Hong Kíng-Bûn on Taiwan, Geopolitics, and Empire Histories

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/16

Hong Kíng-Bûn, the founder of the Taiwanese Humanist Institute and Humanistic Pastafarianism in Taiwan, dedicates his efforts to civil defense and the revitalization of the Taiwanese language. Drawing inspiration from Greco-Roman and non-Abrahamic traditions, they firmly believe that humanism should form the bedrock for constructing stable family values and fostering a fertile society.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So we are back again. It wasn’t several years this time. So, geopolitics, Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel—these are all concerning areas for pretty much everyone, especially small states. So when you’re looking at this as a Taiwanese national, how do you see the conflagrations, not only in your locale but also in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine? How does that affect your thinking about these things?

Hong Kíng-Bûn: Yes, so, there are two systems. I categorize two systems in the world. The first is the world system based on sea powers. The global economy is supported and mostly dominated by NATO, United States navies. So yes, we all know that US military bases are worldwide, and keep the world political and economic stability. The second system does not originate from the same source. Similar characteristics are that they are empires from the land powers, terrestrial powers, and they are legacies before modernization. Like Germany before World War II, which is the legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, so that’s how they always wanted to unite Germany, Austria, and Bohemia (now it’s Czech, right?). They wanted to have a very big terrestrial empire in Germany before World War II. After they completely destroyed it, they finally gave it up. So there’s an ambition from the Holy Roman Empire for Germany, and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Now we can see what Erdogan wants to achieve during the crisis in Syria and the crisis between Greeks, and Ukraine. Turkey has always played a special role during these years. So Turkey also has their own imperial ambitions. And Russia, Putin’s Russia, inherited the Soviet and Russian empire. Iran, too, has their Persian empire. China, of course, has its own Chinese empire, the Manchurian empire actually, the Qing dynasty. So, those empires I mentioned, those powers who inherit the legacy in current times; they face pressure from the world system. What’s the pressure of the world system? The free market, the democratic policy, and the collaborative security systems like NATO and the United Nations. They didn’t do that well, but, in practice, they aim to achieve that in theory. 

Jacobsen: On paper, it has the right idea, even though they have their internal contradictions.

Kíng-Bûn: Conflict can be managed by the judicial system and, maybe, some police action like in the current affairs. You don’t need to have a serious war or mobilize all of your citizens to join the war. That’s their theoretical stance. However, under this umbrella, there will always be a driving force to dissolve the old empires’ legacies. How does it do that? Now we need to think about what a state is, right? A state or a country, it’s a machine for war, right? It contains the mobilization capability to gather money, resources, manpower, and weapons to do whatever they want. So they need to have a singular financial system. This financial system would be better relying on a single market. If you have two markets with different interests in a state, they will conflict with each other. Because people’s daily lives are driven by their interests: Economic interests, especially in the global economy. In the global economy, you have to trade with your counterparts to gain the best profit for your own interest, right? So you have to trade. If there are two systems with different resources, with different financial landscapes or views, interests, they will split into different countries.

But how to maintain a system that is more stable for this dissolution? Nationalism. The answer is nationalism. So we can see after World War I how Eastern Europe invented new nations on the land of Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the Russian Empire. This is how, by force, by the power of the Germanic Empire; they won World War I over the Russian Empire. So, they established several Eastern European states like Ukraine, like the Baltic States, these states, right? So, nationalities can be invented. That’s a middle and in this national umbrella, with the invention of smaller nations; it will be easier to achieve a single market, a single financial system. Smaller is better to manage, right? So that’s how it will be solved. The democratic system, like representative democracy is mainstream policy in the world relies on a system, a political system, with similar identities. If they don’t share common identities, it would be very easy for them to go against each other, causing proxy wars within their own system.

So it will be nearly impossible to have a single nationality with two groups of different economic or political interests in a state, in a system. It’s impossible. Because no matter how the national myth says, interest is king. For example, in China, I don’t know much about Russia’s economy, but in the Chinese financial system. Only one province of China has positive revenue in their governmental budget and that province is Shanghai. It’s a very weird and unstable system that the whole of China’s finances rely on Shanghai. If you are a citizen of Shanghai, of course, they are communists; they don’t have citizenship. However, if you are living in Shanghai, why would you share your revenue with others? Why can’t you just be independent and be very rich like South  Korea? You can be rich. Although, you will not have a chance to challenge the United States, but you will have a better life for your children, for your family. Why wouldn’t people do that? So it is a risk for the Chinese empire to have this imagination for nationality. If people realize, “Oh, nationalism is just a myth. We should invent new stories, new narratives for our own interest.” If they realize that, China will disappear. There will be no China in the world. Yes, that’s how Europe, how the Balkans realized how they could achieve a better life. Of course, this progression always involves conflict and war, but in the end, after these processes, you can have a democratic and modernized state. People always want to live freely in their society, they want to vote for their presidency. So this is why nationalism spreads through capitalism, the global economy, and of course the Cold War propaganda. Yes, the American propaganda. 

Jacobsen: Not only American but also Western, there is certainly Western propaganda. The Americans have a bulk of it. In Canada, we had some laws passed or some policies around the media that gets funded in the public interest, where at least half of the Canadian content had to be Canadian by law (probably) because of the fear of the degree of influence of American media. Other countries in the world think it’s more minor. This American media juggernaut is influential across their country. Yes, now, try next door with a huge border, it’s impossible not to be influenced enormously. So I forget the particular government in power at the time in Canada, whether it was conservative, liberal, or NDP. However, at that time, there was a thing about having a law passed just to protect Canadian content and culture. It’s also that there are cities in China as populated as Canada as a whole. It’s maybe 40 million people now. Some of these mega cities. Yes, it’s also just the population. Do you think the density of the population changes some of the dynamics of economic challenges to a system? People getting a taste of freedom. People liking it. They want a representative democratic political system in turn. Is that a factor in this that plays? 

Kíng-Bûn: That’s what the United States federation wants, but it’s not true. It’s all about autonomy, societal autonomy. What does it mean? If you see, you are Canadian, so you live in Canada. You must understand better than me. In the United States, there are many communities. They don’t need government. The government is just there for them. They can rule themselves with their own custom law with their own ‘mini-government.’ They don’t need law. They don’t need the federation. They just see the federation as robbing their money, so they refuse to pay taxes. 

Jacobsen: There are those movements. There are some people who want Texas, a huge oil state, to simply remove itself from the union. In Canada, there’s a political party called the Bloc Quebecois. They’ve gotten close, I believe, more than once in achieving their main political platform. The main political platform is to remove French Canada from English Canada, essentially. Provinces in Canada are bigger than many countries. So we’re talking about a huge removal of land. So I didn’t know how that would play out. But you see those things are challenging. So, yes, certainly, I made that point. You have an argument there where you can have a difference of identity like Texas, or you can have a difference of language. 

Kíng-Bûn: A very small village, a very small community. It’s not a huge, like a province. 

Jacobsen: However, every country has, as you and I know, cults that live off…

Kíng-Bûn: No, no, not every country has this. 

Jacobsen: Like every country has cults that live in their own little enclaves, the little compounds. Like in my province, British Columbia, there’s a phrase called… 

Kíng-Bûn: That’s common in Western society, not common in the East. 

Jacobsen: So then I stand corrected. In British Columbia, where I live, they have this whole thing about Bountiful BC. There’s this whole group that lives up in the northern parts of BC and they have many wives and they have these huge families. It’s a whole thing. I believe this is a similar thing in the United States with various cults. There’s this whole thing around doomsday preppers. These people who use their money to build bunkers. At some point during the Cold War, they thought they would be nuked. So they have them and they still think it. Then the end times come around to them theoretically with COVID, or something, and then they’re the first to go, “Not real.” However, you have a bunker. So a real pandemic comes around and they go, “Not real.” They will still get infected. 

Kíng-Bûn: Exactly. 

Jacobsen: Yes. They’re not going to mask up and take the shots. It’s very funny. That’s a stupidity that’s pretty common, at least in the North American parts of the West. I see that happen. So, the concerns around geopolitics with regard to Taiwan and democratic values there. There’s a challenge there from the mainland on more serious topics. What do you do when you’re stuck in a situation in which if Ukraine fails, or other states that are under invasion, even ones that aren’t even talked about in the popular media? What impact does that have for Taiwan itself? Taking into account all the geopolitical analysis, you gave earlier.

Kíng-Bûn: Let me finish my previous argument. The people who live in an authoritarian regime partially accept that. They partially accept that due to the lack of autonomy of their society. Their society lacks solidarity. They’re always like–I would say–selfish. If you look at the charity system, you will see that America has a very huge charity system compared to Eastern countries. Not only because the Americans are rich, which is true, but also the time they consume to help people for free, like volunteering, and the money they donate for reasons. 80% of the money Taiwanese donate is for religious purposes. However, in America, that would be 42%, if I remember correctly. It’s significantly lower. 

Jacobsen: That surprises me. 

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, that’s the question because Americans are more religious than Taiwanese. So which means Taiwanese people are… I will not say selfish, but we don’t care so much about other stuff. Americans are more willing to help other people with no relatives, with no kinship. 

Jacobsen: Does it have to do with values or self-perception of citizens? In the United States, people, probably, generally feel that their basic needs are met and so they can give more. Do Taiwanese people feel that most of their basics are met? Or they don’t have the value that they should give more?

Kíng-Bûn: There is a saying in Taiwan: ‘We don’t care if others’ babies die.’ So without your family, you don’t care. You don’t care about things outside your family. However, Taiwan is already a leader in Asia for democracy, self-autonomy, and liberty. All of this. We practice well in Asia, but it’s still not as good as Europe or America. So it will be worse in China.

Jacobsen: So the values you’d see in many other democratic countries are present, but the altruism is lower. 

Kíng-Bûn: No, it is lower. Definitely lower. 

Jacobsen: So that’s why. Is Taiwan a high-trust society or a low-trust society?

Jacobsen: It depends on who you compare to. 

Jacobsen: Let’s stick with the example of Americans.

Kíng-Bûn: Lower, but you will be safer. America is a very dangerous country. You can get shot at night very easily. However, in Taiwan, you can walk around at midnight, as a single girl, and nothing will happen. You can leave your laptop on the road and no one will touch it. It is safe, but if you said, “Oh, are you willing to help others?” People will hesitate. 

Jacobsen: I see. 

Kíng-Bûn: Yes, so it’s different. It’s all about how you define it. Let me respond to your next question. So in the scenario that I say the world system is dissolving the old empires. The only way they can dominate the world system is through struggle. Like Putin, Putin wants a buffer zone between the world system and Russia. So the buffer zone he chooses is Belarus and Ukraine, and probably Finland before, but now Finland has changed their policy. China’s buffer zone might be Taiwan, South Korea, maybe North Korea, and Tibet probably, the Himalayas. Because they feel at risk, they want this buffer zone, but this is an impossible mission. It’s an impossible mission because all these buffer zones will finally join the world system and Western society.

So what they do is just struggle. This is why Putin always talks about history. We all know that history can be interpreted with different worldviews. In his worldview, he is trying to save Russia because without conquering Ukraine, Russia will dissolve at last. If Ukraine joins NATO, then why can’t Rostov join NATO? It is St. Petersburg state. It’s very rich. They are just like Shanghai in China. Why can’t Shanghai be independent? And now, after the war in Ukraine, plenty of conferences are talking about the decolonization of Russia. Many small states could emerge, like many states in the United States, like Cuban, and many Siberian, Mongolian states, or Turkish states and Rus states, they could emerge after the war.

So for Russia, they fear that if they lose the war and don’t achieve anything, this government will come to Russia and finish the Russian empire. That’s what they fear. There are also some similar things in the United States. And they are waiting for China’s dissolution. So they must win something to stop this progression and keep themselves. They are actually trying to protect themselves. They affect others to protect themselves because they are unstable. So that’s why it can’t have a peaceful deal. It can’t because from the Western perspective, you are invading another country, but for them, they are just protecting themselves. So it’s all the same. Like Ukraine in Russia’s view, Israel in Iran’s view, and Taiwan in China’s view. It’s all the same logic. They are just protecting themselves. And in protecting themselves, they are protecting an evolution of an older empire.

Jacobsen: When you hear or even watch some of the Western media comment about Taiwan, although their focus has obviously switched between Ukraine and Israel-Palestine, what are we getting wrong?

Kíng-Bûn: Those are important to cover. What I see is that most things are right, but it’s not about being wrong. The Western people do not realize that these conflicts are all inevitable. These conflicts are all… When and who starts the fire? When will it start? Putin started the fire first, then Hamas started the fire second, and will the PRC start the fire, or should we start the fire? If you face an inevitable conflict, it’s better to be the one to start it because you will have an advantage in the first place.

Kíng-Bûn: You can see how the Russians had an advantage at the beginning of the war. They occupied one-third of Ukrainian territory suddenly. 

Jacobsen: Also, at the same time, 90% of the original force that invaded is now gone. Yes, so, they’ve witnessed a growing loss too. So if you were to poll or survey Taiwanese citizens, would they have the attitude that if it’s inevitable, it would be better for us to strike first rather than in retaliation?

Kíng-Bûn: If you have a poll, Taiwanese want to be stable. They don’t want war. They want to have money from China and protection from the United States. They want win-win. The win-win is now between the United States and Taiwan. United States and China is a win for Taiwanese people. It was not high pressure. People are ignorant when they are in the situation. Like Ukraine, they didn’t believe China and Russia would attack just before the end of the war.

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