Update to Election Adverts Site

I've updated my election site. New pics have been added at the beginning....enjoy!


[Taiwan]

The Vatican and Taiwan

How many divisions has the Pope? Enough to be a major propaganda coup for China if the Vatican switches to the authoritarians in Beijing. The National Catholic Reporter reports on the new US Ambassador and the old struggle between Taipei and Beijing:

After a wait of nearly nine months, the new American Ambassador to the Holy See touched down in Rome on Sunday, Oct. 23. Francis Rooney arrived at Rome's Fiumicino Airport shortly after 8 a.m., where he was greeted by Msgr. James Green, head of the English department in the First Section of the Secretariat of State, on behalf of the Vatican.

........

During confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late September, Rooney made brief comments about a couple of issues he'll tackle as ambassador. Rooney said Benedict XVI has made it clear he intends to continue John Paul II's work in promoting human dignity and "building bridges to the Muslim world."

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who presided over the hearing, said he was concerned about reports the Vatican is considering severing relations with Taiwan. Allen said he didn't want to see the Vatican recognizing China over Taiwan.

Rooney said he would make it a priority to ensure the Vatican has "a sensitivity to the feelings of our government" on the issue.

He'll be facing an uphill battle, especially in light of recent comments from Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano to the effect that the Vatican is ready to cut ties with Taiwan right away if it can be assured of the immediate launch of relations with Beijing.

The Catholic Church has historically backed the authoritarians -- recall Catholic support of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Peron, and Chiang Kai-shek, and here we have no exception. As soon as Taiwan becomes democratic, the Church decides that it is time to shift recognition to the Communists. (hat tip to Vatican Watcher)

[Taiwan] [China] [Vatican]

TVBS is Chinese Fifth Column

Maddog (GREAT to have you back, man) blogs on how TVBS is the Black Hand of Beijing in Taiwan.

Duh! How could anyone not know this about TVBS? If it looks like a Beijing duck, walks like a Beijing duck, and quacks like a Beijing duck..., you might just ask yourself "WTF?!"

My wife asked me Thursday night if I knew who the chairman of TVBS was. "Uhhhh, a Chinese official?," I guessed -- off the top of my head. The answer, she told me, was Liang Naipeng, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority. Hong Kong, you must surely remember, reverted to Chinese rule back in 1997; therefore, making a distinction between Hong Kong and China in this matter is absolute nonsense.

I've blogged on this problem before. And look who the KMT supports.....it's pretty obvious where they are getting their marching orders from.

UPDATE: Don't miss the comments below! Lots of perspectives.

[Taiwan] [China]

Taiwan's New Business Jet is World's Fastest

Taiwan has developed the world's fastest business jet:

Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corporation (SSAC) has received orders for 280 SJ30-2 from the US, Canada, Britain, Germany and Switzerland, with the first aircraft to be delivered in spring next year, according to CNA.

Taiwan built the IDF warplane for its air force and makes components for passenger jets manufactured by Boeing and Airbus, but the country has not yet manufactured a passenger aircraft.

The SJ30-2 has attracted worldwide attention amid SSAC claims that, with a cruise speed of Mach 0.78 and a range of 4,500 km, it is the world's fastest executive jet which also has the longest range.

Calling it "a milestone for Taiwan's aeronautics industry", SSAC's Taiwanese chairman Kuo Ching-chiang said he hoped Taiwan would benefit from the transfer of US technology.

"Taiwan's" jet is actually being made in West Virginia, according to the report.

[Taiwan] [Aviation]

Taiwanese oppose annexation to China

The Bangkok Post reports that Taiwanese in China generally favor the status quo.

But interviews with Mr Chang and others among the 300,000 Taiwanese professionals who have come to live in China as a result of thawing relations, suggest the gap between the two sides is substantial, going beyond China's one-party rule and Taiwan's democracy.

``Taiwanese people think differently from people on the mainland,'' Mr Chang says. ``In China it's been a real struggle to survive. So people are a lot tougher here. If you put a Taiwanese child down in China, he'll be eaten up alive.''

Opinion polls in Taiwan say only about 10% of its 23 million people want immediate reunification with the mainland. About 15% support formal independence, while the remainder favour maintaining the island's self-governing status quo.

Talks with Taiwanese here suggest that 56 years of separation have taken a toll on whatever once existed of a common identity.

Hey, no kidding. Nobody here except a few unreconstructed mainlanders supports annexing the island to China.

[Taiwan] [China]

Exhibition on Taiwanese Resistance to Japan Opens in China

People's Daily Online edition reports on more propaganda from Beijing:

An exhibition on Taiwanese resistance against Japanese aggression six decades ago opened in Beijing Monday.

More than 400 people from China and abroad including Yu Mu-ming, chairman of the Taiwan-based New Party, and Zhang Meiying, vice chairwoman of the Central Committee of China Democratic League, attended the opening ceremony in the National Museum.

The heroic Taiwanese did not yield to the atrocious rule of the Japanese aggressors in half a century, and they contributed to the final victory over the Japanese aggression, said Chen Yunlin, director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee at the ceremony.

"Their deeds will be recorded in Chinese history forever," he said.

He also called on Taiwan compatriots to remember the history and carry forward the patriotism to oppose Taiwan independence and build peaceful and stable relations across the Taiwan Straits.

"Let's strive for the peaceful reunification and rejuvenation of China," he said.

More than 160 photos and 28 articles are on show in a 700-square-meter hall of the museum, including a sword, a party flag and a Chinese brush pen which were used in the war against Japanese aggression.

The two-week exhibition is sponsored by the Department of Publicity of the CPC Central Committee, the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC, Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, one of the non-Communist parties in China, and the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots.

I especially like the part about the "Chinese brush pen" that was used in the war against Japanese aggression. The mind boggles at the uses to which it could be put.

"Poor fella. Look how he died."
"Damn! Look he's got a pen there?"

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Meanwhile the Asahi Shimbun, remarking on this event, describes China's weird Taiwan policy:

The ceremony marked the first time Beijing has celebrated the 1945 liberation of Taiwan. And it wasn't without a shot at Japan.

"A small number of Japanese militarists who surrendered in 1945 are plotting to make Taiwan an independent country," said Jia. "They invited some pro-independent (Taiwanese) people to Japan to help their activities."

Even former archenemy, the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), is getting the red carpet treatment.

I wonder when we'll see a public admission of the truth that nobody here wants to be part of China.

Don't miss the totally slanted history of Taiwanese resistance to Japan at the People's Daily.

On the ideological and cultural front, Taiwan's people of lofty ideals all along carried out anti-Japanese publicity and struggle with their brushes instead of swords. In the early period there were first the anti-Japanese literary "three heroes"--Qiu Fengjia, Hong Qisheng and Lian Heng; later there were Lai He, "Father of Taiwan New Literature", as well as Zhang Wojun, Wu Zhuliu, Yang Kui, Jiang Weishui, etc. They opposed Japanese colonial rule and objected the education aimed to turn Chinese into subjects of Japanese imperial rulers, they carried forward national culture and exhibited noble national spirit. By reviewing this phase of history, people can see that the recovery of Taiwan is the result of the common struggles carried out by compatriots on both sides of the Straits who had the same enemy and hatred and helped each other. Compatriots across the Straits are of one blood, have the same fate and share weal and woe. This is another historical fact shown by the recovery of Taiwan.

I think I feel breakfast coming back up....

[Taiwan] [China] [China Anti-Taiwan Propaganda] [Japan]

F-16s Fail to Sink Ship? Is anything indicated by this?

Sun Bin remarked on another post:

failed F-16 missions over a defenseless cargo ship.

Your fiction/fantasy's ending is probably more likely than MZT's.

This refers to this event here:

Three weeks after a South Korean freighter carrying more than 2,000 tonnes of benzene capsized off Taoyuan County, the government on Thursday tried to demolish the ship with bombs and missiles.

Although two separate bombing runs failed to sink the ship, the Ministry of National Defense declared the mission a success.

Admitting that it was "embarassing" that the initial effort by two F-16s to bomb and sink the ship failed, Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) yesterday said the ministry would engage in introspection about the mission.

This sounds like it might confirm my thoughts about the competence of Taiwanese forces, but reality is more complex. The fact is that it is not uncommon for even completely stricken and helpless ships to be difficult to sink:

"At 1851 the planes from Isuzu and Maya noted Mustin and Anderson cudgeling Hornet with their 5-inch guns to speed her demise. Flames gnawed Hornet's soggy hull from stem to stern, but despite seven bombs, two aircraft crashes, three Japanese and nine American torpedoes, and now over 300 5-inch shells, she refused to succumb."*

I don't think we can conclude much from this isolated incident.

[Taiwan]
*From Frank, Guadalcanal, p398

The Family Visit

At Wenwu Temple by Sun Moon Lake

Three days of heaven with Nick and Barb from Cleveland. We visited many places in central Taiwan, including Sanyi and Sun Moon Lake. Ate like pigs -- plenty of cake and chocolate. Drove like crazy. Too millions of photos. The site above is probably temporary, so enjoy!

[Taiwan] [Taichung]

Friday , Oct 28, Taiwan Blog Round-up

She's really here! This is NOT a Photoshopped picture!

This week my Auntie Barb and Uncle Nick arrived from Cleveland to visit us for three days after vacationing in the Middle Kingdom. We did a "Greatest Hits of Central Taiwan" vacation that saw us up to Sun Moon Lake and Flying Cow Farm. More on that tomorrow....So I let the world go by this week....and lo and behold, suddenly it was Friday! A much abbreviated version of the round-up this week. My apologies to all!

++++++++++++

Pinyin Info posted a funny essay on why Chinese is so damned hard.

So what do I mean by "hard"? Since I know at the outset that the whole tone of this document is going to involve a lot of whining and complaining, I may as well come right out and say exactly what I mean. I mean hard for me, a native English speaker trying to learn Chinese as an adult, going through the whole process with the textbooks, the tapes, the conversation partners, etc., the whole torturous rigmarole. I mean hard for me -- and, of course, for the many other Westerners who have spent years of their lives bashing their heads against the Great Wall of Chinese.

I've never found Chinese difficult; I thought Swahili and Taiwanese were both harder. Even Spanish with its idiotic conjugations is harder than Chinese IMHO. But I learned Spanish in school, while I learned Chinese here, on the street. Probably it's easier to learn in a 24-7 environment....

++++++++++++

What a Wonderful World, a Singapore blogger who always Pays It Forward, blogged on a Taiwan humanitarian this week:

Twenty years ago, there was a gap in the welfare systems of Taiwan—no organization was assuming the responsibility to care for patients in a persistent vegetative state. Hence, many patients ended up lying permanently in a corner of their home, deprived from proper medical care. Imprisoned in their own bodies, they were totally under the mercy of their family members.

Taiwan in those days was a poor country; if a family had a vegetable, it was unlikely that any more adults could be spared from working--it would be a luxury to have a full time caretaker. Naturally, long hours of neglect meant the patients would end up developing bed sores, and the lacks of immediate medical attention and continuous medical care, meant the situations could only get worse—the sores grew larger and the rotting flesh started to smell, in some cases bones were even visible. These patients lived in a living hell; they were striped off their pride and cornered into a little cell; silently they would endure a period of torments that seemed to last forever, where hours passed like days and days passed like months, until their final day arrived.

Has that gap changed much? Families are financially crushed by such patients as the system, AFAIK, has no provision for withdrawal of care.......

++++++++++++

MeiZhongTai has an extensive commentary on the problem of oil, China, and Everything Else.

Strategically, it would seem to make sense for China to coordinate with other actors interested in the Spratlys, and then leverage the goodwill against Japan through stoking fears of a resurgent Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It is worth noting that every single Spratlys actor had been attacked and/or occupied, at least in part, by Imperial Japanese forces. (Taiwan was never attacked, as it was handed over to Japan following the Sino-Japanese War in the Treaty of Shimonoseki.) Thus China hopes to convert energy that might otherwise have been directed against her into a resource with which to compete with Japan.

It's interesting that MZT denies the competence and imagination to China in military affairs that he ascribes to it in diplomatic. But whatever my jealous sniping from the peanut gallery, this is one not to be missed....

++++++++++++

Several bloggers remarked on the Commentary in the Taipei Times the other day on how Chiang Kai Shek from the KMT (Kill Many Taiwanese) blew Taiwan's UN seat. Maddog has the call:

That (between the quotes) is what the headline on an article in Thursday's Taipei Times read, and it's exactly right. When my wife heard this in local Chinese-language news yesterday, she was a bit surprised because I had said almost exactly the same thing to her the day before. My version went something like this:

"Look, anytime these pan-blues start scolding the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) because of some country breaking up with Taiwan, all you have to say is 'And how many countries' relationships did we lose in 1971?' End of story."

Good to see you back, Tim!

++++++++++++

David a Jujuflop scores with several good posts this week. Check out his posts on non-Constitutional reform....

President Chen Shui-bian is very keen on constitutional reform. He regularly talks about it being vital for the future development of Taiwan, and a cornerstone of his presidency. This in itself means that the pan-Blue opposition parties will make very sure that he won't be able to reform the constitution again during his presidency.

...Chinese tourists in Taiwan...

There has been some discussion on weblogs about the general behaviour of Chinese tourists abroad - so it will be interesting how they are viewed in Taiwan. I suspect the main 'tourist attractions' they will be drawn to will be the larger shopping malls in Taipei, where I'm sure the storekeepers will be overjoyed to see them (and their wallets).

The only other questions are whether they'll be able to avoid confrontations with the pro-independence Taiwanese they bump into, and how they interact with the other main group of tourists to Taiwan - the Japanese.

......and the it-never-rains-but-it-pours life of Pasuya Yao, GIO head:

Why have all these news stories come out recently? Well, of course, the most obvious answer is that Yao is an incompetent minister with a knack for putting his foot in it. However, it can hardly be coincidence that all these stories have come out after he was responsible for refusing to renew the licenses of several TV channels - thus drawing the ire of Taiwanese media. Freedom of the press means that if you piss off the press, then they will get their revenge. Pasuya Yao must be yearning for the 'good old days' of the GIO (otherwise known as the 'James Soong years') when anyone critical of the GIO would have been shipped off to Green Island, and their newspaper shut down.

++++++++++++

Taiwan's Other Side posted an interesting post on KMT-CCP cooperation:

The 中國國民黨Kuo Ming Tang and 中國共産黨Chinese Communist Party have had something of a rapprochement over the past few years, particularly since the end of 李登輝 Lee Tung-Hui's presidency, and especially since the 2004 presidential elections in Taiwan. This has caused quite a stir in Taiwan, and has allowed the DPP to fairly successfully label the KMT as communist sympathizers and traitors. It is common to hear that pro-blue media organizations have been 'infiltrated' and are now puppets of the regime in Beijing. What has prompted this change of heart on the part of the KMT? Is it simple opportunism, as some say, or is there something more?

Good work, TOS.

++++++++++++

ESWN this week posted some of his trademark media analysis, this time of Taiwan's media reports about the Kaohsiung Metro Scandal.

The latest development concerns a visit to a South Korean casino by two principal characters. The following are some examples of the technical defenses. (China Post) Chen Che-nan, a former deputy secretary-general to President Chen Shui-bian, admitted yesterday he visited a South Korean casino in November 2002 together with Chen Min-hsien, who is under investigation for involvement in the snow-balling Kaohsiung Metro scandal. "We visited the casino on Cheju," said Chen Che-nan, who had insisted he never set foot on South Korea before. Li Tao, the talk-show host, produced on Wednesday night a photo showing the two Chens at the Korean casino, which he claimed was in Seoul. "I have said I have never visited Seoul and Inchon," Chen Che-nan. "I visited Cheju with Chen Min-hsien," he admitted. Minister of Justice Shih Mao-lin ... was grilled at the Legislative Yuan for failure to obtain "evidence" against the two Chens, which the media had easily secured.

If one of the parties put as much energy into improving the workers' lives as they did in attacking/defending each other, then the scandal would prove useful. But the one thing that has dropped out of the scandal is the one really important thing: worker welfare.

++++++++++++

Menghsin Journal explains why bus drivers in Taiwan can sometimes be great:

About three minutes of pointless back-and-forth continued, during which the bus driver explained that the children's fare is only 8NT whereas the normal fare is 15NT. He insisted on seeing her ID (a pointless request considering she was obviously not a child) which she wouldn't produce, and eventually claimed she did not have. She was taking her sweet time pulling her bus pass out from its protective sheath too, all the while insisting that she didn't swipe a child's card.

++++++++++++

Jerome Keating posts essays on Kinmen, one on history and some pics on its environment.

October 25th, the anniversary date of the battle of Guningtou approaches and the small island of Kinmen once again is in the spotlight. Kinmen sits some two kilometers off the southeastern coast of mainland China at the Jiulong River estuary in Fujian province. Though not large, its special location has nevertheless given it important, diverse, and changing roles in the history of China and later of Taiwan.

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Wandering to Tamshui had many great posts, as always, but in particular had one on beating in Taiwan schools that was just great....

If passed without addressing the root of the problem, the no-hitting law will be enforced for all of a year before it either gets ignored or teachers find other, more imaginative ways to punish errant students. Holding mandatory retraining seminars for teachers in conjunction with the new law therefore seems to make a lot more sense.

Cold Goat Eyes also blogged on this topic:

As for me, I am appalled and disgusted by this video clip. It sickens me to the pit of my stomach that this kind of blatant student espionage is allowed to happen in this day and age. The boy that filmed this event must be punished. His cellphone should be siezed and a ban on all similar devices in the classroom should be initiated and enforced as soon as possible. We cannot allow our students to film the practice of corporal punishment in schools in this manner. The teacher waited ten days for this boys homework. TEN days! If it had been me I would have done it after 2 hours. After all, Taiwan kids have it easy here right? Short school hours, no tests, no pressure, no out-of-school cramming in early-morning or late-evening bushibans, no homework, no obsessive parents who lock them in their bedrooms after 8pm and force them into an unwanted path of academic hellfire and brimstone.

++++++++++++

Rank blogs on the Pan-Blue's continued attempts to ensure that Taiwan has no functioning government at all:

The Pan Blues have done it again. They've passed an incoherent bill that will create more problems that it solves. This China Post article seems itself to be a paradigm of incoherence, but the process it describes matches the descriptions in Chinese media. Parties will nominate a total of 15 people to the National Communications Commission. The Cabinet will nominate an additional three for a total of 18 nominees. An 11-member legislative panel will confirm 13 nominees through a vote. The interesting wrinkle is that a nominee needs at least 60 percent of panel votes to be appointed. Given the current legislature's record on cross-party cooperation, this virtually guarantees the NCC legislative panel will be deadlocked: based on the current legislature, five members would be pan green and six would be pan blue. Do the math. The pan blues won't be able to push through nominees unless at least one pan green panel member is absent during a vote. How likely is that?

++++++++++++

Ni Howdy develops an interesting counterproposal for the Anti-Succession law:

2. Have a referendum upon the question, "Any unification plan must pass a referendum of Taiwan's voters with X% approval rate with Y% of total registered voters voting."

The beauty of this is Taiwan can claim to be setting up for a unification scenario (not independence), but at the same time constraining China if it passes that any unification plan has to be damn acceptable to the people of Taiwan and not some bargain made with James Soong in a smoke-filled Shanghai KTV.

++++++++++++

SHORTS: Jon complains to the BBC about Taiwan's Tamiflu situation. Karl hilariously attempts to introduce worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Taiwan. Congrats to Big Ell on adding by 1! Don't miss the podcasting at Getting a Leg Up and Ugly Expat. As always, great photos at 35togo, Unplugged, the forgetful's photo gallery, amateur commune, andres, Clarke vs Matt, Cat Piano,T_C at Fotolog, Fotologging Taiwan, Photoactionboy, leftmind, MaMaHuHu (Jackson, you gonna put new stuff up there?), Everything Visible is Empty, Roger in Taiwan, Love Songs (Are for Losers), Photoblogging Taiwan, a better tomorrow, and This Life. There's a big list of Taiwan fotologgers at Fotolog.net.


[Taiwan] [China] [Taipei] [Taichung]

US Military Aid to Taiwan!

The US approved air-to-air missile sales to Taiwan:

The U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday notified Congress that it had approved the sale to Taiwan of 10 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles and 5 AIM-7M Sparrow missiles -- both built by Raytheon Co.

The proposed sale, valued at $280 million if all options are exercised, also included continuation of a pilot training program and logistics support for F-16 aircraft, as well as associated equipment and services.

Hooboy! 15 missiles!

*sigh*

In a second item, part of the same deal, we're going to train Taiwanese pilots:

THE Pentagon has announced a possible contract with Taiwan to continue training F-16 fighter pilots in Arizona and provide air-to-air missiles for live fire drills.

The contract, which was notified to the US Congress, was valued at as high as $US280 million ($367.89 million).

It includes 10 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles and five AIM-7M Sparrow missiles for live fire exercises at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, the Pentagon said.

The contract also provides for the continuation of a program to train Taiwanese pilots at Luke Air Force Base and logistics support for F-16 fighter aircraft, it said.

This is far more important than missiles and something I have long called for. I'm curious to see what kind of stuff leaks about the quality of local fighter pilots.

[Taiwan]

They're here!

My aunt and uncle, the first family to visit me in all my years here, have stopped in for the next few days. So it will be light blogging until the weekend.....

....except for the roundup, of course!


[Taiwan]

New Wall of Photos

My aunt and uncle from Cleveland are visiting this week for a few days on their way home from vacationing in China, so my wife has been furiously cleaning and decorating. On Monday my wife scrubbed the downstairs spotless, clean enough for open heart surgery. We brought our Golden Retriever in for the night, and sometime in the night had diarrhea all over the floor. I got up in the morning to clean it, only to find that the pump motor had failed in the mountains above us, and our community had no water. Not a bad day it was, with the fragrant smell of dog diarrhea hanging in the morning air, and not a drop of water in the house.



One thing I have done since Peace Corps is put up pictures of friends and family. My parents sent me dozens of pictures, which I assembled into a huge collage that was a constant generator of questions and attention from my students at the village school where I was teaching. Since then it has been a tradition in my family to cover the walls with pictures of the family. It just seems a waste to have all those pictures stashed in volumes when they could be up for everyone to enjoy. Pictured above is the main wall of pictures in our house.



My wife added a new wall the other day, this one of our trip to Sri Lanka. She makes these by using cheap white plastic soundproofing from B&Q. She puts up two layers held together by double-sided tape, and then tapes them again to the wall with double sided tape. The soundproofing is the only stuff that is light enough to tape to a wall -- you could put up a soft wood, but that is expensive and a pain. Ordinary tacks/pins are then used to affix the pics to the soundproofing.

[Taiwan]

New Page on the Teaching English in Taiwan Site!

I'm working on a couple of new pages for the website. This new one, which I finally got up today, is related to the upcoming county and local elections. I've collected pictures of political ads from around the area, and posted them with my usual trenchant commentary and elegant wit. I'll be updating this baby as time goes by. Enjoy!



[Taiwan] [Elections in Taiwan]

Miers Nomination

The Truth Laid Bear is doing an informal poll of blogosphere on the Miers nomination. Interesting idea.

I oppose the Miers nomination. Although I have to admit, watching conservatives find out what a corrupt, incompetent, self-absorbed, arrogant, paranoid bunch of shits the Bush Administration is has been very enjoyable. In a way I'll be sorry to watch HM go down.

[Miers]

China Blog Lists

The Peking Duck pointed me to this list of China Blogs from the Creators of Sinosplice

http://www.chinabloglist.org/

[Taiwan] [China]

Lee Teng-hui's Recent Speech

Here is the text of Lee's recent speech courtesy of Taiwan Communique:

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FYI hereby the speech President Lee delivered in Los Angeles.

For an overview of press articles and commentaries, visit our website
at: http://www.taiwandc.org/lee-in-dc.htm

Gerrit van der Wees
Editor, Taiwan Communique
--------------------------------------------------------------
New Taiwan, Ilha Formosa, the website for
Taiwan's history, present, and future
at: www.taiwandc.org
--------------------------------------------------------------

A Strategy of Freedom in Asia-

The Sudden Rise of Cooperation Among Free Democracies

Against Communist Militarist Hegemony



Lee Teng-Hui, former President of Taiwan

Formosa Foundation

Los Angeles, California

October 21, 2005





Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am greatly honored to have this opportunity to meet with friends from
Los Angeles and share some of my thoughts on Asian strategies for
freedom in the twenty first century.

The twenty first century is the century of freedom. On January 20th of
this year, your president-elect George W. Bush, in his inauguration
speech stated,

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands. [The] best hope for peace in our world is
the expansion of freedom in all the world. It is the policy of the
United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and
institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of
ending tyranny in our world.

Two months later, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a speech
given in Tokyo at Sophia University, said "[R]aw power will not define
Asia in the 21st century, as it has done in centuries past. Instead,
ideas -- ideas of freedom -- will define 21st century Asia."

These two statements set out the foundations of both a great vision as
well as clear objectives regarding peace and security in Asia.
Therefore today I would like to examine the Asian strategy that is needed to
achieve these objectives.

What are the differences between Asia and other regions in this regard?

Most areas of the world have experienced an abrupt rise in freedom and
democracy while tyrannical dictatorships are in decline. With the
breakup of the Soviet communist military bloc the democratization of Europe
was completed. Latin America and Africa are also in the throes of
bidding farewell to dictatorships and entering the age of democracy.

However in Asia, we are witnessing a widening in the rift between the
opposing systems of free democracies and tyrannical dictatorships.

On the one hand we have the examples of Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and
Mongolia in East Asia; India and Pakistan in South Asia; Thailand, the
Philippines, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia; and Afghanistan, Iraq,
Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Georgia in Central Asia. All of these
countries, with their different peoples, religions, and cultures, have
in their own way chosen the path of freedom and bid farewell to the
dictatorships of the past.

In the midst of waves of democracy rolling through the Asia-Pacific
region, we witness the abrupt rise of China, the last major bastion of
communist dictatorship and so this region takes center stage in the final
confrontation between freedom and tyranny.

This emergence of China has captured the public's attention throughout
the world. Everyone is asking: Will China's rise be a peaceful one or
will it be based on military force?

The answer to this question is very simple. If China terminates its one
party community dictatorship and opts for constitutional reform that
includes freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, the new
China will be a peaceful country. If the contrary is true however, and
China insists on maintaining its one party despotic dictatorship, if it
continues to exploit and suppress its people at home and expand its
military threats against its democratic neighbors, then China will retain
its current status and we will continue to witness the rise of a
militarist hegemony.

So which road will the emerging China take? The road to peace or the
road to aggression? Freedom or oppression? Democracy or dictatorship? The
choice is not entirely for the government and people of China to make.
The route China takes will also depend on the strategy and policies
towards China and future developments in the Asia-Pacific that are adopted
by free and democratic countries, especially those of the United
States.

If free countries drop their guard against an emerging China military
dictatorship and tolerate China's oppression at home and military
adventures abroad, or if we capitulate to China's "united front tactics" that
are designed to divide and defeat the free countries one by one we will
have committed the mistakes of Munich and Yalta and facilitated China's
following in the footsteps of Hitler and Stalin. The results will be a
disaster for Asia that will reverberate throughout the entire world.

Free nations must remain on the alert to the threats from the Chinese
military dictatorship as China grows in economic strength. Free nations
must develop and strengthen their global and regional cooperation in
both supporting the peoples of China in their struggle for freedom and
democracy as well as taking measures to stop Chinese acts of oppression
and aggression. Only in this way will we eventually see a China that
respects the universal human rights of its people, a China that has
renounced tyranny, and a China that is ready to take its place among the
family of free nations in Asia.

The free nations of Asia lack a common strategy to deal with the
emerging China. One reason for this deficiency lies in the difference between
the development strategies adopted by communist China and that adopted
by the Soviet Union under communism.

The Soviet Union and the East European members of the Soviet bloc
adopted a closed-door policy whereby socialist and capitalist systems were
kept apart. When socialist practices proved to be weaker than capitalist
practices in the area of economic and national development, socialism
lost the competition and the Soviet bloc collapsed.

The difference then is that China has adopted an "open door,"
"magnetic" strategy aimed at drawing in the capital, technology, and management,
markets of the capitalist countries. So under conditions that are
tantamount to enslavement by the state, businesses from the capitalist
countries are enticed by cheap obedient labor and cheap land and facilities
"owned" by the state. China is thus able to consolidate foreign
resources with its local conditions to become the manufacturer for
international capital, producing inexpensive goods which are then dumped on world
markets and fill China's coffers with money that strengthens the
economy, military and technology of a country in which the people still live
as slaves to the communist system. As long as the capital from free
countries continues to pour into China, China's already oppressive
practices will become more entrenched and the ensuing and ever expanding
militarism will make the likelihood of a transition to a peaceful country
ever more unlikely.

China Inc., a book that praises the "vigor and dynamism of China" opens
with a story.

The author visits an electronic components factory in Shenjyun China.
The factory has ten thousand employees, all paid the equivalent of
eighty U.S. dollars a month, all young women, and not one wearing glasses.

The author asks the plant manager: "So you don't hire anyone with poor
eyesight?"

The manager responds: "If anyone's eyesight deteriorates we ask her to
leave. It doesn't matter to me, there are plenty of people lined up
waiting for jobs here."

The author goes on: "Whether in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, or Dalian,
there are hordes of people coming from the countryside seeking work,
and this sort of attitude on the part of managers is a natural result of
the labor situation. A plant in Dalian advertised for a job paying the
equivalent of US$90 per month and was met with two thousand applicants
from nearby farming villages surrounding the entire factory when lining
up for the interviews. The women chosen for the job lived in the
factory dorm working day and night and spent their lunch breaks learning
about electronic circuitry in on the job training. There is an
inexhaustible supply of this kind of labor in China, it is without precedent
anywhere in the world."

The author's conclusion is that the situation in China is "the way
capitalism is supposed to be, a capitalist's paradise."

This story reveals the secret of China's powerful magnetic effect. The
pyramid of China's rise is built on an inexhaustible supply of young
women from rural China who will lose their sight and youth. This is the
magnetic pole toward which free global capital is rushing. But when
products from Chinese slave factories are flooding the world, profits will
decline for capital in the free world, unemployment will rise, and the
wages of free workers, following those of unfree Chinese workers, will
fall. The result will be the defeat of the competitiveness of free
countries by the slave system that they themselves have nurtured.

We can now clearly see that Communist China and the former Soviet
empire have adopted different strategies against free, democratic countries.

The former Soviet empire was eventually buried by the very capitalist
system that it swore it would bury by opposing the United States. But
China does not oppose the US and is not trying to bury capitalism.
Rather, it is absorbing imports of American and international capital by
engaging the US in "constructive cooperation" and international capital in
"friendly interchanges." These capital imports are allowing China to
rapidly build up the economic, military, technological, and diplomatic
power of its slave system.

The former Soviet empire directly challenged the world's free
democracies, polarizing the world and creating a balance of terror through the
resulting arms race. In the end, the Soviet empire fell apart after its
economy collapsed under the weight of its military over-expansion.
Communist China, however, avoids direct confrontation with the free
democracies of the world. Instead it divides the world's democracies with its
"multipolar" strategy. This is in fact the traditional Chinese strategy
of "using barbarians to rule other barbarians." The objective is to use
differences between the world's democracies to block them from allying
with one another so that its slave system can coexist in a "multipolar"
order of divided democracies.

The former Soviet empire's military expansionism failed because it
overextended its lines and diluted its power. China knows that it does not
have the former Soviet Union's military power and so it has adopted a
strategy of shrinking its lines by converting its former enemies such as
Russia, India, and Vietnam into "partners" or "friendly neighbors."
This allows China to concentrate its forces on attacking democratic Taiwan
as its first stepping stone to expanding its military and becoming
Asia's dominant power.

Why is it that everyone could easily see the threat posed by the former
Soviet Union, come together to strengthen cooperation between free
countries and force the Soviet Union to abandon its slave system? Why can't
people see the threat posed by China's slave system?

I believe there are two factors. One is that the West has a double
standard for the former Soviet Union and China. People in the West believed
that Soviet human rights violations and threats to neighboring
countries should be stopped. But they believe that China's violations of human
rights and threats to neighboring countries are "special Chinese
characteristics" that can be tolerated.

The second factor is that the Soviet Union had just one face that it
turned to the outside world, and that was a threatening face. But China
has two faces. One face is intimidation, the other enticement. In March
of this year, Communist China stepped up its intimidation of democratic
Taiwan by passing its so-called "Anti-secession Law." And then General
Zhu Chenghu of the People's Liberation Army threatened the United
States with nuclear weapons. But at the same time it continued to oppress
its people to create illusory economic growth that it uses to attract
foreign investment.

In his speech in the Latvian capital of Riga commemorating the 60th
Anniversary of World War II, President Bush reflected on the history
lessons of the Yalta Agreement, which placed half of Europe under the yoke
of the Soviet slave system. President Bush said:

The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and
the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments
negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this
attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent
divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern
Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history. .We
will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or
excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability. We
have learned our lesson: no one's liberty is expendable. In the long
run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others.

Today the Soviet Union's communist empire has been destroyed and the
tragedy of half of Europe being placed under the yoke of the Soviet slave
system has ended. But the primary threat of "sacrificing freedom in the
vain pursuit of stability" has clearly shifted to Asia.

The strategy for freedom in 21st Century Asia is for free democracies
to cooperate fully, join together to resist China's strategy of
division, and bring the light of freedom to the darkest corners of Asia.

The strategic advantage in the Asia-Pacific region lies on the side of
the free democracies, not on the side of China's slave system. But the
major obstacles to strategic cooperation between Asia's democracies
include overrating the strength of the slave system, underestimating the
strength of freedom and democracy, fear of Chinese intimidation, and
speculating on Chinese economic incentives.

The Chinese and North Korean slave states are just large and small
islands in the sea of freedom and democracy. China advocates
"multi-polarity" because it wants to sow dissent between the free countries so that
it can strike them one by one and realize its goal of isolating the
leader of the free countries, the US. Asia's free countries should increase
economic, military, cultural, and diplomatic cooperation to avoid
falling into traps like the Shanghai Cooperation Council that Communist
China sets to divide free democracies.

Taiwan has emerged as a new democracy during the third wave of
democracy. During the past 300 years, Taiwan had been a colony of Holland, the
rule of Koxinga, the Manchu empire, Japan, and the Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT). In the decade between 1986 and 1996, Taiwan transitioned
from rule by a foreign power-the Chinese Nationalist party or KMT, to a
democracy. The people of Taiwan gave me an opportunity to become
witness to history. I began as a vice-president and then became Taiwan's
first democratically elected president. By the time I left office, Taiwan
had accomplished its first peaceful transfer of power to another party.
I witnessed Taiwan's three miracles.

Freedom. Taiwan's people ended more than 300 years of
slavery by foreign rule and oppression.

Economic progress. Taiwan became one of the world's most
competitive countries.

Peace across the Taiwan Straits. The votes of the Taiwanese
aple defeated the Chinese dictatorship's missiles. China, an
authoritarian slave state, will never again dare to take lightly a small
democracy.

But Taiwan faces external and internal threats.

The progress of Taiwan's democracy is being hindered both by her
threats from China's slave state and internally by the remnants of the
Chinese foreign power that once ruled Taiwan.

And now these two enemies are joining together and plotting to
undermine Taiwan's democracy. They want to take power out of the hands of the
Taiwanese people and put it back in the hands of the Chinese Nationalist
Party's foreign rule.

Taiwan's freedom depends on the people of Taiwan protecting it. But the
people of Taiwan need the support of the US and other free peoples. The
threat of Munich and Yalta-that great powers will once again sacrifice
the interests of small countries-has not passed. Taiwan's people
believe President Bush's promise in Riga of not to "repeat the mistakes of
other generations, (in) appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing
freedom in the vain pursuit of stability".

The battle between slavery and freedom has shifted to Asia. The people
of Asia hope that the United States, India, Japan, South Korea, and
Taiwan will create a strategic alliance of Asian democracies to begin a
new era of cooperation between Asian democracies. They hope that this new
alliance will protect them from the threat of Chinese militarism and
will also help the Chinese people win their freedom from slavery and put
China on the path of democracy and peace.

Thank you for your attention.

[Taiwan]

Blast from the Past: SARS and Bird Flu

I wrote in a previous post that Taiwan was surprisingly successful in fighting SARS. An anonymous poster wrote in the comments:

Da-Bien sat with his thumbs up his ass and pointed his fingers at Hong Kong and China while doing NOTHING at home. Then the infections hit!

I was there. I rememebred it. Locals running out to 7-11 during quarantine, the infection spreading. Doctors refusing to treat patients.

Stepping past the hysterical obsession with Chen Shui-bian, whom the more childish among the mainlanders have nicknamed "Da-Bian" (poop), I too once felt the same way. Here's a fatalistic article I wrote two years ago for a now defunct website called East Cathay...

+++++++++++++

Last month my wife and I were taking the family out to dinner at a local restaurant. As the stoplight turned green, a city bus roared out into the intersection through the red light. It had run down a long line of cars patiently waiting for the light to change by speeding past them in the lane for oncoming traffic. It careered into the intersection like a drunken whale, and we watched in disgust as it made a right turn across three lanes of traffic (including, as always, a lane of cars illegally lined up in the far righthand parking and motorcycle lanes), and then lurched to a halt at the stop to disgorge its cargo of junior high school students. "See?" spat my Taiwanese wife in frustration as we slammed on the brakes, "this is why we will never stop SARS here."

Life in the world of SARS. To outsiders it must seem like Taiwan has gone completely batty, but then completely batty is the norm here. In a society where civic-mindedness is weak and "me-first" is the dynamism that propels national growth, SARS is like a giant hand that has lifted the stone to expose the ants scurrying beneath. Practically everything that is normal and habitual in Chinese culture, from spitting on the street to ignoring the law to relying on luck and fate, facilitates SARS. The virus could hardly have found a better society to incubate if it had been given eternity and the entire planet to chose from.

My wife, and my kids haven't really curtailed our lifestyle too much. At my wife's insistence, we wear masks when we go out, and wash our hands with disinfectants, but we still go out. Business is down, but it is hard to tell whether SARS or the declining economy is the culprit. The restaurants are empty, little museums of Taiwanese night life, where the staff play Mah-jong and exchange rumors about competitors who have already gone under. Every day the news brings reports of another round of political bickering, stories of official incompetence, hoarding, and defiance of quarantine. Last month the papers reported with great indignation that more than 40% of those quarantined were ignoring the order. High placed officials are leading the way: several of the first cases were influential doctors who had treated SARS patients in the hospitals and then ignored quarantines to see patients at the private clinics they operated. Draconian punishments were threatened but were, as always in local society, not carried out. Law enforcement in Taiwan is something that is often heard, but rarely seen.

Despite the morbid predictions on all sides, humorous moments still lighten our SARS life. The other day a KTV hostess was admitted to the hospital in the large city of Kaohsiung with SARS-like symptoms. Much to everyone's horror, the lung x-rays showed the telltale white spots. As a KTV hostess she had been in enclosed rooms at length with scores of people. Somehow a smart radiologist checked the charts and the young woman was forced to publicly confess that her bosom had received a little artificial stimulus, said implants being the cause of the white spots. No doubt it was the first time in history there was public relief that someone had undergone breast augmentation.

Taiwan is in the international spotlight, and its image has suffered. One issue that has angered me is the coverage in the foreign news. A nasty-minded article in the Los Angeles Times managed to imply that the government here was violating local civil rights by enforcing quarantine regulations through highly selective quoting and examples. Apparently the illiterate who wrote it had never heard of her own government's Patriot Act, which would have been right at home here in the martial law era. Another article in the Washington Post said that President Chen's government had done a poor job combatting SARS. The writer hadn't done the proper research. Hoping Hospital, at the center of the outbreak, had been run by the opposition KMT, the former ruling party, and was already famous for its obstructionist tactics even before its incompetence and procrastination helped spur the SARS outbreak. Most upsetting of all, the WHO, so courageous in confronting disease germs, showed an utter lack of moral courage in confronting China over SARS in Taiwan.

Still, the beat goes on. A Taiwanese doctor, fresh from treating SARS patients, decided to take a vacation in Japan. Fortunately nobody got SARS. A scholar from the Academia Sinica broke quarantine and traveled around Asia. The head of the Academia Sinica, highly-respected Nobel Prize winner Lee Yuan-tze, limply excused this on the grounds that the institution could not hold him because he was a US citizen. Rather than seizing all incoming masks and simply redistributing them through the network of government health clinics to ease the shortage, the government is spot-checking shops for price-gouging, as if anyone will pay the slightest attention. The result is that masks are unavailable. With a fine sense of bureaucratic comedy, a local city government announced that if you wanted to visit its buildings to carry on your business, you should wear a medical-quality mask, although the central government has restricted them to medical personnel only. There is now open discussion of the one certain solution: confine everyone to their homes and shut the country down for 14 days, until all possibility of SARS has passed. However, everyone knows that too many people would simply pay no attention to any such order, just as they pay no attention to any other order the government gives. "There is no law on Taiwan," runs a knowing local saying. Perhaps the locals, having reformed the KMT out of office, will finally reform the law into it, now that they have SARS to spur them on.

[Taiwan] [SARS] [bird flu]

BBC Reports Taiwan to Break Tamiful Patent

The Blogosphere is abuzz with the BBC report that Taiwan has decided to break the patent on Tamiful and produce the drug itself.

Taiwan has responded to bird flu fears by starting work on its own version of the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu, without waiting for the manufacturer's consent.

Taiwan officials said they had applied for the right to copy the drug - but the priority was to protect the public.

Tamiflu, made by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, cannot cure bird-flu but is widely seen as the best anti-viral drug to fight it, correspondents say

Taiwan was surprisingly sucessful in fighting SARS. Don't get pessimistic about the island's ability to contain bird flu just yet....

[Taiwan]

Mayor Ma's Butt Again

Mayor Ma's butt, which is enshrined in KMT headquarters on a painting as Rank reported last month, was in the news again a few days back. Those of you who think that the good mayor is a class act, think again.

It seems that the Mayor had an event with Mayor Hu of Taichung, in which a group of blindfolded women got on stage with the two men, and then felt the hind ends of the two men to see if they could distinguish one from the other. I don't know what's worse -- Ma's ego that drove such an event, or the women who would sign up for it. The letters and blogposts criticizing this event were a legion. It is apparent that if Ma keeps talking and acting on a national level, simply giving him enough rope will be sufficient to let him hang himself. The man hasn't a lick of political sense, and has the lack of spine to match that other defect.

Some pics taken from the above link:



And here a curious woman almost gets round to his "LP" (as the Little Bird is known in Taiwanese initial slang)




[Taiwan]

Taiwan and India Trade Continues to Grow

I'm always happy to report on improved ties between Taiwan and India, and here is another article on the topic.

He added that Kwang Yang, Taiwan’s largest motorcycle manufacturer has already been surveying the prospective sites for setting up a manufacturing unit in India.

While Mumbai and Puna seem to be probable locations, parts of Orissa and West Bengal in eastern India have not been ruled out, though.

Another Taiwanese company, Hsu, that was initially interested in setting up its India-office in Bangalore, now seems to have made up its mind to set shop in Kolkata as well.

"The company (Hsu) will import iron ore from India. The office will be set up in Kolkata, since it makes economic sense to operate from here," a senior TWTC representative told Newsline.

While Kwang Yang is set to invest a whopping $20 million in the first phase of its motorbike manufacturing unit, the size of the food processing company that will also be set up in India is not known now.

Chang said that the industrialists of the state can also expand their activities to Taiwan.

"The Indo-Taiwan trade stood at $2.2 billion between August 2004 and July 2005. The bilateral trade between January-December 2005 is expected to touch $ 2.5 billion.

Actually, my interest is purely selfish: I'm looking forward to an explosion in Indian restaurants.

Ok....so maybe I'm an optimist.

[Taiwan] [India]

CCTV on Taiwan's 60th Anniversary of Leaving Japanese Rule

China Central TV, a station from China, had a hilarious little blurb today on the 60th anniversary of Taiwan's freedom from Japanese colonial rule.

This is sixtieth anniversary of Taiwan's recovery from Japanese colonial rule. The island has kicked off celebrations with a month-long photo exhibition. The show opened at the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Museum in Taipei.

It shows how people in Taiwan resisted the Japanese invasion, fought for survival, and won the final victory. Many veterans of the war have visited the exhibition. Eighty-five-year-old Hsu Li-nung, the head of Taiwan's New Nation Alliance, was among them. He praised the bravery of the ill-equipped Chinese troops during the war, and expressed hope that people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits can carry forward the brave spirit, and accelerate the country's peaceful reconciliation.

Did people in Taiwan fight for survival in the 1920s and 1930s? Resistance was pretty much over among the Taiwanese after 1910. Ironically, the real resistance, the aborigines, don't appear to rate a separate mention here.

No, the real fighting done by the Taiwanese was done by the 200,000 who served in the Japanese Army. Somehow that little embarrassment was left out of CCTV's presentation. Nor does it mention that the vast majority of older Taiwanese would probably rather be ruled by Tokyo than by Beijing, if those were the only two choices available...Also, the blurb doesn't mention who the Japanese handed Taiwan over to. HINT: their capital wasn't in Beijing.

[Taiwan] [China] [Japan]

The Guardian on The Weapons Purchase

I have to admit that I am in despair over the simple inability of foreign columnists to get Taiwan right. I could list probably 30 blogs that whose writers have a more interesting and knowledgeable take on Taiwan, and well understand the issues surrounding the weapons purchase. This article from the Guardian makes puts out the same inane analysis that the others do, with a bonus error on the Taiwan Relations Act.

But the biggest question for Washington concerns Taiwan, which China regards as a "renegade province" and which the US is legally bound to defend under the Taiwan Relations Act. US pressure on Taipei is being exerted less publicly but with growing forcefulness.

I'm tracking down the writer's email so can carefully explain to him that the TRA obligates the US only to hold a meeting if China attacks Taiwan, and does not require the US to defend Taiwan.

Here is the relevant portion, Sec 3302

# (a) Defense articles and services
In furtherance of the policy set forth in section 3301 of this title, the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.
# (b) Determination of Taiwan's defense needs
The President and the Congress shall determine the nature and quantity of such defense articles and services based solely upon their judgment of the needs of Taiwan, in accordance with procedures established by law. Such determination of Taiwan's defense needs shall include review by United States military authorities in connection with recommendations to the President and the Congress.
# (c) United States response to threats to Taiwan or dangers to United States interests
The President is directed to inform the Congress promptly of any threat to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan and any danger to the interests of the United States arising therefrom. The President and the Congress shall determine, in accordance with constitutional processes, appropriate action by the United States in response to any such danger.

Read it carefully. The TRA requires the US to provide for Taiwan's defense, but there is nothing in it to stop the President from saying "Taiwan's defense is well-provided for" as its airplanes are shot out of the sky and Chinese troops swarm onto the island. Judgment of Taiwan's defense needs is limited SOLELY to the President and Congress (no legal mechanism brings Taiwan itself into the debate) and they can come to any agreement their political calculus dictates. Should Taiwan be attacked, the President must notify Congress promptly.

And that's it. There is absolutely no guarantee of any defense for Taiwan. It is all political calculus. Realistically, at the moment, it is likely that the US will intervene. But there is no guarantee here. Continuing:

The main irritant is the internal political deadlock over a $10bn US arms sale that Washington is urging Taiwan to accept. But peace-building moves by the pro-reunification opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, which is pursuing a rapprochement with China in defiance of the independence-minded president, Chen Shui-bian, have also upset traditional US calculations.

Tisdall does at least dimly understand that the KMT is a problem, but erroneously refers to the KMT's cooperation with Beijing as a "peace-building move." That is simpleminded regurgitation of KMT propaganda. We then have the pro-forma citation of an analyst from the US also missing the nuances:

"If Taiwan is not willing to properly invest in its own self-defence, why should we, the US, provide for it?" Edward Ross, a senior Pentagon official, asked in a speech at the US-Taiwan Business Council last month. "At a time when young American men and women are in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan - countries not nearly as developed or politically evolved as Taiwan - an increasing number of Americans are asking hard questions about how much we are willing to sacrifice for the security and democracy of others."

Then the provision of decontextualized information, as if thousands didn't march in favor of the weapons purchase just last month. They, however, don't get a voice.

Many Taiwanese worry that new weapons could upset the fragile status quo; others believe it is pointless to try to match Beijing's military might; and still others feel the money would be better spent on social programmes.

Yes, and no doubt all of that it is true, but your claims are unsupported by survery data, Mr. Tisdall. Finally Tisdall cites Lee Teng-hui on the arms purchase:

One such response came from the former president and fierce advocate of independence, Lee Teng-hui.

He said the main problem with the arms sale was that the defensive weapons on offer were not good enough. In his view, only serious military hardware will guarantee Taiwan's future. Another reason, perhaps, why Mr Rumsfeld's attempt to stop China building weapons and to sell arms to Taiwan looks likely to self-destruct.

Without ever mentioning that Lee has publicly backed it. Tisdall also does not mention that the pro-China parties have blocked it, while Chen supports the purchase, SOP for foreign reports of this.

In sum, a poor job of research that results in a slanted presentation. Taiwan still awaits the foreign reporter who can get things right.

[Taiwan] [China] [Taipei]

Gavin Menzies and Ming Voyages

I am sure that many of you have seen Gavin Menzies' 1421: The Year China Discovered the World and wondered about it. This Erik-Van-Daniken-meets-ancient-China codswallop was debunked in a post to H-ASIA today.

H-ASIA
October 21, 2005

Popular History and Bunkum -- on *1421, The Year China Discovered
America*
************************************************************************
From: Geoff Wade <arigpw@nus.edu.sg>

Dear H-Asia members,

I have just submitted the following complaint against Transworld
Publishers of Britain to the Consumer Complaints body of the United
Kingdom

http://www.consumercomplaints.org.uk/index.asp

The complaint derives from Transworld publishing and advertising
"1421: The Year China Discovered the World" , authored by Gavin
Menzies, as a work of history, which I believe is a violation of the
British Trade Descriptions Act of 1968

Best wishes,

Geoff Wade

#########

Copy of complaint submitted:

I purchased a copy of Gavin Menzies' "1421: The Year China Discovered
the World," published by Transworld, on the basis that it was
classified as "History" in their catalogue. A detailed reading of the
text revealed that the work is a fairtytale and fiction of the worst
kind. I detail some of the outrageous fiction perpetrated within the
volume:

Claims by Mr. Menzies followed by facts

1. Claim: Four eunuch admirals�-Hong Bao, Zhou Man, Zhou Wen and Yang
Qing --led fleets to the Americas, Australia, Greenland and the
Antarctic during voyages between 1421 and 1423.

Fact: There are no Chinese or other texts which suggest in any way
that these four eunuchs, or any other Ming commanders, traveled
anywhere at all beyond Asia, the Middle East and the East coast of
Africa. All other voyages derive solely from Mr. Menzies'
imagination. Further, the currents, winds and dates Menzies cites in
support would not have carried the ships anywhere near where he
claims. In short, there is no archaeological, textual or archival
material to support the Menzies thesis as set down in *1421*. In this
book Menzies intentionally distorts known materials and deliberately
alters known facts in order to support his thesis.

2. Claim: Sailors and concubines from these fleets settled in the
Americas, Australia, New Zealand and islands across the Pacific. In
evidence, he cites studies of "recent" inflow of "Chinese genes" and
"East Asian DNA" into the Americas.

Fact: There is no evidence of Ming settlement sites in, or even Ming
knowledge, of these places until the arrival of the Jesuits in China
in the 16th century. The genetic evidence on which Menzies relies is
provided by a company whose genetic tests have been labelled a "scam"
by Stephen O'Brien, the US National Cancer Institute's laboratory
chief.

3. Claim: There exists a range of wrecks of the ships from these
voyages spread around the world, and these are proof of the voyages
claimed by Menzies.

Fact: Not one wreck which can be linked with the eunuch voyages in
the first 30 years of the 15th century (or indeed any Chinese wreck)
has been identified outside of the Asian region.

4. Claim: The Ming voyagers built celestial observation platforms at
24 places across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Menzies names and
provides coordinates for these platforms. (*1421*, pp. 416/17, 457)

Fact: There is no textual or archaeological evidence to even begin to
suggest that the Ming voyagers built observation platforms anywhere
in the world. Again, their existence derives only from the fertile
imagination of Mr. Menzies.

5. Claim: The Ming armadas left a range of other built structures
around the world, particularly in Australasia and the Americas,
including the Newport Round Tower, the Gympie pyramid and other
structures and mines. They also left a ship's slipway made of stones
on the Bimini islands in the Caribbean.

Fact: Not one of the structures Mr. Menzies cites has been shown to
have any links with China. The Bimini "slipway," which is in any case
parallel to the shore, has been shown to be a completely natural
formation.

6. Claim: The Chinese "were aware that the earth was a globe and had
divided it into 365 and a quarter degrees (the number of days in the
year) of latitude and longitude." (*1421*, p. 449)

Fact: There is no evidence that during the early Ming, the Chinese
had any knowledge of the earth as a globe and certainly none that
they were aware of latitude and longitude.

7. Claim: The Ming voyagers surveyed South America, Antarctica, North
America and the Atlantic as well as Australasia. "The whole world was
accurately charted by 1428." (*1421* p. 411)

Fact: There is no text or other evidence which suggests that the Ming
voyagers went anywhere near these places and no Chinese maps which
indicate any surveying of these places. Further, there are no
contemporary Ming artifacts found in any of these regions.

8. Claim: A range of European maps show anomalies which can only be
explained by accepting the Chinese voyages proposed by Mr. Menzies as
having taken place

Fact: The cartographic anomalies which Mr. Menzies points to, real or
imagined, can be explained through many avenues, the most likely
being that Arab navigators, who had been traveling these waters for
600 years before the Chinese, had produced maps of areas they traveled
to.

9. Claim: Mr. Menzies noted that the Venetian Niccolo da Conti was
the crucial and only link between Chinese and European cartographers.
Menzies claims that he participated in the voyages over several years
and carried Chinese maps back to Europe. He notes that Da Conti "had
spent years aboard a junk of the treasure fleet" and that "Chinese
maps passed from Da Conti to Fra Mauro, and from him to Dom Pedro of
Portugal and Prince Henry the Navigator." (*1421*, pp. 369, 84-87,
92-93)

Fact: Da Conti, who left us detailed accounts of his travels,
recounts neither meeting any Ming envoy in Calicut, nor traveling on
any Chinese ship for even a day, nor seeing or receiving any Chinese
maps showing a new world. The utter and complete contempt for truth
with which Menzies depicts these events is disheartening.

10. Claim: Mr. Menzies claims that a number of mylodons (a type of
giant sloth) had been taken from South America to New Zealand and
China by the Ming ships.

Fact: All available evidence suggests that the Mylodon has been
extinct for several thousand years, which militates somewhat against
the likely veracity of Mr. Menzies' claims in this respect. But such
sloppy research is found throughout the volume. He notes, for
example, rubber trees in Malacca 450 years before they had been
introduced from South America by the British, etc., etc. ad nauseam.

#####

In short, all major claims within the work are fictional.
Representing this work as history is a flagrant violation of the
Trade Descriptions Act of 1968 which makes it an offence both to
apply a false description to any goods and to supply or offer to
supply any goods which have a false trade description applied.

To be an offence the Act notes that the indication must be false to a
material degree. To represent fiction as history does indeed meet
this criterion.

The role of the Local Trading Standards authorities is to enforce the
provisions of this Act and they are able to take whatever steps they
consider necessary to prevent others from being deceived. I trust
that appropriate action will be taken in this case.

If you require further information, please do not hesitate to contact
me.

###############

I do not know if similar legislation to the British Trade
Descriptions Act exists within the United States, but William Morrow,
the publishers of the US edition of the book "1421: the Year China
Discovered America", and an imprint of Harper Collins, lists the
book under Non-fiction/History/World:

Harper here

With best wishes,

Geoff Wade
National University of Singapore

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[China] [Gavin Menzies]

Chunghua Night Market

Vendors along Gongyuan Rd.

Next week my my aunt and uncle are coming to Taiwan to visit us for three days on their way back home from China, so we were thinking of taking them to some of the attractions in the Taichung area. I had seen the Chungahua Night Market in Compass' list of 16 attractions in Taichung, so we decided to check it out as a possible place to bring them.

The market sprawls around the area of Gongyuan and Junghua Roads, behind the Chungyo Department store, a famous landmark. I am sad to report that the shopping areas directly nearby Chungyo are probably more interesting, and certainly the restaurants are better. This night market is thoroughly dull, especially for the kids.


Cute little bandits.

The market is composed largely of clothing shops and food vendors. There are no games or rides for the kids. There is on amusement place on the way, the one pictured above. But we hate burning money in those places.


The True Jesus Church, as opposed to those False Jesus Churches.

We parked on a side street near the True Jesus Church, an imposing structure fronted by clothing vendors, fortunetellers, and porn VCD sellers in the best Taiwan style.


Rhonda and Mom bargain for a purse.

We took our neighbor Rhonda and her son Josh with us to the market.


The fecundity of modern productive power.

Presentations in Night Markets emphasize the seller's ability to supply an abundance of goods.


Got heartburn? Fried seafood.

Although there were some small eateries, most of it was stuff the kids don't eat, or that we wouldn't let them eat, or wouldn't eat ourselves.


Steak to order.

Finally we located something Sebastian would eat: chicken fried and served on an iron plate over noodles.


Hot pot cookin'.

Rhonda and I had typical night market fare, cheap hot pots. Mom ordered some ribs in soup from the vendor next door.....


Josh plays with his money.

Josh was a big hit with the locals.


Lots of stuff? Nope!

The "Ma La" (spicy) hot pot clocked in at $80. It looks like there is plenty of stuff but actually there wasn't very much. Worse, our presence precipitated what appeared to be another episode in a long-running argument between the hot pot vendor and the rib vendor from whom mom ordered her ribs in medicinal broth. The two men, next door to each other, nearly came to blows, arguing over whether the hot pot vendor had really returned a chair he had borrowed from the rib vendor. Finally JY apologized for causing the argument, which obviously wasn't about her, and this intervention caused the two men to slowly wind down.


Waiting by the health clinic.

It was hard to see what the fight really was about, since there were spare stools everywhere.


Shaved ice treats.

A favorite of the women in our family are those shaved ice treats found everywhere.


Dan-dan and Mom make their choices.

The great thing about them is that they basically consist of water and sweetened toppings, meaning that they are low in fat and calories.


Rhonda in the shop.

We wandered around for another hour, but there was nothing to really see, do, or buy, unless you were into sexy underwear, purses, bad shoes, or barbecue.


Watching as Zeb's chicken is cooked.

Zeb and Dan-dan got some BBQ for breakfast the next day.


The jewelry shop.

Mom stopped to have a look at everything. When Mom shops, each and every object must be inspected, and its merits discussed and dissected.



I want to scream too.

I can't decide whether I should laugh at this thing from the fortunetellers, or run screaming in fear from it.


The video store.

My wife maintains that in Taiwan you can't make it as a singer unless you are really good looking, while in the US there is still the possibility that you can make it in the music business no matter how unprepossessing you might be.


Bangles on clothing.

I love the contrast between this iron-faced old vendor and the bright clothing festooned with metal and beads that she sells.


Inspecting the nail clippers.

Mom and Rhonda did manage to find some necessities.


How long will they last?

My father once remarked that there is no town so small that it can't use another shoe store, and looking at Taiwan night markets, it is clear that he was right.


Sugared fruits.

It was past the kids' bedtime, so we headed home....


Sheridan poses with the newfangled phone that provides email, telephone, and other services.

I cannot recommend this night market. There are many better ones locally; even the small ones in Tanzi beat it. Spend your time and money elsewhere.

[Taiwan] [Taichung]

Friday, Oct 21, Taiwan Blog Round Up

Whoa! Friday already? Wasn't it Friday just last week? Here we are again with another round of wit, wisdom, and wackiness from the blogs on and about Taiwan.

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Anarchy in Taiwan's series on Moshing in the Third World comes to an end as he returns from the Philippines.

When we arrived at Anak Bayan, Melona came out of the women's room coughing and said they would give me a three part lecture. Her friend Rhea would teach me the history, while Melona would cover the "problems" and the "solution." Just then Rhea came out of the room and told me she would need some smokes for the lesson. We walked across the street where a vender handed her a pile of Marlboro singles. She dropped some coins in his hand and we returned to the flat. It began raining and the water leaked on to the floor next to me as Rhea began her lesson.

I was going to write a whole entry about Anak Bayan's history of the Philippines from the end of Spanish colonization to the present, but I decided to just write a synopsis of the lecture:

Anarchy in Taiwan also pointed me to this great tale on POTS about Taiwan's greatest rock band ever, a snapshot of the early democracy period after the end of martial law.

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the leaky pen, rapidly becoming one of my favorite Taiwan blogs, describes the disillusionment of living in Chungli.

Now, I know, I've come down pretty hard on my surrogate home in this blog lately, but in all seriousness there's a lot about the place that a fella can dislike...besides the way it's history is written. For instance, I've lived here for over a year now and I've yet to find a decent place to eat, which is pretty damn rare for any Taiwanese town. Plus, there's no nightlife aside from a few seedy dives that woulda made good redneck bars back in the states, in places like Georgia or Alabama. Sure, there are what seem to be some nice x-rated KTVs and hooker-filled "barber shops" around--places like "Caesar's" right behind the Jhungli Train Station or the "Golden Lotus" next to the Jhungli City Museum--but those aren't exactly my cup of scotch if you know what I mean.

Come down to Taichung some weekend, tlp! We'll go have a drink downtown with the gang down here.

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Several bloggers caught the Canadians being busted in Korea for using fake documents. Freedom Slopes notes:

Korea has taken a strong stand against English teachers with dubious credentials lately . Taiwan however has always taken a liberal attitude towards the English Teaching trade and Taiwan has always had high levels of unqualified teachers. Taiwan does not actively seek out teachers with fake credentials or those teaching outside of their assigened schools as Korea does. I don't think Taiwan even has a proven method of certifying teacher credentials. Just last year there was a story of a South African who was deported, after his taiwanese GF reported his fake credentials, but then he returned and cleared his name in a Taiwanese court. No one had chosen to really scrutinize his documents that he provided. If they had they would have found that the uni he had studied at provided a BA, Masters and Ph.d online for 999$USD.
Perhaps the Taiwanese could take note of the Korean crackdown and at least make an attempt to better enforce the laws here.

There is a verification system, FS. The Ministry maintains a list of accredited foreign schools, and there is supposed to be a check against that somewhere in the system. The brazen South African you refer to I blogged on earlier. I sent letters to all the English newspapers to alert them to the truth, but nobody printed them. Scott Sommers blogged on the Canadians as well, as did Fred Shannon.

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Jonathan Benda warns on Babelfish, which his students appear to be using:

Recently I've been coming across some English compositions that have me completely dumbfounded. They contain sentences the likes of which I have never seen--grammatical errors and diction problems that are completely new to me (and I've been teaching EFL writing for over 10 years). I am about 90 percent sure that the students writing these compositions are composing in Chinese, then using some sort of translation program (either online or some software) to translate the compositions into English. As you can probably guess, the compositions that come out of such an approach are sometimes pretty bizarre. I'm not going to quote any student writing here, but I'll copy some text that I plan on showing them tomorrow.

I haven't seen this yet, but it does seem to be a sort of inevitable development.

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The Taiwan Chronicles is another convert to the local health system:

This week, I had my first encounter with the Taiwanese health system, and I have to say that I am impressed. I went to see at doctor at 8 p.m. with no appointment, and was seen after about a 20-minute wait. With my government-issued insurance card, the visit cost $150 NT (about $4.50 US) including the prescription, which I was able to obtain from the pharmacy attached to the doctor's office. Between that visit, my current need to also see a dentist, and the recent conversations I've had with other foreigners about their healthcare experiences here (one coworker just had a filling replaced for about $1.50 US), the thought of coming home to the American health system (or lack of one) is quite saddening.

The health system here is great -- for now.

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Axis & Allies lovers shouldn't miss Karl's very funny find at the A&A group Caspian Sub:

Jorge: Ok, we do too. We also put a little twist on it. If all of Germany's planes are destroyed then they are able to build the 'Visigoth Catapult'. It allows one infantry to be launched up to 3 spaces away. They fire for a round and then die.
Oleg: Oh, kind of like Kaiten Torpedoes.
Jorge: Kind of, only this is cooler. This is the 'Visigoth Catapult'.
Oleg: Ok. Anything else?
Jorge: Yes. We didn't think there were enough spaces in the board once the Allies get to Germany so we use the Holy Roman Empire expansion map.
Oleg: Fiefdoms of 1157AD or fiefdoms of 1036AD?
Jorge: Man, around here you won't find ANYONE using the fiefdoms of 1157. That map is retarded.........

ROFL. Caspian sub, hosted at Yahoo, has lots of fun stuff, including strategy packs and questions, and house rules that are excellent, aimed at solving the problem of Axis weakness.

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More from the humor column: The Taipei Kid finds a scrubbing pad with a special name:

The Kid observes:

I know a scrubbing brush company that needs to find itself a better marketing director. Love the fine print on the package as well: "convenience grasp", "usage do not harm the hand".

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David at jujuflop hits the all-important problem of reform of Taiwan's moribund banking sector.

The thing that strikes me about this is that there are currently 12 state-run banks in Taiwan. Note that this is the state after several years of reform (there were about 50 banks 10 years ago). Huge numbers of banks I can understand (one of Taiwan's characteristics is the large number of small companies that continually pop up then disappear and generally help the Taiwanese economy), but what is the possible advantage of huge numbers of state run banks? It goes some way to explain the sad state of Taiwanese banking.

This idea of tate control is an old one in Chinese culture, going all the way back to the old Discourses on Salt and Iron, a first-century BCE text recording debates on whether and how the state should control the iron and salt industries. Nothing has really changed, as today both of those industries are still in state hands in Taiwan, in the form of China Steel and Taiwan Salt. Robert Wade once noted that Taiwan had the highest percentage of state-owned businesses outside the old Soviet bloc. One of the things that makes Taiwan so fascinating is the way it embodies contradictions like crappy and inefficient banking with dynamic economic growth, and massive state ownership of the economy with a vibrant export sector.

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Cold Goat Eyes makes his own list of what's special about The Beautiful Isle:

It seems that everyone is making a list these days. Over on Isla Formosa, Dave compiles a selection of the things he doesn't miss about home (Canada), Compass lists 16 things to do in Taichung, and BigEll provides a rundown of his literary morsels over the last six months, including Martell's Booker-winning Life of Pi. Never one to be afraid of jumping on the compilatory (?) bandwagon, I present the Cold Goat Eyed guide to what is good (and not so good) about life here on the island.

One of the things that CGE mentions is of course the plight of western women in Taiwan:

This is a big fat cliche in Taiwan, and the subject has been dissected, probed, prodded, and picked apart more times than a fat Western chick complains about the shallowness and superficiality of the average local girl. However, the facts remain; a) Western guys like Taiwanese girls. b) Western girls do not especially care for Taiwanese guys. c) Taiwanese girls do not especially care for Taiwanese guys. You do the math, as the Americans would say. Here, the balance of sexual power is reversed. Any half-decent dancing-round-her-handbag chick in a London nightclub can be assured of getting picked-up, even if only by an inebriated acne-ridden roofer's mate from Hounslow, but you put the same girl in a Taiwan meatmarket and she will invariably be going home alone.

The Peking Duck hosted another round of discussion of this topic too:

Now that I have your attention... I recently had conversations with no fewer than three separate female Western expats who are living in China or have lived there in the past, and I was struck by one theme that each of them brought up: the difficulty that Western women have dating Chinese men, in sharp contrast to the infamous ease with which Western men date Chinese women.

Again, the scenario each of these friends shared was remarkably similar. Each described her love life in Asia as highly wanting, and each had more or less the same explanation, namely that Asian men in general and Chinese men in particular seem to be afraid of Western women and unwilling to take the risk of asking them out for a date. Two of them said they felt it had to do with the "feminine side" of Chinese men, and the third, when I mentioned this to her, embraced it as truth.

Don't miss the comments as there are many good ones....

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Taiwan's Other Side, a pro-KMT blog in English that gives some insight into the way minds work on the side that has neither a moral leg to stand on, nor any positive vision of Taiwan's future, nor anything good to say about the island and its people, worries that there is a conspiracy in the English-speaking world to avoid mention the Kaohsiung MRT scandal, writing:

Though you won't hear many English-speaking blogs or newspapers talking about it, the Kaohsiung MRT Scandal just won't go away.

Actually, anyone who reads the English newspapers has seen plenty on the scandal. For example, a quick search over at the Taipei Times, the pro-Green English paper, revealed two articles on the 14th and one from the 13th alone (as I have noted before, fact-free analysis is one of the hallmarks of criticism on Taiwan). It is one of the usual run-of-the-mill state-colluding-with-business scandals that infest The Beautiful Island, of the kind that made the KMT, TOS's party, wealthy and powerful. Despite TOS' claims, several English bloggers have commented on it at one time or another. Many of those same bloggers have focused on aspects of the scandal not much mentioned in the KMT charges: the terrible treatment of the overseas laborers. The KMT itself is more interested in using the scandal as a club to attack the DPP, rather than create real change in Taiwan, typical of their visionless style of leadership. They could care less about the workers.

I am sure that the scandal will bring down a minister or two. That happens about every three months in Taiwan, regardless of government. However, it is not a big deal as other DPP screw-ups, and is being pushed by the KMT to divert attention from their move to divest of the assets they looted from Taiwan over the years.

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The Forgetful writes on his parents' visit:

They've been here a few days now, and late last night Lady D got the idea to call an old friend of ours who owns a bar up in the Combat Zone and say that we were coming over. That's always only an almost, but not quite, good idea, because it is the Combat Zone, where numerous glorious battles were fought over the local women between the local men and the GIs until they were pulled out in '79. The first bars along lane 32 still send out their escort girls to try to get us into their bars. They always do, and I always wonder why -- they clearly see that we are the kind that come in couples. It's not like I'm going to abandon D to go in and pay through the nose for a watery drink with some escort girl in a tacky bar and hope that she'll make my wildest dreams come true. D already does that.

My aunt and uncle arrive next week. Can't imagine taking them there, though...

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The Gentle Rant blogs on those drug-addled Canadian teachers, the source of evil in Taiwan:

Governments and the media love to turn immigrants into scapegoats. In the thirties in America it was the Mexicans and the blacks. Growing up in Calgary, it was the Vietnamese who were vilified. In Vancouver it was the Hong Kong gangs and then the Russians. It's always someone else, never the home team.

Yup.

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Bourdeiu Boy reviews a book on everyone's favorite topic, popular culture in Taiwan:

All of the individual chapters are worthwhile contributions to knowledge of contemporary Taiwan. As a whole, the book suffers to varying degrees from an inconsistent application of social theorizing across each chapter. Chien-juh Gu's piece on Amway in Taiwan offers many remarkable insights into the socio-economic history of the direct selling as it has been "translated" into a Taiwanese social experience, but applies the work of Foucault somewhat programatically to fill out its descriptive analysis. SImilarly, Shuenn-der Yu's chapter on night markets can only acknowledge the broad theoretical categories of space and time, as well as the Taiwan-specific category of xiangtu, within a detailed account of social practices.

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Scott Sommers had an interesting post on the Kafkaesque world of Ministry of Education information. It should be taken for granted that information about a university put out either by that university or by any other university must be consumed with a small dose of NaCl.

In the MOE document, Ming Chuan University is listed as having a number of programs taught in English. While it is true that the International College offers a complete degree that can be taken solely in English, I am not so certain about the other programs. I believe they refer to the fact that there are a number of courses in these departments that are offered in English. Some of the courses it refers to may even be specialty classes intended to introduce English technical vocabulary to students. Language teachers would be more likely to call them ESP classes. I teach in the Department of Applied English, and even there, it would be extremely difficult to finish even a graduate degree solely in English.

Impossible to get a degree done in English at our U, unless you want to do an English degree. All you can say about universities here is: promises, promises.

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Love Songs (Are for Losers) has some fascinating posts on Being Asian: Mastering the Secret Art of Asian Parents, On Being Asian Part 2, and On Being Asian:

Invariably this was told to me by a white person. What I want to know is, why the hell didn't I know that Asian hair, Asian ears, Asian lactase enzymes are different than other people's? I am Asian, shouldn't I know? What the hell's wrong with me for not knowing? And most importantly, how the hell do random white people know more about the details of Asian physiology than me?

Perhaps instead of that talk your parents are supposed to have with you about sex, they should sit down with their kids and have "So you're Asian" talk and all that this entails.

Don't miss the hellish tale of control freak Asian parents importing their parenting methods to the US:

Speaking of exposes of Asian secrets, I guess a couple Korean women wrote a book about how white people can turn their kids into overachievers. There's an article about them at the New York Times. Since I'm not sure if being a member is required for this article I'm just going to include it here and hope they don't sue me. I'm curious what people think about this article so hopefully some of you comment. I'm still thinking so I'll hold off on my own comments at the moment. You can read the article here and see the book here. As usual, I read about this at www.angryasianman.com.

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POTs continues its series on Linda Arrigo, this week covering her participation in the independence movement.

Dissent at this time came from the middle class, which demanded that the state normalize society. And that dissent had a decidedly leftist cast to it. Taiwanese dissidents saw themselves in solidarity with other anti-authoritarian movements internationally. More concretely, this meant that Taiwanese dissidents tended at that time to see themselves as defending universal values of human rights and democracy against the Chiang regime, which they saw as a US client state.

Arrigo's own intense interest in liberation struggles in Latin America grew out of this context. Arrigo wanted the Taiwanese democracy movement to connect US-backed repression in Guatemala or Nicaragua with repression in Taiwan. For Arrigo and many Taiwanese at that time, they were in a global struggle with a US-dominated capitalist order.

.....

Taiwanese nationalism began growing in strength after the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979 - much to the disgust of many old-fashioned pro-China leftists, who eventually left the movement when the goal of Taiwanese independence was formally adopted. While this may have been the beginning of Arrigo's disenchantment with the DPP, she acknowledges that the rise of Taiwanese identity also corresponded to the growing political potency of the democracy movement.

Good reading....and this comment:

Her view is that identity politics have divided Taiwan so badly that substantive discussion of other issues is almost impossible now.

Deserves a much larger treatment....next installment?

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Apple Daily, which is journalism what avian flu is to bird populations, is the source of a Belligeretron post on mock fellatio by a mock singer on TV:

The other night, they've got this Taiwanese singer on. She's the one unzipping the guy's pants, in the photo. Her name is Phoebe Huang. She probably sucks. Most Taiwanese singers that make it to television do.

Hmmm...describing a singer as one who sucks in an article on failed fellatio should be some kind of pun crime. The next post on living with road desconstruction is also well-written:

They're out there, right now. The foreman, I'll give him this: He's a good yeller. He's got one of those voices that ring out like a shot and hit you square between the ears. His voice carries around our building and through the little alleys, sidestreets, lanes and parks our apartment overlooks. It goes over the drone of the machines. It even goes over the forceful poundings and hydraulic whines of the backhoe.

I've often thought it would be a good idea to allow the Taiwanese to arm themselves. I mean with projectile weapons. But, thinking back on how angry I get listening to that foreman and his crew, I realize it's not such a good idea.

Because the Taiwanese aren't such good shots.

ROFL.

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Wandering to Tamshiu notes the social upheaval likely to result from the new WiFi initiative:

Wireless access for all? The ability to stream A片 on your PDA while weaving through traffic on your scooter? Sweet! (Note to self: buy stock in Taiwanese auto insurance companies)

A片 = porno flicks. Don't miss his post on Chen Chu's account of her interrogation by the old security state.

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Pinyin News writes of another tribe seeking official recognition in Taiwan:

The Sakizaya people of Taiwan's Hualian County want to be officially recognized as a tribe and registered their application with the government's Council of Indigenous Peoples on Thursday, according to an article in the Taipei Times. Among their claims in support of their application is that they have a separate language from that of the Amis, a tribe they have lived among since the nineteenth century. A few examples of words are given in the final paragraph.

It's good that some of these people are finally beginning to pick up the scattered threads of their identity.

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Rank had some good posts this week. His analysis of Ma Ying-jeou's spinelessness is dead on.

One has to wonder about Ma Ying-jeou's willingness to push the envelope to any extent at all. Today, he criticized the Presidential Office for selecting LY President Wang Jin-ping to represent Chen Shui-bian at an APEC summit. In this Chinese-language article, Ma is quoted as saying that you need to do a backroom deal first; then you make the announcement. This comes just a day after Ma and the KMT gave their blessing to Wang's trip (Shortly afterward, Beijing said they opposed Wang's appearance at the APEC summit; Ma found out through KMT-CPC channels that the PO knew Beijing's position before announcing Wang would go to Busan).

Lee Teng-hui and then Chen Shui-bian have been strategically pushing the envelope in various kinds of announcements. The result has been that Beijing no longer reacts strongly to certain kinds of statements and Taiwan has more international leeway. Sure, Wang may never have had a chance to represent Chen, but if you don't try to advance your position, you certainly won't get anywhere. I hope that when Ma is elected president, he won't take such a spineless approach as he seems to be advocating now.

Ma's approach to public policy appears to be: GET BEIJING'S APPROVAL FIRST.

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I normally don't round up myself, but this week my Taiwan Invasion Scenario provoked plenty of comments and responses. Don't miss MZT's critique. It's good to see MZT's correction on lift capability, which I didn't realize, and the news that the US carriers will be hanging around here in greater numbers. I may do a reverse scenario of China failing to take Taiwan before the US arrives. Along those lines, Sun Bin has a fantastic post -- as always -- on Taiwan, Google Maps, and Game Theory:

To formulate a "game theory" model, we need to list the options of both players in a 2-dimensional matrix, mainland's options as column entries and Taiwan's row entries. The more the number of options we can contemplate, the larger this matrix is. We then proceed to assign values of each cell in the matrix: option m(x) vs option t(y), based on the result of option x from mainland and option y from Taiwan. A mathematical analysis can then be performed to find out which option (combination, with a probability mix) will generate the maximum value for the palyer (m or t), assuming the opponent is also applying the best strategic option mix available. This is the classical von Neumann model in the normal form. To apply Schelling's theory we need to apply many of these matrices as the follwing "turns" of the game. One may also needs to incorporate the options and responses of the US. The analysis could get immensely complicated.

A great, far-ranging post stuffed with information.

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Tea Masters, always full of learned advice:

Of more practical use is this other teaching from Lu Yu: "The water that is from the same region as the tea will be its best fit." It makes sense. The tea leaves will perform best when they are hyydrated with the same water that used to nourrish them.

This explains, among other things, why the tea you drink in the producing region tastes much better than back home. (One time travellers to China should beware! My advice: bring some tea from home so that you can evaluate the change in taste).

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Genslay describes an incident with a friend and a motorcycle and an old woman.

We have a supermarket called Taisuco that is right around the corner from our house. The parking lot has these weird cinderblock tiles that shake and rattle when you drive over them and don't come close to lying flat on the ground. An old woman was walking out of the store and tripped on one of the tiles and fell right into Robert's scooter as he was getting off of it to go into the store. The elderly woman fell flat on the ground after knocking Rob's bike over. Everyone ran over to check on the old woman. The mass of people immediately turned on him and accused him of hitting her with his scooter and knocking her to the ground. Luckily Rob knows Chinese and was able to diffuse the situation before anyone called the cops. You see, most people hate foreigners. I know this first hand, as I have been on the receiving end of a "Fuck you" for no apparent reason as two old men drove by me on a scooter. I can only imagine what was said before they half-believed he was telling the truth. I'm sure it went something like this: "Gan ma!?!? Bide-tz Wygorin tzu! Ta ama! Ni pien wa! Pien lun! Gan-nina". Loosely translated, "What the hell are you doing!?!? Stupid foreign pig! She's a grandmother! You're lying to me! Liar! Motherfucker!" I've been told everyone of these things at one point or another, mostly by my students.

Do people here hate foreigners? I've been on the receiving end of revolting commentary from young males shouted out from junior high schools. Don't think it constitutes a social trend though, other than the one of young males being out of control. Might be a good discussion in there somewhere.

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Wild at Heart, a local environmental defense organization, blogs on a topic that I noticed was more commonly discused outside of Taiwan than in it: the "gift" of pandas to the island. They provide a comprehensive overview of why this is a really stupid idea:

2) Animal Rights
Taiwan's Shin Kong Group claims it will pay NT$200 million towards the construction of a 5,500 square-meter cement display house in which to put both pandas. According to reports, however, the living space given to the pandas released into the "semi-wild" environment in Sichuan Province in China is 240,000 square meters, and the space given in the "second phase of release" is ten times bigger. In comparison, bringing the pandas to Taiwan means exchanging this chance at increased freedom for a life in a far smaller cage in a subtropical climate for which this species is simply not evolved. In addition, Taiwan will also have to spend NT$40 to 50 million a year on maintaining all kinds of equipment for the artificial feeding of the pandas as well as the maintenance and air conditioning of their confined space. According to research by foreign animal protection groups, the cost of letting animals such as the rhinoceros live in a more spacious and natural environment in the wild is about one-sixteenth of the cost of raising it in captivity.

Hell yes. And let's not forget that one important purpose of Pandas Out of China is to give the authoritarian state across the Straits a cuddly face, a move that has proven to be extremely useful in international diplomacy. Good work, guys. Donations to Wild at Heart can be made here.

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Blue Stasis posts on Taiwanese:

Taiwanese was abound. Basically, the only time someone spoke Chinese was to speak me, and they approached it like they were speaking the queens English. The speaker was given time to annunciate, and they tried to speak clearly and slowly. However, it seemed that they were not doing such a performance for me, but rather, Chinese was a big deal. They all spoke Chinese, but they viewed it as a foreign language, much like the restaurant manager.

I think Taiwanese is equivalent to whatever language America's Deep South spoke a truly different language. It is ugly, and bluntly, it sounds uneducated. I could catch words because the people were drunk and spoke slowly, but I could not understand anything.

....

Yet, I realized later that the people I drank with were all pretty big deals. I kept asking one what his job was. He said he was a "boss" and I said a "boss of what" and the comment just sort of sat there, ike it was unheard. Now I think it was heard, just ignored.

Want to live a long healthy life, Blue? When someone says to you they are a boss, show them deference and respect. Maybe he means boss of a small factory and is a mite embarrassed about running a small one. Or maybe he is being modest as the boss of a large one. Or maybe he means he is the boss of a local gang.

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Casey and Molly's missionary blog promises years of great missionary blog comedy:

I must say it is different living in a city of 6,000,000 people, there are so many people and you know in your heart that EVERYONE you see is lost.

Speaking of being lost, Casey: there are no cities in Taiwan with 6,000,000 people. Who's the lost one? Not the people of Taiwan. The arrogance of these people is unbelievable.

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Turning to religion of a more life-affirming kind, J&J blog on Yom Kippur service:

We weren't sure what to expect from a Taiwanese Yom Kippur service, especially one that had to meet the needs of all of the Jews in Taiwan. Would it be Orthodox? Would I need a hat? When we arrived for Kol Nidre, the rabbi (a small, older man from Europe who has been in Taiwan for close to 30 years) was reading aloud in English from the prayerbook. When he was satisfied that enough people were present, a lay cantor (a Citibank exec from the U.S.) began the chanting of Kol Nidre. The services were fairly traditional, conducted mostly in Hebrew, and men and women were asked to sit separately (but separated only by a tiny aisle), but the congregation seemed to come from a variety of backgrounds. At the end of the service (which lasted nearly 4 hours!), the rabbi asked everyone to introduce themselves. We went around the room, hearing from Jews from the US, Canada, Israel, South Africa, Venezuela, Spain, and other countries. Some were just passing through Taiwan (a semiconductor expert from Vermont in town for a conference), and others were congregational regulars. The rabbi had a story for nearly everyone in the room—he once met the president of Venezuela, he has a daughter in Florida–which may be why the service was so long! It was pretty astounding to be in a room in Taiwan full of Jews from all over the world. Our Hebrew school teachers were right—if you learn the Hebrew prayers, you can go to a synagogue anywhere in the world and speak the same language.

++++++++++++

SHORTS: aemoncannon goes to Gu Guan in the mountains outside of Taichung and returns with a few shots. Poagao treks through the underbrush to modern ruins. IslaFormosa.com blogs on beef noodles. Don't miss the podcasting at Getting a Leg Up and Ugly Expat. Taiwananonymous discusses a documentary on a local gymnastics team. As always, great photos at 35togo, Unplugged, the forgetful's photo gallery, amateur commune, andres, Clarke vs Matt, Cat Piano,T_C at Fotolog, Fotologging Taiwan, Photoactionboy, leftmind, MaMaHuHu (Jackson, you gonna put new stuff up there?), Everything Visible is Empty, Roger in Taiwan, Love Songs (Are for Losers), Photoblogging Taiwan, a better tomorrow, and This Life. Don't miss some fantastic mountain panoramas at Formosa Online. Yuuchiro found some great pics of mountains and water. There's a big list of Taiwan fotologgers at Fotolog.net. Pagebao points to the most recent issue of Sinorama online with articles on Greening Taiwan and on rock-n-roll. Congratulations to Wild at Heart for winning the President's Butterfly Cultural Award for their contributions to Taiwan.

EVENTS OF NOTE: The deadly strain of Bird flu arrived in Taiwan today.






New Blogs on the roll this week: American in Taiwan, Dooley's house, Genslay, my blog (the tale of an swf living in taiwan), Thoughts from Taiwan, Just Danny, and The Matrix Unplugged

[Taiwan] [China] [Taipei]

Taiwan Beer to Foreign Partner?

The International Herald Tribune reports that Taiwan Beer is looking for a foreign partner.

Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor, which controls about 80 percent of the island's $1 billion-a-year beer market, is looking for overseas partners as rivals like Heineken and Tsingtao Brewery siphon away its sales and crimp its profit.

"We're willing to talk if any international tobacco, liquor and beer company is interested," the chairman, Ray Dawn, said in a recent interview in Taipei. Foreign investors "can be our long-term strategic partners."

Here's a hint guys: try investing in product quality. Perhaps that foreign partner will help...

[Taiwan] [beer]

Festivals and Shows Around the Island

The Taichung Jazz Festival lights up the Desert of the Real with some real cool jazz. We'll be down there tomorrow.

The Tsou, an aboriginal people of Taiwan, are having their Fona festival this week.

An oil painting exhibition is taking place in Taipei....

[Taiwan] [Taichung] [Taipei]

Bird Flu Arrives....

The IHT and other news organs are reporting our first case of the deadly strain of bird flu:

Taiwanese authorities on Thursday confirmed the island's first case of bird flu, the Agricultural Commission said.

Birds taken from a Panama-registered freighter that was stopped by the Taiwanese coast guard on Oct. 14 tested positive for the H5N1 virus, the commission said.

The IHT article also has a good global roundup of avian flu developments. Taiwan News says that the birds were smuggled into the country. [Deleted due to David's sane comments]

A national outbreak is unlikely, as samples taken for testing were collected from birds that were already dead before they were destroyed, said Ying Yeh, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

"Taiwan is not a bird flu-affected area, as the birds were not local but smuggled from abroad," said Watson Sung, the bureau's director general.

Do they think that the smugglers had no local connections? Or what? Those gangsters abed with the police, both political parties, and other local power structures are going to kill us. To be safe, officials say, follow the Ten DON'Ts and Five DOs:

The "Ten Don'ts" include: don't stay in crowded areas for long periods of time, don't engage in physical contact with birds, don't travel to infected areas and engage in physical contact with birds, don't breed different kinds of domestic or foreign fowl, don't release birds into the open, don't purchase poultry from unknown and unauthorized sources, don't eat uncooked poultry or poultry made from infected birds, don't discard dead birds that have been infected, don't privately slaughter birds.

The Five Do's include washing hands frequently, taking flu vaccinations, eating wholly-cooked food, improving one's immunity, and taking care of one's health.

There you have it.

[Taiwan] [Avian Flu]

Fitzmas: so what?

I haven't blogged on the whole Plame Affair. And I am not going to either. Sure, Fitz will indict the whole White House. In the long run it won't mean a thing. If things get hot, the Bush Lite will simply issue blanket pardons like Clinton did for about 200 of his dirtier pals, and Bush Classic did for the Iran-Contra traitors. Nothing will actually happen to any of those traitors either.

[Plame]

Ma Says Chen is an Emperor

Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of Taipei yesterday criticized President Chen for acting in an imperial manner:

Mayor of Taipei Ma Ying-jeou characterized President Chen Shui-bian's rule as that of an emperor yesterday.

Questioned at the city council, Mayor Ma referred to President Chen's pledge to let the Ministry of the Interior outlaw the Kuomintang's sale of a school complex and said such an intervention is what an emperor used to do.

The Kuomintang sold the party school in Taipei for NT$4.2 billion last month. The buyer is asking for a change in the zoning code so that it can be developed as a residential complex.

The school is one of the KMT's many ill-gotten gains from the period of one-party rule. The "President Chen is an Emperor!" is a common refrain from mainlanders that I have heard many times. I suppose it takes one to know one....and Ma himself, who got a scholarship as a student spy ratting out his fellow students from Taiwan to the security apparatus of the KMT state, knows all about imperial behavior.

[Taiwan]

Taichung has.....Attractions?

TaiwanFun has a pointer to the local Taichung mag COMPASS, which has a list of 16 things to do in Taichung...the list entitled The Beauty of Taichung's Ancient Temples takes you to...well, you'll have to see for yourself. But there's something very appropriate in its ironic error.

[Taiwan] [Taichung]

Taiwan's Military: A few (heh) Problems

Whaddaya know. I blog that Taiwan's equipment is in worse condition than everyone thinks, and lo and behold, the Taipei Times hands me a great article on the condition of the local war stuff:

"The quality of weapons and equipment used by the military was so poor, and I think this has eroded the military's combat capability," Jung added.

For example, Jung said, there were about 40 armored vehicles in his unit. While the unit told its supervisors that all vehicles were combat-ready, military personnel in the unit knew that just half of the vehicles were operational.

and don't miss this:

The indictment of former Armed Forces Reserve Command vice commander Lieutenant General Hsieh Kang Chien (謝抗建) last month revealed why the armed forces' weapons and equipment are so bad, and that corruption in the military is still rampant.

According to Taipei prosecutors, Hsieh and former army rear admiral Yao Kai-lin (姚凱林) became advisers to a military equipment company immediately after retiring, helping the company to win a large number of military contracts through illegal means.

What? High-ranking military officials working for companies the contracted with as military officers? It's good to see the Taiwanese learning from the US again.

Now imagine it is wartime. About a third to half of the island's equipment is not operational. All that hardware counting is now irrelevant.....because there is no hardware.

Folks, we're worse off than we think. We need about 300 fighters, parts, pilot training, and ammo, and we need them now. Today.

[Taiwan] [China]

Taiwan Goes Wifi Wild

All over the blogs today is this news report from PC World that Intel and Taiwan are teaming up to make the whole island wireless accessible by 2007.

Taiwanese government officials said on Monday they plan to make Taiwan the world's largest testing ground for WiMax, and inked a pact with Intel to work together on the wireless broadband technology.

The government will provide around $209 million in funding for the initiative, in addition to spectrum allocation and other assistance, while Intel is expected to pitch in its technical resources. Next year, the government will provide an additional $32.8 million in research funds specifically for WiMax, a separate budget from the above figure, said Minister of State Lin Ferng-ching.

[Taiwan]

China Takes Taiwan

In the last few years a consensus that the China threat might be greatest prior to the 2008 Olympics has emerged among many of us armchair analysts in the Blogosphere. Brian Dunn at the Dignified Rant has a an argument for a pre-Olympic invasion here, and a Taiwan invasion scenario to go with it. Commentator Wendell Minnick has published a fascinating account of an invasion as well. Here's a bit of fantasy for your enjoyment.

Timing
Dunn's article argues that

May to July is a non-monsoon window for the Taiwan Strait region (the other is October) and so would fit very nicely with the assumed pre-Olympics timing.

The summer may be non-monsoon, but 80% of the island's rain falls in that period, as it is typhoon season. Invading in the summer is a really bad idea. Not only do typhoons roll out of the Pacific every few days, but it is excrutiatingly hot and muggy.

No, the summer is a bad time. A much better time would be December or early January. The weather will be cool by day, and chilly by night, but certainly not intolerably so -- ideal weather for combat operations. The typhoon season will be over, but the rains will not have arrived. Look for the pre-Olympic invasion to take place in the late winter of 2006 or 2007. An earlier invasion will give the fallout time to blow over.


Extent
China will have several goals. First, it will want to localize the conflict as much as possible. Second, it will want the war over as soon as possible. Ideally, long before the US arrives, Chinese troops should be ensconced on the island and impossible to dislodge, with Chinese aircraft flying from airports in Taiwan and the island surrounded by Chinese ships and submarines. The Taiwan army should be comprehensively defeated and the Japanese presented with the quandry of beginning intervention against a military power astride their lines of communication to Persian Gulf oil -- with the US not having arrived.

Diplomatic Offensive
One important goal for China is to keep foreign intervention down to a minimum. There is no fear that Europe will actually do anything, though there will be expressions of solidarity and public protests, after which everyone will promptly go home and snap up Chinese goods, just as they made no material responses to the illegal US invasion of Iraq that might have required sacrifice on their part. The main diplomatic goal will be to keep the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, and other non-European powers who might have an interest in a free Taiwan from actually intervening. For the US and Japan, a speedy military victory is the most important lever for doing this. For the other nations, the invasion will come at a time when Chinese diplomacy has been putting on a charm offensive, spending money, promising markets, and engaging in pro-active diplomacy.

China's charm offensive will not need to provide distractions for the US. Dunn argues that China will have to isolate the battlefield, but that is only half the goal. The Chinese need more than anything to isolate the United States. Unfortunately for Taiwan President Bush has already managed to achieve this goal better than perhaps any hostile nation in our country's history. China need merely give history a nudge.

Achieving Surprise
It goes without saying that China will need to achieve surprise. This means that preparations will be minimal and cloaked by training exercises and so on. Commandos and spies already in Taiwan will begin sabotage operations, cyberwarfare, and the planting of beacons and other aids for navigation and attack. Spies will place homing beacons on important targets such as bridge and freeway spans, power lines, dams, dikes, and so on. All of this will take place a few hours before the attack. Dunn has suggested that warehouses with supplies and equipment will be pre-positioned.

The Opening
The battle for Taiwan begins, not at dawn, but after breakfast, when the early morning patrols have returned and people are just waking up and eating, and roads congested with people on their way to work. Strikes by commando teams hit on targets all over the island, including pipelines, fuel storage, ammo dumps, equipment, and military hardware. Fishing smacks loaded with explosives are detonated in ports.

At the same time the Chinese perform pre-emptive strikes on Taiwanese airfields, using their advanced Su-27 and Su-30 fighters to shoot down those few Taiwanese aircraft that beat the 15 minute window of air time between Taiwan and China and get into the air. The main attacks are carried out by aging and archaic jets, which have no trouble carrying dumb munitions and striking stationary targets on runways. There is no warning -- the jets have been prepped at night with the usual "training exercise" cover story, and the men are not told their true missions until a few minutes before the attacks are scheduled to begin. They have naturally been carrying out exercises in bombing airfields over the past few months, and have become competent though not skilled. But not much more is necessary -- the short flight time means that the strike aircraft can be over the island again in 90 minutes, assuming very slow turnaround times, long before the Taiwanese can organize any concerted response. Like the commando attack, the air attack is schedule to arrive during breakfast, dawn being the traditional and thus expected hour. As the air attack unfolds, Taiwanese airfields are also hit by Chinese missiles, which, though inaccurate, will slow down Taiwanese responses.

Strikes are also carried out on Taiwan's electricity network, whose terrible vulnerability was exposed by the 9/21 earthquake. Power plants will be left alone as they are difficult and costly to repair, but power lines and substations will be destroyed. These have been marked with electronic beacons that Chinese air-launched missiles can home in. Since Taiwan no longer has control of the air, even 1960s and 70s aircraft will have no trouble ranging over the island, dropping missiles on pre-planned targets, and taking out targets of opportunity. Water systems, including exposed piping, will be cut. Major highway bridges including the two sites where the 1st and 3rd north-south highways meet (near Hsinchu, and just south of Taichung), will be obliterated, along with the rail brides, the Chungchang and Chungtou expressways, and the West Coast Highway. This will be exceptionally easy since all cross the river just below Taichung within a few kilometers of each other. This will cut the island in half and force Taiwanese army units to cross on smaller bridges in the cities. In fact, Taiwan's topography, which crams all the infrastructure onto a plain fifty kilometers wide criss-crossed by wide rivers, is an interdiction expert's dream.

In addition to whacking transportation and communications infrastructure, the Chinese may consider knocking out some of Taiwan's dams. Consider this article in the Taipei Times a few months ago on the claims of an engineer that the Shihmen Dam could collapse.

The letter was written by former WRA deputy director-general Wu Hsien-hsiung (吳憲雄), and was published in the Chinese-language newspaper China Times on Aug. 16. In the letter, Wu said that the additional construction -- huge water pipes and pumps on the top of the dam -- could damage the structure, make it leak and possibly even cause it to collapse. If that happened, water from the reservoir would flood most of Taoyuan and Taipei counties and more than 3.5 million residents in Taipei and Taoyuan counties could be killed within a few minutes.

"The entire process would take less than two hours," Wu said in his letter.

Dams are notoriously difficult targets in wartime, often requiring specialized equipment and training. In WWII the famous Dambusters used specially-developed bombs for knocking out the German dams on the Rhine, and in Korea AD-4 Skyraiders used leftover WWII torpedoes dropped from the air -- the last time torpedoes were dropped from aircraft in anger -- to destroy the sluice gates of the Hwachon Dam in 1951. Shihmen is an earth-rockfill dam. Taking out the dam from the air may seem an impossible task.

But think about it: the Shihmen Dam is already considered vulnerable to collapse by its overseers in Taiwan. And here's another point: destroying dams is usually a problem of hitting them in the right way to produce a catastrophic failure. That requires pinpoint accuracy probably beyond the technological and human capabilities of the Chinese. There is little to prevent a potential saboteur from placing electronic beacons on the dam to guide weapons right to it. This would enormously simplify both the task of sabotage (e-devices are easy to conceal or disguise) and the task of hitting the dam, as it is simple to produce weapons that can home in on a beacon.

A look at the map will show that water from Shihmen will go directly into Taipei and cause massive destruction of electricity, transportation, and communications, completely disrupting any effort to coordinate a defense. A bonus is that unlike destroying the nuclear plants north of Yangmingshan, the effects of taking out Shihmen would not be permanent; the water would eventually drain and the locals can be taxed to pay for the damage, or perhaps the World Bank, always ready to pay for Chinese expansionism, could be tapped for cash. Similar effects could be obtained from dam destruction elsewhere on the island. For example, knocking out Wushantou would devastate a section of a major north-south freeway, the new Highway 3.

Dunn believes the Chinese may use chemicals, but I do not think so. The need for a diplomatic fait accompli is powerful, and the Chinese will be sensitive to world opinion. Instead, if they want to totally disrupt communications, they will selectively destroy the Dams and dikes that bottle up Taiwan's rivers. Few will notice, and if anyone complains, the Chinese can point to similar British and American acts in the world wars and in Korea and Vietnam.

At the same time, as the Taiwanese military begins its response, its own officers betray it. The Taiwan officer corps still harbors many pro-China mainlanders who will only be too happy to serve the Chinese. As Lawrence Eyton noted:

It also follows the release of an alarming statistic by the Ministry of National Defense according to which more than 3,000 former Taiwan military officers are now either doing business or working in "consultancies" in mainland China.

Suborned by appeals to "ethnicity" and lumps of cold hard cash, these traitors send out conflicting or irrelevant orders, sabotage responses, and refuse to fight. They also betray key codes and hand over important information. This means that the Chinese probably will have access to many of Taiwan's key defense computer systems as well.

Speaking of computer systems, cyberattacks begin on Taiwan's computer systems, both civilian and military. All networks go down to both network attacks and sabotage of key hardware systems. Private satellite operators like SPOT notice that their networks have failed to function and that they have no coverage of Taiwan.

Dunn has an excellent take on the psychological warfare which I will simply reproduce here:

Broadcasts will urge the Taiwanese military to stand aside. Some might. The Chinese will announce that unlawful combatants, which will include all the Taiwanese military, will not be treated as POWs but as criminals. The Chinese will claim the world considers this an internal matter and give wide play to any real statements to that effect. If any US Senator urges caution in reacting, that too will be played to the Taiwanese. The Chinese want the 23 million Taiwanese to feel alone and facing the power of 1.3 billion Chinese charging hard at them. Of course, ethnic solidarity will be emphasized and the pride of a powerful China able to end the long humiliation at the hands of the West will be used to convince Taiwanese soldiers to defect or go home.

The Troops Arrive: Phase 1
Dunn argues that the Chinese will do two things. First, they will drop paratroops in and around Taipei (this position is also taken by Minnick above. Wendell Minnick describes:

An airborne assault directly on Taipei by China's 15th Airborne Corps (Changchun), with three divisions (43rd, 44th, 45th) would be the first phase of the assault, with additional paratroopers being dropped in Linkou, Taoyuan and Ilian, to tie up Taiwan's four divisions assigned to the 6th Army (North). A Chinese airborne division contains 11,000 men with light tanks and self-propelled artillery. Some intelligence reports have indicated that China was able to airlift one airborne division to Tibet in less than 48 hours in 1988. Today, China's ability to transport troops has greatly improved. China is expected to be able to deliver twice that number - 22,000 - in two days.

The Chinese have upwards of 22,000 paratroopers but bear in mind that troops can be taught to jump out of an airplane with relative ease -- thousands of out-of-shape hobbyists learn every year in the States (simple training consists of 4-5 ground hours plus a solo jump). The Chinese do not care if they get bloodyminded elite troops or not, nor do they care if half the poorly trained jumpers die in their jumps. Their goal is to get warm bodies on the ground in Taiwan so that the mainlander officers can plausibly surrender, or just turn their troops over to the invaders. A week prior to this the Chinese have been putting ordinary infantrymen through crash courses in jumping. As the transport planes return to their bases, they are quickly serviced and the newly-training troops are thrown aboard and tossed out of the aircraft over Taiwan in a steady stream. Remember, it's just a half an hour across the strait. Plausibly, each aircraft could do a drop every two hours, given an hour for refueling and reloading.

The first jumps put Chinese troops in two or three places. First, thousands of troops, light tanks, and light artillery drop on Yangmingshan overlooking Taipei. There they capture the listening post atop Tatun Mountain, with its collection of telecommunications hardware, from which US intelligence has been tracking Chinese moves for years. This station was not targeted precisely so it could be taken intact. From Neihu on the northeast side of the city artillery can easily hit Sungshan Airport, both denying it to the locals, and providing cover for attacking troops for whom that airfield is a key target. Elite paratroopers begin immediately moving into the northern suburbs to grab that airport. They can walk there in three hours, and drive even faster. Although Yangmingshan looks like a collection of peaks on the map, vast areas of it are actually flat and grassy, especially at higher elevations, and it is criss-crossed with paved roads that locals use for Sunday outings. The real problem will be coming down off the mountain, which breaks up into steep ridges on the Taipei side, especially over to the east, where there are fewer roads and far more trees. That is precisely the terrain Chinese light troops must cross if they are to take the Sungshan airport.

At the same time the Chinese also grab Guanyin Mountain, the mountain on the west side of the Tamshui River. From those heights even small artillery can command the city and the approaches to Taipei from the small harbor of Tamshui. With the air secure the Chinese begin helicoptering in supplies and larger artillery to the area.

The third drops will take place on the ridges around Keelung. These are heavily forested and many troops will be lost. But with light artillery, the Chinese can deny the use of the port to the Taiwanese, as well as cover it for their own seaborne assault. Scattered drops of units of 20-40 men will take place at key points along roads and railroads, to block incoming Taiwanese units, and destroy more infrastructure targets.

Where will the Chinese make their initial headquarters? On the other side of Yangmingshan, of course. There, nestled in the flanks of two nuclear plants, no one will dare hit them with heavy weapons. It will be a pain to coordinate operations with units on top of Yangmingshan, but any military commander will tell you that terrain is more easily overcome than the enemy.

Phase 2
With the air secure the Chinese can then begin coming ashore. Earlier the previous evening civilian shipping had been loaded with military gear and troops. Many observers have argued that China lacks the amphibious units to take Taiwan, but such analysts are thinking like Americans, who are like an eccentric old aunt who can't go anywhere without taking her 38 suitcases. No, the Chinese will simply commandeer everything and throw troops over. The result would be a bloody mess by western standards, but again, the idea is to get warm bodies onto the island. The Chinese have done this in the past:

The PLA also adopted a new strategy during invasion of Hainan Island in April 16, 1950; while they continued to conscripted civilian ships to transport the troops, they modified 32 of them into motorized gunboats by shielding them with sandbags and arming them with light artillery. To gain an element of surprise, the cross strait operation was conducted at night, and it was also backed by artillery and air cover, which were lacking during Jinman.

Dunn suggests something I have long believed, that the Chinese will not come ashore on beaches, exposed like extras in a WWII flick, but at ports. The island's ports have long been havens for Chinese fishing craft running from storms and Chinese intelligence will be intimately familiar with them. The invasion force, which set out in the early morning begins arriving around noon, landing in Keelung, Tamshui, Taichung, and Suao on the east coast (around 6 pm). The initial attacks are made by dedicated amphibious units, but civilian shipping carrying military units follows on throughout the day. The paratroopers have thoughtfully seized the heights on both sides of Tamshui and the invasion forces, covered by artillery and air power, can come ashore with ease, confronting only local defenders without coordination. The port in Taichung lies on flat ground serviced by excellent six lane roads that have completely clear views. Resistance can easily be suppressed from the air. Suao can defended indefinitely from the heights above it, but the mountains are so steep there that a defense may be impossible to carry out. With only one road down the coast, Suao can easily be cut off and taken. Keelung is taken, also assisted by paratroops. By evening of the first day Chinese troops are ashore.

Alternatively, the Chinese can blow the Shihmen Dam early in the conflict, around 8 AM, during breakfast. The water reaches Taipei in a few minutes and in a couple of hours, floods the city completely. The flood itself continues on down the Tamshui to the sea, where it scours both sides of the Tamshui River clean of everything human, leaving bare infrastructure and no defense. By noon everything is over. This will pose severe problems for the Chinese troops coming ashore, but I've never met a trooper who would rather face an armed enemy than a mud and mess. With Taipei completely knocked out, the Chinese can rest, reorganize, and then march into Taipei directly from Tamshui, along any of several roads -- a half-hour drive in traffic -- having thoughtfully brought along inflatable boats and other equipment required to tool around the city. Resistance is not possible, as local ammo dumps, tactical command centers, and equipment are all filled with water. The major roads into the city are all cut either by the flood from the Dam (which knocks out a major highway), airborne interdiction, sabotage, or control by Chinese paratroopers. In fact, if the Dam is to be blown, the timing of the invasion may well be determined by water levels in the Shihmen Dam, which naturally must be high if this strategy is to be carried out.

Evening falls. Chinese troops enter Taipei. In Taichung, light units race to the top of Tadu Mountain, meeting choppers there carrying airmobile artillery. Heavy units begin coming ashore in Taichung. With all major links across the river between Changua and Taichung cut, the island is cut in two and everything in the southern part of the island is essentially irrelevant to the campaign. Light units begin working their way out of Taichung and to points north, with one important goal being the airport in Taichung city, a forty minute drive from the port in traffic. Additionally, if the Chinese can work their way around the city and to the suburbs of Dali and Wufeng in the southeast, they can prevent the movement of Taiwanese reinforcement over the many bridges on the rivers there, through the city, and to points north. In Keelung light troops have begun to scale the ridges out of Keelung and begin the 25 kilometer trek to Taipei and the Sungshan airport, to link up with the paratroopers. Meanwhile as regular troops disembark around the clock in Tamshui, the paratroopers are pulled out of line and shipped back to China, so that, if necessary, they can be dropped again on Day 3 or if possible, late on Day 2.


The Surrender
With Chinese troops in the capital and the city itself perhaps submerged, communications and transportation links cut, Chinese marines ashore along the northern rim of the island, the air under Chinese control, the Taiwanese navy suppressed and the air force destroyed, the President of Taiwan meets with his advisors. A mainlander President will probably urge surrender on his largely mainlander senior officers, a course they will probably be only too happy to comply with. A Taiwanese President may be a harder sell.

Night arrives. Taiwanese units have begun to slowly recover from their disorganization and inherent incompetence. Minnick makes the call:

Except for special forces and the marines, it is unlikely that the rest of Taiwan's infantry brigades scattered across the island would do much. As the saying goes, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters." Taiwan's military is rife with lethargic and ineffectual troops just begging for their 20-month tour of duty to end so they can go back to their girlfriends and jobs. Many call Taiwan's youth, including its young soldiers, the "strawberry generation" because they are soft and spoiled by the good life. US military officials visiting Taiwan often complain that the military's boot camps are too lax. The military appears more afraid of angering the parents of the conscripts than confronting a Chinese invasion, say visiting US soldiers. One politically correct legislator recently complained to Asia Times Online, "Taiwan has to do something about violence in the military." The correspondent reminded him, "The military is a violent institution." The conversation was over; the lesson lost.

Taiwanese military preparedness is also typified by this from last year's TECRO magazine, the official publication of the Taiwanese trade office overseas:

Cadet Hung Wan-ting of Hsintien in Taipei County is enrolled at the USMA at West Point. Like every foreign exchange student, Cadet Hung had to adapt to a different culture to survive in her new surroundings. To her, two of the biggest differences between Taiwan's military education system and that of the United States are the physical demands placed on cadets and the U.S. army's focus on realistic training in the field. "Here, they stress tactics like marksmanship and land navigation. The USMA also teaches cadets about infantry tactics, such as squad movement, platoon movement, conducting raids, and defense in the field environment," whereas the Taiwan military focuses more on military discipline and seldom allow cadets to practice using live ammunition.

"Seldom uses live ammunition." "No stress on marksmanship and land navigation." Everyone familiar with Taiwan knows this story. Drills are unrealistic, officers give orders but do not lead. The result is that even the best intentions go awry. Troops fling away their weapons and run home to search for their families, fearing they are dead. Officers give contradictory and meaningless orders. Key bridges, ammo dumps, and tunnels are not destroyed as originally planned. Troops discover that much equipment has been pilfered over the years, while the another chunk is found to be useless, the victim of falsified reports and inadequate maintenance oversight, a common problem in all Taiwan bureaucracies.

In the morning, the President of Taiwan gets some startling news. There is a new President of Taiwan! As Minnick writes:

Once Taipei was captured, a new government chosen by Beijing would be sworn into office. There would be plenty of Taiwanese politicians to choose from. It is well known there are many pro-China legislators who have investments in China and more than a few who have had private meetings with Beijing officials. The inauguration would be conducted in the spotlight of the international media, giving it some psychological legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. There would be too many pro-China people in the US State Department - privately relieved the Taiwan issue was finally settled - to say anything in Taiwan's defense.

With his communications out, the elected President is out of touch and cannot gainsay the Chinese propaganda offensive. Bad news continues to roll in. Despite bitter last ditch resistance by local forces, Sungshan Airport has been taken during the night. Engineers are already working to pump out the water and get it operating again, and it is just a matter of time until the Chinese starting bringing men and equipment into the city. Scattered reports of fighting at the airport in Taichung are tinged with pessimism, Chinese heavy units are known to have formed up in Chingshui near the port and are now driving east across the northern flank of Tatu mountain and directly into Taichung down Chungching Rd. The air force commander reports that his forces have ceased to be effective. The head of China Petroleum informs the President that the nation's oil reserve was destroyed in sabotage attacks. The Naval commander has not reported in since his headquarters was repeatedly hit, but radio broadcasts from abroad say that most of Taiwan's fast attack craft have been sunk. Little does the President of Taiwan understand it, but Xinhua, despite being openly and obviously controlled by the Communist government of China, has quietly become an important source of news for Western newspapers, who, incredibly, cite it as if it were a news supplier and not a propaganda organ. The result is that Chinese propaganda has already begun to shape western reporting on the conflict.

At the same time, the President of Taiwan has not heard about any efforts by Western nations to intervene. Japan has demanded that China stop, but there are no reports of Japanese clashes with Chinese forces. The Chinese have vowed that oil shipments will continue and trade will go on during the conflict. Anti-Japanese prejudice in China has been held in check, but the Japanese are quietly informed that the mobs can be unleashed. To back this point, the Chinese Navy makes its presence known in the waters between Japan and Taiwan, where it will "maintain security for an unimpeded flow of goods as the splittist bandits in Taiwan are suppressed" as one Chinese official puts it. Europe bleats but does nothing in its usual fashion, except for the UK, which wonders aloud whether something should be done. The rest of ASEAN, already overshadowed by Chinese diplomacy, is mute. Russia smiles benignly and returns to its running sore in Chechnya. Australia, following Chinese progress on the satellite maps, announces that it will not intervene. India sighs with regret, and adjusts its attitude accordingly. The President of Taiwan tells his staff that if the US intervenes, he will advocate continued resistance. Out of touch, he is unaware of the decision already made hours ago.

All eyes turn to the United States. Caught by surprise -- though conspiracy theorists will charge for years afterward that the Administration let the war happen to distract attention from its domestic troubles -- US forces already began to react......or do they?

Two scenarios suggest themselves. In the first, Japan-based US forces react aggressively, attacking Chinese ships, aircraft, and invasion forces. US marines attempt to land on Taiwan. Aircraft from carriers, Guam, and southern Japan begin operating against Chinese forces on the island. Prodded by the Americans, the Japanese at last enter and a full-scale minor war begins. What the outcome of that will be no man can say.

In scenario two, as the US begins operations, in Washington it is 8 PM and everyone has gone home. The Chinese ambassador in Washington meets with the President immediately. The Chinese hold dollars, lots of dollars, it is pointed out. Flooding the world economy with dollars will break the dollar, and with it, the US and world economy. Washington is in a tizzy. Members of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus meets with the President at 10:30 PM and demand that something be done. Cooler heads point out that President already broke the budget in Iraq and that the US cannot now afford a major war against a major power. Already by the dawn -- evening of the same day Taipei time -- there are rumblings from Democrats and the handful of fiscal conservatives left on the Republican side in Congress that the nation cannot afford this war. At the same time everyone in the debate is following the progress of the Chinese, brought to them exclusively by the intrepid reporters of Xinhua, which announces that advance units of the Chinese army have taken Taichung, blocking troop movements from southern Taiwan, and entered Miaoli on their way to seize the information technology firms in Hsinchu. Major US corporations eye their technology investments in Taiwan nervously, and put pressure on the President to choose the less destructive of two evils. More importantly, they also point out that the Chinese markets will be closed to them for years if the US intervenes.

All night, as the main US forces wait for orders while individual units engage the Chinese, the President agonizes. News pours in. The Chinese have taken Taipei. Chinese troops are ashore in Taichung and have taken the local airport. Xinhua puts out a steady stream of serious-sounding victory nonsense, which is dutifully repeated by major establishment papers as actual news. All of this the President and his key advisors read. The Chinese, their ambassador indicates, are willing to overlook US participation with the Taiwanese at this point. They understand that the US has to keep its face. Further, in the back of the President's mind there is the project in the Middle East. The US cannot simply pick up and leave to go fight for Taiwan. But who wants to be the President who lost Taiwan? he asks himself

The Pentagon reports that it is ready to go. US fleet units are already en route. The State Department, long a haven for pro-China types, however, notes that if the US moves it will move alone. The President's policies have isolated the nation. The Chinese have also been effectively in stifling impulses to intervene among such powers as might be willing. Even the Japanese are waiting on the US decision.

All through the night the debate goes on as Chinese troops consolidate their positions across the northern end of the island. Finally, at 8:31 AM EST, as Chinese paratroops reach Sungshan airport and Chinese armor forms up to begin rolling into Taichung, the President of the United States commandeers the US emergency broadcast system. A nation falls silent to listen as the President clears his throat: "It is with a heavy heart," he begins.....

[Taiwan] [China]

Taiwanese move as Guangdong's Importance Fades

India Monitor reports that Guangdong is encountering trouble as Taiwan companies pull out, leaving behind unpaid debt:

But in January, the factory's 2,000 Chinese employees took to the streets to demand the company pay four months in overdue wages. The protest ended up with the arrests of eight workers. About two months later, another Taiwanese-invested factory, owned by Compex, which produced outdoor furniture, unexpectedly closed after its Taiwanese managers left Chinawithout notice, leaving some 3 million yuan (US$370,924) in unpaid salaries and 300 million yuan in loans. The hasty nature of the two companies' departure, and they fact they wanted to leave at all, is a reflection of the changing dynamics of China's economic system.

And further...

While there is no data on the number of factories that have closed as a result of worsening conditions, customs figures show that Guangdong has slipped from the nation's leading exporting province to just eighth. Luo Huai-jia, an executive director of the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association, said around 20% of the area's 4,000 Taiwanese manufactures have already withdrawn from the area, or would soon have to. An estimated 600 Taiwanese manufacturers, including Paragon and Compex, have pulled out of Shenzhen in the past two years alone.

Taipei-based accountants and economists have suggested that Taiwanese enterprises are slowly shifting toward China's Bohai Sea area in the northeast, while those who are seeking cheaper labor are looking at Vietnam. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan's investments in Vietnam increased from $321 million in 2003 to $469 million in 2004 and reached $7,629 million total as of this June. Few of these businessmen, however, are considering returning to Taiwan, observers suggest

Shockingly, Taiwanese businessmen prove to have no civic responsibility:

Anna Lu, an accountant with KPMG, criticized Taiwanese businessmen for lacking social responsibility, noting that it was easy for Taiwanese businessmen to wire several hundred thousand US dollars of capital out of China, then claim bankruptcy without the government knowing about it. "There are reasons Taiwanese businessmen are not so welcome anymore," she said.

A blip? A trend? Probably the latter.

[Taiwan] [China]

Taiwan Navy to Add Missile Craft

Taiwan is building new fast attack craft armed with missiles.

Taiwan has signed a deal to produce up to 29 additional guided-missile patrol boats. These are Kuang Hua VI class boats, and are part of Taiwan's modernization program. These boats are to replace 47 older Hai Ou-class ('Seagull') boats. The pursuit of modern small combatants by Taiwan is no real surprise. When a strait of water separates two enemies, larger vessels like destroyers and even frigates are at a disadvantage, but small craft like corvettes and missile boats are almost at home in limited waters where the action will be close. This was the case in the English Channel during World War II, and the same will be true of any combat in the Formosa Straits.

[Taiwan] [China]

Promising New Blog

A post by Maoman over at Formosa led to this blog that looks very promising...Doubting to Shou? Here's part of a post:

In Taibei there are quite a few schools of this type. There are also a few in Taoyuan; I don't know of any in the south, though. Almost all of these schools are about the same. The first one was Mòdàwèi 莫大衛, started in the heart of Taibei, near Sogo, about 20 years ago by an Australian guy named David. He paid well, and was able to attract foreigners who could speak Chinese, could control a large class, would work hard, and would stay for a long time. As a result of having good teachers who stay from day one until graduation day 3 and a half years later, the students learned well. Studying at Mòdàwèi for one year was nearly as good as putting in three at a big chain school. Amazingly, with no marketing, Mòdàwèi grew into a large branch through word of mouth alone. However, David wasn't interested in letting other teachers open franchises or other branches. One of the best and brightest of his teachers, a guy named Tom, eventually got tired of making a fortune for somebody else. So, Tom opened his own school, called Tomcat (湯姆貓), across the street. Nearly all of his students came with him. Naturally, being a bilingual foreigner with a great deal of teaching experience, and 200 loyal students, it wasn't too hard to make a success of it. In fact, Tom later let one of his best teachers, Rich, open a branch. Around the same time, an American guy named James, a VERY good example of a black man who has made it as a teacher in Taiwan, was opening another Mòdàwèi clone called Cortland (科特蘭). As of now there are 8 Cortland branches and over a dozen Tomcat franchises. In addition, there have been at least 4 other schools started by former Mòdàwèi employees since Cortland that I know of. Mòdàwèi hasn't grown much, but it's still around. More importantly the HFRB (Hard-core Foreign Run Bǔxíbān) style of teaching is here to stay.

[Taiwan]

Thao and Land in Nantou

An article from earlier this year in ZMAG gives an idea of the travails of aborigines in Taiwan:

The Thao People.....

Eventually, the dispute between the Thao and the county government ground to a stalemate. The problem was raised in a civil action initiated by the “third party”, a trial in which the disfunction of the state, the bigotry of the law and the powerlessness of the civil society were proclaimed.

During the first debate in front of the magistrate, the dialogue between the Thaos and the court and the civil society went as follows:

Magistrate: In the petition, the defendants are the ten family members of the household of Chen Gin Fu (Thao), does the plaintiff agree?

Lawyer representing the plaintiff (the third party): Agree.

Defendant (representative of Thao without professional legal knowledge): Not agreed, the 283 living Thaos and all the deceased ancestral spirits should all be listed as defendants, because the ritual ground is share by all these living and the dead!

Magistrate: According the law of the Republic of China, the deceased cannot be listed as a defendant, do you understand?

Defendant [a Thao representative without professional legal knowledge]: According to the Thao law, those who violently acquire land will have to be expelled from the tribe. Also, with all the changes from the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese to the Republic of China, the Thao really cannot understand why our own laws are never honored! We have no idea what should we follow, and which law will not be changed!

Magistrate: Then, what can we do?

[Taiwan]

The Labor Movement in Taiwan

I stumbled across this in-depth article on the labor movement in Taiwan a couple of months ago. Enjoy!

The Labour Movement in Taiwan
John Minns and Robert Tierney

The spectacular industrialisation of Taiwan has created a large working class. Yet, while there have been a number of inspiring struggles and attempts to organise, a powerful labour movement has not emerged there. Many observers of East Asian industrialisation have attributed this failure to the influence of Confucian culture. This article disagrees and suggests that the reasons for the weakness of the Taiwanese labour movement are not to be found in cultural stereotypes of Confucian docility or group loyalty. Rather, an analysis of the Cold War origins of the Taiwanese regime, the preponderance of small-scale, rural industry and the great ethnic divides which have been manipulated by political and business leaders on the island since 1949 provide far more convincing explanations for the weakness of Taiwanese labour.

Some highlights...

The KMT exported to Taiwan the trade union model already firmly established under its rule in mainland China, setting up a peak union body, known as the Chinese Federation of Labour (CFL). For several decades, the Federation controlled virtually all labour unions and all unionised workers in Taiwan. The Party financially supported the CFL at the county, provincial and national levels and paid the rent on all of the Federation's offices.62 The KMT also had the power to dissolve unions within the CFL if it considered them subversive. It forbade horizontal links between unions across industries and closely scrutinised union elections. It was almost impossible for a unionist to be elected or appointed to the position of official or of shop steward unless he — Taiwan's union movement has always been dominated by men — was a member of the KMT. This, in turn, constituted a potent weapon for mobilising workers to vote for KMT candidates in local elections. In all, the CFL was simply an instrument of party policy. 39

Backed by massive state support, the CFL was remarkably successful in recruiting members. As a result, trade union density in Taiwan has always been higher than in most of its Asian neighbours — for instance some three times higher than that of South Korea.63 However this greater rate of unionisation has reflected no more than workers' high level of subjugation to the KMT and, therefore, to management. Strikes tended to be short and few in number. According to Lin Mei-jung, only 22,268 workers were involved in industrial disputes between 1949 and 1965.64 Just 909 labour disputes were officially recorded between 1964 and 1974, and not all were strikes.65

and...

Unlike many disputes of the late 1980s, several of the most crucial workers' struggles of the early nineties ended in failure, demoralising those who participated in them as well as those who provided ongoing support. One of the most critical setbacks was the defeat of the Keelung Bus Drivers in the 40-day strike during July and August 1992 over union independence and improved pay and conditions. Prior to the strike, the bus drivers in Keelung were regarded, somewhat, as vanguards of the worker's struggle, typified by their willingness to mobilise in support of strikes well outside their industry and region. They supported, for example, the aforementioned Jia Long strike in Taipei County. The Keelung dispute was one of the longest strikes in Taiwan's post-war history and provided evidence of a high degree of political mobilisation of the male strikers' spouses, who regularly attended and organised picket lines, while challenging traditionally sexist notions of so-called female passivity.88 The company aggressively exploited provisions in the Labour Standards Law, the Labour Disputes Law, and Trade Union Law, which between them make it possible to outlaw almost any strike. The strike was defeated and the drivers returned to work, achieving virtually nothing. A deep-seated sense of resignation began to affect many workers active in this unseasoned, new labour movement.

Why are foreign workers rioting? Read this carefully:

In July 2001, the Chen Shui-bian government established the Economic Development Advisory Conference (EDAC), in which the powerful National Chinese Federation of Industries was a key member, to make policy national economic recommendations, and one of its key proposals was the removal of foreign workers from Taiwan's minimum wage system. The Council of Labour Affairs succeeded in convincing the EDAC and the Executive Yuan of the wisdom of implementing mandatory monthly accommodation charges for foreign workers — excluding paid domestic employees — ranging between NT$2,500 and NT$4,000. The accommodation charges generated enormous protests from the Catholic Church action groups, to which many foreign workers look for representation of their interests, partly on the basis that the accommodation provided by Taiwan's employers was frequently sub-standard, over-crowded (16 beds to a 16 square metre room), squalid, and dangerous. It was also opposed on the grounds that the compulsory charges would bring about monthly wage reductions ranging between 16 and 25 per cent. The estimated annual increase in profits, flowing from the accommodation charges, is of the order of NT$10 billion.99

Basically the Chen government got in bed with the manufacturers, and decided to make it legal to screw foreign labor. Shameful.

[Taiwan]

US Admiral wants Sanity in Weapons Purchase

The Taipei Times reports that the US may finally be coming around on the arms purchase, and may well drop the request for subs.

The top US military commander in the Pacific said that Taiwan should upgrade its Patriot anti-missile defense batteries and buy other weapons, such as mines, that would help protect the country if China attacked.

Admiral William Fallon, head of the US Pacific Command, said buying such weaponry would be a more effective use of funds than buying more expensive, high-tech offensive weapons that the US offered to sell Taiwan four years ago.

Fallon told the Associated Press in a Friday interview at Pacific Command headquarters that defensive weapons would also have the benefit of being less provocative to China.

"As I take stock of the situation and have had an assessment of where we stand, it seems to me there are some things that would be much more useful than others in helping Taiwan better prepare its defenses," Fallon said.

The submarines must go! Mines are a good idea too.

PS: Fox News reports a quake last night while we were all abed. Yes, honey, the earth really did move.

[Taiwan] [China]

Peace Bill fracas continues......and China snubs the KMT

President Chen today warned the pro-China parties that the proposed bill stripping the executive of its powers and handing them to the legislative branch would be tantamount to a surrender.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) warned opposition parties against proceeding with legislation that would reduce his power to negotiate with China, saying the bill would be tantamount to surrender.

"It's a peace promotion bill on the surface, but a surrender law in reality," Chen said.

"It would give China the power to decide on the future of Taiwan's 23 million people," he said. "If it is passed, I'm afraid ... 2 million Taiwanese would take to the streets to oppose it."

Chen's first public comments on the cross-strait peace advancement bill (兩岸和平促進法) were televised yesterday after he made them Thursday night at a meeting with members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP) have tried to use their legislative majority to pass the bill proposed by the PFP.

The proposed bill would let a 19-member special committee -- instead of the president -- decide on major issues related to China.

Those of you who wonder why we have slugfests in our legislature but none overseas might well take note of the fact that few foreign legislatures are controlled by two parties allied to a foreign country whose goal is to snuff out democracy in their nation. Taiwan is a very special case, and it is no wonder violence breaks out.

+++++++++++++

China snubbed the KMT yesterday, rejecting the appointment of Legislative Speaker Wang from the KMT as Taiwan's representative to the ASEAN meeting later this year. As the Taiwan News put it very clearly:

Beijing's decision was undoubtedly a slap in the face for the KMT itself and a clear demonstration of the narrow limits of the touted "party-to party reconciliation" between the CCP and the KMT carried out by former KMT chairman Lien Chan and continued by Ma.

The message is quite clear: Reconciliation or cooperation between the CCP and KMT will take place only to the degree to which the KMT, or the People First Party for that matter, do and say what the CCP want and put the interests of the PRC and the CCP first.

Sometimes I do not understand what mainlanders are thinking. When the Chinese come over, do they think that they will have some special position? Wrong! Don't they know? -- authoritarians always shoot their friends when they are done using them. The CCP will tolerate the KMT only as long as it serves CCP interests and not one whit longer. When the KMT suddenly finds that it no longer has any freedom of operation, and protests, that will be that.

The really sad part is that when the Chinese come over, all those pro-China mainlanders are going to find out that they are really Taiwanese. And then it will be too late.....

[Taiwan] [China]

My Letter Makes the Taipei Times

A few days back, I sent off a missive to the Taipei Times. Enjoy!

US picking on wrong target

By Michael Turton

Wednesday, Oct 12, 2005,Page 8

In recent weeks the media has been filled with commentators in the US warning that the US is losing patience with Taiwan, as the arms purchase bill has now been tabled more than 30 times in the legislature. Only a minority of these commentators manifest any awareness of local political divisions, and none have remarked on the most important shift in local politics: the fact that the pan-blue Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) have become pro-China parties. As a consequence of this, they are focusing on the wrong target.

This change is manifest most publicly in the visits by important pan-blue camp politicians to Beijing. It can also be seen in the recent trial balloons floated by the KMT, in which it would accept the purchase of submarines and P-3C anti-submarine aircraft, but turn down the Patriot missile batteries. Of those three the subs are useless and the aircraft can operate only if Taiwan controls the air, which, given the massive disparities in air power, is unlikely. Only the Patriots represent an effective weapon. Readers may draw their own conclusions as to why the KMT opposes the one really effective weapon in the package.

Recall further that the weapons package is one of a score of bills that needs passing, all stalled by the pan-blues. The US needs more than just an armed Taiwan; it needs a well-run government with a stable economy if Taiwan is to support the US policy of containing China. Any US response to the arms package should also focus on the fact that it is just one aspect, albeit the most public, of a multi-pronged campaign by the two pro-China parties to bring the nation's government to a halt. Effective governance, after all, furthers Taiwan's autonomy.

The failure to fully grasp that the blues have become pro-China parties has three major effects. First, US analysts who keep warning "Taiwan" to mend its ways are hitting the wrong target. The problem is not "Taiwan," but blue legislators who routinely prevent the arms purchase bill from reaching the legislature. US policymakers who want the bill to pass need to come here and thump KMT and PFP heads, not sit in Washington and grumble that "Taiwan" doesn't listen.

Second, one of the long-term goals of the blues is to embarrass the locals, to make it seem that the Taiwanese cannot run their own affairs, and to present Taiwan as a problem that can be made to go away through annexing the country to China. Each time an analyst in Washington complains about "Taiwan" rather than fingering the KMT and PFP, this strategy is rewarded.

Finally, another long-term goal of the blues is to drive a spike between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the US. The pro-China parties know that the DPP shares the ideals of democracy and independence with the US. They also know foreigners strongly sympathize with the DPP (indeed, in the 2000 election the Soong campaign actually ran ads showing that some foreigners did support Soong). The blues' strategy is to prevent the arrival of the day when the US stops viewing the DPP as a problem, and starts seeing it as an opportunity. Thus, each time a US decisionmaker criticizes "Taiwan," they reward that blue strategy by putting more distance between the US and Taiwan. In sum, as diplospeak puts it, pressure from the US is "not entirely helpful."

Until the US attacks the problem by sending someone with credibility over here to speak frankly to the KMT and the PFP about their obstructive, pro-China behavior, nothing will change.

Michael Turton
Tanzi

[Taiwan]

Marathon Axis and Allies

Well, the reason I was a non-poster yesterday is right here:



Oops! Wrong pic....here's why really....



That's Karl, taking a picture of the most awesome A&A game in recent memory, in which your trusty writer, playing the Germans and Japanese, held off the bad guys Allies for four bitter hours of struggle. I finally gave in when I couldn't take Russia and Japan was on the ropes. And that was just the first game of a marathon 3 game day.

The second game was over in two turns as Malv, playing Germany, combining bad rolls and bad strategy in the best possible manner, conceded when I took France and all his aircraft. Not much point of finishing when Germany has no aircraft and fewer infantry than the Vatican.

Game three was won when Karl, playing Japan, tried a clever trick to grab Russia. Fooled me it, did, but being a crafty fellow, I found a solution. Game over. Karl just wanted to finish, though.

The big problem we're having is that the Allies always win. Always. The only exceptions are when one of the Allied players is a complete newbie. So we're going to test some new ideas on how to play next week. As always, we're eager for new players, so drop me a line.

[Taiwan] [Axis & Allies] [Axis and Allies]

Friday, Oct 14, Taiwan Blog Round-up

Autumn is here -- breezy sunny days, and cool nights of perfect sleeping weather...and another Friday has come and gone into that vast obscurity beyond our cities, where the dark fields of the nation roll on under the night.....

++++++++++++++++

Suitcasing, who tells stories so well talks about Ghosts and ghost money:

As a general observation, I do find Taiwan a very religiously observant place. Compared to the other countries that I've been to in Asia, there is this constant presence of ritual. It doesn't feel like the intense devotion in Hindu India, or the mysterious spirituality I felt in Thailand – but on x important day, everyone will be in front of their house or business burning paper, or having a barbeque, or praying in front of a table full of food and drink. Having a barbeque hardly sounds all that religious, but when you walk down the street in a country's capital city, and every several houses, there is a group of people cooking - it starts to seem a little more exotic. Then there are the blaring orange funeral vans, that drive around the streets holding up traffic, the temples that get constructed at the end of my street then dismantled a few days later...

And of course, writes movingly on the joys of teaching:

I made a child cry this morning - it's something that always makes me feel happy. I think that one child per day is a sensible target, and as I teach four to six classes, it's not as demanding as it sounds. More would be cruel and counterproductive, but no tears at all? I worry that the worst kids in every class would get a little too enthusiastic.

++++++++++++++++

MeiZhongTai busts me for an error in saying it was Adm. Fallon who wants Taiwan to quietly drop the requests for subs -- it was senior US officers. My bad. MeiZhongTai then goes on to argue for the submarine purchase:

As I am one of the "pundits" in question (see my previous post), allow me to defend the submarine purchase. Not buying new submarines surrenders control of everything under the sea to China (although Taiwan could still conduct anti-submarine warfare from the surface or sky). China currently has the world's largest submarine force (55 submarines), if not the most potent (America's 54 nuclear submarines are far more capable), and is still growing rapidly even as it retires its older Romeos. Surrendering everything subsurface waters isn't particularly wise. To put it mildly, I wouldn't want to be in a surface ship when the opponent is dominant underneath me. Submariners have a saying:

There are two types of ships: submarines and targets.

Turton advocates reallocating the money for submarines to fighters, but the point remains that there is no money for the subs hence the current standstill. I would advocate fixing weaknesses before maximizing strengths, even though both are certainly important.

I've responded to this below.

++++++++++++++++

Speaking of defense, Naruwan Formosa also posted on defense issues and Chen's National Day (Oct 10) speech:

On the occasion of this 94th Anniversary, President Chen (陳水扁) addressed my pet issue, which is the failure of the Republic's political establishment to provide for the common defense, and the unprepared state of the military. I've commented about this in "Taiwanese Self-Defense" (12 April 2005) and in "Military Unpreparedness" (27 July 2005). Taipei Times reports, however, that the KMT's most charismatic figure is not impressed:

The KMT has grasped well the point that the Party needs to stay on message at all times, and that the bigger the lie, the more it should be repeated:

When asked by press for comments on the president's address, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said, "It is not fair for the president to ascribe the blame for the delay of the arms procurement bill to the opposition parties."

With the bill dead in committee 32 times, there is one, and only one reason: the pro-China parties have blocked it. No other reason.

Naruwan Formosa also links to an assessment of the risks of war across the Straits, given in a campus talk, at Mad Minerva. Mad Minerva in turns links to a post at the Dignified Rant that lays out reasons why China will invade prior to the Olympics, and he also has an excellent Taiwan invasion scenario that is very similar to what I have envisioned. It is interesting how the analyses of bloggers from across the spectrum see the China-Taiwan war potential very similarly (Dignified Rant thinks our ongoing defeat in the criminal, and criminally stupid, invasion of Iraq is really a good idea). I'll be posting my own Taiwan invasion scenario soon.

++++++++++++++++

Readers interested in defense affairs should also peruse Sun Bin, who blogs on Taiwan quite a bit. Some interesting arguments this week. First, he argues that Chen is using the KMT to manipulate the US:

My hypothesis: Ah-bien is much smarter than what the pan-Blue would like to believe. This arms deals has never been his baby, instead, it is a KMT legacy handed over to him. However, the US has been pressuring him and he need to sell it to the Taiwanese people. So he cleverly used pan-Blue to play against the greedy arms dealers across the Pacific.

That's a very interesting interpretation. A-bian is skilled at playing off his opponents against each other, as I have noted before. Perhaps there has been a secret deal as Sun Bin speculates, but it is more likely that the wily Chen has simply taken advantage of his opponents' predictable intransigence. The flaw in this theory, however, is that the KMT is blocking more than a dozen other bills, many of which A-bian appears to need. So unless A-bian has decided to work with the KMT on the island to bring governance to a halt.....Sun Bin also went into the ever-changing budget numbers for the purchase in some detail.

As a result, the defense power of Taiwan is weakened by this special budget, because to pave way for this deal, MND had to cut 611-340=NT$271bn in other areas of its budget in the coming 10 years. What this means is that the reason for US blaming Taiwan's lack of seriousness in self defense is totally groundless. I hope Meizhongtai would agree with this. It was precisely the external political interference of this deal that has disrupted Taiwan's defense plan and weakened its defense. Ironically, by bending to the defense industry and hence disrupting Taiwan's defense planning, the US is making it a lot more costly to execute its Taiwan Relation Act when needed, unless, of course, if US does not believe that a war would ever happen. I surely hope for such scenario.

The arms purchase is crowding out weapons and training Taiwan needs for weapons that are insufficient (Patriots), dependent upon assumptions that will not work out (the antisub aircraft require that Taiwan control the air, or are useless (submarines). The real question is whether this is US strategy to provoke a war by making Taiwan weak, or whether the US is simply being stupid.

....which then takes us to the next question: is A-bian going along with this because he knows it is weakening Taiwan and will provoke a war, to bring the US in and leverage US power to make the island independent?

Paranoia big destroya! I think I need to take a break.

++++++++++++++++

David at jujuflop led a host of posts across the Internet on the brawling in the legislature. ESWN, always ready to present anything bad about The Beautiful Isle, has a good post filled with photos. Wandering to Tamshui covers events with his usual humor here and here. It is embarrassing to the nation, to be sure, but Taiwan News argues that it was a regrettable but necessary move. David complains:

The day before this (wholly predictable) fight, the leaders of the two main parties were sitting next to each other chatting about the weather at the National Day celebrations. Why did they not discuss how to restrain their legislators? Waiting for a fight to break out and then blaming the other side is pathetic leadership by both DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)

Interesting: the day before all is amicable and friendly, next day there is a brawl in the legislature that Speaker Wang does nothing to stop, the following day Speaker Wang is appointed the nation's representative to the ASEAN meeting. Hmmm....probably all coincidence.

The fight was about whether the members of a media watchdog body should be assigned by the Executive Yuan or the Legislative Yuan. Could you get worked up about such a detail enough to draw blood?

Yes, because the issue is whether the Executive (DPP) or Legislature (KMT) will appoint the members of that media watchdog. But really, the issue should be why there is such a body in the first place. Media watchdogs are inherently authoritarian. Taipei Nights, new to my blogroll and looking very promising, observes:

The one international trump card Taiwan holds is that of the "democratic nation." When its sovereignty is brought into question Taiwan can turn to the international community and argue: "But we are a thriving democracy. Look compare us to China we have civil rights, elections, and a thriving economy." However with the situation as it is China can turn to its citizens and say: "Do you see what democracy will get you? Bloody brawls on the legislature floor." Meanwhile the international community shakes its head as Taiwanese politics descend to violence and the USA becomes frustrated as a bill to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan is repeatedly kept off the legislature floor by the opposition. I can't help but imagine that a little bit of decorum would go a long way towards improving the sense of legitimacy of the Taiwanese government.

Further short posts on the brawl at the Belligeretron, the BellSite .... Enjoy Life, who echoes the way many in Taiwan feel:

Politic is much difficult work for leader. But just want to ask: Have we really think about real problems and improve ourselves and competent for the world? DPP should do best than KMP but now it is still the same the plays for the people as before

Sad...David at jujuflop notes:

Well, that's just great. The day after the latest punch-up, Chen is telling his legislators to block a new law "at all costs". Short of telling them that they didn't put enough opposition lawmakers in hospital last time, I can't think of a worse way to ask Taiwanese legislators to act.

But unlike a lot of the more judgmental posters, David explains why the DPP is so upset:

However, there is more to it than that: this legislation is an attempt to usurp the authority of existing bodies like the Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation (who have been handling links with China for many years), and more seriously the powers of the President; It is very likely that this law will be found to be unconstitutional because of this.

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The leaky pen describes concubine villages in China:

You may not believe it at first, but they do in fact exist: the modern-day "concubine villages" (二奶村) where older, well-to-do Chinese businessmen keep their "second wives" (二奶, er nai) in quiet safety and seclusion until their owners need them. There's one in Guangdong Province, there's even on the outskirts of Shanghai, and there's even one in Los Angeles. In Chinese, kept mistresses are called "er nai," or "second tits," and are usually kept up in comfort and luxury by older, wealthy traveling businessmen. Indeed, it's common knowledge in Taiwan, for example, that when business executives go to the mainland to do business the majority will raise a "little wife" outside their native country and forget about their Taiwanese spouse. From the point of view of the girls who become "er-nais," the temptation of a comfortable living and a stipend with which to buy the latest gizmos--cell phones, fashionable clothes, and beauty products--must be overwhelming if they come from rural areas and want to participate in the vast changes sweeping through China's urban megalopoli.

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Menghsin Journal blogs on Taiwanese film festivals:

After picking up my batch of Women Make Waves tickets, I'm inspired to post this list of Taiwan-based film festivals that I've attended in my time here. WMW was the first local festival I attended when I arrived in 2003, and it was an exciting way to find out there was more to Taiwanese film than Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang.

Alas, we live in Taichung, that desert of culture.

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IslaFormosa, back in Canada for a moment, blogs on what he doesn't miss about Canada:

My Taiwanese wife and I are back in Canada for a month. I think it's a good time to reflect on the things that I don't miss here in the Canada.

1) Coffee culture

I remember once starting a new job at Canada Post. The representative responsible for showing me around shook my hand and slowly started to bring me around to check out my new workplace. No sooner than we had started to move, she asked me if I'd like a cup of coffee. I told her it was ok, I really only drank one cup of coffee in the morning. I was then stunned by the next question: "Do you want to join our coffee club?" It suddenly dawned on me and I was horrified. Was it just a nice way of getting me to join their bulk coffee club?

Yep. Leveraging friendship to get you buy things. It's a worldwide phenomenon.

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Bourdieu Boy blogs on Taiwanese film:

Mirror Image (2000) Hsiao Ya-chuan (dir.)

Tung-ching is running his father's pawnshop on the outskirts of Taipei with his girlfriend Eiko while his father is in hospital. A scooter accident has left Tung-ching with no lines on his palm, frustrating Eiko's desire to know his fate. A beautiful woman comes into the shop, who Tung-ching calls Xiaode Le (Now I Know), and they begin a relationship in love and illegal hawking.

Mirror Image is the first feature for Hsiao Ya-chuan, a protege of the great Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien. Hsiao is an established commercial director and was Hou's assistant on Flowers of Shanghai. Mirror Image was selected for the Directors Fortnight at Cannes this year.

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POTS has an in-depth look at the Linda Arrigo case and residency rights.

A good example of this is permanent residence, a category of residence created by the Immigration Law after years of activism by Richard Hartzell. The normal path to permanent residence is through legal residence of five or seven consecutive years. But the Ministry, which oversees permanent residence applications, has prevented many legitimate applicants from becoming permanent residents by playing word games with the definition of "consecutive" that fly in the face of the plain Chinese meaning and intent of the law.

Even more egregious was their treatment of Arrigo's application for permanent residence by means of a second, less well-known path to permanent residency. Under the law, foreigners who have made special contributions to Taiwan can apply for permanent residency. But when Arrigo, an obvious candidate, applied, she was told to forget about it - no one had ever been approved and no mechanism existed to approve her application anyway. The contempt of Taiwan's civil servants for Taiwan's own laws was palpable.

The question is: how can long-term expats here get together to work together?

Instead, Arrigo recommends a strategy of activism that would use media attention and pressure from her many friends in high places to crack the Ministry's haughty intransigence. But a key factor would be whether this strategy of activism can win support from the public. Arrigo thinks it can, if it is framed in such a way that appeals to the middle class's sense of justice and serves Taiwan's broader interests.

One particularly promising approach would be to work first on the issue of volunteer work by foreigners and employment of foreigners by NGOs. The animal rights movement, for instance, is a rare example of a social issue that has not yet been poisoned by identity politics. The public will find it hard to believe that foreigners cannot work for the rights of animals without fear, however remote, of deportation.

Media attention would be great, and I think appeals to fairness would work. But animal rights? Get me something that locals are sympathic to, please! I agree that locals would find it hard to believe that animal rights activists can be deported, but that is not because locals find that cause congenial, but because they are completely indifferent to it, and most would probably find it incredible that officialdom would give a shit about something so obviously of no importance. Let's find another topic....

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Pinyin info blogged on the sad case of use of Hakka in the legislature.

After the head of Taiwan's Cabinet-level Council of Hakka Affairs gave a report in Hakka last week in the Legislature, KMT Legislator Zhū Fèngzhī (朱鳳芝) complained, saying this was a "self-abasing action" showing a "lack of confidence," according to a report in the Taipei Times. This led to harsh words from representatives and organizations from the Hakka community.

...and rightfully so.

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Rank posts on Nat Bellochi's piece in the Taipei Times about Lee Teng-hui's historic visit to Cornell those many years ago.

Nat Bellochi's reminiscence of Lee Teng-hui's famous 1995 visit to Cornell in the Taipei Times today takes me back. At that time, I was living in Kunming and immersing myself in socialism with Chinese characteristics. Every once in a while, I would pick up a copy of the International Herald Tribune that some running dog left behind at the Journey to the East coffee shop. But for the most part, my news of the world came from the cankao xiaoxi, a Chinese-language compendium of wire stories that the CPP felt told the truth about the world. Mostly, the stories were critical of Western governments at the time - as one could imagine. There wasn't really a whole lot about Lee Teng-hui's visit to Cornell that I recall, but all of us in China were regaled with glorious footage of the military exercises that are now known as the Taiwan Missile Crisis.

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ApplePea Travel Blog, which blogs on that most urgent of topics, things to do on The Beautiful Isle, blogs on Tamshui this week, travel and food.

Dansui, sitting along the mouth of Dansui River, is a historic seaside village in Taipei county. The name itself literally means fresh water. What brings thousands of visitors daily to this tiny town is not just the food but also the gorgeous view of Dansui River. Virtually anytime during the day you'll find great photo spots.

Haven't been there in a long time, but I have many happy memories of Tamshui and many good pics. Lots of history there too.

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Andrew and Mei blog on the unfortunate habits of recruiters.

Well, as it turns out, not really. If you recall, Jerry, the recruiter in Taiwan who placed us at our jobs, is a habitual liar. Some of his other comments include, "Your job isn't far from Neihu." (in fact, on the complete other SIDE of Taipei, a mere 1 1/2 hours away by bus and train), "Teachers have all the leverage.", "Schools have all the leverage.", etc. He has an insatiable thirst for lying.

There must be some good ones out there, but the overwhelming opinion on recruiters appears to be negative.......

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Being Berta Liao has been chalking up posts recently on the controversial topic of western medicine versus Chinese:

The common thread I found in both articles is that with the two Australian doctors, they suggested a cause and treatment for ulceritis that was vastly different than accepted medical wisdom at the time. Part of the reason that the medical establishment refused to accept their theories at the start was because most of the conventional wisdom had be funded by pharmaceutical companies, which benefitted from the then status quo (recurring prescriptions for their product that relieved the symptoms, but did not actually solve the problem).These companies had a vested interest in making sure other treatment methods were not accepted, since that would hurt sales.

With the diapers, because of our current media and advertising culture, parents think the only options for their babies are cloth or disposable. There's not even a question of whether their might be alternative...even though most of the world's babies go diaperless. It's just interesting how culture and business interests makes some practices seem completely implausible.

The controversy aside, what I find interesting here is the unchallenged narrative construction one runs across in these that western medical practice is just a game for drug companies to make $$, while alternative medical practitioners are brave challengers to a dogmatic establishment, fighters against hegemonic dominance of a foreign culture, motivated solely by the need for patient care.

Of course, Berta doesn't really mean that. But this underlying construction of West=bad and Other=Good is simply one more Orientalist game, in this case validating the predatory habits of eastern "doctors" by linking them to an anti-colonialist myth. Here's an observation: alternative medicine practitioners in the East and allopathic medicine practitioners in the west are both motivated by the same mix of complex motivations. And here's another observation: alternative medicine has no oversight, no support from genuine scholarship and scientific work, and no agreed-upon underlying principles or body of reliable alternative knowledge. Given all that, I think I can be excused for viewing people who proffer unsubstantiated treatments based on unsupported knowledge as con men even worse than western drug companies, who, however imperfectly, at least have an oversight system and work within a body of recognized, reliable, and useful knowledge.

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Kelake blogs on unpaid parking bill sticker shock:

These little bills of 20-80NT$ tend to get lost in the expanse of my car. Because they are of such low value you might not immediately take the effort to pay or perhaps it's just me who has poor personal financial management skills. Either way these bills have a time limit of one week from the time they are issued. When that time passes you are issued another bill via snail mail at which time you must pay 600NT$ per bill. If for some reason you neglect to pay that within a week you must pay double - 1200NT$ per bill. Until you pay that bill you cannot have any major repairs done to your car, pay car insurance, or update the car registration. If for some reason they don't have your proper address, tough.

Due to my negligence and the built in traps inherent in the system I now owe 22,000NT$ (~800CAN$) in unpaid parking bills.

Ouch! Looks like you've got to find that guanxi that can make those bills disappear! Or get lucky, like us a couple of weeks ago, when the nice lady at the motor vehicle registration, overflowing with ren ching, made our late registration fine disappear.

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meiyunnchung discovers that Taiwanese food is different in China:

What did it write in that AD? Selling tickets of Taiwanese fruit. That means you buy the tickets first, then you can have Taiwanese fruit. People love things come from Taiwan in those big cities in China. Like Shang-hai, Hang-zhou and etc. So, what comes from Taiwan is very hot in those big cities. But, do those things really like the way they in Taiwan? I double it.

Why? Cause, soybean milk is lighter. Taiwanses saucege? No, not saucege, more like hot dog. And, we do not eat so salty food in Taiwan.

Hmmm.....

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Teamasters blogs again on the best Pu-er:

I had the honor, but also the responsibility, to make the tea. I did my best to remain calm. A nervous flow of water would adversely affect this fine tea. I was also concerned that the water was not hot enough. For pu er, the water flow that enters the pot in the first brew must be of medium strength and hit the leaves directly. Teaparker recommended I don't use a pitcher, but that I should pour directly from the silver teapot into the cups. This allows the tea to be warmer.

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I added the great blog The Peking Duck to my blogroll recently. There's always something of high quality being posted there on China and Taiwan affairs. Also, they have excellent taste, as evidenced by the appearance of my blog on their roll the sumptuous layout of their blog.

Yesterday they pointed to China's celebration of the "return" of Taiwan by Japan.

China, in a move seen as further extending its divide-and-rule policy of isolating Chen Shuibian, will for the first time mark the anniversary of the island's return to Chinese rule from the Japanese on October 25 1945. The People’s Republic has never previously recognized this anniversary for fear that it would tarnish the official line that the Red Army, not the larger and better-equipped Nationalist forces, won the 8-year Anti-Japanese Struggle.

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The USGS notes that we had a 4.4 quake on 10/10. They have a great info page on Taiwan quakes with lots of links and explanations:

TECTONIC SETTING

The tectonic environment near Taiwan is unusually complicated. Tectonically, most of Taiwan is a COLLISION ZONE between the Philippine Sea and Eurasian plates. This collision zone is bridged at the north by northwards subduction of the Philippine Sea plate beneath the Ryuku arc and, at the south, an eastwards thrusting at the Manila trench. The northern transition from plate collision to subduction is near the coastal city of Hualien, located at about 24 degrees north, whereas the southern transition is 30-50 kilometers south of Taiwan.

• Geology and Tectonics of Taiwan PDF

• Taiwan Region Plate Tectonic Structure

• Geology of Taiwan

• Taiwan: Geography

• Seismic Hazard Map

• Earthquake Density Map

HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKES

• Large Historic Earthquake in and around Taiwan

• Earthquakes Magnitude 7 and Greater since 1900

• Learning from Earthquakes: Taiwan

• Chi-Chi Earthquake, 20 September 1999

including this glorious pic:

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SHORTS: Writer's Block alerts us to historian, independence activist, and writer Su Bing's (Taiwan's 400 Years of History) lectures in Taipei. Cold Goat Eyes goes to Kaohsiung and reports on restaurants and relics. Everything Visible is Empty heads south and comes back with a clutch of good pics. Hangover the World does Sun Moon Lake & pics in several posts. Peow Liung Taiwan fotos Tainan. swf in Taiwan participates in a Chinese speech contest. Slow Food brings translates food info and put up compelling pics. Taiwan Fashionista blogs on fashion families in Taiwan. Don't miss the podcasting at Getting a Leg Up and Ugly Expat. The widely-linked and liked Taiwan Tiger and Betel Nut Blogger, along with Taipei Taipei, seem to have disappeared. [VOICE OF ROSE, TEETH CHATTERING] "Come back....come back." BrianMathes looks stable now (looking forward to more informative posts). a better tomorrow is breaking my heart by being under construction. As always, great photos at 35togo, the forgetful's photo gallery, amateur commune, andres, Clarke vs Matt, Cat Piano, Fotologging Taiwan, Photoactionboy, leftmind, MaMaHuHu (Jackson, you gonna put new stuff up there?), and This Life. There is a Taiwan missions blog ring at Xanga here.

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[Taiwan] [China] [Taipei]

Taiwan still not in Top Five of Spammers.

I don't know why we can't catch up, but we're still struggling near the bottom.

The United States is still the superpower of spam, beating China and South Korea to reclaim the dubious honor in the latest survey of the origin of unwanted e-mail clogging the world's inboxes.

...

France (3.4 percent), Brazil (2.6), Canada (2.5), Taiwan (2.2), Spain (2. 2), Japan (2.0), Britain (1.5), Pakistan (1.4) and Germany (1.2) rounded out the "dirty dozen."

Clearly you guys out there aren't forwarding enough emails!

[Taiwan]

Another Brush With Fame, or Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Since being here in Taiwan I've been in the newspaper several times, but for some strange reason no talent agents or casting companies have come a'knockin'. Can't think why. Yes, that soon-to-be-hairless handsome fellow in the pic in the local newspaper is me. The Liberty Times roundup of happenings in Taichung, Taichung, features the Coffee Corner at my local university as a news item, Taichung being a happenin' place. The picture itself couldn't be more staged if Steven Spielberg had directed it to a script by Ridley Scott.

And as for all you talent scouts I know are reading this, you can contact my wife agent.

[Taiwan]

MeiZhongTai and Subs

MeiZhongTai and I have been having a robust debate on the weapons purchase (sorry about the slow response; Yahoo keeps shunting some email notifications of comments into my bulk mail folder). MeiZhongTai busts me for an error in saying it was Adm. Fallon who wants Taiwan to quietly drop the requests for subs -- it was actually only senior US officers. My bad! MeiZhongTai then goes on to argue for the submarine purchase:

As I am one of the "pundits" in question (see my previous post), allow me to defend the submarine purchase. Not buying new submarines surrenders control of everything under the sea to China (although Taiwan could still conduct anti-submarine warfare from the surface or sky). China currently has the world's largest submarine force (55 submarines), if not the most potent (America's 54 nuclear submarines are far more capable), and is still growing rapidly even as it retires its older Romeos. Surrendering everything subsurface waters isn't particularly wise. To put it mildly, I wouldn't want to be in a surface ship when the opponent is dominant underneath me. Submariners have a saying:

There are two types of ships: submarines and targets.

Turton advocates reallocating the money for submarines to fighters, but the point remains that there is no money for the subs hence the current standstill. I would advocate fixing weaknesses before maximizing strengths, even though both are certainly important.

Unfortunately this is again wrong. China has 55 subs at the moment, the most Taiwan will have is 8. There is no way that 8 subs will be able to wrest control of the sea below from Chinese subs, even if only half the Chinese subs can put to sea (China has had trouble crewing all of its subs, I recall reading). In other words, Taiwan has effectively already conceded control of the sea to China. Buying subs is the equivalent of tossing the money into the sea -- and those wasteful subs come at three times the going world rate!

It is also worth pointing out again that the fate of amphibious invasions has never been decided by submarines. It has always been decided by control of the air. China can have the sea below, because if Taiwan has 600 advanced fighters and pilots, then it will never have control of the air, and never be able to throw an invasion force over.

The subs need to be canceled. Now. Give us attack aircraft, spare parts, ammo, and pilot training.

[Taiwan] [China]

Online Auctions To be Taxed

Those of you who, like me, are used to cultivating your computer addiction while the wife shops online may have to start talking to your wife again if the government has its way. The tax people have decided to promulgate new rules for internet sales, and the industry is up in arms at having to pay taxes like everyone else

According to the Ministry of Finance, online auctioneers will have to pay business and income tax beginning on November 4. In addition, those whose monthly sales reached NT$200,000 will be required to obtain a business registration certificate.

The ministry further stipulated that while auctioneers whose monthly sales are below NT$200,000 remained exempt from obtaining a formal certificate, they would still have to register with the tax bureau if monthly turnover exceeded NT$60,000.

The proposed measures sparked criticism from online auctioneers, who claim that because their online businesses can be operated from any place that has Internet access, conventional regulations that require a fixed place of business are not suitable.

Fortunately this is Taiwan, and so the vendors immediately announced plans to cheat on the system.

Some auctioneers said that they would counter the plan by signing up for several accounts and alternating between them. This would keep sales revenue for any one account below the amount requiring any form of registration and help them remain tax-exempt.

Hence, like most laws in Taiwan, it will punish the law-abiding while letting illegal ones off scot-free. Students protested, saying that they sell out of their dorm rooms -- should the university pay tax? At the moment, it looks like tax evasion will continue, and my wife's addiction is safe.

[Taiwan]

Scholars Mark Taiwan Becoming a Province

Xinhua reports on a conference on Liu Ming-chuan, the dynamic 19th century governor of Taiwan.

More than 100 scholars and celebrities from across the Taiwan Straits gathered here Wednesday to attend a workshop to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the founding of China's Taiwan Province and its first governor Liu Mingchuan.

The theme of the workshop was to review the history of the common roots of people on both sides of the Straits and expand future exchanges between Anhui and Taiwan.

[Taiwan] [China]

China Warns Canada

China is worried that mighty Canada might weigh in on the side of the good guys:

There would be very serious consequences if Parliament passes a private member's bill on trade with Taiwan, says China's ambassador to Canada.

Lu Shumin warned Wednesday that such a move could destroy the foundations of Canada's diplomatic ties with China. Bill C-357, introduced by B.C. Conservative MP Jim Abbott, calls on Canada to establish formal trade and cultural ties with Taiwan.

[Taiwan] [China] [Canada]

"Conservatives take their values seriously..."

On the Miers nomination and Republican hypocrisy about gays:

It would be the height of hypocrisy for a conservative to embrace her party's most extreme views while simultaneously embracing a member of the same sex. The GOP rank and file takes its values seriously. Just imagine the outrage were Rush Limbaugh revealed to be a drug addict, William Bennett a compulsive gambler, Gary Bauer a philanderer, Strom Thurmond the father of a illegitimate black child, or George Bush a coke fiend. They'd never work in this town again.

ROFL.

New Blogs Today

Will and Karen in Taiwan
http://wilandkaren.blogspot.com/

the photosac
http://photosac.blogspot.com/

Julia
http://julial316u.blogspot.com/

Nu-Beat
http://nu-beat.blogspot.com/

Peow Liung Taiwan
http://beautifulformosa.blogspot.com/

my blog (the tale of an swf living in taiwan)

Natalie's Taiwan Blog
http://taiwannatalie.blogspot.com/

Once Upon A Dreamer
http://sushi-delight.blogspot.com/

[Taiwan]

Great article on Old Buildings in Taiwan

Mutant Frog led me to this great article on old buildings in Taiwan.

During the onsen's construction, Japan invaded China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The Japanese authorities urged Taiwanese to use bricks in camouflage colors to hinder air raids. These colors--light green, beige, and brown--were often used from the late 1920s through the early 1940s. A kiln in Peitou specially produced bricks of these colors, known as "13-channel bricks" for their rippled surface, designed to reduce buildings' visibility to enemy aircraft by reducing the bricks' reflectiveness.

Representative buildings from that period include Taipei City Hall (now Zhongshan Hall), Taipei High School (now National Taiwan Normal University), and Taipei Imperial University (now National Taiwan University). Those buildings were all the work of Ide Kaoru, the influential chief architect of the Governor-General's Office who advocated "localization" of Taiwan's architecture. As the Governor-General Onsen was built with the same sort of green 13-channel bricks as the Taipei City Hall, which was completed in 1936 and was also a public building, it is assumed that Ide had a hand in its design.

It's a crying shame that so many Japanese-period buildings, especially old wooden houses, are rotting in city centers all over Taiwan.

[Taiwan] [Japan]

Sanyi Woodcarving Festival

The Sanyi Woodcarving Festival is being held in Sanyi from 10/1 to 10/29 this month.

Another factor that has drawn attention to Sanyi woodcarvers is the establishment in 1995 of the Miaoli Wood Sculpture Museum, which houses sculptures made by members of both aboriginal and Han groups in Taiwan and representing numerous ethnic traditions around the world. As a part of the month-long woodcarving festival, the museum annually holds the "International Woodcarving Cultural Arts Festival Exhibition," which includes an international scholarly symposium on woodcarving.

This year's exhibition comprises about 140 pieces, about half of which are the works of 25 Taiwanese, 18 works by 6 New Zealanders, 21 works by 8 Australians, and 31 pieces from artisans scattered across Oceania.

[Taiwan] [Sanyi] [Woodcarving]

China Eclipses Taiwan

In SPEAKING FREELY Taiwan: When no news is good news Huang Chin-hao argues that Chen has become more circumspect as China's growing power makes Taiwan superfluous:

Chen's brisk transit was thus almost a non-event. Compared to his unprecedented treatment in New York in late 2003, there were no highly public appearances or media opportunities. But keeping a low profile seems to imply that Chen has got the message to avoid "rocking the boat", following the stern signal from President George W Bush in December 2003 when he publicly rebuked Chen for making unilateral moves to upset the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

In light of Hurricane Katrina, Chen did not take Hu's resulting cancelled state visit as a political victory. Chen avoided the usual tough talk on China, demonstrating his understanding that both the US and China are working closely on North Korea, UN reform, the ongoing "war on terrorism" and energy issues. Instead, he engaged in constructive dialogue on arms sales, and offered assistance and shared with local officials Taiwan's experiences in handling natural disasters. On the prospects for peace across the Taiwan Strait, Chen echoed the Bush administration's views that Beijing should engage in constructive dialogue with Taiwan's duly elected officials.

Huang also makes a good call on understanding the desperate need for Constitutional reform in Taiwan:

One of the main hurdles Chen faces during the rest of his second term is his determination to further Taiwan's constitutional reengineering project. Amendments calling for a more streamlined and efficient government structure will contribute to more stability in Taiwan.

Too many commentators dismiss constitutional reform as a stunt or provocation by Chen.

[Taiwan] [China]

Can Chinese Societies be Civil Societies?

Sino Daily asks: Can Chinese Societies be Civil Societies? A forum in Hong Kong finds that Hong Kong comes closest.

In a nutshell, they said, Hong Kong had freedom without democracy, Singapore had democracy without freedom, Taiwan had both but without the rule of law, and mainland China had none of the above.

The appraisals were part of a forum titled "Civil Society on the Move?" organized by Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Center, and featuring prominent media representatives from Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong.

James Jin, chairman of the Cite Publishing Holding Group and publisher of Business Weekly in Taiwan, pointed out the forum's English title reflected a positive, progressive outlook, implying the three societies were in fact moving toward Western-style democracy. He said Western media often took that view in their analyses, even of China. However, it could be wishful thinking.

James Jin argued then went on to describe Our Fair Isle in rather jaundiced terms:

Taiwan, which emerged from authoritarian rule just a decade ago, is still in transition with the outcome uncertain, Jin said. He said it was questionable whether Taiwanese were happier or more secure under the current elected leadership than 10 years ago, under the leadership of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party.

"Having freedoms is like chasing a dream lover -- it's a little disappointing when you get up close," he said.

While Taiwan's media is free, he said there was an explosion of ideas, but no focus, and an entertainment-oriented media that did not help people formulate intelligent views. Taiwan's people are confused about their identity, he said.

In Jin's analysis, democracy and the rule of law are better than authoritarianism, but "good authoritarianism" is better than chaos and confusion.

And silence about at least one important problem:

Neither speaker mentioned pressure from Beijing as a destabilizing factor in Taiwanese society, perhaps in deference to their mainland co-panelist. The omission has become a trend in Hong Kong -- it is no longer politically correct to criticize Beijing in a public forum, and self-censorship is the norm.

[Taiwan] [China] [Hong Kong]

Soft Diplomacy

Annette Lu, the Vice President of Taiwan, has often put forward the concept of 'soft power' in making a way for Taiwan in the world. The Taipei Times reported today on NGOs as diplomatic organs.

But in dwelling only on such challenges, experts say, many forget that there is another diplomatic track -- through the power of civil society. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can play an important role in furthering the nation's efforts to gain international recognition, by expanding Taiwan's "soft power" throughout the globe.

"Through international cooperation, Taiwan can put `people's diplomacy' into action and gradually Taiwan can find its place in the international community," said Lin Teh-chang (林德昌), director of the Center for International NGO Studies.

(Hat tip to Eccentric Star)

[Taiwan] [NGOs] [China]

Mano a mano again in the Legislature

Lots of bloggers reporting today on violence in the legislature.

Later in the day, Wang said he did not call the police when a second attempt was made to storm the podium since legislative staff and Non-Partisan Solidarity Union lawmakers helped him stop pan-green lawmakers from retaking it. The attempt was made as lawmakers were reviewing the first article of the NCC.

Wang said if DPP lawmakers continue to boycott the NCC bill using violence, it would only be harmful to them.

He said President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will convene his DPP lawmakers tomorrow, which could be a turning point in passing the bill.

It's a nasty bill, and no wonder the DPP is angry. But if they had invested more money in their local elections the last time around, perhaps....

[Taiwan]

US Pacific Command: Drop the Subs

It's good to see the world catching up to me. Both Rank and Wandering to Tamshui blogged on recent reports that senior US military officials (actually Admiral Fallon of the US Pacific Command) want the island to quietly dump the request for subs. Subs being pre-eminently offensive weapons, that request was routinely refused by Washington prior to the advent of the Bush Administration. These remarks were first made public in a Washington Post article I blogged on a couple of weeks ago.

It's high time senior US decisionmakers started talking sense on this topic. Subs are useless as deterrents for invasion -- especially when they will arrive in dribs and drabs over 10 years, making a grand total of 8. Pundits often quote "But the best weapon to hunt another sub with is a sub" without really thinking through the implications. HINT: If we're subhunting, which nation do you want to be -- the one that operates dozens of subs, or the one that operates eight? The fact is that this axiom is a two-edged sword, and the Chinese side is a lot sharper.

More to the point, no invasion in modern history has ever been defeated by subs -- but control of the air has determined the fate of many amphibious assaults. Hitler canceled Sealion because he lost control of the air over the Channel, even though his subs were at the height of their success. Similarly US control of the air defeated planned invasions of Midway and Port Moresby. On the other hand, Allied control of the air paved the way for Normandy and the landings on Okinawa and Leyte. It was the ability of German airpower to control the sea that sealed the fate of Crete in 1941 (many possible lessons for an invasion of Taiwan there). In short, what we need for that $12 billion is not subs, but fighter aircraft and plenty of them, as well as deals for increased pilot training, spare parts, and plenty of ammo to stockpile.

UPDATE: (10/14)MeiZhongTai busts me for an error: it ain't Fallon who said this, and responds. See Oct 14 blog round-up for more.

[Taiwan] [China] [US Foreign Policy]

A dog's life: good

Pet owners in Taiwan are treating their animals more lavishly.....

Tsai works for a large pet company which has three stores in Taipei offering a wide variety of pet supplies and accessories as well as grooming, spa and hotel services.

The company's newest store Doggy House Tienmu opened earlier this month in the capital's upscale Tienmu area and touts pet products from Japan, the United States, France, Germany and Finland as well as a beauty room equipped with a jacuzzi.

Its brightly lit sales area displays pet food, clothes and accessories on wooden shelves and jewellery in glass cases, creating the ambience of a boutique. An in-store cafe also provides pet owners a place to relax with their four-legged loved ones after shopping.

Wow! Nice life!

[Taiwan]

Defense News for Taiwan

Taiwan to launch Spy Satellite

Currently, it operates a research satellite designed to send photos of areas as small as two square meters, which Beijing says it fears could be used for military purposes.

Don't you just fear for poor China, threatened by mighty Taiwan?

Taiwan to produce its own armored vehicles

Taipei: Taiwan will begin mass producing a locally-designed armored troop carrier in a bid to boost it defenses against rival China, Jane's Defence Weekly said.

The military hopes to have 1,400 Yunpao (Cloud Leopard) vehicles, with production beginning in 2007, the magazine said in an article to be published Wednesday.

As if local roads weren't dangerous enough....

[Taiwan] [China]

New Blogs on the Roll Today

I had a chance finally to update my blogroll today. New blogs added include:

Apple Pea
http://applepeatravel.blogspot.com/

Taiwan
http://ryanwitte.blogspot.com/

Me and the Fam
http://meandthefam.blogspot.com/

Taiwan: Island of Formosa
http://zytaiwan05.blogspot.com/

The Other Side of the World
http://taiwandan.blogspot.com/

[Taiwan]

Australian China Expert calls for Drastic Re-think

The transcript of an interview of Paul Monk, the author of Thunder from the Silent Zone , was posted on Friday. Monk is calling for a radical re-think of China and Taiwan issues by the major players. It's a nice thought, but it ain't gonna happen.

ELEANOR HALL: A former head of the China division in Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation is calling today for a radical rethink of Australia and the West's policy on China.

In a provocative book published this week, Dr Paul Monk warns that the Australian and United States foreign policy approach to China's claims of sovereignty over Taiwan are inherently dangerous and risk provoking a bloody cross-straits conflict.

Instead he proposes a dramatic shift in thinking on Chinese-Taiwan relations, which he postulates could in fact see China voluntarily handing Taiwan its independence.

And he sees Australia playing a critical role in this new policy approach.

Dr Monk spoke to me from our Melbourne studios about his book, Thunder from the Silent Zone.

David on Formosa reviews the book here.

[Taiwan] [China]

Chen drops in Poll....

...a survey by the anti-Chen United Daily News says public approval of Chen has dropped to 25%. There's little comfort for any party, however....

The approval rating of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also plunged to 24 percent, with 56 percent of the respondents saying they are dissatisfied with the party's performance.

The poll comes on the heels of allegations of corruption by some DPP officials regarding a profiteering case brought to light because of the Aug. 21 riot by Thai laborers working on the Kaohsiung rapid transit system. The workers were protesting their inhumane treatment by a manpower management company.

The other three main political parties did not fare well in the poll either. Although the the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the largest opposition party, received the highest approval of 35 percent, the rate represents a 14 percent drop from July, when the party was preparing to hold its election for chairman.

The People First Party, an ally of the KMT in the "pan-blue alliance," had an approval rating of 20 percent, while the Taiwan Solidarity Union's performance was approved of by only 19 percent.

Gee, the public hates politics...

[Taiwan]

China: Taiwan accent "not advanced"

The government of China has announced new rules for TV hosts and hostesses (hat tip to this blog via Sam, who commented in the Oct 7 blog roundup). The Washington Post reports:

Masters of ceremony on state television's seemingly endless roster of variety shows, the regulations said, should avoid vulgarity, dress modestly and uplift their young viewers. "Hosts and hostesses represent the image of radio and TV stations and therefore have an unshakable responsibility to spread advanced culture and national virtue and to safeguard the country's interests," the authorities decreed.

But also in the latest set of rules, published Sept. 10 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, was a less obvious stipulation: Masters of ceremony should always use standard Mandarin Chinese and should stop affecting Hong Kong or Taiwanese slang and accents.

Just another example of the Chinese paradigm of culture-as-hegemonic tool.....Everyone knows that Hong Kong and Taiwan are backwards, unsophisticated places with no export economy and no visitors from the outside world. And as some of the commentators at the other site pointed out, if Taiwan is really part of China, then isn't Taiwanese culture Chinese culture? So what's wrong with it?

[Taiwan] [China]

ICRT to be Realigned into local Taipei Station

In news that I'm sure will jog the memory of long-term expats who dimly recall that, yes, there is a station by that name in Taiwan, ICRT is about to get a status downgrade.

The GIO is asking the station to either downgrade to a "medium power" broadcaster -- but keep the same frequency -- or relocate to a higher frequency to maintain its full-coverage as a "high power" broadcaster.

According to a source at the station, who wished to remain anonymous, during the Martial Law era, ICRT, the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) and the Police Radio Service were the three major "high power" broadcasters" that were used to resist the interference in Taiwan's radio communications from the Chinese government.

"We were actually helping the government back in that era," the source said.

Just a few days ago, the source said, the GIO issued an official notice to the station, telling it that ICRT would be downgraded from a "high power" broadcaster to a "medium power" broadcaster because its current frequency -- FM 100.7 -- had been re-designated for "medium power" broadcasters.

Who listens to ICRT? None of the long-termers I know do. Snowman in the Tropics writes:

(3) “Once we say farewell to them, they will not be able to receive instant news in English and students will lose their opportunity to sharpen their English comprehension ability, too

This was the quote that lead to this posting. Being an English speaker it is tough to find out about the news of Taiwan that is not in the English newspapers, but come on. The only 'instant news' on ICRT is the news they have at the top of every hour.

The second part of the quote made me laugh. I guess that ICRT has never heard of the internet. How many English programs are available free for streaming or downloading? Every day I podcast two shows on Air America Radio.

Podcasting and streaming media have totally displaced ICRT here for foreigners; the internet means that I have thousands of radio stations accessible from all over the world. ICRT currently appears to be aimed at bubblehead local females of about 15 who know some English and have no taste in anything. One blogger describing things here in Taiwan for friends back home wrote:

I also found an english radio station here called ICRT 100.7FM. They don't really play nice music though, they like to play easy listening stuff from the early 90s...so gross

As David on Formosa described the advent of another station:

Another media outlet in a different format is also getting started in Taiwan. WWRN is an online radio station aimed squarely at the foreign community in Taiwan. It aims to fill the gap left by the failure of ICRT to serve the international community it was named after.

The perception is widespread among the local foreigners that ICRT is irrelevant to their needs. If it gets downgraded, will anyone even notice?

[Taiwan] [ICRT]

Taiwan Media Scammed on Chen's Carribean Swing

The Taipei Times has the report:

Around seven reporters, who were part of the press corps traveling with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) during his recent diplomatic visit to Central America late last month, found themselves victims of credit-card fraud during their stay in a hotel in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

[Taiwan]

Library Thing

Robot Action Boy, a popular and informative local blogger, points to an interesting filing program for biblioholics call Library Thing:

Catalog your books online

Easy. Catalog your books online (example); no software required.

Powerful. LibraryThing searches the Library of Congress and thirty other major libraries around the world.

Free. Enter 200 books for free; lifetime membership $10 (beta special).

Tagged. LibraryThing allows blog/Flickr-style tagging (example).

Shared. Show everyone your library, or keep your library private. You can even put a widget on your blog to show people what you're reading.

Safe. LibraryThing's not going away, but you can export your data

[Taiwan] [books] [blogging]

Railway Station Renovated to Ward off Demons

I wanted to blog on this one, in which the Taipei train station got a renovation to get rid of the terrible white tiger demons, but Mutant Frog beat me to it. So go enjoy his post on yet another superstition scam.

[Taiwan]

Random pics from a weekend of driving

On Friday I ran down to Taliao outside of Kaohsiung, which is my least favorite place on The Beautiful Island. The streets are a madhouse, the air is hideously polluted, and there is nothing to do. The former township magistrate, Hsu Chih-ming (徐志明), recently got sent up for 12 long ones for bribery and kickbacks stemming from a swimming pool contract in 1994. The city of Kaohsiung located its garbage dump on the borders of the town. When I lived there in the late 1990s, they'd burn in it off sometimes, a giant, open-air incinerator that stank like a battlefield in the evening when they disturbed it as the trash trucks arrived....

I thought I'd post some stray pictures I took driving down to Taliao and up to Hsinchu this weekend. Enjoy.


The new highway, often empty.
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This store, located on Hwy 25 between Kaohsiung and Pingtung, in a totally Taiwanese working class place with no foreigners, sells pasta. Go figure.
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Stuck in traffic, I took a picture of this busy tea stand.
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Taliao is the usual mix of factories and farms. Here's the farm side.
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On Saturday morning we left for Hsinchu. I grabbed some pics of the betel nut girls hard at work along the route to the highway.
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Traffic was murder, and the cameras looked on in benign indifference as everyone was driving every which way.
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Many people cannot be bothered to wait in line, and thus start a second line to the exit ramp, slowing everyone up, and threatening the safety and convenience of others. Naturally the police show no interest in this behavior.
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A few minutes after we got on the main highway, we shifted to the second southern highway, highway 3, by taking highway 4, a short-east west connecting expressway. It runs along the river, showing great views of Taiwan's interesting geology.
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Here what's under the ground is shown in glorious detail. This part of Taiwan is gravel washed down from the mountains yesterday in geological time.
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The lines were unpleasant. Fortunately a cold front made the day a comfortable one for driving. There was actually a strong wind, something rarely seen in Taiwan during the day.
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I have always wanted to get a picture of this factory, which lies next to the highway.
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Traffic on the new highway was fine.
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A bucolic scene, with the high speed rail slashing across the background.
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Hsinchu was all about family stuff. The highlight of the weekend was probably ordering take out at the Vietnamese place around the corner from my sister-in-law's house. Unalleviated domestic dullness it was, and very enjoyable.
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My wife and her two sisters return from a foray into the wilds for a shaved ice treat.
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The rooftops of Hsinchu. A gorgeous day in which the mountains were clearly visible in their darkly purple enclouded glory.
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Just a neighborhood.
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Stray dogs patrol a street. In the background is the high speed rail system, with part of the new station just visible as a half-shell on the left.
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[Taiwan] [Hsinchu]

Taiwan: A leading Arms Exporter

The Taipei Times reports on a claim that Chen Shui-bian's visit to the United Arab Emirates was made possible by a donation of weapons...

Taiwan gave the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 10,000 rifles and other sweeteners in exchange for the UAE allowing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to make an unofficial visit to the country, a local magazine said yesterday.

The Journalist weekly quoted an unnamed military source as saying that Taipei promised military, oil and aviation cooperation in exchange for Chen's Sept. 29-Oct. 1 visit to the UAE.

"Taiwan offered 10,000 self-developed T91 rifles to the UAE. When the UAE's [senior government official] Sheikh Hamid bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Taiwan in June, he visited weapons plants and expressed interest in the T91," the magazine said.

"Taiwan's small arms and military gear are popular around the world because they are good quality and are not expensive. Jordan has bought thousands of T91s because it found that T91 is more powerful than the US-made rifle M16A2 and the Russian-made rifle AK47," the magazine said.

This is not as surprising as it might seem -- in 2004 the UAE led all arms importers. Taiwan's small arms are well liked around the world, including in the US...

[Taiwan] [China] [US Foreign Policy]

Arms Purchase: KMT wavering?

The KMT is reported to be mulling over changing its stance on the arms package. This has been rumored for a couple of weeks now; last week the papers reported that the PFP had threatened to join with the DPP in forcing the KMT to return its stolen properties to the nation if the KMT reversed its stance on the arms package.

The KMT report su