Taiwanese Nazis

My friend Eric sent this article to me, covering a new club that has sprung up at National Chengchi University (my university):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/15/wtaiwan15.xml

A group of students from Taiwan has caused uproar by founding an avowedly Nazi organisation and boasting that it is inspired by Adolf Hitler. The National Socialism Association was set up by Lahn Chao, a master's student from the National Chengchi University in the capital, Taipei, and 19 others. Its website is a call to arms to rejuvenate the island's politics, end democracy and retake mainland China for the nationalist cause, and bears a symbol in black, red and white loosely based on the swastika flag. It makes few concrete political promises, though website forums contain a large number of links to apparently pornographic websites and online games.

The admiration for Nazism and Hitler the group professes is unlikely to be based on antisemitism, as there has been historically very little Jewish presence in Taiwan.

Mr Chao, who is studying political science, said he was not hostile to Jews but was interested in fostering nationalism and was in favour of limits on the numbers of foreign workers coming to Taiwan.

"I think we have to work hard to restore traditional Chinese values like Confucianism," he said.

"We want to study Hitler's good points, not study his massacres," said another founder member, Yue Shu-ya.

Is this Lahn Chao guy on dope? Taiwan has always played host to "numbers of foreign workers." It would be nowhere without them. The original foreign workers coming to Taiwan, the Chinese in the 17th Century (who were transported here on Dutch ships), worked hard to make this country prosperous.

By the way, Confucius wrote of accepting outsiders, that they could and should be absorbed into Chinese culture. The way Confucius saw it, Han society was the perfect form of social organization because it emphasized principles such as filial piety and harmony. It was up to those who "respected traditional Chinese values" to spread the word. It was natural that barbarians, upon hearing about Han society, would be so impressed that they too would become Han.