawn frontline: Western discourse on the one hand and Chinese state discourse
on the other. All of these discourses are, to varying degrees of intensity, contaminated
by propagandistic biases, whether this is the result of a concerted orientation or
constraints such as the scarcity of sources and their fragility or bias. As Arendt notes,
where the question of political lies begins to become considerably more complicated
is where the speaker who talks under the regime of an oriented, partisan discourse,
seized by the war of the worlds, begins to believe what he or she is saying, where
ignorance, autosuggestion, and deception begin to become one. “The more fallacious
and convincing a deceiver is, the more likely he is to believe his own lies”, writes
Arendt.
The set of facts that constitute the situation about which we are called upon to
opine and, eventually, to commit ourselves, is literally crushed under the massive
bombardment of discourses intended, in various ways, to condition global opinion.
In this situation, we are led to form an opinion based not on facts and data that we have
been able to ensure are firmly established, but on a fragile hermeneutic consisting
of a critical analysis of discourse.
We are called upon to relate questions of plausibility (or implausibility) to issues
of utility. What, for example, will lead us to reject the massive recourse on the
notion of “genocide” in the discourse emitted by certain Western commentators,
starting with the US administration and its direct supporters, are, first of all, two
things: on the one hand, the very great improbability that a genocide strictly speaking
(mass exterminations performed on the basis of ethnic and religious selection in the
present case) could be carried out in a territory to which all gazes are currently
being turned towards without the possibility of accumulating irrefutable evidence,
by direct and indirect testimony, undeniable data obtained through electronic and
aerial (i.e. satellite) surveillance, various cross-checks, etc. The information that
for now has served to qualify what is happening in Xinjiang as genocide comes
exclusively from a few sources, for the most part overwhelmingly and openly partisan
in their anti-China crusade (either authors such as Adrian Zenz or a few “think
3 This banal expression (“forming an opinion”) should be understood here as something that brings
into play a little more than the curiosity of the modern subject and his desire to keep informed of the
events of the day. It is obvious that the situation in Xinjiang matters to us insofar as it calls for all
kinds of diagnoses and forecasts concerning both the present and the future of the Chinese regime
and that of the ongoing “war of the worlds”.
tanks” with dubious sources of funding and personal interests such as the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute), that base their analyzes on a few brushstrokes of reality
(the few documents that the opacity of the Chinese regime lets slip or a few open-
source satellite images that show buildings appearing or disappearing) that are later
completed and interpreted by adapting these few elements of truth to the objective
to be achieved and what the public opinion is supposed to want to hear (that is, in
essence, what the process of creation of a “post-truth” fed by “fake news” has become
in recent years).
And, on the other hand, this, which is not particularly novel, becomes a funda-
mental problem when the Trump administration (and now that of Biden) adopts at
face value what these few sources assert, building and basing its foreign policy on it.
And, what is worse, because of the bipartisan support of the anti-China cause in the
United States, the media on both sides have reproduced such messages without the
contrast that does exist on other issues of confrontation between Republicans and
Democrats. Finally, what the US media unanimously reproduces is largely echoed by
the media of many other allied countries. The rhetorical game of those who speculate
on the use of the term “genocide” in this context is transparent: it is a question, in
a context of strong antagonism between two power blocks, of morally discrediting
one of the protagonists, of criminalizing it by placing it on the same level as criminal
powers and states such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet regime at the time of classical
Stalinism, the Khmer Rouge, Hutu Power, etc. As such, at the same time that there
is a goal to taint China as negatively as possible, confrontational poles are promoted
within the immediate sphere of influence of China (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet,
now Xinjiang), threatening the “Balkanization” of the country by encouraging any
secessionist movement that weakens China’s hegemonic projection into the world.
But hermeneutical rigor is here obviously a temporary solution, insofar as it only
allows us to dissociate ourselves from propagandist narratives. In the same way that
we do not swallow the totalitarian egg, a little too big anyway, we do not let ourselves
get carried away when the Beijing propaganda tries to convince us that the famous
“camps”, on which the whole dispute around the situation in Xinjiang is currently
crystallizing, are nothing more than training centers intended to improve the level
of education and skills of the Uyghur people—a version which, after the Western
Orwellian dystopia, in turn feels a little too much like it is the “best of all worlds”.
But by dismissing these caricatured accounts, one limits the damage, avoids forming
hasty judgments based on worthless sources—one does not, however, manage to
form a completely distinct idea of the situation.
Contemporary mediacracy strives to reconstitute its well-started credit of legit-
imacy by constantly posing itself as the defender and guardian of the consistency
of facts in the face of “fake news”. But we can see here that it is a rhetorical trick:
the “case” of Xinjiang shows in a striking way that, from the war of propaganda
and communication devices, the facts do not come back unscathed. The idyllic and
simplistic picture of the opposition of lies and roguish political liars to true discourses
and respectable rectifiers of statements as representatives of a power with strong
legitimacy in democratic societies (that of informing, precisely) is itself a lie and a
falsification. What exactly, strictly speaking, the campaign of forced acculturation
undertaken by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang is on the ground, we do not know.

We can outline the situation in broad terms, discern what it is not, but this general
and vague picture is quite different from what we have been able to learn even from
the exterminating ethnic cleansing carried out by the Burmese Army in rural areas
inhabited by the Rohingya population. It is, among other things, that we do not have
the same reasons to be cautious of the testimonies collected among the refugees in
the camps of Bangladesh as we have to be of those of Uyghur exiles in the United
States or Turkey, who immediately embarked on a spiral of propaganda stakes and
were co-opted by the corresponding agents.
In more than one respect, this situation of cognitive (“gnoseological”) impasse
recalls that which we experienced during the First Cold War with regard to the
Soviet camps. In a similar way, any information about them was overdetermined by
propagandist issues. The Western left was torn between those who considered that
any information published about these camps served anti-Communist propaganda
“objectively” and brought water to the mill of imperialism (the Western Communist
Parties and their supporters, for the most part) and those who believed that, in relation
to the criminal practices of a State on a large scale, the necessity of establishing the
facts and denouncing the crime outweighed all other considerations. The debate
raged with particular vigor among the former deportees of the Nazi concentration
camps—those who saw inmates of Soviet camps as brothers in suffering, and those
who wanted to remember, above all, that the majority of Nazi camps had been
liberated by the Soviet Army. Two cases punctuated this war of narratives, in France
in particular, the Kravchenko Affair and the David Rousset Affair.4
As surprising as it may seem today, this war was not about the interpretation
of a given reality but rather about the establishment of the facts: for the Western
Communist press of the time, Kravchenko was a fabricator, a forger, a political
impostor and an ideological mercenary who made the nebulous motif of the Soviet
camps the tool of his propaganda against the USSR; David Rousset, a former deportee
that joined the reactionary camp, wrote the French Stalinist press had invented the
Gulag (a term which was not “popularized” until later, during the publication of
Alexandre Soljénitsyn’s book) in order to discredit the struggle of the communists.
The big difference, however, with the challenge that the Xinjiang question repre-
sents for us, is that since the beginning of the 1930s, many direct testimonies of
people having crossed the archipelago of the Soviet concentration camp have been
published in the West; testimonies from witnesses and survivors whose social and
political profiles were very varied, autobiographical accounts often very detailed,
and of high quality—so much so that despite the power of the Stalinists’ means of
4 Victor Kravchenko, Soviet defector of Ukrainian origin and author of the world bestseller I chose
freedom (1946); the publication of the book in French was the occasion of a Homeric polemic
between Stalinists and anti-communist “liberals”. David Rousset, Trotskyist activist, resistant,
deported to the Nazi camp of Buchenwald and author of The Concentration Universe, one of
the first analyzes of Nazi camps. In 1949, he published in Le Figaro littéraire, a conservative daily,
an appeal by former deportees from Nazi camps intended to draw public attention to forced labor
in Soviet camps (see “Appeal by”, 1949). The communist press then raged against him, including
former communist deportees, which led to a resounding libel lawsuit.
propaganda in certain countries (the French Communist Party was then at the height
of its power), the existence of a Soviet concentration camp system was attested by
the usual means of historical criticism, notably the cross-checking of testimonies,
and other sources as well, such as the famous Smolensk archives seized by the
Nazi army during the invasion of the USSR by the Wehrmacht.5 Simply, in this
configuration of the Cold War and the confrontation of discourses, a whole section
of opinion, in popular circles as well as among the intelligentsia favorable to the
USSR, victorious in the war against fascism, did not believe in Soviet camps, did
not want to believe in them, for ideological reasons—which, again, constitutes the
most convincing demonstration in favor of what Hannah Arendt calls the fragility of
political facts.
We find ourselves, in regard to the question of the camps in Xinjiang, in a reversed
situation, compared to that which prevailed at the time of the First Cold War, with
regard to the Soviet camps: Western opinions, in all their diversity, are generally
ready to believe today that a real concentration camp archipelago (with all that this
implies if one takes this notion quite seriously) exists in this Chinese province and that
hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs—even millions—are languishing there, suffering
the most degrading treatment, dying there just as deportees died in Nazi or Soviet
camps. Very few are those who are determined to demand more precision or data
that would enable them to form a separate opinion on the nature of these camps. This
is because, in general, the Sinophobic discourse (going beyond hostility towards the
regime and reviving very old stereotypes) exerts an almost undivided hold on people’s
minds in Western latitudes—a surprising situation in view of what the most basic
democratic doxas teach us—the homogeneity or compactness of opinion on a subject
of prime importance is supposed to be, in principle, the hallmark of totalitarian rather
than democratic conditions. The fact that, during and now after the time of Donald
Trump, the main object of “bipartisan consensus” was the demonization of China
as the main national security threat (for the US world hegemony, particularly in
the Asia–Pacific, rather than for the US nation-state itself), speaks volumes on the
dominant and dogmatic process of the “othering” of China. Western opinion is not
divided in the camps in Xinjiang, hardly anybody likes to quibble on the words and
comparisons used in the Western accounts of the situation there, for the good reason
that, as the polls show, public opinion, conditioned by the New Cold War rhetoric, has
an increasingly negative perception of China in general and its regime in particular.
This is, in exactly the same way, but in the opposite direction, how part of the
opinion in Western Europe refused to acknowledge the existence of the Soviet camps,
due to their propensity to heroize the country, the people, and the regime which had
twisted the neck of Nazism. What should the critical posture consist of here, in the
philosophical and positive sense of the term? No doubt in the first place to demand
clarification; to say: when you talk about concentration camps, gulag, and genocide
in Xinjiang, what do you mean by that? How many deaths, and what methods of
extermination are used—by hunger, cold, epidemics, weapons, forced labor, gas? In
the absence of such elements of comparison with other historical configurations, what
5 On this point, see the classic work by Merle Fainsod (1967). Smolensk in the Age of Stalin.
leads you to risk this type of piecing together anyway? Where does your political
interest in this arrangement of discourse lie?
And in the same way, it would also be a matter of asking the other party: if it
is only about re-education and training programs, why the need to create camps?—
since camps, obviously, there are. Since when has the camp (a heavy term, in all
the languages of the world, one can imagine, with powerful negative connotations)
been primarily intended for educational tasks? Since when can a forced stay in a
camp (obviously those in Xinjiang are not populated by volunteers) be considered
a citizenship course? Or again: is it true that mosques have been and are still being
destroyed in Xinjiang, a region whose indigenous population is Muslim? If so, for
what reasons, for what purposes? Is it true that the celebration of Muslim religious
holidays (Ramadan, etc.) is routinely hampered by the authorities and has given
rise to annoyance, intimidation, and even persecution? Is it true that birth control
campaigns specifically targeting Uyghur women (and as such discriminatory) are
being conducted in the region? etc.6
It is over the course of requesting clarification of what is being said and written
about the situation in the region that a picture of what is happening and is what at stake
in Xinjiang can emerge—a massive campaign of forced assimilation, acculturation
based on authoritarian procedures and brutal means—but which, however, are not
those of ethnic cleansing consisting in forcibly evacuating a population from the
territory in which it lives, at the cost of “exemplary” massacres (Srebrenica); nor,
a fortiori, a genocidal program consisting in wiping out this human group from the
face of the earth (the Rwandan “paradigm”). In view of the specific characteristics of
this situation, the neo-colonial, neo-imperial feature of this operation is distinct. The
Uyghurs are treated as subordinates by a power imbued with its political prerogatives
on a background of racial presumption, as they would be a backward population,
in the grip of backward religious prejudices, and seen, in the post-9/11 context, a
population associated with a dangerous religion, carrier of terrorist ferments (a fear
and a stereotype fuelled by acts of terrorism that indeed happened at the hands of
some radicalized Uyghur groups before the project of the camps became a reality).
This is undoubtedly a detestable policy, doomed to failure and in more than one
way criminal, as much as in the means it employs as in the ends it assigns itself,
a policy among others which thrives on the backdrop of Islamophobia which is,
unfortunately, only too familiar to us. But this is by no means a sufficient reason
to pass it off as what it is neither nor could be—an exterminationist and genocidal
6 It would also be important to historicize the issue of camps, local deportations, punitive and “re-
educational” disciplines currently implemented in Xinjiang by including them in the genealogy
of the punitive systems put in place by the regime since the so-called Liberation of 1949. The
figure of the camp obviously occupies a prominent place there, but all these camps are not what
in the West we call concentration camps. Rather, some are labor camps and centers of “recovery”
and ideological re-education where conditions are quite different from those which prevailed in a
Nazi concentration camp or in Siberian isolators in Stalin’s time. See for example on this point
the testimony of a former detainee of this type of camp in B. Michael Frolic’s (1981) book Mao’s
People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary China, particularly Chapter X: “He who loved
dog meat”.
enterprise. This issue is very much like COVID-19, an issue too serious for it to lend
itself to propagandist outbidding and its cynical and vulgar instrumentalization by
the New Cold War mongers. It is here that the question of words and concepts appears
vital: it is first of all important to say what the policy of the Chinese central power in
Xinjiang is and what it is not, and to use the terms, expressions, and concepts adequate
for this. Everything else is hustle and bustle, the sphere in which the mercenaries
move.
Genocide as Field of Maneuver
Le Monde has just converted to the US doxa of the “Uyghur genocide” via its former
correspondent in Beijing, Brice Pedroletti (2021), a declared opponent of the Chinese
regime and a patented “antitotalitarian” agitator not very bothered with the means
deployed in the service of his perpetual crusade. One of the favorite methods of this
New Cold War journalist is to open his paper’s columns to academics and those
assimilated on the same side as him, in order to perfume his cause with academic
scents. It should be noted in this regard that, as a general rule, the more journalists
and academics come together, the more the latter tend to look like the former—for
the worse.
It is therefore the old trick of the academic specialist that Pedroletti repeated
a few days ago for the umpteenth time, in this occasion inviting a certain Chloe
Froissart, “professor of political science at Inalco, specialist in the relations between
state and society in China and the evolution of the Chinese regime”. In an interview
titled with finesse “China: ‘The CCP’s desire to eradicate everything it cannot absorb
reveals more fragility than strength’”, after being outraged by the CCP creating cells
everywhere in China, including foreign companies (as if we were still living in the
days of concessions when Europeans were in China, on conquered ground), stating
afterwards that “the founders of the (Chinese Communist) Party were democrats”, in
contrast to the autocrat Xi Jinping—pathetic shortcut dictated by the zeitgeist—and,
coming to the essentials, stating straight away:
“China today has many features of totalitarianism. The constitution revised after the 19th
Congress proclaims that ‘the Party runs everything’, which is new. A regime of terror has
been established, especially in Xinjiang, where there is genocide, but also against all those
who dare to criticize the Party and tell the truth”.
The thesis of the “Uyghur genocide” is put forward here as the truth within the
evidence, without the shadow of an argument. Until recently, Chloé Froissart was
head of the Franco-Chinese research center at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which
would suggest that she worked in the service of cultural diplomacy without any
particular attention paid to a country where genocide was and is, committing itself
…. A cause not so urgent, therefore, since she was able to wait for her return to
France to drop the word, in the columns of Le Monde, at the same time as she let
Genocide as Field of Maneuver 91
loose on the policy of the Chinese state, a common procedure among this category
of university careerists.
So let us put the nail in the coffin once and for all: if words have meaning, and in
particular if the term “genocide” is not an insignificant term that States, journalists,
and their little academic hands can throw in the face of their adversaries or at the
heads of state of the moment, how is it conceivable that the academic diplomacy of
a Western democracy, the homeland of human rights as it so proudly likes to call
itself, continue its course under the regime of “business as usual” in the capital city
of a country in which a genocidal machine is running at full steam?
Does Mrs. Froissart see herself, project herself into the past, at the head of a
friendly little research center running, at her cruising pace, in Kigali in 1994, and in
Phnom-Penh in 1977? I’m not saying Berlin or Warsaw, 1941—it was war …. But
Xinjiang is far from Beijing… ah well… but aren’t the henchmen of the autocrat Xi,
as he rules the entire Chinese empire from his Beijing headquarters, the ones who
are in the hot seat? Or maybe we should acknowledge that the genocide perpetrated
by the Chinese regime in Xinjiang is of a particular kind, so particular in fact that
it does not deserve either our dwelling on what confirms it or documents its reality,
so that we should not hasten to abandon the academic sinecure in order to sound the
alarm. A paper genocide, perhaps, then. Just a rhetorical excitement at the time of
the New Cold War.
Today’s agitation over the “Uyghur genocide” motif sheds light on the way in
which, since its production at the end of the Second World War, the word genocide
has appeared from the outset as a political issue, an issue of discourse warfare and
great ideological maneuvers rather than of law and justice. In a way that is paradoxical
but very obvious today. European history has been rearranged around the memory of
the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, the motif of the unique and the incomparable
(essentialized by the adoption, in Western Europe, of the Hebrew term Shoah) has
been deployed in a perspective of refocusing the narratives of world history around
European history. The uniqueness of the Holocaust, in a country like France, has
a corollary with which we measure all the political and ideological stakes today—
relativity, not to say the subsidiarity of all other state crimes, in comparison/in-
comparison of what is essentialized under the name of Auschwitz—notably colonial
exterminations and other historical crimes.
We see much more clearly today, in the context of the publication of the Duclert
report (a report on the responsibilities at the time of the French government in relation
to the perpetration of the genocide in Rwanda that was prepared by the historian
Vincent Duclert, who has recently handed it over to the President), what relationship
can be established between the proliferating ritualization of the collective (and state)
memory of a past genocide and the concealment of a genocide that continues into
the present with (aggravating circumstances) the active complicity of our rulers—the
Rwandan genocide.
We can also see much better the relationship between the religious and metaphys-
ical construction of the discourse surrounding a genocide declared unique and incom-
parable, and a distinct political objective: to build a kind of ideological Maginot line
around the state that proclaims itself heir and legatee of the victims of the Holocaust
and which thrives on colonization, conquest, and apartheid—the state of Israel.
The great maneuvers of today, during which journalists à la Pedroletti and
researchers à la Froissart deploy their new fatal weapon, the “Uyghur genocide”,
while resembling a paper word version of a North Korean military parade, is deployed
in a different direction: their destination is distinctly to implant on European soil the
congealed language of the New Cold War whose impetus comes from across the
Atlantic. The “Uyghur genocide” must become an obvious and indisputable fact,
as are the harmfulness of tobacco and the autocratic tendencies of Xi Jinping and
Vladimir Putin. To colonize opinion, words must be conquered, distorting them if
necessary. The New Cold War is being fought through language, and it is tending
towards the total mobilization of available brains. The thing that is perhaps a little new,
in the present configuration, is that from now on what remains of the academic power,
university, has distinctly become, in the matter of opinion making, an appendage of
the media power. Oh cruel narcissistic wound, if only we could keep a good distance
from these discursive operations…
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Chapter 7
The New Clothes of Hegemonism
The new clothes of hegemonism are, on the one hand, storytelling (what could be
called the narrative turn of hegemony) and, on the other, soft power. The simple fact
that all this is preferably said in English takes us directly to the heart of the matter.
Hegemonism speaks and thinks in English, usually with an American accent. This
predilection today for forms of conquest, envelopment, and ascendancy that keep
distance from armed violence does not mean that hegemonism has been converted
to pacifism. An insatiable appetite for war can easily be discerned in the mantras of
Western propaganda about defending civilization on the Ukrainian front, as well as
protecting Taiwan against the “Chinese threat”. Let us be careful not to forget that
after all, regarding the latter, what is at stake is indeed the conquest of the immense
Chinese market by the majors of Western economies; an impatiently awaited manna
whose express condition is the fall of the regime born of the civil war and the revolu-
tion, whose express condition, in turn, is the defeat of China in a confrontation with
the United States, their allies and their proxies. A linkage of conquest with collapse
in comparison to which the colonization (by Coca-Cola, Marlboro Mc Donald’s,
and company) of the exhausted socialist economies, following the fall of the Soviet
Empire, would have been just a pale anticipation.
In the present sequence, and despite the increasingly heavily armed dimension of
the promotion of hegemony, on the occasion of the confrontation that the Western
coalition delivers to Russia through the intermediary of Ukraine, the fight against
the main opposing powers still remains under a regime where discourse and images
prevail. But everything is happening in reality, more and more distinctly, as if the
purpose of the war of narratives and images was not to replace armed confrontation
but to prepare minds for it, in the Western sphere and beyond.
Or it is perhaps that with the war in Ukraine and rising tensions around Taiwan
(and the South China Sea), we may have reached a tipping point—where the war
of words and images constitutes the premise and then the essential accompaniment
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_7
96 7 The New Clothes of Hegemonism
to the clash of arms. We can clearly see how, in the Ukrainian theater, this synergy
operates: the Russian armies are stalling on the ground, but the situation is much
worse for Putin on the front of the communication war—this battle, he has, from the
beginning of the conflict, lost it in the face of Zelensky, that outstanding salesman
(of his war)—in Western opinion, at least; under other latitudes and especially in the
Global South, we should take a closer look.
From now on, it is in this sense that something like a “Ukrainian paradigm” would
be established, the way in which one “sells” one’s war to world opinion matters just
as much, if not more, than the way in which one conducts it on the field. In Ukraine,
it was Putin who took the initiative to trigger hostilities and this synergy between
the clash of arms and the war of words and images was established in the heat of
the moment, under the impulse of the exceptionally gifted showman, the hero in
khaki, with his fierce warrior’s eight-day beard. But in the Far Eastern theater, we
can clearly see how an incessant communication artillery fire having both the target
and keyword of the Chinese threat is intended to create the conditions for massive
interference by Western powers in the affairs of the region, taking, in all likelihood,
the form of armed intervention.
Storytelling is yesterday’s propaganda—day to day and in times of peace (or rather
non-war)—without the hysterical dimension of the first. But what is experienced and
verified there, is of the same species: the omnipotence of discourse under influence
or command, in the face of reality; the repetitively administered proof that the best-
established facts (those of the present as well as those of the past) are destined to
give way before the Word of power, the superior power of sovereign authority. In
other terms, what really matters, in the final instance, is the ability to link a discourse
to power or position of power; in other words again: to make hegemony loquacious,
to endow it with a language peopled with appropriate words and turns of phrase,
destined to perpetually revive its effectiveness. The language therefore does not have
here a function of representation of any reality but, on the contrary, of dissolution.
What is in question are not so much distorted or falsified representations of reality
as the implementation of the disappearance of it and its replacement by narratives
and images tailored to serve the interests of power, of hegemony. We could quite
simply call them the words and images of power, which underlines the resolutely
logocratic character of contemporary liberal democracies—yet, for Ceslaw Milosz,
the promoter of this term, it is totalitarian regimes that are, par excellence, logocracies,
and which thrive on the omnipotence of power discourse (Milosz, 1953).
There is something truly terrifying in the experience that everyone can have, at the
cost of a slight effort of attention, by confronting themselves with this infinite power
of storytelling: nothing, strictly nothing, facts and elements of reality the most solidly
rooted, in principle, in shared and legitimized narratives, in the collective memory,
in the common experience of contemporary humanity, nothing stands sheltered from
its grips and its devouring appetites. Classical twentieth-century propaganda, war
propaganda, totalitarian propaganda, propaganda of times of crisis (Cold War …)
constantly suffered from its excesses, its hyperboles, and its obsessive character—the
reason why public opinion saw it as made up of “canards” during the First World
War.
7 The New Clothes of Hegemonism 97
Today, the storytelling of global democracy affects quieter tones, so sure is it of

uttering the stainless truths on which civilization relies in its present state. It would
seem that what is now imposed in the Global North, in the spaces of white thought
and total democracy, is a kind of common sense so compact, so perfectly mimicking
the universal, a consensus so massive when it comes to the issues of which the news
is woven (the war in Ukraine, China, the police of mores, etc.) that any speaker who
does not speak like the TV when he/she evokes these subjects is doomed either to be
excluded from the communication field or to be criminalized in one way or another.
As a result, those who speak the language of hegemony, who walk on the pedestrian
crossing of self-proclaimed democratic legitimacy can say almost anything, as long
as they do it under the guise of promoting good democratic morals or the expansion of
the field of total democracy. They will advantageously activate themselves to conduct
a virtuous witch hunt or to make Taiwan the theater of the next proxy war—of the
next Ukraine. Under the storytelling regime of today’s crusading democracy, one
can say almost anything and its opposite,1 as long as it is included in the scope of the
procedures for validating legitimate power. One can treat an irascible leftist member
of the French Parliament as an enemy of humanity while, at the same time, treat
the promoter of Greater Israel Netanyahu as a friend of the free world.2 One can
rewrite History at will and rave (about) the past galore, provided one is firmly seated
in the seat of the narrator and judge of universal History in the colors of democratic
civilization.
We can now say anything under these conditions—it is not a figure of speech
or a rhetorical exaggeration. Here, for example, is how a regular columnist for the
Taipei Times, a longtime American mental settler living in Taiwan, wrote on the
newspaper’s editorial page recently:
A primary stereotype is that Taiwan has always been a part of China and its corollary that
Taiwan has been a part of China since time immemorial (sic). Both are false (…) Taiwan has
always been part of the vast Austronesian Empire that stretched from Madagascar in the west
to Easter Island in the east and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. That
part of the history of Taiwan needs recognition, because many in the West remain ignorant
of it. (Keating, 2023)
Is it necessary to insist at length on the fact that the “Austronesian empire” referred to
here by our author is nothing but a phantasmagoria intended to erase from the shelves
the firmly established historical reality according to which the sovereignty of the Qing
dynasty was exercised for nearly three centuries, without interruption, on the island,
until China was forced to cede it to Japan in 1895 (Treaty of Shimonoseki)?3
1 For example, one day the Chinese regime imposes inhuman constraints on the population in the
context of the fight against the COVID pandemic, and then the next day it lets the contagion slip
away in a criminal way. In this palinodic register, Le Monde and its correspondents in China have
broken all records.
2 This is what happened recently to Adrien Quatennens, a member of La France Insoumise, guilty
of having slapped his wife during an altercation.

3 One of the most constant processes of storytelling is to empty words of their meaning or to distort
it—here, the word “empire”.

But on this point too, the scribe committed to the rewriting of the past knows
the parade. One revision leads to another, he states: “[u]nder the Manchu’s Qing
Dynasty, China was ruled by the Manchus for about 267 years”. For him, the Qing
dynasty was not a Chinese dynasty, but a Manchu dynasty, and China was, during
all these centuries, an annex of the Manchurian Empire. Ergo, it was not China that
had to cede Taiwan (Formosa) to Japan, but the extended Manchurian Empire. There
is therefore no reason to claim that Taiwan has ever “belonged” to China. All this
dizzying exercise in acrobatic gymnastics to lead to the conclusion that preempts all
reasoning: the Chinese regime is in no way justified in issuing claims to sovereignty
over Taiwan. Taiwan is a sovereign destined to proclaim its independence and the
sooner that is done, the better it will be—whatever the cost, a good little punitive
war against China, like in the blessed days of the Opium Wars, for example. All this
in the name of the “Austronesian empire” ….
We could remain incredulous in the face of such a flood of nonsense and historical
untruths, and content ourselves with the massive objection: but then, if all this is true,
how is it that the day after the defeat of Japan, in 1945, the first move of the United
States, the victorious power in the Pacific, was to facilitate the return of the Chinese
administration to the island? But we must go further in questioning what is at stake
in the very posture of the narrator who, in a well-established daily newspaper, can
afford to reinvent the past as no peddler of fake news would allow himself to do on
the most obscure of revisionist or negationist sites …. What is at stake here—is it not
above all what must be called the arrogance of omnipotence and its spirit of excess,
the spirit of crusade which animates total-democratic hegemonism today and allows
everything? Is not the sign under which the imaginary construction of the repairer of
incorrect historical facts is placed here manifestly this everything is possible which
Arendt told us was the distinctive mark of totalitarianism?
Another structural feature of the storytelling of hegemonism is its propensity to
jump from one subject to another and place itself under a resolutely discontinuous
regime. The universal, the unshakeable principles, and the intangible values are
always administered in the field of a particular scene or sequence and under their
conditions. Not long ago, before the war in Ukraine came to saturate the public
discourse in which the defense of civilization is staged (and nothing less), it was
the Uyghur genocide that stood at the front page of the great and less mainstream
Western press, a state crime, burning news maintained day after day by the revelations
of Adrian Zenz, a crusader of anti-Chinese agitation financed by an American anti-
communist foundation.
An ongoing genocide is obviously what requires the attention of the civilized world
and its constant mobilization—and it is indeed such a state of absolute emergency
that strived to maintain, both in the media and the Western chancelleries, the agitation
of the Christian fundamentalist and professional anti-Communist Zenz. This, very
precisely, in the name of the values and principles to which democratic hegemonism
is crying out, in particular with reference to the disasters of the twentieth century—
“never again!”, the banishment of genocide as a condition for the pursuit of a civilized
human history.
The disconcerting ease with which both media and state storytelling has adopted
in the West the radical version of the brutal assimilation and “normalization” (in the
Soviet, Stalinist, sense of the term) undertaken in Xinjiang as a case of genocide—
a version delivered by Adrian Zenz and the Uyghur exiles in the United States, by
which the “cultural” adjective, originally intended to temper the brutality of the term,
quickly disappeared from the shelves—should have had at least one consequence.
This is, once the “Uyghur genocide” was recognized and identified as such, entered
the police of the official language, they should not have let go of the case: if words
have a meaning (and if there is a word that matters, that should not be used carelessly
and that does not lend itself to speculation, it is indeed that of genocide), a State, a
political regime to whose account we put a genocide in progress, in full development,
is a criminal regime which must be ostracized from the community of nations and
whose actions cannot only be the subject of platonic denunciations.
However, what is obvious is that since the war in Ukraine has imposed itself at the
forefront of the war of narratives, the “Uyghur genocide” has almost disappeared from
the radar screens. This clearly shows what the storytelling of hegemonism is woven
from: not ideas, principles, or values firmly established in the element of the universal,
but scenes, images, opportunities, and situations—this in a constantly fragmented,
discontinuous, volatile mode without follow-up: we dismantle the trestles, the stage,
and the sets of the war of Good against Evil as quickly as we erected them, we
transport them to the new theater of operations, we hastily repaint the cause in the
colors of the place and the moment, we make the necessary adjustments—and here we
go again. The storytelling of hegemonism is thus indefinitely modular, adaptable to
all circumstances and all theaters (of crisis, preferably), its repertoire is flexible, even
if the same litanies and refrains (democracy, free world, human rights, freedoms—
and everything that opposes them—totalitarianism, tyranny, dictatorship, autocracy,
etc.) come again and again.
The very way in which the promotion of global democracy proceeds here by
investments, disinvestments, and reinvestments, in the most discontinuous and oppor-
tunistic mode possible, clearly shows that what is at stake in this war of movement are
positions, balances of power, tactical moves, local confrontations—the moral war
staged on each of these occasions, the grand theater and the grandiose rhetoric of the
principles each time put back on the work are never more than the accompanying
music of these redeployments whose stakes are anything but moral.
The lack of continuity of investments betrays the lie—how could it be, from the
point of view of principles and values that are of no time or place in particular (while
being of all of us) that the war in Ukraine overshadows the Uyghur genocide? These
games of substitution and interposition (the war in Ukraine as a “total screen” in
front of the “Uyghur genocide”) clearly show that what is at stake here is above all
a scenography, a game of images and discourse—the promotion of hegemony (of
global democracy) as perpetual sound and lights. One could say that the changes
of scenery are here dictated by the most hardened cynicism: an obscenography, the
obscenography constitutive of the storytelling of the promotion of the “free world”.
Under this discursive regime, words are important not insofar as they signify
principles and values and refer to a normative or axiological background, but quite
simply insofar as they are keywords whose effects are expected. These are not words
relating to the production of general meaning, aspiring to universality, they are terms
(or groups of words, syntagms) whose status is that of influencers—the reason why
their promoters jump from one to the other, without any other consideration than
that of the effect produced by their utterance in a given context: “Uyghur genocide”,
“Chinese threat”, “Free Ukraine”, etc.
This tactical use of keywords or the pragmatics of storytelling is intrinsically
nihilistic in the sense that it deliberately falls within a horizon where the argumenta-
tive function of discourse has been dismissed. It is no longer a question of producing
meaning by linking one sentence to another, by reasoning, by thinking in writing or
aloud according to a certain order (logical or associative), but rather to dispose, in a
controlled communication space, of reference points visual or sound (visual or vocal
“posts”) by which the public will be guided. It is no longer a question of learning how
to orient oneself in the present by means of language, public speaking, and taking
into consideration the arguments and opinions that clash, but simply following the
beacons by listening to the keywords and then repeating them. What is terrifying,
once again, under this regime is the disappearance of any reverse shot—in the depths
of my French countryside, everyone now talks about the course of the world like
television, bringing the complexities back to the common denominator the most
emaciated and unthinking there is—that of keywords.
What disappears here is the intimate relationship that is established between
discursive production placed under the sign of argumentation and the linking of
sentences one to another, and orientation in the present. The sequestration of language
by power strips it of its mediating function between our perplexities, our helpless-
ness, our loneliness, and the complexities of the world—the chaos of the present. It
is a kind of profanation of the instituting quality of language—for it is through and
in discourse that we take hold (a little, in spite of everything) on what, in the chaos
of the present, disarms us and escapes us. When language, mistreated, stripped of its
own power (manifested by the “dialectical” use of discourse), finds itself reduced to
the function of a simple servant of power, even the words most loaded with meaning,
those most closely associated with trials and enigmas of the time, are exposed to
being prostituted, thrown on the sidewalk of propaganda—this is what one could
call the paradigm of the “Uyghur genocide”, object one day of all indignation and all
alarm simulated then immediately deserted, disinvested as soon as a more profitable
business for the promotion of hegemony appears on the horizon—the Ukrainian
crusade.
But basically, what the palinode of the “Uyghur genocide” reveals is all the ambi-
guity that surrounds the term genocide, in current discursive usages, in Western/
Global North mode—a word associated with the pinnacle of horror and of the
barbarian, but as a word of collective memory, a word of suspect worship of the
past rather than confrontation with the intolerable in the present. The characteristic
of liberal democracies is that, regularly, since the Holocaust, they miss genocides in
the present, either because they either do not see them or they look away,4 because
they do not consider it as a priority, in the time of their accomplishment; or, worse, of
course, that they are directly complicit (e.g. Mitterrand and the Rwandan genocide).
If “genocide” has become such a powerful word in politics, media, and academic
discourse over the last two decades of the last century, it is at the cost of its shift
from secular politics to theologico-politics, even simply religion—a word for the
rites associated with the terrible past to be commemorated and not for fights and
unconditional investments in the present. These ambiguities only make it even more
shocking how this word associated with sacer was seized, properly hijacked by anti-
Chinese propaganda, before being relegated to the second counter, in favor of the
higher-selling items that would be the defense of civilization in the Donbass and the
Taiwan Strait.
In the uses of soft power, it is important to differentiate business as usual
from specific uses that pose particular thorny problems. Business as usual is the
way in which States, powers, sovereignties, try to reap symbolic benefits, political
profits, and diplomatic advantages by exporting cultural goods—this either in a remu-
nerative mode, or on the contrary, by subsidizing these investments. From this point
of view, the state/political sphere is never clearly separated here from that of the
economy and the market. French luxury products (wines, perfumes, leather goods,
etc.) are a lucrative export market and at the same time, it is soft power par excel-
lence—in East Asia, the flattering “image” of France if it still exists, is Louis Vuitton
and the grands crus of Bordeaux more than Badiou, Latour, Soulages, or Boulez. In
this sense too, Marvel and the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, this is the business as usual of
soft power, as it is practiced in an ever closer intertwining between state interests and
the life of the market.
It will be noted that the contemporary expansion of this market of prestige and
symbolic profits is inseparable from the global crisis of democracy as a political
form constantly inclined to speculate on its exemplarity and to promote it. The more,
on a global scale, parliamentary democracy is, in its classic form, on the wane, and
the more its trustees in bankruptcy are inclined to turn to soft power to continue to
promote it and enhance its image, whatever it costs. In this respect, soft power is
both an expedient and a remedy, a new tactic of market democracy: after all, if this
denomination has imposed itself today (“market democracy”), it is that this regime
must ensure its promotion by “selling” itself to public opinion, by promoting itself
as much as possible—and it is here that “culture”, that is to say, the goods endowed
with a cultural aura have a determining role to play. The lower the level of electoral
shows, with the scavenger fights they are the scene of, the more citizens are inclined
to desert these nauseating spaces, and the more the democratic regimes adrift are
doomed to turn their cheeks rosy, against all odds, speculating on the high exhibition
value of cultural goods—of some of them, at least.
As a result, the functional division between the political domain, dedicated to
calculation and utility, and that of culture where disinterestedness, concern for the
4On this point see the Wikipedia article dedicated to Jan Karski and the documentary film by Harun
Farocki: Images of the World and Inscription of War (1988).
community, and love of beauty would prevail, is somewhat blurred. “Culture” which,
as a sphere of activity, has been able to experience a tremendous expansion in liberal
democracies since the 1960s only at the cost of asserting its supposed autonomy and,
simultaneously, the invention of all sorts of mimetic forms of commitment untied
from real political life, culture finds itself taken from behind by soft power.5 It is
increasingly subject to the influence of strategies, tactics and interest calculations
promoted by the governing elites. Its actors and assets find themselves more and
more regularly accused of serving, surreptitiously rather than directly, but nonetheless
culpably, obscure and unmentionable political interests—the Louvre in Abu Dhabi—
this is culture absorbed by commerce and diplomacy.
Culture is thus repoliticized in the worst possible way: not because of a reorienta-
tion promoted by its actors with a view to new forms of politicization of art and the
presence of artists in public life, but by that of the growing influence exerted by the
promotional strategies and tactics of the registered trademark “Democracy”—ever
more inclined to embed culture in its staging and cosmetic practices.
Democracy as a spectacle increasingly needs culture, in all its trappings, to try
to make itself presentable, despite everything. Culture here tends to become the
ballroom of democracy out of breath. Suddenly, a general suspicion of collusion of
industries and cultural products with bloodless political forms and their agents will
take shape. The dividing line between the political sphere and the cultural sphere is
blurring, major cultural “events” are becoming political issues of primary importance
and the frontline players in cultural life are people of power who are well-versed in
the mysteries of games of influence and rational calculation of interest in the state and
para-state spheres. All the local politicians, the small regional potentates, compete
in imagination to set up the festival, the cultural event which will present them under
their best profile. Culture is, in these conditions, what serves to make an inedible
policy eatable, despite all.
Soft power takes on particular importance and takes on singular features in the
case of countries affected by a lack of legitimacy vis-à-vis the outside, international
opinion, and the international community for reasons generally of public notoriety—
the quintessential example is the State of Israel, a past master in the art (a strategy
disseminated in a multitude of tactics, more exactly) of interposing a multitude of
cultural products, each more attractive and worthy of esteem than the other, between
its apartheid policy towards the Palestinians, the colonization of the West Bank, the
brutality of its armed occupation, the good supremacist tone of its elites … and its
images abroad. Soft power takes the form of perpetual and assiduous lobbying in
favor of cultural products of all kinds, the specificity of which is to present themselves,
through their unique qualities, as irreproachable and impeccable—a film is a film, a
novelist is a novelist, aren’t they the most innocent things in the world? To venture
to cast suspicion on them by invoking their involvement in the complex and obscure
networks of soft power immediately exposes the suspicion of discrimination—what
5Culture as a bubble in perpetual expansion—this is the paradigm of Jack Lang, Mitterrrand’s first
Minister of Culture, but it is a pretense: this promotion of culture is indeed a matter of governmental
calculation: they govern more and more “to culture”.
could be more violent, more unjust, more barbaric, in the time of global democracy,
than the call to turn away from a work of art, from an actor in cultural life (the highest
form of common life in our societies) on the pretext that one or the other would be
the hostage of an iniquitous policy?
The strength of soft power is that the administration of proof is practically impos-
sible: how to establish an irrefutable link between the presence of such a film in a
prominent place in a renowned festival and the crimes committed by an occupying
army? And yet, such a link does exist, since the promotion of cultural products is the
subject of a concerted, proven, and systematic strategy, intended to establish, despite
everything, the image of a country in which culture is so prosperous, the cultural life
so bubbling, so validated and of such eminent quality that it could not be, in sum, a
criminal state, a colonial state, an apartheid state.6
The intrinsic perversity of soft power, in this case, is that it tends to cast suspicion
on cultural products and initiatives, works of art, artists, and actors in cultural life
in general, insofar as they find themselves embarked, willy-nilly, in the camouflage
or the embellishment of the unpresentable, the intolerable. And how to operate the
division between those among them who lend their assistance knowingly to this
promotional device and those who are its involuntary hostages, without speaking
about the gray zone which extends between one and the other?
The cultural and artistic alibi with which States, regimes, and unpresentable rulers
have learned to adorn themselves (and all the more unpresentable in that they pride
themselves on their democratic constitution) is one of the most repulsive expedients
of the staging of contemporary politics. However, this continues to be an ever more
insistent recourse against the lack of legitimacy, ever more refined cosmetics, or
dressing up of the infamous. The proof: those who are past masters in the field never
stop emulating imitators.
When Taiwan cherishes the increasingly open dream of becoming the Israel of
East Asia, the imitation of the sophisticated soft power practiced by the Jewish state
(and not only the intimate relationship with the United States) is one of the first
elements on which this ambition feeds. Soft power, in this type of configuration,
is intended to compensate for the deficits of recognition—to correct the image of
Taiwan perceived as a dissident entity, with an indeterminate status in the absence
of diplomatic relations with the vast majority of countries on the planet, a floating
island in the China Sea—to straighten and transfigure this image into that of a valiant
little democracy facing a hostile and authoritarian superpower, a beacon of liberal
democracy in East Asia.
6 A caricature of a direct or indirect product of Israeli soft power would be A Tramway in Jerusalem,
a film by Amos Gitaï (2019), with its passengers of all clothing and origins, peacefully coexisting for
the duration of a trip … while this tram (at the construction of which the French firm Alstom took an
important part), crosses the districts (illegally annexed by Israel) of Jerusalem-East. Never so well
inspired, the French actor Mathieu Amalric brings an additional soul and a literary guarantee to this
whitewashing operation by reading (with tone) excerpts from Flaubert’s correspondence, during his
visit to Jerusalem—beautiful as the antique. Gitaï, for those who don’t know, is the Israeli “left”
made man—this big corpse upside down.
Soft power is the domain of Potemkin democracy par excellence, where images
are called upon to produce real effects of reality. It is therefore a matter, by producing
showy chromos of the vibrant Taiwanese democracy, of pushing into the background,
even of evading the whole litigious aspect of the real situation of the island—its situa-
tion as an advanced position of the Western hegemony in the face of China, of a client
increasingly fanatically aligned with the American big brother, of an environmental
rogue state, of a paradise of ultra-liberalism where social rights and wages are at
their lowest the lowest (no right to strike for teachers, among others), where migrant
workers are both over-exploited and discriminated against in conditions that often
akin to coolies in the French and English colonies, a democracy where the death
penalty and the encouragement of denunciation are part of the landscape, etc.7
The cosmetics of soft power will, under these conditions, expand in two directions,
mainly: the societal and the cultural. In the first register, it was, a few years ago,
the adoption, with drums and trumpets and against the dominant sensitivity in the
population, of marriage for all, a giant step in the civilization of mores and which
allowed the Taiwanese governing elites and to their supporters in the global West to
put into orbit the juicy elements of language arranged around the motif of “Taiwan,
the first country in Asia to adopt same-sex marriage”. This term, in its original
denomination in English, is understood as the distinctive sign of democratic quality,
the spirit of tolerance, and moral progress.
The game of surreptitious equivalences that imposes itself here is easy to decipher:
since Taiwan has adopted a standard that is now in force in Western democracies,
Taiwan is a democracy of equal quality to them. The mimetic as well as superficial
feature of this alignment (in a country which, moreover, still struggles to decrimi-
nalize adultery …) could, just as convincingly, be designated as a manifestation of
subjugation and subalternity, before all.
But soft power does not care about its details and, merging here with storytelling,
it activates to spin the windmills of propaganda: Taiwan, an island of tolerance and
openness in matters of morals, with its colorful gay parades and its expanding gender
studies, in an ocean where retrograde mores still prevail (no same-sex marriage
in Japan, and even less, for very obvious reasons, in the countries of the region,
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia …); Taiwan, therefore, a beacon of the
new (democratic) civilization of mores in East Asia. The impression of deja vu is
blatant here: the “marriage for all” operation, as it was conceived in terms of soft
power in Taiwan, is a carbon copy of the way in which Israel (well—Tel Aviv rather
than Jerusalem …) promoted himself as gay Eretz friendly. But why must Taiwanese
democracy be perpetually doomed to copy and paste?8
7 Until very recently, domestic staff (caregivers, helpers, etc.) from abroad (Indonesian, Filipino,
Vietnamese, etc.) could not acquire a two-wheeled vehicle without the authorization of their
employer …
8 At the beginning of February 2023, a photo exhibition dedicated to Israel (peaceful Israeli soldiers
strolling, the weapon at the strap in the alleys of East Jerusalem—occupied territory …), intended
to highlight the “rock” solidity of the ties of the friendship uniting Taiwan and the Jewish State was
presented at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, a megalomaniac legacy of the dictatorship, in Stalino-
Babylonian style, established in the very center of Taipei. On the occasion of the inauguration of
On the cultural side, it will be a question of seizing the opportunity of well-

exposed events (festivals, fairs, various meetings) to give maximum consistency and
visibility to the notion of an indigenous Taiwanese culture, to the existence of its own
artistic production, the first feature of which would be to have nothing in common
with the art or culture of the Chinese continent.9 The Republic of China, by contrast
with the People’s Republic of China, will thus have marked a decisive point when
Taiwanese authors will be distinguished in their capacity at the Angoulême comic
strip festival, when Taiwan will be “guest of honor” at the Clermont-Ferrand short
film festival, when such or such an Aboriginal author will see one of his novels
published in French in a specialized collection ….10 All this largely resulting, one
imagines, from intense lobbying activity on the part of the Taiwan Representative
Office, the imitation embassy of the Republic from China to France.
But we will note here that soft power, to find its full effectiveness, must meet a
horizon of expectation—networks of influence and money are not enough. When
Saudi Arabia secures the services of a world-famous football player, a scholar, or
a model, no one is fooled—it’s all about money and mercenary and it would take
a bit more than these actions to transfigure the image of the sinister Saudi petro-
monarchy in the eyes of the ordinary man, in Europe as much as elsewhere. By
contrast, the best that Taiwan (like Hong Kong’s anti-Beijing movement once did)
still has to sell to Western audiences is a rosy idealized image: that of a courageous
little democracy that loves freedom and is anchored to human rights, wrestling with
the Chinese Leviathan—the perfect stereotype intended to satisfy the expectations
of the average democratic opinion in the four corners of the Western world. That
this image (and the stories that support it) do not stand the test of the most cursory
examination matters little—the vocation of the image and of the story is above all
to eliminate complexity and to replace it with pure affective intensities—how not
to side here with the cause of the weak persecuted by a brutal power—all the more
so since this weak has, in spite of cultural disparities, the essential in common with
us—the love of democracy?
It is on this kind of fairy tale that thrives the soft power which, until now, has
succeeded so well for the cosmeticians of the State of Israel despite all the evidence
to the contrary, and whose Taiwanese emulators have now understood all the benefits
they could derive from a world saturated with the storytelling of total democracy.
Storytelling and soft power in action are not simply embellishing reality or
arrangements, large and small, with truth; it’s not mere cosmetics, an accumulation
of advantageous lies—it’s a set of reality-destroying devices intended to organize
this exhibition, the Taiwanese Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs declared: “Taiwan and Israel face
similar challenges in defending their way of life, and have shared values of democracy, freedom
and human rights” (“Photography”, 2023). On the good use of a photo exhibition to make the
unpresentable presentable ….
9 A recent Taipei Times editorial takes note of the opening of this new front: The Soft Power of
Comics, Gaming (“The soft”, 2023).

10 And too bad for him if the author and his work are here the subject of a hostage-taking in good
and due form. See in this regard the “montage” that surrounds the promotion of the endearing novel
by Aboriginal author Syaman Rapongan (2022), The Eyes of the Ocean.
collective and desperate escapes into the imagination. It is that there is no rela-
tionship between what is actually at stake in the crisis which is currently mounting
around Taiwan, placed more and more openly under the sign of a “Ukraine-bis”, in
East Asia, and the stories/images produced by Western propaganda about it.
To return to reality and dismiss fiction, we must therefore begin by restoring
historical intelligibility to what is at stake—and which is here the opposite of this
impenetrable ideological fog that is the total-democratic refrain. What is really at
issue from a historical perspective, is the revival of the Chinese Civil War by the
current Taiwanese independence leaders, supported and encouraged by their Amer-
ican guardians who never put up with the victory of the Chinese Communists on the
mainland. The idea, quite distinct for those who know how to read between the lines
of propaganda, is that of revenge, of the second round which, this time, would be
the good one. In this sense, the motif of Taiwanese independence and sovereignty
is essentially a sham. What is at stake, what is in the eyepiece of both the Amer-
ican leaders and their Taiwanese auxiliaries, is the fall of the regime placed under
the control of the Communist Party and the “democratization” of China in the form
of the conquest of this new Eldorado by the sharks and vultures of the new hegemony.
China as a new frontier.
Here again, the structural hostility opposing the separatists (less and less masked)
of the DPP, in power, to the historical descendants of the vanquished in the civil war
and the dictatorship (the Kuomintang, in opposition) is a misleading eye: in truth,
the separatists aligned with the United States have taken over the legacy of the civil
war, the inexpiable hostility and the spirit of revenge vis-à-vis the Chinese regime.
A singular handover took place in the middle of the second decade of this century
when the Greens (unofficially declared pro-independence DPP) took over from the
Blues (KMT) in business: the latter lost power at the very time when a space or
sequence was taking shape in the relations between the island and the continent in
which the burden of Sino-Chinese stasis could finally be laid down—a decisive shift
symbolically marked by the meeting in Singapore between the two leaders, Ma and
Xi, in 2015. But that potentially historical turning point was erased as soon as it
was sketched because of the coming to power of the separatists whose first care was
to relaunch the civil war by challenging the consensus laboriously established under
the formula “One China, two regimes”—or two interpretations of what “one China”
means.
From the outset, the leaders of the DPP posed as heirs to the vindictiveness and
hatred of the Chinese communist regime, the spearhead of the turn made by the
United States, inspired by the new spirit of cold war and intended to erase all trace
of the cordial agreement with China—the legacy of Nixon and Kissinger.
Such is the dizzying paradox of Taiwan’s internal historical situation today: it is
the very people who claim to have severed the umbilical cord that linked the island in
the most calamitous and exhausting way to the history of the continent (the heritage
of the defeat of the Nationalist camp during the civil war and, in its extension, the
dictatorship of Chiang Kai Chek) who, as soon as they got to business, became even
more self-subjugated to this poisoned legacy—by relaunching the war against the
References 107
intimate enemy in perfect synergy with the United States in need of a new systemic
adversary offering them the opportunity to wage war on a new frontier.
Of this tangible reality of the Chinese civil war continued (revived, rather) by other
means and in a new configuration, nothing remains, strictly nothing can be discerned
in the lines or even between the lines of the stories and the images produced by
storytelling and soft power, when they are activated around the keywords “Taiwan”
and “Chinese threat”. On the contrary, it is a question of doing everything so that
China and Taiwan appear as two entities that are not only separate but opposed, with
no relationship other than hostility. In this configuration, therefore, the substratum
of storytelling and soft power in action is denial—a slightly different version of the
“upside down world”, the image of inverted reality, the effect of ideology, according
to Marx. But in one case as in the other, it is indeed the production of a story and a
narrative of the present under the influence of the imaginary and the fantasy that is
at issue.
When works of art and cultural products enter the realm of soft power and are
thus frequently associated with the worst of interests and causes, they lose their
innocence. On the reception side, the generalization of soft power interference with
the dissemination of these works or these products, in all their diversity, inaugurates
the era of generalized suspicion—what an unavowable operation of promotion, of
cultural bleaching, is looming behind the presence of such an impeccably gay—
friendly film in such a highly reputable international festival? And what makes Israeli
football teams participate in European football competitions and singers from this
country in the Eurovision Song Contest? Soft power is here what frees the politics
of states from geography.
Soft power is a poison that fuels mistrust by dragging culture into the icy (or
brackish) waters of state calculation. It opens the way, in the most marked situations,
to boycott or to the operation of depressing sorting and by definition difficult to
operate since the characteristic of soft power is to advance masked. We want to
be vigilant by refusing to be fooled or taken on board, but we are just as afraid of
being petty, paranoid. In short, soft power and storytelling, interposing themselves
between our world and ourselves in an ever more invasive and undetectable way,
contribute in every way to the lowering of life, to its ugliness. The very moment
one undertakes to defend oneself against it, one suspects oneself of corruptness or
excessive susceptibility. That is the poison that circulates in the veins of the present.
References
Gitaï, A. (Director). (2019). A tramway in Jerusalem.

Keating, J. (2023, January 30). Correcting past memes on Taiwan. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
Milosz, C. (1953). Captive thought, essay on popular logocracies. Gallimard.
Photography exhibition shows Taiwan-Israel ties. (2023, February 10). Taipei Times. https://www.
taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/02/10/2003794093
Rapongan, S. (2022). The eyes of the ocean. L’asiathèque.
The soft power of comics, gaming. (2023, February 4). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/
Chapter 8
“Large Space” and the New Cold War
When Carl Schmitt (2011) writes his essay devoted to the notion of “large
space”1 (Grossraum) in the spring of 1939, he clearly intends to put his talent and
his competence as a lawyer at the service of the expansionist aims of the Führer, in
Eastern Europe in particular, this only a few months before the invasion of Poland by
the Wehrmacht. The notion of “large space” is intended to ensure, as far as possible, a
theoretical and legal basis for Hitler’s warlike enterprise, in the conquest of a “living
space” (Lebensraum) to the east of Germany. To get to the heart of the matter, it
could be said that the Grossraum promoted in this essay is the legal embellishment
of Lebensraum with a distinctly vitalist coloring.
As Schmitt himself says, this book is written “according to specific theses and
points of view, in a specific situation”, which perfectly sums up its instrumental,
committed, and partisan character. To the very extent that this essay explicitly places
itself at the service of a political cause, of a conqueror’s enterprise where a consensus
was established, in the aftermath of the Second World War and the fall of the Third
Reich, in order to qualify it as entirely illegitimate and criminal, its status in the space
of academic research persists, even today, to be particularly contentious. Indeed,
it is impossible to borrow the category of “large space” as it is deployed in this
essay without taking into account its very explicitly Nazi destination. It is therefore
necessary to constantly “break the Nazi shell” when attempting to remobilize it within
the horizon of an analytic of the present—and particularly of the new configurations
that are taking shape in East Asia, in the context of the New Cold War, of which the
United States and China are the main protagonists.
To do this, we must begin by reconstructing the argumentative and theoretical
framework put in place by Schmitt to raise the notion of “large space” to the dignity

1 I adopt the spelling “large space” in order to mark that it is not simply a question of a space
qualified as large, but of a unitary concept—I could as well have opted for large space to try to make
the German Grossraum.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_8
110 8 “Large Space” and the New Cold War
of a principle of international law. Conceived as a dynamic, concrete notion, directly

relevant to the current historical and political situation, the “great space” is presented
as a means of overcoming the fixed situation bequeathed by nineteenth-century inter-
national law, according to which the balance between states or nation-states is the
foundation of any international order and the primary guarantee of the effectiveness
of the law of nations. The introduction of the concept of “great space” into the horizon
of international law is what will make it possible, says Schmitt, to take account of the
dynamics actually at work in the present, particularly that in which we see “a great
people” (the German people, of course) asserting its vocation to gain ascendancy
over other peoples, manifesting its power and thus destining itself to assert its right
to establish itself in a “great and concrete space”.
Before coming to this statement, Schmitt very skillfully evokes what he sees as the
first example of the formation of a “great space” in modern history—the promotion
of the “Monroe Doctrine” by the United States from the beginning of the nineteenth
century. It is, he says, “the first and most successful example in the recent history of
international law to date of a principle of the ‘great space’ in international law”. It is
thus the precedent with undeniable authority that Schmitt will mobilize in order to
assert Nazi Germany’s right to establish itself in the “great space” that it is entitled
to, while denouncing the perversion or misappropriation of the original spirit of the
Monroe Doctrine.
The process is, as we shall see, all the more diabolically skillful in that the criticism
argued by Schmitt is impressively acute, having withstood the test of time in such an
obvious way that one remains overwhelmed by it—how can a conservative nationalist
who rallied to Nazism both by calculation and by conviction (even if his Nazism
differs in many respects from that of the SS and other ideologues and mythologists
of Aryanism) be able to state in 1939, in a writing intended to give the Führer’s
conquering hubris an air of legal respectability, a critique of what he calls universalist
imperialism, whose conceptual edge continues to leap before our very eyes today? It
is as if, since this text of circumstances was written, time (the course of events) had
done nothing but work for it, striving to confirm its critical quality—when it evokes
the fate of the original version of the “great space”—the one promoted by the United
States?
Originally, Schmitt recalls, the Monroe Doctrine consisted in declaring a condi-
tion of immunity: that of the entire American continent from European colonial
enterprises. It was a matter of affirming that “the peoples of the American continents
(…) no longer felt that they were subjects of the great foreign powers and no longer
wanted to be objects of colonization”. It was a question of proclaiming their exit
from the orbit of European history, with its kingdoms, its empires, its principles of
monarchical and dynastic legitimacy. The Monroe Doctrine, in this respect, defines
the Americas as a “great space” that has broken all relations of heterogeneity with
the European powers. It consists, one step further, in making the United States the
guarantor of the non-dependence of this “great space”. Schmitt pointed out that there
was simply a persistent ambiguity about the very status of this “doctrine”: did it state
“a genuine principle of law” or was it “a purely political maxim” put forward by the
US Government inasmuch as it had the means to ensure its effectiveness? This sort
8 “Large Space” and the New Cold War 111
of “dual nature” of the first “great space” is, as we shall see, a major issue in the
discussion of this very notion.
Soon, in the course of American history, Schmitt argues, the Monroe Doctrine
underwent a decisive inflection, the effect of which is as follows: “From a principle of
non-intervention and rejection of foreign interference in the beginning, it has turned
into a justification for US imperialist interventions in other American states”—thus,
the well-known motif of Central and Latin America as Uncle Sam’s backyard. And
here already, it is clear that what will very quickly prevail in practice is not the
foundation of a principle of international law—and therefore of universal validity and
scope—but the decisional interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine: “What the Monroe
Doctrine basically says is for the Government of the United States of America alone
to define [emphasis added, AB], interpret and sanction” (statement by Secretary of
State Hughes—1923).
It is from this turning point and in its wake that the international policy of the
United States will reorient itself by changing scale: by “falsifying” the Monroe
Doctrine, it will abandon its “principle of continental space and ally itself with the
planetary universalism of the British Empire” to become a world power and conqueror
tending to extend the notion of “great space” to the scale of the Earth.
And it is here that Schmitt will, so to speak, make that decisive breakthrough, the
effect of which is that his text (of “Nazi circumstances”) finds a clear echo in our
present, especially in this part of the world—in East Asia. The Monroe Doctrine’s
change of scale, understood as a rationalization or a conceptualization of the notion of
“great space”, has the effect of being expressed in universalist tones and becoming
a device for global intervention. It is here, Schmitt notes, that the sleight of hand
lies, that the falsification of what constitutes the first, anti-colonial provision of this
doctrine takes root: by dissolving, Schmitt says, a concrete, spatially determined
ordering idea into planetary universalist ideas, US power allows itself to interfere in
all things under humanitarian pretexts, to indissolubly associate “ideals”, “values”,
and pan-interventionism. To quote Schmitt: “General universalist notions applicable
to the entire planet are the typical weapons of interventionism in international law”.
This statement can be understood twofold: on the one hand, it fits distinctly into a
tradition of anti- and counter-revolutionary discourse inaugurated by Edmund Burke
when he objected to the French Revolution’s proclamation of universal rights that
these are a pure abstraction—there are, as Schmitt says in the same vocabulary as
Burke, only “concrete” rights—those of the English, the French, the Germans, and so
on. It is not surprising that, on this primordial question, the crypto-Nazi that is Schmitt
should follow in the footsteps of the counter-revolution theorists who, throughout the
nineteenth century, pursued the Burkian tradition—of Bonald, Donoso Cortès, etc.—
and who were also the first to take up the cause of the counter-revolution—which
says enough about the kind of “revolution” the Nazis were claiming.
But, on the other hand, it is unquestionable, verifiable in the test of the whole
century, from the Treaty of Versailles (in so far as it is placed under the leadership
of Woodrow Wilson and the general “principles” that he proclaimed on that occa-
sion while the new US hegemony was being established) to the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, that the universalist discourse and the practices associated with it in the
field of international politics are, under this condition, the result of constantly hege-
monic policies—those of the American Empire and of this West which, especially
since the end of the Second World War, have been its protagonists.
The feature of this period, if one may say so, is that the universalism referred to in
both the American and the French Revolution is constantly accompanied, shadowed
even, by its “interventionist” and hegemonistic falsification—and it is on this point
that Schmittian criticism is constantly hitting the nail on the head. In the face of
the present situation, it appears to not have aged a day: by any measure, the young
Hong Kong “movers and shakers” “adopted” by Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in
the name of defending universal ideals, principles, and values (freedom-democracy),
sounds false, horribly false ….
And it is obviously no small ordeal for those of us who are not precisely on this
side, whether it is Schmitt’s crypto-Nazi who, with extraordinary foreknowledge, puts
his finger on this point of perpetual collapse, this irreparable flaw in the universalist
Western discourse that claims itself and in the tradition of the great revolutions of
modernity and the “Enlightenment”—the inverted commas impose themselves here.
The constant amalgamation of imperial interests with the name of the universal, i.e.
principles and values, or what Schmitt calls “the permanence and interest of human-
ity”—a typically Western operation as a hegemonist is what he calls universalist
imperialism, a concept whose relevance has done better, since it was forged, than
only retaining its brilliance and topicality. “The Monroe Doctrine,” Schmitt writes,
“became under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson a planetary doctrine of
universalist imperialism”.
Concepts with considerable propulsive force, capable of intensifying the thinking
of the present, can be found in the manure of vicious and mischievous arguments in
favor of the constitution of a Nazi “great space”, just as much as in any venerable
treatise of political philosophy sanctified by tradition, however revolting the thing
may be.
This sort of autopsy of the Monroe Doctrine Schmitt carries out at the beginning
of his account, has a twofold objective: on the one hand, to make the “great space”
an essential notion for thinking about international relations in the twentieth century,
beyond the codification of relations between nation-states. The era, Schmitt asserts,
is not that of the rights of peoples to self-determination; the formal equality of nation-
states, large and small, is only a, perhaps useful, but certainly inconsistent fabrication;
the notion of minority rights a view of the mind inspired by dumb humanitarianism,
or else the use of tortuous calculations intended to hinder the rise in power of this
or that “great people”. And it is here that Schmitt’s second objective is revealed: to
establish the Nazi Reich’s ambition to create its own “great space”—by asserting its
right of conquest in Eastern and Central Europe—by reason and by law.
“We are not proposing a German ‘Monroe Doctrine’”, says Schmitt, eager to
forestall the objection of European and American democrats who are quick to suspect
Hitler of wanting to redraw Europe’s borders on his terms, as Woodrow Wilson did
on his own when he signed the Treaty of Versailles. An assertion that cannot be
understood as a pure denial: indeed, the constitution of a German “great space”,
as the Nazis understood it, rests on premises quite different from those that inspire
US universalist imperialism. As it is well known, the Nazis are not universalists for
a penny—their ideology of racial superiority and the historical or natural rights of
Germans, their mystique of the Volk, on the contrary, is based on an exacerbated
particularism. What they intend to assert is their own right, as they are (supposed
to be) to be different and against, if need be, all others—this in the name of race,
of racial inequality, in the name of German rights and by no means in the name of
general, abstract, humanitarian, and universalist principles.
The law, says Schmitt, they are entitled to assert it as a great people: “When a
great people sets on its own authority the way of speaking and even thinking of
other peoples, the vocabulary, terminology and concepts, this is a sign of irresistible
power”. In contrast to the exemplarity that lies at the basis of American-style “great
space” politics (“Do as we do, be democrats, since it so happens that, providentially,
democracy is the only one of the civilized political regimes and ours at the same time
…”), Schmitt contrasts the German-style ascendancy (“You will not escape the grip
of our thinking, our concepts, our words, because they are the most powerful, they
are irresistible!” [my inverted commas, not Schmitt’s!]).
In terms of power, what for Schmitt corresponds to the notion of a “great people”
entitled to claim a “great space” is the empire. Admittedly, this concept comes in
singular forms, substantially different from one another—thus, “Reich, imperium,
Empire, are not the same thing”. It is important for Schmitt to emphasize the unique-
ness of the German Reich—an absolute singularity—“we are not unaware that the
name Deutsches Reich, in its concrete singularity and majesty, is untranslatable,”
he says proudly. But at the same time, a delicate operation, it must be stressed that
the Nazi Reich belongs to the generic category of empire, insofar as the status or
condition of empire is what, for Schmitt, gives access to quite particular prerogatives:
“‘Empires’ are the ruling powers that are the bearers of a political idea radiating in
a large determined space [emphasis added] from which they exclude in principle
the intervention of foreign powers. (…) It is certain that every empire has a large
space where its political idea shines, and which must be preserved from foreign
intervention”.
Saying this, Schmitt intends to establish two things definitively. Firstly, that in
1939, the general system or arrangement based on the conflicting equilibrium of
the nation-states is no longer the unit of account of European and world politics
and, consequently, of international law. Secondly, that Germany, as a “great people”,
an empire asserting its singularity, is in a position to claim its own “great space”,
as previously defined. “It has long been realized that this idea of the state as the
central concept of international law no longer corresponds to realism and truth. (…)
In recent years, Germany has undermined the dominance of the concept of the state
over international law by contrasting it with the concept of the people”, he writes,
making his perspective quite explicit.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that I could now interrupt this talk, turn to you
who live in East Asia and say: voilà, I’ve told you everything, it was a fable about your
present, about your actuality, dreamed up by an old German nationalist conservative
who passed to Nazism and who describes perfectly the conditions that you have—de
te fabula narratur …. But since the order that was given to me requires me to deliver
the film with subtitles, let’s go ahead, and don’t be afraid to move from the regime
of the fable to that of the analytics of the present, which includes diagnoses and
prognoses.
After the defeat of Germany and Japan, the United States is completing the consti-
tution of its “great space” on a global scale, which obviously does not mean that it
coincides with the limits of the planet. The existence of another empire, the Soviet
one, sets limits to their imperial expansion, as does, to some extent, the persistence
of zones of influence inherited from the European colonial empires. But after the
Second World War, the so-called American empire became globalized in the sense
that it projected itself onto all continents and, more than ever before, was seen as a
universal model in terms of forms of life, proclaimed “values” and civilization.
This feature is particularly salient in East Asia and the Pacific, where the American
“great space” is both land and sea and includes all spheres of life: the case of Japan is
exemplary in this respect—American bases, parliamentary democracy, but also jazz
and bourbon. In the same way, the Pacific becomes for the United States what Schmitt
calls a “vital space”, just as the Mediterranean was for Italy in Mussolini’s dreams
of grandeur. With this “capture” (Nahme/Nomos) that the United States makes on
the Pacific after the victory over Japan, the sea ceases to be a restive element in the
formation of the “great space”, “inaccessible to human domination”, says Schmitt.
The Pacific becomes, for the United States, in its imperial dimension, “a space of
human domination and effective deployment of power”. The extension of the US
“great space” after 1945 confirms Schmitt’s assertion: “the empire is more than an
enlarged state, just as the great space is not just an enlarged micro-space”.
Since the end of the Second World War, a number of key episodes have marked the
process of delimiting the US “great space” in the Pacific and East Asia—the Chinese
Revolution, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, for the most part—and Schmitt’s
terminological and conceptual reconciliation of Ordnung (order) and Ortung (loca-
tion) is fully valid: every “large space” produces an “order” (functioning according
to rules) and this “order” is localized, that is to say, marked out (where we find one
of the first gestures of Schmitt’s political philosophy—nomos in its relation to the
tracing of a delimitation, a border).
Under this regime of “empire”, the “great people” that deploys its power in the
“great space” that it has delimited does not exercise its sovereignty there according to
the definition of this term proposed by the tradition of classical European philosophy,
a sovereignty that was asserted in the nineteenth century as the prerogative of the
nation-states—it sets rules and limits: thus, in the American “great space” of East
Asia/Pacific, there is no question of an entity or a territory falling into the other
“camp” during the Cold War, no question of Taiwan becoming an integral part of
China again, that Okinawa or South Korea cease to host “American” bases, that the
Communists take power in Indonesia, and so on.
In his 1939 essay, Schmitt set out a kind of naïve (or perhaps falsely naïve) utopia,
sinister in any case, an involuntary dystopia, rather than a utopia in the strict sense of
the word: a planetary order based on a regulated division into “great spaces”, in short,
a sharing of the world by the “great peoples” who would have been able to impose
themselves, a sharing between empires which, by definition, cannot be numerous.
It is necessary, he says, “to invent the concept of an order of the great space”—a
figure that resembles Orwell’s nightmare in 1984—the sharing of the world between
empires answering to the sweet names of Eurasia, Oceania, Eastasia?
The primary question that Schmitt’s grossräumig Utopia eludes is, of course, that
of the points of contact and overlap between the “great spaces”—and the conflicts
that arise from them. The reason why he obliterates this problem is obvious: in 1939
he espoused the Führer’s discourse of peace, which he tirelessly wrapped around
the Drang nach Osten that Hitler had committed himself to after the invasion of
Czechoslovakia and at the dawn of the Polish campaign, a diversion of which the
signing of the German-Soviet Pact of “delimitation of borders and friendship” in
September 1939 (in Schmitt’s own words) would be the most brilliant and infamous
manifestation. It is not a question of showing that the Reich is preparing to set
Europe on fire and blood to assert its “rights” over its vast space; on the contrary, it
is a question of describing the formation of this space as resulting purely and simply
from a decree of historical destiny, doomed to find its outlet in the most natural and
peaceful of ways.
What the surprise attack on the USSR in June 1941 shows, like the sudden attack
by the Japanese air force on Pearl Harbor, is that the regime of “wide open spaces”
is not so much one of fair distribution as one of a perpetual struggle to the death
for hegemony (a concept I did not find in Schmitt, curiously enough). The “great
spaces” do not coexist happily, whether they are land or sea (or both), the famous
Grotius treatise on the freedom of the seas illustrates this perfectly, at the dawn of
political and economic modernity, in that its wording stems directly from the clash
of two “large-space” ambitions—that of the Netherlands and Great Britain in Asia
in particular.
The concept of “grand space” intensifies the stakes of what is usually subsumed
under the notion of “zone(s) of influence”. It highlights bluntly the fact that what is
at stake in the distributions that take place under this regime are not simply games of
“influence” but issues of hold, territorialization, and the practical exercise of power.
In Indochina, the United States took over from French colonialism, not to become
“influential”, but to prevent communism, understood as an ideology whose obverse
is a “great space” launched to conquer the world. The United States was completely
mistaken about the homogeneity of this space, underestimating the divisions and
disputes that undermine it, but what the disastrous Vietnam War highlights perfectly
is that the “great space”, as soon as it becomes a real operator of international relations
(but always hidden, because it is strictly speaking unavowable), contains within itself
the war “as the cloud carries the storm” (Jean Jaurès).
Indeed, it is under the sign of this very notion, and of it alone, that a power will
be able to make the conflict between two factions in a country located more than
11,000 km from its closest coast (Vietnam) a vital security issue. When the rulers
and strategists of a power, when a people (who see themselves as “great”) begin
to think about their relationship to the world and to other powers, to other peoples,
according to the “logics” of the “great space”, the threshold separating domestic and
international policy issues tends to become blurred. The outside becomes the inside
and, as a result, notions such as vital interest, security, or vital danger will tend to
become obsessive as they become globalized—leading the United States to project

itself into the Vietnamese theater (as it did in the past in Korea) to defend its “vital
interests”.
As Schmitt reminds us, power must be placed in space and not only territory
properly speaking, a territory inscribed within borders. Power is constantly inclined to
run over its sovereign territory by crossing its own boundaries—the US intervention
in the Vietnamese conflict is exactly that. But this deterritorializing crossing is only
possible because it takes place against a “backdrop” of “great space”—since the end
of the Second World War, the United States has seen the Pacific and East Asia as its
security zone, including a country like the Philippines and excluding the advent of
hostile rule throughout Southeast Asia.
Schmitt’s constructed chain of equivalence between “great people”, empire, state
power, and “great space” works perfectly when tested against the current situation
in East Asia and the Western Pacific. The rise of mainland China in recent decades
has caused a quest for “great space” that is inevitably maritime as well as terrestrial,
a process of expansion that necessarily involves perilous “friction” with the great
space established in that area at the time of the splendor of the Pax Americana—in
this region in particular.
These frictional effects (always liable to ignite) are all the more perilous as one of
the powers concerned is in decline and the other is in full ascent. Generally speaking,
when the “setting into space” of two state powers leads to this kind of clash—it
produces sparks, but especially in this configuration where not only the meeting of
two “great spaces” but the hegemonic position on a global scale is at stake. This is
why the South China Sea is today one of the most dangerous places in the world and
will continue to be so for a long time to come. In this configuration where, almost
every day, warships and fighter-bombers from the People’s Republic of China and
the United States measure and monitor each other in the Taiwan Strait and the South
China Sea, it is clear that the notion of “great space” makes it possible to keep a
close eye on what is at stake in this intensifying theater of crisis: what is at stake is
much more than a classic conflict between two nation-states. It is not a question of
the drawing of borders, of disputed territories between one power and the other, but
rather of the spatialization of power in a much more general sense.
One of the two powers involved in the conflict is actively building a maritime
buffer zone at the gates of its territory, while the other preserves its imperial and
hegemonic prerogatives in a regional space thousands of kilometers away from its
own territory. Moreover, the ongoing confrontation between a “great space” in the
process of formation and another in the process of disintegration has a whole back-
ground of economic and commercial warfare, and what is at stake is the position of
leader of the world economy.
In other words, and contrary to what Carl Schmitt claims when he espouses
Hitler’s “peace speech”, the “great space” has a natural vocation to globalize and
become globalized, its development is driven by a deterritorializing dynamic that
breaks down all locks and tends to erase all borders.
In this sense, Beijing’s ambitions in the South China Sea are inseparable from
what is emerging behind the new Chinese “roads” opening up all over the world
towards South-East Asia, Central Asia, Europe, Africa, etc.
This is not to say, however, that all the dynamics at work in the development of
a “great space” are equal and similar—Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea
coupled with the Belt and Road Initiative is not a remake of the Asian Co-Prosperity
Sphere of imperial, militaristic, and conquering Japan, nor is it a carbon copy of
the Monroe doctrine in its imperialist, hegemonic and globalized version. Simply,
mobilizing the concept of “wide space” to think about today’s global conflicts and the
threats of war hanging over the planet is what makes it possible to understand that, as
Schmitt had grasped as early as 1939, we have not lived long under the regime of the
complementary conflictuality of the nation-states understood as a “system”, with its
rules and conventions; nor are we living under that of the “camps” as in the time of the
Cold War, but rather under that of the “wide spaces”. Fundamentally, for example, the
failure of the European Union, which has never managed to constitute itself as a power
and entity of its own, autonomous, capable of competing in international politics with
other powers, is the failure of the ambition to form a reterritorialized “great space”
around the old continent but also able to spread throughout the world, embodying
the capacity and singularity of a “European people”, of a European singularity, in
the aftermath of the age of the European colonial empires. Such a post-colonial
European “people” radically failed to form itself and with it its “imperium” and its
“great space”.
A formula such as the one I find in Le Monde on the very day I complete the
preparation of this text (3/07/2020)—“Chinese military exercises around the Paracel
archipelago are worrying the Pentagon”—only becomes intelligible if we refer to the
notion of “great space”. In its apparent banality, this formula only makes sense insofar
as it implicitly refers to the existence of a US “great space” extending to the maritime
confines of the PRC. Conversely, if the symmetrical formula “The Chinese Ministry
of Defense is concerned about the presence of US military ships between Key West
and Havana” is unpronounceable and meaningless, it is clear that there is no Chinese
“great space” extending close to the coast of Florida. The notion of “large space”
functions here as what accompanies the return to reality. Schmitt-inspired “realism”
being, in this configuration, what is opposed to “ideological”—the rosy fiction that
all state sovereignties are equal in law(s) and therefore in power. While the United
States appears justified in relentlessly “worrying” about guaranteeing Taiwan’s de
facto sovereignty, in being alarmed that Chinese military installations on islets in the
South China Sea are violating Vietnam’s rights, of the Philippines, Singapore, and
the Sultanate of Brunei (etc.), if “freedom of the seas” is particularly important to
them in this area, much more, definitely, than in other maritime areas, etc.—it is that
the notion of “large space” is, in our present, more functional than ever.
At the same time, however, it is for this very reason that this notion cannot appear
in the lexicon of chancelleries or in that of Western science or political philosophy—it
is in fact a notion whose primary effect is to “blur” the dividing lines between what is
supposed to be at the basis of international law considered to be an achievement of the
progress of civilization and, in particular, the rejection of the “right of conquest”—

especially after the defeat of the militaristic and expansionist regimes (Germany,
Japan, Italy) during the Second World War. The notion of “great space” is true
precisely in so far as it dismisses these false points of reference. It makes it possible
to make realistic diagnoses of the present and the dangers it conceals, especially in
this region where the two telluric plates of the worn but persistent American “great
space” and the expanding Chinese “great space” meet. It therefore also allows us to
imagine predictions for the future—not entirely rosy, in their very realism.
Reference
Schmitt, C. (2011). Guerre discriminatoire et logiques des grands espaces. Editions Krisis.
Part III
The Effects of the New Cold War
in the Taiwan Strait
Chapter 9
The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese
Sovereignty
The question of sovereignty is at the heart of classical political philosophy in Western

Europe, from Bodin to Rousseau, Hobbes, and many others. It is, in this tradition from
which modern international law derives, among other things, an issue that requires
rigorous treatment, that is, by applying reason in a logical way, avoiding falling, as
much as possible, into blatant contradictions or overt apories.
Compliance with these minimum requirements is particularly important when we
are addressing the problem of sovereignty today in relation to “Taiwan”—a matter
which, I will show, is, on this horizon, infinitely more complex than is generally
imagined. The challenge of this article is not to promote a partisan position in a rather
heated debate, but rather to invite those who venture there, to do so in a way that
respects not only the rules of exchange between well-intentioned people but, above
all, the art of reasoning—to chain reasoning on a given subject, without shooting
themselves in the foot at every turn of phrase. When we talk about serious and even
vital matters, we must talk about them seriously and not sophistically, superficially,
according to the interest and moods of the moment. Philosophy, among other things,
is for that.
One of the major arguments against the doctrine of mainland Chinese leaders
who claim that Taiwan is under Chinese sovereignty (and therefore that the de facto
sovereignty prevailing there today has no basis in international law) is this: “Taiwan
has never been part of the People’s Republic of China”. It is a fact: Taiwan was never
part of the People’s Republic of China, as the Chinese Communists failed to conquer
the island and impose their sovereignty after their victory on the mainland in 1949.
Taiwan thus became the seat of another sovereignty, claiming to be in continuity
with the one established on the mainland in 1911, following the disappearance of the
empire—the Republic of China.
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122 9 The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese Sovereignty
The reasoning of those who think that the fact that Taiwan has never been included
in the scope of the sovereignty established on the mainland by the Chinese commu-
nists is sufficient to decree that, in law, this entity (Taiwan as a territory, as an island)
cannot in any case be claimed by the mainland sovereignty. This reasoning is not
only weak, but it is also inconsistent. This argument, in effect, takes for granted
that the question of the right (to claim sovereignty) is inseparable from that of the
political regime (the one that the Chinese communists put in place after their victory
over the Kuomintang). This reasoning is opposed, for example, to the one based on
the fact that Taiwan was part of the Chinese empire before it was taken away from
it by a colonial treaty, to the benefit of Japan; a treaty denounced as illegitimate by
the international community by the very fact that, after Japan’s military defeat in
1945, Taiwan (Formosa) was returned to China—the Republic of China exercising
its authority on the mainland.
The restitution of sovereignty over the island to the Republic of China after Japan’s
surrender tends to indicate very clearly that the question of sovereignty in such
a case is not assessed by the regime in place, but by historical rights.1 It was the
Chinese Empire that lost Formosa to Japan in 1895, and it was the Republic of China,
established on the ruins of the Empire, that Formosa reverted to, according to the
logic of international law, after the defeat of the Japanese Empire. The dispute over
the sovereignty of Formosa only arose when the island became, in fact, the refuge
and fallback base of the Kuomintang, which took into exile what remained of the
sovereignty resulting from the establishment of the republican regime in 1911.
In any case, what the 1945 sequence—the return of the former Japanese colony
to China—demonstrates most clearly is that the question of sovereignty is in no way
reducible to that of the political regime. What is decided in a case like this, when the
legitimate sovereignty of a power over a given space or territory is in question, is that
of historical rights, not that of the regime in place. The examples that could be cited
in support of this notion are innumerable: France lost Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in
1871, under the Second Empire, or rather on the occasion of its collapse. It recovered
them in 1918 under the Third Republic. What was constantly at stake in the conflict
between France and Germany over these two provinces was the question of the
historical rights of the two states and nations over them, never that of the regimes in
place, which are, by definition, variable. What matters above all is the existence of a
sovereign power in its historical continuity, beyond all the political vicissitudes and
internal convulsions that it may go through. This is the reality and the rule to which
the Western powers finally gave in when they recognized Chinese sovereignty after
the Communist victory and dismissed the long-held fiction of Chinese sovereignty
embodied in the regime installed by Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Formosa.
In this sense, the fact that the Chinese regime established on the mainland is not
a “democratic” one, as the West understands this notion, has nothing to do with
1 These questions of historical rights often, not always, boil down to simple questions of geography:
it is enough to look at a map to see that the Diaoyu islands belong to the maritime area of Taiwan,
that Gibraltar is more Spain than Great Britain, that Ceuta and Melilla are more Morocco than
Spain, and that the island of Mayotte is a French colony.
9 The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese Sovereignty 123
whether mainland China, as sovereignty and power, is justified or not in claiming

sovereignty over Taiwan. Nor has the fact that the island has never been, in practice,
under the control of the regime currently in place on the continent.
It is also well known that those who think they are making a definitive argument
by pointing out that the Chinese regime has never exercised its sovereignty over
Taiwan are reasoning exactly the opposite when they argue in favor (which they do
for the vast majority of them) of the Republic of China’s claim (de facto Taiwanese
sovereignty, not internationally recognized) of sovereignty over the Diaoyu-Senkaku
Islands, attributed by the United States to Japan at the end of the Second World War,
or over a group of islets in the South China Sea. Neither the Diaoyu nor these islets
or reefs have ever been placed under the de facto sovereignty that is the Republic of
China.
It is therefore obvious that what is in question here, concerning these islands or
islets, is, once again, the historical rights of the sovereignties competing for them. It
is therefore time for those who deny Xi’s China any right to claim sovereignty over
Taiwan and who, at the same time, apply exactly the same reasoning as Xi when
it comes to promoting the sovereignty of the Republic of China (Taiwan) over the
Diaoyu, take a measure of their inconsistency. When we deal with these issues, we
should not change the argumentative matrix as we change our shirt.
What these inconsistencies highlight, of course, are the ambiguities and complexi-
ties of Taiwanese sovereignty. At the height of the Hong Kong crisis, when the Lennon
Walls were growing like mushrooms on campuses of Taiwan and in Taiwan’s urban
underground passages, there were posters stigmatizing Chinese power featuring a
map of China entirely covered with the Kuomintang flag, which coincidentally also
happens to be that of the Republic of China, Taiwan. This “detail” shows that de
facto sovereignty in place on the island persists in asserting its legitimacy as the only
legitimate heir to the 1911 Revolution, thus having a vocation to return sooner or later
to the continent—this idea continues to be commonplace on the island—this, at a
time when aspirations of independence are rising. Moreover, it is not a simple “idea”
or a legacy, it is, in fact, the doctrine of the state—even if its current leaders are more
and more embarrassed by it. In its virtual but nevertheless official state, the Republic
of China is, again and again, dedicated to exercising its authority throughout Chinese
territory, including Tibet, including Xinjiang.
The growing tensions between the two perspectives regarding the current
sovereignty established on the island—the one that is still lulled by the dream of
re-establishing the sovereignty lost on the mainland, and the one that focuses on the
independence of the island—make this very sovereignty appear as the most elusive
and, to put it bluntly, schizophrenic of realities, both from the point of view of the
categories of classical political philosophy and of the norms of international law.
“Taiwan” is increasingly becoming, both on the island and abroad, the right name
for this entity—but, from the point of view of international law, “Taiwan” does not
exist—the only thing that exists, as proclaimed, exercised, and contested sovereignty,
is the Republic of China. In the field of international relations, “Taiwan” is a UFO,
a more or less sympathetic sobriquet, where sovereign powers, states and nations,
are, as a rule, extremely fussy as far as their official names, emblems, and flags are
124 9 The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese Sovereignty
concerned and intend to have them recognized and respected as such by other powers.
Among many signs, often burlesque, of these complexities and of the blatant inability
of the authorities in place to stand up to them, is the fact that recently the problem
has been approached from the angle, oh so decisive, of the font size of “Republic of
China” and “Taiwan” on the passports of the citizens of this country, as if sovereignty
were something that is valued in centimeters.
One of the signs that attest to the complexities of the question of sovereignty in the
Taiwanese space is the perpetual confusion that is established between sovereignty
and independence. More and more people are inclined to simplify the issue as brutally
as possible by saying: the true face of sovereignty is independence, so let’s go for
independence, whatever might result from it! The characteristic of this reasoning is
that it is based on the kind of shortcut that sweeps aside all the questions that the
proposed solution claims to resolve. Indeed, everyone can understand that Taiwan’s
independence can only have a chance of being established in practice if the United
States were to guarantee it—at the risk of a major confrontation with mainland China.
It would therefore be a deceptive independence, assuming it could be established
in spite of China’s hostility—an independence in the form of a protectorate and
a US military presence, like Okinawa. Funny independence and above all: funny
sovereignty.
On the other hand, for the sovereignty-independence equation to prevail, the
Republic of China should be liquidated once and for all as tradition and heritage.
The question regarding the extent to which the regime established on the island by
Chiang has been in continuity or has ruptured with the regime that set itself up on
the ruins of the Chinese empire is much more complex than it seems. If one believes
that there is continuity, then the current leadership on the island (insofar as there is
no institutional discontinuity between its authority and that of its predecessor, the
KMT) can and should continue to be prepared to project itself onto the mainland
in the event of a collapse of the communist regime. If one believes that there is a
fundamental discontinuity and that the Chiang regime was that of a usurper clad in
the spoils of the Chinese Republic, then it must be said once and for all: Taiwanese
sovereignty has nothing to do with the mainland.
For various but persistent reasons, even the current leaders, who are constantly
pandering to pro-independence sentiments and emotions, are not ready to take this
step. The equivocations of schizophrenic sovereignty are the environment that best
suits them.
Insofar as no agreement can be reached by the means of even a dispassionate
discussion between the proponents of the mainland thesis (emphasizing historical
rights) and those of the, shall we say, realist thesis (Taiwan’s sovereignty as a state
entity and quasi-nation as a fact), a perfect dispute situation in the Lyotardian sense
of the term, because there is no arbitrary body outside the field of conflict that can
propose a fair and disinterested solution to it, the only way out is the following: to
renounce at once any notion of a solution to the issue and to give time to time. This
opportunity can only be found by the parties involved, without interference from other
powers seeking hegemony. Giving time to time means not making sudden moves,
not trying to force fate, taking small steps, dismissing the “rhetoric of enmity”,
9 The Thorny Issue of Taiwanese Sovereignty 125
discouraging outside interference …. Let the fragile balances—or what remains of

them—float. The notion that imposes itself here, necessary insofar as it contradicts
the tradition of the Western philosophy of sovereignty, would be that of sovereignty
in abeyance—Taiwan as a sovereignty in abeyance, with all that this notion entails in
terms of the vagueness, of the indeterminacy, because it is a question of making this
suspension of sovereignty last, rather than of overcoming it for the benefit of one of
these “definitive solutions” that carry the apocalypse at their flanks.
However, it is exactly in the opposite direction to this perspective that the course
of events continues in the present. Prudence would dictate that we start building solid
shelters tomorrow.
Chapter 10
Taiwan as a Field for Disinformation
The Aggressive Chinese Raids Over Taiwan
In the past years we have seen countless alarming headlines in the hegemonic inter-
national media about the repeated “violations” or “aggressive intrusions” in the
Taiwanese “Air Defense Identification Zone” (ADIZ) by Chinese military aircraft
(Everington, 2020). The frequency of these flights has risen in conjunction with their
visibility in media and political discourses, with China viewing them as lawful and
warranted counteractions to US and Taiwanese political maneuvers that challenge
the status quo (Xuanzun & Hui, 2022). Accordingly, this divergent discursive inter-
pretations merit further examination, helping us elucidate how to account for the
opposing meanings articulated around the same objective fact.
Firstly, it is imperative to contextualize the discursive struggle around this event
within the “war of the words” that is currently unfolding as part of the emerging
New Cold War. In the dominant narrative of the “Global North”, which rejoices
in portraying China as a malevolent giant and Taiwan as a vulnerable democratic
island, a multifaceted conflict tends to be reduced to clichés and prejudices while
dismissing inconvenient nuances. To begin with, only a small share of journalistic
pieces and almost no political statements specify what the Taiwanese ADIZ is and
what the Chinese flights over it entail under international law. Instead, journalists and
politicians too often directly refer to incursions into “Taiwan’s airspace”, confusing
readers either as a result of ignorance or a concealed interest in disinformation and
in creating scaremongering and anti-China bias (see Impelli, 2021; Langley, 2021;
Patteson, 2021).
For instance, among the dozens of The Guardian news items that mention the
“ADIZ” in recent years, the term “Taiwan air defense zone” or simply “defense
zone” is mentioned on a good number of occasions (e.g. Davidson, 2023). This term
unreasonably omits the word “identification” and makes it sound more severe, as
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128 10 Taiwan as a Field for Disinformation
an area for legitimate defense instead of identification, an area where the country
would have the right to stop any unwanted “incursion”, which is false (e.g. Davidson,
2021; Hurst, 2021). On a couple of occasions there is even talk of “Taiwan scrambles
jet fighters after Chinese aircraft enter airspace” (“Taiwan scrambles”, 2020), or of
“incursions into Taiwanese airspace” (Yang, 2020). The case of a lengthy opinion
piece mentioning the “Taiwanese airspace” is particularly noteworthy, given that it
was co-authored by The Guardian’s Taipei correspondent, Helen Davidson, who is
based in Taiwan (Graham-Harrison & Davidson, 2020). Regardless of our subjective
opinion in relation to these People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) activities,
the fact that those claims are misleading or directly false must not be ignored as
innocent mistakes. Disinformation does not only matters when it comes from China.
To comprehensively understand the consequences of the PLAAF’s flights over
the Taiwanese ADIZ rather than its airspace, it is crucial to provide definitions of
these legal terms, as the layperson may not be acquainted with them. Based on
international legislation, the limit of sovereign airspace corresponds to the maritime
equivalent of territorial waters, which is 12 nautical miles away from the coastline (or
approximately 22.2 km). The ADIZ, however, is something very different. To begin
with, “ADIZ has not any legal foundation that is explicitly stipulated in International
law” (Bakhtiar et al., 2016, p. 16). Only about twenty countries in the world have
established an ADIZ. In fact, China did not have any until 2013, when news broke of
its establishment covering a large area of the East China Sea coming into conflict with
the ADIZs of neighboring countries—something not unusual, as the Japanese ADIZ
also overlaps with those of South Korea and Taiwan. How is this possible? Plain and
simple, because countries establish ADIZs based on their own criteria, without any
type of limit or written guide stipulated by international law. And so we have that the
official ADIZ of Taiwan not only occupies a very wide strip of international airspace
all around the island, but it also reaches well inside the territory of mainland China.
In other words, the Taiwanese ADIZ overlaps Chinese airspace. Thus, incursions
over the Taiwanese ADIZ strictly occur on a daily basis since, paradoxically, there
are plenty of PLAAF airports within the Taiwanese ADIZ.
Of course, to avoid this abnormality, the Taiwanese military acts only when
Chinese military planes cross the “median line” of the Taiwan Strait separating the
island from the mainland. However, this line also lacks international validity: it was
unilaterally established by the United States and the Republic of China (ROC) during
the Cold War as a mechanism to separate Taiwan from China and protect the regime
exiled to the island. Moreover, it cannot be considered as a line separating two coun-
tries at war after an armistice agreement—such as the Demilitarized Zone separating
the two Koreas—inasmuch as it is not the product of any agreement and the ROC and
the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are neither considered under international law
nor diplomatically as different countries but as two regimes claiming to represent
the same sovereignty. To put it differently, China does not violate international law
by crossing the “median line” or flying its planes through the Taiwanese ADIZ, even
if those actions can be subjectively deemed as irresponsible or threatening given
the existing tensions between the ROC and the PRC. Nonetheless, the media often
The Aggressive Chinese Raids Over Taiwan 129
portrays this crossing of the “median line” as an objective frontier “dividing the two
sides” (“Blinken voices”, 2022).
In sum, when reports talk about Chinese “violations” of the Taiwanese ADIZ
they incur in the discursive construction of something that is not factual, but just
interpretative. For instance, a report by China Power about this issue claims that,
the term “violation” when used to describe flights into the ADIZ is not an official descrip-
tion of the activity, as there is no international legal framework for the establishment and
enforcement of an ADIZ. Instead, it is used to describe a violation of international norms
surrounding typical ADIZ procedure. (Lewis, 2023a)
So even if there is no legal violation, they argue that there is a “violation” of customary
norms regarding the ADIZ. Such a statement is also highly problematic for several
reasons. To further clarify, an ADIZ usually has to fulfill three conditions (Shankar,
2013). First, it only covers undisputed territory, which is not the case of Taiwan, which
territory is in dispute at least since 1949. Because ROC has no de jure sovereignty
over Taiwan, it has no right to have a separate ADIZ from that of the PRC. Second, it
does not apply to foreign aircraft not intending to enter territorial airspace, which is
why it should not apply to Chinese military aircraft flying over international airspace
and without intention to enter the airspace over Taiwan. The majority of incidents
labeled as “incursions” into the Taiwanese ADIZ by the media occur over inter-
national airspace situated far to the south of the island, and those PLAAF aircraft
neither entered Taiwanese airspace nor flu towards it (see “Chinese military”, 2021).
According to this norm, the United States—which was the first country to establish
an ADIZ after WWII—does not recognize the right “to impose ADIZ procedures
upon foreign aircraft that do not intend to enter national airspace”, and “US mili-
tary aircraft not intending to enter national airspace do not identify themselves or
otherwise comply with ADIZ procedures established by other States” (Burgess et al.,
2017, p. 31). PLAAF aircraft operate following the same standards. Third, an ADIZ
should not overlap with others. However, Taiwan’s ADIZ overlaps with Chinese
airspace and it would undoubtedly overlap with any right of China to establish an
ADIZ in that zone of the South China Sea in the future. In other words, Taiwan’s
ADIZ is over-dimensioned.
When the PRC established its first ADIZ in the East China Sea, in conflict with
those of other countries (South Korea, Japan, ROC), legal experts lambasted China
arguing that,
the specific identification requirements declared by China go beyond typical ADIZs in that
they apply to aircraft flying through the zone but not entering Chinese airspace (or even
disputed airspace), and they apply to commercial aircraft as well as state (including military)
aircraft, which are usually considered immune from regulation by other states. (Waxman,
2014)
In addition, experts indicated an especially significant legal quarrel, “that if China

enforces its ADIZ in ways that prevents other states from freely transiting that
airspace, it would violate freedom of overflight rights on the high seas” (Ibid.). These
valid concerns and pertinent concerns, however, are totally absent in critiques of the
Chinese incursions over Taiwan’s ADIZ. Taiwan is acting against Chinese military
aircraft in the same manner, violating their right to fly over international airspace
by chasing them or tracking them with missiles in areas where they have freedom
of overflight. Moreover, the Global North accuses China of carrying “threatening”
incursions even if their aircraft only fly through the area but do not enter—most times
not even heading towards—the Taiwanese airspace. What in one case was described
as a sign of the Chinese authoritarian abuse, in the case of Taiwan it was viewed
favorably, depicting China as the aggressor instead. In conclusion, we should remark
again that “countries are not legally obliged to comply with another states ADIZ
requirements in international airspace” (Shankar, 2013).
The Chinese side sees, thus, the issue from a very different perspective. To begin
with, as mentioned before, the legitimacy of an ADIZ requires that it only covers
undisputed territory. Due to Taiwan’s unsettled status under international law—
because that was the will of the United States in the Treaty of San Francisco in
1951—PRC’s recognition of Taiwan’s ADIZ would indirectly imply recognition of
the ROC as a separate sovereign country instead of a different regime of China. For
PLAAF aircraft to ask ROC’s military for permission to enter the Taiwanese ADIZ
would be a direction recognition that there is not “one China” but two. This leaves
two options available for China: to restrict its legitimate use of a large stretch of
international airspace located near its southern coast, which would put China at an
unfair disadvantage, or to assert its right to use this airspace however it pleases. China
opted for the latter and these legitimate actions have been importantly manipulated
by the “Global North”, including Taiwan, to portray China as an aggressive force
that needs to be restrained.
From this standpoint, the problem with the Taiwanese ADIZ is that it is designed
in such a way that it damages the PRC’s freedom to fly through international waters
in this area in the same manner as the military planes of Taiwanese allies do. For
instance, when US military airplanes fly over the Taiwanese ADIZ, they are neither
tracked by surface-to-air missiles nor are Taiwanese jets scrambled to push them
out. Therefore, China feels cornered by this discriminatory ADIZ, which would only
make sense under a perspective of ongoing war: it is an implicit statement that for
the Taiwanese authorities, the civil war is still ongoing. The use of the ADIZ “should
value sovereignty of the other countries in order to maintain international peace
and security” (Bakhtiar et al., 2016, p. 16), but this does not happen in the case of
Taiwan and its over-sized and over-enforced ADIZ. The question that arises is why
Taiwan and its allies make such a fuss and promote such disinformation surrounding
the ADIZ. The answer is that it is not merely because of military considerations,
but because of the discursive struggle framed within this New Cold War mentality
between China and the United States plus its allies.
The incursions are often described as “grey zone tactics” that wear down and intim-
idate the inferior Taiwanese air forces “without firing a shot” (a form of war of attri-
tion) (e.g. Sands, 2021). Another point raised to caution against the inherent dangers
posed by the growing frequency of PLAAF flights near Taiwan is the contention that
their presence normalizes the situation and may eventually facilitate a surprise strike.
This argument, however, overstates the likelihood of an imminent Chinese attack.
Proof that there is no need to hype the severity of these activities is that in 2017 the
ROC’s Ministry of National Defense said that, “as similar incidents had grown too
common over the past weeks”, it would “no longer issue reports about aircraft or
ships from China’s People Liberation Army moving close to Taiwan” unless there
were “special circumstances”, probably with the idea of not causing unnecessary
panic among the public (Strong, 2017). If it made sense then to act without so much
trumpet blasting to avoid scaremongering, why did that change? The short answer
is that, beyond military strategy and calculations, the ADIZ issue is now overblown
for political reasons to further demonize China: exaggerating and misrepresenting it
is part of the recent discursive turn that seeks to bolster Taiwan’s position as a pillar
of containment against the global communist and aggressive enemy.
Taiwan and its anti-China allies take advantage of these events to insist on the
culture of enmity against China. The latter is discursively constructed as a vile
communist monster that destroys everything it touches, which plans to subdue all its
neighbors and rivals without respect to the “international order”, which attacks and
threatens without reasonable argument, only for the enjoyment of its evil leadership.
Of course, this is done in a way that becomes naturalized through gradual repetition
and beautiful phrasing. For instance, this worldview creates the conditions for false
but common assertions such as this: “these violations function as a military pressure
campaign against Taiwan, both degrading Taiwan’s sovereignty and signaling that
an attack could come at any time” (Lewis, 2023b). On the contrary, these flights
are not violations and in no way degrade Taiwan’s de facto sovereignty. Moreover,
despite the media hype about the imminent attack on Taiwan, such a threat does not
exist in the short term—even the US Joint Chiefs chairman, General Milley, warned
in 2023 against the “overheated” China threat rhetoric in relation to war with the
United States due to an imminent or inevitable invasion of Taiwan (Baron, 2023).
If China were planning to invade Taiwan, they would need to start making prepa-
rations several months in advance, so there would be sufficient time to anticipate
and be aware of the threat. In fact, in March 2021, the Taiwan Defense Ministry
announced another change in strategy, stating that they would no longer scramble
fighter jets to intercept Chinese aircraft that encroach on their ADIZ (“Taiwan says”,
2021). Instead, they would rely on ground-based missile forces to monitor incoming
flights and save resources (flight cost per hour for combat aircraft is expensive). On
the one hand, this demonstrates that the threat was not so dire and, on the other hand,
it also indicates that the verbal escalation and the unnecessary military expenditure
that accompanies the ADIZ myth are primarily a discursive strategy. The element of
exaggeration and misrepresentation of reality applies to practically every factor of
geopolitical contention of which China is a part, and the ADIZ issue is no different.
As Taiwan’s premier gladly put it when referring to these incursions: “It’s evident
that the world, the international community, rejects such behaviors by China more
and more” (Davidson, 2021).
Then why does China insist on these flights if all it achieves is people speaking ill
of them? To begin with, because those actions comply with international law and their
jets and vessels have the right to transit there. The alarmism caused by these actions
might be precisely what the CCP seeks: to demonstrate to its citizens that other coun-
tries fear Chinese power and that there is an unjust double standard meant to contain
China, all the while distant countries fly their planes and carry out naval exercises
near Chinese territory. The language of hegemony describes Chinese military exer-
cises near the ROC’s coast (which happens to be near the PRC coast) as alarming:
“The United States is very concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s provoca-
tive military activity near Taiwan, which is destabilizing, risks miscalculations, and
undermines regional peace and stability”, US State Department spokesman Ned Price
said in a statement, “urg[ing] Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic
pressure and coercion against Taiwan” (Ibid.). By contrast, the economic sanctions
against China (chip war, trade war) are described as a matter of national security to
preserve world freedom; and the commonplace military exercises of Western (US,
UK, Canada, France…) vessels and airplanes near China, even across the Taiwan
Strait, are not described as military pressure and coercion against China, but “as a
warning meant to deter China from moving on Taiwan” (Gibson, 2022), or “freedom
of navigation” exercises (“UK sends”, 2021). The unbalanced critique of China’s
military actions in Taiwan’s ADIZ overlooks the legality of these practices and disre-
gards the fact that the United States and its allies also conduct analogous exercises
in proximity to Taiwan, specifically to prepare for a potential conflict with China
over the island. For example, a recent drill north of Taiwan included 17 vessels from
six different countries (Everington, 2021). There is, therefore, an asymmetry when
evaluating the military activities of both sides, particularly when one acts in the
immediacy of its coast in order to defend its sovereignty and the other several thou-
sand kilometers from theirs with the goal of preserving global hegemony by means of
aiding a military protectorate in Taiwan. The historical origins of the US imperialist
strategy concerning Taiwan since 1949, aimed at constraining China, are currently
obscured by a narrative that portrays the militarization of Taiwan and the substan-
tial military presence in China’s vicinity as a mere endeavor to safeguard Taiwan’s
democracy and freedom. In the words of Taiwan’s foreign minister, these demonstra-
tions of Western force are “a show to the Chinese side that its military threat against
other peace-loving countries wouldn’t have been tolerated” (Davidson, 2020).
Similarly, Beijing uses its military to show its displeasure over moves they
perceive as intolerable and a departure from the status quo or a threat to Chinese
sovereign rights over Taiwan. However, China is requested to stop doing in its back-
yard what others are doing far away from theirs. While the US military repeatedly
asserts that “the United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere interna-
tional law allows” (“US warship”, 2022), apparently the PRC military is not allowed
to apply the same logic to Taiwan’s ADIZ. Thus, the PRC continues conducting these
missions to showcase Western hypocrisy and double standards, to reject subordina-
tion to US imperialism, and to preserve what they consider their legitimate rights over
Taiwan.
Most importantly, we should ask what came first: US “warnings” or Chinese
“coercion”? While the hegemonic narrative presents China as engaging in unilateral
and unprovoked aggression, there is clear reciprocity between the actions towards a
change in the status quo initiated by President Tsai and President Trump since 2016
and the warnings and actions on the Chinese side. For decades, China has maintained
an unwavering and unambiguous position regarding Taiwan, whereas both the US and
the DPP administration in Taiwan have recently intensified their endeavors to estab-
lish Taiwanese independence as a fait accompli and constrain China’s military within
the first island chain (e.g. Nakamura, 2023). From the perspective of the “Global
North”, China should accept its subordinate role and swallow this imposition for the
common good.
Those who protest about “grey zone” tactics that intimidate the Taiwanese and
cause an impact on its military do not question the US tactics that intimidate the
Chinese and impede the resolution of the Taiwan Straits conflict since 1949. Since
then, the United States has facilitated the separation of the island and the mainland
through the interposition of its military apparatus, the massive sale of weapons to
the island, and the establishment of large-scale military bases on the periphery of
China. Since, obviously, the conflict is not a matter of just one actor, why is China
considered the only provoker in this conflict? Embedded as they are in paternalistic
and orientalist prejudices, this is seen by most commentators in the “Global North”
as a defense of freedom, not as a threat to Chinese sovereignty and safety. The ques-
tion we should rather ask is: when is the United States going to cease its economic,
military, and diplomatic imperialist coercion towards China in order to protect US
hegemonic supremacy in this distant part of the world? When is the United States
going to withdraw its military personnel from bases surrounding China on Okinawa,
South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan? Will they encourage a peaceful settlement of the
Taiwan issue and prevent on time the militaristic escalation that puts the sword of
Damocles over the heads of the people at both sides of the Strait? Otherwise, if Wash-
ington engages in deeper political rapprochement with Taipei, further emboldening
it towards independence, China will protest against such a change in the status quo.
And if Taiwan continues acting as a military protectorate of the United States and a
declared enemy of China, the PLAAF flights are a legitimate response to protect what
China considers its sovereignty and its national security. These dynamics obviously
put those of us residing in Taiwan at a higher risk of facing a catastrophe.
Grey zone tactics are defined as “an effort or series of efforts beyond steady-state
deterrence and assurance that attempts to achieve one’s security objectives without
resort to direct and sizable use of force” (Green et al., 2017, p. 21). In this vein,
China employs grey zone tactics such as conducting flights in Taiwan’s ADIZ to
exert pressure on the Taiwanese people and its government, with the ultimate secu-
rity objective of ensuring that Taiwan does not achieve independence. But, similarly,
the United States and its allies employ grey zone tactics with the ultimate secu-
rity objective of ensuring that China remains in a position of weakness, contained
within the first island chain. A grey zone strategy “can employ a variety of means
that could approach the threshold for what constitutes ‘direct and sizable’ military
action, including use of proxies, covert military operations, and paramilitary activ-
ity” (Ibid.). To pursue its security objectives, the United States has commonly flexed
its unparalleled military muscle in the surroundings of China to intimidate it and has
historically used Taiwan as a proxy, transforming it into an unsinkable fortress to
contain communism. Taiwan’s strong military would nullify or undermine China’s
national security in case of a “kinetic conflict”, with or without the involvement of
the United States, threatening China’s capacity to project its power beyond its very
shore. For the United States and its allies in the “Global North”, constituting Taiwan
as an anti-China bastion has always been a matter of power and hegemony, whereas
for China it is rather a matter of survival.
The normalized presence of military ships and planes from distant countries
conducting drills near the Chinese coast makes it hard for the “Global North” to
understand that China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan is mainly motivated by
geostrategic concerns related to the United States rather than the ROC. Because the
“Global North” takes its military presence around China as an entitlement and as a
universal good, it becomes thorny for them to empathize with the anxieties of the
“Other”. Understandably, China fears Taiwan becoming a US military proxy in case
of war between the two great powers. Indeed, analysts have argued that an important
share of recent PLAAF flights over Taiwan’s ADIZ was training and patrol near
choke points like the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan and, thus, “the target of these
large-scale incursions has indeed been the US Navy, not Taiwan” (Ang & Suorsa,
2021).
One potential flaw in current mainstream analyses is the failure to consider the
possibility that the United States, which is normatively considered an advocate of
peace, might be indeed actively interested in the outbreak of such a kinetic conflict
(a proxy war between Taiwan and China) that would nullify or undermine China as
a rival for many decades. The fact that this option is aprioristically excluded may
be attributed to the US discursive hegemony over the Western political imaginary,
which also invisibilizes the grey zone tactics of the “Global North”. This calls for
a more informed and less naïve critique of the strategy of “military deterrence” and
the anti-China military alliances. This strategy might not be simply likely to result
in an “unwanted” outcome of increased military escalation and higher risk of war:
perhaps that is precisely what it is looking for. Meanwhile, the US military-industrial
complex profits from the situation.
It would be unwise to forget that historically it has been Japan, the United States,
and other Western powers that have invaded and colonized China, and not the other
way around. In that vein, the “ADIZ myth” is articulated to create the necessary
noise and to install the political imaginary that the threat to the world is exclusively
China. As Chomsky recently said, “once we abstract ourselves from thinking ‘we
are exceptional’ and universalize issues, we start treating ourselves by the same
standards that we apply to others” (Chomsky, 2021). In other words, we need much
more perspective and less antagonistic discourses of a Schmittian nature. Without
attempting to whitewash the illegal and aggressive actions carried out by the PRC on
multiple occasions (actions that should be condemned, such as in the South China
Sea), in order to carry out an objective analysis of the conflict in which Taiwan
is inserted, it is essential to recognize the reasonable arguments of China and the
hitherto normalized excesses of the United States and its allies in their efforts to
control the region and annul its hegemonic rival. We would do well to start showing
empathy and to stop digging trenches to consolidate the emerging New Cold War.
Moreover, it cannot be ignored that during the last decades of conflict, a notable
political modernization and a separate process of identity construction have created
an idea of a Taiwanese nation largely incompatible with the Chinese one. To propose
Censorship to Save Freedom and Disinformation About Disinformation 135
the return of the island to the mainland would be a tragedy for a Taiwanese social
majority that is now incontestable. And this is the core of the problem: both sides
have valid reasons and the arguments of both sides are reasonable and logical, but
they are incompatible in their resolution. The Chinese fears of being surrounded and
militarily besieged by an alliance of unfriendly countries (including Taiwan) that
do not desire China’s growth is no fantasy. The historical memory of the “century
of humiliation” and the partition of the Chinese territory in repeated instances is
not just a nostalgic memory, as its consequences are still visible, for example, in
Hong Kong and Taiwan. But the Taiwanese desire to maintain their current high
standard of living and freedoms is also legitimate, and their irritation at the repeated
warmongering threats from their neighbor makes perfect sense. This is why this
conflict has become such an intricate problem, the answer to which seems impossible
as long as the needs of both camps remain irreconcilable, at a time when polarization
and misinformation become the trend.
Censorship to Save Freedom and Disinformation About

Disinformation
On November 19, 2020, the government of Taiwan and its institutional and media
allies won one more battle against the “enemy”. The National Communications
Commission (NCC, a supposedly independent organization whose members must
have no ideological affinity with the government) decided not to renew the broad-
casting license of CTiTV, a channel accused of being pro-KMT and pro-China (Shan,
2020). Following the NCC decision, both the pro-DPP and pro-US media (including
Taipei Times and Taiwan News) as well as members of the government and other
institutions such as, surprisingly, Reporters Without Borders, all came to defend the
legitimacy of that decision and deny that it affects press freedom at all. Let’s examine
what were the reasons offered to legitimize the closure of this media outlet.
Following a Taipei Times article, NCC acted against CTiTV because “last year, the
commission received 962 consumer complaints regarding the channel’s broadcasting
content, which accounted for about 31 percent of all complaints received that year”
(Ibid.). So, the alarm was first rung by consumers’ complaints. However, the sheer
number of complaints says nothing about their legitimacy: who are those consumers?
Are they innocent viewers who were enjoying CTiTV and suddenly found disturbing
news? Or are they part of some coordinated action to sully an “enemy” media? It
is impossible to determine the motivations behind those complaints. Given that this
presents the potential for various forms of deceit, the mere quantity of complaints
is insufficient grounds for imposing sanctions or mandating the closure of a news
channel, without conducting a thorough analysis of the underlying reasons for such
complaints. Let us proceed with an analysis of reports that have been identified as
fraudulent and received corresponding penalties.
In March 2019, CTiTV was penalized for two infractions relating to their failure to
conduct fact-checking (Shan, 2019a). The first one, $600,000 TWD, for a report that
claimed that the official Taiwanese Representative to Singapore, Francis Liang, was
monitoring the visit to the country by KMT candidate, Han Kuo-yu, and reporting the
DPP government about his whereabouts. At the time of the incident in February 2019,
Han was the candidate of the KMT for the 2020 presidential election and had trav-
eled to Singapore to sign an agricultural agreement as part of his campaign. During a
briefing session with journalists, a CTiTV journalist photographed a message on the
phone of Liang’s assistant, requesting the search of a news report from the previous
day in which a member of the DPP, Chen Ting-fei, had criticized Han for simply
taking credit for a pre-existing agreement. It remains unclear whether Liang’s assis-
tant was seeking the news report to aid or undermine Han’s PR operation. In any case,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected that Liang or his team were working under the
instructions of the Taiwanese government and claimed that the journalists of CTiTV
smeared overseas personnel with false news and unverified content (Zhang, 2019).
The second infraction, $400,000 NTD, was related to a report on “auspicious clouds”,
allegedly in the shape of a dragon, during a KMT pre-election campaign event. This
was deemed an “attempt to sway political opinion, deify certain political figures,
and […] associating political figures with religious beliefs through dramatic, biased
wording” (“National Communications Commission”, 2019). Despite the absurdity
of the news, which could be seen as an issue of religious freedom rather than press
freedom, it is debatable whether such a credulous and sensationalistic report deserved
such a significant penalty. These are the sort of “fake news” that led to the rejection
of the license renewal of this media outlet.
Interestingly, NCC former chairwoman, Nicole Chan, stepped down in April 2019
after receiving pressure and criticism from Premier Su Tseng-chang and DPP legis-
lators “over the commission’s failure to curb misinformation” (Shan, 2019b). This
was a bad omen for an organization presented as “independent” and with such an
important task to perform. The actions taken by the NCC, which was established
by the DPP in 2006, raise concerns that it may be used as a partisan instrument
to restrict media outlets associated with opposition parties or promote a pro-China
editorial stance. The issue is how an institutional organ that decides what consti-
tutes fake news can easily become instrumentalized by the state power to pressure
and sanction unfavorable media. As Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator for the
Committee to Protect Journalists, said: “When the government is in a position to
declare something ‘fake news,’ it just opens the door to abuse” (Aspinwall, 2020).
In fact, for Taiwan News, the underlying problem with CTiTV seemed to be its
ideological leaning rather than the quality or accuracy of the news, because the owner
“has never hidden his sympathies with Beijing” (Everington, 2019a). According
to the Taipei Times, for NCC “the fundamental problem was that the channel’s
largest shareholder, Want Want CTiTV Media Group’ (旺旺中時集團) founder Tsai
Eng-ming (蔡衍明), had directly and indirectly intervened in the news production
process” (Shan, 2020). In this vein, NCC had the suspicion that the owner had
intervened in the news production process by letting his special assistant do the job
of managing director for five months in 2018. However, it is common for the owners
of private media to have control over the editorial line of their media, and thinking
otherwise is just naive. As a way of illustration, we could observe the case of the
Taipei Times, reading the memoirs of Michel Cole, who worked there for more than
seven years and acted as deputy news editor. Cole quit his position in 2013 because,
as he wrote in his blog:
In the past year or so, however, things got from bad to worse with the managers, as we
clearly had major differences over what the newspaper should be and the direction it should
take. Soon it became apparent that my views were simply not welcome and that what was
expected of me as a deputy news editor differed markedly from my understanding of the
responsibilities that came with the title (tellingly, whoever replaces me will now have the
grand title of “news desk rewriter”). (Cole, 2013)
The pressure from the channel management was so intense that it made the news
editor resign. Now, that is direct and public proof of intervention in the news produc-
tion process, not just hearsay or suppositions. However, because the Taipei Times is
a media outlet that supports the United States and the DPP, it might never be inves-
tigated or sanctioned. If we are to agree that the intervention of the news production
process is a violation that deserves the closure of a media outlet, then we should urge
“the government to apply the same standards to all media organizations, regardless
of their political orientation”, as Foxconn Technology Group founder stated during
this controversy (“Taiwan politicians”, 2020). Otherwise, what this double standard
would make evident is the ruling government’s operation to apply strict norms only
on those media outlets that are not on its side.
Let us proceed to analyze further the “overwhelming body of evidence” cited by
the Taipei Times to argue that “press freedom has limits” and justify the closure
of the news channel (“Press freedom”, 2020). For instance, for Taipei Times there
were “deep-rooted problems with the quality and impartiality of CTi News”, as if
their own channel was not notorious enough for its lack of quality and partiality—
there are dozens of examples throughout this book. Are low quality and impartiality
reasons to close a news media? Shouldn’t it be the public who decides if the channel
is worth watching? The problem is that an analysis of the quality and impartiality of
news media will always be a matter of subjectivity and, therefore, leaves a window
open for censorship and political manipulation. The state apparatus takes advantage
of its position of hegemony to impose sanctions only or mainly on one side of
the ideological field that does not fit with the “common good”. In this vein, KMT
representatives stated that after the CTiTV ruling there will be a “chilling effect”
exclusively on other pro-KMT media outlets (Hsiao, 2020a).
The other prominent English-speaking Taiwanese media, Taiwan News, defended
the decision by remarking the fact that the CTiTV’s owner “attended [last year] the
so-called 4th Cross-Straits Media Summit in Beijing”, where CCP officials “openly
discussed how they could use their media outlets to promote unification with Taiwan”
(Spencer, 2020). That statement is, as we will see, a biased interpretation of the known
facts. As the source of this information, Taiwan News linked with an article from
the Taiwan Sentinel blog (Cole, 2019), managed by Michael Cole, in which Cole
himself resorts to the CTiTV as his source for such information about the Summit (Lu,
2019). Cole, after resigning as deputy news editor of Taipei Times, was hired as chief
editor of Thinking Taiwan, a site sponsored by a foundation created by the Taiwanese

president, Tsai Ing-wen, which speaks volumes about the inbreeding between the pro-
DPP and anti-China media. The links between certain media platforms and pro-DPP
and pro-US groups should equally raise questions about their objectivity.
The facts offered by Taiwan Sentinel—I insist, originating from CTiTV—about
that Summit are limited to the statement provided by Wang Yang, a member of the
CCP, who emphasized that “Cross-Strait media, he added, should shoulder the social
responsibility of safeguarding and promoting the peaceful development of cross-
Strait relations” (Cole, 2019). Wang Yang, contrary to what Taiwan News claimed,
talked about the media working on both sides of the Strait and there was no reference
to “their [as Chinese or CCP] media outlets”. Moreover, Wang Yang did not talk about
promoting unification, as Taiwan News claimed, but about improving “the peaceful
development of cross-Strait relations”. Does this qualify as free interpretation or sheer
manipulation? Taiwan News is also well known for its propaganda. For instance, in
relation to the Chinese incursions over the Taiwanese ADIZ, Taiwan News wrongly
claimed that it was Taiwanese airspace (Yang, 2020). It is not to be expected for the
NCC to sanction Taiwan News—or Taipei Times and similar media—for its flagrant
fake news and propaganda on behalf of the DPP and the United States.
Furthermore, the derogatory implication that CTiTV espouses a pro-unification
stance is frequently raised by anti-CCP advocators to discredit the media organi-
zation as a domestic enemy, thus rationalizing its closure. For instance, for Taiwan
News, CTiTV is a source that “broadcast[s] flagrant lies, fake news, and propa-
ganda on behalf of the greatest threat to Taiwan’s national security” (Spencer, 2020).
Contrarily, propaganda on behalf of those who are perceived as defending Taiwan
becomes implicitly legitimized. These ideas, anchored in the culture of enmity,
place the defense of negotiation and closer ties with the “enemy” as an immoral
and disgraceful stance, instead of a valid political program for Taiwanese political
parties and society to defend in a democratic environment. The patent effort to silence
and degrade those who advocate for closer ties with China, a legitimate stance as
any other, is a distinct indication of the challenges to pluralism in Taiwan and the
derogatory view of anything “Chinese” in the current exclusionary environment. The
depiction of those who are perceived to support the enemy as traitors, spies, or fifth
columnists, perpetuates a narrative that fuels an environment of ideological civil
war within the country. In this vein, the implementation of the controversial “Anti-
infiltration Law”, enacted by the DPP government, appears to only target Chinese
influence, while other forms of foreign support or funding are not given the same
level of scrutiny.
What is more, Taiwan News calls CTiTV “a threat to national security”, not
a minor accusation, by arguing that what the presence of its owner in the Summit
“effectively implied is that the pro-CCP head of Want Want takes orders from Beijing
and interferes with the output of CTi News to ensure that these orders are being
followed”. Those are a lot of effective implications inferred just from participation in
a Summit. The facts backing such a statement are as non-existent as the ones CTiTV
had when claiming that the Taiwanese representative in Singapore was trying to
undermine the KMT candidate, or when it claimed that the clouds were a good omen:
just suspicions based on prejudices or unfounded intuitions. The mere “suspicion”—

as Michael Cole involuntarily confesses in his article—was that a media group that
made millions in China (although also in Taiwan) had to return the favor by promoting
pro-China news as well as promoting other activities, such as being “heavily involved
in the promotion of cross-Strait media and cultural exchanges” (Cole, 2019). These
actions are, for pro-DPP, pro-US, and pro-independence media, extremely negative
and pernicious for ideological reasons. But, as far as freedom of press and expression
goes, to support exchanges with China and to have favorable views towards increasing
relations with that county are just a political and, mainly, a business option, among
others, within the democratic freedoms offered in Taiwan. For now.
Interestingly, both for the Taiwan News and the Taipei Times, “the most infamous
of these many violations was perhaps during the infamous Kaohsiung mayoral elec-
tion of 2018, when an NCC survey found that CTi News had dedicated 70 percent of
its coverage to promoting […] candidate Han Kuo-yu” (Spencer, 2020). The fact of
offering 70% of the media coverage to a single candidate is disproportionate, even
absurd, considering the boredom that such repetition would cause to any spectator.
But under no circumstances it is an act against what is permitted by freedom of
the press. Ultimately, the lack of diversity and the obvious ideological bias are not
reasons to reject a media license. Nicole Chan, the former head of the NCC:
expressed concern over the NCC’s penalty of CTiTV for dedicating too much coverage to
Han Kuo-yu, saying that under her watch, her commission had favored disclosing the results
of broadcasting fairness studies but letting the audience decide from there. ‘I don’t think it
is appropriate to draw a line and set up a certain percentage’ of coverage deemed as fair, she
said. (Aspinwall, 2020)
An ideal liberal democracy should not entrust state institutions with the responsi-
bility of deciding which information should be censored and which allowed. Instead,
citizens should be primarily responsible for identifying false or harmful news and
choosing to deny them visibility through their freedom of choice. However, it appears
that the Taiwanese government lacks confidence in its own people’s ability to make
such choices, and fears that they may become too sympathetic to the selected
“enemy”. It is worth noting that the process of instilling hatred towards Chinese
communists in Taiwanese society has been taking place to a larger or lesser extent
since 1945. “Teaching” them what is the right path, the only “truth” they should
hear, is a duty so necessary that jeopardizing liberal democracy to, paradoxically,
save liberal democracy becomes a legitimate way ahead.
The headache for the DPP government is that, following a survey published
by the Taipei Times, a majority of Taiwanese society (52.5%) did not want to see
CTiTV license revoked, while 32.5% are happy with the media outlet (Hsiao, 2020b).
According to this, the real issue for liberal democracy is that citizens choose to watch
a channel that broadcasts news with a low level of journalism and is clearly partisan,
quasi-fanatical. Although, as it should be clear by now, there are plenty of such
types of media in the present climate of polarization and antagonism in Taiwan. The
same is true in many other liberal democracies, as exemplified by Fox News and
its preposterous lies concerning the “stolen” 2020 US election, which nevertheless
neither led to government sanctions nor the closure of that media outlet. Employing
censorship to defend liberal democracy means accepting that democracy has already
lost the battle, particularly when censorship only attains one side of the ideological
spectrum.
The discursive operation of constructing an internal enemy within Taiwan—in
Gramscian terms we could say that it relies on a war of position linking polit-
ical society and civil society, seeking for cultural hegemony to dominate the state,
expressing a national-collective will united vis-à-vis the “enemy”—is here based on
ethno-national identities (Taiwanese versus Chinese) and elite interests. The antago-
nism towards the opposition party and its related media and organizations, defined as
foreign agents of the evil Chinese enemy, is the classic operation of despotic regimes,
the undemocratic operation par excellence that leads Taiwanese society towards a
conjuncture of civil war where liberalism can be sacrificed in order to safeguard
“democracy”. Through this operation in a context of widespread Sinophobia, the
ruling elite “not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the
active consent of those over whom it rules” (Gramsci, 1971, p. 244). The narrative
constructed around CTiTV and the arguments presented to shut it down should be
analyzed with this incipient strategy in mind.
The use of discourse by fanatics, as Victor Klemperer noted, has to be resisted
by those who see themselves engulfed in the middle. The hatred for the partisan
line of the CTiTV goes so far that editorials in the Taipei Times and Taiwan News
cannot help but highlight their own biases and their well-known role as anti-KMT
and anti-China propaganda platforms. “The termination of CTi News’ license is
neither an issue of free speech, nor freedom of the press. Rather, it is about shutting
down a media organization that has been assiduously pumping out propaganda on
behalf of Beijing to sow disinformation and distort the political debate; few will
mourn its demise” [emphasis mine], shared Taipei Times, blatantly contradicting the
results of the survey they published one month earlier (“Press freedom”, 2020). “Its
programs have been among the most partisan of anything you will see in Taiwan or
anywhere else for that matter. At times, CTi News would have made even Xinhua or
the People’s Daily blush!”, mentioned Taiwan News, dismissing their own radical
political leanings (Spencer, 2020). Ending with a curtailed threat, Taiwan News
warned other pro-KMT and pro-China media that this could happen to them too:
“There are a number of newspapers and TV networks that should now be giving
themselves a long, hard look in light of this decision. And if they do, Taiwan’s media
landscape will be in a far healthier state as a result” (Ibid.). In short, these channels
are pleased that a political option—i.e. rapprochement with China and support for
the KMT—is tainted as propaganda and threatened with censorship by the state. In
that way, Taiwan would become a better country, one with true national unity, a pure
anti-communist fortress with homogeneous thought. They congratulate themselves
comforted by the fact that embracing the hegemonic discourse, being a pro-DPP and
anti-China media, they have nothing to fear.
However, there are numerous instances of disinformation promoted by this other
camp as well. As an illustrative example, on November 17, 2020, a Taiwanese F-16
fighter jet was lost and some random accounts on Twitter stated that the pilot had
defected to China. Until here, it should be of no surprise, since the Internet is full
of idiots happy to say anything to get attention. On November 20, none other than
Taiwan’s President offered a press conference to condemn the spreading of fake news
by “netizens” who wrote in simplified Chinese—thus implicitly suggesting they were
mainlanders—about the missing F-16, while those stupid tweets were elevated by
the media to the status of “reports” (Strong, 2020). The government-controlled news
agency CNA went as far as to proclaim in a headline, without proof, that this was
the work of the “CCP cyber army” (“Zhōnggòng”, 2020). On November 21, the
Taiwanese Minister of National Security spoke to reporters to condemn the rumors,
already viral after all the self-interested propaganda given to those tweets by the
Taiwanese government and media. “The ministry said that there was no such evidence
to support the claims, attributing them to Internet sources backed by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP)”, mentioned the Taipei Times (“Ministry condemns”, 2020).
However, it is as much disinformation to state that the F-16 has landed in Xiamen as
it is to get the Minister of National Defense to claim without any proof that these are
“rumors spread by the CCP’s Internet army” and by “Internet sources backed by the
CCP” (Ibid.). The general public would have largely ignored these ridiculous tweets,
which amount to amateur disinformation, if the authorities and the media had not
excessively publicized them. Granting these tweets such a level of relevance has to
be examined under the light of the culture of enmity: China as the scapegoat when
expensive airplanes fall to the sea. Was there a political interest in demonizing China
further by taking the opportunity to divert attention?
Among the consequences of this obsessive operation to find or create as much
bad news on China as possible is the paradoxical emergence of disinformation about
disinformation. Another example. The Strait Times, in an article titled “Taiwan braces
for pro-China fake news deluge as presidential elections loom” (“Taiwan braces”,
2019), analyzed the risk of made-in-China disinformation. They mention that “one
particularly egregious example that sparked criticism of the government was a widely
shared, but patently false, report that China rescued Taiwanese tourists stranded
in a Japanese airport during a typhoon”. Also a long report by Reporters Without
Borders on Chinese “disinformation and harassment” established this event as the
main example (“China’s pursuit”, 2018). As will be seen below, these claims are
pure disinformation about disinformation.
In September 2018, Taiwanese passengers at Kansai International Airport were
stranded because of a typhoon, and rumors circulated that the Chinese embassy had
evacuated Chinese and Taiwanese citizens from the airport on buses, while the Taipei
Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Osaka did nothing to help. To add
shame to the fact that China allegedly worried more about Taiwanese citizens than
Taiwan’s representatives in Japan, rumors also mentioned that some Taiwanese were
forced to admit they were Chinese if they wanted to take the ride to safety. What
made this event even more dramatic was that, in an apparent response to the scathing
criticism, Su Chii-cherng, the director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Representative Office in Osaka, committed suicide some days later. Eventually, it
was made known that it was, in fact, the airport that had organized the buses to the
closest town and, from there, the buses provided by the Chinese embassy continued
to Osaka, with allegedly 32 Taiwanese on board (Lam, 2018).
In that same article of the Strait Times, it is mentioned how Reporters Without
Borders stated that “the false typhoon evacuation story originated on the Chinese
mainland and was picked up by Taiwan’s social and traditional media, in a ‘carefully
coordinated and extremely effective disinformation campaign’” [emphasis mine].
Next, the article cites a journalism professor at National Taiwan University, Wang Tai-
li, who studied this specific case of fake news, stating that “disinformation campaigns
were proven effective last year and they will be replicated in larger scale during the
upcoming presidential election”. Again, the China internet army and the CCP as a
danger to Taiwanese democracy were blamed, in this case, by an organization from
which we should hold no doubt and by an academic researcher that should know his
facts. Why doubt it?
After the drama of the suicide, NCC received petitions to research what had
happened and started an investigation of TV news stations’ coverage of the incident.
The investigation also involved the judiciary and, in December 2019, a Taiwanese
court ruled that it had identified who initiated the rumor about the incident at Japan’s
airport. As it turned out, the initial disinformation was not promoted by China and
its internet army, as it had been claimed by so many media outlets and “experts”,
but by a Taiwanese citizen. Moreover, the person in question was Slow Yang,
a DPP influencer, the leader of the pro-DPP “Green Camp Internet Army”, who “was
charged with spreading fake news, causing death of Taiwanese diplomat in Japan”
(Everington, 2019b), and “with hiring internet trolls to criticize Su’s office” (Aspin-
wall, 2020). The original post was shared on a Taiwanese forum called PTT, and from
there it was shared by both Chinese and Taiwanese media. We should suspect that if
his job was to perform these kinds of false flag operations for the benefit of the DDP,
it would not be the first time he was involved in the spread of disinformation, even if
it was the first one to end so tragically. Foreign Policy also carried out a deep analysis
of the problem of fake news in Taiwan, achieving interesting conclusions regarding
this important case of disinformation about disinformation. The description is so
sharp that it deserves to be shared in its entirety:
Questions also arose as to the source of the original PTT post. Shortly after the incident, the
post was allegedly traced by internet users to an IP address in China. Incensed government
officials spoke of the post as a malicious Chinese plant. In October, weeks before Taiwan’s
regional elections, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chen Ming-chi said the post
“originated from a content farm in Shanghai”.
The incident was thus held up as symbolic of the threat posed to Taiwan by Chinese influence
operations. It was widely cited by international media, by a Reporters Without Borders report,
and by Tsai herself in a March 2019 interview as an example of “fake news” originating in
China with malicious intent to target Taiwan. (Ibid.)
In the end, when all these actors were proved wrong, the article alerted:
Government officials who had pinpointed the incident as an example of Chinese meddling
during election season never provided evidence of their claims, nor have they since issued
corrective statements. Instead, Taiwan launched into a drive to combat Chinese-influenced
news, often referred to as “red media”, that has gained support from the DPP. (Ibid.)
Addendum 143
The media that reported that the fake news had originated in China or shared the
disinformation of the DPP officials blaming China without double-checking the
facts, as Taiwan News did (see Everington, 2019c), were never investigated or sanc-
tioned by NCC. Paradoxically, CTiTV and four other outlets were investigated for the
spread of the original fake news about the Chinese evacuation operation at the airport
(Shan, 2019c). Reporters Without Borders never corrected their unfair accusations
either. In this vein, it is concerning that, following the revocation of CTiTV’s license,
Reporters Without Borders described NCC’s decision as “an extreme measure”, but
still concluded that “it was a regular procedure by an independent regulator”, and
that “NCC’s decision to review the channel’s license was ‘legitimate’ and that the
rejection ‘does not go against press freedom’” (“Non-renewal”, 2020).
Later on, however, Reporters Without Borders alerted that putting “all the blame on
Chinese propaganda was a mistake” (Aspinwall, 2020), and also feared that Taiwan
could react to this threat by “questionable retaliatory measures […] such as refusing
visas to Chinese journalists regarded as hostile”, something that had already happened
(“Taiwan 2021”, 2021). The transformation of the field of discourse by the hegemonic
narrative should be a source of great concern, particularly since the onset of the
pandemic of the “Chinese virus”. When the dominant narrative uses any information
that can be used to undermine China, even in the absence of supporting evidence, to
advance its portrayal of China as an unscrupulous enemy, it perpetuates the spread of
misinformation and disinformation. Ultimately, it is important to address the culture
of enmity that seeks to unambiguously blame China—or anyone showing empathy
towards China for that matter—as the sole aggressor and source of any wrongdoing,
including disinformation in Taiwan and beyond. By doing so, we can work towards
a more balanced and accurate portrayal of global events and avoid the pitfalls of a
New Cold War.
Addendum
By February 2023, the DPP government through the Taiwan Ministry of National
Defense proposed a revised draft of the All-out Defense Mobilization Readiness Act,
a national mobilization law, which included tighter controls over media and commu-
nications and stricter punishments for disseminating false information or ignoring
government directives (DeAeth, 2023). Although the revision was swiftly retracted,
it generated concern among citizens and advocates for free speech. As pointed out by
Dennis LC Weng, from Sam Houston State University, this DPP initiative required
“all news and media organizations to ‘cooperate with government controls that may
be enforced on all information networks’”, not just during wartime but also during the
“so-called ‘war preparation period’—which is very broadly defined” (Went, 2023).
This endeavor to combat China’s disinformation raised apprehension about its poten-
tial to limit public access to diverse perspectives during times of war preparedness.
These restrictions could suffocate public dissent, impeding civil society’s ability to
advocate for their interests and prevent the very conflicts the government is preparing
for. In the words of Weng:
During times of crisis, it may be necessary for the government to control certain information
for strategic reasons. But in any democratic country, free and independent news media should
be protected. If news media was prevented from questioning any government decision during
the war-preparation period, the public would have limited access to information. (Ibid.)
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aspx
Chapter 11
The Little Soldiers of the New Cold War
in East Asia
Taipei Times or the Schmittian Turn of Liberal Democracy
It is not through a telescope, from the small West European promontory which
considers itself to be the center of the world that we must examine and analyze the
crisis of global hegemony and the rise of the dangers of war in various hotbeds of
tension—East Asia and the China Sea, here—it is through the microscope and on
the ground. The following article tackles this task by attempting to deconstruct the
anti-Chinese war rhetoric of one of the main neo-imperialist organs in the region,
the Taipei Times.
I don’t think at all, as the Taiwanese academic liberals with whom I meet every
day, that the Taipei Times, now the only English-language daily paper distributed
on the island, is the den of a minority lobby, marginal and eccentric in political life
and in the local ideological spectrum. I do not think at all that it is the negligible
expression of an anti-Chinese bias aligned with the most outrageous positions of
the “hawks” of the US Administration, a simple ideological curiosity as such, not
deserving to be taken seriously.
On the contrary, I consider that a careful examination of the main lines of the
policy of the party currently in power in Taiwan and of the orientations promoted
by this newspaper makes it appear as a kind of vanguard point, a laboratory, a test
bed for all kinds of statements, notions, elements of language, political proposals
suitable for drawing guidelines and saying in black and white what, for very obvious
reasons, could not yet be found in the mouths of governing elites. The Taipei Times
is a factory of discourse and a market for ideas where the concepts supporting the
program currently in gestation are put into circulation, both on the side of the rulers
of the island and of the political and ideological forces which are in phase with
them in the United States and, more generally, in the West: impose the fait accompli
of the independence of the island guaranteed by the United States and eventually
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_11
148 11 The Little Soldiers of the New Cold War in East Asia
recognized by the Western powers and their tributaries, make Taiwan a legitimate
bastion of Western democracy in the face of the “communist” China.
The very fact that the Taipei Times is an English-speaking mouthpiece makes
it the perfect conduit between Taiwanese pro-independence elites and anti-Chinese
party activists in the United States and the West. There are also agents of influence
who have been paid off by organizations specializing in anti-Chinese agitation in
the United States, former soldiers, retired intelligence agents, pseudo-academics in
battle uniform, and other publicists with nebulous titles, as well as their Taiwanese
or Sino-American equivalents adorned also with equally dubious titles and agitated
by the pro-independence groups aligned with the most outrageous positions of the
blasters of the New Cold War in the United States.1
The Taipei Times is the somewhat harsh, slightly pushy and vaguely exalted
version of the present and foreseen politics of those who are currently governing this
country—in its English version, precisely, as if to make quite clear the subordinate
situation of these elites, in their relationship of dependence and submission to their
protector and master across the Pacific. The Taipei Times is the way in which the new
generation of state people in Taiwan unofficially presents itself to the non-Chinese-
speaking world, principally to the Western world, aspiring to engrave their name on
the marble of history as having definitively severed the link between the island and
mainland China.
As such, this deeply subsidized daily, published every day at a ridiculous price
(15 Taiwanese dollars, not even 50 euro cents) is presented less as an information
newspaper than as an organ of propaganda. Local political news is caricatured there,
the international column is made up of agency dispatches and the page that matters
is the one where the propagandist messages and the ideological dish of the day are
conveyed—the editorial pieces in the form of chronicles written by the mercenaries
who take turns to go there and share their mantras and whose names return in a loop
like clockwork.
It will therefore be necessary to take an interest in the way in which this press
organ functions as a factory of speeches intended to form an opinion favorable to
this double objective—to advance the cause of the independence of Taiwan, to make
Taiwan a US advanced base for reconquest at the gates of a China designated as
the enemy. In the day-to-day notes that make up LTI—Lingua Tertii Imperii, the
Judeo-German philologist Victor Klemperer presents language as a major power
issue in the colonization of minds by the Nazis before and after Hitler came to
power (January 1933). The totalitarian project is manifested in particular by the
inflections it inflicts on language, not only the language of politics, but, just as well,
everyday language. The conditioning of the population passes through the violence
exerted on the language as a particular form of the violence of power. This long-term
operation cannot be reduced to the making of a controlled and obscure language,
1 It would hardly be exaggerated to say that the jobbers who, day after day, deposit in the columns
of the Taipei Times the elements of language that likely increase tensions in the China Sea are
the ideological equivalents of the mercenaries of Blackwater, in the United States, or their discreet
Israeli counterparts. Dirty war is their job, just as it is or was the job of these organizations in Iraq,
Afghanistan, etc.
Taipei Times or the Schmittian Turn of Liberal Democracy 149
popularized by Orwell under the name of Newspeak. Of course, the production of

this jargon is one of the most striking features in the exercise of power by totalitarian
systems, but the primary stake of the “work” on the language they carry out is
indeed the transformation not only of linguistic habits but also the ways of thinking
of the population. It is not only a question of imposing by means of intimidation,
propaganda, or terror the use of regulatory terms and expressions, but above all of
ensuring that subjectivities are colonized by totalitarian thought patterns.
Thus, Klemperer shows well (since he had a front-row seat that allowed him to do
so, as a Jew who lived throughout the Nazi period in the condition of an outcast likely
to be deported to a concentration camp at any time) how the invention of a whole
hierarchy populated by categories more or less discriminated and distinguished by a
certain number of visible signs is intended to accustom the population to see the social
world as made up of distinct human species, hierarchized as superior or inferior.
This scene, where pro-Chinese rats and cockroaches run away when exposed to
light, is an explicit quote from Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew), a Nazi propaganda
film supervised by Joseph Goebbels and released in 1940.
The discourse analytics promoted by Foucault meets Klemperer’s observations on
the production of the language of the Third Reich. He draws attention to this property
of discourse which highlights this essential factor: linguistic issues are not separated
from ways of thinking nor from the behaviors and practices that are attached to
them. In this sense, the way we form our statements or appropriate statements, we
immerse ourselves in them—this is an eminently political issue. There is always
a political horizon of the language, which manifests itself first and foremost with
regard to the formation of utterances, well beyond simple questions of vocabulary
(making a division between regulatory terms and those which are not or no longer
are). Language, in its political dimension, appears as a field of inclusion (or a diagram)
subjected to a particular regime: the division between the true and the false, that is
to say, between the acceptable ways of speaking and those which are not, is an
infinitely sensitive issue, all the more so since the rules governing this division
are unstable and constantly exposed to the evolution or transformations of general
conditions. Statements, in their political dimension, are a perpetual battleground. We
fight to perpetuate the validity of those in place. We fight to impose new ones with
stronger authority. Obsolescence is their general condition—the more they “serve”
the more they wear out.
Newspapers are, in general, and the Taipei Times especially as it is first and
foremost a propaganda sheet, test beds for statements for those who put them into
circulation to try to impose their validity and legitimacy—to turn them into “true”
statements, in the sense that they tend to define the “correct” and, if possible, regula-
tory way of naming and describing. We will see how, in different key areas, that it is
easy enough to list. This journal obstinately leads this battle to impose certain state-
ments while suppressing others, a battle organized around words, names, phrases,
motifs, and refrains, that it is a question of tirelessly repeating either in the same regu-
latory form or with tiny variations—this in the hope of giving them lasting access to
the status of true speech or, if you will, of “name of the thing”, keeping it as close
as possible to the real and being able to challenge as such another term, another
phrase, another arrangement of the description of a given phenomenon. This process

of nagging repetition, of the endless hammering of the same statements or keywords
is typical of all propaganda, it goes well beyond the quest for the famous “elements
of language” intended to lead the governed to adopt the “narratives” forged by the
rulers and, in doing so, to make themselves governable. The propaganda methods
used by the Taipei Times are quite similar to those of classic propaganda of the first
half of the twentieth century, that of totalitarian movements and states in particular,
or even of the war propaganda in vogue during the Second World War, especially
in the context of the Pacific War. As such, they are often of a distinctly “Orwellian”
tint—we will cite a few examples.
One of the mantras of the propaganda disseminated by this newspaper is indeed
to point to Chinese power and the Chinese media as the epitome of contemporary
Orwellism. This study focuses mainly on the years 2019 and 2020, years rich in
events constituting for the Taipei Times so many opportunities to launch headlong
(in its capacity, so to speak, by word of mouth of the “free world” in East Asia) into
the battle of statements and discourses. The first motive which prevails here and to
which all the following are attached is that of the turning point in the relationship
between the United States and China, a turning point driven by Trump. This turning
point is perceived, not without reason, by the Taipei Times as marking a change
of epoch favorable to the redeployment of Taiwan on the international scene (in the
shadow of the United States) and making it possible to augur a change of its status (the
international recognition of its sovereignty). The practical turn taken in the columns
of the newspaper by this motif is the New Cold War refocused on the rivalry between
the United States and China, a new configuration in which the newspaper resolutely
adopts the most extreme position, supporting without any restriction the trade war
started by Trump and echoing all the overbids intended to escalate all the issues in
dispute—the tensions in the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, the pandemic
which emerged in Wuhan.
To these chapters, the newspaper regularly adds two issues linked to Taiwanese
domestic politics—the rewriting of the island’s history, in its relations with the main-
land; but also the question of the supposed Chinese “infiltration” and the restrictions
on public freedoms which find their pretext there.
The primary motive on which the Taipei Times’ war rhetoric runs free is that of
the permanent, supposedly ever-increasing threat of an imminent military invasion
of the island by mainland China. It is the hyperbolic and repeated staging of this
threat (which all serious observers agree does not correspond to any of the scenarios
envisaged by the Chinese leadership at present) that opens the door to the perpetual
escalation, inciting the United States to push the fires of the New Cold War against
China. The authors of these articles are real co-conspirators of the crime, they are
in a state of open ideological war against China, tirelessly insisting on the topic
of the selected enemy, the enemy of today understood as an enemy of always, a
hereditary enemy—China today, as was the Soviet Union of Stalin or Brezhnev for
their predecessors. The ideological war is here what calls for the transition to action
and a state of active belligerence—which aims to prepare the conditions for it.
Here are some examples of statements in this vein:
It is time for a new presidential clarification [by Trump, AB] to remove any doubt from the
minds of Xi and his colleagues: Washington will intervene on Taiwan’s side against any
form of Chinese communist aggression. Otherwise, US strategic ambiguity seems certain to
lead to Chinese strategic miscalculation. (Bosco, 2019a)
As in all totalitarian-type war rhetoric, the vagueness of the phrase “any form of
Chinese aggression” is intended to grant unlimited credit for pre-emptive violence to
the power here defined as naturally legitimate to defend the rights of the threatened
island (and of all those threatened by Chinese “expansionism”)—the United States of
America. The right of conquest or re-conquest which the imperial powers and Western
conquerors have always assumed is commonly disguised as a right of self-defense—
from France’s colonization of Algeria to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, through the
conquest of Texas and New Mexico by the United States. We can clearly see here
the strategic usefulness of the Taiwanese issue for those who are the spokespersons
for the United States’ reconquest in East Asia and are ultimately aiming for the
disappearance of the regime that resulted from the Chinese Revolution: this is what
makes it possible to constantly reactivate the argument of the “Chinese threat”, to
raise the stakes by presenting it as vital (“existential”) since it jeopardizes this flagship
of global democracy that would be Taiwan.
As such, the staging of this permanent and formidable danger is intended to
present it as a direct threat to the United States itself—as if Taiwan could be its
shadow projected on the theater of East Asia and this region of the Pacific. The
imperial powers and the hegemonists like to arrogate themselves with duties as well
as rights—in this case here, that of “protecting Taiwan from a Chinese invasion” and
vouching for the de facto sovereignty of the island.
However, there is no internationally recognized treaty involving such clauses, nor
is there any declared military alliance between these two powers.
The United States “protects” Taiwan as an island that is an essential relay in
maintaining the “great space” they have taken over in this region of the world after
the defeat of Japan. This is the reason why, in a context where the development of
Chinese power is putting pressure on this “great space”, the ultra fraction of “make
America great again”, in a neo-hegemonist and expansionist version, is agitating
with redoubled ardor the old cliché of “the Chinese invasion of Taiwan”. The name
“Taiwan” becomes here, more than that of a country, a people, or a political entity,
but a pure and simple intensifier of the New Cold War.
Hence the importance, in the war rhetoric of the Taipei Times, of the perpetual
recommendations addressed in particular to the US Administration, a whole register
of injunctions made of “must” and “should”—“Trump must bolster his credibility”
(Bosco, 2019b). Hence the importance of maintaining a climate of urgency, of placing
current disputes and problems under the sign of all or nothing—the tune of the
“existential threat” represented by China: “Taiwan is at risk of being taken over
by China at any given moment. They need support just like Black Lives Matter
in America needs support from its allies” (Cheung, 2020, emphasis added). This
is another specialty of this journal: comparisons more than abusive, grotesque, or
obscene—the unfortunate little island taken by the throat and suffocated by the
Chinese bully, just like George Floyd being smothered by the bully police.
What the Taipei Times is claiming transparently and with increasing insistence,
despite a few lip-smacking euphemisms, is a good little preventive war waged by the
United States against an increasingly self-confident China, intended to put the latter
in its place—whether it is about the development of Chinese military installations
on disputed islets in the South China Sea or about Taiwan (Hong Kong has far fewer
advantages, its attachment to Chinese sovereignty can hardly be contested). “US
could (read: should) go to war to fix China”, said a certain Paul Lin defining himself
as a “political commentator” (P. Lin, 2019). He argues that a limited and devastating
war against China would present the greatest advantages and would open the most
favorable prospects, both in the short and long term: “Winning that war and removing
an enemy of democratic nations and a danger to humanity would make the US even
mightier and guarantee Trump’s re-election while President Tsai Ing-wen—with
whom the US is very comfortable—is in power in Taiwan and the KMT is forced to
choose sides” [emphasis added].
The designation, in this text as in others, of the Chinese regime and its leaders
as enemies of mankind responds to a perfectly distinct purpose: it justifies in advance
the use of all means and the use of unlimited violence to overthrow it. We can
clearly see here how the discourse on the promotion of democracy, when it takes
this expansionist turn and adopts these martial tones, becomes entirely indistinct
from the Schmittian discourse where the distinction of friend and foe is the alpha
and the omega of any policy, especially international, and which, in its radicalized
version, fascist among others, intensifies in the production of the figure of the absolute
enemy. Western democratic crusaders plaguing the Taipei Times relentlessly play
Carl Schmitt without realizing it2 (their references in terms of political philosophy
are roughly equal to zero) by making themselves the promoters of this figure of the
enemy understood as harmful that needs to be eliminated, in a context of a global
conflict resembling that of the “world civil war” evoked by Schmitt.
The democracy that is exported at gunpoint, such as the one promoted by
these unscrupulous and nihilistic warmongers, is quintessentially Schmittian. It only
presents itself as the chosen land for freedoms, human rights, and political pluralism
in order to better identify and pin down the enemy it designates as the one who tram-
ples all these essential “values” and “principles”. The absolute enemy, the enemy of
peoples and nations, is not met just by chance in the uneven path of progress; it has to
be fabricated, manufactured, because it is, in truth, the key factor for its mechanism
of legitimization. Liberal democracy is always in check and in suffering insofar as
it assumes the role of the vector of civilization on a global scale, for it is made, in
2 But exceptionally knowing it: Jérome Keating (2020), Carl Schmitt and Taiwan’s future. The
author, defined as “a writer based in Taipei” (another “author” in battle uniform) argues in this
article that because the Chinese leaders are making the Schmittian distinction between friend and
enemy the basis of all politics, it is time that the global democrats who oppose them do the same:
“Xi has read Carl Schmitt and used his ideas—it is time for others to do the same”. In short: to
fight against the Schmittian communists, let us be intransigent Schmittian democrats. Here, we
have formulated at the height of a poodle, a whole paradigm that is being built—global democracy
and imperialist universalism will be Schmittian or they will succumb to those who threaten their
hegemony.
practice, on the one hand of its permanent and multifaceted crisis and on the other
the renegation of its alleged principles and ideals, with the promotion of the figure
of the absolute enemy as a constant and vital recourse.
The incarnations of such an enemy are infinitely variable. China is today, for
obvious reasons, the one on which the propagandist energies of the ideological
mercenaries, which are ubiquitous in the Taipei Times and elsewhere, are concen-
trated against; but it is not the only one—as duty laborer Paul Lin puts it, “Trump
is very experienced in dealing with rogue states” (P. Lin, 2019)—which, in plain
language, means: the more the ruling US political institutions are carried away by
the spiral of fatal degeneration, the more Trump appears distinctly as the embodi-
ment of an unprecedented variety of “democratic fascism”, and the more this new
kind of “demo-fascist” has a vital need for “rogue states”—absolute enemies of
that America indeed multiply like hot cakes—North Korea, China, Iran, Venezuela,
etc.
The absolute enemy of the free world and of democracy is what allows Western
democracies and the like, guided by the US power in loss of hegemony, to establish
themselves in the role of policeman of the world and referee of all the local quarrels
and other points of contention—Hong Kong, for example, about which it is partic-
ularly pleasant to hear Chris Patten, the last representative of the British colonial
power in this territory, articulate the unalterable principles on behalf of which the
aspirations of a certain Hong Kong youth to separate from China must be defended
and respected (Patten, 2020).3
It is here therefore that the great bazaar of fanciful historical comparisons takes
on all its importance: the criminalization of the Chinese regime involves its assim-
ilation to the regimes of the twentieth century which, in the collective memory of
the peoples, are inseparable from the inexpiable crimes of which they are guilty. But
this operation is selective: in Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, one might expect
that the name of the criminal regime that imposes itself is that of the militarist and
expansionist imperial regime that set East and South-East Asia on fire and blood. But
precisely, the total absence of this reference in the comparative rhetoric of the Taipei
Times manifests both its futility and its pure and simple condition as a distributor
of Western propaganda and that of the United States in particular: this is indeed
one of the most unshakeable elements of faith in this political stance: Japan, heir
to this nationalist tradition (that of Abe, his predecessors, and his successor) must
be spared; better yet, its support for Taiwanese independence and the anti-Chinese
cause must be sought after under all circumstances. We will therefore go so far as
to cite as academic authorities notorious figures of historical negationism and chau-
vinist ultra-nationalism in Japan (e.g. Peng, 2019).4 And when one chants the tune
of the criminal regime, one looks away to distant Europe and gets on the trail of
3 Chris Patten writes that “China’s leaders cannot be trusted”; however, he can be trusted—forever
loyal to the British Colonial Empire and the arrogance that goes with it.
4 Taipei Times (Peng, 2019) appeals to the authority of a so-called “Japanese scholar” named Jikiolo
Aeba—the leader of a denial sect active in rewriting history about the Nanking massacre (December
1937), a supporter of nuclear armament in Japan and demanding the expulsion of China from the
United Nations ….
the Western-centric narrative of twentieth-century state disasters and crimes. We can

clearly see from this example to what extent the discursive regime under which the
statements of this newspaper are placed is stuck on local and regional reality and
overdetermined by its dependence on the American “big brother”.
Obviously, the scribes who, in a nagging manner, take up the “Chinazi” slogan
(like the movements in Hong Kong and the agitated people who, in Taiwan, popu-
lated the “Lennon Walls” with imprecations of the same tint) are little aware of the
history of Nazism, its own characteristics and its mass crimes. Nazism, as a historical
singularity, is a name that for them becomes a pure and simple element of language,
a flatus vocis intended to heat up the rhetoric of enmity and to give life to a political
teratology—the Chinese regime as a figure of the monster. This, conversely, allows
them to dissociate, to emancipate their approach to the geopolitical problems of the
present in East Asia from any regional historical perspective—in particular, to place
in a wide blind spot all that concerns the colonial genealogy of the history of Taiwan
(its condition as a Japanese colony for half a century), in its relation to the rise of
nationalism and expansionism of the Japanese state in the twentieth century (another
variety of fascism and state criminality) and which led to the opening of the second,
Asian, front of World War II—after Pearl Harbour.
The totally undue reconciliations made, in the Taipei Times and elsewhere,
between today’s Chinese regime and the Nazi regime are a signal—that of a loss
of all grip on historical reality and an escape into the imaginary operating under the
impulse of ideological constraints. The result is this type of statement that flourishes
both in the editorials and in the mercenary “free opinions” of this newspaper: “The
CCP [Chinese Communist Party] has followed the Nazi playbook since the founding
of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) much as the Soviet Union did with its gulag
system” (“What price”, 2019)—a formula of vulgar agitation situated at degree zero
of historical as well as political analysis. A formula which, like those which flourished
under the pen of the French “new philosophers” in the days of Reagan and Thatcher,
reminds us of this well-established truth: if anti-communism, since the Russian Revo-
lution, has proved uninterrupted until the most immediate present as an inexhaustible
discursive machine, it is, nonetheless, the place most deserted by thought. As Gilles
Deleuze remarked, with regard to the “new philosophers”, what is overwhelming
about them is less the content or the orientation of their statements or their positions,
than the level—the cult of floating generalities, of false idealities, of the universal
supermarket, of concepts in the form of “hollow teeth”, he said. The Taipei Times is,
without the philosophical coating, the caricature of this nullity of historical analysis,
of this poverty of rhetorical turns and the vocabulary of agitation.
What this flight into the imagination and these discursive proliferations state,
based on the redeployment of the archaic figure of the politics of the monster (see
on this point the caricatures published in the journal’s page devoted to editorials and
mercenary opinions), is a distinct promise: it is obviously the turn of the screw in
domestic policy, the repression of the opinions and positions opposing this policy
of the enemy and its criminalization. And so, everything is done in this world in a
slavish mimetic fashion, in the “American” fashion, a new McCarthyism in Taiwanese
fashion. Here is the delicate way in which the thing is announced, under the title
“Calling out the pro-Chinese media”:
On Sunday there will be a march in Taipei calling for the government to take action to rein
in the pro-China media. Nobody wants to return to Martial law-era restrictions on the fourth
estate, but it is of paramount importance that the public is made aware of what is happening.
(“Calling out”, 2019)
Admirable “but”! It could not be more manifest that the Taipei Times is not here
in the position of a group of marginalized swarm leading their agitation in their
corner, but rather of a pressure group whose vocation is to support and attempt to
radicalize the general political orientations of the government in place. By distinctly
calling for the adoption of measures aimed at restricting the freedom of the press, the
freedom of expression of all comers and public freedoms in general (this in the name
of the fight against enemy propaganda and its means of influence, its fifth media and
ideological column), the Taipei Times is not content to reactivate the most common
methods of warfare on the home front—the agents of the enemy are among us, ready
to do anything to develop their actions of diversion, sabotage, and disinformation
…. It also puts its finger on a formidable cycle: that of a call for the return of the
authoritarian regime and its processes—that on whose rejection the legitimacy of the
power elites has been built—and this is where the loop is looped ….
It is in an effort to loosen this noose that the Taiwanese hawks of the New Cold
War who toil in this rag must try to take cover behind this admirable “but”—do
not think that we want to re-establish the authoritarian forms of the “old regime”!
Especially not when we are in favor of massive restrictions on public freedoms and
the repression of opinions and positions contrary to our own!
Here again, it appears that the name of democracy, the empty signifier per excel-
lence, is more and more openly, more and more regularly, the appeal and the catch-
all argument of all authoritarian, police, neo-imperial temptations. The promotion of
democracy (Taiwan as “flagship” and advanced bastion of democratic universalism in
East Asia) and its defense (Taiwan, a fragile prey coveted by Chinese pride) appears
as the vaporous decoration in which an offensive policy is enveloped. The ultimate
goal is the fall of the Chinese regime, a regime decried as fundamentally illegitimate,
as well as the “erasure” of the Chinese revolution from the tablets of history as it
should be told.
The historical path that takes shape here appears ever more clearly: it is not
about creating the conditions so that the cultural and historical uniqueness of what,
officially, still bears the name of the Republic of China can assert itself as Taiwan;
it is indeed a question of the making of this common name of the island, in its
apparent neutral tone, vaguely exotic and sympathetic, a lure intended to mask the
fundamental process implemented by the current governing elites, and at a pace
accelerated since the arrival of Trump and his gang in business (Pence, Pompeo,
and the others, regularly celebrated in the Taipei Times): the “re-formation” of the
island—its return to the advanced base state in the large US space in East Asia and
the China Sea.
The return to what Formosa was when the First Cold War was in full swing
manifests itself in many ways: the strengthening of political and military ties between
the United States and Taiwan that the Taipei Times tirelessly advocates is in tune with
the actions of the government in place and sometimes even a step ahead of it (when
for example the hawk on duty calls for the return of “American” troops to the island
so that it can become a second Okinawa).
It is not so much a question of reinforcing the commitments of the United States as
the guarantor power of the de facto independence of the island in the face of the claims
of mainland China. It is much more a question of integrating it as closely as possible
into the strategic device intended to confront the Chinese power which is being set up
on a regional scale, in the condition not only of a protectorate of the United States but
especially of an advanced base of this device of reconquest and repression (contain
and roll back) of mainland China. It is a question of engaging Taiwan (via deliveries
of ever more efficient weapons systems, both offensive and defensive) as closely and
irreversibly as possible in the implementation of this device—for example, when it
emerges, at the turn of an article on contracts relating to purchases by the Taiwanese
state of military equipment from the Lockheed firm, the interesting proposal to “turn
Taiwan into a maintenance hub for F-16 [fighters manufactured by the Lockheed
firm in the United States]” (“F-16 jet”, 2019).
In short, it is a question of making Taiwan not so much an ally but
a service provider and mercenary state in the perspective of future conflicts in the
region, opposing the United States to China, as was the case already during the Korean
War and that of Vietnam—a rear base, an aircraft carrier permanently moored in the
China Sea. The roadmap outlining this general orientation intended to make this
Taiwan of the twenty-first century a Formosa bis is clearly outlined in a number of
forward-looking interventions published in the newspaper. Thus, a certain Michael
Lin, presented as “retired [Taiwanese] diplomat who served in the US” draws the
following main lines of this orientation: “If Washington wants to prevent the grave
consequences of a PRC-controlled Taiwan, its only option is to take advantage of the
Xi regime’s present instability and use it to amend its ‘one China’ policy” (M. Lin,
2019). This should start with the signing of a “mutual defense pact” with Taiwan “and
once again station troops there to deter Beijing from making any rash moves”.5 Then,
combining diplomatic maneuvers with the excessive remilitarization of the island,
“encourage other nations such as Japan to amend their own ‘one China’ policies and
formally recognize Taiwan”—in other words, to create as many facts as possible in
the form of open provocations intended to bring the Chinese leaders out of their hinges
and therefore prime a situation conducive to the outbreak of a punitive war by the
United States against China. Finally, using all possible ideological levers to lead the
5Along the same lines, another contributor speaking in the Taipei Times in ex officio, Grant
Newsham, “Asia-based retired US Marine Corps officer”, is indignant that representatives of the
People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Army, be invited as observers to US Navy maneuvers around
Hawaii, rather than Taiwanese soldiers: “Instead of inviting the PLA to Hawaii for exercises, why
not invite Taiwan’s navy and its marines?” (Newsham, 2019). The idea is always the same: that of
ever closer integration of the Taiwanese military forces into the hegemonic apparatus of the United
States in the East Asia-Pacific zone.
The Proconsuls and Prefects of the United States in Taiwan 157
leaders of the United States on the warpath—the unacknowledged benchmark here

being the lobbying of Israeli hawks and their relays in the United States for “Ameri-
can” support for the annexation of the coveted Palestinian territories and for a preven-
tive war against Iran: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should enlist the help of influ-
ential US think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the National Business Asso-
ciation and Rand Corp to produce an in-depth that could influence policy within the
White Houseand bring about a change to the ‘one China’ policy” [emphasis added].
All this propaganda is basically supported by a “reverie”, a subliminal motive—to
make Taiwan a sanctuary for US hegemonism in East Asia and the China Sea, as
Israel is in the Middle East. The thing cannot be stated as clearly, but it is in all these
mercenary heads, Taiwanese and American.
The Proconsuls and Prefects of the United States in Taiwan
Good news: there is a new US proconsul in town, in Taipei. His name is not Pilatus
but Turton, Michael Turton, and Taipei Times is the official organ through which he
issues his instructions and guidelines. On March 1st, at the end of a long statement
on the Senkakus (only Beijing’s “thugs” use the Chinese name of these islands,
Diaoyutai) reaffirming that they do belong to Japan (as the United States decided
on it at the end of WWII and Taiwan firmly requested to keep a low profile on that
issue), he writes this, in the tone of sovereign authority that suits his position:
With the likelihood of war rising wherever China has frontiers, Washington needs to work
to ensure that the party that takes power in Taipei in 2024 is not one that aligns itself with
Chinese territorial claims, and foments trouble with Washington’s allies. It’s never too soon,
Washington, to think about where you want to be when the shooting starts. (Turton, 2021)
In other terms, Taiwan—not to be mistaken with the ROC, the proconsul (governor,
prefect, etc.) warns—is a colony of the United States. The best definition of what a
colony actually is becomes at this moment clear and distinct: a so-called allied or
protégée country where free, democratic elections consist in bringing to power subal-
terns of the tutelary power while excluding mercilessly those who can be suspected
of colluding with “the enemy”.
This is what these people call “vibrant democracy” and contrast against authori-
tarianism, dictatorship, and totalitarianism—the other side of the Strait.
There was a time when the media in the West were obsessed with the alleged
Russian “interference” in the United States’ domestic political affairs and in partic-
ular the previous to last presidential election. But when the self-appointed novice
proconsul of Washington in Taipei decides that the KMT should never come again to
power in Taiwan, this in the English-speaking daily paper of the island, it has nothing
in common with “interference”, meddling in a so-called “sovereign” country—it’s
just democratic vigilance! It’s as simple as that! Where is the “Anti-infiltration Law”
envisaged to stop Chinese interference in the case of Taipei Times and its front
runners? Is infiltration only negative when it comes from those who support our
political opposition, i.e. the KMT? What a liberal democracy then.
Subsequently, Turton argues that if President Tsai “quietly reiterated ROC
sovereignty over the islands” antagonizing Japan, it is only because the malign KMT
pushes in that direction, because “it wants to push the Tsai government to take a
harder position and annoy Japan”. That is to say that President Tsai would like to
forget about the Diaoyutai islands, and, if she cannot, it is a consequence of the ROC/
KMT/China tandem, and it has nothing to do with the Taiwan/DPP/US alternative
and immaculate reality.
Mr. Turton, as a good proconsul, sometimes has to act as a propagandist. He argues
that the CCP instrumentalizes the law and justifies the need to increase its presence in
the island chain as “merely another way Beijing legitimates the conflict it seeks to its
own people, always a problem for authoritarian states”—as if “democratic” states,
however, do not have any problem legitimizing any conflict to its own people, so
Biden can just drop a bomb anywhere he wants, normalizing his “first strike” as if it
was the first beach bath of the summer. Contrarily, if he is so worried about justifying
conflict, he should question why the United States and he, as the proconsul, have
so much interest in pitting Taiwan against China. Is not his opinion piece in Taipei
Times “merely another way” the United States finds to legitimize his final claim, that
the United States should intervene in Taiwan and the Taiwanese elections? What Mr.
Turton applies to China could also be applied to the United States: wherever China
has a border there is an immediate US national interest.
What comes first, the US intervention in the Chinese sphere or Chinese aggres-
siveness in the face of the threat of a new colonial humiliation? Who has historical
reasons to fear abuse and bullying by foreign colonial forces, China or the United
States and Japan? If law is so important, why redraw maps intending for Taiwan to be
a separate country, when China is criticized for wanting to do the same thing with the
Senkaku islands or the South China Sea? Why not support the sovereignty of China
over Taiwan (or the status quo), in the same way, they support the sovereignty of
Japan over the Senkaku, rather than promoting the independence, militarization, and
political intervention of Taiwan, which would be then equivalent to “simply naked
territorial expansion, rife with the possibility of war”, as Turton criticized in the
case of China in the Senkaku? Why is “the usual US position, which is that the US
takes no position on sovereignty disputes”, claimed by Mr. Turton, not applicable in
the case of Taiwan? Why does the United States keep sending military ships to the
Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea while China is criticized for sending ships to
the Senkaku?
In the same issue of Taipei Times, a US military expert, named Mr. Fisher, writes a
column under the following eloquent title: “Either we arm Taiwan or we die trying”.
This has a name: to call trumps, that is to lay one’s cards on the table. The number of
weapons Mr. Fisher, a member of a “think tank” called “the International Assessment
and Strategy Center”, suggests selling to Taiwan is overwhelming. Who do you think
is behind that organization? It is not difficult to guess. The military industry lobby,
always pushing for more and larger weapon sales … while also pushing for conflict
in the Strait if needed, which would solve the “China problem” for good (if Taiwan
References 159
gets destroyed in the process it would be a reasonable price to pay for keeping US
hegemony in the world and isolating China out of the world order). Not to mention the
suggested sales of new weapons still in development, turning Taiwan into a military
testing ground reminiscent of the civil war in Spain before WWII.
Mr. Fisher says: “One price of losing Taiwan to the CCP/PLA would be its turning
Taiwan into a massive base for projecting maritime and missile forces around the
world”. This is to say that, unless China is kept under the thumb of the US and its allies,
it could do the same thing as the US is doing right now: projecting its military power
around the world. And what is the consequence of China projecting its military power
around the world? “This then would condemn future US generations to multiple wars
with China to preserve US economic access and political freedom”. So, no wonder
that military threat by the United States and its allies all around China, doing the
equivalent condemns Chinese to multiple wars with the United States and its allies
to preserve Chinese economic power (“access” is just a euphemism) and its political
sovereignty (“freedom” is another euphemism for hegemony—i.e. the free world-
and national sovereignty).
The funny thing is that a few days ago, when the Mainland decided not to import
pineapples from Taiwan anymore, a gesture (measure) of political retaliation obvi-
ously, the spokesman of the Taiwanese government called it “an unfriendly decision”
…. Why should the neighbor who is continually branded as the arch-foe behave as
a friend? This is what that soft-headed official forgot to tell us.
References
Bosco, J. (2019a, January 2). The end of US strategic ambiguity? Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
Bosco, J. (2019b, February 17). Trump must bolster his credibility. Taipei Times. https://www.tai
peitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019b/02/17/2003709860
Calling out the pro-Chinese media. (2019, June 20). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/
Cheung, H. (2020, June 12). Why Black Lives Matter in Taiwan. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
times.com/News/feat/archives/2020/06/12/2003738073
F-16 jet MOU a “win-win”. (2019, December 18). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/
News/biz/archives/2019/12/18/2003727718
Keating, J. (2020, July 18). Carl Schmitt and Taiwan’s future. Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.
Lin, M. (2019, May 31). Changing the US’ policy on Taiwan. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
Lin, P. (2019, January 5). US could go to war to fix China. Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.
Newsham, G. (2019, November 26). US Army should choose Taiwan. Taipei Times. https://www.
taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/11/26/2003726486
Patten, C. (2020, October 3). China’s leaders cannot be trusted. Taipei Times. https://www.taipei
Peng, W.-H. (2019, December 15). Academic urges TRA-like Japan law. Taipei Times. https://www.
taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/12/15/2003727566
Turton, M. (2021, March 1). Notes from central Taiwan: Some ‘damn foolish thing’ in the Senkakus.
Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/03/01/2003753025
What price conscience? (2019, October 12). Taipei Times. https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edi
torials/archives/2019/10/12/2003723792
Chapter 12
Taiwan in a Comparative Perspective: Is
It Gibraltar, Switzerland, or Ukraine?
Donald Trump’s accession to the US presidency was accompanied by the unex-

pected and controversial—as it broke with the long-standing diplomatic protocol
that had been in place since 1979—congratulatory call from the President of the
Republic of China (ROC). Since then, the longing for official diplomatic recog-
nition of Taiwan as an independent country has led its supporters, in Taiwan and
beyond, to redouble their efforts to convey this option as viable and desirable for
the international community. The issue is problematic, indeed, because no govern-
ment has ever simultaneously maintained formal diplomatic ties with both China
and Taiwan, evidencing the diplomatic precedent of “one China” (either calling it
principle or policy, the main difference being that principles are fundamental beliefs
not supposed to change while policies is a course of action that can change at will),
whose representation is contested by two political regimes that assert sovereignty
over territories that overlap or conflict with one another: the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) and the ROC.
Accordingly, to challenge this international consensus and get the global commu-
nity to support the gradual breakdown of the cherished status quo that currently
guarantees peace in the Taiwan Strait, pro-independence actors must first legitimize
the new—and useful—role that Taiwan would assume in such a distinct geopolitical
reality. The overarching objective is to establish a coherent narrative that rationalizes
the quest for independence to both domestic and international audiences, despite the
inherent risk of armed conflict that it entails. Among others, an intriguing discur-
sive strategy to pursue such a thorny undertaking has been the use of analogies that
propose different models and goals for Taiwan’s future political aspirations.
Creating analogies to illuminate the elusive nature of an object of study by
comparing it with a more familiar one is a common form of explanation. But it
also entails a conscious way of discursively constructing meaning according to the
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_12
162 12 Taiwan in a Comparative Perspective: Is It Gibraltar, Switzerland …
interest of the agents elaborating on that analogy. First of all, analogies are not inno-
cent tools of analysis, insofar as the mere choice of the object “B” with which “A”
will be compared depends on an ideological point of departure, a particular common
sense that therefore attempts to assert itself as hegemonic, as Antonio Gramsci would
put it (Gramsci, 1971). For this hegemonic common sense to be shared by both the
creator of the analogy and its receiver, the discursive strategy that constructs such
analogy has to establish familiar points of comparison and build arguments that
portray its validity. Simultaneously, the discursive practices articulated by politi-
cians, scholars, and journalists based on analogies concerning Taiwan do not merely
pursue the construction of what “Taiwan” means in a particular direction, but are also
embarked on the simultaneous construction of “China” as the “enemy” within those
comparisons, which are embedded in the culture of enmity. Put differently, these
narratives concerning Taiwan are not merely intended to explain to the rest of the
world—and to the Taiwanese society itself—what “Taiwan” is or should be. Rather,
as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe would put it, discourses exercise their perfor-
mative potential through the establishment of a chain of equivalences around what
“Taiwan” means vis-à-vis its “enemy”, until the antagonistic relationship between
opposite camps becomes naturalized as universal truth (see Laclau & Mouffe, 2001).
In this chapter I examine three of the most commonplace analogies seeking
to explain the present or proposed future of the ROC in its struggle against the
PRC, attending to the discursive sequences performed by contributors of the leading
English-language Taiwanese newspaper Taipei Times. The analogies to be studied
are those that argue that Taiwan resembles or should become Gibraltar, Switzerland,
and Ukraine.
Gibraltar as an Analogy for Taiwan: Anti-authoritarian

Fortress
The analogy between Gibraltar and Taiwan was presented by Jerome Keating in two
different articles in the Taipei Times.1 The first, published in March 2021, ends with
this assertion: “For the US and its Asian allies, Taiwan remains a solid rock of democ-
racy; it can also be their Rock of Gibraltar for peace” (Keating, 2021). Keating, who
is not British but a US citizen, presents the Rock of Gibraltar as an unambiguously
positive synonym for the “rock of democracy” that for him is Taiwan. Signifiers such
as “democracy” and “peace” are associated through his analogy with the political
project sense of becoming a stronghold, embodied by the privileged signifier “rock”.
Is Keating suggesting through this analogy that Taiwan should become a militarized
colony of the “free world”, like Gibraltar is, in order to maintain “peace” against the
rising Chinese contender?
1 He is a “writer based in Taipei”—these are the credentials with which he signs—and a regular on
the editorial pages of the Taipei Times.
Gibraltar as an Analogy for Taiwan: Anti-authoritarian Fortress 163
The notion of the rock for peace appears as a euphemism that barely hides the
real goal, which is for Taiwan to become a tool for the US-led armed alliance to stop
China’s military projection in the first island chain. In this vein, Keating claims that,
“Beijing desires Taiwan as an immediate access point to the Pacific Ocean as it seeks
to expand its empire”, so the Quad security alliance “must let the CCP know that any
victory it would hope to achieve by attacking Taiwan would at best be Pyrrhic, and
even if such a victory could be claimed, that Taiwan would not easily be held”. The
signifier “Taiwan” becomes equated to “peace” only if it remains a too -powerful
military threat in the face of China’s counter-hegemonic challenge. Paradoxically,
nothing is said about what would happen to such “peace” and to Taiwan if the CCP
decides to attack anyway, besides the fact that China would suffer enormously in
the process. We are to conclude that the secondary role of the rock for peace is to
sacrifice itself in a war for the common good.
As a disclaimer, I must indicate that though I am Spanish, the existence of Gibraltar
does not hurt my national pride: the idea of “recovering the rock” is something that
I find utterly unnecessary. Nevertheless, the “creation” of more Gibraltars seems to
me an absolute aberration that should be avoided rather than copied. Gibraltar has
officially been a “crown colony” since the territory was “ceded” by Spain in 1713
after war negotiations—the sort of “negotiations” through which the British Empire
also obtained Hong Kong. In 2002, instead of returning this colonial territory to
Spain as it previously did with Hong Kong to China, the United Kingdom decided
to stop using the label “colony” for Gibraltar and use the more politically correct
label “British overseas territory”. Despite this discursive operation modifying the
official name of the territory, Gibraltar remains a palpable reminder of imperialist
times. Indeed, more than a safeguard of peace, Gibraltar was and remains a source of
conflict. As a product of colonial occupation, Gibraltar has historically been a reason
for constant sieges and threats between the British and Spaniards. In the present,
it is a source of diplomatic conflict due to the desire of the Spanish nationalists to
recover the rock and the nostalgia of those who want to maintain the flag of British
colonial pride waving high in Southern Spain. But even more relevant is the role
Gibraltar plays as a tax and fraud haven. Rather than a rock for peace, Gibraltar has
been a rock for neoliberal freedom for decades, until Brexit came to change that: in
March 2021, Spain and the United Kingdom signed a treaty that aims to finally end
the consideration of the territory as a “tax haven”. We will see.
Other arguments highlighted by this analogy become transparent in a previous
article by Keating published in 2017 and titled “Taiwan as the Gibraltar of Asia”
(Keating, 2017). To begin with, Keating envisages Taiwan as the “unsinkable aircraft
carrier” of Asia. What does this imply? An aircraft carrier is an offensive weapon,
the most powerful tool of imperialist projection, and the best example of military
intimidation. How this idea fits with the discursive construction of Taiwan as the rock
for peace suggested by Keating can only be the result of narrative prestidigitation.
However, the iconic “anti-communist unsinkable aircraft carrier” off the Chinese
coast is not a new concept: John Foster Dulles already mentioned that in 1954 during
the First Taiwan Strait Crisis and it often shows in the pages of the Taipei Times
(Chen, 2020). Such an idea, which forms the core of this analogy, advocates for a
militaristic and aggressive role for Taiwan in its relations with China. It portrays
Taiwan as a bulwark against communism, much like the Roman Legions guarding
the frontier. The enormous investment in weaponry by Taiwan is justified by Keating
through a series of charming analogies: “During World War II, Gibraltar became
the bastion that prevented the Axis powers from making the Mediterranean their
mare nostrum”. Resorting to World War II to illustrate the present conflict between
Taiwan and China is not accidental, but the way to introduce the desired equalization
between China and Nazi Germany and charge the question with moral nuances from
the start—a ubiquitous chant among anti-China pundits.
If Gibraltar represents Taiwan in the analogy, then China is tacitly constructed as
the fascist enemy in this political imaginary. Who could oppose Taiwan becoming
Gibraltar if the conflict is described as a Manichean one against a perfect evil? Who
would dare to say anything negative against Gibraltar/Taiwan when they are the last
resort between democracy and peace vis-à-vis fascism? The analogy is finalized with
the role that this new Allied colony—as Gibraltar was during World War II—would
undertake: to corner China on its own shore and jeopardize its strategic position in
case of war. Naturally, China knows this and, the more the status quo is changed by
the “salami slicing” tactic promoted by the United States with the connivance of the
DPP government (see Xie, 2023), the more China becomes nervous and surges the
risk of a military escalation getting out of control—in a similar way as the United
States meddling in the policies of third states and the progressive and unnecessary
NATO expansion towards Russia ended up in a foreseeable and preventable disaster
in Ukraine.
Of course, China expanding its alleged “empire” towards Taiwan is illegitimate
under the Western hegemonic common sense because that threatens, precisely, the
factual empire of the latter. China’s growth and expansion come, for them, as a threat
to their power and rule, which in turn legitimizes the militarization of a new Gibraltar
to stop this rival whenever it is required. In fact, if the status quo is broken and a war
ensues, the mutual destruction of China and Taiwan would leave the path clear for
the expansion of US hegemony in the Asia–Pacific once again. To put it differently,
what is depicted as negative in this analogy is not imperialism per se, but Chinese
reunification understood as imperialism. Contrarily, US-led (neo)imperialism and its
intervention in the Taiwan Strait are presented as legitimate, as the universal good.
In the end, Taiwan would become not a rock for peace but, as Keating uncon-
sciously admitted, for Western hegemonic countries Taiwan is selfishly envisaged as
“their rock of security; it is their Gibraltar”. A rock that secures the imposition of
their hegemonic will over China whenever the situation demands it, hence ensuring
the persistence of the world the way they want it to be—as Blinken claimed (Toosi,
2021). The main function of Gibraltar was not to maintain peace in the world but
to maintain the hegemony of the United Kingdom in the Mediterranean and over
Spain, a reason utterly absent of altruism even if during World War II it purportedly
contributed to stopping Nazism. Indeed, originally, the cession of Gibraltar came with
a concession entirely opposed to freedom: in the same treaty, the British obtained
from the Spanish a 30-year monopoly of the Asiento de negros (the permission to
sell slaves in Spanish possessions), which was precisely the main casus belli for the
Switzerland as an Analogy for Taiwan: Adopting Neutrality 165
War of Spanish Succession that ended with Gibraltar in British hands. After this,
the British slave trade boomed and the acquisition of Gibraltar meant for the United
Kingdom the maritime, commercial, and financial supremacy in the seas, a boost for
its imperialist expansion around the world. Continuing the analogy, the real reason
that justifies the transformation of Taiwan into a new Gibraltar is to instrumentalize
the island’s strategic position to subdue China or, better still, to incite a military
conflict in which the main beneficiaries would be neither China nor Taiwan but the
United States and its world hegemony.
The constitution of Taiwan as a Gibraltar of the East would place China in a
compromised position that would only worsen this conjuncture of New Cold War.
This unilateral strategy corners a powerful and authoritarian enemy, humiliating it
and bringing the world closer to a potentially nuclear conflict—again, same as the
inconsiderate meddling in Ukraine’s internal politics and the reckless expansion of
NATO towards Russia ended bringing war instead of peace. Rather than building
a rock for peace, further dissolving the status quo to firmly establish Taiwan as a
military proxy against China, it is highly likely that Taiwan would eventually become
a source of military conflict, a rock of war. Turning Taiwan into Gibraltar is therefore
an overbearing and dangerous strategy that might benefit Western hegemons and
certain Taiwanese elites, but not the life of the common Taiwanese.
Switzerland as an Analogy for Taiwan: Adopting Neutrality
The second analogy is the one comparing Taiwan with Switzerland. Keating also
dropped this analogy in passing when writing his article on Gibraltar, calling Taiwan
“the Switzerland of Asia”, whose “neutrality, like that of Switzerland, gives it
importance; the same applies to the sense of its role as the Gibraltar of Asia. It
is important that a bastion of entry and control should be one that maintains democ-
racy and neutrality” (Keating, 2017). Keating’s insurmountable contradiction lies in
combining neutrality with the role of a fortress controlling that only “democracy”
can pass: being neutral requires, precisely, not performing any sort of partisan control
over who have access to the seas around Taiwan.
The proposal that Taiwan has to be neutral like Switzerland is defended in another
editorial article in the Taipei Times, this time by Lawrence Chien and published in
2020, titled “Following the Swiss defense model” (Chien, 2020). The analogy begins
with a brief historical analysis of the Swiss model. The great European powers signed
at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that Switzerland should be “permanently neutral”,
which allowed the country to maintain its neutrality during the two world wars. In
that brief historical exposition, particular emphasis is placed—typically—on World
War II and the threat of Hitler, who is again surreptitiously equated with the danger
of the malignant CCP. The analogy is clear insofar as the narrative is based on
taking the example of how a European country avoided the great danger of having a
belligerent and aggressive neighbor by becoming neutral. This widespread analogy
between China and the Third Reich appears particularly feeble when we consider
that the most logical comparison in cultural and geopolitical terms would involve
the employment of Imperial Japan. However, since the camaraderie towards Japan
is significant within Taiwan, and since, unlike Germany, Japan has not admitted its
atrocities during the war, it might be a way to avoid unnecessarily alienating Japan.
These narratives unveil the necessity of resorting to the culture of enmity: the
strategy to discursively construct a political frontier against an absolute evil with
whom it is not possible to negotiate, that therefore must be eliminated, and against
whom any measure is therefore automatically legitimized. Simultaneously, this
discursive strategy also requires providing Taiwan with a specific role, transforming
it into an adjacent signifier supporting the myth of the Chinese intrinsic evil. The
concept of myth, as conceptualized by Ernesto Laclau, is an empty signifier that
articulates a collective will around it, constituting the core of a political project with
hegemonic aspirations (Laclau, 1990). Chinese exceptionality and inherent wicked-
ness constitute this myth and, consequently, Taiwan has become an adjacent signifier
supporting it through its discursive articulation vis-à-vis this malevolent enemy who
denies its existence. Taiwan thus acquires a particular meaning as a representative
of the fight between good and evil, offering the mobilizing moral support that this
anti-China hegemonic narrative requires.
Paradoxically, contaminated by this political imaginary based on the struggle
between enemies with no capacity for dialogue, for Chien the key to achieving
a Swiss-style neutrality comes down to Taiwan becoming a “complete system of
national defense”, turning the country into a “porcupine” with enough defensive
“facilities and strength”. This is an operation of neutrality through militarization.
Some of the Swiss exemplary measures proposed by this author to achieve such a
“national defense system” are compulsory military service including female volun-
teers; to take home the military uniforms, gas masks, and weapons, “with the excep-
tion of ammunition”, for faster deployment; and the promotion of strong nationalist
sentiments that allow Taiwanese people to “share a common goal of defending their
home and country, uniting themselves against foreign aggression”.
Under this biased lens, Switzerland’s historical ability to remain neutral seems to
have been merely based on its own military capacity and strong nationalist feelings.
Nothing is mentioned about the importance of diplomacy to maintain neutrality in
the event of a conflict, because that approach would not fit well with the myth of the
inherently evil China, with which negotiation is unworkable: they are deceivers, they
cannot be trusted, they are, indeed, intrinsically genocidal. In this vein, the analogy
is partial and does not mention how Switzerland promised to treat all sides with
equanimity, how it became the venue through which Nazis deposited their millions
of dollars of looted gold, or how Switzerland had to make economic concessions to
Nazi Germany in order to stay in its security bubble—a diplomatic tool to deter a
possible invasion during the years of great tension.
Most interestingly, the article suggests that Taiwan should join a US-led military
alliance—again, remember Ukraine. It begins by remarking that “despite being a
neutral state, Switzerland is also a NATO partner country”, which allows it to engage
in altruistic missions filled with noble ideals, such as “maintaining world peace
Switzerland as an Analogy for Taiwan: Adopting Neutrality 167
and humanitarian relief”. Subsequently, Chien recounts the “long-standing friend-

ship” between Taiwan and the United States, and presents President Tsai’s desire to
“actively participate in international cooperation”. Eventually, Chien directly states
that “peace depends on national defense”, and suggests that “participating in the Indo-
Pacific regional alliance, Taiwan will surely help maintain peace and stability in the
Taiwan Strait and the region”. In the end, the promised commitment to neutrality is
reduced to the position if you want peace, prepare for war. This seems utterly contra-
dictory: joining a military alliance that aims at counterbalancing China cannot under
any light be compatible with a Swiss-like neutral stance during WWII. Switzerland
refused to sign the NATO treaty in the past because the risk of a European invasion by
the Soviet Union would upend Switzerland’s neutral status. Taiwanese Swiss-style
neutrality, likewise, could not participate in any military alliance that automatically
implies taking sides in a potential conflict involving two blocs. Should a conflict break
out between China and the United States, Japan, or any other neighbor, Taiwan should
never be forced to break its neutrality if it wants to be like Switzerland. It is, therefore,
a contradiction to promote neutrality and at the same time establish military alliances
with China’s declared adversaries. A serious proposal for Taiwanese neutrality would
be an adequate response, most likely the only appealing one, to grant peace in the
Taiwan Strait in the future. But to do that, Taiwan would have to become the exact
opposite of Gibraltar and this somewhat “Trumpist” hyper-militarized tergiversation
of Switzerland’s neutrality.
A serious neutrality proposal should include a commitment signed by the United
States and China, among others, similar to the one at the Congress of Vienna in
1815. Some of the measures that could be agreed upon are precluding the purchase
of offensive weapons, a commitment to maintaining equal and fair relations with
all sides, allowing or forbidding the passage of military planes or ships through
Taiwanese territory on equal terms for all parties, or prohibiting the arrival of foreign
military personnel to Taiwanese territory unless such visits are approved by all the
signatories of the treaty. The function of such desirable neutrality would be to get
Taiwan out of the equation of the struggle for hegemony between the United States
and China in the West Pacific. If China fears that the militaristic escalation in Taiwan
is driven not by a quest for self-defense and security but by an American desire to
instrumentalize Taiwan as a means to impede China’s strategic defense, the military
threat and the discursive polarization will continue to escalate until it explodes—one
more time, as in the case of Ukraine.
This proposal of neutrality is totally incompatible with the antagonistic discourses
elaborated by Keating and Chien (and the editorial lines of the main media in Taiwan,
for that matter), insisting on drawing a non-existent reality through forced allegories
and a misleading comparison with Nazi Germany. A strategy of polarization aimed at
gradually isolating China on the international stage, while the United States deploys
military bases around China and arms Taiwan as a tool in this effort, risks destabilizing
the current status quo and does not contribute to transforming Taiwan into a long-
lasting paradise of democracy, neutrality, and peace.
Ukraine as an Analogy for Taiwan: David vs. Goliath
The latest tactic of the hegemonic narrative has been to equate the situation of Taiwan
with that of Ukraine to exemplify the aggressiveness and intrinsic evil of China
and Russia, countries described as part of an authoritarian alliance to destroy the
“rules-based international order”. The analogy between Ukraine and Taiwan has
been increasingly brought up by Taiwanese media such as the Taipei Times and
Taiwan News, but both cases have also been connected by mainstream international
media such as The New York Times (Qin & Chang-Chien, 2022), The Washington
Post (Bildt, 2021), The Economist (“If the”, 2021), El País (“Los Altos”, 2021),
Foreign Policy (Yip, 2022), The Diplomat (Cogan & Scott, 2022), Time (Tso, 2022),
or Reuters (Blanchard, 2022).
In a recent article, Taiwan News examined a viral meme, shared by a Taiwanese
“think tank”, which associated the Ukrainian headache of living next to Russia with
the headache of Taiwanese living next to China (Everington, 2021). Ukraine’s situ-
ation is as historically complex as Taiwan’s and it is true that both territories are
under the threat of military invasion. Russia and NATO/EU both have an interest in
bringing Ukraine into their spheres of influence, just as China and the United States
strive to include Taiwan as a piece within their national security strategies. Until
here, the analogy holds. But the differences largely exceed the similarities. Has no
one considered that the role the United States is playing in Taiwan is analogous to
the one Russia is playing in the Donbass or Crimea?
Taipei Times published on February 23 an editorial titled “Ukraine a harbinger for
Taiwan”, claiming that “there are several striking parallels between Russia’s strategy
toward Ukraine and China’s designs on Taiwan” (“Ukraine a harbinger”, 2022). One
of those parallels was that “China’s and Russia’s infiltration and destabilization tactics
are also surprisingly similar”. So, on the one hand, “the Kremlin has been fomenting
unrest in Ukraine for years, using what it calls ‘active measures’ to set ethnic Russians
against Ukrainians, weaken the authority of the Ukrainian government and erode
national unity”. Allegedly, the CCP is following the same strategy in Taiwan through
“united front” tactics: “to drive a wedge between benshengren (本省人)—the people
who came to Taiwan before World War II and their offspring—and waishengren (外
省人)—those who came from China with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after
the war and their offspring”. But who is really creating this ethnic separation? In
Taiwan, today, there does not exist an ethnic conflict between “original” Taiwanese
and “foreigner” Chinese who came from the mainland. In fact, many DPP voters are
sons and daughters of people who came from the mainland just a few generations
ago. Trying to “racialize” Taiwanese politics in such a way, by suggesting that DPP
voters are “authentic Taiwanese” and KMT voters are the offsprings of “outsiders”
who have been brainwashed by the enemy is certainly scary and makes one wonder
what would happen in case of war with those of “suspicious” origins.
Instead, the analogy could find a more suitable perspective: it is the United States
that has destabilized China after 1949 by sustaining the confrontation between the
Chinese in Taiwan and the Chinese in the mainland. After decades of US-enabled
Ukraine as an Analogy for Taiwan: David vs. Goliath 169
separation, these policies succeeded in facilitating the emergence of a majority

Taiwanese identity, so that currently most Taiwanese consider themselves as part
of a distinct nation. Thus, the alleged Russian tactic to divide Ukraine into different
regions with distinguishable national identifications is akin to that of the United
States in its separation of the Chinese nation into two. In this sense, Taiwan does
not resemble Ukraine as much as it does Crimea or the Donbass. The fact is that
the ethnic identification of people in Crimea and the Donbass as Russians predate
Putin’s Russia and has deep historical roots. Putin is now defending the right of those
ethnic groups to separate from Ukraine, just as the United States has encouraged and
facilitated—militarily if need be— the separation of Taiwan from China.
On March 2, Taiwan News published an opinion piece titled “The war in Ukraine:
a lesson for Taiwan”, stating that “the world has demonstrated that sovereignty cannot
be infringed and that when a nation’s people are willing to fight for their autonomy,
democratic countries will provide support for it to oppose the invasion by military,
diplomatic, economic, and technological means” (Yang, 2022). Similarly, The Wash-
ington Post published a piece that started with these questions: “Is the United States
ready to defend Taiwan against an attack by China? What about Russian attempts
to militarily subdue Ukraine?” The article, published on December 6, 2021, accused
Russia of not respecting international law and wanting to undermine Ukrainian
sovereignty, contending that Crimea or the Donbass cannot be “expropriated” by
Russia. On the contrary, the same emphasis is not made in pointing out that the UN
recognizes Taiwan as a province of China or that under international law Taiwan is
not recognized as an independent entity (see “UN Juridical Yearbook”, 2010, p. 516),
so that the United States’ efforts to support secessionists in the ROC are equivalent
to Russia’s actions against Ukraine’s reunification of the Donbass or Crimea. Why, if
Russian interference to support the peoples of Crimea and the Donbass is understood
as negative, the interference of the US in the case of Taiwan was and is legitimized
as positive? The difference between the US’ “rules-based international order” and
“international law” is that the latter should always be attended to on equal terms
by all actors while, for the former, rules apply only when it is convenient for US
hegemony. Why when “a nation’s people fight for their autonomy” in Iraq, Palestine,
Kurdistan, Western Sahara, or Nagorno-Karabakh they do not receive any support
from democratic countries? Why does it only occur when the United States has a
geostrategic interest?
In this regard, on December 29, 2021, an editorial in the newspaper El País criti-
cized the unilateralist policy practiced by Netanyahu and Trump—later continued by
Biden—that has allowed, if not instigated, the gradual Israeli occupation of Pales-
tine and parts of Syria against international law (although, of course, not against
the US’ “rules-based international order”) (“Los Altos”, 2021). In the concluding
paragraph, the editorial warns that if this attitude is not changed, this ambiguity
concerning international law will have very negative consequences on “the message
that Washington sends in the direction of Putin’s also internationally reprehensible
expansionist instincts regarding Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s regarding Taiwan”. The
language of hegemony seems to forget that international law upholds the integrity of
Syria, Palestine, and Ukraine, but it does not say that Taiwan is not a part of China
(whether called PRC or ROC, that is a secondary issue). It is precisely because of

US military and political support (for instance, during the Treaty of San Francisco
the US defined the status of Taiwan as artificially “unsettled”, against the most basic
principles of international law) that it has become possible for Taiwan to de facto
segregate itself from China, like the Golan Heights de facto separated from Syria and
just as Crimea or the Donbass had de facto separated from Ukraine due to Russian
intervention and support, regardless of what international law had to say about it.
Before the 2022 invasion, Ukraine experienced an uprising/coup in 2014 that
replaced a democratically elected pro-Russian government with one aligned with
the West—with US politicians and diplomats showing support in person during the
protests in Kyiv. It’s important to note that Ukraine is ethnically divided, with pro-
Russian citizens residing predominantly in Crimea and the East. These individuals
observed how citizens in the ethnically Ukrainian part, where the capital Kyiv is
located, were able to remove the president they had voted for. As a result, many
of them felt that the new government was not legitimate and couldn’t adequately
represent their interests. It’s not surprising, therefore, that many of them chose to
align themselves with Russia, who took advantage of the situation while supporting
and protecting them from Ukraine’s military retaliation.
A change of regime also took place in China, with the communist controlling the
mainland and the US supporting the anti-communists in Taiwan during the Cold War.
Ukraine reclaims Crimea and the Donbass, and has fought militarily for them since
2014, employing parallel arguments to the ones used by China to reclaim the island
of Taiwan: they are inalienable parts of their sovereign territory and they would never
cede them willingly. Thus, they are ready to use the military to take them back if
necessary. Both conflicts, over Crimea/Donbass and over Taiwan, are the product
of the intervention of great powers supporting different sides for geopolitical inter-
ests or (neo)imperialist desires. For instance, Japan’s imperialist expansion in the late
nineteenth century and, following World War II, the United States’ military interven-
tion to contain communism and use of political privilege to manipulate international
law, are largely responsible for the Taiwan conflict today. Great power competition
led to the effective separation of regions of both states, eventually creating differ-
entiated entities with different national and political sentiments from the rest of
the parent state. Reunification, thus, would likely entail ethnic conflict and military
resistance. Of course, China and Ukraine want to recover the territories lost to seces-
sionist forces and request the opposed superpowers to stop increasing tensions and
supporting the “rebels”. Moreover, both Ukraine and China interpret these events
with fear that history is repeating itself: Ukrainians remember the Soviet Union’s
occupation, while the Chinese recall Western colonization and invasion vividly.
The Diplomat published a piece advocating that the lesson we should learn
from Russia’s invasion is that the United States should abandon its long-standing
policy of “strategic ambiguity” in order to better prepare Taiwan’s defense (Cogan &
Scott, 2022). This would be the equivalent of Russian military build-up to “defend”
the Donbass from Ukrainian aggression, and would probably precipitate a military
confrontation after Taiwan becomes recognized as an independent state. The article
defends that the United States should take action in Taiwan because “should China
Ukraine as an Analogy for Taiwan: David vs. Goliath 171
move on Taiwan, it would be able to control the seas against any regional rival”,
thus threatening US hegemony in the region. For the United States, from its origins,
Taiwan has been a matter of national security because of its role in stopping commu-
nism on its own shore and preventing its projection into the Pacific. Analogously, the
Russian government claimed that Ukraine was ignoring the Minsk agreements and
was preparing to retake the Donbass with the support of NATO, which they saw as
a great risk to Russia’s security. Thus, both Russia and the United States claim that
the attempts of Ukraine to recover Crimea/Donbass and China to recover Taiwan,
respectively, are existential issues that affect their national security.
Both Russia and the United States claim that they are not doing anything illegit-
imate, but defending the right of the peoples to choose which country they want to
live in, and that it is the other side that is fuelling tensions by keeping the flames of
war alive. They also claimed that their militarization of the Donbass and Taiwan is
done without any intention to attack Ukraine or China. Eventually, Russia demon-
strated that this was not the case. The conflict over the independence of the Donbass
ended with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the conflict over the independence of
Taiwan … we still do not know for sure, but will most likely also end up as another
proxy war—the “future of conflict”, as claimed by CNA, a non-profit research and
analysis organization that works with the White House, the Department of Defense
and Homeland Security, among others (Gold & Rosenau, 2019).
In yet another article whitewashing US hegemony, The Economist mentioned
that “Unfortunately, America is tiring of its role as guarantor of the liberal order.
The giant has not exactly fallen asleep again, but its resolve is faltering and its
enemies are testing it”. This stance, which hypocritically defends the moral integrity
of the United States as a global policeman despite the countless abuses of “interna-
tional law” that it upholds, is based on the misrepresentation of the facts. The article
continues: “Vladimir Putin is massing troops on the border with Ukraine and could
soon invade. China is buzzing Taiwan’s airspace with fighter jets, using mock-ups of
American aircraft-carriers for target practice and trying out hypersonic weapons” [my
emphasis]. To begin with, China did not fly its fighter jets over “Taiwan’s airspace”,
but over its ADIZ, an area without international legitimacy far from the island’s
territory, over international waters (see Chap. 9 in this book). Likewise, the fact that
China tests its weapons in whatever way it sees fit does not make China any different
from any other country’s military, unless we depart from the biased premise that all
military development by China is illegitimate because it threatens the status quo of
US global dominance. Contrarily, it is the United States that flies military airplanes
and sails vessels near the Chinese coast and through the Taiwan Strait; it is the United
States that has special operation forces training Taiwan’s military, on Taiwanese soil,
to inflict pain on China (“US looks”, 2023); it is the United States that is establishing
even more military bases along the first island chain, including a few recently in
the Philippines, near Taiwan, which weakens China’s geostrategic security; and it
is the United States that has provided military support and has armed Taiwan since
1949, encouraging its continued separation from China and its role as an enemy of
“communism”.
Other examples of these double standards can be found in op-eds in the Taipei
Times, where their many foreign contributors (one can easily guess that they are
lobbyists for the US military industry) promote both the increase in the sale of
weapons to the island and the association of Russia and China as a new Axis of
Evil. One of them claimed that “promoting a global boycott of the February 2022
Winter Olympic Games in China is now necessary to help deter a Russian invasion
of the Ukraine that could well be a prelude to a CCP invasion of Taiwan” (Fisher,
2021). Another stated that “The first lesson is that the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP), like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, cannot be trusted. Like the Kremlin, the CCP
views international treaties and obligations as mere parchment barriers to its own
ambitions” (Yu, 2022). They, of course, omit that unfair international treaties and
the dilapidation of international obligations defining the status quo, by action of
the United States, brought the current tensions to the Taiwan Strait. Contrarily, the
issue of sovereignty and international law is a headache for China, which has never
condoned the invasion and occupation of other sovereign countries (in contrast with
the actions of the United States and its allies, for instance, in Iraq, Afghanistan, or
Palestine), aware that not doing so would hinder their claims and future actions over
Taiwan. On the one hand, China wants to uphold the principles of international law
that favor their position on Taiwan but, on the other hand, they are moved to support
Russia in the attempt to counter the siding of Ukraine with NATO powers.
These contradictions between the comparison of Ukraine and Taiwan are hidden
by the fallacies installed as universal “common sense” by the language of hegemony.
In the end, the conflicts in which Taiwan and Ukraine are inserted have in common
the meddling of the United States and its goal of continuing its (neo)imperialist
domination. The headache is not the result of living next to Russia or China, but
living in a world where the United States solely dictates what is wrong and what is
right according to its national interests transformed into an ambiguous “rules-based
international order”.
Interestingly, as the war in Ukraine progressed, some authors went to vehe-
mently deny this analogy. While Ukraine was putting up a fight, defenders of the
analogy claimed that “scenes from Ukraine boost morale” (Wei & Madjar, 2022),
and argued that “if the Ukrainians can do it, the Taiwanese should be able to as well”
(Yang, 2022). But whenever it was feared that Ukraine could not defeat Russia and
that Western support for “democracy” was insufficient, pundits rushed to deny the
analogy. The Taipei Times rejected the analogy using misleading reasons in articles
and editorials titled “Comparing Taiwan, Ukraine inappropriate: forum” (Chung,
2022), “Taiwan is different from Ukraine” (“Taiwan is”, 2022), or “Taiwan not
comparable to Ukraine” (Inkster, 2022).
Their rejection derived from moralistic or economicist arguments, rather than
from pointing out the different statuses of Ukraine and Taiwan under international
law. For instance, one article claimed that contrary to Taiwan, “although Ukraine
is playing the democracy card, it is not so convincing” (Ibid.). Although it is true
that Taiwan is playing the “democracy card” in a convincing way, this viewpoint is
mistaken in viewing the conflict as a sheer battle between democracy and autocracy:
Taiwan was defended even during its time as a military dictatorship. Another article
References 173
highlighted that Taiwan’s global importance as a semi-conductor factory would make

the West defend it with more impetus since defending Taiwan would be in their
national interest (“Taiwan is”, 2022). Even if accurate, this perspective neglects how
other countries are investing heavily in chip manufacturing and, in the near future,
Taiwan may not be as critical in this area. Moreover, if an invasion were to occur
imminently, Taiwanese chip technology and experts would be at once transported to
the United States, where these assets could be quickly put to work rather than falling
into Chinese hands or being lost.
Many of these pundits also focused on the difficulty of invading Taiwan as an
island compared to Ukraine’s geostrategic position, but they overlooked an even
more relevant consequence of this geographical particularity: providing material
support—and not just militarily—to Taiwan during a war would be infinitely more
complex and dangerous than it has been for Ukraine. Most crucially, Taiwanese
people would find it much more difficult to escape the war and become refugees
elsewhere.
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Chapter 13
How Wars Fall on Us
One of the paradoxical effects of propaganda is that instead of keeping us alert,

it anesthetizes us. When you have been told for years that the neighbor, the close
enemy, threatens to invade you and could well do so the next morning, you end up
getting accustomed to this type of message, however alarmist it may be, and you
go about your ordinary business rather than arranging the construction of a personal
or family fallout shelter. It is also because more is needed than just the mechanical
repetition of propaganda messages and a spasmodic agitation against the enemy at
our gates to convince us effectively of the actuality of war directly affecting us, that
is to say of the possibility of a war which, this time, would no longer take place in
newspapers, on television screens, or on social networks, but indeed in our own lives,
which would directly affect our living conditions and endanger our own existence.
What, in the first place, characterizes us, inhabitants of the Global North, is in fact
that we consider our condition immune or rather immunized, that is to say, secure
and protected against vital dangers (war first and foremost) as something granted, a
constituent element of our condition. We know, of course, that we do not live in a
world or an age that has left war behind, either by the grace of the uninterrupted moral
progress of mankind or by that of the wisdom of our leaders; but fundamentally, for us,
war, the wars that surround us, more or less close or more or less distant, are images,
they are information, they are indeed a kind of spectacle, violent and repulsive—but
it only affects others.
Therefore, the specificity of our immune condition is to arouse the generalized
illusion of an exclusion clause: one that would make our latitudes, in the Global
North, by destination and so to speak by right, areas where war is banished. The
reverse or complement of this illusion is the radical loss of the imaginative faculties
that would allow us to anticipate the possibility that, despite everything, war will one
day fall on us.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4217-6_13
176 13 How Wars Fall on Us
The foundations of this illusion are both socio-cultural and historical. In the
generally democratic societies of the Global North, the pacification of mores is
a general process, the effect of which is the lowering of the level of violence in
human relationships and interactions, the rise of immune paradigms in all spheres
of life—relationships between men and women, adults and children, teachers and
students, humans and animals, etc. Lively violence and, in general, everything related
to warrior paradigms is now, in these societies, affected by a resolutely negative sign.
Not only do we live in peace, but this peace is now intimately linked to the sphere of
morals and daily life. It is in this sense that, naturally, terrorism, such as it is likely
to burst into our peaceful spaces, inspires us with particular horror.
But it is also because we have now come to the end of a long historical sequence
placed under the paradoxical sign of an armed peace, of a cold war overhung by the
sword of Damocles of nuclear terror, and which, precisely, by freezing the balance
of power and establishing a kind of balance of terror, has not led to a hot war. As a
result, we have almost come to make “nuclear deterrence” our own spontaneous or
implicit religion of peace. We have become accustomed to a world where, strangely,
the balance of terror “protected” us, made it possible to overcome several major
crises between the opposing power blocs (Korean War, Budapest insurrection, Cuban
Missile Crisis, blockade of Berlin, Vietnam War, invasion of Czechoslovakia by the
Soviet army, etc.), and where the wars, from then on, were projected and disseminated
on all the periphery of the Global North, which has somehow become a sanctuary.
For us Europeans, the first alerts indicating that the feeling of security resulting
from this situation of relative equilibrium was in truth illusory occurred even before
the fall of the Soviet bloc: from the beginning of the 1980s with the arms race on
our soil between the two superpowers of the time, the United States and the USSR,
with the dangerous rise in the bidding surrounding the establishment, in the two
Germanies of the time, of the Pershing and SS-20 medium-range rockets, both likely
to be equipped with nuclear charges. And then, the quite tangible sign of the change
of era in progress, traumatizing in many respects for European opinions, was the
return of the war on the very soil of old Europe with the break-up of Yugoslavia, in
the din of arms, with its procession of massacres, acts of barbarism, scenes of civil
war against the backdrop of a Balkan remake of the Second World War realm.
The problem is that we have an infinite faculty not to “believe”, that is to say
not to draw the intellectual and practical consequences of what, moreover, we know
perfectly; this is true of war as it is of global warming, the mirage of economic
growth, etc. In Europe, we had before our eyes, on our doorstep, an entire decade of
intra-Yugoslavian wars (1991–2001) and that should have been enough to convince
us that war had returned “among us”, that it was a matter of time to dismiss the
illusion that our privileged existences would be placed under a regime of perpetual
peace. But, in practice, everything happened as if a thick, hermetic wall of glass
separated us from the Yugoslav war. As long as shells did not fall on us, and none
of our towns were besieged, as long as our immune way of life was not affected, we
were inclined to carry on as before, sticking to our course, going about our business
and acting as if peace was contractually guaranteed to us, once and for all.
13 How Wars Fall on Us 177
The war in Ukraine is what brought us out of this interminable torpor, this all too
comfortable illusion. If European governments and public opinion have reacted with
such vociferous indignation to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, it is not
in the first place under the effect of moral, humanitarian sentiments, of convictions
backed by international law, human rights, the horror that a war of conquest inspires
in us, etc. It is in fact that Putin’s unexpected initiative produced the most painful of
awakenings and effects of the return to reality; this, by washing away the European’s
(not only, but first and foremost, for obvious reasons) illusions about the new epoch.
This epoch is not the era of the glorious and irresistible democratic globalization
which only the last four of the retarded authoritarian and totalitarian regimes resist;
it is indeed that in which the Western hegemony in decline is put to battle in order to
confront the rising powers which, more and more openly, challenge this hegemony
and no longer bend before the dictates of the universalist imperialism of Western
democracy. This new epoch is, in the present, that of a New Cold War now liable to
heat up disastrously on the occasion of the first local or regional crisis to come. In
this configuration, the fiction of the sanctuaries of the Global North spared by the
war is shattered.
This is what the new Ukrainian paradigm shows perfectly: if it happens, as the
strategists of the new Atlanticism say (whether in the American or European version),
that the “borders of NATO” are those separating the opposing worlds of the demo-
cratic West and Putinian despotism, then the slightest armed incident on the border
of Poland and Ukraine or Belarus is likely to turn into a casus belli leading to a war
of the worlds.
It is exactly the same here, in East Asia, in obviously specific geopolitical condi-
tions—we mean: the same matrix of the time (epoch) and what makes it so dangerous
is similar in this region of the world, given, of course, the obvious disparities resulting
from different histories and contexts—East Asian as grossraum, “wide space”. You
have been told for years that you live, on this island, in one of the most dangerous
places in the world, permanently exposed to the threat of invasion by your powerful
neighbor, on the frontline of the, for the moment, virtual war raging between the so-
called “free world” (Democracy, the only civilized and tolerable regime of politics),
and authoritarianism or continental totalitarianism. And the completely unexpected
effect of this verbal outbidding hitherto followed by no particular outcome, is that
these cries of alarm which are also battle cries have become background noise that you
have gotten used to and which, although they keep getting more and more deafening,
do not prevent you from sleeping and, above all, do not change your habits.
Everything happens as if we weren’t living that badly in the eye of the storm,
insofar as it (this eye) presents all the appearances of a world at peace. As an island
microcosm, Taiwanese society is a model of an immune society, remarkable for
anyone who comes from elsewhere, from Europe, from the United States a fortiori,
by the gentleness of its morals, the safety of its streets, the very low level of visible
social conflict, the affability of its police (in comparison with that of a country
like France, for example), etc. Everything happens as if, bizarrely, the perpetual
incantations about the imminent threats hanging over this island and its inhabitants
had an effect of suspending or revoking these very threats—as if all that was needed
was to make the windmills of the “Chinese threat” turn tirelessly, so that it turns into
a paper tiger.
Everything therefore happens strangely as if the rise to the extremes of the rhetoric
of war and security, the radicalization of the culture of enmity had, on this island, the
paradoxical effect of reinforcing the bubbles, the spheres, and the immune envelopes.
Young people who do their four-month (and soon 12-month) military service gener-
ally see it as a painful obligation, a waste of time, a period doomed to boredom, and
a collection of stupid routines, totally unrelated to the most alarmist picture which
the governing elites constantly paint. When they are at rest, they discuss everything
except the defense of the country. The outrageous official propaganda has on them,
as on the population as a whole, an effect not of mobilization but of derealization. It
feeds not an increased awareness of the risks and dangers to which the inhabitants
of the island are exposed, like those of all East Asia, but, on the contrary, promotes
a withdrawal into bubbles and escapes into the imagination. The massive denial of
reality (im)paired with smartphones, laptops, and other jewels of digital civilization.
The real, reality, in our present, in East Asia today, is no more the Chinese threat
than the American or Japanese threat, it is indeed the fact that this region has become
one of the points of crystallization of tensions likely to lead from one moment to
another to a kind of war of the worlds placed under the sign of the bad infinite,
that is mere excessiveness placed under the sign of “everything is possible”. It is
the transposition in the historical and geopolitical field of plate tectonics: Taiwan
and the entire region surrounding it have become annoyingly, in the configuration
of tensions and clashes between opposing forces, the point of friction, of collision
of “plates”, of blocks of power, likely to cause the most devastating “earthquakes”
by dragging the populations of the region into the spiral of wars with unforeseeable
consequences.
What determines the particular form of the current confrontation of which Taiwan
is likely to become a condensed point in the great East Asian space—in the same
way as Ukraine is today in the East European space—is quite distinct: the more the
structuring of the hegemonic Western world order (and which is also a chaos) is
called into question by what must be called the decline of the West and, in particular,
of the Pax Americana resulting from the Second World War, the more the promotion
of Democracy, in its most conquering universalist imperialist version appears as the
last card of Western- and white-centric hegemonism.
Since the beginning of the 1990s and the fall of the USSR, the figure of the
democratization of the world, of the expansion of total democracy, of democratic
globalization on a planetary scale, has appeared in the eyes of the self-centered
Western narrators as the pure and simple incarnation of Reason in History. This
global West has completely lost the sense of the limits which the infinite expansion
of its power comes up against. During the first Cold War, the United States and
its allies thought of the world in terms of zones of influence and knew that their
international policy stood within these limits. This is why they were careful not to
intervene directly when Soviet troops invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia
in 1968, after having had to accept the partition of the Korean peninsula. They
knew that there were opposing powers to which they granted a certain legitimacy,
13 How Wars Fall on Us 179
starting with the Soviet superpower—but not only, since they ended up exchanging
ambassadors with communist China under Nixon.
Today, we are totally out of this configuration and that is why the situation has
become so dangerous. The presumption of global democracy, the one that thinks that
the present and the future entirely belong to them by right, for it is the incarnation
of universal values (human rights, etc.) and of the only civilized regime of politics,
leads it not only to delegitimize but to criminalize any adverse force or any power
that resists it or refuses to fall under its influence. The mechanisms and procedures
of recognition between adversaries and even enemies that existed at the time of the
Cold War and the balance of nuclear terror were gradually abandoned and abolished
by the Western powers after the fall of the USSR. What replaces them is the politics
of contempt and humiliation which are the reverse of the infinite presumption of total
democracy, assured that the world belongs to it and that those who resist this conquest
are fundamentally rogues, illegitimate entities to be “democratized” willingly or by
force.
It is exactly in this spirit that the United States and its allies, both regional and
European, approach the question of Taiwan and China. The reasons of the other
opposing party, both its interests and its perspective on the subject matter of the
dispute, none of this merits consideration; their interests and their approach to the
problem can only perfectly coincide with the interest of generic humanity and the
point of view of the universal. This is what makes that automatically not only those
who oppose us by resisting our expansion are enemies and criminals but, by an
implacable logic, that those who do not adopt our enemies as their own enemies
become our enemies too—this is the “law” of the sanctions imposed by the United
States on a whole series of countries and which, in their eyes, are therefore destined
to become universal legislation.
This unified imperialist and universalist posture of contemporary democracy is an
explosive and a poison at the same time and it carries in its sides an infinity of promises
of war just like “the cloud carries the storm”, according to the famous expression
by Jean Jaures; or, more precisely, in the same way as when, at the beginning of the
twentieth century, the conflicting ambitions of European nation-states created the
conditions for the explosion of August 1914.
What is important in the first place to identify, in order to understand the historical
present and the dangers of war, is the singularity of this configuration of antagonism
between, on the one hand, the West in decline, the United States and Western hege-
mony in crisis and, on the other hand, other forces, some on the rise, such as China,
or others in need of recovery and reconquest, such as Russia. In this configuration,
a key role is played by the attempt to redeploy Western hegemony by means of the
promotion of an entirely biased democratic universalism. This situation is explosive
because the mechanisms of recognition between adversary forces are totally blocked
and because, in these conditions, only shows of force like the one Putin has just
undertaken in Ukraine appear likely to change the course of things and make the
voice of those who are treated like “the rest” by the West heard. In this general situ-
ation, incantations against the horrors of war and pacifist litanies have no hold on
reality. Only a powerful anti-war movement could influence the course of events, on
the express condition that it turns its back on the culture of enmity and the bellicose
propaganda of the governing elites and the “grand narrators” of the Global North.
If you want to avoid war falling on you without you knowing what is happening
to you, in person, as happened to the Europeans in August 1914, to the Yugoslavs in
the 1990s, and even more recently to the Ukrainians, the first thing to do is to work
tirelessly to regain the autonomy of your judgment in the face of the political and
communication powers which are tirelessly active in conditioning and mobilizing
you, embarking you like sleepwalkers towards a war that you did not want and which
is not yours. The first thing we need to loosen the grip of the warmongers who are
ready to do anything today to not give up their positions of power, is to have clear
ideas about the source of what threatens to fall on us—in other words, here in East
Asia, how is it that, since the end of the Korean War, we have never been so close to
the outbreak of an armed conflict with incalculable consequences? What has led to
this situation in which the most powerful and closest by so many traits of Taiwan’s
neighbors is ever more elatedly decried as the inexpiable enemy? Why is the status
quo, the fragile but salutary balance that made Taiwan’s rapid material development
possible, now more threatened than ever? Are we, on this island, really condemned
to die idiots?
There is one thing that you should know, however perfect Confucians you might
be, it is that nothing, neither in principle nor in fact, prevents us from reflecting
critically on our present and, in particular, on the way we are governed; nothing
that obliges us to follow and undergo the policy of government when it leads us
straight into the wall, whether here or elsewhere. The theoreticians and strategists
of the limited confrontation with China of which the dispute over Taiwan would be
the object or the pretext and which would be an opportunity to inflict a lesson on
China and to remind it who is the master in the large Pacific-Eastern Asian space,
these smart boys live and draw their grandiose projects in perfectly protected spaces
located tens of thousands of kilometers from the theater of future operations—just
as they plan to extend NATO on the eastern and southern borders of Russia at the
expense of the security of the peoples of Europe, just as their hegemonist ambitions
thrive at the expense of the Ukrainian people and soldiers. The principle that governs
these reconquest strategies is to instigate proxy wars, to always be separated from the
space in which the “war for democracy” will be activated (now Ukraine and tomorrow
Taiwan and the China Sea) by an ocean, a vast continental space and, if possible,
both. Courageous, but not reckless …. The civilizing war, for the pilgrims and the
crusaders of universal democracy, is always an export product. This is precisely what
makes it so suspicious.
Now, and as a last bottle to the sea, let us put things bluntly: with all the disparities
in their respective situations, one thing that Ukraine and Taiwan have had in common
today is this: they both have a vocation, in the war of worlds led by the United States
and their trailing bearers, to be “countries of sacrifice”, sacrificed spaces on which
and at the expense of which they have chosen to confront their adversaries and inflict
a lesson on them. If this resemblance is not obvious to you, it means that you are
devilishly distracted.
Ukraine’s Wrong Lessons for Taiwan 181
Ukraine’s Wrong Lessons for Taiwan
Since the war in Ukraine began, a faction of politicians, journalists, and spontaneous
commentators in line with the current pro-independence government in Taiwan has
made an effort to draw lessons from the war in Ukraine that should be applied to the
Taiwan Strait conflict. The majority of these discourses promote the creation of an
environment that favors military escalation, disregarding alternative approaches to
maintaining peace such as maintaining the “status quo” or seeking a negotiated agree-
ment between the involved parties for long-term peace. Certainly, the vast majority
of the discourses unraveling the lessons of Ukraine’s war for their application in
Taiwan have drawn the wrong conclusions: rather than searching for principles that
could prevent war, they concentrate solely on the strategies to emerge victorious in
it. As a result, the mindset of emboldening Taiwan’s rulers and citizens to confront
their powerful neighbor without fear could potentially undermine efforts to promote
peace and cooperation, weaken discursive approaches that frame war as undesirable,
widen the divide between the warring parties, and bring the possibility of a proxy
war closer to us.
For Taiwanese President Tsai, the lesson from the war in Ukraine is that the defense
of Taiwan “depends on the unity of the whole people” (“Taiwan’s Tsai”, 2022).
Based on the unity of the people, homogeneous thought, and nationalist dogma, this
is a position dangerously leading toward eliminating dissent and silencing internal
enemies. Pundits have claimed that Taiwan should not trust the CCP and, therefore,
should neither dialogue nor negotiate with the enemy, a strategy that leads diplomacy
to ostracism (Yu, 2022). Some claim that Taiwan must use its moral superiority as
a democracy to sell the image of oppressor/oppressed in order to turn international
opinion—and investment—towards cornering China (Madjar, 2022). This constitutes
a perilous Cold War paradigm that rests on the strategy of isolating the adversary and
forcing it to capitulate, without taking into account the potential last -resort reactions
of a beleaguered behemoth.
Moreover, some of those who draw on Ukraine as an example have also defended
that Taiwan has to give further steps to form part of anti-China military alliances such
as QUAD or NATO (Su & Hetherington, 2022), a step that ignores China’s legitimate
security concerns in the same way as NATO ignored the ones of Russia. Many voices
even advocate for the United States and its allies to deploy their military assets closer
to Taiwan, simultaneously abandoning the policy of “strategic ambiguity” to provide
unambiguous military support to the island in the event of a conflict (Cogan & Scott,
2022).
Others contend that Taiwan must buy more weapons of all kinds and reinstate the
one-year mandatory military service (Chang, 2022; Chu-ke, 2022). In the end, this
means engaging in an arms escalation and the progressive militarization of society.
For instance, Daniel Fu, in The Diplomat, regretted that “There are no programs
oriented toward Taiwan’s youth in high schools, for example, to prepare them for
conflict”, while insisting that from “Estonian and Latvian advisers, Taiwan can learn
how to better cultivate the civil defense capabilities of citizens from an early age”
(Fu, 2023). This author also advocated emulating the “Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union”,
which provides civilians with automatic weapons from the military and participates
in training exercises with the equivalent of Lithuania’s National Guard (Ibid.). The
proliferation of ultra-militaristic arguments endorsing the militarization of society
is increasingly prevalent in discourses pertaining to Taiwan, both domestically and
originating from abroad (see also Tso, 2022; Wu & Chin, 2023). They are accurately
exemplified by the proposal of former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien,
who stated that Taiwan should train one million AK47-armed citizens to deter a
Chinese invasion (Thomson, 2023). His ignorance of the situation in Taiwan is such
that he does not even know that these “freedom fighters” do not use the AK47, for
once.
Contrary to the desires of some of its advocates, these “lessons from Ukraine” do
not discourage war, but rather promote and hasten the advent of tensions, bringing
Taiwan ever closer to becoming the new country of sacrifice for the West. Fears that
China will soon invade Taiwan are exaggerated, often conflating capacity with intent,
ignoring that the real reason to be wary of war is the gradual departure from the status
quo towards a fully independent Taiwan. In such an event, regardless of Taiwan’s
level of armament or external support, China will not remain passive, and the CCP
has made its stance on this matter unequivocally clear. The purported strategy of
deterrence only serves to heighten the likelihood of a war, even if Taiwan will be
more prepared not to lose control of the island or, at least, to inflict more pain on the
enemy in the worst-case scenario. Therefore, to prevent war, the focus should not
be on increasing weapons sales or more official engagements between Taiwan and
countries that perceive China as their chief adversary.
Those who subscribe to the inescapable necessity of winning this “war for democ-
racy” are essentially emulating Ukraine’s trajectory but at an accelerated rate, in an
effort to prepare for a potential conflict while also inadvertently hastening the onset
of war, which may otherwise be avoidable and unnecessary. Those steps are invari-
ably conducive to improving Taiwan’s odds of winning that future war, but not to
preventing it. The lessons from Ukraine learned by this faction are those leading to
the warmongering path, but it is also possible to draw lessons toward peace. The
key to achieving this lies in averting the culture of enmity, the unrelenting construc-
tion of the “other” as the representative of infinite evil, thus denying its reasonable
interests and disregarding its concerns. Raising the debate through this discursive
lens builds an imaginary of light against darkness, as Ukrainian President Zelinsky
used to express, among many other occasions, in a speech in front of the European
Parliament, which leaves as the only viable option its unconditional surrender instead
of peace and coexistence (Boffey, 2022).
Analyzing a conflict under this romantic but dichotomous and simplistic narra-
tive of absolute good versus absolute evil can hardly contribute to comprehending
the complex reality in which these struggles are inserted. This is precisely what the
hegemonic language of power willingly seeks: to legitimize itself as the “universal
good” and reduce spaces for counter-hegemonic arguments. However, these polar-
izing practices cannot solve disagreements by means other than war, since they are
based on cornering the enemy and seeking its isolation and absolute surrender, its
humiliation. When the debate—even more so the academic one—begins corseted by

the tendentious slogan “democracies defending their sovereignty against ambitious
authoritarian neighbors” (“A roundtable”, 2022), it tends to disregard the histor-
ical factors and the possible legitimate and understandable reasons and fears of
the “other”, even if it is an authoritarian actor. For instance, the problem in the
Strait already existed, in identical terms, long before Taiwan could be considered a
democracy.
Most crucially, ignoring the anxieties of the “other” only because we have decided
that it does not belong to the flawless group of the “free world” can result in a
boomerang effect that brings consequences contrary to those desired. Insensitively
expanding NATO towards Russia, arguing that it was the sovereign right of those
countries to choose their adherence, was done at the expense of Russia’s right to its
own security. It may sound insensitive to deny Ukraine the right to join NATO, but
rejecting its entry could have had exactly the desired effect: to prevent a war and
preserve security. Having the right to do something does not mean having the obli-
gation to do it when it might have dreadful consequences. Similarly, those defending
Taiwanese independence because it is the right of its people despite any reasonable
argument China might have against it, do so without regard for the consequences.
When considering the viewpoints of actors such as Russia or China, we must recog-
nize that understanding others can be both a difficult and uncomfortable endeavor,
particularly when they are perceived as enemies. But to address a conflict, let alone
resolve it, we must take into account the arguments of the different camps without
prejudices and engage in an open and honest dialogue. Alternatively, if we deny the
possibility of rationality to the enemy and restrict the domain of “truth” exclusively
to our bloc, we render the conflict harshly antagonistic and hence impossible to settle
peacefully.
The conflict in Ukraine turned into a disastrous war that was clearly foreseeable
and avoidable if the conflict had not been framed in fanatical terms of good vis-à-vis
evil (Matlock, 2022). In this vein, we can clearly see the responsibilities of Western
hegemony in this conflict: first, consciously overstepping the red lines of competing
powers, not offering direct support to defend the “country of sacrifice” afterward,
and, lastly, promoting the prolongation of the war to eliminate the systemic enemy
without having to dirty their boots with mud or their hands with blood. What lessons
are we going to draw from this war so that it does not repeat itself in Taiwan?
The conflict in Ukraine has dragged on for Russia much longer and more grueling
than Putin and the Russian military planned and wished, but it also threatens to stag-
nate and last much longer than Europeans would like and Ukrainian citizens deserve.
However, for the United States and the United Kingdom in particular, separated from
the continent by bodies of water, there appears to be more interest in keeping the war
going than in stopping it. The proxy war in Ukraine—and why not in Taiwan in the
future—seems for these countries like a last chance to hold on to world hegemony
for a while longer. The military escalation through the delivery of evermore deadly
weapons to Ukraine and the detrimental verbal escalation against Putin and Russia,
all raise suspicions of an interest in maintaining the war rather than encouraging a
peace agreement.
Following this disproportionate warmongering support from the West, Ukrainian

President Zelensky has gone from admitting in March that Ukraine would have to
give up NATO aspirations and adopt a neutral stance to preserve its sovereignty and
achieve peace (Koshiw & Boffey, 2022; “Ukraine has”, 2022), to unambiguously
claiming that “[b]esides victory, the Ukrainian people will not accept any outcome”
(Miller, 2022). Western support and instructions not to make any concession to
Putin have drifted the conflict from a discussion about adopting the Austrian or the
Finish model for Ukraine, which became widespread in May, to a debate about how
Ukraine will end up utterly destroying the enemy and recovering its lost territory in
full, including Crimea. And we all know this is something Russia would never allow.
In a video recorded at the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv to celebrate the Orthodox
Easter, Zelensky showed that there is no longer any desire to stop the war, but just to
keep it going in fanatical terms: “Today’s great holiday gives us hope and we believe
that the light will win over darkness, good will win over evil, life will win over death.
Therefore, Ukraine will inevitably win. We ask God for the grace to give us peace
and prosperity”.
It becomes clear that the antagonistic discursive strategy promoted by the West
goes beyond mere rhetoric and has real performative effects on the ground. Certain
Western countries benefit from and depend on war to maintain their status as hege-
mons, so it makes sense to an extent why they increase tensions abroad. However,
it makes less sense when it is the people from the “countries of sacrifice” such as
Ukraine and Taiwan who follow these strategies to first crystallize a cold war and then
transform it into a hot one. Similar to the “strategic ambiguity” approach towards
Taiwan, the United States and NATO’s relationship with Ukraine involves flirting
with the country without making any explicit commitment to its direct defense. This
allows them to reap the rewards of any potential conflict without actually facing
the consequences, as they are insulated within their secure bubbles. The ones dying
are Ukrainians and the destroyed country is not theirs. Nonetheless, it is the arms
industry of Western countries that continues to profit with the increase in defense
budgets; it is its companies that will benefit from the reconstruction of a devastated
infrastructure and industry. The European Union breaks ties with Russia and becomes
more dependent on the Anglo-Saxon countries, for example in matters of energy and
defense; and the massively indebted proxy will be absolutely dependent on the West
and therefore forced to obey the master for decades after the war ends.
The rhetoric of the unfathomable enemy has as one of its main effects that we deny
the adversary what we demand for our camp. Ukraine feared Russia for the same
understandable reasons Russia feared NATO. Translating this to East Asia, Taiwan’s
fear of China acting against its de facto sovereignty is the same fear that China feels
in the face of the United States, AUKUS and QUAD trying to limit China’s rise and
prevent its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, facilitating its independence. We could
debate which of these political arguments has more moral or legal merit but, from
a peace-seeking perspective, we cannot merely reject the logic of the “other” just
because it does not coincide with our partisan interests. Bringing to the fore a recent
example that makes this dynamic even more visible, we can understand the fears of
China and Russia in the face of Western coercion by the reaction that Australia and
the United States had after the defense agreement signed by China and the Solomon
Islands.
When the news came to light, Australia’s minister for home affairs defined it
as “really concerning” because of the possibility that China could base warships in
Australia’s vicinity: “that is our back yard, that is our neighborhood”, she claimed
(“Really concerning”, 2022). Later on, the Australian prime minister defined the
possible establishment of a Chinese naval base in the Solomon Islands as a “red line”
that would not be accepted: “we won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in
our region on our doorstep”, he told reporters (Hurst, 2022). This threatening stance
was endorsed by the Australian defense minister, who declared that “Australia should
prepare for war” to stop a China that was “on a very deliberate course at the moment”
(Lyons, 2022). Similarly, President Biden said his country would “respond accord-
ingly” if China was allowed to establish a long-term presence on the islands (Ibid.).
And the most senior US official in the Pacific, part of a high-level US delegation
sent to the Solomon Islands to deal with this issue, refused to rule out military action
against the Pacific island if it were to allow China to establish a military base there,
due to “potential regional security implications” for the United States and its allies
(Ibid.).
All this even though the Solomon Islands government has always denied the
possibility of China building a military base on its territory and the assurances that
the security deal, similar to the one the island already had with Australia, only allows
China to send police and armed forces on the islands’ request, while Chinese vessels
can stop only to replenish supplies. If these tensions and threats to the supposed
national security of Australia and the United States come from a fully sovereign island
located thousands of kilometers from their territories, how can they not understand
that Russia and China have the same “red lines” against the military agreements of
their adversaries in Ukraine and Taiwan? Only the dehumanization of the enemy
prevents the empathy necessary to avoid these evident double standards.
This loss of ability to understand the perspective of the “other” is even more
flagrant in the contested case of Taiwan, which only enjoys a de facto sovereignty
but not de jure as Solomon Islands. Put differently, the sovereign Solomon Islands
had the right to choose its own military alliances without any input from Australia
or the United States. However, the situation is more complex with Taiwan, as its
status remains unsettled and disputed under international law due to the controversial
decisions taken by the Allied powers in the Treaty of San Francisco, which is the
source of the problems Taiwan and China experience today.
Even so, Taiwan has followed suit with its allies in the derision of the enemy in
this case. According to Joanne Ou, the spokeswoman for the Taiwanese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, the deal between China and Solomon Islands “undermines the
‘status quo’ and the supply lines of democratic allies” in the region, and would have a
direct impact on Taiwan’s security “by allowing China to bypass the first island chain,
and disrupt vital shipping and supply lines to Taiwan” (Strong, 2022). An editorial in
the Taipei Times directly defined this development as “The China-Solomons security
threat” (“The China-Solomons”, 2022). Most shockingly, Joanne Ou went as far as to
suggest that the Solomon Islands should not let itself be “treated as a pawn”, without
questioning the parallelisms between the deals of China in the Solomon Islands and
those of the West in her own country (Strong, 2022).
Refusing to acknowledge an adversary’s red lines while pursuing similar self-
interests under military threat is not only unethical but also deadly dangerous. The
privilege enjoyed by the “Global North” in the international arena generates an enti-
tlement to demand that China behaves as a subordinate country that cannot replicate
Western ways. Do what I say, not what I do, the West seems to demand from a
position of moral and military superiority. The progressive breakdown of the status
quo in Taiwan through increased diplomatic and military collaboration, as well as
the development of Taiwan into a military protectorate (or a pawn, as Ms. Ou would
put it) in the anti-China “first island chain” seeking to maintain US hegemony in the
Pacific, has a greater impact on China’s national security than the establishment of a
Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would have on Australia or the United
States. Surprisingly, while NATO requested that “China must not provide economic
or military support for the Russian invasion” and should instead “use its significant
influence on Russia and promote an immediate peaceful resolution” (Feng, 2022),
the state members of NATO apply the opposite logic to Taiwan: facilitating a military
escalation and hindering a peaceful resolution of the Strait conflict by supporting the
gradual dismantling of the status quo.
The prevailing militaristic worldview installed in Taiwan by means of the influence
of the United States and its allies has become a simplistic and unrealistic one, uniquely
based on whether China will succeed or fail in a purported invasion attempt and
highlighting the will of the Taiwanese to defend the island to the end. The real
consequences of that war are unequivocally concealed: nothing is mentioned about
the thousands of Taiwanese who would lose their lives; the level of destruction that
Taiwan would undertake, with people losing their savings and homes; the suffering
of all those who had to exile for good and those who had to remain on the island
because they did not have the chance to become refugees abroad (for Ukrainians it
was relatively easy to escape, for many Taiwanese it would be a chimera). The key
question is not which side would win the war and end up controlling the ruins and
cemeteries in Taiwan, but how to avoid it altogether. What is more, as was seen in the
case of Ukraine, the invasion does not have to take place for it to cause serious results
to the threatened region: the simple increase in tensions and risk of war would cause
third countries to withdraw their citizens from the island and the companies to stop
investing and contracting with Taiwanese companies. The economic aversion of “the
markets” to the risk of war is the reason why, weeks before the invasion began, the
Ukrainian government protested against the exaggerations of Western governments
“scaring off investors and adding to a sense of panic that will push the struggling
Ukrainian economy to breaking point” (Walker, 2022).
Paradoxically, in Taiwan the situation is the opposite: it is its government and its
media apparatus that gladly exaggerates the risks of war and promotes the notion
that Taiwan is a place in imminent danger and its people are ready for war. Thus, the
main English-language newspaper on the island, distributed among the university
dormitories to be read by foreign residents, proclaims in a large front-page headline
that the “Majority would go to war for Taiwan” (Chung, 2022). This and other
media co-construct a pre-war imaginary reproducing the mottos promulgated from

the militarist lobbies of the United States: “[the] West should ensure Taiwan can
defend itself” (“West should”, 2022). Do not fear war, embrace it, get ready for
it, said an article recently promoting the militarization of Taiwanese society: “We
can handle different kinds of disasters. War is a man-made crisis or disaster, but
it’s something we can handle. You shouldn’t be that worried about it, you should
be prepared, but then you don’t have to worry too much”, claim these celebrated
paramilitary advocates of war over peace in Taiwan (Hale, 2022).
The problem is the questions asked and the needs stated. The question should not
be: are you ready to defend Taiwan during the war? It should be: Would you prefer
to negotiate a peaceful arrangement with China or instead go to war? The needs
claimed should not be for the West to provide ever more weapons so Taiwan gets
ready for war, but for the West to support and facilitate a definite peace settlement
for the extended Chinese Civil War—the problem being that it is not in the interest of
the Global North to allow for the reunification of China and Taiwan. The hegemonic
discourse in Taiwan and its allies, with these sorts of questions, with these sorts of
proposals, creates a political imaginary shaped by dangerous romantic notions of
war and the nation that only makes it more likely in the near future.
The “porcupine” strategy defended as the best approach to avoid a Chinese inva-
sion has to be understood as a last resort option, not as the preferred one and as a
victory a priori. Those who believe in the “fortress Taiwan” strategy as a religion
that could invariably cause the defeat of China, emboldening the population and
increasing the chances of crossing the well-known “red lines”, do not understand
that China does not need to invade the island to cause immense suffering. If we listen
to the lessons from Ukraine, a prolonged cold war limited to political tensions would
vastly damage Taiwan’s economy without affecting China that much, since sanc-
tions might not arrive at that early pre-war stage. In fact, as the United States does
with Cuba, it is China the one that could impose severe economic sanctions against
Taiwan and Taiwanese companies on the mainland. Moreover, learning again from
the Ukrainian case, over half of the world’s population resides in countries that have
chosen not to join the sanctions against Russia or disagree with the UN’s condem-
nation after the invasion of Ukraine. In the case of Taiwan, it would be even more
so, since most countries do not recognize Taiwan as a country, including the United
Nations.
China has several options at its disposal before resorting to a military invasion,
such as a naval blockade or a missile barrage from the distance. Some of the pundits
who only learn militaristic lessons from Ukraine commonly overemphasize how
much more difficult it is to invade Taiwan as an island compared to Ukraine’s
geostrategic position (“Taiwan is”, 2022). They often miss an even more relevant
consequence of this geographical particularity: providing material support to Taiwan
during a war would be infinitely more complex and dangerous than it was to Ukraine,
with the airspace over the island closed and maritime transport limited due to the high
risk of sailing close to the island. Taiwan could be largely isolated for the duration
of the tensions even if the Chinese army does not attempt a physical invasion. This
would bring tragedies like the ones seen in many besieged Ukrainian cities, with
power shortages, scarcity of food and water after the destruction of infrastructure
and lack of resources.
What would a Taiwan overflowing with weaponry do in this situation? Attack
Chinese ships before China attacks Taiwan? Respond with missile strikes on Chinese
soil and risk nuclear retaliation? Those who place all their faith in the “porcupine”
strategy should first think beyond military strategies and consider the consequences
of the warmongering escalation for the people who live in Taiwan. What if more
weapons for Taiwan and more sanctions against China only hamper the chances of
eventually achieving long-lasting peace? Taiwan, same as Ukraine, has the right to
defend itself, but encouraging and normalizing the idea of war as if it was a heroic
story, without mentioning its risks and implications, is decidedly irresponsible. To
begin with, the danger that it will perpetuate itself or will spread beyond East Asia,
even becoming nuclear, is significant. Moreover, Russia and Ukraine, same as China
and Taiwan, will remain neighbors no matter the outcome, so for Taiwan winning a
first assault would never be a definitive solution.
Those who intend to protect Taiwanese democracy through a primarily militaristic
approach should reconsider their tactics. Instead of relying solely on purchasing and
taking up arms, they should contemplate how the island of Taiwan and its citizens
can be spared the progressive militarization of daily life and the hardships of war.
Democracy inevitably suffers, if not directly dies, during times of war. There are no
saints in war, as it brings decay to all sides involved. One abuse at a time, demo-
cratic rights and freedoms slowly dissolve at times of war. In 2021, President Tsai
promised, wearing full military attire, to do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan
(Everington, 2021). Tracing parallels with Ukraine, among the options commonly
available in case of war are the suspension of liberal democracy and the return
to martial law; the persecution of all those suspected of being fifth columnists or
“traitors” in favor of dialogue with the enemy, puppets of the “united front”; the
differentiation between “authentic” Taiwanese and the “suspected” supporters of
political parties that allegedly side with the enemy, the internal enemy; a complete
militarization of society; a wave of refugees fleeing the island as tensions threaten
to flare, although men might be barred from leaving causing further suffering by
separating families. The strategies that invariably lead to the destruction of Taiwan
and its society in order to save Taiwan do not make any sense.
For many within the warmongering camp in Taiwan and beyond, talking about
these issues is seen as treasonous or defeatist, instead of genuine and realistic concern
for Taiwan and peace. How the problem is perceived defines what options are offered
to solve it and determines the future that awaits us. The constant demonization
of China and the repeated warmongering approach to the problem facilitate the
conditions for war to be unconsciously accepted as the unavoidable—even desir-
able—outcome. The mere idea of engaging in negotiation and reconciliation with
the indomitable enemy is often dismissed as pointless, suspected of hiding spurious
interests, or reproached as an act of weakness.
Taiwanese society needs more plural voices and better information about the
consequences of these fanatical practices, and should avoid the short-sightedness
shown by the West and Ukraine during the last decade. The Taiwan Strait conflict
References 189
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conflict in Ukraine.
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Culture of Enmity: The Discursive Struggle For Taiwan in The Making of The New Cold War

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Culture of Enmity: The Discursive Struggle For Taiwan in The Making of The New Cold War

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Alain Brossat

Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado

Culture of Enmity: The

ISBN 978-981-99-4216-9 ISBN 978-981-99-4217-6 (eBook)

As any book, it is a collective effort supported by multiple individuals and institutions,

Part I Resisting the Culture of Enmity

Part II A War of Words: The Construction of the Anti-China

Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund Fellow at Ca’

“Gibraltar of Asia” analogy portrays Taiwan as aggressive and militaristic against

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

Even though Klemperer’s analysis, being based on immediate observation, seems

LTI is humbly named by its author “a philologist’s notebook”, while it is actually in

2 See in Wikipedia de article on the Affiche Rouge. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiche_rouge.

as cited in Klemperer (1996, p. 220).

The expression “culture of enmity” is ambiguous—so I should begin by clarifying

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

have become incongruous, unfortunate, from another time. The characteristic of a

understood as a machine, a mechanism intended to put “the other” in his place as a

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

and convictions of the protagonists (Churchill, viscerally anti-Communist and anti-

formation of composite oligarchies that monopolized economic and political power

9 Minimum salary: 24,000 Taiwan dollars, or approximately 745 euros.

“Rogue State”: The Adventures of a Rotten Concept

The articulation of China as the “enemy” by the Trump administration greatly

This Chapter was contributed by Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado.

At a UN session in September, Donald Trump accused China in this vein: “they

the propagation of accusations against China as true regardless of evidence, whereas

certain governments to refrain from attributing blame to China as a convenient scape-

Sinophobia, the Result of a Dehumanizing Anti-China

Stern, G. (2020, September 22). Twitter. https://twitter.com/gabbystern/status/130841511147278

A Discourse Analysis of the “Genocide” Narrative

Given Pompeo’s fervent anti-China stance, it would have been reasonable to

A lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of

by the suspicious Washington-based Jamestown Foundation, went one step further

Of course, the “voluntary” disposition—as the CCP claims—of Uyghur women to

the effective imposition of sanctions against Xinjiang-related trade or the pressure on

to varying degrees but distinctly “under influence”, that is to say, overdetermined by

undertaken by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang is on the ground, we do not know.

Genocide as Field of Maneuver

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

Today, the storytelling of global democracy affects quieter tones, so sure is it of

of having slapped his wife during an altercation.

it—here, the word “empire”.

On the cultural side, it will be a question of seizing the opportunity of well-

Comics, Gaming (“The soft”, 2023).

Gitaï, A. (Director). (2019). A tramway in Jerusalem.

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

of a principle of international law. Conceived as a dynamic, concrete notion, directly

become obsessive as they become globalized—leading the United States to project

progress of civilization and, in particular, the rejection of the “right of conquest”—

The question of sovereignty is at the heart of classical political philosophy in Western

This Chapter was contributed by Alain Brossat.

whether mainland China, as sovereignty and power, is justified or not in claiming

discouraging outside interference …. Let the fragile balances—or what remains of

The Aggressive Chinese Raids Over Taiwan

This Chapter was contributed by Juan Alberto Ruiz Casado.

In addition, experts indicated an especially significant legal quarrel, “that if China

Censorship to Save Freedom and Disinformation About

editor of Thinking Taiwan, a site sponsored by a foundation created by the Taiwanese