A Slap in the Face: Anger, Fragility and Identity Politics in Taiwan

Last week news broke that retired entertainer Lisa Cheng Hui-chung slapped Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun without provocation at a year-end banquet attended by “veteran entertainers”.

Although Ms. Cheng apologized to the Minister, she also said she “had to do it” and had “wanted to slap her twice.” Lisa Cheng cited Minister Cheng’s views on the future of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and her anger towards the DPP’s overall policy of transitional justice as the reasons that incited her action, calling the latter “transitional injustice.” As public opinion swiftly condemned her actions, she chose to hide from the public, despite the entire incident being documented on film.

Ms. Cheng’s defensive rhetoric in the wake of the incident, which did not quite square with her apology, raises several questions as to the source of anger so deep that it moved her to slap a high-level government official in the face. There may be an answer in the social discourse of the West: fragility.

Not about the facts

In her apology, Cheng “deeply apologized” for her action, but added that “it doesn’t mean the Minister’s actions are right,” as the Minister wants to “demolish Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall” (“我真心道歉，但不代表部長做的（事）是對的，要去拆中正紀念堂”). This is simply untrue: Minister Cheng has called for the site to be “repurposed” but has expressed neither a personal desire nor an intention to direct the government to “demolish” it.

Even kinder interpretations of Cheng’s fulmination, describing it as anger over attempts to ‘discredit’ the Chiang family or ‘eradicate’ the Chiangs from history, belie her loose understanding of historical fact. Minister Cheng isn’t the one giving Chiang Kai-shek a bad name; relevant documents attesting to Chiang’s knowledge of the 228 Massacre, collective memory of the horrors of the White Terror under him and the simple truth that he was a dictator of an oppressive authoritarian government lay out the facts for all to see. Nor is she attempting to erase Chiang from history, as he will surely continue to be discussed in books, schools, academia and society. Minister Cheng has said explicitly that her intentions are not to remove vestiges of Chiang, but of authoritarianism. Ms. Cheng is just as wrong about Chiang’s “contributions to the nation,” many of which have been disputed.

But Lisa Cheng’s vitriol isn’t about easily-verified historical and contemporary facts. Those who venerate Chiang as a hero and view the authoritarian period with nostalgia do so not because of an intellectually honest assessment of the evidence. They do so out of a deeper instinct to protect their identity, which they have taken for granted as the default for themselves and for Taiwan: as the rightful, ‘superior’ leaders of a Mandarin-speaking, Chinese country where all citizens ought to aspire to be more like them. In this mindset, there is no room to consider that most Taiwanese have never identified this way, and that this ‘default’ identity was in fact forced on them both socially and politically by the KMT. In recent decades, as Taiwanese society has pushed for greater equality and more clearly defined itself in terms of Taiwanese, not Chinese, cultural heritage, people like Ms. Cheng perceive this change as a threat to their status, and therefore their identity.

When that identity and the “superior” status of one’s social demographic is threatened, they lash out as though they, personally, are being attacked. When the old propagandistic interpretations of history that maintained this illusion of superiority vanish–that Chiang was a great leader, that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was right to follow him and that they are the rightful, civilized Chinese rulers of Taiwan–they grow angry. It’s a direct hit at the fundamentals of who they think they are, and what they believe they are entitled to.

Taiwanese, or not?

In a perfect world, anyone born in Taiwan or who makes this country their permanent home is simply Taiwanese. Lisa Cheng’s slap, however, showed proved that other identities often supersede this utopian view. It should not matter where Cheng’s family originally came from. But she and a handful of people hold on to an older worldview, that Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist regime who came to Taiwan from 1945 to 1949 (often termed waishengren, although the word is somewhat problematic) brought proper Chinese culture to Taiwan and almost everyone in Taiwan is, or should be, more Chinese – that is, more like them. This was the “mainstream” view of Taiwan that the KMT attempted to normalize through their control of the media, education, government and public sphere.

It hardly matters whether Cheng’s family was in the KMT elite, or were influential in the time of Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang himself doesn’t even really matter. As the leader that the Nationalists followed to Taiwan, he’s a stand-in, a symbol, of identity. This is not a clash of individuals, but of identities and group belonging: since democratization, people like Cheng have been watching the slow erosion of their “mainstream” social status in favor of a more egalitarian society in which members of their group might not come out on top so reliably. To someone previously on the bottom–victims of the White Terror and their relatives, Hoklo, Hakka and Indigenous Taiwanese who were not allowed to speak their native languages in school or government, and might invite suspicion on themselves and their families if they spoke them too freely in public, those who were shut out of career opportunities because they did not speak “proper” Mandarin–this looks like justice. And it is.

To those previously on top, however, the switch from superiority to equality is a downgrade, and as such, it may feel like oppression. When one’s status is threatened in that most fundamental way, it’s instinctive to try to defend the status quo, which may lead to lashing out with violence, as Cheng did. In her case, with a slap. More broadly, as its privileged place in society collapses, the KMT as a whole has been lashing out at opposition forces, insisting that the quest for equality equates to a ‘Green Terror’, which somehow ought to be considered more seriously than the actual, proven White Terror they themselves inflicted.

Identity politics in the United States

A parallel phenomenon can be seen in the United States when racial equality is discussed. When they expect deferment but receive pushback, certain white Americans grow defensive, angry or even violent. When whiteness is no longer upheld as the standard or default, some see it as “their culture” (because they think that they are the American cultural default) being eradicated. Similar trends exist in the UK, Australia and beyond.

Such fragility also taints discussions of gender equality, as attempts to create a more egalitarian world for people of all genders have caused some men to feel “persecuted as a class.” To these particular men, past eras when they were predominantly in power are the default: either they take male ‘superiority’ for granted to such an extent that they are not even consciously aware that they believe in it and grow defensive and angry when the possibility is raised that they do, or they overtly believe in their own superiority and think the rest of the world has gone mad for disagreeing.

Of course, none of these groups are threatened or oppressed. In Western countries, white people are still in the majority, and most business and political leaders in those countries are still white. These leaders are also by and large male, and men have more access to money, work (including wages) and power. And, in Taiwan, the waishengren may be losing their privileged status, but they are hardly being erased: the political party that brought them here won a stunning victory in recent elections. That party is also referenced in the national anthem, and its symbol persists on the flag of the Republic of China in Taiwan.

All of this anger and defensiveness resulting from real (albeit just) loss of status, and perceived (yet mythical) oppression has a name: fragility. “White fragility” is a term coined by academic Robin DiAngelo, but male fragility and straight fragility also exist in the Western cultural lexicon.

Fragility

In Taiwan, one might call it “waishengren fragility”; a concept that shouldn’t have to exist, but apparently does. Cheng knows, on some level, the reason why others see as righting historical wrongs what she perceives as oppression. She is insecure about her and her group’s place in this new, more egalitarian Taiwan. She knows the days of her entitlement are over, but cannot let go. After all, she felt entitled to slap the sitting Minister of Culture. She felt it was a privilege accorded her, on account of the perceived status of her group.

Ms. Cheng did not face the Minister with the calm, full-bodied confidence of knowing that she was in the right. Insecurity leads to violence; the true conviction of one’s beliefs generally does not. (Notably, both President Tsai Ing-wen and Minister Cheng reacted calmly and with magnanimity). Her act of violence, however minor, came from a place of fear. She tried to project an image of strength through righteous indignation, but instead revealed her fragility.

Lisa Cheng wasn’t legitimately angry about the treatment of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the “eradication” of Chiang from history or the “discrediting” of his entire rule of Taiwan, because none of these are actually true. She does not have an equally valid stance as the facts don’t support her worldview, although President Tsai was generous to interpret it this way. She was angry and lashed out because the greater equality of modern Taiwan doesn’t match the view of Taiwan she was taught to have, with her identity tied to her group’s place at the top of the social hierarchy.

In a free society such as Taiwan’s, there can be no such thing as a thought crime: Cheng has the right to any opinion she pleases. What she doesn’t have is the right to insist that her opinion is factually accurate, or to force an outdated social hierarchy on Taiwan that was never just, simply because it benefited her and those like her.