TOKYO - On Monday Chinese around the world observed the centennial of the Double Ten, aka October 10, which commemorates the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty and the establishment, 100 years ago, of the first Chinese republic.
The Double Ten is the closest thing that many Chinese have to America's July 4 Independence Day celebration, and this year's Double Ten, coming 100 years after the events that led to "Last Emperor" Puyi's abdication, has special meaning.
Sadly, the centennial was not celebrated with equal enthusiasm throughout the Chinese world, which is a reflection of the disunity of the Chinese people and the unfulfilled promise of the Chinese revolution. In recent years the Double Ten was more often observed in Taiwan, where it has essentially become Taiwan's national day.
The communists who run mainland China prefer to celebrate their own particular anniversaries, especially the day on October 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic from the balcony of the Forbidden City in Beijing, commemorated on the mainland and now in Hong Kong and Macau as China's National Day.
Nothing this year in either Taiwan or mainland China came close to matching the extravaganza that the Chinese communists put on in Oct. 1, 2009, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of "Liberation," nor for that matter what went on this July for the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
Not that the 1911 revolution was ignored. This year China's top current and past leaders appeared on the stage of the Great Hall of the People, decked with red Chinese flags and a large portrait of the republic's founding father Sun Yat-sen, to mark the anniversary. Strangely, it was held on Oct. 9, perhaps not to step on a day more honored in Taiwan than China.
President Hu Jintao had some conciliatory words urging both sides to "heal the wounds of the past and work together to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." The words were more than ceremonial boilerplate. They were undoubtedly aimed in part at Taiwan's upcoming presidential election in January.
China's leaders would dearly love to see the incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou re-elected for a second term over the independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen, and is doing their best to win hearts and minds with economic gestures, high-level visits and other such conciliatory actions.
