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Monday, April 25, 2011

Daily Links, April 25, 2011

Beware heretics! The Inquisition has wheels!

I'm finally done with my sojourn in Pingtung, so the links are back. Enjoy!

What's rolling on the blogs today? Don't miss the great piece right below:

SPECIAL:
Jens Kastner has an important piece in the Asia Sentinel on the numbers the Ma government is using to paint such a rosy picture of ECFA:
Tung Chen-yuan, a professor at Taipei's National Chengchi University's Graduate Institute of Development Studies, cast his eye on the numbers after the so-called early-harvest list of goods subject to tariff concessions 539 Taiwanese products and 267 mainland products – went into effect Jan. 1 under the ECFA.

After the list, an object of considerable political wrangling between the ruling Kuomingtang (KMT) and its opponents, came online, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) began placing advertising in local newspapers, boasting that “according to statistics,” the value of Chinese imports from Taiwan in January and February increased by 20.19 percent. It was further pointed out that the rise included a 28.47 percent increase in the value of products exported on the early harvest list.

For President Ma Ying-jeou's administration, it seemed like a pretty obvious win and that those railing against the trade deal with China were wrong. But Tung, the author previously of a sobering look at Taiwanese business people being victimized on the mainland, Doing Business in China Isn't All Roses, Asia Sentinel, Feb. 21, says the government is promoting a fairytale.

Here’s the catch: instead of the rather sobering economic data gathered by the Taiwanese authorities themselves, the KMT government has been presenting China's trade numbers as its own to make its case for the ECFA to its people.
Read the whole thing. It's a devastating indictment in every way, if true.

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