John Oliver examines Taiwanese independence, in a segment nobody in China will get to see
Last Week Tonight continues to pick fights with the biggest bullies
TV News John Oliver
Being a cheeky Brit with a TV show and a set of brass, Emmy-winning balls, John Oliver isn’t afraid to take on pretty much anyone on Last Week Tonight. Litigious coal barons, fraudulent evangelical tax cheats, Scientology (“Where’s Shelly?,” Oliver taunted leader David Miscavige during tonight’s show), the occasional seditious would-be American dictator, even his own “business daddy,” AT&T (who Oliver excoriated on-air for funding right-wing nutjob network OANN)—nobody’s safe from being humorously pilloried on HBO’s airwaves by that guy who played Vanity Smurf a couple of times. And, as of Sunday, the list of powerful targets Oliver has willfully enraged includes, as he put it, “nuclear-armed, saber-rattling superpower,” The People’s Republic Of China.
Now, nobody’s claiming that a 20-minute late-night pay cable segment about China’s increasing escalation of its contentious and contested claim over The Republic Of China (aka Taiwan) is going to cause Chinese leader Xi Jinping the slightest discomfort. On the other hand, as Oliver showed, China, historically, has gotten pretty intense whenever anybody so much as suggests that the island nation of Taiwan is, you know, a separate nation. Oliver showed how big businesses have rushed to apologize whenever one of its underlings accidentally referred to the independent Taiwan (with its 23 million citizens) as independent. High profile examples there include American movie companies CGI-wiping the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise’s Top Gun sequel cool-guy bomber jacket, and that time John Cena was forced to speed-learn Mandarin in order to produce an apology video to China so that F9 wouldn’t lose out on its lucrative Chinese box office.
But, as Oliver noted in a history-heavy segment, Taiwan’s troubles go well beyond mandatorily contrite former wrestlers, as China’s current posture of deliberately reminding its much smaller neighbor just who’s got the nukes has turned up the heat of late. Oliver, while noting that “people who are not Taiwanese making decisions for Taiwan is a bit fucking played out” historically, still laid bare the often farcical lengths the rest of the world goes to to not piss China off. There’s the fact that Taiwan’s participation in the Olympics involves competing under a made-up flag for the nonexistent nation of “Chinese Taipei,” something derided in typically metal style by one Freddy Lim, lead singer (and current Taiwanese legislator) of the Taiwanese death metal band Chthonic. Oliver also made merry sport of a World Health Organization official shown faking technical problems in order to not answer a reporter’s question differentiating between Chinese and Taiwanese responses to COVID.
And then there’s the long-standing fact of America’s policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwanese independence. Independence (even of the “don’t rock the boat” variety) is, as Oliver notes, something overwhelmingly favored by the Taiwanese people, even in the notoriously contentious (as in occasional fistfights and pig intestine-tossing brawls) Taiwanese parliament. Basically, the world’s posture toward this whole, long-simmering diplomatic mess is to just stick its hands in its pockets and whistle, hoping that China’s current ramp-up of tensions doesn’t boil over into something anyone has to deal with. (Oliver notes how the United States’ carefully worded non-engagement hasn’t kept American companies from making serious bank by selling weapons to Taiwan.) In throwing up his hands at the current standoff, Oliver could only point out the absurd little dance Western nations are doing over the issue, while describing the already fraught situation as dangerously “fraughter,” which, in appropriately vague terms, may or may not be an actual word.
31 Comments
John Cena was not “forced to speed-learn Mandarin.” He’s been learning it since 2016.Also, his pronunciation is pretty bad. It’s what you get when you learn a language solely through self-learning but don’t actually know any native speakers. Still, getting that far on his own is no easy feat.
Yeah, Wasn’t it AVClub that linked to Cena visiting street vendors in China and ordering food in Mandarin for a youtube video a few years ago?
Well, don’t they have cram-schools all over China for that very thing?
Yeah, he’s kind of nuts in this way. He is a fairly renaissance man, but also kind of a weird robot man who is so good at being corporate and exactly what his employers want. One thing I’ve appreciated about Hollywood and the Peacemaker role is we’ve actually gotten to see weirdo Cena. I wish he had been this interesting during his long run as dull ass wins all the time champeeeen.
Taiwan is a wonderful country full of beautiful people and it will be an insanely tragic day if China does indeed ever flex their muscles. Even more tragic because at least to my knowledge Taiwan has some of – if not the – most liberal policies in East Asia, and so the lack of support and silence from supposed fellow ‘liberal’ democracies across the world who value ‘freedom against oppression’ is beyond disgraceful.
China has been flexing their muscles with Taiwan frequently enough. Recently they sent 77 warplanes into the Taiwan air defence zone (but just outside of official Taiwanese airspace) over the course of two days.
That’s the point though, right? It’s literally a snare that every other country is caught in. Nobody influential can acknowledge Taiwan as a nation because of how intimately our economies are tied into China. The day any nation does this is the day they effectively crash their economy, causing untold amount of harm. It’s a nesting doll cold war right now.
Of course until the 1970s, most countries were in the opposite situation — they recognized Taiwan as the “real” China and treated Mao’s government as a rogue state. And that was before Taiwan was a democracy — it was basically a fascist dictatorship under Chang kai-shek, but hey, at least it wasn’t Communist.
Taiwanese death metal band Chthonic…Ugh, they’re a Black Metal band (well, just about) John. Get your facts straight!In all seriousness though, seeing all the hedging and demurring and logical contortions involved in trying to not to even say, let alone support, Taiwan, all put together like that is pretty fucking damning. I sincerely hope that we start to see more governments and officials showing some fucking backbone at some point… though I won’t hold my breath.
It was a great segment that ended with the conclusion of “let’s try the Anschluss again…”
Love Taiwan. Friendly people, boba, amazing fried chicken, and the center of gay culture here in Asia. 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
So, am I shadowbanned, or just put in the greys for whatever reason?I need to know if I need to crank out another Burner account.
If that nose gets any bigger it could declare itself a sovereign nation.
Weird comment
thanks.
So…Dave Mustaine for Congress, then?
It’s interesting that this report ended with John just flat out saying he doesn’t know what should be done about the situation. Most of this show’s call-to-actions are pretty anemic (inevitably so, as many of the issues LWT tackles are deeply rooted systemic problems that individual people aren’t going to put much of a dent in), but having the show end with a “Welp, that was a 22-minute info dump with no conclusion” was still a bit jarring.
I thought it was refreshing to hear him say he doesn’t know, as opposed to some “everybody text #ChineseFuckingTaipei to your Congressman” bullcrap. And I think his conclusion also made the important point that the Taiwanese themselves ought to be the ones who get to hash it out.
As usual, there’s not much anyone can do besides call your reps and harass them. This is a legislative and political issue across the world as governments and organizations bend to China’s will.
I’m finding this is increasingly the case with LWT. I like it, I don’t expect it to affect actual change… but at the same time, I am just finding it less entertaining to have someone go “here’s a huge fucking problem… probably won’t get resolved. Good night!”
Honestly, I kind of appreciated that his takeaway was basically, “You know, maybe the status quo is working, in a really screwed up kind of way?” It’s undeniably ridiculous, but on the other hand, the world hasn’t destroyed itself over Taiwan, and by the standards of international diplomacy that’s a win.
Agreed, plus it’s hard to argue with the conclusion that a middle-aged British guy isn’t the one to offer solutions on Taiwan, especially when his audience is mostly Americans.
Well, yeah, everyone would get nervous if people would keep claiming some territory of a country is an independent nation just because they support that part of the civil war. The Taiwanese government would be just as happy to rule both the island and the mainland just as much as the Chinese Government under one nation and name.
I was pretty stunned that John Oliver went after China so hard (or more correctly, that the corporate legal group allowed him to) and it’s a great reminder why I love the guy.
I was pretty stunned that John Oliver went after China so hard Wouldn’t be the first time.
He seems to have plenty of space to operate. He’s constantly shit-talking his own ‘business daddies’ as well… and I think his employers understand that is a major part of his appeal to audiences.
His collection of Emmys also seems to indicate his appeal to critics.
And, as of Sunday, the list of powerful targets Oliver has willfully enraged includes, as he put it, “nuclear-armed, saber-rattling superpower,” The People’s Republic Of China.This is absolutely not the first time he’s gone after the CCP. Oliver’s already done segments on Xi Jinping, the Uyghurs and the One-Child Policy.
I think overall this was a good, informative segment that got a lot right about the situation and didn’t commit any egregious missteps. One thing that could’ve been made a bit clearer, though, is that while Oliver was technically correct about Taiwanese vox populi, the vast majority of that 85% wanting to keep the status quo are going to be people who absolutely want independence, but also don’t want a massive war with China. If the question posed added something about a hypothetical peaceful declaration of independence, the results would look a lot different. Admittedly there are no numbers for that, but still.
Or anyone outside the US it seems…
Ah, reminds of that one Pacific island nation (Vanuatu, I think?) and how for a while, the country’s number 1 source of income was alternately being paid by Taiwan and China to recognize and deny Taiwan’s independence in the UN.