Answer Man To The Rescue!

Max asked in comments:

... I just read your post about China - Taiwan, and, I'd like to pose an open question about linguistics: How different is the text of the law in its native language - mandarin or cantonese? (forgive my ignorance I don't know which the CPC uses) Conceptions of land, freedom, and so on often differ from culture to culture and the language we use to describe those concepts often gets blurred in translation. Anyone reading this have any thoughts?

to which I responded:

The mainland uses Mandarin, at least in official documents.

This is in fact false. Kind of. The words "Cantonese" and "Mandarin" refer to spoken dialects, whereas the written language is more-or-less universal with China - though some local variation is inevitable. As a rough analog, think of the countries in Europe which use the Roman alphabet. Very different spoken languages (though many of them differ less than Chinese dialects) but all use the same system of writing. Obviously, it's a rough analog. For spoken language, however, the mainland does indeed use Mandarin. I continued:

As for translation fidelity, I wouldn't hazard a definite answer, but the sound of the english translation makes me think the CPC is being very deliberate in their choice of wording.

I'll see if I can email a prof of mine and get his opinion.

I spoke to my professor today, and he says there's no real discrepancy between the texts of the anti-secession law in Chinese and English. Further, he says that in a sense the Chinese language has really been "westernized" since the Communists took over, so old confucian meanings to words like "Zhongguo" (their word for China, the Middle Kingdom) have really lost the old quasi-racist meanings. The language as its used is much "drier" only in the sense that it's got a lot less of the cultural baggage. This according to my professor, at least. I imagine some other China specialists would take his head off for that. Of course, nationalism could always rekindle the Confucian idea of China as the "only" civilization. Us white folk would not be included, in case you're wondering.

However, Max raised another point that I'd like to write a bit about. Going back to his earlier point:

Conceptions of land, freedom, and so on often differ from culture to culture

This is absolutely correct, especially in the case of China. We have to understand how closely interwoven concepts of Communism, Nationalism, and Patriotism are in China. For the moment, it is difficult to imagine the CPC allowing much in the way of reforms, because there is fundamentally a mental difference for them - the phrase "loyal opposition" simply does not compute for them. (Just to be clear, "them" in that sentence applies only to the Party, not the Chinese in general.) The same professor told a story last term about visiting a successful Chinese businessman in Singapore. This wealthy, successful businessman would be a Republican in the US, almost without question. But even this man had a portrait of Mao Zedong on the wall of his office.

Why? Because Mao isn't just a national leader - he's kind of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and probably a few other heroic leaders put together. Not only did he reunite China after nearly fifty years of warlordism, but he "freed" China from nearly a century of foreign incursions. Obviously, this is a legacy the CPC is careful to cultivate. All this combines to give the CPC a lot of legitimacy, even today after the catastrophes that were the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and the near-renunciation of real Communism as an ideology.

The flip side to this is that the Taiwan issue is something the Party cannot abandon - the legitimacy of the Party is so closely intertwined with national unification that letting Taiwan go is like kicking out the last crutch holding up the party.