Chinese and Kuomintang protests about the alleged harassment of a Mainland’s “folk religion group” visiting Taiwanese temples hide a deeper controversy.
by Massimo Introvigne
Among larger questions opposing Mainland China and Taiwan many may have overlooked the curious protests earlier this month against the Taiwanese government and the island’s National Security Bureau by the PRC and Taiwan’s opposition party, the Kuomintang (which is more pro-China than President William Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party). Paradoxically, and for once, Taiwan’s government was criticized for harassing foreign religionists visiting the island and denying their religious liberty. This is an accusation more often directed by Taiwan against Mainland China, which has arrested Yiguandao and other Taiwanese religious activists after they entered the country.
What happened was that what claimed to be a “folk religion group from Fujian” sent a delegation of six people to “research” the worship in Taiwan of the divinized 17th century general and king Koxinga. According to the protests by Mainland China and the Kuomintang, Taiwanese national security agents accompanied and surveilled the group during the entire trip, which was called a violation of freedom of religion.
The political context is one “Bitter Winter” has previously reported about, where Taiwan suspects Taoist and folk religion groups from Mainland China who visit the island or invite Taiwanese to their temples to operate as United Front agents and even spies.
This time, the “research” on Koxinga made the trip even more sensitive. Koxinga is celebrated both in Mainland China and Taiwan but for different reasons. Both Chinese and Taiwanese hail Koxinga for having expelled the Dutch from Taiwan in 1661. Koxinga, also known as Zheng Chenggong, went on to establish a dynasty that ruled a part of Taiwan as the Kingdom of Tungning, which continued after his death in 1662 and until 1683.
All this happened during the transition from the Han Chinese dynasty Ming to the Manchu dynasty Qing. Koxinga was a Ming loyalist who opposed the Qing’s conquest of China. His armies attacked the Manchus in China and were finally defeated, after having had a real chance of victory.
Koxinga also threatened to invade the Philippines, then under Spanish rule, claiming Chinese rights on parts of them. The matter is understandably studied with great interest in the PRC today, due to the ongoing territorial conflict with the Philippines. Less emphasized is that the mastermind of Koxinga’s anti-Filipino policy was an Italian Dominican friar, Vittorio Riccio or Ricci (not to be confused with the Jesuit Matteo Ricci), who operated to further certain interests of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Koxinga is celebrated in China as a Han Chinese hero who reclaimed Taiwan for China. While secular studies of him were promoted, Koxinga’s religious worship in Fujian had long been repressed as a “feudal superstition.” However, today some temples are tolerated, mostly because they are useful to establish links with Koxinga worshippers in Taiwan. There, Koxinga has hundreds of temples, and is regarded as a Taiwanese patriot who defended the island against all external enemies. His plan of using Taiwan as a base to liberate China from the Qing was compared in the Cold War era to the dream of Chiang Kai-Shek, who was also based in Taiwan, of liberating China from the CCP. Koxinga is also called Cheng Kung and the well-known National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan is named after him.
To complicate things further, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan Koxinga was honored as Japanese. His mother was Japanese (while his father was from Fujian) and he was born in 1624 in Hirado, Japan, where he remained until the age of seven. However, he always considered himself Chinese.
Political games around Koxinga continue. That Taiwan’s National Security Bureau keeps a watch on them is not surprising.
