Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Following the end of World War II, Taiwan endured the 228 Incident, the Martial Law era — which lasted from May 21, 1949, to July 15, 1987 — the White Terror era of the 1950s and a half-century of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party-state rule, which is the root of society’s present ills.

After martial law was lifted, Taiwan experienced a decade of radical democratization movements, before the era of directly elected presidents was ushered in with the election of then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1996. Despite this, the conditions for the establishment of a true Taiwanese national identity were not present.

“The Communist Party doesn’t do humor.”

That pithy remark from Steve Tsang (曾銳生), director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, was his response in a report by British newspaper the Independent on Monday about Beijing banning Winnie-the-Pooh from social media because of repeated comparisons of A.A. Milne’s teddy bear character to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).