Linda Arrigo's Statement on David Lee's Appointment as MOFA head

Lee's appointment has been widely praised... Arrigo is a veteran independent activist and lifelong Marxist thinker, writer, and scholar. If you don't know who Deh Tsu-tsai see Chinese or English.

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Statement of Deh Tzu-tsai 鄭自才and Linda Gail Arrigo 艾琳達

to North Society and Taiwan Association of University Professors

May 15, 2016   Taipei

All those who recognize the tremendous harm that the Chinese Kuomintang has done to the people of Taiwan, from 2-28 1947 to the recent 2014 sellout of Taiwan’s economic interests to the PRC by President Ma Ying-jeou, rejoice at the triumph of DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen on January 16, 2016. We are glad to see her take office on May 20. This is a triumph of the exercise of sovereignty by the people of Taiwan and their advance towards democracy.

However, all those who affirm the sovereignty of the people of Taiwan and their right to determine their own future must be gravely concerned by the announcement that David Lee, a career officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government Information Office since the early 1980’s, will be appointed the new head of MOFA. MOFA has consistently pursued and enforced a “one China” policy since 1949, even under former DPP President Chen Shui-bian, who did make some effort to change that. The “one China” policy facilitates the PRC’s claims to sovereignty over Taiwan. This appointment in effect announces to the world that Tsai Ing-wen will continue this policy without revision.

This appointment cannot be acceptable to those who support and seek Taiwan’s real self-determination. For organizations such as North Society and Taiwan Association of University Professors to remain silent is to tacitly approve and collude with a “one China” policy. It seems to contradict their own stated ideals.

While it may be recognized that President-elect Tsai Ing-wen faces many international dangers and pressures, such pre-emptive capitulation cannot be countenanced. Taiwan’s society and organizations must raise their own voices and forcefully represent their own popular aspirations for sovereignty, even if it appears to be a rebuke to Tsai Ing-wen.

The DPP has not exerted leadership in this regard for the last twenty years; and it has only ridden to victory now because of the 3-18-2014 student movement. It is not advisable to passively await the decisions of the DPP administration; it will predictably take the least courageous and most conservative position. In fact, international pressures are not so great, and the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Relations has recently resolved that the U.S. will not force Taiwan to recognize Beijing’s claim to rule it. Therefore, the direction must be set and the opportunities seized by those who see hope in the future of Taiwan, whether or not the DPP stands by the principles on which it was founded. We can hope that leadership from farsighted organizations will create a tidal force. 

Deh Tzu-tsai

Linda Gail Arrigo

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

KMT Stolen Asset Presentation

Linda Arrigo and Jerome Keating alert the world to a presentation on the KMT's asset issue.

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To all,
Linda Arrigo passes on an upcoming presentation on the KMT property and division of wealth in Taiwan after WWII on June 10, Sunday at National Taiwan Normal Univ. (Shida) This is what is often referred to as the "stolen assets." You do have to register, seats are limited.

Subject: 「戰後資源分配問題」學術研討會，歡迎參加！

各位親愛的朋友：
這是由台灣歷史學會所主辦的研討會，歡迎大家踴躍出席聽講，並請幫忙宣傳，感謝您！
台灣歷史學會 敬上

「戰後資源分配問題」學術研討會

主辦：台灣歷史學會

協辦：吳三連台灣史料基金會

時間：2007年6月10日(星期日)上午8：30點到下午3點

地點：台灣師範大學圖書館校區綜合大樓509國際會議中心（台北市和平東路一段129之1號）

研討會內容：

議 程

6月10日 (星期日)
08：30-08：50	報到╱領取資料
08：50-09：00	開 幕 式 理事長溫振華致詞
場次╱時間	主持人			報告人╱論文題目	評論人
第一場 09：00-10：30	張勝彥			陳亮州/黨國資本與日本留台債務之探討 李福鐘/國民黨黨產的類型分析	陳翠蓮 陳君愷
10：30-10：40	休 息
第二場 10：40-12：10	李永熾		徐世榮/被操弄的農戶「分類」— 以台灣土地改革為例 彭百顯/台灣經濟資源分配的扭曲與公義		溫振華 張清溪
12：10-13：30	午 餐 ╱ 領取資料
第三場 13：30-15：00	鄭欽仁	徐永明/政黨輪替後國民黨時期行政菁英的流動分析：2000年及2004年的比較 施正鋒/轉型正義的探討—由分配到認同			薛化元 張炎憲
15：00-15：10	閉幕式

報名＆注意事項

1. 研討會採自由聽講，但為方便事先準備論文及午餐數量，請務必事先向主辦單位報名，即日起受理報名（每場100名），現場報名者恕不提供論文及午餐，敬請見諒！

2. 報名方式如下：1.電話報名 2.傳真報名 3.E-mail報名

3. 台灣歷史學會：

地址：台北市南京東路三段215號10樓

電話：02-27122836 傳真：02-27174593

E-mail：juventus@mail.twcenter.org.tw

查詢詳細資料請上網：http://www.twhistory.org.tw/ http://www.twcenter.org.tw/

[Taiwan] [KMT] [corruption]

Taiwan's Outrageous Emissions Problem

For a nation that begs the sympathy of the world, Taiwan is certainly not acting like a good citizen of it. Max Hirsch of the Taipei Times writes on Taiwan's disgusting emissions behavior, as the Ministry of Education is trying to get schools to conserve even as new industrial infrastructure creates pollution that dwarfs any possible gains from school conservation...

The Ministry of Education is aiming for zero growth in school energy consumption this year amid the nation's soaring greenhouse gas emissions, Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) said yesterday on the eve of World Environment Day.

Minister Tu also hacked on China -- whose plan to build a couple of thousand coal-fired power plants will surely doom the world -- but the real problem in Taiwan is....Taiwan. Longtime activist Linda Arrigo of the local Green party commented in response to Tu:

Environmental experts here, however, panned the government for "irresponsibility in its rampant increase of carbon dioxide emissions," saying that the nation's modest geographic size yet relatively high level of development make emissions levels inexcusable.

Unleashing more than 2.17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, or nearly 1 percent of the global total, Taiwan churns out more greenhouse gases than all but 21 nations, according to the Environmental Protection Administration.

"It's pretty bad," said Linda Arrigo of the Green Party Taiwan, a political party dedicated to protecting the environment, referring to the country's carbon dioxide emissions.

"Taiwan has doubled its carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, the year of the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to spur nations to gradually decrease such production," she said.

By more than doubling its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2005, according to official statistics, Taiwan's energy policies run counter to the spirit of the protocol, Arrigo said.

"It's outrageous," she said.

Speaking to the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity yesterday, a senior foreign trade official familiar with environmental issues here agreed, saying that "a negative de-coupling" in which the country's carbon dioxide emissions soar while its GDP drops, begs to be inverted.

But that's unlikely to happen in the near future because of the projected growth in carbon dioxide emissions, Arrigo said.

Steel and petrochemical plants scheduled to go online in Yunlin County, Arrigo said, would add approximately another 20 percent to the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's nice that schools want to decrease their energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission levels," she said. "But that's just a tiny fraction of the problem."

No question that Taiwan needs to get to work on implementing wind power and on cutting emissions.

[Linda Arrigo] [environment]

Petitioning the Emperor

Posing with Taiwan into the UN flags.

Saturday I was delighted to spend the afternoon hanging out with Linda Arrigo, a longterm expat here prominently associated with the democracy and independence movement here in Taiwan during the 1970s and 1980s. Linda is a font of information and opinions, acutely intelligent, uncompromising, opinionated, and extremely funny, she makes great company for an afternoon.

After spending a couple of hours going over her complex and insightful doctoral thesis, Linda took me over to the pleasant campus of National Taiwan University's Social Sciences Department, where a local Taiwan-UN group was hosting a Mother's Day affair supporting the island's entry into the UN. Linda's job was to read aloud in English a translation of a poem to Taiwan, our mother....

Linda read to an audience consisting almost entirely of females, plus a longtime Taiwan-UN activist who had done his PHD thesis on Taiwan and the UN back in 1969.

Several groups performed songs and dances.

The DPP's foreign affairs director (foreground) watches a show.

After the show the press stopped by to interview Linda, a celebrity for her long and fruitful work on behalf of democracy for the island.

Linda shares her thoughts.

Linda chats with the filmmaker.

After that, we headed over to Taipei 101 to discuss the career of historian and activist Su Beng with a filmmaker who is doing a film on him, and a biographer of his (hope my biographer is as good looking as his!). Su had a many-faceted career as an intelligence agent, Communist opponent of the KMT, and professional revolutionary who ran agents into Taiwan from his base in Japan. I'm not going to into details here; hopefully you'll be able to read them in the biography coming out soon.

Heinlein once remarked that all revolutions are carried out by amateurs, but as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress shows, he had a much better sense than most in understanding how the politics would fall out after the revolutionaries had finally won. The afternoon with Linda, one long experience of the Taiwan independence movement past and present, showed its differing faces -- the desperate, grim-faced bastards who attempted to kill Chiang Kai-shek in revenge for 2-28, the assassination attempts on Chiang Ching-kuo in the US in 1972, the reprisal killings in Taiwanese expatriate communities in South America and elsewhere, the KMT's attempts to extradite wanted political prisoners from Japan, some unlawfully kidnapped by "extreme rendition" -- and the sweet-faced, well meaning grandmothers sitting in neat rows on a college campus listening to songs and speeches.

The modern independence movement pays MPs to visit Taiwan in Canada, and funnels funds to pro-Taiwan Congressman in the US. It holds protests in front of the UN, and puts editorials in the Washington Post blasting the WHO for not letting it in. These are modern forms of activism. They are done in the traditional modes of discourse in Chinese society: shame and petition. We shame our opponents into acknowledging the rightness of our position -- and like humble peasants petitioning the Emperor, the Taiwan independence movement stands outside the Imperial Court and begs the UN and the USA for redress for the wrongs done to it. Somehow -- I don't know -- it seems, we need a Taiwanese Independence movement version of ACT UP. And we need the TI equivalent of gays in Hollywood: we need that flow of fiction and film (hopefully the one in the works on the murder of Carnegie-Mellon Prof Chen Wen-chien in 1980 will be out soon) that will put the Cause in front of foreign audiences. Wanna change hearts and minds? Gotta go where the hearts and minds are.

[Taiwan] [Linda Arrigo] [Taiwan Independence]