Decoding the colors of Taiwanese democracy
May 2024 protests: Blackbox politics and bluebird operations
Decoding the colors of Taiwanese democracy
Blue birds attacked by preying blue eagles amid black box politics, disappearing green islands, and red flags. Welcome to Taiwan’s latest democratic battleground of shifting colors and morphing symbols where it helps to understand the Chinese language and Taiwan’s political landscape to cut through the confusion.
What is the “Bluebird operation”?
The Bluebird Operation (qingniao xingdong 青鳥行動) is an ongoing large-scale protest in Taipei against controversial legislative reforms proposed by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) that would expand the legislature's investigative powers.
In May, the mostly young protesters first gathered on Qingdao (青島) East Road outside the Legislative Yuan but adopted the "Bluebird" (qingniao青鳥) as a codename with similar looking characters to avoid social media censorship, especially on Facebook. On May 17, a few dozen student protesters chanted "No discussion, no democracy", "Return the bill, stop the meeting", "Reject Black Box." On May 24, 80,000 came out to protest in front of the Legislative Yuan.
The bluebirds criticized the lack of transparency and due process in the reviewing of the bill before its passing. They fear an overly powerful legislature would mean an imbalance of powers among the government branches and the potential to slide back into the authoritarianism of pre-democratic era.
They are especially suspicious because the legislature is currently dominated by the KMT, many of whom visited leaders in China in April in efforts to develop closer ties with authoritarian China.
Despite the protests, the reform bills were ultimately passed on May 28, and passed again after the Executive Yuan sent it back to be reviewed again on June 21, a day after the KMT launched their own counter-rally called Operation Blue Eagle Lan-ying xingdong (藍鷹行動).
A confusing battleground of shifting symbols, meanings, and translations
When I attended the protest on May 24, I was curious about the symbols and seemingly counterintuitive language.
When I learned that Qingniao was a codename for Qingdao Road (青岛路) to get passed Facebook censorship, I automatically thought of “green island” (a possible translation for Qingdao) and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s flag which features a green Taiwan island in the middle. The DPP is also known as the green party (lu-dang 綠黨). But the name of Qingdao Road actually comes from a Chinese coastal city, so it probably refers to “blue.”
How can qing 青refer to both green and blue? Well, it does. It is a more archaic word with a “grue”-like meaning and can refer to either green (qingcai, green vegetable) or blue (qingtian clear blue sky). In modern Mandarin, there are designated words for these colors: green is lu 綠 and blue is lan 藍.
At the protests, I noticed many signs with qingniao birds, colored in blue and some English signs with “Operation Bluebird” to confirm that qing here means blue.
Why is qingniao a blue bird and not a green one?
It turns out that qingniao is a bird associated with blue in Chinese culture. In fact, it is a mythical bird described in Chinese literature and poetry and symbolizes love or natural beauty.
Not to be outdone, the KMT, or blue party (landang 藍黨), has called upon its supporters to join operation blue eagle (lan-ying xingdong 藍鷹行動) to counter the operation bluebird (qingniao xingdong青鳥行動) .
Why blue eagles, you ask?
KMT members on social media said, “We are naming it “Blue Eagles” [lan-ying 藍鷹], because they are fearsome raptor birds of prey, so they can go eat up on the little “bluebirds’ [qingniao 青鳥] of the green [lu綠] camp supporters.”
This, of course, is exactly the fear that the bluebirds have: democracy is being preyed upon by blue forces. Admittedly, the primarily “green” bluebird protesters identify with a green Taiwan, and not the red-white-and-blue colors of a Republic of China flag, which is incidentally the KMT party flag.
The tricolor flag or red flag?
But even the symbolism of the tricolor ROC flag, inspired by the tricolor French flag of liberty, equality and fraternity, seems to be increasingly slipping from the memory of the blue supporters.
The ROC flag is officially called Blue Sky, White Sun and completely Red Earth (qingtian bairi mandi hong 青天白日滿地紅), where “completely red” symbolizes the massive amount of blood of those sacrificed in the several attempts that were required to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish the Republic of China, which finally happened in 1911.
For the green/bluebirds, there is no memory of the blood shed in the revolution against the Qing empire. But there is still memory of the blood shed during the “White Terror” period when many Taiwanese were killed and persecuted by the KMT authoritarian regime.
It is surprising to me that many KMT seem willing to forget the lives lost during the Chinese civil war and are seeking alignment with the Communist Party that ousted them from China and killed so many of their forebears, not to mention the millions of PRC citizens during the Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution.
And this is also recognized by the green-bluebird protesters. They are wary of powerful blue governing body who will not only prevent any green flag for Taiwan but also seem increasingly willing to trade the present tricolor ROC flag for a bi-color flag of red and gold.
