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Susan Quinn's post about the Little League World Series is an example of a point I've occasionally made here on Ricochet: It's hard for loss of freedom in another country not to diminish our own freedom. I doubt that a single person on Ricochet has agreed with me, partly because it isn't self-explanatory. But here's an example.
In the comments of Susan's post I posted a link to Matt Antonelli's take on the game, in which he started out by saying it's a game of Chinese Taipei against Florida. When I first heard that and heard "Taipei," I immediately translated it: "Oh, yeah. Taiwan!"
China puts a lot of pressure on the West to not refer to Taiwan as a separate country, even though we know it is. But China makes it hard for others to do business with China without adopting some of their restrictions on speech. Since 1979 our athletic organizations have been placating China by not saying "Taiwan."
Some hardline isolationists among us might say the solution to that is simple. We should have no relations with China in sports or anything else. But that means having no trade with China or with countries that do business with China, once all of those other countries adopt China's hardline policy on not saying "Taiwan." Some isolationists might say that's the way it should be. But our country has always had trade relations with other countries. We fought a war to become independent in good part because we wanted no British restrictions on our foreign trade. America became great and mighty by having trade relations with other countries. We can't become great again in any sense of the word by becoming isolated.
When other countries become less free, there are always accommodations we have to make to cooperate with their lack of freedom. Those acts of cooperation may not be all that onerous, but they tend to become habit-forming. We may not object too strongly the first time, because it's "not the hill to die on." Soon we don't even think about how we moderate our language and become a little less free when others become less free.
It may not just be restrictions on speech. We may also cooperate in sending asylum-seekers back to the lands of the unfree. There will be those among us who say, "Well, when in other countries we have to obey their laws." Sometimes we end up obeying their laws even in our own country, and doing it all too easily.
Sometimes we just have to be practical. It can't always be helped. Should we go to war over it? It's hard to imagine how that could be justified. But a real insult to our own freedom is when we pretend that the loss of freedom elsewhere does not diminish our own.
In this case of the Little League World Series, the ESPN announcers didn't always follow the rules. A couple of the announcers said the forbidden word, "Taiwan," as explained in this article: China Probably Wants A Word With ESPN/Disney After Little League World Series. One of them may have done it intentionally.
ESPN does a lot of business with China. Wanna place any bets on whether it happens again?
Discussion (83)
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I'm even worse. I always immediately say, "Formosa!" :) :)
Great post.
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You make an excellent point. I also wonder if China would actually cut off relations with us if we just started using "Taiwan."
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I was working graphics in the ESPN truck the first year they did 1st and 2nd Round coverage of the U.S. Women's Open. Yani Tseng is one of the top athletes on the tour, so naturally, she gets her share of coverage.
As it was originally created in Bristol the graphics package included the Taiwanese flag. When officials of the USGA saw it they had a fit. Within an hour we had to replace it with this:
This is the flag the IOC forces Taiwan to march under. The intersection of politics and sports is an interesting place. Here, countries are territories (Taiwan), territories are countries (Puerto Rico), and places that don't exist (Palestine) are also countries.
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I don't disagree with your underlying point, but I think it's important to note that in fact, we remain free to ignore China's (or any other foreign government's) wishes. As individuals, you and I remain free to refer to Taiwan as Taiwan, and even to call it a country. ESPN, or any other corporate entity, is free to make the same choice.
But we all have to assess the costs associated with such choices. As individuals, it doesn't really cost us anything to refer to Taiwan as a country, which is why all of us do so. But corporations must police what they say to avoid repercussions that affect their bottom lines. China is just one of many entities they must be careful not to offend. It must be very stressful to be the social-media manager for any large company, because anytime you say anything publicly, you might step on a land mine.
The problem with China is that we have allowed ourselves to become so dependent on them that we can't afford to tick them off. By contrast, consider North Korea, arguably the least free country on the planet; their lack of freedom has little effect on us, because we have no dependence on them and couldn't care less what they think.
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This is true. Even in Stalin's USSR, people were free to say anything they wanted. But there were costs associated with such choices.
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