Ted Galen Carpenter, Returns from 2006 to Haunt us, and Cole on Ferguson (why?)

Cute bugs everywhere!

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. "Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!"

As we batten down for a typhoon here in central Taiwan, Ted Galen Carpenter, the Ghost from 2006, moans and rattles his chains once more in The National Interest:

Rejecting the 1992 consensus was hardly Tsai’s only offense from Beijing’s standpoint. Allies of her administration have pushed Taiwan’s independent territorial claims in the South China Sea. She had embarked on an extremely conciliatory policy toward China’s archstrategic adversary, Japan. And in early June, Taiwan for the first time held a commemorative ceremony for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. That was an especially bold thumb in the eye of Beijing’s authorities. And to top matters off, Taiwan will be testing its new antimissile systems in the United States later this month.

Oh noes. All I can say is that it is a good thing we in Taiwan had Carpenter to tell us things were tense in Taiwan because of the accidental missile launch, otherwise we might never have noticed. As a friend of mine put it on Twitter, he's like a Hugh White who isn't even trying.

More serious than that was J Michael Cole's strange response to Forbes Editor Tim Ferguson. Cole is entirely correct to note Forbes' longstanding contempt for the island's democracy and democracy parties, and longtime readers of this blog will recall Forbes Editor Russell Flannery's sterling admiration for the failure that is Ma Ying-jeou. Cole spent eight paragraphs tackling this turd line by line:

Another Asian uprising was Tsai Ing-wen’s election as president in Taiwan. Democratic resistance to an overweening China is understandable (and Beijing has greeted Tsai’s win with just such bumptiousness), but in my June visit to Taipei I sensed an impetuous bent by her party. To wit: Shutting off one’s own nuclear-power sources might not be the wisest course in an economy struggling to regain its footing.

Ferguson "sensed an impetuous bent"! One can only imagine his experience in the Celestial Dragon Kingdom:

TAIPEI POLICE OFFICER: Sir, can you tell us what that contraption is you have set in front of the presidential office? Our security people are very concerned.
CARACATUS FERGUSON: It is an impetuousness sensor, officer. Very delicate piece of equipment, I assure you. Stand back! You're interfering with the reading! Yes, I am getting a very strong bent reading here. I'm afraid the situation is most serious.

This crap isn't worth Cole's time and talent, and surely does not suit the dignity of his high position. In fact it isn't worth mine either, which is why I wasn't going to waste any time on it. Ferguson is basically the Jon Snow of Taiwan, and I don't see how he can be educated, either.

The typhoon is bearing down. Trains have stopped traveling, the military is on alert (readers may recall that Ma's delay in activating the military after Morakot that helped began the long slide in his approval ratings), activities along the coast are forbidden. This is supposed to be an absolutely titanic typhoon. May random factors operate in your favor, everyone.
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Daily Links:

• Foreign travelers up, Chinese tourists down. The tourism news just keeps getting better and better... but more arrivals meant less revenue in 2015
• News Lens on a pair of foreigners teaching entrepreneurship in Taiwan's rural areas.
• Interesting piece on coming out as an aboriginal
• The Holiday situation, explained
• With falling exports, Central Bank warns on economic stagnation. Alas, the economy is in the doldrums and no rescue in sight...
• US reassures Taiwan after missile accident

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