Original subtitles

For last week tonight, I'm John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us. Just

time for a quick recap of the week, which has been busy. The CDC expanded

eligibility for booster shots, the House voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt

of Congress, and Adele wore the shit out of this head-to-toe chocolate leather

outfit. No one has worn chocolate that well since Augusta's gloop. That's a

fashion fact.

But we're gonna start tonight with this.

In police departments nationwide, a crush of vaccine mandates are a

flashpoint for officers faced with rolling up their sleeves or losing their

jobs. In Leesburg, Virginia, some officers say they may quit if the

vaccine mandate moves forward.

In Massachusetts, the State Police Union believes at least 150 state police

officers will resign.

One trooper who decided to quit had some choice words for the governor on the way

out. This is the last time you'll hear me in a state patrol car.

and Jay Hensley can kiss my ass.

Ooh, a walkie drop.

You don't see many of those, and that's probably because it looks pathetic.

Dropping a microphone is inherently exciting. You get the thud as it hits

the floor and the cheer of the crowd, but a walkie drop?

That's just a sad man sitting in a dark car dropping a heavy object directly

onto his penis.

But... It is true. All over the country, a small minority of police officers have

received disproportionate coverage after threatening to resign over COVID

mandates. They framed this as a matter of individual liberty, even in cases

where very little was being asked of them. In Chicago, officers were merely

asked to register their vaccination status on a portal, and for now, can

still work if they're unvaccinated so long as they are regularly tested. But

nevertheless... John Catanzaro, the head of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police,

told his officers flat out, do not comply with any direct order to fill out

the portal, period.

And he's actually been especially vocal in his opposition to vaccine mandates

for officers, including an offensive statement that I'm not going to repeat.

I'm just going to show you his apology for it, because I do think you'll be

able to work it out from context.

In no way was I trying to tie forced vaccinations to the atrocities of the

Holocaust, which is why I never used the word Holocaust.

I should not have made the reference like I did to the showers. And for that,

I am sorry.

Wow! I mean, just a big yikes to everything going on there.

Setting aside the pronunciation of holocaust, and believe me, I have

nothing but questions about that.

Arguing that technically I never said the word holocaust, I just referenced

the showers is totally absurd. And finally, and this is probably the least

important thing to say here...

at least centre yourself in the fucking frame.

It's just not that hard. A quick scooch of the laptop and you're there. And

look, I don't want to be in the business of art directing holocaust non

-apologies, but frankly, you've left me with no choice.

And you should know, even by the subterranean standards of the Chicago

PD, this guy is a lot.

He's been suspended eight times and has received more misconduct complaints per

year of service than 96% of his fellow Chicago officers, and yet... this is who

his union members chose to represent them. So next time someone says to you,

not all cops are bad, you can just respond, no, just their favorite ones.

And Kanzara's hostility to a vaccine mandate is particularly noteworthy given

that one of his predecessors as head of the union died of COVID just this month.

Which actually brings us to a staggering fact.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than four times as many officers have

died from COVID-19 as from gunfire. This despite being among the first groups to

have access to the vaccine.

Yeah, it's true. Four times more police officers have died from COVID than

gunfire. That is a terrible statistic which you might not fully absorb given

that CNN's graphics department represented it with one bar that's only

about twice as big as the other. So...

Welcome to CNN. If you want to instantly understand the different ways that

police die, it's gonna be tricky for you. But if you want to understand the

one way that a certain British royal died, it's your lucky day, 9 p.m.

Eastern, Sunday nights. Though, no need to watch. Spoiler alert.

It was the mother-in-law.

Look, there is also the key matter of the fact that the police are supposed to

be keeping the public safe. That is the point of their jobs.

Yet some don't seem to give much of a shit about that. Take this video of NYPD

officers flipping out over a subway rider who simply asked them to put on a

mask. Cell phone video taken Tuesday morning shows an unmasked NYPD officer

pushing a masked commuter out of the 8th Street subway station and closing the

emergency exit door.

As the cop walks away, he says... Okay, first, you opened the

emergency door?

Oh, no!

Everyone in New York knows you can't open the emergency door, not unless it's

an emergency.

Also, disruptive.

Have you ever been on the subway?

You know, the big metal worm that screams?

The place where every day you see the biggest rat to ever walk the Earth, and

then you just go to work like it's nothing?

You're in Disruption Junction, baby.

It's also worth remembering that New York still has a mask mandate on public

transit, and anyone caught without one risks a $50 fine. Everyone except,

apparently, the cops.

And this all sums up the American police problem in miniature. The constant

refrain we hear from cops every time they kill an unarmed black person is,

they should have complied with commands. Because as long as you comply, things

will supposedly go well.

But that only seems to work one way.

Because when officers are asked to follow simple rules or face

consequences, a not insignificant amount of them flip their shit.

So you know what? If an officer wants to quit over this, fucking let them.

Let the individuals who clearly don't care about public safety stop being in

charge of public safety. It is really that simple. And by the way, that is a

motherfucking walkie drop.

Ow. And now, this.

And now, the Weather Channel's graphics department is still not fucking around.

Let's take this car out into reality, or augmented reality, and talk about how

the weather impacts your travel. You know, you take your shoes off, you're

like, ooh, ah, ooh, ah, to get to your spot.

Being up close to a raging wildfire like this one is a terrifying experience.

You never know what's even in the water, but you can see some of the larger

objects, including a truck right here.

Whoa!

Oh, those snowmobiles can really pick up speed.

This is truly light-threading. Oh, my gosh, look at this. This is an SUV.

You've got to be kidding me. Bus?

You know what? I hope this bus stops.

If you aren't paying attention, you might get caught a guard. Whoa.

Oh, man.

Oh, jeez. Trees are starting to come down.

Whoa, what's that?

That's the magic top hat. Look at it.

Hello, Bob. Wow. This scene with the fog?

Yeah, this is getting pretty spooky. Ralph, watch out. He's coming for you.

Where's my broom? This witch is out of here.

Moving on.

Our main story tonight concerns Taiwan.

And it's honestly remarkable that we haven't talked about Taiwan before on

this show, given it's the birthplace of bubble tea, which is delicious, even

though tapioca balls sounds like a sex move for people over 70.

And especially...

Since Taiwan shares our unhealthy obsession with mascots, cities there

make tons of them. There is this one, the Milkfish Kids, celebrating one

area's milkfish production.

And there is this one from a region that produces bananas, which I do not want to

talk about right now. In fact, Taiwan makes so many mascots that in some

cities, the very act of storing them has become a problem.

We went with a city counselor to a Taipei public school, following her into

the depths of a basement parking lot.

Here, behind a door, we discovered a mountain of abandoned mascots.

This is Sacred Fire Baby from 2013 National Games held in Taipei.

The city government should really think about whether it's necessary to keep

creating one-off mascots.

Oh, come on, Taiwan.

You can't just keep making mascots and throwing them away. Thankfully, at the

end of our seasons, our mascots go to live on a beautiful farm. A fantastic

green farm where Jeff the diseased lung can breathe fresh air, and the polar

bear with a broken penis can get the care he so badly needs.

I keep asking my producer where this farm is, and she keeps telling me, I'll

tell you when you're older.

I can't wait!

But obviously, the major reason that Taiwan ends up in the news these days is

because of its relationship with China, which, to put it mildly, is fraught. And

recently, it's getting even fraught-er.

China has long viewed Taiwan as its own national territory.

China's President Xi Jinping on Saturday all but declaring a policy.

The complete reunification of our country must be and will be realized, he

said. Military tensions between the two sides are soaring. China's air force

sent nearly 150 planes into Taiwan's air defense zone since the start of this

month. Yeah, they did. Not exactly like that, I presume, in a big stack. I'm

guessing they flew the planes out one at a time, not heaped on top of each other

like an air traffic controller's nightmare.

The point is, China insists that Taiwan, an independently operating entity with

its own democratically elected leaders, armed forces, and constitution, is

actually part of China and in no way a separate country.

Here's an understatement.

The Chinese government feels strongly about this. So strongly, in fact, that

when John Cena went on a press tour for the most recent Fast and Furious movie

and said, Taiwan is the first country that can watch F9, this is what happened

next. Actor John Cena has apologized to China after he called Taiwan a country.

Every part of that is so weird.

It's weird John Cena apologised to China, it's weird he did it for calling

Taiwan a country, and it's weird to see him do it in pretty decent Mandarin.

That's just too many weird things.

I half expected that shot to pan out to reveal he's also doing a needlepoint of

Liam Neeson kissing an ostrich. Honestly, it would only make it slightly

stranger. But John Cena is not alone here.

Taiwan is such a third rail for China that it may be why Paramount Pictures

removed the Taiwanese flag from Tom Cruise's jacket for the Top Gun sequel,

and it is definitely why The Gap apologized for releasing this T-shirt

featuring a map of China without Taiwan attached.

That shirt caused a shitstorm, and it led to The Gap, makers of the bland T

-shirts that dads wear when they're on the elliptical for 30 minutes, to

apologize to 1.4 billion people.

So, if China is getting T-shirt retractions from the gap.

Loudly vowing to reunify with Taiwan and sending stacks of warplanes towards it

in record-breaking numbers. It feels like tonight, it'd be worth taking a

look at Taiwan.

How it got to be in the unique position that it's in, what the world wants from

it, and most importantly, what it wants for itself.

And let's start with how we got here.

Historically, Taiwan has been like the Stanley Cup of Asian history in that

different people keep passing it around and carving their names on it.

Here is a ludicrously brief history of the last 400 years there. Taiwan, or as

it's sometimes been called, Formosa, was first home to indigenous people, then

colonized by the Dutch and briefly the Spanish. Before, China's Qing Dynasty

held it for about 200 years. Then, in 1895, China lost Taiwan to Japan, which

turned it into a so-called model colony, imposing Japanese cultural values and

generally ruling it with an iron fist.

Then, after World War II, two major things happened. First... the Allies put

Taiwan back under Chinese control.

And second, the civil war that was taking place in China between the

Nationalist government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communists, led by Mao

Zedong, ended.

Now, spoiler alert, the Communists won.

Congratulations to Mao.

And in the wake of that defeat, Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan along with two

million nationalist soldiers and refugees, basically setting up a Chinese

government in exile.

Meaning that China technically had two governments at the time, one in China

and one in Taiwan. And Western countries were very invested in the success of the

second one, even calling Taiwan Free China, because they saw it as a

necessary bulwark against communism.

Against all prophecies, Formosa still keeps the anti-communist flag flying,

only a hundred miles or so off the mainland of China.

It's a prosperous island where the new generations grow up in freedom, a

complete contrast to conditions under the rule of Mao Zedong.

You know, I do kind of miss that period of human history where the only way to

learn about other cultures was to have a British man on amphetamines tell you

which were the good ones and which were the baddies. Here we see Formosians

living in freedom. Well, not freedom per se, but the point is they're not

commies, and that's where my curiosity terminates.

But while Chiang Kai-shek might have been a staunchly anti-communist US ally,

historically, we've had a lot of those, and they often haven't been great

people. And Chiang... ruled Taiwan as a brutal authoritarian.

Thousands were swept up in a period that came to be known as the White Terror,

suffering imprisonment, torture, and even execution.

Doing anything that could be remotely construed as criticism of the government

was extremely risky, as one writer discovered when he merely translated a

Popeye comic strip.

Popeye and his son were in exile on an island, and they were campaigning for

election there.

Popeye gave a speech, and he used an English word, fellows.

There could be hundreds of translations for fellows, but I chose one which was,

all my fellow countrymen.

This was terrible. The Bureau of Investigation arrested me, saying, Why

didn't you translate it into something else? This is exactly the way our

President Zhang speaks.

You are making fun of him. It deserves the death penalty. No doubt, the death

penalty. It's true. That guy was interrogated for months on suspicion of

being a communist collaborator and ultimately spent nine years in prison,

all because Jiang's government thought a Popeye comic had a hidden political

message, which is a bit of a reach.

There is clearly no deeper meaning to Popeye comics other than women are

inherently prizes to be fought over, performance-enhancing drugs are cool,

and Bluto doesn't deserve love.

All of which is to say, in the middle of the last century, Taiwan was a...

But after Chiang died in 1975, under pressure both internationally and from

political movements at home, the nationalists began to loosen their grip,

ending martial law in the late 80s and opening the door to full

democratization. So against the odds, Taiwan shifted from a dictatorship to a

functioning, vibrant democracy. And I do mean vibrant.

A debate over how billions of euros will be allocated for an infrastructure

development plan descended into a brawl in Taiwan's parliament on Tuesday.

Members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition

Nationalist Party threw water and shoved each other to the floor.

Taiwan's MPs are known for brawling and even throwing objects at each other. And

fights in parliament are even seen as one way for the opposition to show

voters that it stands tough on issues.

Fighting is not uncommon in Taiwan's parliament.

Here they are throwing water balloons at each other, and here they are hurling

pig guts during a debate on pork imports.

And that is not all. One time in 2006, a member snatched a written proposal of a

bill and shoved it into her own mouth, which is fantastic and definitely

something that we should steal.

You want to kill a clean energy bill?

Pull up a chair and fucking eat all 900 pages of it.

But Taiwan is not just a functioning democracy, it's a major player in the

global supply chain. Taiwan was the fastest-growing economy in Asia last

year, and it's the world's key manufacturer of semiconductors, which

are used absolutely everywhere in products from cars to sex toys.

So the next time that you fire up a butt plug that has 100,000 times more

computing power than the Apollo moon mission, make sure you say, thanks,

Taiwan.

So all of this brings us to where we are right now, with Taiwan established as a

highly developed and wealthy country, and yet, no one is allowed to call it

one. And that brings us back to the huge, unresolved issue of Taiwanese

sovereignty. Because China now sees claiming Taiwan as a key point of

national pride, with Xi Jinping calling reunification part of his vision for the

great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

And anyone wanting to do business in China knows that calling Taiwan a

country is a massive faux pas.

And it's not just the Gap and John Cena who have found this out.

All... of these companies have either had to apologize for or walk back even

the smallest implication that Taiwan is a separate country. And you can see this

caution... Everywhere.

At this year's Olympics, you probably saw Taiwanese athletes competing not

under the Taiwanese flag, but under the fake pseudo-flag of Chinese Taipei,

something they've been forced to use at every Olympics since the 1980s, when

they reached a compromise with the IOC that allowed them to participate without

angering China.

But this arrangement isn't something that all Taiwanese people appreciate.

In fact, during the 2012 Games, the lead singer of Taiwanese heavy metal band

Thonic pointed out just how ludicrous it is.

Our team, our national team been called Chinese fucking Taipei.

Fucking bullshit, right? Oh, we can't call you Taiwan, sorry.

We have to call you Chinese fucking Taipei.

Look, I know I say this every week, but that death metal singer complaining

about Olympic nomenclature has a real point there. Although, to be fair, if

their official Olympics name really was Chinese fucking Taipei...

That would at least be a little more accurate vis-a-vis who is fucking whom.

And even huge international organizations like the WHO are forced to

play this ridiculous game, freezing out Taiwan from full participation.

Last year, when one WHO official was pressed on this point by a Hong Kong

newscaster, it led to this very awkward interaction.

Will the WHO consider Taiwan's membership?

I couldn't hear your question. Let me repeat the question.

Let's move to another one then.

Right. Because I'm actually curious on talking about Taiwan as well, on

Taiwan's case.

We decided to give Dr. Alward another call to follow up.

And I just want to see if you can comment a bit on how Taiwan has done so

far in terms of containing the virus.

Well, we've already talked about China.

Oh, we did, did we? Are you sure about that?

Because it sure seems like, first, you pretended not to hear the question, then

faked getting disconnected after committing the world's most telegraphed

log off.

That man couldn't be more clearly avoiding the question if he came back

online pretending to be a lamp.

Uh, you can't ask a lamp about Taiwan, especially me. I only speak French. So

that's actually two reasons I shouldn't have to answer this question. I'm a

lamp. and I only speak French, except for this brief paragraph in English

explaining my situation.

Au revoir, je suis lamp.

But it is not just companies and international organizations.

The vast majority of world governments have no official diplomatic relations

with Taiwan because China won't have diplomatic relations with anyone who

does. And for all the initial cheerleading from Western countries

about Taiwan's...

in keeping the anti-communist flick flying, things have shifted.

By the end of the 1970s, most countries had switched their recognition of

China's official government from the one on Taiwan, known as the Republic of

China, to the communist one on the mainland, the People's Republic of

China. In fact, today, the number of governments still willing... to

diplomatically recognize Taiwan has dwindled to only 14 countries and the

Holy See.

Although, that last one really shouldn't be that surprising to you. You know the

Pope. He loves to stir shit up.

Drinks wine in the morning. He's a messy bitch who lives for drama.

Now, as for America...

We've spent the past half century walking a diplomatic tightrope with a

policy known as strategic ambiguity.

It's something that lets us maintain functional relations with Taiwan and

still have a full formal relationship with China. It's an approach that began

in the 1970s and it was built upon a series of incredibly carefully worded

statements.

The United States, in one of our communiques with the People's Republic

of China, acknowledged the PRC position that Taiwan was part of China,

but the United States also did not accept the PRC claim to Taiwan.

That has been our position ever since. And so, in effect, the U.S. views

Taiwan's status as undetermined. Right.

We acknowledged China's claim, but didn't agree with it, leaving Taiwan's

status as undetermined. You know, like Schrodinger's cat, or the Scientology

version, Miscavige's wife.

They could be one thing or the other thing, and no one knows for sure, do

they, David? Hey, David.

David.

Where's Shelley?

But that confusion is emblematic of the strategic ambiguity policy.

For instance, the U.S. operates out of this building in Taiwan, often referred

to as its de facto embassy, but not, crucially, as an actual embassy.

Taiwan, meanwhile, has this building in D.C., which does pretty much everything

that an embassy would do just without actually being called one. And I know

that this policy can occasionally seem ridiculous, but the uncertainty is kind

of the point, especially when it comes to defense.

In 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, in which the U.S.

committed to assist Taiwan in maintaining its self-defense capability.

But that commitment very much stopped short of the U.S. promising to defend

Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.

Instead, it says, any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other

than peaceful means would be of grave concern to the United States. And what

does that even mean?

Does it mean the US would deploy military assets?

Or just that a US general would slightly raise an eyebrow?

No one really knows.

It is a willfully confusing will-they-or-won't-they dance that for

40 years has been the backbone of US-Taiwan policy.

And look...

So far, we've been talking about Taiwan almost exclusively in terms of what

other countries want from it. But the key question is clearly, what does it

want for itself?

But even that is not easy to answer.

Taiwan is made up of a mix of different cultures, languages, and political

viewpoints. Remember, their lawmakers sometimes throw pig intestines at each

other in Parliament.

Everyone is not on the same page there.

But to the extent Taiwanese people have spoken through the ballot box, they've

chosen a government that wants to keep China at arm's length.

That singer that you saw earlier talking about Chinese fucking Taipei, he's

actually in Taiwan's parliament now. And he is openly pro-independence. As for

Taiwan's current leader, Tsai Ing-wen, she was elected on a platform of

defending Taiwan, but crucially, preserving the status quo.

Just watch how cautiously she discusses the question of Taiwanese independence.

Are you, in principle at least, in favour of the idea of formal Taiwanese

independence?

The reality and what it is now is that we are already a functionally

independent country.

We have our own government and we have our own election.

Will there come a day when that reality needs to be spelled out by a formal

declaration of independence?

The idea is that we don't have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,

but we are an independent country.

Right. She's clearly declaring that they're independent there, but also very

much drawing the line at a declaration of independence.

Because she knows that Taiwan explicitly formalizing the way things are could

cause a lot of trouble. It's like meeting your partner's parents for the

first time and saying, hello, I regularly fuck your offspring.

Yeah, everyone was aware of that, but now that you've officially declared it,

things are gonna get much more difficult for everyone involved here.

And the truth is, that intense pragmatism is in line with how many

Taiwanese people feel.

Polls have consistently shown that when they are asked about independence from

or unification with China, something like 1.5% want unification with China as

soon as possible, and about 6% want independence as soon as possible.

But the vast majority favor some version of sticking with the status quo at least

for now, which does make sense because as things stand, as volatile as this

situation can appear, day-to-day life in Taiwan can go on as normal as this

Taiwanese man shows.

Wow,

that is a pretty relaxed attitude given the circumstances here. He's talking

about the nuclear-armed, saber-rattling superpower taunting his country with

warplanes like it's season two of Emily in Paris.

You know...

I don't love that it's happening, but honestly, I just try to carry on with my

life.

But the question is, can the currently safe status quo hold forever?

Xi Jinping has stated that the question of Taiwan cannot simply be passed on

from generation to generation, and those military drills do seem to be sending a

message. And while experts say war is not imminent, Taiwan is

understandably... thinking about its own defense capabilities.

Something, by the way, that the US has been happy to assist them in thinking

about by selling them billions of dollars in weapons, showing that even

strategic ambiguity has its price.

But despite US assistance, the Taiwan military is obviously a fraction of

China's. And its recent attempts to attract recruits have left something to

be desired.

The armed forces have been producing videos like this to try to drum up

enthusiasm among potential young soldiers.

But they've been struggling to make up for a shortfall left by a phasing out of

conscription. Okay, I am really not sure that that is helping.

That does not look like a group of people who are excited to be in the

military. It looks like a bunch of background dancers who were cut from In

The Heights because they were too boring to be on camera.

So, what exactly can or should be done here?

Well, that is something that the entire world has been dissecting for half a

century now. And so far, the answer we seem to have settled on is some version

of, uh, next question, please.

Which is clearly not very satisfying.

And I know, ambiguity is inherently frustrating.

Especially for Americans who might look at a place like Taiwan, which looks and

acts like a country, and feel that it is weird and farcical to not acknowledge it

as one. But from a practical standpoint, would that be better?

And is that even what the people of Taiwan want? Could it be that

maintaining the current deeply weird ambiguous status quo is actually the

best option here?

I don't know. I'm not Taiwanese. And frankly, people who aren't Taiwanese

making decisions for Taiwan is a bit fucking played out historically.

So maybe the best thing that we can do is move past talking about Taiwan like

it's some kind of poker chip in a never-ending game of us versus them.

Because the fact is, Taiwan is not a...

plucky bulwark against the Red Menace, nor is it some sort of island-sized

Viagra to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Taiwan is 23 million people who, in the face of considerable odds, have built a

free, democratic society and very much deserve the right to decide their own

future in any way that they deem fit, even if that means sporadically beating

the absolute shit out of each other.

And now, this.

And now, James Corden loves cinema.

We have to congratulate you on your brilliant new movie, Happiest Season.

I love this. It's so good. For anyone who doesn't know, tell them what the

film's about and who you play. Now, we have to congratulate you on your

brilliant new movie, Come Away. For anyone who doesn't know, tell them what

it's about and who you play. For anyone who doesn't know...

Tell them what it's about and who you play. For anyone who doesn't know, tell

them what it's about and who you play. Tell them what it's about and who you

play. We have to congratulate you on your brilliant new movie. Brilliant new

movie. For anyone who doesn't know, tell them what it's about and who you play.

And who you play. Tell them what it's about and who you play. And who you

play. And who you play. Can you tell us what it's about and who you play? Now,

Michael, we have to congratulate you on your brilliant new movie, Fantasy

Island.

I'm really excited for this film.

For anyone who doesn't know, tell them what it's about and who you play. For

anyone who doesn't know, tell them what it's about and who you play. We have to

congratulate you on your brilliant new movie. Brilliant new movie. Brilliant

movie. We have to congratulate you. You are in the number one movie in the

world. For anyone who hasn't caught up with it yet, tell them what it's about

and who you play. Yeah, so Sonic the Hedgehog.

That's our show. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next week. Good

night.