Racism in Taiwan sparked controversy after the government announced an agreement to bring in Indian workers.
A shocking controversy revolving around racism broke out in November after Taiwan’s government announced that it had signed an agreement with India to introduce workers from that country.
On a popular Taiwanese forum, antagonistic and xenophobic posts went viral, which targeted migrant Indian workers, with a call made for a protest. But while the vitriolic response was surprising, racism in Taiwan is never new, and for Taiwan to become more international and open, this needs to be acknowledged and dealt with.
The government’s response was mixed and disappointing. The initial response was made by the Ministry of the Interior, who assured the public that the numbers of Indian workers that would be brought in would be restricted.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs then denounced the posts, but also claimed that these narratives had t been put up by Chinese and that “foreign forces,”. Since then, the authorities have gone further and said that an investigation had shown that many of the posts were suspicious and may have been put up by Chinese online users posing as Taiwanese.
Whether there is any truth in this, it is impossible that none of the posts were Taiwanese. Racism in Taiwan is not uncommon and xenophobic incidents and discrimination do happen.
For instance, local Indian residents mentioned experiencing discrimination in Taiwan when interviewed by Taiwanese media following the news about the posts.
At the beginning of this year, a Vietnamese migrant worker was brutally beaten to death in Pingtung by several Taiwanese outside his dormitory. The killers had been pursuing other Vietnamese workers after an earlier exchange at a bar, and after they lost those workers, took out their anger on their victim.
In July, a local youth injured himself while being pursued by police in Changhua County because of his darker skin (due to a Vietnamese parent) which made them think he was a runaway migrant worker. The police were in plain clothes and had suddenly sprung out of a car to chase the youth, which made him think they were kidnappers.
Southeast Asian migrant workers in Taiwan are often discriminated against by their employers and by the authorities. During the Covid pandemic, migrant workers at some factories had their movements restricted and were confined to their dorms when not working, while their Taiwanese colleagues did not.
Taiwanese artists have also dressed up in blackface which has been called out by black residents here and a Taiwanese player used a racist slur in Chinese at an African-American player in a college league game in 2021.
In 2020, the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Ghebreyesus said that he had received racist comments and death threats from Taiwanese netizens, only for a Taiwanese foreign ministry spokeswoman to deny that and claim that “the concept of racism” does not exist in Taiwan. Even if those racist online comments had not mostly come from Taiwanese, that claim was misleading, to say the least.
The anti-Indian migrant worker protest was held on December 3, though with considerably more measured language than the controversial online posts. While the attendees expressed concern over wages being lowered and societal safety regarding the Indian workers, they also questioned the government’s decision to bring in such workers when there are already many hundreds of thousands of workers from Southeast Asian nations.
For Taiwan to truly address racism and discrimination, the government needs to take the lead and deal with such controversies firmly. For one, the government first needs to acknowledge that there is racism in Taiwan and that it is often directed at different groups of foreigners.
Given that the plan to bring in Indian workers was a deal signed by the government with Indian, the authorities should also assure locals that Indian workers are necessary and pose absolutely no threat, while also condemning the use of racist and xenophobic sentiments against Indians and any other races. The importance of existing Southeast Asian migrant workers, who contribute immensely to manufacturing, construction, and senior care, should also be highlighted.
The authorities should also educate the public about the need for Taiwan to bring in more foreign workers and immigrants to bolster the economy, society, and become more global, especially as Taiwan’s birth rate falls and its population grows older. If Taiwan does not deal with racism now, then it will face greater difficulty in handling the influx of more foreigners in the future.
By failing to even acknowledge that racism exists here, and trying to put all the blame on China for the anti-Indian posts, the government has failed to grasp the opportunity to tackle racism and educate the public on being more open towards foreigners.
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TNL Editor: Kim Chan (@thenewslensintl)
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