MEDIA: India in the news: Ma goes to India. Smart move, stealing a march on the DPP. Wish the DPP had done that 10 years ago when I first recommended it back when Taiwan News was still a print paper. At the same time, the Taiwan government went all crazy with visas for Indian archers from Sikkim, demanding extra information because they "looked Tibetan or Chinese." To wit:Feiren at Rank has a great piece on an important review of three books on China in The Nation, by Rick Perlstein. As Feiren notes, if only the Left in the US would wake up and pay attention to Taiwan. If you only read one post, it must be this one. The Foreigner points out that the KMT shed diplomatic allies at a much higher rate than the DPP. Not to mention, it left the UN voluntarily. And invented that asinine name "Chinese Taipei." David discovers yet another free expat magazine. Ilha Formosa posts extensively on being a South African teacher in Taiwan, the third of three. Isla Formosa on the unequal treatment we foreign devils get. Tetsuo runs into weirdness at the Metro. Wild at Heart blogs on the National Bird of Taiwan. A-gu blogs on the son of a billionaire who thinks Speaker Wang should be the Preznit.
According to AAI officials, the Taiwanese wanted additional proof of nationality as the two archers, Sonam Pintso-Lepcha and Bikash Gurung, "look like ethnic Chinese or Tibetans".India does not have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and their trade office in Delhi's Vasant Vihar has been the nodal agency for visas. China, which used to have Sikkim shown in its maps, dropped all claims and stopped reflecting it in its maps two years ago.
It's a good thing our diplomatic corps is so sophisticated.....or a set-up: somebody dropping a turd into the lap of KMT Presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou ahead of his visit to India. Meanwhile the Hindustan Times apparently suffered a history glitch in its report of Ma's activities:
Taiwan's opposition presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou addressed a public forum in the Capital in Tuesday, the first top ranking leader of that country to visit India since Chiang Kai-shek in 1942.Whoops! What a marvel of confusion that sentence is.
Speaking of historical confusion, did anyone catch that headline in the International Herald Tribune: Taiwanese general who fought against Japan in 1930s dies at 103. Somebody goofed on that one.
Finally, a hearty Taiwan welcome went out to an American engineer (Liberty Times, Chinese, scroll down to second story) arriving here from LA. It seems a couple from Taiwan cut in line at the LA airport and got told by Our Hero to go back to the end of the line. They apparently took affront at this impertinence, and when the plane debarked at Taoyuan International, they called some buddies, who met them at the airport. Chasing the BMW of the friend who picked him up in a couple of cars, these intrepid defenders of Taiwan culture eventually cornered the American and his friend, smashed the BMW's body and windows, and stole its plates. Have a nice visit!
[Taiwan]
3 comments:
Rick Perlstein responded to Feiren's post and is asking for good articles to read on Taiwan.
Thanks, I sent him an email yesterday.
Michael
Thanks for the mention, Michael. By the way, if you ever run across a more solid accounting of the KMT's loss of diplomatic allies, please let us know. While I think the back of the envelope calculations I did were useful, they are partly based on a reasonable guess. As such, I don't think my numbers should carry the last word on this issue.
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