The Fighting Spirit

Roger Berkowitz

Ian Buruma reminds us that world wars can start in peripheral places. Buruma, like many today, worry that the next major war may well begin in Taiwan. Reviewing a series of books about how to defend a democratic Taiwan, Buruma shows that Taiwan’s would-be boosters are calling not just for missiles and drones, but the emergence of a militaristic and warrior culture.  Amidst the calls for a resurgence of the fighting spirit, Buruma reminds us of the nuance and complexity of history. He writes:

One can agree that Taiwan deserves to be defended against military aggression, but what’s missing in all this talk of missiles, drones, and the fighting spirit is any sense of politics or history. References to the past in “The Boiling Moat” are only of the crudest kind: Xi Jinping is compared to Hitler; the People’s Liberation Army is called “China’s Wehrmacht”; and the inevitable example of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, in 1938, is invoked as a warning against complacency.

Politics, too, is reduced to sloganeering about defending democracy in “counter-authoritarian partnerships.” In the concluding chapter, the book’s two European contributors write, “You cannot declare yourself neutral when it comes to the front line of freedom—in Donbass or in the Taiwan strait.” These are fine fighting words, echoing a statement by the former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen: “The rallying cry for all democracies must be one for all, and all for one.”

She can be heard uttering these words in “Invisible Nation,” a documentary by Vanessa Hope, which presents an uncomplicated case for defending Taiwan’s democracy. The film offers a short history, pitting the admirable Taiwanese (and Americans) against the menacing Chinese. This take isn’t exactly wrong, but “Invisible Nation” has the air of a campaign movie for the independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party, now in power in Taiwan.

History, of course, is never uncomplicated. A concern for democracy and freedom was not always the reason for defending Taiwan. President Eisenhower went to the brink of nuclear war with China in 1954, after Mao attacked Quemoy (Kinmen) and Matsu, two minuscule islands off the mainland which formally belonged to the Republic of China, when it was under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s brutal military dictatorship.