Friday Blog Round Up: July 15, 2005

It's Friday again and I thought I'd commence a new feature here, The Friday Blog Round-up with views of what's going on around the many high quality blogs in Taiwan....

Let's began with David at one whole jujuflop situation, always a quality read, who had another rich backgrounder, this one on the KMT Chairmanship election, that should not be missed.

The KMT will be choosing their next chairman on July 16th. It's a notable event because it will be the first time that there has been a real contest (which all KMT members - 1 million of them - can vote on), and because the next KMT chairman is very likely to become their presidential candidate for 2008. I've written before about the problems with this election (Who gets to vote?, Will Lien run?, and the KMT generation game), but not yet said much about the two candidates.

Jerome F. Keating has a wonderful bio of former President Lee Tung-hui, whom history will someday see as one of the most important leaders of the late 20th century in Asia, behind only Deng of China and Lee of Singapore, a triumvirate of Hakkas that ruled the three most important Chinese states at the same time in history.

If you could use one word to describe Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui, it would be "Controversial" with a capital "C." One word, however, is not enough to describe this complex man who has done more than any other in this century to move Taiwan to its present democratic state. That's a bold claim; but after matching his words and his actions for the past sixteen years and a recent two-hour personal interview with him, this is why I make it.

Scott Sommers, one of Asia's best bloggers, explains the DPP's changes to the educational system in Why DPP Education Policy has Failed:

Because the DPP can not rule the country through legislation, they are setting up an alternative system of rule based on rule through administrative committees appointed by the Executive Yuan and the other administrative Yuans of the ROC government. For example, rather than passing legislation to reform schooling in Taiwan, the DPP appointed an unqualified, inexperienced party hack as the Assistant Minister of Education. Ms. Fan then went on to begin the construction of a teaching system that by-passes the regular teachers who traditionally support the KMT. Large numbers of foreign teachers that have no party loyalty have been recruited either through the King Car Education Foundation (also see this post) or through foreign teachers programs run by a number of different organizations (see these posts 1, 2, 3) and are now teaching in public schools. And in case anyone has any doubts about the political nature of this action, take a look at this description of the hiring process for foreign teachers from the Taipei Times.

Cameraeye, a great photoblog and blog, had a long entry about falling teacher pay and teachers not demanding pay for time spent and work done:

Foreign teachers here seem to fall into two groups- those who say "ah, come on, it's just an hour or two out of my life, no problem", and those why say "I better be paid overtime for this, and don't forget to order me a free lunch as well!". Obviously, having all my previous work experience in a union, I fall well into the latter group, and the former group is really starting to piss me off!

Generally, I used to make the same observations -- the influx of South Africans and Canadians are pushing salaries down all over the island. There are several structural factors at work which I think explain more clearly what is going on. I have blogged on them elsewhere. Oh, and don't miss the great pictures over at Cameraeye while you're at it.

Jennifer at The Human Manifesto, the blog of an African American woman living and working on the Beautiful Island, has an exasperated entry about her appearance on television, with this immortal line:

Note the guy on the right (red). Most talkative of the 3 and the most @#$@@ of them also. He's the one that asked me all asinine questions like "Do you bite your hand when eating chocolate?" And because my listening abilities are a bit slow on the uptake, he probably said some other stuff, that I would have gruffed at....

....knee to the groin next time, Jennifer, knee to the groin.

Over in Hualien The Lost Spaceman describes a big bike rally on the East Coast.

Motorcycles over 150cc were only legalized on the island two years ago but with stringent restrictions (one could own a large bike but it was illegal to ride it unless you belonged and rode with a government sactioned bike club). That's right, government funded Motorcycle Gangs. This is a far cry from the guns n' tattoo world of the North American chopper crowd. The show held a duel purpose of being a showcase of big bikes and a show of strength those in the government who would like to maintain the restrictions on these particular riders.

Tea Masters, a fascinating blog passionately interested in local teas, and extremely knowledgeable as well, had an interesting entry on tea from the Golden Triangle. As most of you know, remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists fled out of China and into the mountains in Burma and other nearby regions, cultivating opium and running the place pretty much as their own fiefdom. Well, apparently, they've gone straight and are now marketing tea instead of poppies:

During my latest class with Teaparker, we tasted high mountain oolong tea Teaparker just brought back from Burma. I would like to call it a libertea, but this great name is already taken by an online merchant. Why? Because this tea is made by the Chinese Wa clan. They are what remains of the Nationalist army of the Yunnan province which chose to escape to Burma's high and inpenetrable mountains rather than surrender to the Communists in 1948/1949. This fact should earn them the esteem of many in the free world. Unfortunately, the burmese junta (still in place) never allowed them to settle down in the low lands. They had to keep hiding and sometimes fighting in the mountains west of Yunnan. For a long time, their only real source of income there was opium! Yes, probably like in underdeveloped Afghanistan, they had to turn to poppies in order to survive autonomously at 1500 to 2000 meters altitude.

POTS offered some wonderful tidbits on Taipei's history, and what it all means, in this commentary:

What really happened was more like this. In the early 18th century, Taiwan's new Manchu rulers banned the construction of city walls in Taiwan. They had had enough trouble subduing the half-Japanese pirate dynasty that had ruled Taiwan for 40 years and they correctly anticipated that their new frontier possession would be an unruly place prone to rebellion. But by the 1870s the Qing were belatedly trying to shore up their defenses against the Japanese and in 1876 a new prefecture was established to administer the flourishing towns that were lining the major rivers of the Taipei basin. The new administrative seat, now called Taipei, needed a walled city, and a swamp between Dadaocheng (now Datong) and Bangka (Wanhua) was chosen. There was one small problem - the Qing court was broke and didn't have the money to build the 4.8 kilometers of walls six meters high with a 3.8 meter wide walkway on the top.

A fascinating tale of how Taipei came to be.

MeiZhongTai, a font of information on military and security issues for Taiwan, offered this collection of citations on Taiwan's Silicon Shield.

In light of recent discussions in the blogosphere as to whether or not the US would defend Taiwan from an attack (see this LGM post for a good example), I ask: What role do Taiwan's high-tech industries play in defending the island from attack or in securing American (and/or Japanese) support in a conflict with China?

Good question. Sure wish I knew the answer.

The Gentle Rant offered this wonderful post (OK so it was last month) on a recent ceremony to memorialize the brave fliers of WWII who bombed Taiwan.

Nearly fifty years later the Japanese Empire included most of the Asian Pacific and their 'surprise' attack on Pearl Harbor had greatly angered the US. As a result of being given to the Japanese by their own government and then their new masters attacking another empire, the Taiwanese became the victims of quite a heavy bombing campaign by the US from their bases in the Philippines.

Those bases had been established after 1898 when the Filipinos switched masters from the Spanish to the Americans. That 'land transfer' led to the Philippine War which came with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands. That attack had been launched from another group of islands taken in islander blood fifty years before, in Hawaii. That attack had been based from land taken from another group of aboriginals, now scattered and dying. Can you see a pattern beginning to emerge? This is certainly nothing new.

Poagao, who has one of the most widely read Taiwan blogs, expresses some serious fears about Richard Hartzell's recent attempts to define the international status of Taiwan. See the entry of July 5th for the full complaint.

I've talked with some officials at AIT; they know about Hartzell and his looney campaign. They're hoping they don't have to give him any more attention than he's already got by issuing a full denial of any connection between his claims and US policy. The mere mention of the possibility that the US is even considering claiming Taiwan as a military protectorate would gain us nothing but an armed response and, very quickly, a conflict with China. The US knows this. So does Beijing. And most of the reasonable officials in Taiwan know this as well.

So why should I care, you ask? Not just because it's dangerous, stupid, and selfish of this man to put our safety and security in jeopardy for his own personal benefit, benefits he could reap just as easily if he had the guts to actually give up his US citizenship and immigrate. Sure, being attacked for no reason scares me, but I'd deal with it. But think about this: Hartzell, the TSU and some elements of the DPP are trying to convince the population at large that the US would jump right in and help Taiwan if Taiwan would only make a formal declaration of either independence or being formally part of the US. As most reasonable people know, America might aid us in an unprovoked attack. International opinion would hold some sway there, but more seriously, it would mean that China was willing to engage in military aggression without provocation.

The TSU's website is here. I'd like to see some citations of Hartzell claiming that the US would jump right in if Taiwan declared independence. I don't believe that Hartzell's argument is being made because he wants to stay a US ciizen and governor-general of the new administration! Hartzell is also not the only person making this argument; Jeff Geer has done so as well.

Poagao's comments about AIT, the US representative office in Taiwan, should be seen in light of Chalmers Johnson's assertion that Taiwan independence is essentially an anti-China plot by the US and Japan. Somehow I doubt Poagao is privy to the inner workings of US strategic thinking.

Naruwan Girl called it quits this week, ending her blog. Bless her, she's got more strength than I do. We'll miss you!

And if you are not reading conservative scholar Juan Cole's brilliantly informed blogging on Iraq, you should be.

[Taiwan][Taipei][China]