Tao James
Tao James Тао Джанму 姚振目 | |
|---|---|
 Tao James in 2016 | |
| Minister of Nantai and Overseas Compatriot Affairs | |
| Assumed office 20 April 2015 | |
| Appointed by | Antelope Shohai |
| Deputy of the Namorese Central Council | |
| In office 16 April 1995 – 10 April 2015 | |
| President | Alicia Wolf Kaitlyn Khan Fu Wen |
| Constituency |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 13, 1940 (age 77) Kenyen, Republic of Nantai, East Luziyca (Kenyen, Nantai Prefecture, West Namor according to Namor) |
| Nationality | Luziycan (until 1972) Namorese (1972 - present) |
| Political party | File:Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Logo.svg Socialist |
| Alma mater | University of Nantai |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Luziyca (formerly) |
| Branch/service | File:LAFflag.png Luziycan Army |
| Years of service | 8 years |
| Rank | Private First Class |
| Battles/wars | Third Namo-Luziycan War (did not participate in direct fighting) |
Tao James (Тао Джанму) or James Tao or Tao Janmu is a Namorese politician who served as deputy for the 39th Legislative District in the Namorese Central Council before becoming Minister of Nantai and Overseas Compatriot Affairs in 2015.
One of few Namorese politicians born and raised in Luziycan-administered Nantai, Tao served in the Luziycan Armed Forces and later became a border guard. He defected to West Namor in 1972 and was rewarded for bringing a Luziycan army jeep across the border. Tao lived in West Namor and later ran for Central Council, becoming a deputy in 1995.
Tao ran an unsuccessful campaign for President-General on the Socialist ticket in 2015, despite gaining significant traction among solidly leftist voters. After the election, he was appointed Minister of Nantai and Overseas Compatriot Affairs under the administration of Antelope Shohai.
Pre-defection years
Tao James was born on June 13, 1940, in Kenyen, capital of Nantai. Throughout his childhood, he lived with his mother, and never got to know his father better (his parents divorced when he turned three). He attended at the University of Nantai within Kenyen while at the same time enlisting in the Luziycan army at age 18. He served in the army for eight years before he was placed on inactive reserve.
According to Tao, he became disillusioned with Luziyca during the Third Namo-Luziycan War, especially upon hearing about Luziycan atrocities in Vulan, but because he was still part of the Luziycan reserve forces he was called up for duty. Namorese forces launched a ground offensive on Nantai; however, Tao did not participate in the fighting. Tao said in his biography, Defector, that the realization that he was very close to fighting fellow Namorese encouraged him to defect.
Defection
Tao seriously contemplated defection in the months following the conclusion of the war. He was given the duty to patrol the border between Nantai and West Namor, which gave him an opportunity to escape.
In the early morning of January 3, 1972, Tao was performing his duty as a border patrol officer. Seeing an army Humvee come his way, he jumped on it, hijacked it and drove the Humvee across the border into West Namor, where he was immediately halted by Namorese border guards. Tao had shown his intention to defect by attaching a piece of white cloth to the Humvee. The Namorese Liberation Army interrogated him and concluded that he was a defector. His defection received much attention in Namor and was covered extensively by the media. Tao told reporters that he decided to escape because life in Luziycan-controlled Nantai was "horrible...it's worse than the Hell they preach in their Bible schools," and said he was fortunate to have made it to "free territory." For his defection, he was received by Kong Jo as a hero and rewarded P1,500,000 ($214,286, or ₤153,061.43 at the time). The Namorese government's policy at the time was to reward defecting Luziycan soldiers with P1,400,000 plus an additional P100,000 if the defector brought any weapon with him (Tao carried his pistol and rode the Humvee).
While Tao maintains he defected for political reasons and the identity crisis that troubled him when he lived in Nantai, it was later revealed that other factors were also involved - Tao had a hard time getting a wife (he was 31 when he defected) and he got along poorly with other soldiers. Tao admitted these were among the reasons for his defection. "The bottom line is I had to get the hell out of that country as fast as I can. I can't live a good life under the Luziycans."
In Luziyca, an arrest warrant was issued for the arrest of Tao James on the charges of desertion, one count of theft over ₤5,000 ($7,000 in 1972 dollars), one count of theft under ₤5,000, one count of first-degree murder, one count of carjacking and one count of treason, meaning that if Tao James ever returned to Luziyca, he would be arrested and tried for those crimes. Luziycan media covered the defection and named Tao James a traitor and defamed him and his family, with many death threats, forcing his relatives in Nantai to adopt new identities.
In 2015, in light of his impending campaign for President-General of Namor, Breuvi Shjoraski granted him clemency, by giving him a dishonorable discharge, stripping him of Luziycan citizenship and banning him from returning to live there permanently. He would only be permitted to visit for 15 days of a one year period for personal reasons, and for 60 days in a year for diplomatic reasons.
Political career
Tao was initially a registered Liberationist. He was elected to the District Assembly in West Namor in 1980 as a Liberationist.
He resigned from the Liberationists in 1990 because he viewed it as too right-wing, and became an independent politician holding leftist socialist views. In 1995 he joined the Socialists and ran for Central Council on a Socialist ticket. He won and began his career as a Central Council deputy for Legislative District 39. Tao was one of the few deputies born in occupied Nantai. He became one of two in 1997 when a colleague from his home district, Hao William (born in Venha) died of old age and the only one in 2000 when the other deputy, Txo Vladimir (from Kenyen, also a military defector) was voted out of office. There were other deputies who represented occupied Nantai in their capacity, but none of them were born in occupied territory and instead born in East Po'ai.
In 2000, Tao was appointed Chairman of the Namorese CenCo Legislative Cadre on Nantai Reunification.
Plan for Namorese reunification
Tao was one of the first Namorese politicians to propose a moderate approach to make Nantai and Peitoa reunification with Namor more feasible and acceptable to the population of both polities. His proposal, called the Tao Plan, was widely debated and discussed. It never officially became part of Namorese government policy, although it was considered the de facto Namorese policy towards resolving the Nantai question.
According to Tao, Peitoa and Nantai were separated from Namor for so long that a moderate approach was the only way to resolve the dispute at hand. Tao proposed that Namor grant Peitoa the status of "autonomous district;" as for Nantai, he proposed that Luziyca return Nantai to Namor, which in turn would designate Nantai as a "special area" with a separate constitution, monetary system, and security force. Under Tao's plan, Nantai could still maintain "cousin-to-cousin" relations with Luziyca if desired by the populace. To promote reunification and encourage others to do so, Tao proposed that the government grant tax breaks to Nantainese and non-Nantai Namorese who supported reunification after reunification was realized.
Some observers have called Peitoa's incorporation into the PRN as a district a slight modification of the Tao Plan.
2005 election
Tao was among a faction of Socialists who objected to supporting [[Kaitlyn Kan|Kaitlyn Kan] any further and sought her removal from office, calling the 2005 election "a choice between two evils - Kan and Fu." However, the Socialists officially stood beside Kan.
2010 election
Prior to the election of 2010, there were signs that Tao might take the initiative in running for President-General on behalf of the leftist parties. Tao neither confirmed nor denied this and told the Mojing Sibo that "If the people want me to do what's right, then I'll run." He formed an exploratory committee but later withdrew from the race, calling on supporters to vote for Antelope Shohai instead.
2015 election
Tao announced his campaign for the Presidency-General on August 5, 2014. With the formation of the Popular Front between the Liberationists, Democratic Socialists, and Socialists, Tao had to compete with fellow party member Gongchan Zhushi, Liberationist candidate Antelope Shohai and Democratic Socialist Namsa Singho for the Popular Front nomination. Later, amid a poor standing in the polls, Gongchan pulled out of the race and called on Socialists to support Tao. Support for Tao surged; by November, he had surpassed both Antelope and Namsa in the polls. Tao maintained his lead until late December when he was eclipsed by Antelope. During the Popular Front Convention in January 2015, Tao lost the nomination, trailing Antelope by four percentage points in the Popular Front's final primary poll.
Minister of Nantai and Overseas Compatriot Affairs
Following Antelope Shohai's victory in the 2015 presidential election, Tao was named Minister of Nantai and Overseas Compatriot Affairs of the new administration. Tao's nomination was confirmed by the Popular Front-dominated Central Council, although many New Democrats voted against his nomination on the grounds that restrictions imposed on Tao's ability to travel in Luziycan-administered territory makes him unfit for the ministry.
Tao continued the minister's role of commenting on affairs pertaining to Nantai. After the Aucurian province of Calvonia voted to rename itself to "Nantai" to protest an Esquarian Parliament motion to ban Luziyca from seating representatives of Nantai, Tao called the incident "not new" and noted that "there is only one Nantai Question - the question of when the entire Nantai Prefecture in West Namor is returned to the administration of its rightful owner, the People's Republic of Namor." The name change was ultimately vetoed by Aucuria's President.
Tao said "the international consensus is that Nantai is Namorese" in response to Pavonistadian presidential candidate Otakhtay Sgriki calling Nantai a Luziycan territory.
Writer
My Nantai, a book written by Tao upon his election to the Central Council in 1995, is the origin of his plan for reunification. It was a national bestseller for several weeks.
On the thirtieth anniversary of his defection, Tao published an autobiography titled Defector, which detailed his life before and after defecting from Nantai.
Songwriter of Namorese version of My Nantai
Tao wrote lyrics for an alternate "patriotic" version of My Nantai (Mode Nantai), which is the current anthem of Nantai under Luziycan rule. This version removed all references to Luziyca being the fatherland (zuguk/patria) and Nantai being the "Beautiful flower of the Orient," and replaced them with calls for the expulsion of Luziycans from the region and the completion of national reunification. He told The Liberator he decided to write an alternate version instead of a new anthem from scratch because he liked the tune. "Granted, the lyrics are phony, but I like the tune. Plus, I don't have the time to create an entirely different anthem." When asked if he thought it hypocritical to oppose Luziycan rule over Nantai yet write a new version of a song that was meant to support Luziyca, Tao replied no. "Come to think about it, the best way we Namorese can piss off the Luziycans is by giving them a taste of their own garbage."
Personal Life
Tao married Chin Ya in 1977. The two have two children - Tao Dunyun (b. 1980) and Tao Shijo (b. 1984).