The journalist revealed his observations on Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), a physician of National Taiwan University Hospital, indicating that Ko “faced a genuinely vexing moral dilemma. His patients would die without the transplants he had arranged…. At the end of the day, Dr. Ko’s willingness to speak candidly is evidence of a singular courage. His account is the smoking gun. It represents the culmination of a long quest to find medical confirmation of China’s harvesting of prisoners of conscience from an unimpeachable source.” The journalist claimed that Ko not only agreed to have his name used in the book, but also said that he was willing to consider testifying before the US Congress.It's always both ironic and hypocritical when the KMT criticizes its opponents. But never mind that, note Gutman's attitude towards Ko, whom he admires and respects. Gutman has spent years researching this and knows what he is talking about. This is another attack that isn't going to fly.
The journalist wrote in the book, “Dr. Ko went to China and meticulously worked through the checklist of intimacy with his medical colleagues: The go-to-hell banquet. The karaoke bar. The cognac followed by the Mao-Tai. The subtle flattery and the jokes about his accent. And when the ritual was truly finished, the Chinese surgeons summoned him. You are one of us and you are a brother. So we will give you the family price. But we are going to do more than that. We noted your worries and concerns about organ quality. So you will have no worries for your patients. They will receive nothing but the best: all the organs will come from Falung Gong.”
Ethan Gutmann testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on September 12, 2012 with regard to organ harvesting on the Chinese Mainland. He confirmed that a surgeon from Taiwan had participated in the organ trade.
In addition, Ethan Gutmann testified before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in the Canadian Senate on October 21, 2014. He stated, “Ten years ago Dr. Ko went to a mainland hospital to negotiate reduced kidney and liver prices for his department’s elderly patients. After a friendly banquet, Dr. Ko was given the Chinese price, which was about half of what a foreigner pays.” Gutmann went on to praise Ko, saying that “Dr. Ko is now the leading candidate to be mayor of Taipei, largely due to the perception that he is a man of integrity. I’ll go further. Dr. Ko’s testimony has done more for this investigation than all the world’s health organizations put together.”
Not that it matters because the Ko campaign is still flogging this wiretap thing which it never should have mentioned aloud and can 't prove anything about. Another round was fired off in today's newspapers. The taps were apparently placed in the correct spot, in a phone switchbox, on two numbers Ko himself used. However, they weren't plugged into anything... There's no reason the wiretaps could not be from old taps placed on some prior occupant, and coincidentally wound up on Ko's numbers since he's in the power office, same as the previously tapped occupant, fed by the same phone lines. Would like to see some evidence that it is from the Lien campaign...
Lien's manager, Alex Tsai, said he'd quit politics if he were found to be "personally involved" in wiretapping. The promise to "quit politics if X" is a common one among politicians here and is usually not honored, but the fact that he used the term "personally" is quite interesting, as if to distance himself from coming wiretapping revelations: "I wasn't personally involved in that stuff. Never knew a thing." It would be sad if he quit politics; he's been exactly the kind of manager for the Sean Lien team that the Ko Wen-je team needs him to be...
My man Les remarks on Facebook:
Ko P should offer to make public any information that Lien's team wants, they just need to ask, no need to plant bugs or insert spies.Exactly.
________________
Daily Links:
- President Xi of China visited Tanzania last year; his delegation sent home tons of ivory in diplomatic bags. Brazen.
- Committee to Protect Journalists on the attacks on journalists here during the Sunflower protests.
- The Prediction Market at NCCU is attacked for being a gambling operation, raided by police. The whole thing is very obviously political. I'd sure like to feel the chill here, but considering that this misuse of official power is so normalized here, I'm numb. And NCCU is so staunchly pro-KMT, and for so many years, all I can feel is well, this world where police raid people merely for predicting that the wrong party will win the election is the world that so many at NCCU have struggled so long to bring into being...
- Say it loud, language and identity in the protests in HKK and Taiwan.
- Scary wargame shows China's huge quantitative advantage over US. The US could develop this rube goldberg gadget mentioned therein... or we could just sell some fighters to our ally, Taipei, as a friend observed.
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9 comments:
That article about the "scary wargame" appears to rest on what is surely the invalid assumption that any air campaign over Taiwan would be fought using only F-22s. The 5th and 7th Airforces alone are made up of mostly F-16s and F-15 eagles, due to be replaced by the F-35s eventually. Are there even any F-22s forward deployed to the Pacific?
Even so, the idea of a "missile truck' is germane to the problem of numerical disadvantage, assuming whatever targeting system is used can be made to work well. The development of advanced UAVs, if they can be made to work well, is obviously preferable to selling fighters to Taiwan in at least one aspect - fewer Taiwanese pilots get to die. After all, the job of the soldier is not to die for his country, but to make the other bastard die for his.
NCCU is no more staunchly pro-KMT than any other public university in Taiwan.
NCCU is no more staunchly pro-KMT than any other public university in Taiwan.
My comment stands. Perhaps you should review some history here, Nathan.
Michael
Michael, I think you are a bit off the mark re NCCU and xFuture. Election prediction is only small fraction of what xF does and I really really doubt this investigation has anything to do with that, piece you link to talks about something else. I had chance to get to know few experts from Election Studies Centre (they cooperate with xF on the election prediction) and I can say they are professionals in the first place, unlike other teachers, don't really let their political preferences slip into their lectures. Mind you, they are the same people who work on that survey on identity and unification we all use.
Michal
don't really let their political preferences slip into their lectures
...we all know what their preferences are. Whether or not they let them slip into their lectures is immaterial to which side in the great game they support. This is the world that so many profs at that university have struggled to build, Michal. Let them eat its shit for a while.
Mind you, they are the same people who work on that survey on identity and unification we all use.
You use.
Michael
BTW, here is what the article said:
Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Development Studies and director of the university’s Center for Prediction Markets, said that while he could not pinpoint the kind of political factors that might be lurking behind the incident without further evidence, “since the Web site has been in commercial operation for at least four years, we cannot help but suspect it had to do with the year-end nine-in-one elections.”
So yes, according to these people, the police raid was aimed at suppressing them, or so they broadly hinted.
Michael
If America sells planes to Taiwan, how long will it be before China has a chance to inspect and reverse engineer?
How many retired ROC generals have gone to China? How pro-China is the current elected president?
Perhaps rather than selling Taiwan technologically advanced weapons we should be selling them boatloads of small arms and giving them lessons we learned about IEDs during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so Taiwan will be able to defend herself if she really wants to without turning over our latest and greatest inventions to China.
@Readin
Yes but Taiwan is nothing like say, Israel. You are talking about a people with an insular, "Hello Kitty" culture and next to no experience of handling firearms in a context of strict competency.
To emphasize the point, I will tell you a true story: many years ago I was asked to teach some classes to an army officers training school and one of the things I will never forget was observing the trainees receiving rifles from the armoury staff and marching straight off without properly checking the weapon. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I was outraged: one of the first things I was taught was that you never, ever receive your rifle from somebody else without conducting thorough checks on the weapon and then dismantling it for cleaning there and then on the spot. I spent more time disassembling, cleaning and reassembling my SA80 than I did actually firing it and there is a bloody good reason for that.
Either Ko bought/sold organ, or Gutmann made up his "smoking gun" story. Which is it? Funny you had nothing to say about this.
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