Daily Links March 31, 2007

Going shopping in the Taiwan blogs today, I found.....

The Foreigner explains 300. Best review I've seen yet.

Feder's Blog list of 250 you've been in taiwan too long when...

Interlocals.net has a post on archaeology and memory -- community nets in Taiwan.

The Conductor Blogs on the 3-26 peace march.

Cold Goat Eyes on a neighborhood power cut.

The Bushman takes some gorgeous pics at the Taipei Cycle show.

Walter wonders why foreigners in Taiwan are such pessimists.Thanks for the mention, BTW

The Tainan Don explains how the taxpayer is defrauded to enable foreigners to teach at local elementary schools.

David goes to Dharma Drum Mountain.

Media:

A Taiwanese-American student comments in the Brown U. newspaper on the visit of the Chinese Ambassador to Brown U.

[Taiwan]

Economist on The Peaceful Rise

The Economist has a damn fine article pointing out that nobody really believes in The Peaceful Rise:

Why are China's neighbours not always susceptible to its charms? Of course, any rapidly emerging big power is unsettling. Like America, China can still display a penchant for unilateralism that undermines all its careful diplomacy. As it overtakes America as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, its cavalier disregard of the global environment will become an ever-bigger issue in its foreign relations. More traditional fears also unsettle China's neighbours. This month China's annual budget called for another big increase (of nearly 18%) in military spending. Most analysts believe the published budget is understated—in which case, why trumpet such a big number? And why, without warning, blow up a satellite in space, as a Chinese missile did in January?

A perception therefore persists that China's goodwill extends only so far as its interests are not affected. In its dispute with India, for example, it is the status quo power: it is happy with the present arrangements, so what has it to lose by talking for ever? In one crucial respect, however, it is far from a status quo power: its historically dubious and morally untenable claim on Taiwan. This is one big reason, other than merely acting the big-power part, for the military build-up, and could one day bring war with the real superpower.

A much better Taiwan policy is available to China. The “one country, two systems” formula promised to Hong Kong in 1997, which mirrored that offered to the Dalai Lama's Tibet in 1951, was aimed in large measure at the more important goal to China of coaxing Taiwan back into the “motherland”. But China has sabotaged its own strategy. Like the long history of repression in Tibet, the farcical “re-election” on March 25th of Hong Kong's British-trained, Chinese-adopted chief executive, Donald Tsang, by a committee dominated by China's placemen shows how little China cares to lend substance to its promises of autonomy and democracy—even though Mr Tsang would probably have won a real election anyway.

Giving Hong Kongers the freedoms they have demanded, and talking to the Dalai Lama about the future of his homeland, would do more to impress China's neighbours than a decade's worth of state visits and free-trade agreements. Yet China will not yield on either front, sternly warning critics against infringing on its internal affairs.

Yup. The status of democracy in Hong Kong shows that everything China says is hollow, and provides much grist for the DPP mills. Anyone can see that "one country-two systems" means that "our system is our system, and your system is our system."

[Taiwan] [Hong Kong] [China] [Japan]

The Silver Lining of an Ugly Black Cloud

Most of you probably haven't noticed, but Taiwan has no budget for this fiscal year. The pan-Blue alliance, led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), have refused to pass the budget unless the Greens permit the Blues to reconstruct the Central Election Commission (CEC) in favor of the Blues:

To secure a majority for passage of the CEC amendment, the pan-blue camp has held the budget hostage since last year, leaving the government without funding at the start of the fiscal year.

The dispute over the CEC bill has led to angry confrontations between lawmakers, many times turning violent, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers blocked voting on the amendment.

The DPP has accused the KMT of trying to thwart its plan to hold a referendum during next year's presidential election on recovering assets stolen by the KMT during the Martial Law era, while the KMT has said the CEC bill is necessary to remove what it describes as "partisan bias" in the election committee.

When the Blues blow the 2008 Presidential election as they have blown the last two in '00 and '04, they hope to get a pro-Blue CEC to overturn the election results. Nor do they much care about passing the budget, since one of the pan-Blue goals is to make Taiwan appear as if it cannot govern itself, thus making annexation by China appear as an act of discipline for a recalcitrant and wayward child.

An interesting feature of this campaign to paralyze governance on the island is that the legislature has failed to pass a large number of major spending bills. The results, according to an economic analysis by UBS, may well be positive for some aspects of the economy:

What about the government? Government investment and infrastructure spending has all but ceased as a result of political differences between the ruling and opposition parties. Political disagreements have blocked many government spending programs in the last few years. This year is no different. The budget is currently on hold due to disagreements over how the Central Election Committee will be staffed. Whereas a few years a go the budget deficit exceeded 6% of GDP it has now shrunk to around 1% of GDP. This drop in the government’s need to finance the fiscal balance has contributed significantly to Taiwan’s low interest rate environment. The upcoming parliamentary election in December and the presidential election in March next year could reverse this pressures and lead to higher interest rates in 2009 if the government becomes unified again. However, that is a ways off.

Public debt has actually fallen, relatively, due to the lack of government spending. That's good, from some perspectives. On the flip side, however, without the steady flow of government projects to drive the construction-industrial state that lies at the heart of Taiwan's central/local government relationship, the economy has floundered. Incomes are stagnant --- the report also notes that working hours have fallen and manufacturing labor costs in Taiwan have actually slid, without the upward pressure on wages -- and all that has happened against the background of falling unemployment.

The KMT strategy is quite clear. (1) Paralyze the government (2) win the legislative election and the Presidency (3) release all those big bills (4) sit back and enjoy sudden bump to the economy (5) sell island to China. It's a cruel strategy that has paid good dividends for them, since many people blame the President and the DPP for stagnant incomes.

Given, however, that much KMT support depends on getting flows of government contracts out to connected individuals at the local level, how long can the KMT continue to serve K-rations to its people in order to inflict political pain on the DPP? Many local governments in Taiwan are suffering from severe cash-flow problems. Local factions are notoriously unreliable and have been known flip from one party to the other based simply on whoever is handing them the most government lucre. The key point of the KMT strategy is having to win the elections. If the Blues blow it again in 2008, and somehow manage to lose a legislature whose make-up was rigged to give them great advantages, severe damage could be done to their local networks.

[Taiwan] [US] [Democracy] [DPP] [KMT]

US-Taiwan FTA Roundtable Discussion in WaPo

The Washington Post hosts a roundtable discussion of a Taiwan-US FTA:

A Path Worth Taking? The Prospects and Challenges of a U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Deal

In recent years, the creation of numerous free trade agreements (FTAs) around the world has triggered a chain reaction, as countries fearing exclusion move forward to establish their own regional FTAs.

Taiwan, the world's sixteenth-largest trading power and the United States' ninth-largest trading partner, has indicated its desire for an FTA with the United States. Its technology-based economy and role as a doorway to China's market offers a larger potential trading relationship than any other country currently negotiating an FTA with the United States. Some feel that a U.S.-Taiwan FTA would send an unmistakable signal of U.S. support for democratic Taiwan. Others believe such a trade deal would complicate the U.S.'s relations in the region. Is a U.S.-Taiwan trade pact a path worth taking?

Mr. Fadah Hsieh, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and Mr. John Chen-Chung Deng, current Deputy Representative, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the United States, will be online to answer your questions. In April Mr. John Chen-Chung Deng will become the Chief Negotiator, Office of Trade Negotiations, MOEA, the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Go here for the forum transcript.

[Taiwan] [US]

Dawn to Dusk in Tainan

Tainan is probably the most photogenic of the cities on the west coast plain. Here are 90 or so photos I took the other day while strolling around the area near the train station.

As we near election season, candidate pictures are starting to fill up public spaces everywhere. Here a bus hosts election advertisements for the DPP candidate, with their mortally stupid slogan "Taiwan, Go! Go! Go!"

A morning market sets up.

A fruit vendor waits for the day's first customer.

Looking down a main road toward the train station in the early morning.

I'm still trying to get that perfect empty sidewalk shot.

Tainan hosts innumerable temples great and small.

Sex sells.

In addition to the temples, small shrines like this one may be found all over the downtown. I spotted three on my walk that day.

A side street.

Going out for breakfast.

Tainan's train station.

It's the year of cultural tourism, thus permitting the central government to hand out plenty of cash to local governments for spending on cultural activities.

The tallest building in Tainan, empty. That fate was also suffered by the tallest building in Taichung, until a couple of years ago.

A girl on an advert watches a taxi driver watching his cellphone.

The underpass connecting the front and back of the train station.

An apartment complex where military veterans' families live.

The real measure of civilization is the extent to which breakfast is available 24-7.

A vendor hard at work.

A vendor eyes a street, waiting for business.

Still trying for that perfect alley shot.

Still trying for that perfect alley shot.

A back street near NCKU filled with students seeking food and recreation.

Tainan is filled with alleys.

A strawberry vendor helps a customer.

A flower shop sets up a lovely corner for itself.

The ability of vendors in Taiwan to use public space helps keep costs down by giving them free display space that, even better, is right in the area of the traffic flow.

"Just do it", practically a local mantra now.

Dusk envelops a Tainan street.

A conclave of mannikins.

Taking a break from the brutal pressure of school life in Taiwan.

One of the things I love about Tainan is the red faux brick paving used in many of the alleys and side streets. Such a small thing, but it gives the town a great feel.

Girls at a high school line up to leave after school.

An elementary school wisely located right across from two large high schools, for maximum traffic smoothness.

The old east gate of Tainan city.

Global Village, a prominent local English teaching chain.

A family owned appliance store, an ubiquitous sight in Taiwan's cities.

Cookery God? They've obviously never tasted my homemade spaghetti sauce.

Two video stores compete on a local street. In many cases businesses selling identical products located next door to each other are actually owned by two members of the same family.

Taking the wedding photos, a tradition on the island....

.... in front of a local Christian Church.

A betel nut stand. Not every stand is run by slinky babes in minimal gear.

Still trying for that perfect alley shot.

Older storefronts.

He showed me who was cock of the walk.

A clean, well-kept work environment.

A blacksmith, forge in the background, uses a machine to shape a piece of iron.

Just down the street from the church is a lovely temple.

Dog and man study each other.

Still trying for that perfect alley shot.

Hong Kong democrats?

One of Taiwan's little-known traditions is the veneration of big trees in Taiwan folk culture. If you look around, you'll see many small shrines right next to large old trees.

The inside of an old temple.

A Christian hospital in Tainan.

The Tigerish Rag Doll restaurant.

Soon I shall have my name on absolutely everything......

It's hard to get people to pose, so I was gratified by cooperation from these two lovely young girls.

Buying electronic stuff.

As you approach the train station from the south, the density of vendors climbs alarmingly.

Chops on the market.

It is a well known fact of economics that there is no place so small it can't use another shoe store.

Still trying for that perfect alley shot.

North of the train station is a collection of Thai and Indonesian restaurants and services, aimed at the foreign worker population.

Dogs frolic behind the National Tax Administration buildings.

There's an old temple at the end of every alley.

Taking my order at 85C.

Just looking at these makes you fat.

Stores that sell to foreign laborers make a good living from phone cards.

An empty doctor's office.

Night in front of the train station.

Lining up for tea.

Recycling.

[Taiwan] [Tainan]

East Asia and Global Security

Two articles on global security and East Asia crossed my path this week. The first is from Japan Focus, and discusses the emerging alliance structure aimed at China that is growing now in Northeast Asia.

Secondly, by explicitly "affirming the common strategic interests and security benefits embodied in their respective alliance relationships with the United States, and committing to strengthening trilateral cooperation," Japan and Australia are signaling an overturn to a half century of East Asian security architecture. An anti-Soviet system of US-dominated but uncoordinated bilateral alliances is being replaced by a nascent anti-China US-dominated multilateral alliance system. The fact that South Korea, now moving closer to China and unpicking its joint military command with the US, is not yet included in this new arrangement, warns us that the East Asian politics behind this new tripartite security architecture is decidedly wobbly.

South Korea's drift into the China orbit will be viewed by scholars of the future as yet another of the many defeats the US suffered under the Bush Administration. Meanwhile over at Peking Duck the redoubtable Raj found an argument for more engagement from the world in the Taiwan Straits issue:

It is time for the developed world, which has enjoyed fruitful results from globalization and the ability to influence China, to put this issue into a larger context. For more than 50 years, America has enjoyed the patent of discussing Taiwan's future, but now other Western countries should break its monopoly. The island is not only important to China, but also to the world.

It is long past time for the world to get involved.....

[Taiwan] [US] [China] [Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)] [Japan]

Gangsta Pap 2: Would-be Coppola at TVBS fired

It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

All of the Chinese and English newspapers are running front page reports today with the story of how TVBS reporters helped film a mobster threatening his capo (see UPDATE below as of 9 pm 3/29). The pro-Blue China Post reports:

Axed were Shih Chen-kang for taping the video and his chief Chang Yu-kun for lying about the news source, a TVBS statement said.

Two TVBS editing supervisors in Taipei were disciplined for failure to ascertain the source whom Shih, the correspondent in Nantou, and Chang claimed was Chou Cheng-pao, a gangster who displayed weapons while threatening to kill his mob boss Liu Jui-lung.

Pan Tsu-yin and Sun Chia-jui were each given one demerit. Sun was relieved of her concurrent job as city editor.

The Taichung correspondents told the supervisors the source could not be identified. The two supervisors then edited the tape, which was claimed to have been produced by Chou Cheng-pao himself.

The pro-Green Taipei Times emphasized the responsibility of the organization as a whole for the affair, which among other things provided a fascinating glimpse into the way the news is created on Taiwan:

In its statement, TVBS said an internal investigation had found that Shi had helped Chou film the video.

TVBS news director Pan Tzu-yin (潘祖蔭) and vice news director Sun Chia-juei (孫嘉蕊) were also given citations for their lack of oversight, the statement added.

According to the TVBS, Shi explained that Chou asked him for help on Saturday afternoon. He decided to make the video because he found it newsworthy, the station cited Shi as saying.

Shi asked Chang not to tell TVBS managers about how he got the footage, TVBS said.

Yang Ying-lan (楊英蘭), an official with the National Communications Commission (NCC), disagreed with TVBS' position that the two reporters were solely responsible for the incident.

"The footage has been broadcasted again and again," she said. "How can the management at the station get away with simply saying that it was just the reporters' fault?"

When asked if the incident will cause the station to loose its broadcast license, Yang said the penalty will ultimately be determined by the commission's members.

If the commission finds the Chou video to be a serious violation, the station will be asked to stop broadcasting for three days.

A while back TVBS came under fire from the DPP for being a 100% foreign-owned Chinese tool, whose Chairman once ran the Hong Kong broadcasting authority. TVBS is in blatant violation of the media laws, but the DPP did nothing until it got out of hand, as I noted back in 2005. It would be nice if the GIO shut down TVBS and the people who collaborated with the gangster did time. The problem is that having failed to do it all the other times, the government has left itself open to the charge that closing TVBS is simply an act of partisan politics.

In addition to the usual questions of the role of media in society, this affair also highlights the critical problem of the lack of a civic culture, and the relational nature of ethics in Chinese society. What the reporter did was both unethical and illegal. Nobody seemed to care until, as the Liberty Times pointed out this morning, a police investigation of the tape showed that it hadn't been delivered to the mailbox as TVBS claimed. It's obvious that this kind of thing is only the tip of the iceberg at TVBS. There must be many similar "reports" that are unethical collaborative affairs between the reporter and his news source.

It is hard to say what the scariest part of this whole sordid affair was. The complicity of the media? Well, it is TVBS. Was it the mobster with an itch to be a movie star? Not really. For me, it was yet another instance of the amazing ability of suspects to evade lock up. The China Post gave the following background on the murdered boss:

Lin, 47, was shot at a teahouse in downtown Taichung last Friday. He succumbed the following day.

He was ambushed a few days after he had been released on bail. He went into hiding in China after the kidnapping of the city council speaker.

On October 25, Lin was arrested by Chinese police at Shenzhen near Hong Kong. After a successful negotiation, Taichung police had Lin extradited on January 4 last year. He was indicted on July 11.

Prosecutors demanded that Lin be sentenced to death, but a judge released him on bail.

Released a mob boss on bail? Disgusting.

UPDATE: The gangster was caught this afternoon.

Taichung police is interrogating Chou Cheng-pao, a member of the Celestial Way Gang, who also claimed in the TV footage he was responsible for three recent shooting incidents in central Taiwan.

Chou hid in a deserted gravel yard when police made the arrest at 4:45pm. He is wearing a bullet-proof vest and in posession of four pistols, police said.

The footage, shot by TVBS reporter Shi Chen-kang, prompted the cable TV company to fire Shi and his supervisor Chang Yu-kun Wednesday night on grounds they claimed it was provided by an anonymous source.

Opposition politicians have cited the footage as evidence of the government's ineptitude in fighting crime after TVBS aired it Monday evening and other cable TV outlets followed suit the next day.

As I said in the earlier post:

But what you won't read on ESWN is that TVBS is Chinese-owned and 100% supportive of the KMT and China -- it is a pro-Blue station to the core. A propaganda staple of the Blues is that Taiwan's society is in a mess -- and of course, videos threatening violence and gangster killings are proof positive that the propaganda is correct. What a coincidence, eh? This gangster is so useful, if he didn't exist, he'd have to be invented.

This isn't just some reporter being stupid. He knew full well what he was shooting and why he was shooting it, and how it would look and be used by his fellow travelers at TVBS. This is a High Context society in which everyone knows the score and what is expected of them.

UPDATE II: The Chinese language newspapers reported it yesterday, and the English language papers have it today. TVBS lied when it said it found out about the fakery through its own investigation:

[TVBS] said its own investigation showed that the film was shot by its reporter Shih Chen-kang and that Shih's superior Chang Yu-kun, had helped.

But the National Police Agency yesterday refuted TVBS' statement, and said the police were suspicious about the video footage before TVBS admitted misconduct.

Hou said when the police were analyzing the video footage, they found the camera was held in a stable manner, which indicated it might have been produced by professionals.

In addition to the professional shooting of the video which roused suspicion, Hou said that two fingerprints collected from the motel where the film was shot were not Chou's fingerprints. The police also discovered that the envelope which the video was placed in had no stamps on it, he added.

The police contacted TVBS for more information, Hou said, adding that he received a phone call from a TVBS supervisor on Wednesday and confirmed police suspicions that the video might have been produced by media professionals.

Some local reporters and audience members also criticized TVBS for immediately firing the two reporters before the controversy was cleared up, as they suspected that the company has tried to deny its responsibility over the negligence by shifting the blame onto the two employees. At least three demonstrations were staged outside TVBS headquarters in Taipei yesterday against the video controversy.

The government now has a robust excuse to shut this station down. Let's see if they can find the spine.

[Taiwan] [media] [TVBS]

East Coast Highway to Destroy Taiwan's Last Frontier?

The spectacular Suhua Highway. Plans are to shove a major expressway through here.

Asia Sentinel, a widely lniked site that reports on news from all over Asia, has a good article on the plans to drive a highway from Suao to Hualien through some of the most spectacular terrain on the island.

But this is an election year for the national legislature in December and presidency next March, so politicians need major projects to show the public and to raise money from companies for their campaigns. That is why the highway is now back on the public agenda, to be taken up by a 16-member government-appointed evaluation committee at the end of April, the last stage in the approval process. Two have come out in favor, five against and nine have not expressed an opinion.

The four-lane highway would connect two towns on the east coast, Suao and Hualien, and require 11 tunnels and 27 bridges on a route that runs through breathtaking mountains that descend into the sea. The highway would pass through eight reserves and beauty spots including the Taroko Gorge, one of the island’s main tourist sites, inflicting damage on all of them.

The bare-knuckle contest over the highway is a throwback to a pork-barrel era of politics in which the beneficiaries will be the construction firms that get the contracts, insiders who will be well compensated for land they have bought on the highway route and politicians receiving kickbacks. The huge expense and the fierce opposition of the environmental lobby are the reasons why the highway has not been built since it was first proposed in 1990.

For its supporters, the road would link Hualien to the highway network that emanates from Taipei, cutting the driving time to the capital from four hours to two and making it a more attractive destination for investors and tourists. Companies that produce goods in the town would be able to move them more quickly to domestic and foreign consumers. This influx of visitors and capital would raise the value of land and property in Hualien and bring more business to its shops, restaurants and other retail businesses.

The great environmental group Wild at Heart has long been in opposition to this project. Give them a few spare pennies if you have them, they'll put'em to good use.

[Taiwan]

Thirsty Ghosts: great new blog

David on Formosa points to a great new group blog:

It features writing and photos by Taiwan-based journalists, photographers and translators, currently writing for Newsweek, Reuters, Taipei Times, Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia Times and other publications.

[Taiwan] [media]

Was Taiwan why Adm Fallon was shifted to the Middle East

This post at China Redux leads to some very interesting information on the recent transfer of Pacific Fleet Commander Adm Fallon to the Middle East: an article from the Washington Post:

Fallon's soothing words on Iran contrasts with conventional wisdom, which is that his selection as the first Navy admiral to lead CENTCOM signals increased preparation for war with Iran. This is particularly the case given reports in the BBC and The New Yorker regarding war preparations, and since the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier battle group left Pearl Harbor to join the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower battle group already in the region.

But Fallon's history with regard to war plans vis a vis China tells a far more complex story: I have confirmed that Adm. Fallon indeed directed his planners in Hawaii not to prepare contingency "strategic" air strikes against mainland Chinese targets as part of U.S. options in a China-Taiwan contingency.

What is fascinating about this inside story about the U.S. combatant commander for Asia is not that he is some covert panda hugger now let loose to appease Iran. It is that those who have complained about Fallon's approach to China proudly report that the Pacific Fleet commander and the Pacific Air Forces commander directed their targeters to do the work that Fallon had forbid anyway.

I guess that means on Iran that there's good news in Fallon, and bad news. The bad news is that the senior military officer, the so-called combatant commander, can pursue a perfectly defensible policy of not wanting to risk a wider war with a country - China in this case -- even in defense of Taiwan. He can logically direct his contingency planners to spend their time on something more productive, given his vision of what is likely and desirable, but they go ahead and do the planning anyway.

I know the argument that the military should at least give the president the options, that planning for war helps secure the peace, that having contingency plans signals seriousness to a country and thus increases deterrence and coercion.

China Redux goes on to argue that Fallon was moved to the Middle East to get him out of the way in Asia. Very interesting all around.

[Taiwan] [US] [China]

Gangsta Pap

Our fair city has been the site of another one of those periodic outbursts of gangster violence recently. Gangsters killing each other, a world-wide affliction, is not very interesting news, but the tale did take a turn when a gangster supposedly filmed himself making threats on tape promising retaliation for the killings. ESWN has part of the story, but tonight the story took a more interesting turn when it turned out that the gangster didn't film himself -- the reporter from TVBS helped with the filming and was present during it, the evening news is reporting here. TVBS has apparently canned him (based on a TVBS taking its own initiative in investigating the reporter's claims, they say. NaCl, anyone?)

ESWN points out that gangsters have filmed themselves before, and attempts to present this as controversy of the right-to-know versus media publicity for gangsters:

There have been prior instances of Taiwan gangsters shooting their own digital videos for public consumption., and this explains why there is objection to offering publicity to gangsters. Is this news in the name of the people's right to know? Or is this encouraging worse behavior? Internationally, a similar question is whether Osama bin Ladin's videos ought to be shown on television? This is a test of finding the balance between freedom of press and media self-discipline.

Is this really a test between freedom of press and media self-discipline? Perhaps, although the reporter's involvement is blatantly illegal and is not really an information self-discipline issue. But what you won't read on ESWN is that TVBS is Chinese-owned and 100% supportive of the KMT and China -- it is a pro-Blue station to the core. A propaganda staple of the Blues is that Taiwan's society is in a mess -- and of course, videos threatening violence and gangster killings are proof positive that the propaganda is correct. What a coincidence, eh? This gangster is so useful, if he didn't exist, he'd have to be invented. Fake videos are also well known in Taiwan -- see ESWN's profile of a case from two years ago. It is too soon to say what is going on, but you can be sure the whole story ain't out there yet.

[Taiwan] [ESWN] [media] [TVBS] [Taichung]

Ma Endorses Wu for the Chairmanship

Probable KMT Presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou has endorsed Wu Po-hsiung for the KMT Chairmanship election:

Ma made the announcement while he was visiting a temple in Taichung County. Ma said that because he does not holding any party or public office at present, he will support Wu as a party member, adding that he knows Wu is the best person to improve the party.

Later in the day, Ma's presidential campaign office issued a press release officially announcing Ma's support of Wu for party chairman. In the statement, Ma said that the by-election for party chairman will play a pivotal role in how the party fares in the coming legislative and 2008 presidential elections. He added that there is no need to pretend to be neutral in the battle and he urged all party comrades to pitch in their support for Wu. Ma praised Wu as having vast experience in important party and government offices, adding that Wu is well-respected for his dependability.

The news might come as a surprise to Wu's only opponent in the coming by-election, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), because she had earlier rejected a media report that said Ma would choose an appropriate time to publicly announce his support for Wu. Hung said that the news must have been fabricated by Wu's desperate aides and that it could hurt both Wu and Ma. Saying the chairmanship should not be a proxy war, Hung said the future chairman must not be partial toward any particular presidential candidate so as to ensure fairness in the presidential primary and party management in the future. Speaking of the race for chairman, she also stressed the importance of a fair election to the party's image.

The election is pretty much a foregone conclusion, since Hung is not a serious candidate. Still, Ma's main rival Wang Jin-pyng, manuvering for a longshot crack at the Presidential ticket, refused to endorse either.

Wu, the scion of a Taoyuan faction, is the highest-ranking Hakka in the KMT. In 2000 he became the first major KMT figure to visit China openly, arriving for a world Hakka congress. One of the axes of KMT control is an alliance between mainlanders and Hakkas to keep the Hoklo (Taiwanese-speaking) membership of the party under control. Wu has consistently sided with the mainlander core of the KMT -- in September of 2000, when the KMT voted to strip former President Lee Teng-hui of his party membership after he failed to support perennial loser Lien Chan in the Presidential election, Wu sided with the mainlanders. In addition to being a splendid example of how the KMT invented the ethnic politics that all claim to detest here, Wu is also one of the island's more prominent Buddhists, speaking at Buddhist engagements and holding high position in local Buddhist organizations. He has also been Chairman of the World Hakka Association, whatever that is.

UPDATE: Jason from Wandering to Tamshui points out in a private email that Wu's leadership will help the KMT in contested Miaoli, a Hakka stronghold.


[Taiwan] [KMT]

China to Build Supercarrier, Taiwan unveils upgraded IDF

A Korean newspaper is reporting that the Chinese are planning a 93,000 ton supercarrier, according to the widely read blog The Marmot's Hole.

According to the documents, the nuclear carrier—to be completed by 2020—is to be tasked to China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation’s Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard [Global Security.org], which is capable of building oil tankers of 300,000 tons. The documents apparently mention that the planned carrier should be the size of the Ul’yanovsk [FAS], the planned Soviet nuclear carrier that was never completed.

If China completes the carrier, it would give the Chinese Navy a carrier approaching the size of the U.S. Nimitz class [Global Security.org], which is roughly 97,000 tons in displacement.

The documents say the conventionally powered Project 085 is a transitional project to the nuclear-powered Project 089. The mid-sized conventional carrier, to be completed by 2010, would displace 48,000 tons standard and 64,000 tons fully loaded. It will be able to hold 30-40 Jian-10 fighters [Global Security.org], which China began deploying last December. China is currently developing a naval version of the Jian-10; prior to development, China plans to decorate the ship with a compliment of 10-20 Russian-made Su-33s [Global Security.org].

The conventional carrier will be a modified version of the Soviet-built Varyag [Varyag World.com], which the Chinese have been playing with at China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation’s Dalian Shipyard [Global Security.org] since the Ukrainians sold it to them. Dalian Shipyard will be designing and building the conventional carrier. After Project 085 has been completed, the hull of the Varyag will be used for carrier landing exercises.

China’s carrier plans are in-line with comments made by the head of China’s National Defense Science, Technology, and Industry Commission, Zhang Yunchuan, who told reporters on March 16 that if things went smoothly, China could complete its indigenously built carrier by 2010.

The article came just after the new US Pacific Fleet Commander observed that China is far behind the United States in its naval abilities.

China is far from catching up to the United States as a military power, and the Pentagon will conduct exercises with the Chinese to gauge their intentions, tactics and strategy, the U.S. admiral set to take command of U.S. operations in the Pacific said March 22.

“While they may achieve improved combat effectiveness in certain limited areas, their overall near-peer status I think is a long way away,” said Adm. Timothy Keating, who takes command of the U.S. Pacific Command next week.

“We’re watching carefully. We’ll work with them to the extent that is appropriate so as to be able to evaluate their military strategy and doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures, and stay ahead of them,” Keating told reporters.

Keating was given the new post after the former Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Fallon, was transferred to the Middle East. The Chinese plans may well be vapor, but what's interesting is the perception that they have to have carriers to compete with the US.

Meanwhile yesterday President Chen Shui-bian unveiled the upgraded IDF fighter.

Hundreds of guests and engineers from the government-owned aircraft maker Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) applauded as the fighter looped and banked to show off its maneuvering capability.

"The success is not only the latest achievement of our defense industry, but it also demonstrates Taiwan’s determination and efforts to defend ourselves," Chen said at the end of the new fighter’s 10-minute test flight.

Chen named the new jet "Hsung Ying," or Goshawk, an indigenous bird renowned for the speed of its attacks on prey.

The AIDC unveiled the prototype of an upgraded single-seated upgrade late last year.

Costing the military 7 billion Taiwan dollars (US$212.1 million) in a project launched in 2001, the Goshawk had increased its endurance time with the installation of two additional fuel tanks, the AIDC said.

Note how Chen emphasized the willingness of Taiwan to defend itself, a signal to both China and the US. Taiwan's large defense industry is evidence of the island's willingness to defend itself. It is only the pro-China parties that are fighting the weapons appropriation from the US. And we all know who they are working for.

[Taiwan] [US] [China]

Beijing Annexes Student Dorm

Readers may recall that back in October I reported on the ownership controversy of a student dorm in Japan. China scored once again in its quest to annex everything Taiwanese, as the PRC grabbed a student dorm they had never owned with the court ruling in its favor.

On Tuesday, Japan's Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that recognized the ownership of the dormitory by Taiwan.

The top court overthrew a 1987 Osaka High Court decision in Taiwan's favour and sent the suit back to the Kyoto District Court to re-examine the case.

The dispute involves the ownership of the five-storey student dormitory outside Kyoto University, called Kokaryo (Chinese Dormitory), which the university built in 1945.

The Chinese Nationalist Government, which fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, bought Kokaryo in 1952 for Taiwanese students in Kyoto, but it was also open to students from the mainland.

In 1976, a year after mainland students took over Kokaryo, Taiwan filed a law suit with the Kyoto District Court demanding it back.

There's a lesson here....


[Taiwan] [Japan] [China]

Appalling Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Commentary

Sadly, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists chose to publish a one-sided piece of crap commentary on Taiwan independence from a Chinese "scholar" who simply regurgitates the propaganda line we're all drearily familiar with. Ranting and raving about Chen Shui-bian, whom the Beijing government reserves a special hatred for:

Seven years later, Chen has broken nearly all of his promises and proven himself a liar and "troublemaker," in the words of former President Bill Clinton. In pursuit of self-interest and political gain, he has disregarded Taiwanese security and his people's fundamental interest in peace and stability, which is preconditioned on his government's honesty and sense of responsibility. This inevitably escalates the tension across the Taiwan Strait.

As a post-World War II arrangement, Taiwan reverted to the mainland; Taiwan had belonged to China until Japan defeated China in 1894 and imposed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which gave the island to Japan. But in 1945, China and the Allied Forces defeated Japan, and Taiwan was properly returned to the mainland. Currently, the United Nations and a majority of the countries in the world--including the United States and Japan--officially consider Taiwan a part of China. Given mainland China's ever-increasing hard and soft power, the fantasy of an independent Taiwan is coming to an end.

Geerit van der Wees of FAPA has supplied two addresses to write to:

Kennette Benedict, Executive Director
kbenedict@thebulletin.org
Tel: (773) 702-0077

Mark Strauss, Editor
mstrauss@thebulletin.org
Tel: (773) 834-1800

Please remember that this appeared in the Online Bulletin, not the print publication. Be polite and respectful.

[Taiwan] [US] [China] [Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)] [Chen Shui-bian]

Peter Arnett at Lung Ying-tai

An anonymous poster left this in a comment:

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

The Legendary War Correspondent
Peter Arnett
Lecture Title:
America at War in Iraq and Vietnam: The Similarities, The Differences

Well known for his covering of war, veteran correspondent Peter Arnett is a synonym of daredevil. Throughout his 40-plus years of news reporting, there is simply nothing ordinary in his diary:

1966 Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his courageous work in Vietnam
1975 One of the last reporters in Saigon after it fell
1991 Representing CNN, brought exclusive coverage from Baghdad for the 16 initial intense hours of the Gulf War
Obtained an exclusive uncensored interview with Saddam Hussein one week after the start of the war
1995 First western journalist to interview Osama bin Laden
1998 Reprimanded then dismissed by CNN for he reported that the US Army had used sarin against a group of deserting US soliders in Laos in 1970
2003 In Iraq to cover the US invasion but was fired by NBC for granting an interview to state-controlled Iraqi television and commenting that “the first plan of the war has failed”
Dramatically hired by the British newspaper, the Daily Mirror the day after

Moderator: Lung Yingtai
Former Cultural Minister of Taipei City
Professor of National Tsing Hua University

Date & Time: Saturday, 21 April 2007 7:00pm-10:pm
Venue: Zhongshan Hall( No .98 Yenping S. Rd .Taipei)

The Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundaiton Launches

Masterclass by

The Legendary War Correspondent

Peter Arnett

Veteran correspondent Peter Arnett is well known for his covering of wars from Saigon to Bagdad. Besides his notebook and a helmet, what was he armed with? 30 hand-picked “apprentices” will be able to meet him in person and explore the art of being a war correspondent.

Date & Time: 22 April 2007 (Sunday) 2:00 – 5:00 pm

Venue: Yue-han Hall, 10 Jin Hua Street, Taipei

Enrollment
1. Applicants should be students attending high schools, universities or graduate schools.
2. Please mail your resume with a statement expressing your views on the Gulf War within 300 words to the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation, 2/F., 110 Jin Hua Street, Taipei or by email civictaipei@hotmail.com on or before 10 April 2007.
3. 30 short-listed applicants will be notified before 15 April 2007.
4. Short-listed applicants must submit a report in 1,000 words and a summary in 100 words after the completion of the masterclass. Both articles will be used by the Lung Yingtai Foundation for educational and promotional purposes.

å ±å Registration
電話Tel：02-33224907
傳真Fax：02-33224918
www.civictaipei.org
civictaipei@hotmail.com

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

Online registration is here.

Sizzler to Own Taiwan

Bloomberg reports, not on the steakhouse, but on a Russian missile that is giving US planners indigestion with its ability to make mincemeat of US naval defenses....

The missile, known in the West as the "Sizzler,'' has been deployed by China and may be purchased by Iran. Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England has given the Navy until April 29 to explain how it will counter the missile, according to a Pentagon budget document.

The Defense Department's weapons-testing office judges the threat so serious that its director, Charles McQueary, warned the Pentagon's chief weapons-buyer in a memo that he would move to stall production of multibillion-dollar ship and missile programs until the issue was addressed.

"This is a carrier-destroying weapon,'' said Orville Hanson, who evaluated weapons systems for 38 years with the Navy. "That's its purpose.''

"Take out the carriers'' and China "can walk into Taiwan,'' he said. China bought the missiles in 2002 along with eight diesel submarines designed to fire it, according to Office of Naval Intelligence spokesman Robert Althage.

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia also offered the missile to Iran, although there's no evidence a sale has gone through. In Iranian hands, the Sizzler could challenge the ability of the U.S. Navy to keep open the Strait of Hormuz, through which an estimated 25 percent of the world's oil traffic flows.

Brrr....

(hat tip to initechnology) [Taiwan] [US] [China] [Taiwan Independence] [Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)] [Russia] [Iran]

US Stamp for Sun

Sun Yat-sen may have been replaced by a plant here in Taiwan, but he's forever commemorated by the US Postal Service. Initechnology informs me that sandwiched right between stamps for F. Remington the artist with the brush and James Naismith the artist with the basketball is a United States stamp for Sun Yat-sen, issued on Oct 10, 1961.

[China]

Does the US own Taiwan?

"Sovereign,” like “love,” means anything you want it to mean; it’s a word in the dictionary between “sober” and “sozzled.” - Robert A. Heinlein

Who owns Taiwan? China certainly wants to annex Taiwan, but has no legal title to it. For most of us Taiwan belongs to the 23 million people who live on it, but there is another group of people with a most interesting legal theory. Essentially, they argue that since Taiwan was occupied jointly by the US and the Chiang Kai-shek government, under the authority of the wartime allies, Taiwan is a US trust territory, an unincorporated territory of the United States.

This theory of Taiwan's sovereignty is being promoted by Dr. Roger Lin, and by longtime expat Richard Hartzell, who has been in Taiwan so long I think he should probably have squatter's rights to the island. Hartzell has written at length on it in several commentaries on in Taipei Times. Lin and Hartzell have some essays in PPT format here. Hartzell's position is laid out in a long editorials in the Taipei Times here:

By late 1949, with a civil war raging in China, additional military forces and government officials of the ROC fled to Taiwan. As of early 1950, the ROC government in Taiwan was "wearing two hats" -- it was a subordinate occupying power (beginning Oct. 25, 1945), exercising effective territorial control over Taiwan, and at the same time it was a government-in-exile -- beginning in December 1949.

Decisions regarding the transfer of Taiwan's sovereignty were to be made in the post-war peace treaty. Hence, in early 1950 the ROC was clearly not in possession of the sovereignty of Taiwan. Statements made in the 1943 Cairo Declaration and 1945 Potsdam Proclamation were "expressions of intent" made before the close of the war, but the final determination of Taiwan's status would be made under the San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) signed Sept. 8, 1951.

On April 28, 1952, the SFPT came into force. Japan renounced sovereignty of Taiwan in Article 2b. However, no receiving country was specified. This is a "limbo cession." The US is confirmed as the principal occupying power in Article 23.

Final disposition of Taiwan was to be according to the directives of the USMG, as per Article 4b: Japan recognizes the validity of dispositions of property of Japan and Japanese nationals made by or pursuant to the directives of the USMG in any of the areas referred to in Articles 2 and 3.

In English, the word property includes "the right of ownership or title." With regard to territorial cessions, this includes "sovereignty."

As we know, the ROC was the legal government of China as referred to in World War II. However, the ROC failed to maintain its legal position when it fled to Taiwan in late 1949. As of late April 1952, with the coming into force of the SFPT, the ROC was not the legally recognized government of Taiwan; it was merely a subordinate occupying power and government in exile.

The fallout from Hartzell's argument is potent: all Taiwanese should hold US passports. The reader is invited to imagine that Chinese reaction should the US government actually advocate the position that it has territorial rights over Taiwan.

Recently, Dr. Lin sued in US court to get the US government to recognize its alleged obligations. A reader notified me that on March 23 the court denied the government's motion to dismiss.

UPDATE: I got corrected in the comment below:

"A reader notified me that on March 23 the court denied the government's motion to dismiss."

This is very misleading. The government filed a motion to dismiss their complaint pointing out numerous legal problems with their complaint. Instead of disputing the government's arguments, they ask the government to give them a second chance by filing an amended complaint. The government agreed to their request.

In essence, they agree their complaint is defective, so the court said there was no point in deciding the motion if the government is giving them a second chance. The court said the motion is moot.

This is not a victory as Messrs. Lin and Hartzell try to claim, but simply a second chance to see if they can state a legally recognized claim. My guess is that the governmet will file another motion to dismiss their amended complaint.

Next time, they may not be so lucky. Don't be misled. It is all spin with no substance. This is no victory.

[Taiwan] [Taiwan Independence] [democracy] [China]

Pro-Taiwan group to form in LDP?

My friend Sponge Bear tells me that junior members of the LDP are forming a pro-Taiwan group within the Japanese party to counter pro-China politicians:

Some 20 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who see China as a threat will form a parliamentary league to push closer ties with Taiwan and India, possibly in May, LDP sources said Saturday.

Members of the planned group, mainly junior and midranked LDP lawmakers, apparently aim to counter moves by pro-China groups within the LDP, the sources said.

The LDP's pro-China ranks, including former Secretary General Koichi Kato and others critical of Abe, are trying to form another group by bringing together three like-minded camps.

To counter the move, Keiji Furuya, a House of Representatives member, and other lawmakers who have similar stances to Abe's are expected to be key members of the new group that is seen as anti-China, the sources said.

It's good that Japan is recognizing the importance of a region-wide security arrangement that puts together Taiwan and India, something a number of thoughtful minds have long advocated. Japan and Australia recently inked a security pact that appears to be aimed at China, and it appears that the US is also studying closer links with India, according to that article.

Meanwhile, it is hard to see how Japan and Taiwan can get together, since squirrels from Taiwan are pillaging Japanese forests.

[Taiwan] [China] [Japan] (hat tip to Sponge Bear)

Beeb Reports on Butterfly Highway

A BBC report on closing a Taiwan highway to protect migrating butterflies is getting play on blogs all over the world:

The purple milkweed butterfly, which winters in the south of the island, passes over some 600m of motorway to reach its breeding ground in the north.

Many of the 11,500 butterflies that attempt the journey each hour do not reach safety, experts say.

Protective nets and ultra-violet lights will also be used to aid the insects.

Taiwanese officials conceded that the decision to close one lane of the road would cause some traffic congestion, but said it was a price worth paying.

"Human beings need to coexist with the other species, even if they are tiny butterflies," Lee Thay-ming, of the National Freeway Bureau, told the AFP news agency.

Each year thousands of butterflies die when turbulence generated by fast-moving cars drags them into the traffic or under the wheels of oncoming vehicles.

Ecologists hope the triple-action effort of lane closure, protective nets and ultra-violet lighting will dramatically increase the milkweed's chances of reaching the breeding ground.

Good work, Taiwan.

[Taiwan] [BBC] [butterflies]

Taiwan inspires Hong Kong

Today the Taipei Times had an article about "radicals" in Hong Kong who want a real democracy there.

Leon Ng (吳耀民), a legislative councilor with the Liberty Party, told the Taipei Times that the staging of a campaign rally was a copy of events from Taiwan's democratic system.

"I would say that if Taiwan's democracy has reached a college degree, then this rally has just about reached kindergarten," Ng said.

Ng, who has been to Taiwan to observe elections several times, said that Hong Kongers have no idea about how to show their passion and fervor for the candidate they support.

"What impressed me most was the passion and autonomy of Taiwanese voters when I joined in campaign rallies in Taipei," Ng said. "Although Taiwan holds elections nearly every year, I think it takes a step forward with each poll. I think Hong Kong could also have that one day."

Take that, Ming Pao. This article also offers a clue to another reason Beijing hates Taiwan so much: the effect democracy in a Chinese society has on other Chinese societies, including those under its rule.

[Taiwan] [Hong Kong] [democracy] [China]

Future DPP Madmen Debate, Hack on Ma

A popular figure in international commentary on Taiwan is Mad Chen, the Crazed pro-independence Taiwan president who wants to tear up the Constitution, rename the island, and trigger a massive war in Asia. Chen is a pragmatic and clever politician, and his "wild" talk is aimed largely at domestic audiences. Nevertheless, one often hears -- usually from commentators who don't know what's going on -- that 2008 will usher in a more "moderate" DPP candidate. Yet, as the debate hosted by the Taiwan Society between the DPP candidates yesterday showed, the position of constitutional change is the "moderate" position, and their talking points did not differ significantly from those of Chen Shui-bian:

Chairman Shyi-kun:
"Taiwan and China are two different countries on either side of the Taiwan Strait," Yu said. "If I am elected president, I will not be bound to the `four noes and one without' pledge."

Former Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh:
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) emphasized the importance of reinforcing Taiwanese consciousness because he said it helps to push the name change campaign and constitutional reform. Hsieh, who has been harshly criticized for his theory of "a constitutional one China" (憲法一中), said that the essence of his theory was to get rid of "one China" in the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution and he realized it would be a time-consuming task.

Until the ROC Constitution is amended, Hsieh said the DPP administration must acknowledge the ROC Constitution, which is seriously flawed.

Premier Su:
Saying Taiwan was an independent sovereignty and its constitutional name is the Republic of China, Su underlined the importance of Taiwan consciousness and supported the writing of a constitution that is suitable, viable and relevant to the needs of Taiwan's people.

Su is closest to the line that Chen adopted in the first few years of his administration: Hey, we're already independent. But all of them recognize the urgency of Constitutional reform. Believe it or not, in a nation where the constitution doesn't work very well, constitutional reform is a mainstream political position.

With corruption widespread in both parties, especially at the local level, and neither party willing to erect coherent, understandable, and forward-looking public policy to capture the public's imagination -- and with the tiny pool of genuine swing voters to appeal to -- look forward to increasingly sharp appeals to identity politics for the coming election. The DPP's "radical" and "provocative" name rectification campaign is already bearing fruit on that front -- not only is the KMT holding a parade on March 31 to oppose the name rectification, but they want all three bigwigs -- Ma, Lien, and Wang -- to appear (thanks, a-gu). Additionally the party is holding a commemoration for Chiang Kai-shek's death on April 5. The more the DPP hits on those names that are central to the KMT's core, the more the KMT responds by tying itself ever more tightly to the widely despised figure of Chiang Kai-shek.

The four candidates also hacked on KMT hopeful Ma Ying-jeou. Hsieh had the sharpest comment:

Hsieh criticized Ma's "new four wants," saying that he sounded as if he was running for city mayor or governor of a special administrative region.

This same point was made by Taiwan News in an editorial the other day.

[Taiwan] [2008 Presidential Election] [Su Tseng-chang] [Frank Hsieh] [Yu Shyi-kun] [DPP] [Ma Ying-jeou]

Daily Links, March 25, 2007

The blogosphere is crowded with posts today...

David watches the end of the Tour de Taiwan

Doubting to Shuo reports that the Legislature has cleared the way for local foreign teachers to unionize.

Scott Sommers reports on Steven Krashen's discussion of the disastrous effect of testing on US education.

That's Impossible! rounds up the latest on the Chiu Yi appeal, Wang Jin-pyng's run for the crown, the anti-name rectification march, and sundry other items.

Taoyuan nights points out the problems of yi wo feng -- everyone rushing into the same business at the same time in the same place. I don't think low interest rates are the problem there -- those vendors aren't borrowing from banks, but from family.

The Foreigner observes that Chiu Yi committed vehicular assault. And points out where KMT propaganda is dead wrong.

[Taiwan]

Hong Kong vs. Taiwan on Democracy

Yesterday the local Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) argued that Hong Kong was more than ready for democracy.

The council's consulting committee yesterday held a conference on Hong Kong and cross-strait development, and Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Director Tsai Jy-jon (蔡之中) made public the conclusions reached.

"Although the selection of Hong Kong's chief executive has the form of competition, it is still a selection within a `small circle' and `birdcage democracy.' It cannot break the political structure that China has imposed on Hong Kong," Tsai said.

China is worried that universal suffrage would increase Hong Kong's autonomy and decrease identification with China. Beijing claims open democracy would affect social stability and economic development, and has postponed its pledge to implement universal suffrage.

"In fact, Hong Kong's society is stable, its economy is prosperous and it has sophisticated legal systems. Hong Kong is totally qualified for implementing full democracy," Tsai said. "China simply ignores Hong Kong's conditions."

Tsai said that about 70 percent of Hong Kong's people have said they want to directly elect their leader before 2012, and the audiences for the two televised debates between Tsang and Leong were unprecedented.

Today ESWN posted a response from the conservative Hong Kong rag Ming Pao on democracy here in Taiwan.

But Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council believes that Hong Kong is ripe for universal suffrage and, if implemented, the effects would be just as good as (if not better than) Taiwan. But precisely because the ruling party in Taiwan (Democratic Progressive Party) is pushing the Taiwan independence route which is causing longlasting tension across the strait, the various elections in Taiwan have created a negative impression to the Hong Kong people. The chaos has worried certain Hong Kong people. If Hong Kong were to realize the same political democracy in Taiwan, there would be chaos and instability.

The piece is simply a bit of anti-democracy drivel, the kind common in right-wing Chinese thinking -- blaming the DPP for causing cross-strait tensions to rise, and attacking democracy as the font of chaos in Taiwan. These two are also staples of Chinese propaganda attacks on Taiwan. The commentator also accused the DPP of "kidnapping democracy" in Taiwan, though in reality, democracy in Taiwan is a creation of the politicians now in the DPP. Fact is, it is now 2007, we've had democracy for more than decade, and the currency is stable, the economy is growing, people travel and comment freely, and social issues are openly and sometimes even robustly debated. The last few elections saw no instability of any kind -- and the last time around, "chaos" was created solely by the pro-China parties. To the kind of mind that inhabits Ming Pao, though, Taiwan's lively and free society will always be nothing more than anarchy. Sad.

[Taiwan] [Hong Kong] [democracy] [China]

Chiu Yi Loses Final Appeal

KMT legislator Chiu Yi, another one of Taiwan's grandstanding politicians, has lost his final appeal in the Supreme Court.

Kaohsiung prosecutors indicted Chiu and originally sought a 30-month jail sentence on charges of public disturbance for leading a group of people and hopping on a pickup truck on March 19, 2004, then attempting to ram it into the Kaohsiung District Court.

Chiu Yi claimed it was all about politics, since he has been "exposing" DPP corruption -- actually, mostly making unfounded accusations, free of evidence. Perhaps the eight policemen Chiu Yi injured might feel differently about the accusation that it is all politics. Wandering to Tamshui listed some of his escapades:

During the pan-Blue protests following their election upset, Chiu kept himself busy on election night by instigating pan-Blue rioters to ram a truck into the Kaohsiung District Court on March 20. Chiu defended himself against the charges, saying "The prosecutors decided to indict me before they had really talked to any witnesses. People who were there with me all knew that I didn't do whatever it was they said I did." Prosecutors, however, had evidence suggesting otherwise, including a video clearly showing Chiu's misbehavior, and charged him with violating the Parade and Assembly Law.

Chiu has made a name for himself by suing others for reportedly secretly filming him sex up his old lady, slamming the pan-blue alliance's legal team for its handling of the post-election lawsuits, suing DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun for defamation, and publicly fighting with ex-Premier Frank Hsieh over whether Hsieh had called First Lady Wu Shu-chen "an empress" over the phone. Most recently, Chiu has made headlines for ditching the PFP to return to the KMT (purportedly to buy win more votes in the year-end mayoral election), and just last night was arrested following an appearance on a popular talk show for failing to show up in court to face charges related to his performance on election night 2004.

[Taiwan]

Doug Bandow: Taiwan to Spark War

Foreign Affairs commentator Doug Bandow over at Anti-War has a long essay on the Taiwan situation which he adopts the Mad Chen scenario as its basis for commentary on Taiwan. He recommends:

Time may be short. Washington must have an honest talk with Taipei. Taiwan's future is its own, to be decided by the Taiwanese people. But they should not count on America to risk all in their defense. The U.S. must clearly state that it does not intend to back Taiwan's independence aspirations with the American military.

I have to wonder where Mr. Bandow has been for the last twenty years. The US has made this pretty clear, again and again, most recently after General Pace's visit to Beijing this month. I look forward to the day when commentators stop blaming the victim, and focus on Beijing's territorial ambitions as the root of the problem.

[Taiwan] [US] [China] [Taiwan Independence] [Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)]

Defense News: Arms purchase a "Shambles"

Defense News has an informative article out by the Taipei-based military commentator Wendell Minnick. The article contains a massive list of stuff Taiwan wants to purchase from the US, and is an excellent source for Taiwan's procurement plans. The problem is in the opening paragraphs:

A stalled 2001 U.S. arms offer from the Bush administration that included eight diesel electric submarines, six Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) air defense systems and 12 P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft is unlikely to be approved before Taiwan’s 2008 presidential election.

“The political infighting is a factor in future procurement, but after the 2008 election, some degree of normalcy is likely to be restored,” said a U.S. defense contractor in Taiwan. “However, regardless of who wins, procurement of billion-dollar systems from abroad likely would continue to be controversial.

“There is a theory that if the KMT [Kuomintang] wins in 2008, defense spending could increase and things could go back to the way they were in the 1980s, with the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] opposing rises in defense spending at the expense of welfare and environmental spending,” he said.

The United States is now Taiwan’s sole military arms supplier. Sales of French fighters and frigates during the 1980s and 1990s have met with scandal and intense disapproval from Beijing, resulting in killing all future sales to Taiwan.

In many ways, Taiwan is becoming more like Japan and South Korea, requiring co-production and assembly in Taiwan.

"Japan is willing to pay double the cost for a system if it means creation of jobs and income domestically, and that is why it is able to gain legislative support for high levels of defense spending,” the U.S. defense contractor said.

Minnick is one of my favorite commentators on the island's political affairs, and I find the two major omissions of his article quite puzzling. First, the article constantly blames "the legislature" for blocking the package, without clearly explaining that the pro-China parties are blocking it, while the pro-Taiwan parties support it. Thus the reader misses the key to understanding why the package is held up.

Second, and more importantly, consistent with other presentations in American media, the Defense News article fails to mention the all-important US role in causing the legislative deadlock, instead treating the mess as purely a Taiwan problem. Taiwan's legislators have consistently indicated that they would prefer co-production. Thus Minnick's comment:

In many ways, Taiwan is becoming more like Japan and South Korea, requiring co-production and assembly in Taiwan.

As Minnick notes later in the article, Taiwan has long insisted on co-production of weapons -- they are not "becoming" anything. For whatever reason, Minnick fails to inform the reader that it was the US that blocked co-production, violating its own procurement regs, refusing even to license the plans for the submarines to Taiwan, though it was paying for them. Imagine how differently this article would read if it forthrightly acknowledged the US role in causing the crisis, and the KMT role in prolonging it.

[Taiwan] [media] [submarines] [F-16]

Raising and Napping the Racers

A gigantic pigeon coop in southern Taiwan

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage,
Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

One of Taiwan's most ubiquitous sights is that of the pigeon coop that sits atop many a home and factory. Each one is a glimpse of a world foreigners seldom see: pigeon racing in Taiwan. Today the China Post reported on the successful police action against a pigeon-napping ring:

Agents of the Criminal Investigation Bureau identified Lu Kuo-sheng, 43, of Kaohsiung, as the head of the "pigeon-napping" ring, that had extorted at least NT$5 million from over 500 owners over the past five months.

They identified the two women suspects as Shih Wei-ya, 28, and Weng Hsiu-ching, 32, both of Tainan.

The other suspects, arrested in Pingtung, were Piao Chin-cheng, 43; Pan Chien-cheng, 38; Chen Chien-liang, 49; Lin Hsun-ti, 50; and Chen Seng-yu, 33.

Lu had his ring members set up net traps in hills in the two southern Taiwan counties to catch racing pigeons, whose leg rings helped them to track down the owners.

Ransoms, ranging from NT$5,000 to NT$50,000, were demanded. When owners refused to pay, the pigeon-nappers would kill the birds and eat them up, CIB agents said.

Pigeon kidnapping is very common in Taiwan, where pigeon racing is a national passion. This excellent article by Brent Hannon explains why gangsters might be attracted to the sport:

When the Japanese introduced pigeon racing to Taiwan early last century, they probably had no idea what an impression it would make. This curious combination of sport, gambling, and animal husbandry was an instant hit - it seized the hearts and minds of the people in Taiwan, and it never let go.

The pigeons eat birdseed and grit, but the racing itself is fueled by cash. “Money is what makes pigeon racing so popular,” says Tsai Tung-bao, president of the Chinese Taipei Racing Pigeon Association. “If you get lucky, you can make a lot of money, and that’s why Taiwanese are so crazy about pigeon races.”

The stakes are the highest in the world: prize money for Taiwan’s biggest races can reach US$3 million, and any bird that does well in a seven-race season is automatically worth more than US$20,000. The sport also has a Confucian ethic: some pigeon pedigrees are longer than the sage’s beard. More than 30,000 Taiwanese race pigeons, and another 50,000 are involved in raising or training the birds.

A man, barely visible behind the coop on the right, trains his pigeons to fly to the sound of his clap.

Hannon goes on to narrate how the races work:

As Cheng notes, pigeons are measured by a simple yardstick: race results. It’s a strict meritocracy. The birds all start at the same level, and as fledglings they are treated like kings, well fed and carefully tended. They are given vitamins, food supplements, and regular exercise, and they live in comfortable coops. Then, at five months of age, the life of luxury comes to a crashing halt, when the little racers are taken out to sea and set loose hundreds of kilometres from home.

That’s when the life of a racing pigeon gets exciting. Storms throw them off course, often diverting them to China or the Philippines. Thieves throw up nets to snare the little aviators and hold them for ransom. Dishonest owners set up multiple coops, confusing them, and hawks and other predators hunt them down. Airplanes take their toll as well: in 1998, a wayward pigeon brought down one of Taiwan’s US$50 million Mirage 2000 fighter jets. The Mirage crashed into the sea after a pigeon, and its metal leg band, were sucked into the engine. Both pilots survived, but the pigeon did not.

A handsome reward awaits the lucky winners. Battle-hardened birds that survive a single seven-week season never compete again. They become breeders, enjoying early retirement and the proverbial 72 virgins. Now that’s a sinecure: race seven times, and eat grain and breed for another 20 years, the average lifespan of a pigeon.

Yet only a fortunate few survive, let alone win. It takes four to seven hours to fly a 200-kilometre race, and some races stretch to 350km. Thousands of birds are released, and in bad weather, about half come back. Of 200,000 pigeons that begin training, just 200 tough racers remain at the end of a normal seven-race season. In one memorable sea race, only two bedraggled birds made it home: the now-immortal Xing Xing and Fu Xing. “The rest got lost, and flew away,” says Tsai. Flew where? “Maybe the Philippines, maybe China, I really don’t know,” he says.

The big money, the gambling, and a lack of regulation have caused many gangsters and crooks to become involved in pigeon racing in Taiwan. “There’s a lot of pressure,” says Tsai. “And I would say it’s getting worse.” Sometimes losers don’t pay. Sometimes racers cheat. And sometimes, bookies disappear with the money, although Tsai scoffs at a recent article that says NT$1 billion (US$30 million) was stolen at a recent race. “NT$100 million, maybe, but not a billion,” he says.

A pigeon owner watches his birds.

The Taipei Times described how pigeon napping works:

Yeh, who estimates the value of his own racing flock in hundreds of thousands of NT dollars, says owners sustain significant losses during the races.

"Three thousand birds started our recent fall meet," he says. "Only 20 or 30 returned at the end of the event."

Yeh says most of the dropouts lose their way along the route, but some are trapped by criminals eager to exact ransoms.

"Gangsters erect these huge nets in valleys and other places the birds have to cross. Then they call the owner and offer to return the bird for what seems like a pretty reasonable price -- about NT$3,000," he says.

With the rise of the sport, specialized services have developed, including hospitals:

With the growth of racing, well-maintained bird hospitals have spread across the country.

The oldest is Taipei's Versele-Laga, established in 1985 by its current director, Li Jaw-yang, a graduate of Taiwan National University.

Li says about half of his clinic's patients are pigeons, nearly all of which are racers.

"Some are suffering from parasites, the kind of malady that any bird is prone to," he says. "But by far the most frequent problem involves injuries they sustain while racing. It's a very difficult sport."

World pigeon racers consider Taiwan the ultimate pigeon race market. A pigeon racing consultant had this to say about his own dream:

What is the master plan? To compete and succeed in the most demanding pigeon races in the world, Taiwan!

Another large pigeon coop in a Kaohsiung suburb.

He also posted an article that discussed in detail how the gambling and prize money system works.....

The prize money comes from band sales and pooling. A club offers different denominations of bands for members to choose. They are the equivalent in USAdollars of $30, $60, $100, $150, and $300 apiece, respectively. A flyer can buy any combination of bands depending on his/her budget and the number of young birds that he/she will breed. Usually, it is required to purchase 12–15 bands and you can buy up to 60 bands. Some clubs do not set a limit on how many bands one can buy.

Assume that there are 100 members of a club, and each member buys 15 bands at an average of $150 a band. The band sales would be $225,000 ($150 x 100 x 15). Some readers may think that this figure is inflated. As a matter of fact, this figure is quite typical in any given race in Taiwan. Some big clubs have much larger band capital than the one I just mentioned above.

Now, let's talk about the pool money. Unlike in America, where flyers pool birds mostly on the shipping night, pigeon clubs in Taiwan, in addition to pooling the birds on the shipping night, also conduct two to three sessions of pooling three to four weeks before the race. The good thing about this is that the club can deposit this pooling money into the bank, accruing interest, which produces income for the club.

Traditionally, the club takes 4–5% of the total prize money and the interest income to run the club. These two incomes are sufficient to pay salaries for two full-time club employees, rents, utilities, etc. The bad news is that flyers are forced to commit a lot of money up front. If a pooled bird is lost before the race starts, the pooled money is lost.

The pooling system is quite complicated—too complicated to discuss it here. The pool money is usually three to four times more than the band sales capital. It is the so-called "Where's the Beef?" If you add the band sales and pool money, the total prize money is approaching one million dollars.

...and goes into great detail about how the races are handled and how the pigeons are raised and raced....

In terms of the racing system, Taiwan has developed a unique system in itself. All pigeons must pass three or four qualification races before being allowed to enter into real races. A qualification race is a race where birds must maintain a minimum speed of 600 to 800 yards per minute (ypm). You must ship the pigeons just like regular races, and clock the birds. If a pigeon does not clock minimum speed, this pigeon is out for the rest of the races regardless of how expensive this pigeon is banded. The distance of the qualification race is not all that great, ranging from 95–180 miles. But it runs three or four weeks in a row. It could be rough for young birds that are just two months old.

The real race is five successive weeks of racing, called the Five-Race Championship. A Five-Race Championship is equivalent to young birds or old birds season here in America, except each club in Taiwan runs an average of three series of Five-Race Championship races a year. The minimum speed of 800 ypm is imposed, and the club training on Wednesdays of 700 ypm is also required. In any of the races during the five weeks, if a bird does not maintain minimum speed, this bird is automatically disqualified for the rest of the contest.

For example, even a great young bird that has won four races and does not make minimum speed in the fifth race is disqualified. There is no mercy at all. The idea is to find out the toughest birds, which can endure this kind of brutal contest. Speed is desired, but consistency is more important.

The system is so lucrative and so highly developed that it has evolved from a hobby into a big business, and many clubs now lack the funds to compete. A demanding investment of time, money, and specialized knowledge, a pigeon coop is much more than a noisy, smelly addendum to so many structures around the island.

LINK: Taiwan's Pigeon Racing Union.

[Taiwan] [pigeon racing]

Language and Culture Here and There

The Washington Post reported on changes to Taiwan's language policy a couple of days ago:

Taiwan is considering abandoning its long-standing policy of recognizing Mandarin Chinese as the island's only official language, the premier said Tuesday, in a move that would likely anger rival China.

Su Tseng-chang said the Cabinet is examining a draft for a "National Language Development Act" to promote the use of local dialects and prohibit linguistic discrimination.

"Taiwan is a plural society, and all languages should have equal standing and be respected and supported," Su said, indicating an intention to confer equal status on the Taiwanese dialect of Chinese, as well as Hakka, another Chinese dialect.

Such a move would likely be renounced [sic] by Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory and opposes any efforts by the island's leadership to loosen cultural and other bonds.

These changes were probably inevitable -- though I have never been in favor of them. It is fascinating to watch how both sides share the same assumptions about cultural imperialism -- Beijing defines what "being Chinese" means, and Taiwan either accepts this or rejects this. The weird fact is that the government here is recognizing other Chinese languages as national languages -- and both sides regard this as becoming less Chinese. In fact, I am sure that the pro-China crowd is going to scream that increased use of Chinese languages like Hakka and Taiwanese is an act of "de-Sinicization." Pro-China legislators actually made that charge yesterday:

Lawmaker after opposition lawmaker grilled Su on the language bill, which was condemned as another move to de-Sinicize Taiwan.

Opponents of the proposed bill describe it as one "to get rid of guo yu."

Sadly, by insisting on only one unitary Chinese culture defined by Beijing, Beijing is strangling the development of Chinese culture. In the later stages of the Cold War era scholars descried the way Taiwan was falsely presented as an idealized Chinese cultural location, where you had to go to get the Authentic Chinese Culture because the Communists had killed it in China. Ironically, this is now slowly becoming true: as Taiwan attempts to permit a number of different Sinic cultures to flourish under the rubric of Chinese/Taiwanese culture, China is slowly making everyone learn Mandarin and bow to Beijing's definition of what Chinese culture is. China is becoming a state that has never existed in Chinese history -- unified under one government, speaking only one language, enjoying a unitary culture -- whereas Taiwan is looking more and more like China used to look -- one government, many languages in use, and a diversity of cultures.

Meanwhile the Washington Post has positioned the story somewhat incorrectly. Taiwan is not getting rid of the official language; it is merely elevating the status of the other languages. As the Taipei Times reported the other day:

"The core purpose of the bill is to prevent native tongues from dying out as a result of `incorrect' language policies that were adopted by the government in the past," Su said.

Su was responding to a question from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Chi (蘇起), who asked whether the government was planning to make Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) rather than Mandarin Chinese, the official language.

The Chinese-language United Daily News reported yesterday that all languages would in future be regarded as "national languages."

Su said that the new policy was intended to preserve all languages rather than encouraging their extinction by forcing everybody to use Mandarin Chinese. All languages should be regarded as "national languages," but there is still only one "official language," he said.

Council for Cultural Affairs Chairman Chiu Kun-liang (邱坤良) noted that, more than a decade ago, UNESCO listed Taiwan as a place where mother tongues are vanishing.

Language-wise Taiwan will probably resemble the US, where English is more or less the official language, but many other languages are officially recognized.

[Taiwan]

Halloran vs. Tkacik on China Threat

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Affairs wing of US establishment elites, offers this debate on the China Threat between Richard Halloran and John Tkacik of the Heritage Foundation:

In early March, China announced it will increase military spending by nearly 18 percent in 2007, to more than $45 billion. Experts say Beijing understates its defense budget by more than half but the proposed 2008 U.S. military budget of $481 billion still dwarfs China's. Yet the spending increase, which comes less than two months after Beijing conducted an anti-satellite test, raises concern about China's growing military might and the associated challenge posed to the United States.

Richard Halloran, a Honolulu-based freelance writer who specializes in Asian security issues and was formerly with the New York Times as a correspondent in Asia and military correspondent in Washington, debates John J. Tkacik, Jr., a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, about whether China poses a military threat to the United States.

The debate is posted online as a series of essays. Happy reading!

[Taiwan] [US] [China]

WaPo on the Chiang Legacy

The Washington Post has an article by a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan on the removal of the markers of the Generalissimo's personality cult from around Taiwan:

For individual Taiwanese, Chiang -- the stoic military leader who retreated to the island in 1949 at the end of China's civil war, along with 2 million followers -- remains a polarizing figure. Political persuasion determines how his legacy translates: Either you see him as a brutal dictator who held the island hostage under martial law, or as the man who valiantly defended Taiwan against Chinese Communist invasion. Because supporters of the first view are calling the shots these days, the dictator, who died in 1975, is taking a beating.

The article is unmitigated dreck -- given space in the Washington Post to discuss the complexity of Chiang's legacy, including the millions he murdered in China and Taiwan, the fostering of personality cult around Chiang by the KMT, the island's economic and political growth, the normality of name rectification in post-colonial and post-authoritarian settings, and many other things, the author wrote a lighthearted piece about finding the remains of the General's legacy around the island. Instead of explanations that might illuminate what is happening in Taiwan, we get a list of the regalia inside the CKS Memorial:

Artifacts of note include Chiang's Western-style wedding suit (gray pin-striped pants and tails), his 1955 bulletproof black Cadillac, case after case of military medals and a gallery of photos that reads like a World War II-era film reel. With Madame Chiang turned out flawlessly in ankle-length cheongsams, the couple are pictured smiling in meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Earl Mountbatten and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, drumming up global support for a "free" China.

What a waste.

[Taiwan] [media] [name rectification]

Amer. Anthro. Assoc. -- CFP on islands and enclaves

This interesting conference looks like it might be tailor made for the Taiwan issue:

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

H-ASIA
March 20, 2007

Call for panel participants: "Islands and enclaves: Exploring the ambiguities and boundaries of non-contiguous nation-states" for American
Anthropological Association conference, Washington, D.C. 28 November - 2 December, 2007


From: Anna Lim

*CALL FOR PAPERS*
2007 American Anthropological Association Annual Conference
Washington, DC
(28 November -- 2 December 2007)

Proposed session title and abstract:

*Islands and enclaves: Exploring the ambiguities and boundaries of non-contiguous nation-states*

If nation-states are almost always defined by some notion of boundedness, what happens when certain parts of the nation-state are not territorially contiguous with what is considered the political center of that nation-state? In this panel, we will be looking at islands and enclaves
that are not nation-states themselves, but in one way or another fall under the jurisdiction of a geographically distant political body, forming part of a larger nation-state. The physical distance that separates these islands and territories from their "mainland" can lead to ambiguity, not only in how these spaces are understood and configured by the state, but also in how the populations concerned may imagine themselves and that relation. Despite this ambiguity (or perhaps because of it), that distance tends to be made materially and symbolically significant, whether geographical contiguity is or is not explicitly considered a defining feature of that political entity....

[deleted -- see the website at the address below]

**********

Please feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

If you would like to participate, please send an abstract (maximum 250 words) to Nona Moskowitz ( ndm2g@virginia.edu) or Anna Lim (pal4t@virginia.edu).

The submission deadline is Sunday, 25 March 2007 (noon)

We will confirm acceptance into the panel by Tuesday, 27 March 2007. For more information about the conference, please check the AAA website at: www.aaanet.org

To post to H-ASIA simply send your message to:

For holidays or short absences send post to:
with message:
SET H-ASIA NOMAIL
Upon return, send post with message SET H-ASIA MAIL
H-ASIA WEB HOMEPAGE URL: http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/

[Taiwan]

Blue team picks vote buyer for Keelung Mayor Election

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its spinoff kid brother, the People's First Party (PFP), jointly known as the pan-Blue coalition, have supposedly chosen Chang Tong-rong as their candidate for the Keelung Mayoral election necessitated by the death of Hsu Tai-li, the previous mayor. Chang is currently the speaker of the city council.

Hsu had been convicted in connection with shenanigans involving land deals, and the KMT, never one to miss continuing a tradition, decided that Keelung needed another lawbreaker as mayor:

Liu yesterday also questioned the fairness of the polls and reaffirmed his determination to run for the post. He said he could not believe that Keelung citizens had supported Chang, who was convicted of vote buying by the Supreme Court, to run for the mayoralty, and vowed to fight to the end of the election.

Despite the agreement to work together, the PFP candidate has not officially withdrawn, leading to threats to run separately. Apparently the KMT conducted the polls and then announced that that their man had won, violating an agreement between the two parties:

The PFP said that it had earlier agreed with the KMT to withhold the results of the polls temporarily so that the two parties could negotiate again in order to decide on a better way to jointly select a candidate for the election, citing concerns that the polls might be unfair.

PFP spokesman Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said that in spite of the opinion polls, the PFP will still support Liu, and criticized the KMT for its about face on withholding the poll results. He questioned KMT's sincerity in negotiating with the PFP and labeled the KMT as hypocritical.

The PFP, essentially the personal fief of former KMT heavyweight James Soong, who left the party to run for President in 2000 as an independent, and formed the PFP in 2001 after narrowly losing to the current President, Chen Shui-bian. Since the 2004 election, when a joint KMT-PFP ticket blew a 20 point advantage and lost by a whisker to Chen Shui-bian, the PFP has been in eclipse, and was blown out in the recent municipal city council and mayor elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung. It is likely that the KMT considers the PFP no longer a serious threat to poach Blue votes, since the once-popular James Soong garnered less than 10% of the vote in the Taipei mayor election in December, and judges that its junior partner can be ignored with impunity.

Keelung has traditionally been a KMT stronghold, and the DPP is fighting an uphill struggle even if the Blue votes split. In a country with stronger democratic traditions, a convicted vote buyer would probably not be picked as a candidate, and would probably not be voted in, but Taiwan's voters have demonstrated again and again their willingness to vote for openly corrupt public figures.

Chang Tong-rong is currently speaker of the city council. City council speaker is an extremely important position, a major figure in determining who gets what plum pieces of land and to what use it will be put. Thus it has traditionally been one of the most corrupt positions in local city governments. It goes without saying that the KMT's rules forbid running convicted lawbreakers for government posts, but the law has never been a serious impediment to local political behavior.....

[Taiwan] [James Soong] [KMT] [PFP] [Keelung]

Tourism Bureau, HSR exchange of digitus impudicus

The Taipei Times reported that the Tourism Bureau and the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp engaged in some mutual removal of noses to spite faces over the cost of signs in HSR stations....

The Tourism Bureau's plan to make the high speed rail a selling point was met with nonchalance by the Taiwan High Speed Rail Co (THSRC), as the company has asked the bureau to pay NT$1 million (US$31,250) a year for promotional signboards featuring the nation's railway tours to be placed within the high speed rail stations.

Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said yesterday that since the bureau did not have a sufficient budget to pay for the signboards, the bureau would work with the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) instead.

"It [the THSRC] is not tourist-friendly enough," Lai said, adding that the bureau's marketing strategy for the moment for the high speed rail was to focus on pre-arranged group tours rather than tours for individuals.

The government's goal is to get more Japanese tourists here -- and the 300 tourist reps from Japan for the Bureau's project to achieve this are coming free on the nation's airlines. Meanwhile yet another problem with the HSR is appearing:

The inadequate shuttle bus system around the high speed rail stations also became the target of criticism in the question and answer session in the legislature yesterday.

Legislators from central and southern counties have also complained that the high speed rail had caused domestic airline companies to reduce the number of daily flights.

Since the shuttle buses do not run as frequently as they should, travellers often have to ask family members to pick them up at the high speed rail stations, the legislators said.

I'd like to add that the schedule sucks. As far as I can see, there is no way I can board an HSR train heading south out of Taichung, and land in Tainan in time to make my 9:00 am class. Maybe I'm reading the schedule wrong....

Fortunately, despite the bad news, local writer Dan Bloom informs me that the HSR has done something good. Here's an email he sent me about the lack of logos or "Taiwan" on the HSR tickets (ordinarily I don't post attributed private emails, but I think this will be OK).

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

Michael
did you know that the orange HSR tickets do not....well, long story short.....
after i noticed the HSR tickets do not have logo or name of issuer on them,, i contacted the CEO of the HSR, Dr Ou, and he said YES HE WILL MAKE CHANGES ASAP.... letter from HSR office today.

three cheers for participatory democracy,...the current HSR tickets do not even say Taiwan high Speed Rail on them,, not even the word TAIWAN anywhere, and no logo. So i complained, gently. got action quickly. DONE DEAL

danny
================

Dear Dan Bloom,
After getting your Email I had also reported to Dr.OU , who is the CEO of our company.

Dr. Ou totally agree your suggestion what about the company LOGO on the HSR ticket,
and he immediately instructed marketing department to take action.
ASAP.

Thanks for your concern and please keep in touch.

Best Regards,
TAIWAN HSR

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

Several people have written on this problem, I hear. Kudos to Danny for his initiative and success.

[Taiwan] [tourism] [High Speed Rail]

Daily Links, March 20, 2007

I can't believe anyone is still protesting this war either. It should have been over long ago, and its planners and supervisors turned over to the International Criminal Court for trial and punishment. The White House is simply impenetrable to reality....and soon our corrupt, incompetent, and anti-American leader will become the only world leader in modern history to lose three wars all at the same time when they strike Iran. Good-bye Taiwan, we hardly knew ya.....

I'm leading off with a WaPo article that the great blogger initechnology alerted me to, describing the desperate state of preparedness the Bush Administration has reduced our fine military to:

In earlier House testimony, Pace said the military, using the Navy, Air Force and reserves, could handle one of three major contingencies, involving North Korea or -- although he did not name them -- Iran or China. But, he said, "It will not be as precise as we would like, nor will it be on the timelines that we would prefer, because we would then, while engaged in one fight, have to reallocate resources and remobilize the Guard and reserves."

Pace said the unexpected demand for more troops in Iraq -- from the 10 brigades that commanders projected last year they would need by the end of 2006, to the 20 brigades scheduled to be there by June -- prompted him to recommend permanently adding 92,000 troops to the Army and Marine Corps, saying it would "make a large difference in our ability to be prepared for unforeseen contingencies."

Indeed, the recent increase of more than 32,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has pushed already severe readiness problems to what some officials and lawmakers consider a crisis point. Schoomaker said last week that sustaining the troop increase in Iraq beyond August would be "a challenge." The Marines' commandant, Gen. James T. Conway, expressed concern to defense reporters last week that it would bring the Marine Corps "right on the margin" of breaking the minimum time at home for Marines between combat tours. U.S. commanders in Iraq say they may need to keep troop levels elevated into early 2008.

The troop increase has also created an acute shortfall in the Army's equipment stored overseas -- known as "pre-positioned stock" -- which would be critical to outfit U.S. combat forces quickly should another conflict erupt, officials said.

The Army should have five full combat brigades' worth of such equipment: two stocks in Kuwait, one in South Korea, and two aboard ships in Guam and at the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean. But the Army had to empty the afloat stocks to support the troop increase in Iraq, and the Kuwait stocks are being used as units to rotate in and out of the country. Only the South Korea stock is close to complete, according to military and government officials.

"Without the pre-positioned stocks, we would not have been able to meet the surge requirement," Schoomaker said. "It will take us two years to rebuild those stocks. That's part of my concern about our strategic depth."

"The status of our Army prepositioned stock . . . is bothersome," Cody said last week.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers who received classified briefings last week on the stocks and overall Army readiness voiced alarm. "I'm deeply concerned," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who last week asked the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office to investigate the stocks "as a matter of vital importance to national defense."

Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz (D-Texas), chairman of the committee's readiness panel, said: "I have seen the classified-only readiness reports. And based on those reports, I believe that we as a nation are at risk of major failure, should our Army be called to deploy to an emerging threat."

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), who attended the briefing, said, "We are at a crisis point across the board." And Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), said, "This nation has got to replenish and fix what is soon going to be broken."

Equipment is also lacking among Army units in the United States, the vast majority of which are rated "not ready" by the Army, based on measures of available gear, training and personnel, according to senior military officers and government officials. Active-duty Army combat brigades in the United States face shortages of heavy, medium and light tactical vehicles such as Humvees; radios; night-vision goggles; and some weapons, Cody said.

The implications for Taiwan are obvious, right there in that first paragraph, the death knell for Taiwan if the US hits Iran. The US military cannot respond with the necessary speed to a crisis here. This will mean that Japan may have to become deeply involved in any crisis over Taiwan, and early. Will they?

Never mind that our budget cannot stand the strain of another major war (hey, I had a letter on this a couple of years ago in the Taipei Times). China need merely wait, and Bush will hand it the opportunity for regional, if not global hegemony, on a platter. It remains to be seen whether China can grasp it, but no there can be no question that Bush has been by far the most destructive President in US history.

Now that I've cheered everyone up with those happy thoughts, let's see what the Taiwan blogosphere has to offer:

Ilha Formosa talks about fascinating new tech that lets him see 3-D pics of his son still in the womb.

A local blogger had a great piece in the Taipei Times today on the CKS memorial renaming and illegal moves by the Taipei City Government to protect it.

the leaky pen comments on the PRC support for the Great White Hope, Ma Ying-jeou. What are they going to do when he loses and they have to face Hsieh?

Patrick talks about xenophobia and the Nazis on Taiwan.

Taoyuan Nights discusses Taiwanese cinemas, and points to a great review of 300. Also, he's searching for romance in a harsh world. You go, Graeme, I'd do the same thing if I was not married.

Prince Roy has a great post on Beijing and Beijing food. Long, informative, insightful, great pics. Obviously about three weeks worth of pent-up blogging energy went into it.

David on Formosa discusses the new local film Reflections.

Divining your way to political candidacy.

Hey! I see the sun! Gotta run!

[Taiwan]

ESWN on Marches in Taiwan and Hong Kong

The peripatetic China blogger ESWN remarks on marches in Taiwan and Hong Kong, claiming that there is a problem with explanations of low turnouts for pro-democracy marches in Hong Kong:

Yet, when the call went out for the people of Hong Kong to march for universal suffrage, not more than 5,000 people showed up (Comment 200703#053). There is an obvious problem here, but nobody seems to want to confront it honestly. Here is the quote from SCMP: James Sung Lap-kung, a political scientist at City University, said: "The low turnout might not necessarily mean Hong Kong people do not want universal suffrage. But it signals that they want the democrats to change their form of fighting for it."

I've highlighted Roland's comment there: the problem is "obvious." What is it?

What is he talking about? Why do the majority of the citizens who have said time and again that they want universal suffrage decline to turn out for a well-publicized demonstration march towards that goal? The organizers of these marches have never answered this question satisfactorily. Perhaps they do not know how to or perhaps they don't want to state the obvious.

One wonders -- what is the "obvious" thing going unstated? I ask this question because there were anti-war demonstrations in the US the other day that attracted only thousands, yet the majority of Americans oppose the Iraq war. Looking at ESWN's numbers of 5,000 marchers out of a pool of 4.2 million democracy supporters, that works out to 0.00119% of the pool present. Using a US population of 270 million, if at least 135 million oppose the war, we'd expect a turnout of at least 160,000 around the US yesterday. With just a 1% turnout, 1.35 million people should have clogged US cities yesterday. From what I can see, we were nowhere near either figure. Similarly, the Shih Ming-teh-led anti-Chen demonstrations here last year quickly peaked at a hundred thousand, and then fell to a few thousand on the weekends, much less on the weekdays, despite the millions of pro-KMT types in northern Taiwan and the widespread practice among the pro-China parties of paying demonstrators. Opposition to gay marriage is the majority position in the US, but demonstrations against it do not draw large numbers.

The sad fact is that low turnouts at demonstrations are a statistical norm for well-supported causes around the world. Perhaps ESWN should run some numbers for turnouts around the world and give us some comparisons. Maybe he'll turn up something that makes the turnout in Hong Kong an "obvious" problem, but perhaps also he might be surprised to find that what happened in Hong Kong is perfectly normal and the reasons for it incredibly prosaic.

Those are the reasons that I came up with. There may be others. so maybe these comments will generate the usual criticisms that I hate democracy and freedom. But what is your explanation as to why 5,000 people showed up for the march when public opinion polls showed that 60% of the population are for universal suffrage? If you can solve that puzzle, then you will get 60% of 7 million people = 4.2 million people to march for universal suffrage. How can that sort of people power be stopped?

How indeed?

UPDATE: I deleted comments similar to Raj's here at the Peking Duck. But he speaks for many thoughtful supporters of democracy around Asia:

Roland, did you ever consider that your thinly-veiled hostility towards democracy in HK and constant attempts to undermine it is the source of such comments? If you do actually believe in HK democracy (i.e. the end of the functional constituencies, 1 vote per person and only direct elections) maybe you could actually show that - just for once.

Dream on, Raj.

[Taiwan] [ESWN] [Hong Kong]

Caning for an At-Large Seat

One reason Taiwan's politics are filled with grandstanders is that grandstanding gets attention, which gets votes. Although the new legislative districting system is supposed to eliminate that, the tactic remains useful.

Thus the suggestion that sex offenders be caned that was mooted yesterday by a DPP femme legislator. I'm not going to comment on how stupid that was; I am sure the blogosphere will be filled with wonderful snark today. Note, however, that this was coupled with a threat against the DPP's political heavyweights (emphasis mine):

At a press conference in the legislature yesterday, DPP Legislator Hsueh Ling (薛凌) demanded that presidential contenders declare their stance toward the proposed amendment immediately.

She also called on lawmakers to back an amendment to the Sexual Assault Prevention Law (性侵害防治法) that includes the provision on caning.

She said she would publicize the names of presidential contenders who did not back the amendment, adding that she hoped it would pass cross-party negotiations this week.

Proposing provocative public policy? Penalizing Presidential pretenders? It's the P-word: Primary. Hsueh Ling is neither stupid nor fruitcake. As my pal Jason pointed out to me, the redoubtable A-gu listed her among the DPP hopefuls for an at-large seat (parties are granted at-large legislative seats proportional to their score in the election -- if a party wins 45% of the elected seats, they get 45% of the at-large seats). Moreover, half the at-large seats go to the Fair Sex. The DPP is making noises about settling the at-large seats by election somehow, instead of by backroom deals, the usual method.

Hence the publicity grab by Hsueh Ling -- she's positioning herself for the at-large primary by the tried and true method of running "against" the party elites while grabbing an issue that no one could object to, punishing rapists -- a classic "woman's" issue. Thus the Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: it was thought that the new legislature would lead to fewer unseemly displays by legislators to get elected, but instead, the penchant for publicity stunts appears to have simply shifted to the competition for at-large seats. Hsueh is ahead of the curve, but look for more fun stuff to follow as we approach the election.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [2007 legislative election]

MAC's Wu to US, Lee to Canada

The media are awash with stories about the move of Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US, David Lee, to Canada, to make way for Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu to take his place.

Following a report yesterday in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) would replace David Lee (李大維) as the top representative to the US.

Wu is generally depicted as Chen's man:

Wu yesterday said he was confident he would be able to communicate the administration's intent to the US accurately, adding that his experience in handling cross-strait relations would be helpful in his new job.

"I think I am familiar with President Chen [Shui-bian's (陳水扁)] way of thinking, and I am able to interpret his ideas easily, precisely and directly," Wu said during a press conference yesterday afternoon.

"Cross-strait affairs have been the focal point of our diplomatic work, and having an understanding in this field is quite important when it comes to foreign affairs," Wu said.

Taiwan News reported the KMT protests over Wu's staunch pro-independence views:

On Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) confirmed that Wu, who has never held a foreign post, will replace David Lee (李大維), a career diplomat trained under the Kuomintang era, as the country's top envoy to the United States. Lee is expected to succeed Thomas Chen as Taiwan's representative in Canada. Both men will start their new job sometime next month.

Soon after the announcement was made, pan-blue lawmakers criticized the reshuffle, saying the move is part of the Democratic Progressive Party's ploy to "greenify" top government officials before President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) term expires in May 2008.

At a press conference yesterday, a group of KMT lawmakers said Wu, who has never been shy about his staunch pro-Taiwan independence stance, will turn Taiwan's U.S. representative office in Washington into a "Taiwan Independence Lobbying Center."

"Wu's appointment is mainly to help justify the president's 'four wants and one no' doctrine to the United States," said Lwo Shih-hsiung, hinting that the United States is fully aware of the DPP's strategy, but still gave consent to Wu's appointment as a trade off for the legislature's approval on the U.S. arms procurement deal.

Despite never having served in a diplomatic post, Wu regularly visits the US to brief officials on Taiwan-China relations, and is well known and accepted by them. He speaks fluent English -- always important, since so many US Taiwan experts do not speak good Chinese or Taiwanese -- and has been interviewed by US media, including major television networks. David Lee, the outgoing representative, is one of the many KMTers working in high positions under the Chen Administration. Friends of mine within MOFA have been saying for months that the Administration wanted Lee replaced, and some of the more embarrassing incidents over the years in which Lee has been left unapprised of major events involving Taiwan and the US have been intentionally handled to make him look bad, they've said. Nevertheless, Lee is above all a consummate diplomatic professional, and it remains to be seen whether Taiwan will benefit from this appointment.

[Taiwan] [US] [media] [Taiwan Independence] [DPP] (crossposted from Taiwan Matters)

Red Ants Turn on the Queen

Taiwan News reports that Shih Ming-te's supporters are suffering from a bad case of buyer's remorse:

The campaign supporters, better known as the "red shirt brigade," said at yesterday's press conference that the brigade will cut ties with Shih, and demanded Shih explain thoroughly the entire expenditure during the campaign activities which lasted for several months last year.

"Come out, Shih. Do not always hide yourself," the supporters said, adding that "Shih should never use the name of 'campaign leader' to issue news or make announcements any more."

The supporters said they did not take a penny when participating in the anti-corruption activities, but the headquarters listed NT$4 million in monthly payments for rally participants.

They demanded Shih to hand over the rest of the donation, or NT$20 million, and they will safeguard the money.

....

Supporters of the campaign last month staged a protest against Shih, doubting that Shih had not used the donation money to pay for his trip to the U.S. to deal with a liver problem.

Shih nearly redeemed himself in my eyes with this insightful crack:

They also requested Shih not to call them "jobless people who fool around."

Jobless people who fool around. Priceless. Thus all the earmarks of the typical Shih experience -- great publicity ending in accusations about money and attacks on erstwhile allies.


[Taiwan] [media] [Emile Sheng] [Shih Ming-teh]

Daily Links, March 18, 2007

What's the good news for today? Taiwan's legislature has a good chance of passing renewable energy legislation. Meanwhile the Taiwan blogosphere is full of energy that gets renewed every day:

Wild at Heart on raptor migration in Taiwan. Did you know Kenting is one of the best places in the world to see raptors on the move?

Memoirs on a rainy day compares the Hong Kong and Taipei Metros.

Tea Masters blogs on the thermal properties of silver teapots.

A local English tour guide discusses things to do in Taipei off the beaten track.

Enzo ciancia worries about the disappearance of mid-range brands from the local fashion market.

That's Impossible! discusses the DPP referendum on KMT assets.

The Foreigner says replacing Sun with a potted plant is a bad idea.

From the media: Expert Bates Gill argues that China's annexation drive will be peaceful in the medium term. The Economist gives a view on the new Japan-Australia defense links.Johhny Niehu. Danny Bloom writes about my website in the China Post.

SPECIAL: ESWN has a great post about how Taiwanese bloggers are engaging in activism on the Losheng Sanitorium demolition.

[Taiwan]

Ma Goes South?

Local media are reporting that once and future presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou is mulling relocation to southern Taiwan:

The ex-mayor made the disclosure following Chinese-language newspaper China Times' report yesterday that he plans to move to Kaohsiung soon in order to seek more support from voters in the south.

The report disclosed that Ma has planned to move to Kaohsiung in May or June to intensify his presidential campaign activities in southern counties, where candidates from pro-independence parties including the governing Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union have dominated major elections in the past.

The report continued that a pan-blue supporter has offered the ex-Kuomintang chairman a residence in downtown Kaohsiung as Ma's temporary accommodation during the presidential campaign. The landlord hopes Ma will improve his understanding and relations with the southern electorate during the temporary stay.

The report quoted an anonymous source in the end, however, that Ma and his supporters would decline to comment on plans at the moment, as the ex-mayor has not yet been formally selected as the KMT presidential candidate.

Ma announced to run for the 2008 presidential race on February 13, hours after Taipei prosecutors indicted him on charges of corruption resulting from his handling of a special fund.

The report came two weeks after Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is also seen by the public as a potential KMT presidential nominee, made a comment that "People of central and southern Taiwan have told me that they will not vote in favor of a China-originated candidate" in the presidential election.

The Legislative Yuan leader explained that he made the remark as a warning to KMT members to watch out for the governing Democratic Progressive Party opponents' manipulation of an ethnic controversy, referring to a potential and protracted conflict of different ideologies and national identity between native Taiwanese and China-originated residents on the island. Wang, speaking during a magazine interview, cautioned that the ethnic issue would dominate the presidential campaign next year, according to his observation.

It is curious how each party is performing the mirror operation of the other: the KMT is trying to see how its strength at the local level can be transformed into national level success, while the DPP has not yet managed to parlay its powerful hand at the national level into local level success. It will be interesting to see whether he makes this move -- the action is in Taipei, and that's where his base of Deep Blues is.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [Ma Ying-jeou]

Economist: "Cultural Revolution" Provokes DPP

A recent article in The Economist on the renaming of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in downtown Taipei entitled "Cultural Revolution" has sparked the ire of the DPP:

An article describing Taiwan's government's move to remove dictator Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) influence from the island in the latest edition of The Economist magazine gave rise to comment from some Democratic Progressive Party members yesterday because of it controversial headline "Cultural Revolution."

Removing the near-god image of Chiang Kai-Shek from society is part of Taiwan's effort to pursue democracy and the protection of human rights, said Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) when she commented on the magazine article. "No one should be deified anymore when Taiwan has moved forward as a democracy," Lu said.

The headline revealed Europeans' lack of understanding of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, commented DPP legislative whip Wang Tuoh (王拓). The DPP government promotes the moves including removing Chiang's statutes from military camps in an aim to dispel a common idolatry resulting from the former KMT's authoritarian rule, Wang defended. The magazine "has gone to far" by likening the DPP act to the infamous Chinese Cultural Revolution, he argued.

What did the article say?

CHIANG KAI-SHEK may once have been revered as a near-god on Taiwan, where he led his Chinese Nationalist regime after being defeated by Mao Zedong's Communists on the mainland in 1949. But almost a third of a century after his death, the memory of the old dictator is being effaced, with the removal of the generalissimo's statues and the renaming of many streets and even Taipei's international airport.

......

Chiang's legacy has never been properly examined in Taiwan. Arguments about the past are also fights over what the island should be in the future: a part of China (the view of Chiang Kai-shek and his political heirs), or an independent nation with a distinct, non-Chinese Taiwanese identity.

The airport was originally planned to be named Taipei-Taoyuan International Airport. That name has now been restored. It's good that the article correctly identifies one of the underlying conflicts, and much of the article is OK, but in the last paragraph it regrettably becomes unabashedly pro-China and pro-KMT:

DPP leaders may be politicking ahead of parliamentary elections in December, and presidential polls next March. But there is more at stake. By casting the 228 Incident as a clash between Taiwanese and KMT “outsiders”, the DPP has not only opened old wounds in Taiwan but also created anxiety in Beijing. China's Communists may have been at odds with the generalissimo. But they fear that Taiwan, by breaking with Chiang's legacy, may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland.

The DPP did not "cast" 2-28 massacres as clashes between Taiwanese and KMT outsiders -- that's what they were. The KMT defined them that way, publicly and literally, when it moved onto the island, looted it extensively, removed Taiwanese from positions of authority, told the Taiwanese they were a people tainted by association with the Japanese, and then excluded them from public life. George Kerr's account of the event, Formosa Betrayed, is online, easily Googled.

The DPP did not "open old wounds" in Taiwan, but is trying to heal them by the application of democracy and history. In other post-authoritarian and post-colonial contexts, it is normal for the democracy side to rename monuments, to recover lost history, and to punish the perpetrators. Thanks to the longtime lobbying by the KMT, only when it comes to Taiwan does the international media question what has been an utterly normal process in dozens of nations from Spain to Italy to Eastern Europe to India.

The fact is that the there is no massive memorial to Hitler in Berlin, no massive memorial to Franco in Madrid, and no massive memorial to Mussolini in Rome. All over the world, in the post-colonial era, money, streets, parks, and other relics of the colonial era were renamed and remade. This is normal and to be expected -- except, for some reason, here in Taiwan, where the exercise of democracy is regularly negatively framed by media from democratic countries. Sad fact: in no report on the name rectification in the international media has the international media made any attempt to place it in an international context. Naturally, readers miss the significance of the moves.

What's really ironic is that the Economist that very same issue published an article on the repossession and reconstruction of history and identity in educational systems around the world -- but didn't mention Taiwan!

The article then makes that Beijing-centric turn that every one of us who watches the international media now recognizes as the norm:

...........but also created anxiety in Beijing. China's Communists may have been at odds with the generalissimo. But they fear that Taiwan, by breaking with Chiang's legacy, may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland.

"Created anxiety in Beijing?" A very poor choice of words. Beijing is not "anxious" but "avaricious." Beijing gets upset whenever Taiwan exercises its democracy -- not only does that threaten China's drive to annex Taiwan, but it also sets a double example for Chinese culture: that democracy is possible, necessary, and right; and that authoritarian rulers may be held accountable, and will be remembered for the evil that they are. "Anxiety" does not drive the placement of missiles and the threats of military force and name-calling and accusations. That is plain unencumbered greed.

The last sentence "......may also be breaking away from the Chinese mainland" implies that Taiwan is part of China. It would be nice if reporters adopted a neutral position on the matter -- as Dan Bloom once put it, China is nobody's mainland but a few small islands off its coast. Taiwan isn't "breaking away" -- it isn't now and never was part of China. Time to stop the adoption of Beijing's point of view, folks. There were many ways that article could have ended, and given that China is always peeved at the DPP, little reason to dwell on China's reaction -- and certainly none to end with a historically erroneous and emotionally negative thought. Sad.

[Taiwan] [China] [Economist] [DPP] [Taiwan Independence] [KMT] [media] [name rectification]

Feel the Hate

[By the way, I still detest the worship of false gods, but my opinion of incense has changed.] -- foreign missionary in Taiwan

Last night a friend of mine called me over for a visit. She and her husband, New Zealanders widely known in the adoption community here in Taiwan, are looking for a girl to adopt, and have been stopping at orphanages up and down the island.

They've done private adoptions before, and would have no trouble locating a girl that way. But they have consciously chosen to go the more formal route, to blaze a trail for adoptive parents who come after them.

They've run into two problems. First, at many orphanages they only want Americans. Partly this is because the Americans have a well-developed set of adoption organizations that liaise with the local orphanage system.

Second, many orphanages are run by American style evangelicals. And they've been told, by at least two places, that they will not adopt children out to anyone except Born-again Christians. To demonstrate Born Again status, five letters of reference from Christians are needed, plus a letter from the pastor.

Congratulations, missionaries. You're a success.

[Taiwan]

Transcript of 2-28 Symposium at Brookings Now Online

Brookings has posted a transcript for the seminar on 2-28. This is from Richard Bush, a long time US government Taiwan expert, whose writing is always extremely well informed:

The subject of today's seminar is the February 28th Incident, commonly called 228, whose 60th anniversary will be observed next Wednesday. We wish to explore what 228 means, both retrospectively and prospectively. We are not interested in using the Incident as a weapon in the current political campaigns on Taiwan. That would be inconsistent with the educational missions of Brookings and FAPA. Moreover, there are larger issues at stake.

What do I mean when I say that the issues at stake are more significant than contemporary Taiwan politics? To begin my answer, let me go back to the mid-1990s when then-President Lee Teng-hui was emphasizing what Taiwan people had in common. In Chinese he used the phrase shengming gongtongti. In English translations of his speeches, he insisted on using the German sociological term, Gemeinschaft. In plain language he spoke of "a community based on a common experience." He spoke of Taiwan as, "our common homeland" and about a "collective consciousness." He spoke of "fifty years of a common destiny forged in fortune and misfortune have united us all into a closely bound and interdependent community."

Now, I happen to have a lot of respect for what Lee was trying to do here, for reasons that I will come back to. But there was an assumption behind these assertions of what Taiwan people had in common, wasn't there? It's almost a sleight of hand. Lee's assumption was that people on Taiwan actually believed that they had a sense of common destiny and collective consciousness. And part of that shared sense of the present and the future had to be a shared sense about the past.

The rest of it is online there.

[Taiwan]

Things seen while walking

Last week I visited the new Tz Chi Hospital in Tanzi, just north of Taichung.

One area contains brief bios of famous people connected with medicine in Taiwan.

The hospital is done up with false wood paneling. The atmosphere is wonderful, and Tz Chi volunteers are everywhere.

Walking around, I chanced upon many things, like these frames for growing things in a local field.

Towels from a hair salon dry in the morning sun.

The Scream.

Still Life at Tea.

I stopped by a small shop that made traditional Chinese desserts. Here they are busy steaming some.

A "cake" made from daikon.

Traditional desserts -- tsau wa gui in Taiwanese -- stuffed with salted daikon, or sweetened peanuts or red beans.

Traditional Chinese desserts on sale.

A vendor out front sells breakfast -- the famous fan tuan, rice roll.

These four wheel electric vehicles were made illegal last year. Not that it has had any effect on their use. Would you want to be the cop to tell some 80 year old that he has to walk home?

Out walking, we come upon a pond.

This otherwise nondescript unpaved tractor path.....

....is the only place in Taiwan I've ever seen obsidian. There must be plenty of it elsewhere, but I've also heard that it can't found on the island. Imported in some gravel shipment from the Philippines?

A close up.

Dusk. A field.

Is he going to do every rock on the river?

Although it is night, this mother is happy to tote her kids around without helmets, and make a left turn on the left side of left turning vehicle, so she has to cross in front of it to get back to the right.

[Taiwan]

Won't Sell Your House? OK: No front door

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The great blog initechnology passed me this pic and story link about what happens when you "win" a building dispute. Priceless.

[China]

Bible and Taiwanese Opera

A Taiwanese opera group has decided to stage the Jewish tale of Esther from the Christian Bible using Taiwanese opera.

A rare combination of traditional Taiwanese opera and orchestral music with the Bible story of Queen Esther will be presented by Yage Theater at Taipei City Hall's playhouse at 7:30 p.m. today and tomorrow.

Yage Theater and Everlight Chemical Industrial Co. have invited senior citizens from five elderly homes to join the general public for the performances.

The play, titled "Palace Walls", is a musical about Queen Esther presented in the form of Taiwanese opera accompanied by orchestral music.

"Palace Walls" will depict the invisible walls erected with greediness in people's hearts and minds under the mounting pressure of modern life.

Executives of Yage Theater said the performances will not only be presented in an entirely new form of intermingled Eastern and Western arts, but they will also shed light on how people may exercise self-reflection and help jointly build harmony in the society.

The audiences invited to the performances will include current residents of five elderly homes in Taipei City, including the Taipei Municipal Guang Chih Care Home and the Shilin Old People Care Center, as well as elderly institutions in Datong, Xinyi and Songshan districts.

Yage Theater expects the performances will help spread the love of God to all corners of society, including the unprivileged sections.

"Self-reflection" is something one is conventionally supposed to perform in Chinese society -- when Shih Ming-te was attacking Chen Shui-bian, he accused him of not engaging in self-reflection. The story of Esther is an old folktale, one that probably served as the basis for the tale of the death of John the Baptist in the earliest gospel, that of Mark.

[Taiwan]

France Once Again Demands EU Arm China

The French Foreign Minister calls for lifting the EU arms embargo on China:

France’s defense minister on Thursday renewed her government’s call to lift the EU arms embargo on China, denouncing opposition to the move as illogical.

Michele Alliot-Marie made the remarks in Japan, which with the U.S. has strongly protested French-led moves to end the embargo.

“There is a lack of logic in the position of some,” Alliot-Marie said before a meeting with her Japanese counterpart Fumio Kyuma.

She called it “paradoxical” to “maintain the embargo for political reasons while at the same time giving China the Olympics, which are supposed to go solely to countries that respect international rules.”

The French minister has apparently mistaken sports games for weapons. The reason it is perfectly logical to give China the Olympics is because sports don't kill people. Duh.

Alliot-Marie said lifting the embargo would not pose a threat, arguing that European and French rules on arms exports “are even stricter than the rules of the embargo.”

ROFL.

Japan and the U.S. have protested the move and voiced concern about China’s military spending, which is due to rise some 18 percent this year.

But Alliot-Marie said it was “normal” for China “to expand its defense equipment in light of the role that it is playing and will be drawn to play in the world due to its population and economic power.”

Still, Alliot-Marie said she understood Japanese concerns that China’s military spending was not transparent and would press Beijing on the matter when she visits.

There is a nasty symbolism to announcing in Tokyo that the EU should drop the arms embargo on China. This too after President Chen had just asked the EU not to drop the embargo.

“What is important is for China’s military power to be put to the service of peace,” said Alliot-Marie, starting a regional tour that will also take her to Beijing and Seoul.

I have often wondered what kind of mind can talk and think this way.

U.S. lawmakers have threatened to blacklist European firms if the embargo is lifted, saying that European weapons based on U.S. technology could theoretically be used against U.S. forces if Washington defends Taiwan.

Hey, no shit. This is followed by the familiar Renegade Province reference.

Momentum to lift the embargo has declined within the European Union mostly due to concern over tension between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers a part of its territory awaiting reunification.

Fortunately this is all talk at the moment, as more rational and ethical minds in Europe are opposed to the sale of weapons to China.

[Taiwan] [China] [France] [EU]

The Land of the Slow Boiling Frog

The Economist offered a column the other day that compared Taiwan to a frog that is slowly boiling.

One former prime minister of Taiwan gives his island 15-20 years before it is part of China again. Another former minister says Taiwan feels like a frog placed on top of the stove in a pan of cold water. The beauty of this cooking method is held to be that, if the water is heated gently enough, the frog does not think to jump out.

We are not told what political party "the former prime minister of Taiwan" belongs to, so such information cannot be placed in any context. Omissions of context are par for the course in the international media when it writes about Taiwan. Of course, here in Taiwan, almost everyone is a former prime minister...

The magazine also offers this observation:

Taiwanese businessmen love China. The mainland’s charm offensive has at times been subtle. For instance, by offering to open its markets to Taiwanese farm goods, the mainland has undermined traditional DPP support among the island’s southern fruit-growers.

Have fruit exports to China really had such an effect? Fruit exports amount to just 5% of the island's fruit production and more than a third go to Japan, with 12% to Hong Kong. The China market is comparatively minuscule. The real goal of the opening is identified in a Taiwan Review piece from last year:

China appears to be a promising market and currently Taiwan's government imposes no restrictions on the export of agricultural products across the Taiwan Strait. However, Chinese demand for Taiwan's high-priced fruit is extremely limited, and the lack of direct transportation links also hinders developing a market there. China has, according to some reports, been suggesting to Taiwanese fruit growers that they set up in China itself. The government, however, is opposed to this because of the risk of intellectual property theft. Large quantities of both money and effort have been expended on improving both plant stock and growing techniques, and these superior materials could easily be stolen and techniques copied in China, with the possible result that China-grown fruit of Taiwanese varieties could end up replacing Taiwan's own produce in international markets. In 2005 China (not including Hong Kong) accounted for 3 percent of the total value of Taiwan's fruit exports, according to COA statistics.

I'm sure that farmers were switching the KMT left and right, thanks to the impact of that 3% of the 5% of the fruit market. The Mainland Affairs Council noted last October that:

"...Taiwan’s fruit exports to China amounted to only US$2.49 million in the first eight months of 2006, representing just 3.4 percent of total fruit exports. If fruit exports to Hong Kong are also included, the total is US$8.8 million, representing a slight increase of 13.3 percent as compared to the same period in 2005."

Just to put that in perspective, iceberg lettuce sales to Japan last year were worth US$1.2 million. I think our friend the Economist columnist has spent too much time listening to mainland triumphalists, and not enough poring over the numbers.

The article also demonstrates other misunderstandings of Taiwan, including the pro forma nod to Ma Ying-jeou as the favorite for the 2008 race:

Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), and the presumed favourite for the presidency next spring despite also facing corruption charges (it seems to come with the territory), says he favours seeking an “economic partnership agreement” with China.

Hmmm...and once again, a foreign media outlet fails to call the KMT by its formal English name, the Chinese Nationalist Party. On the whole it is partial to Beijing, and advances a common view, namely that economic closeness must mean political integration:

Taiwan’s economic role ought to be clear. Instead of fretting about the loss of manufacturing to China, the island should be fostering competition in services—design, logistics, finance and so on.

As with Hong Kong, that can be Taiwan’s path to greater prosperity. But also as with Hong Kong, it means being joined ever closer to China, and that process may prove both irreversible and unstoppable.

"Inevitability" is a common pro-Beijing theme -- one that abjures the victim to "Lie down and stop struggling!". History teaches that nations with close linguistic and cultural ties need not become one no matter what the level of economic integration (see history of US and Canada) and will actively resist even if annexed (see history of Ukraine and Russia, Poland and Russia...). The fact is that annexation to China is neither necessary for enjoyment of the economic benefits of close integration, nor inevitable.

It is sad when columnists from democratic states, instead of engaging in a robust, thoughtful, and historically-informed discourse about the island's fate, simply repeat Beijing's claims as if they constituted some repository of wisdom and insight. If Taiwan boils slowly, it is because the international media keep helping Beijing schlep logs for the fire.

[Taiwan] [China]

Confluence of Interest

Last week I had to give a presentation in Business Research Methods class. There were three presentations due that day -- one on the philosophy of science as it related to research, one on qualitative methodology, and one on research ethics. Here's a test to see whether you really understand Taiwan: if you can spot which presentation was given to the foreigner without having to think about it, congratulations, it's time to go home. You've been here too long.

After I gave the presentation on research ethics the teacher gave a short talk to the whole class. Americans, he said, have a good handle on the ethical problem of conflict of interest, while Chinese are not apt to see it in places that Americans might. Why? Guanxi networks. Relationships in Chinese society are fed and watered by reciprocal exchanges of gift and favors, and because there is no civil society where people are expected to interact with each other while maintaining a proscribed distance, everyone, especially in the upper levels of society, is busily establishing, maintaining, and cultivating their guanxi, regardless of who with. Conflict of interest is simply not an issue. Thus, it is no suprise to read in the Taipei Times today that a prosecutor appears to have taken a gambling vacation to a foreign casino with an alleged mobster. The article is a classic and every sentence is pregnant....

Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) said yesterday that the ministry had launched an investigation against a senior prosecutor who was reported by local media to have frequented a South Korean casino with a gangster.

Next Magazine reported yesterday that Shen Ming-yen (沈明彥), 65, of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office, had engaged in gambling activities at a casino on Cheju Island, South Korea, in December 2002 accompanied by suspected gangster Huang Ju-yi (黃如意).

Former speaker of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly Liu Ping-wei (劉炳偉) was also on the trip, the report said.

Shen lost more than NT$5 million (US$151,000) at the casino, while Liu lost about NT$100 million, the report said. The report added that Huang allegedly lent NT$5 million to Shen to cover his losses, of which Shen has only returned NT$1 million and refused to repay the rest.

Shih told a legislative judicial committee meeting yesterday that Shen would be severely disciplined if it was discovered that the casino trip in the company of a suspected gangster took place.

In November 2002, Huang also organized a gambling trip to Cheju Island for former deputy secretary-general of the Presidential Office Chen Che-nan (陳哲男) and former Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp vice chairman Chen Min-hsien (陳敏賢).

Chen Che-nan, accompanied by Chen Min-hsien, was photographed gambling at the casino and the publication of the picture by media in October 2005 triggered a probe into Chen Chen-nan's activities.

The two Chens were subsequently found guilty of corruption.

In 2003, then Taipei prosecutor Ko Chin-chu (柯金柱) launched an investigation into Huang over suspicions of his criminal activities, but asked Huang to pay him a bribe of NT$1.2 million in return for the promise that Huang would not be indicted.

Ko was indicted earlier this month on corruption charges related to the bribe.

Taipei prosecutors said Huang was currently in China.

Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest? Here is a rich array of connections -- Huang takes prosecutors and DPP politicians out for a gambling expedition -- a month after that, he is the object of an investigation by the Taipei prosecutor's office -- who ask him for a bribe to forget the case. Where is Huang? China, of course.

This kind of relationship is par for the course. The prosecutor who investigated Ma Ying-jeou and recommended leniency had the former mayor and KMT chairman as a witness at his wedding. During the Chen Shui-bian investigation, the lead prosecutor had dinner with Lee Teng-hui at his home, to question him there, instead of bringing him into the office to question him formally and with witnesses. And a couple of weeks ago the nation's top prosecutor enjoyed a four hour dinner at the home of a man who is an important suspect in the Chen Shui-bian mess:

Lawmakers across party lines criticized the nation's top prosecutor for dining with the the first family's former doctor, Huang Fang-yen (黃芳彥), a suspect in the Sogo voucher scandal.

"It proved that state public prosecutor-general Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) has close ties to political figures," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said yesterday.

The KMT legislative caucus questions whether Chen is able to fairly lead prosecutors in the fight against political corruption, she added.

In response, Chen told reporters he thought there was nothing wrong with dining with Huang, an old friend, saying they talked about private matters only.

Chen dined at Huang's residence on Monday evening, staying there for four hours.

A neighbor who is a Taipei judge saw Chen enter Huang's residence and later told the media about the visit. Chen admitted he met Huang at his home.

It's OK. I can visit because the man our office is investigating is "an old friend."

[Taiwan] [corruption]

AP. Jerusalem Post on the Taiwan Nazis

The Simon Weisenthal Center has an analysis of the Nazis in Taiwan in the Jerusalem Post:

The party envisioned by Lan is not the typical initiative by European anti-Semites with nostalgia for the Third Reich and definite anti-Jewish proclivities, but rather a completely different, much less dangerous, but still extremely worrying issue that we have failed to address adequately.

While high school and university courses in Taiwan cover European history, they clearly do not devote sufficient attention to the Holocaust and its universal implications. This also explains why in the relatively recent past, possibly well-intentioned if woefully ignorant Taiwanese entrepreneurs have used Nazi symbols and the likeness of Hitler to help publicize products or restaurants.

Most Europeans today have granted the Holocaust iconic status as the ultimate genocide and a watershed event in the annals of mankind, and share a revulsion to anything associated with the Nazis and their collaborators.

But in the Far East, there is little knowledge of the fate of European Jewry and almost no understanding of the deeply-rooted disgust most Europeans feel for Nazi images.

For obvious reasons, Israel and the Jewish world have focused most of our Holocaust education efforts in places where we assumed it was most needed. Asia, the Far East in particular, have basically been ignored.

The AP ran a story on them, quoting Emile Sheng. Haven't heard from him since he vanished into the Taipei City RDEC after Hau was elected. It seems the Tainazis want traditional values....

But Chao, studying for his a graduate degree in political science at Taipei's prestigious National Chengchi University (國立政治大學), denied he was anti-Jewish, and maintained his intention was to foster greater nationalism in Taiwan, an island of 23 million people off China's southeastern coast.

"My main goal is to develop Taiwan's strength and to foster national unity," Chao said. "I think we have to work hard to restore traditional Chinese values like Confucianism."

[Taiwan]

"If we dig straight down from Taichung....

......we hit Paraguay. Those taike are all gauchos on the other side of the world....

[Taiwan] (hat tip to Joel Haas)

Loch Ness and the Taiwan Strait

Loch Ness and the Taiwan Strait have something in common. They are both home to elusive, difficult to see or photograph creatures that excite all who come into contact with them, and exasperate the duly constituted authorities, even though they agree that their continued existence is good for the locals.....

John Tkacik published an excellent piece in the Taipei Times today outlining some of the issues regarding Taiwan's homegrown version of Nessie, the Status Quo. Tkacik, a longtime supporter of the island who grew up in Taiwan and went to international school in Taipei as a wee lad, has very interesting comments on Washington's policy drift (the piece is top-drawer and should be read in its entirety):

Beyond that third point, Kelly had to admit he was "not sure" he "very easily could define ... `our' one China policy." Nonetheless he continued, "I can tell you what it is not." It is not the "one China" principle that Beijing suggests, and it may not be the definition that some would have in Taiwan. Alas, that is as close as a State Department official has ever come to defining "our one China policy" in private or in public. Nor, as it happens, has any US official ever "defined" the "status quo as we define it."

Which raises two core questions for US policy: First, what are the "use of force" and the "threat of force" and what, exactly, is Taiwan's status, as far as the US is concerned? And second, what is the US going to do if either side does something the US "does not support?"

The fact is that Washington has no answers to these core questions -- either publicly or in confidential policy documents circulated among decisionmakers. Hence, Washington's political leaders should not be surprised when Washington's Delphic pronouncements are interpreted arbitrarily in both Beijing and Taipei.

As Tkacik notes, as a result of Washington's lack of a clear public or private policy, Beijing just does whatever it damn well pleases. The antidote to Beijing's growing awareness of Washington's weakness and vacillation is a clear statement of policy in response to Beijing's recent changes in the status quo, such as the missile buildup and the revolting Anti-Succession Law:

The US government must also understand that so long as Taiwan refuses to accept Beijing's sovereignty, Beijing's long-term strategy will be to isolate Taiwan in the international community to the most extreme extent possible.

Thus, when China gets obstreperous on the Taiwan issue, White House and Cabinet spokespersons should publicly articulate the common-sense stance that "the United States does not recognize or accept that China has any right whatsoever under international law to use or threaten the use of force against democratic Taiwan." (This has the advantage of actually being US policy, but it has never been stated in public.)

In background to journalists and reporters, US "senior officials" could explain that even a Taiwanese declaration of independence would just be "words on paper" and would not change any country's behavior or affect China's security posture? This wording would make it clear that the US does not now recognize, and never has recognized, China's territorial claims to Taiwan.

I should add that one consequence of the policy drift in Washington is that without clear guidance from policymakers at the top, the US State Department is for practical purposes increasingly adopting a pro-Beijing position on the Taiwan question. After all, Beijing is the only one with a clearly defined position: Taiwan is mine Mine MINE! Almost by default, State has defined the status quo as "whatever is acceptable to Beijing." It goes without saying that this lack of will or leverage in our East Asian policy is yet another pernicious effect of our criminal, and criminally stupid, war in Iraq.

[Taiwan] [Tkacik] [US] [China] [US Foreign Policy] [State Department]

DPP Presidential Candidates -- Striking that Moderate Tone

The local media reported yesterday that DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, currently hoping to become the DPP Presidential candidate, said yesterday that he would scrap the Four Noes (Taiwan News):

Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun (游錫<方方土>) said yesterday that he would drop the so-called "four noes" pledge of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and press for Taiwan's "normalization" if he wins the March 2008 presidential election as the Democratic Progressive Party candidate.

In his May 20, 2000 inaugural address, Chen declared that "as long as the Chinese Communist Party regime bears no intention to use military force against Taiwan," he would not declare independence, change Taiwan's official name or promote a plebiscite on independence or unification.

However, in an interview with Formosa Television yesterday evening, Yu, said the "four noes" were "a product of the Cold War era" in which the United States held to a "one China policy" founded on the contesting claims by the CCP regime and the then ruling Kuomintang in Taipei that they represented "China."

Yu said that the 12 years of rule by Taiwan's first native born president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was devoted to the task of "political democratization" and that, after the transfer of political power to the DPP in May 2000, the two terms of President Chen administration had been devoted to "the Taiwanization of the state."

"The historical mission after 2008" will be "normalization of the country, for which we need full governance, full reform and full independence," said Yu, who is who is running against Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) for the DPP's nomination.

Virtually all Greens are pro-independence; that is by definition what being Green is. Appealing to that base means stoking Taiwan nationalism. This applies to anyone who runs on a Green ticket and chooses to play the identity politics game. Yu was one of the original conveners of the DPP; it was he who formally opened the Yilan chapter of the tangwai ("outside the party") Public Policy Research Organization in 1984 that helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of the DPP in 1986.

[Taiwan] [2008 Presidential Election] [DPP]

Daily Links, Mar 14

The United States of Creationism.

While I am working to have the phrase Enter the letters as they are shown in the image banned, you can read these great blog posts:

As I did with Spain and Italy, Jerome Keating points to still more examples of how a nation coming to grips with its past replaces authoritarian monuments with symbols of hope, freedom, and remembrance. What Taiwan is doing perfectly normal.

Orz Orz Orz That's Impossible! has been putting up one informative post after another. Orz Orz Orz. Read this speculation on Wang and his hopes for a Presidential run. And this round up post on the political news. And this useful map of the election districts.Orz Orz Orz fnord

The Foreigner is back and posting on the apologetics for Chiang Kai-shek. Welcome back!

Taiwan Airpower gives the list of ROC navy port calls in Taiwan this year.

Wulingren has a long and informative post on the Nazi phenomenon in Taiwan.

[Taiwan]

New articles on China at Japan Focus

Japan Focus offers two interesting articles:

A well-illustrated article using Braudel's work on the Med to think about China's historical relations with southeast Asia. Very interesting. A second article discusses China's expansion into the ASEAN region. It's a good thing our President is focused on losing two (soon to be three) wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, instead of on silly sideshows like global warming and China.

[Taiwan] [China] [Japan]

Nazi Group Seeks Out NGO Status

Aneglica Oung reports on the group of Taiwanese students who want to be Nazis -- and reflects on some of the contradictions of Nazism in the local context.

With Alberts' help, the Taipei Times located the apartment in which the Nazi flag was displayed. It was located in a gated community in Tienmu. A man in his late thirties answered the door and agreed to speak to us, on condition of anonymity.

"Hitler did a lot of bad things which I don't condone, but he also turned Germany from a weak and divided nation into a world power," he said. "I admire that because unity and strength is what Taiwan needs. Democracy and capitalism have their good qualities, but they have left our collective spirit chaotic, flagging and mired in defeatism."

These comments mirrored the rhetoric found on the NSA blog.

"We have seen relentless societal and political chaos since democracy was instituted in this country ... wake up, youths of Taiwan!" an open letter said.

However, the man claimed he had never heard of the NSA and had a view of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) legacy that was diametrically opposed to Hsu's.

"Taiwan used to be a part of the axis as a part of Japan," he said. "Who did more for Taiwan than Goto Shinpei as the governor-general?"

"When the KMT came, they were the brutal occupiers, they oppressed the Taiwanese," the man said.

Asked if he believed he would have fit in society if Taiwan were still under Japanese occupation, the man replied: "I am in contact with hard-right [sic] elements in Japan ... they all love Taiwanese people. If the KMT did not take over Taiwan, I believe that in time we would have been accepted as Japanese."

The group is apparently meeting somewhere in Taichung on Saturday the 17th. I'd love to drop by and engage in a little citizen journalism...anyone know where it is?

[Taiwan]

Letter: absolutely the last word on AP and Lu

The Taipei Times was kind enough to run my letter on the AP's use of the "scum of nation" in describing Vice President Lu:

What AP Did

The recent "scum of the nation" flap, and the response to it from the Taipei Times, Associated Press (AP) and other organizations, shows that the media still do not understand why Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) -- along with those of us who follow international media coverage of Taiwan -- find the story so offensive.

The issue is not, as the Taipei Times framed it in a recent editorial ("Annette Lu tames the world press," March 10, page 8), one of naive bias on the part of CNN and AP. Nobody is accusing either organization of slanting stories to favor China. Rather, the issue is the foreign media's uncritical incorporation of propaganda from Beijing into its reporting on Taiwan in a way that is automatic and unconsidered, allowing those opinions to shape its discourse on the nation, instead of developing a robust understanding of Taiwan in its own context.

(more)

For historical purposes, here is the paragraph on the assassination attempt in its entirety as originally written:

"Near the end of the article the writer refers to the assassination attempt by a pan-Blue supporter on Chen and Lu in 2004, noting "The opposition alleged the shooting was staged to win sympathy votes." Fundamentally, there was no reason to mention the shooting; it is irrelevant to Lu's presidential candidacy. The use of "the opposition" coyly refuses to name the KMT (the failure to use "Chinese Nationalist Party" as the correct name of the KMT is widespread in the international media). The writer also failed to mention that no evidence supports the opposition claims, making a hollow pretense of the sound journalistic ethic of balance in ssigning equal weight to nonsense claims, and using the phrase "the police said" as if no investigation was conducted and no chain of evidence was followed. Note that opposition's claim is set off in a sentence of its own, and that it comes last in the discussion of the assassination attempt. It goes with saying that Beijing supports the opposition on that one."

The editor was forced to shrink it a little; my habit of writing long sentences filled with parenthetical comments doesn't really work in the newspaper context. One thing I could kick myself for was forgetting to mention how the Scum of the Nation flap illustrated yet another silly habit of the international media -- its reliance on people based in Beijing and Hong Kong for commentary on Taiwan. As Tetsuo at Forumosa put it, commenting on another blog, that is like asking your Washington DC correspondent for a report on what is going on Canberra.

[Taiwan] [media] [AP] [Annette Lu]

Daily Links, March 13, 2007

Hiding out from the Soviet Bloc weather we've been having? Enjoy some blog posts....

Alton discusses a Taiwan Review article on the Taipei Artist's Village.

Scott offers a long piece on Ming Chuan U's plan to get accredited by the Middle States Accreditation organization.

Paogao, one of my favorite bloggers, comes down on the Flickr side in Flickr vs. Zoomr. Agreed. Speaking of online content management, check out Kerim's post on WordPress.

Taoyuan Nights explains Suwadee.

Pinyin News notes the use of Hanyu Pinyin by Taiwanese mandarin teachers in Thailand.

[Taiwan]

Pig DNA: Pacific Colonizers originated in Vietnam, not Taiwan

A new study on pig DNA says it's Vietnam:

Scientists from Durham University and the University of Oxford, studying DNA and tooth shape in modern and ancient pigs, have revealed that, in direct contradiction to longstanding ideas, ancient human colonists may have originated in Vietnam and travelled between numerous islands before first reaching New Guinea, and later landing on Hawaii and French Polynesia.

Using mitochondrial DNA obtained from modern and ancient pigs across East Asia and the Pacific, the researchers demonstrated that a single genetic heritage is shared by modern Vietnamese wild boar, modern feral pigs on the islands of Sumatra, Java, and New Guinea, ancient Lapita pigs in Near Oceania, and modern and ancient domestic pigs on several Pacific Islands.

The study results, published today in the prestigious academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, contradict established models of human migration which assert that the ancestors of Pacific islanders originated in Taiwan or Island Southeast Asia, and travelled along routes that pass through the Philippines as they dispersed into the remote Pacific.

Source

I may be prejudiced, but it seems to me that there is no contradiction here. Pigs came from one place and were carried to and from places where people already were.

[Taiwan]

Taiwan in Post-Colonial Era (French)

Blogger Ed en Vadrouille said in a comment on another post....

++++++++++

........I received an invitation from the "Centre of French Studies on Modern China" (CEFC) for a conference entitled "Interpretation of Taiwanese history in the Post-colonial era".

I will stress out the "Post-Colonial era" which I found very telling.

The email goes on about how since the end of the martial law a new collective conscience has emerged and has tried to provide a new reading of history in line with "the community of shared fates" Taiwanese want to be.

If any of you happen to understand French and are interested in the topic, it is taking place on the 23rd of March at 2.30pm, in the room B-202 of the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, at the Academia Sinica.

You can contact cefc(@)gate.sinica.edu.tw for more info.

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

[Taiwan]

China Times early Presidential Poll

The China Times has a new poll out with early predictions of the election. It has Ma up over Su or Hsieh by 20 points, 48-29, with 23% having no opinion, while Su/Hsieh beat Wang 38-32 with 30% having no opinion. The China Times organization also polled on Ma as an independent:

如果王金平代表國民黨、馬英九獨立參選，蘇貞昌或謝長廷代表民進黨出馬，受訪者的答案又有所不同，11.1％表示會支持王金平，42.5％表示支持馬英九，27.6％表示將會支持蘇貞昌或謝長廷，18.8％表示沒意見。

If Wang Jin-pyng represents the KMT, and Ma Ying-jeou participates as an independent, and Su or Hsieh represents the DPP, among those surveyed, 11.1% said they would support Wang, 42.5% said they'd support Ma, 27.6% said they'd support [DPP candidate], and 18.8% had no opinion.

The article went on to note that if Ma were convicted, those numbers are 13.5, 35.2, 31.1, and 20.2, respectively.

The survey was conducted by phone, probably in northern Taiwan, since I deem it unlikely the organization would spend all that money making long distance calls. Polls from Blue organizations are notorious for their wild inaccuracy, and these numbers should be read as indicative of the preferences of the China Times rather than as a valid representation of the electorate. Laughably, the paper claims it has a margin of error of 2.9%. Yes, and did you know that 63.8% of statistics are made up on the spot?

UPDATE: From the comment below, A New Taiwan poll has Hsieh up on Ma 53% to 47%, which seems a very reasonable figure.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [Ma Ying-jeou] [Wang Jin-pyng]

And in this corner, Wang....

It seems a pity to leave the blogging day without a pointer to the ongoing discussions in the KMT over who will be on the ticket. Wang-Ma? Ma-Wang? Lien-Wang? Wang-Soong? Anything seems possible these days. But Wang Jin-pyng has the insightful comment:

Meanwhile, Wang yesterday said that he favored a Wang-Ma rather than a Ma-Wang presidential ticket, saying that the former one was a winning combination.

"If [I were to be paired up with Ma], of course it should be a Wang-Ma ticket," Wang told reporters when asked for comment on Ma's earlier remarks.

"Everyone wants the best for himself and will strive for it. I don't remember whether I have spoken about this, but what I am thinking about in my heart is a Wang-Ma ticket," Wang said.

Wang said that a Ma-Wang ticket would not be a threat to the DPP because the DPP has prepared itself for beating Ma in next year's presidential election.

"Only a presidential ticket led by a pro-localization candidate can help the KMT win the election," Wang said, without elaborating.

Not much else to be said; Wang hit the nail on the head. A ticket with Wang at the fore might do very well, but doesn't seem likely. That's Impossible doesn't think there is much chance of a Wang-Ma pair-up, either. The pro-KMT China Post, in an article by "China Post Staff" -- which usually indicates a translation from their sister publication -- noted the growing chill in the KMT leadership:

An emerging chill in the relationship among top leaders of the Kuomintang (KMT) is likely to complicate an earlier emergence of a consensus candidate for the main opposition party.

In spite of calls for restraining presidential hopefuls' aides from spreading public and controversial statements that might sow discord, the cold relations between Ma Ying-jeou, a former KMT chairman, and Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng seemed to show no signs of improvement.

The two are currently rated as the two front-runners to win the party's nomination for the 2008 presidential race, although Ma enjoys a commanding lead over Wang in all major public opinion polls.

Analysts said that both of them have shown no genuine and concrete moves to form a team despite their open remarks that they will never cause any rift within the party that will hamper the KMT's campaign for returning to power next year.

Ma has so far refrained to make a commitment on asking Wang to be his running mate as suggested by many, saying the decision should not be made since no one has even formally registered for the party primary.

One thing about Ma -- the man is always on-message:

In response to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's (王金平) refusal to play second fiddle and run as the vice-presidential candidate on the party's ticket, Ma said he realized that grassroots supporters did not take the pair-up issue too seriously, adding that he would focus his attention on seeking solutions to Taiwan's economic difficulties.

Bingo. Ma has announced that he's going to run on the economy -- "save Taiwan from poverty" was pretty much how he put it the other day -- and having done that, he's constantly on message: it's the economy, stupid.

I'm beginning to wonder if Ma Ying-jeou, currently without a post in either the government or the KMT and thus, just an ordinary jeou, is fast approaching his sell-by date. If another six months go by it may dawn on some in the KMT that Ma's star has peaked. Time will only improve Wang's longshot bid for the Presidential candidacy. UberChairmanforLife Lien Chan is back in the public eye and liking it. The Taipei Times report mainly focused on the by-play between party insiders over who will get the nod for the KMT Chairmanship, with reference to the influence of Lien Chan, but the Taiwan News also mentioned six-term legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), stirring up the pot with her bid:

To enter the race, Hung needs to collect the signatures of 3 percent of eligible party members. She said in a press conference yesterday, however, that many party members' names, addresses, or telephone numbers were missing in the detailed membership list provided by party headquarters.

The list showed that 278,000 party members had paid their annual membership fees and thus were eligible to vote in the election for chairman, she said, meaning she will need to collect nearly 8,500 signatures to enter the race.

Looking for data

Having paid an NT$2 million entry fee to participate in the election, Hung said she should have access to more complete data so that she can complete the signature-gathering process.

If she cannot successfully register as a candidate in the election by March 18, the party could suffer a big blow to its image, she said.

Soliciting support

Hung urged all party members who hope to see at least two candidates vying for the chairmanship to contact her and help her meet the signature threshold.

Hung, 59, has served six consecutive terms as a legislator and has a reputation for having a sharp tongue.

Believed to be closely associated with KMT Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), she has denied her that her candidacy represents any factional interests, saying she made the decision to run on her own.

The party has taken considerable effort to avoid a split between supporters of Ma and those of Wang and hopes to avoid a contentious internal election.

One opponent

Hung's only rival in the race will be Wu Po-hsiung, seen as an ally of Ma Ying-jeou.The 70-year-old Wu has served as secretary-general to former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and as KMT secretary-general.

Jason from Wandering to Tamshui pointed out over on That's Impossible! that she was the legislator who taught her dog to attack when it heard the phrase "A-Bian," the President's nickname. Say, wonder how the last chairmanship election was conducted, if so many dues-paying KMT members can't be verified.....cheating somehow? Naw. Not the KMT.

Meanwhile the DPP is arguing over whether to have a primary or simply decide in the time-honored, smoke-filled room fashion.....

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT] [Ma Ying-jeou]

Tungshih Forest Park

On Saturday the Bushman, his wife-to-be, and my family and I headed up to Tungshih Forest Park, north of the city of Tungshih in Taichung county. The made-in-Leningrad weather we've been having lately refused to go away, but at least it didn't rain.

The park itself has some nice hiking trails, an excellent play area for the kids, and a few photogenic spots. But at the price -- $250 for adults, $200 for kids -- it is definitely not worth it. There are plenty of hiking trails in the area where the kids can have fun and the adults enjoy themselves for nothing at all.

Lunch. The food was absolute dreck. This is definitely BYOB: Bring Your Own Barbecue.

The bees were busy...

....but the honey salesman was not.

There was a small farm implements "museum."

An important farm implement of the old pioneers was karaoke. After a hard day tilling the soil and fighting off aborigines, they could return home to drink and sing.

There were several experiments going on.

What would Taiwan be without the kitsch dinosaurs? Naturally, with cheerful disregard for copyrights, it is called" Jurassic Park."

A temple built next to a natural spring.

You can't ever have too many concrete dinosaurs.

The children's play area.

The forest trails are meh but the play equipment is excellent.

I took a few shots on the way home, as always.

A funeral home.

Route 129 passes through Tungshih and Hsinshe, where they grow mushrooms.

Leaving Tungshih the way we found it.

Looking down on the bridge we just crossed.

[Taiwan]
[Tungshih]
[Taichung]

Daily Links, March 12, 2007

Laowiseass, a reporter in Taiwan, muses insightfully on the Taiwan-China difference in reporter status

Anarchy in Taiwan follows up on the sad tale of Gil Lebria. He can sue, but nobody told him...

The Daily Bubble Tea visits the 2-28 memorial park. Pics galore. (Link updated).

Ilha Formosa offers more pics from the lantern festival in Taipei.

the leaky pen has a few thoughts on the name rectification campaign.

Daniel talks to himself about his future.

[Taiwan]

Lee Jye Expulsion Sticks in KMT Craws

Last week the KMT expelled the popular and widely respected, Lee Jye, currently serving in the DPP Administration under Chen Shui-bian as the defense minister. To recap, from the BBC,(Taipei Times), his membership was revoked because he had gone along with the DPP's campaign to remove the statues of Chiang Kai-shek from military institutions across the island...

Mr Lee had complied with a government order for statues of Mr Chiang to be removed from military premises.

The ruling DPP party says that the statues represent authoritarian rule and are not in keeping with democracy.

But the KMT says the government is trying to eradicate history and cut off Taiwan's Chinese heritage.

Yesterday the papers were reporting that sensible types within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were objecting to the expulsion of Lee for a variety of reasons (emphasis mine).

Some opposition Kuomintang legislators yesterday expressed their opposition to the expulsion of Defense Minister Lee Jye (李傑) from the party, commenting that the decision was silly as it would not stop the removal of Chiang statues and had created a "dictatorship image" of the KMT and excuses for the Democratic Progressive Party to challenge the opposition party.

The KMT Evaluation and Discipline Committee on Friday revoked Lee's party membership, accusing him of being an opportunist who disrespected the late KMT chairman and president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).

The KMT did not fiercely respond to the DPP government when it initiated the removal Chiang statues, but instead attributed the blame to Lee, KMT Legislator Lo Shih-hsiung (羅世雄) said, adding that this would lead people to think that the KMT is reverting to its authoritarian ways.

Another KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) noted that Frank Wang (王事展) had been expelled from the KMT after he was indicted on fraud charges in the high-profile Rebar case, but said that the reasons for expelling Lee were not very convincing.

Huang suggested that the KMT should investigate whether there are other members who are also in agreement with the DPP government's "name rectification" policies and expel them as well, as the KMT should apply the same standards to everyone.

A source from the KMT said that Lee was expelled to satisfy a few party zealots, which is less important than attracting more neutral voters. The source also said that Lee should be responsible for his own actions and should be given other penalties in addition to his expulsion, as doing otherwise would violate the Principle of Proportionality.

Ever wonder why the DPP constantly hits on the identity issue? In addition to stroking its core Green supporters, pounding on identity issues makes the KMT do stupid, self-defeating things, like expelling a respected, competent, low-key politician who was mainly interested in serving his nation. The DPP is attacking the memory of Chiang Kai-shek, a core component of the mainlander political identity, and like a bull sparring with the red cape, the KMT responds by binding itself even more tightly to the dictator, who is widely despised on the island. This is a no-win situation for the KMT, and shows, once again, its central contradiction -- it is both a political party that must win elections, and the repository of a quasi-religious identity, and these two roles are often incompatible. Chalk one up for the DPP.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [Democracy] [KMT] [Chiang Kai-shek]

Nazi Party in Taiwan

Mini flap in Taiwan over a group of students who have formed a Nazi party in Taiwan:

Twenty university students yesterday founded an association with Adolf Hitler as its inspiration, and set themselves the goal of turning Taiwan into a Nazi country in a bid to show their extreme dissatisfaction with the continuous political squabbling that pervades life in Taiwanese society these days, according to local Chinese-language media reports.

The National Socialism Association presently has over 800 members on its books, most of whom are university or high-school students, according to information on the association's Web site.

One co-founder of the association, surnamed Hsu, announced plans to invite all members to hold a meeting next Saturday, explaining that supporters will be clearly told that the NSA aims to seize the reins of government.

"We will find a quiet place to discuss the association's future with our members earnestly," the 22-year-old Hsu was quoted as saying.

Hsu, who graduated from the political department of Soochow University last year, noted that she was so fed up with all the political wrangling between the ruling and opposition parties that she and several other followers of Nazi ideology decided to found the association.

My friend Dan Bloom sent me the link to the website: http://www.twnazi.org/. This looks more like parody than seriousness. Memoirs on a rainy day has additional comments.

UPDATE: Dan just emailed me to say this looks like it might be serious.

[Taiwan]

Coen Blaauw Profile

Taiwan News profiles my friend Coen Blaauw, one of the key workers for Taiwan in Washington, and one of the island's most devoted supporters. Coen has done wonders for Taiwan over the years. And, as I am anguished to note, he still apparently has all his hair too. It's just not fair.....

Despite its unwillingness to formally recognize Taiwan, the United States is Taiwan's best partner in the struggle to gain de jure independence, said Coen Blaauw, the executive director of Formosa Affairs Public Relations, in an interview with Taiwan News last week on Taiwan's lobbying effort in the United States.

FAPR is considered to be the most effective lobbying firm on Taiwan's behalf on Capitol Hill, said the Dutchman, whose group operates under the Formosan Affairs Public Association, one of the most active U.S.-based pro-Taiwan organizations.

Established in Los Angeles in 1982, FAPA is a non-profit, educational organization that aims to rally international support for Taiwan's right to establish an independent country and to protect the right to self-determination of Taiwan's people.

"The separation of power within the U.S. government makes it that anyone can step up to his or her congressmen or congresswoman and tell them whatever they want about Taiwan," he said, adding the very essence of citizen responsibility is the engine that keeps his organization running.

[Taiwan] [FAPA]

Taisugar Mall

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the small Taisugar Mall south of Tainan city by the airport. Culture shock! Muzak!. Shops in which consumers could purchase things they don't need at prices they can't afford with money they've borrowed -- just like home!


The mall is in a strip of auto dealers and gas stations.
















The mall's anchor tenant is the massive Taisugar Volume Retailer in the basement.


I quickly moved to counteract the effects of culture shock by visiting a local temple.



[Taiwan]

Cleaning up Chiang

Two years ago Time reported on the controversy in Spain over rehabilitating the Valley of the Fallen, the huge memorial 50 km from Madrid that is the final resting place of Franco.

After igniting a civil war in 1936 when he led a coup against Spain's democratically elected government, Franco and his Nationalist forces — aided by Germany and Italy — finally prevailed in 1939. For the next 36 years, Franco ruled the country; he sent political prisoners to concentration camps and homosexuals to mental asylums, and women were not allowed to work without the permission of their husbands or fathers. Speaking out — for democracy or against the regime — was hazardous to your health.

Even after Franco's death in 1975, parties across the political spectrum maintained a "pact of silence" about the Civil War and decades of dictatorship to ensure, they said, a peaceful transition to representative government. But after watching their democracy survive tests ranging from the legalization of divorce to the Madrid bombings, Spaniards are ready to break that silence. And the Valley of the Fallen is one of the places where their voices echo loudest. "The 'pact of silence' was necessary for the transition to democracy," says José María Pedreño, president of Forum for Memory, an organization dedicated to identifying killed or missing opponents of Franco. "But it meant that our democracy was fundamentally flawed, resting on the impunity of Franco's regime. It had to change."

Commissioned by and with design input from Franco, the Valley of the Fallen was built at least in part through the forced labor of political prisoners. Soldiers from both sides of Spain's Civil War — Franco's Nationalists and the defeated Republicans — are interred there, but only Francoists treat the site as a shrine. Last November, the Catalan Green party (icv) suggested that the basilica be transformed into a "center for interpretation" to inform visitors about the repression and suffering inflicted by Franco's regime. "It's not normal for a democratic society to have failed to resolve this issue," says icv vice president Jaume Bosch. "Auschwitz has been converted into a learning center; Argentina has turned its torture chambers into places for explanation. Too many years have passed for us simply to leave the Valley as the Franco regime left it." Since the icv floated the idea, more than 30 human-rights groups have expressed support for it.

The last statue of Franco was removed from Madrid a while back. There is no memorial to Mussolini in Rome, nor is there a monument to Hitler -- arguably the most important politician of the 20th century -- in the heart of Berlin. But in Taipei the dictator Chiang Kai-shek, a mass murderer on a historical scale, has an enormous memorial not far from the Presidential Palace, the final realization of the personality cult created by the KMT in the martial law period. And like Franco, a core of Chiang's right-wing supporters remain, who downplay his evil, and take revenge on those who attempt to do what is normal in other democratic countries: stop treating the killers like heroes.

Yesterday news organizations were reporting that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had expelled the defense minister(BBC)(Taipei Times' more detailed report), Lee Jye, from the party. His membership was revoked because he had gone along with the DPP's campaign to remove the statues of Chiang Kai-shek from military institutions across the island...

Mr Lee had complied with a government order for statues of Mr Chiang to be removed from military premises.

The ruling DPP party says that the statues represent authoritarian rule and are not in keeping with democracy.

But the KMT says the government is trying to eradicate history and cut off Taiwan's Chinese heritage.

The dispute highlights a growing debate about Mr Chiang's legacy in Taiwan.

The BBC forgot to give the full name of the KMT -- Chinese Nationalist Party -- which would have helped its readers understand why the KMT might frame removal of Chiang's statue as "desinicization" -- pro-China code for establishing an independent Taiwanese identity. This claim is largely aimed at manifestations of the KMT's peculiar identity claims -- Taiwan continues to celebrate Chinese holidays, speak Chinese languages, eat Chinese foods, and refer to Chinese culture when assessing their own behavior. The fact that both the KMT and the government of China make exactly the same claims, using the codeword "desinicization" simply shows how closely those two are working together. Of course, the KMT might have a more practical goal in delaying the normalization of Taiwan's democracy: in Italy and Germany, the parties of Mussolini and Hitler are banned.

Meanwhile the struggle to normalize Taiwan goes on. Mayor Hau of Taipei, whose father Hau Pei-tsun was one of the key politicians in the KMT's opposition to democratization, is leading the fight to prevent the DPP from renaming the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, temporarily designating the site a heritage site to prevent alteration.

Pan-green Taipei city councilors accused Hau, son of former premier and Chiang loyalist Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), of trying to protect Chiang.

"As the hall is less than 30 years old, it cannot be recognized as a historical monument," said Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏), a Taiwan Solidarity Union member.

Councilor Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒), a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member, urged the city government not to defend "Chiang Kai-shek's personal temple."

Lee Yong-ping acknowledged that the hall, which was opened in 1980, was the newest building to be evaluated for its cultural and historical significance.

But he said that age was not the only determining factor. He added that the hall had been made a "temporary monument" to protect it during the evaluation period.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said it supported the city government's decision.

KMT Legislator Lee Ching-an (李慶安) said the Taipei City Government had been forced to take "emergency measures" to protect the memorial.

The DPP caucus, however, said the measure was inappropriate and urged the city government not to stifle public debate.

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said the memorial's outer walls must be torn down because they symbolized the gap between the dictator and the public.

Under former Mayor Ma Ying-jeou the city formulated plans to tear down the 200 year old walls of a famous local Confucian Temple, leading to charges of rank hypocrisy for its objection to tearing down the walls of the memorial, dedicated in.....1980.

Renaming the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and eliminating his statues from public areas are important steps Taiwan needs to take in order to come to terms with the poisonous legacy and personality cult of a murderous dictator.

[Taiwan] [China] [DPP] [Democracy] [Hau Lung-bin] [KMT] [Ma Ying-jeou]

China's New F-10 vs the US F-22

An interesting cast into the pond of discussion about US and Chinese fighters, and the problem of air superiority over Taiwan. As I have noted here many times, China's air force appears to be a match and then some for Taiwan's.


[Taiwan] [China] [F-22]

Asian Studies Toolbar

This was posted to H-Asia:

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H-ASIA
March 8, 2007

Asian Studies Toolbar
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From: John Noyce

As a librarian turned writer/historian, I have a continuing interest in internet tools that efficiently process incoming information, and have tried a variety of data aggregators like Google Reader and KlipFolio.

Recently I have been experimenting with the Conduit customised toolbar which works on a single line inside web browsers such as IE and Firefox. My first effort, intended just for private use, has now been installed by 800+ friends and their friends (mostly those interested in meditation and yoga).

This has encouraged me to produce another toolbar, specifically designed for those in Asian Studies. It can be downloaded from: http://asianstudies.ourtoolbar.com/

In summary, the Asian Studies Toolbar contains

- a links directory of hopefully useful web pages (additions welcome)
- a stack of rss feeds for Asian newspapers
- a second rss stack for blogs, etc, in the Asian Studies field
- a radio player with internet radio and podcasts

together with the usual Conduit toolbar features, including multi-email notifier (very useful), local weather, and multiple search options. All Conduit toolbars can be further customised by users, using a drop down menu.

Installation is quick (268K in Firefox). I hope H-Asia members find it useful. (and if you dont like it, uninstall is straightforward). Oh, and its only for Windows.

Regards

John Noyce
Independent writer/historian/publisher
Melbourne, Australia
http://historye.blogspot.com