Photo credit: The Left on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)
  |   Ben Scallan   |   Comment Ireland

Mick Wallace: Taiwan is part of China, dontcha know

Heroic paragon of virtue Mick Wallace bravely stands up to the evils of Western imperialism – by defending Chinese imperialism instead.

I’ll tell you one thing – if there’s an nasty, militant, non-Western regime that Irish MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly don’t sympathise with at least to some extent, I haven’t heard of it.

One or both of them seem to be consistently carrying water for countries like Venezuela, or most recently China – they really do go above and beyond when it comes to defending the indefensible.

They even recently appeared in a propaganda video for an Iranian-backed fundamentalist militia group they were hanging out with in Iraq.

So it’s hardly surprising that Mick decided to take to Twitter to announce to the world that, in fact, “Taiwan is a part of China.”

The island of Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, views itself as a free, independent nation, distinct from the Chinese mainland. It is a democracy, unlike China, which is a Marxist dictatorship.

China, however, lays claim to the island and insists that it is part of the broader Chinese nation. Mick Wallace, a politician from Wexford, apparently agrees.

Wallace and Daly were 2 of 26 MEPs who voted against stronger ties with Taiwan in the European Parliament, versus 580 in favour.

 

First of all, the video is delivered like a hostage propaganda tape. I was half expecting him to stress that “I am saying this of my own free will” and that “they are treating me well.” If anyone knows morse code I’d urge you to keep an eye on his blinking to see if there are any secret messages about needing urgent help – I wouldn’t be surprised if Xi himself was sitting just off camera with a kalashnikov in hand.

Regardless, within the first minute of the video, Mick decides to voice his doubts regarding the claims of Chinese detention camps for millions of Muslim Uyhgurs in the Xinjiang region.

“We now have reports from the Associated Press saying that all of a sudden the alleged concentration camps and genocide have ceased operations in Xinjiang. Apparently, Beijing has ceased doing the things we were never shown any solid evidence of in the first place.”

This is not the first time Wallace has poo-pooed the idea of the camps – earlier this year he said that the claims of such detention and concentration camps were “grossly exaggerated.”

He also added that “China’s communist party deserves a lot of credit,” asserting his belief that they’re doing a “great job” and that Europe “can learn lessons from China.”

This is despite the fact that groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among scores of international organisations who have accused China of detaining around one million Uyghurs in mass labour camps over the past few years, forcibly sterilising women and abusing detainees.

There have even been interviews with women who profess to have been in the camps, with corroborating details to support their claims. To say there is “no solid evidence” is quite simply false.

Wallace continues:

“Taiwan is part of China and recognised as such by the UN…we also know that the US is doing everything in its power to stoke tensions between Taiwan and China.”

Apparently we’re to believe that it’s the US which is stoking tensions between Taiwan and China, when we have Chinese Communist Party mouthpieces like Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief at the CCP-run Global Times, making comments like the following:

“After the fall of the Kabul regime, the Taiwan authorities must be trembling. Don’t look forward to the US to protect them. Taipei officials need to quietly mail-order a Five-Star Red Flag from the Chinese mainland. It will be useful one day when they surrender to the PLA.”

The PLA, for those who don’t know, is the People’s Liberation Army – as in, the military forces of China. The editor-in-chief of Chinese State-run media is telling Taiwan that they should be “trembling” and preparing to “surrender” to the Chinese army.

But I suppose that’s just Western propaganda, right? If you ask Mick, yer man is probably on the CIA payroll or something, just to make the glorious People’s Republic look bad.

The country’s president even celebrating the fact that US troops are there to defend them, asserting that the threat from China is growing “every day.”

Again Mick goes on:

“The fact of the matter is, China has shown incredible restraint and patience in response to the fake hysteria and the provocations coming from the US and Taiwan. The West is engaging in clear interference in China’s domestic affairs.”

Apparently to Mick, “incredible restraint and patience” looks like flying record numbers of warplanes into Taiwanese airspace. How dare the Taiwanese provoke gentle China by putting their island in front of the Chinese bombers.

The irony, anything a Leftist like Mick would criticise about US history and foreign policy is likely even more true of China – e.g. aggressive ultra-nationalism, imperialism, authoritarianism, xenophobia, violence towards peaceful protestors, aggression towards neighbouring regions like Hong Kong and Tibet, patriarchal and anti-gay attitudes…they really have it all.

Yet Mick seems to have adopted an “enemy of my enemy at any cost” mentality, and in his case the enemy is the Western world. Is it the case that he would be happy to row in with the narrative of a tyrannical regime as long as they oppose the dreaded “Americans” or “Europeans.”

One wonders what the Taiwanese people think of an Irish politician telling them that they don’t have the right to determine their own future.

Well at least we know one thing: Mick’s CCP social credit score must be through the roof by this point. He’s earned every bit of it.

 

 

 

 

 Share mdi-share-variant mdi-twitter mdi-facebook mdi-whatsapp mdi-telegram mdi-linkedin mdi-email mdi-printer mdi-chevron-left Prev Next mdi-chevron-right Related
Comments are open

Do you agree with Senator Keogan that people on long-term unemployment benefit should have to do community service for the money?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...