Friday, November 07, 2008

Daily Links, Nov 8, 2008


Keeping a sharp eye out for what's on the blogs today....
  • D. Corey asks: are the Taiwanese fed up yet?

  • Temples honoring Japanese officers in Taiwan.

  • The Bushman checks out recumbent bicycles

  • Carrefour to launch mobile phone service in Taiwan?

  • Ken's wife tries to pass the driver's exam in Texas.

  • Pinyin News on Penghu Street signs.

  • Limits on Chinese tour groups relaxed.

  • People moving to China cause new car sales to drop. It has nothing to do with the high price of gas, the convenience of scooters, the rise in bicycle use, or the excellent public transportation.

  • Fili does the east coast.

  • The truth about Obama and Taiwan

  • Protests: Everyone is still struggling to put these in perspective. Don't miss HaiTien's account of the executive yuan protest. And J Michael Cole's. Taiwan regressing? David Reid's eyewitness account. David also worries about the chilling effect of the government's recent moves. The Student Protest, also from David. Now that Chen's gone... from Lao Ren Cha. Agu has tons of stuff to ponder. It's Martial Law 2.0 says maddog. Clashes between journalists and police.

  • MEDIA: Is it too little too late for Taiwan's air cargo firms?

    "Taiwan, compared to Korea - especially for cargo from northern China - is not very viable," remarked James Gagne, chief executive officer for Greater China.

    Being confined to the sidelines of the China boom was doubly frustrating for the Taiwanese carriers, as their own customer base was steadily expanding in the forbidden market. Taiwanese manufacturers have kept shifting production to China, effectively putting their output out of reach of EVA and China Airlines while eroding flows from Taiwan.

    Surfing in Taiwan (with great photos). My university makes a small step in fusion research. Fusion research is like middle age: it is always 10 years ahead of where you are now. Economic growth will remain at around 4.1% this year and next year since inflation is going to go down while government spending will go up, says the China Post. Want Want group buys the pro-KMT China Times. The move is an apparent response to Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai's attempt to buy the paper. Lai is anti-CCP, Want Want CEO is pro-Beijing and pro-KMT. Or so the story goes. Beijing military skeptical of Ma's commitment to sell out Taiwan, continue to push military build up. Sheesh, Ma can't make anybody happy. Economic crisis leads to rise in dumped dogs.

    CHEN YUNLIN VISIT: WaPo reports that the meeting "follow landmark negotiations in Beijing in June that ended nine years of non-contact between the two sides" as if the DPP and the CCP hadn't engaged in negotiations on numerous issues during this time, and there had never been extensive cooperation and contacts between the KMT and Beijing (that didn't go back to the 1990s). Someday the backchannel negotiations between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party will make the regular media and I'll have a heart attack. Chen says the agreements were the high point of his life. NYTimes' Ed Wong with good reporting on the historic meeting and on the agreements. Foreign Chambers of Commerce laud deals, which they have pushed Taipei to make for years. Security people drag off CNA cameraman during Chen visit. Bonnie Glaser and Brad Glosserman weigh in for the US Establishment on the Chen Yunlin talks. I wish I had more time to examine the many problems with this article. Taiwan News deconstructs the "apolitical" aspect of the visit. The Cross-Strait pacts will be submitted to the legislature. Which is controlled by the KMT, but hasn't been very cooperative. Still, there is no reason for the legislature to reject them.

    There's been plenty written on the Chen Yunlin visit and the protests. I'll round that up tomorrow, and comment on it. It's too much, and like so many people who watched Taiwan take another backward lurch today, I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around it all.

    EVENTS: New Taiwanese Foundation has a seminar on the talks on Saturday.

    『江陳會之後的兩岸關係座談會』
    主辦單位:新台灣人基金會
    協辦單位:台灣法學雜誌
    時間:11月9日(星期日) 下午1:00-5:10
    地點:福華國際文教會館14樓貴賓廳 (台北市新生南路三段30號)

    大陸海協會會長陳雲林來台訪問五天,期間簽署四項協議:空運、海運、郵政、食品,
    但也引發出不少的爭議與抗爭活動,終於在今天(11/7)上午陳會長離台後暫時告一段落,
    但陳先生的來訪究竟為台灣人民帶來哪些影響呢?此次座談會討論主題:江陳會過程的省
    思、江陳會對兩岸關係的實質影響。

    本會邀請多位知名的兩岸學者、專家,共同來探討。
    歡迎各位蒞臨參加!

    主題:江陳會對兩岸關係的實質影響
    主持人:蘇永欽 (國家通訊傳播委員會 主任委員) 邀請中
    與談人: 李文忠 (前立法委員) 邀請中
    黃光國 (台灣大學 心理系 教授 ) 邀請中
    林濁水 (前立法委員)
    張五岳 (淡江大學 中國大陸研究所 所長)
    劉憶如 (台灣大學 財務金融系 教授) 邀請中


    姓名: 職稱:

    服務單位:

    聯絡電話: 行動電話:

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    出席意願: □ 出席 □ 不克參加
    如要參加本活動敬請MAIL回覆或來電報名,感謝您的配合與支持。
    新台灣人文教基金會 執行秘書 吳璟妤
    Tel: 02-8789-4812
    Fax:02-8789-4815
    Phone: 0937-408-063
    http://www.newtaiwanese.org.tw
    台北市信義路五段150巷2號16樓1600室

    7 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    There were several China economy going down the shitter type articles published recently. Here are a few if anyone is interested:

    The Rising Risk of a Hard Landing in China - Nouriel Roubini

    65 automakers have inventories of 400,000 units

    Some owners deserting factories in China

    China acts to stem the tide of officials fleeing with cash

    China toy story shows buzz has left the business

    Chinese job losses prompt exodus - BBC

    Anonymous said...

    I also found this on the newswires: A photo of Mr. Ma meeting Chen YunLin.

    Anonymous said...

    Do those DPP dorks not know better than fussing over the sovereignty issue? I have a beef against CSB over the fact that it was only once the presidential elections were lost that he summoned the guts to ask AIT Chairman R. Burghart in that public audience whether the Cairo Communiqué held currency or not. Unfortunately, at that juncture, the query amounted merely to the expression of A-bian ‘s frustrations.
    See; http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2008/03/29/2003407488

    That was lame. That was lame because, at least during his second term, he was told through various channels, official and private ones, what was the current sovereignty status of Taiwan and ROC under San Francisco Peace Treaty. You have to be dense not to perk up. You have to be a traitor to Taiwan to blabber about it only to mislead those it was your duty to inform.

    .Do Confucian societies not respect their elders’ wisdom? The KMT, for all their crap about Chinese values, offended the foremost Confucian tenet when they threw a wedge between the Japanese-educated generations and the ROC educated ones. The Strawberry generation should mind when their ojisans and obasans tell them about a forgotten path upstream and beyond that cleft called Taipei Treaty.

    Who will be brazen enough to uphold ROC on Taiwan, except for those DPP dimwits? And if Ms. Tsai and her party persist in upholding the defunct ROC, people should turn in drove to the TSU. That party has now the human resources with the relevant body of research at their fingertips to demand the US fulfils its victor’s and principal occupier’s administrative mandate. This is the only avenue opened to the US nationals from the Taiwan cession under SFPT.

    Today I feel all Taiwanese and those with Taiwan at heart should light a stick of incense to our Single-Faced Guan Yin (観音様 Kannon sama) of the day, I have named… Yunlin.- Unrin Bosatsu – Chen. Ladies and gents, a big hand to the Zhongnanhai Guan Yin of T.I.. It took Mr. Chen a mere five days to complete what the LDH and CSB administrations together could not. He showed up and that “beacon of freedom”, the ROC on Taiwan was snuffed out. I mean, falling over themselves to make Mr. Chen feel at home, the KMT literally fell on their own katana, impaled themselves with the staves of their own flags.

    For a job well done, three cheers for our Unrin Bosatsu, the Buddha of Mercy whose apparition in this vale of grief saved Taiwan from her chankoro ghouls!! (I sure wish he keeps that unflappable grin.) Although the more I think about it, the more I become aware that Ole Glue does take the cake. Why ? Because under is baka (馬鹿) good looks, he might have been the mastermind of the whole circus. Mark-My-Word Ma should give serious thought to informing the populace about its 63 year-old status as US-nationals and direct his indigene constituency to claiming its right to a US passport under SFPT in front of AIT!!

    See, I have not given up on Ole Glue-The Taike. I know you Mark, we are made out of the same fiber.

    Anonymous said...

    lol, michael. my mom's a friend of the person who bought zhong tian under his name, not " Wang, wang ".

    Infact, his not pro kmt at all.

    Pssss.. Slightly DPP.

    The reason why he bought the media, was because he wanted to show the world a truthful, neutral, uncensored un propagandize media

    Michael Turton said...

    Anon, thanks for the tip. The media and my private sources all say that the CEO is considered pro-KMT, but lots of people are playing double games. That is why I put in that last weasel sentence.

    Michael

    Reeb, thanks for the great links. Things are looking grim in China, but may be good for us -- if Ma's closer links to China, for which he gave up much Taiwan leverage, don't work out, then the Ma presidency is doomed. But god knows what he will do if desperate.

    Michael

    Anonymous said...

    Here's the latest meme (taken from KMT media press relases) circulating the international wires. What does it mean?

    Chen is the most senior official to visit the island since it split from China at the end of a civil war in 1949.

    Michael, your thoughts? Does this imply that the second most senior official since 1949 was CKS?

    Does anyone know if there was any senior (PRC) Chinese official who visited Taiwan between 1949 and
    now, or is this more of the media BS that people read and re-read til we start believing it?

    Tommy said...

    And you can bet that there is a lot more negative news that we are not hearing in China.

    I read today in the SCMP that 150,000 migrants have been leaving Guangzhou daily due to the inability to find jobs. I will include the article at the end of the weekend when I find it. Regardless, more is going on in China than the government, with its optimistic predictions, wants to admit.

    This also means that there ain't no way the agreements signed this weekend will bare significant fruit in the next two years, which, by the way, was the subject of another article in the paywall-protected SCMP.