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What if I told you that your reading ability — coupled with your critical thinking and sense of decency — is critically important as we are being pushed into what may well end up being the Third World War?
It’s a big responsibility, isn’t it? You don’t have to accept the challenge, but if you do, read on.
Okay. Try this short paragraph:
The Australian Government recognises the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, acknowledges the position of the Chinese Government that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China, and has decided to remove its official representation from Taiwan before 25 January 1973.
It comes from an important – historical even – official document (find it here). With it the PRC and Australia initiated diplomatic relations. It has a long title. For short, however, we’ll call it the Communiqué, and it was signed in December 1972.
Read at least that paragraph, but read it carefully, taking your time. There’s no rush. The vocabulary is accessible, but don’t be cocky. Just to make sure, you may want to consult a dictionary or a thesaurus.
I don’t mean to sound patronising, but that is particularly advisable if your native language is not English (many of my readers could be in that category, which is quite convenient). Just in case, you may want to give Google Translate or other translators a go. I can’t vouch for their accuracy in general, but I write and read Spanish and Portuguese competently and I vouch for the accuracy of the Google translation to those two languages (I appended both): they are not perfect, but are still remarkably accurate. They may prove valuable to you.
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If you feel confident, we can proceed. Two questions will help us approach this. First and critical question: do you think what I present below is a faithful or even reasonable interpretation of that paragraph?
Do you see the words in red? They are not found in the original paragraph. I added them to the original wording. It was the only change I made to the original text.
Let me ask you again: is that paragraph, with my addition, a faithful or even reasonable interpretation of the original text?
That’s an unexpectedly crucial question. It demands a yes or no answer. But you don’t need to tell me what your answer is. It’s enough for you to know it. Your answer is the equivalent to choosing one of Morpheus’ pills. I can’t choose for you. I can only pray you choose the right answer.
So, before moving on, answer that question to yourself, as honestly and dispassionately as you can.
Whatever your answer, that wasn’t a merely theoretical question.
The official argument of the Australian Government is that the PRC may have signed the first version of the Communiqué, they may even think Australia recognised Taiwan as a province of China, but the real meaning of the Communiqué is something like my version, with my addition (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says so here).
That’s the same position of the ABC’s Stephen Dziedzic and Bill Birtles, btw.
Is this argument that the Australian Government relies on to reserve the right to intervene in an armed conflict between the PRC and Taiwan. If Taiwan is a province of the PRC – as PRC representatives maintain – an Australian intervention would amount to interference in the PRC’s domestic affairs. If Taiwan is not a province of the PRC – as the Australian Government maintains – then the door for an Australian intervention remains open. Australians call this “strategic ambiguity”.
The argument — Dziedzic, for instance, explains — hinges on an alleged difference between “recognises” and “acknowledges” (my underlined):
Assuming that’s precisely how the Australian Government of the time reasoned, what do you think of their honesty? (Yes, you guessed it: that is the second question).
The Australian Government recognises the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, acknowledges the position of the Chinese Government that Taiwan is a province of the People's Republic of China but the Australian Government neither accepts nor rejects the claim that Taiwan is a province of the PRC, and has decided to remove its official representation from Taiwan before 25 January 1973.
Do you see the words in red? They are not found in the original paragraph. I added them to the original wording. It was the only change I made to the original text.
Let me ask you again: is that paragraph, with my addition, a faithful or even reasonable interpretation of the original text?
That’s an unexpectedly crucial question. It demands a yes or no answer. But you don’t need to tell me what your answer is. It’s enough for you to know it. Your answer is the equivalent to choosing one of Morpheus’ pills. I can’t choose for you. I can only pray you choose the right answer.
So, before moving on, answer that question to yourself, as honestly and dispassionately as you can.
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The official argument of the Australian Government is that the PRC may have signed the first version of the Communiqué, they may even think Australia recognised Taiwan as a province of China, but the real meaning of the Communiqué is something like my version, with my addition (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says so here).
That’s the same position of the ABC’s Stephen Dziedzic and Bill Birtles, btw.
Is this argument that the Australian Government relies on to reserve the right to intervene in an armed conflict between the PRC and Taiwan. If Taiwan is a province of the PRC – as PRC representatives maintain – an Australian intervention would amount to interference in the PRC’s domestic affairs. If Taiwan is not a province of the PRC – as the Australian Government maintains – then the door for an Australian intervention remains open. Australians call this “strategic ambiguity”.
The argument — Dziedzic, for instance, explains — hinges on an alleged difference between “recognises” and “acknowledges” (my underlined):
Australia has a policy that "recognises" the PRC as the sole legal government of China but only "acknowledges" the Chinese Government's position that Taiwan is a province of the PRC. This ambiguity was built in quite deliberately to make it easier for Australia to maintain unofficial ties with Taiwan, giving the federal government more room to manoeuvre on cross-Strait issues.In other words — according to Dziedzic — although my red addendum was not explicit in the text, one must read it in, because it is implicit.
Assuming that’s precisely how the Australian Government of the time reasoned, what do you think of their honesty? (Yes, you guessed it: that is the second question).
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- I would love to know if there is a Mandarin version of the Communiqué, if the PRC has it, and what it says.
- If am not mistaken, Taiwan recognises that China and Taiwan are a single country. In that, their view is exactly the same as that in the PRC. The difference, I think, is that in Taiwan they claim to be the legitimate Government of China.
Google Spanish translation:
El Gobierno de Australia reconoce al Gobierno de la República Popular China como el único Gobierno legal de China, reconoce la posición del Gobierno chino de que Taiwán es una provincia de la República Popular China y ha decidido retirar su representación oficial de Taiwán antes del 25 de enero de 1973.
Google Portuguese translation:
O governo australiano reconhece o governo da República Popular da China como o único governo legal da China, reconhece a posição do governo chinês de que Taiwan é uma província da República Popular da China e decidiu remover sua representação oficial de Taiwan antes do 25 de janeiro de 1973.
In both Spanish and Portuguese the only flaw is “del” and “do” (underlined above, but missing in the translations): both of them the conjunction of a preposition and a definite singular masculine article: “de” and “el” in the Spanish translation and “de” and “o” in the Portuguese. In both languages the grammatically correct form is something like “official representation of Taiwan before of the 25 January 1973”. Otherwise, the translation is impeccable. And in them, much more to the point, there is no difference whatsoever between “recognise” and “acknowledge”. Both English words are translated with one word: “Reconoce” and “reconhece” (both the immediate equivalent to “recognise”). Portuguese and Spanish speakers should have difficulty buying into the Australian argument.
Image Credits:
[A] “Red and blue pill as in the Matrix”. Author: W.carter. Source: Wikimedia. File licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Nobody endorses me or my usage of the file.
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