China Suborns our neighborhood chiefs and precinct captains?

Let them lie...

STORM media reported this week that China is recruiting the most basic level of politicians in Taiwan, the Lizhang (里長) . Lizhang are the neighborhood chiefs/precinct captains, who in the old days monitored the population's political activities. Today they have morphed into the gophers at the bottom of the political order, bringing local requests like fixing broken streetlights to the attention of higher authorities, and handing down official communications, like surveys or election forms.

Beijing has been working on this for a couple of years, apparently. The Chinese have even formed an association, the "China Taipei Village and Li Head Association" (中華台北村里長聯合總會). At first glance these seems terrifying, given the kind of data they have access to, but actually, it probably isn't aimed at Taiwan at all. People seem to forget that Beijing's Taiwan policy has a strong domestic element. China needs organizations like this to convince its own people that it is making progress and keep a lid on nationalism that might get out of hand (recall all the instances in which the people pushed the government to fight harder against foreign powers).

The Lizhang association is a Potemkin Village, entirely show. It's the kind of thing that you do when you have no policy but have a budget and must do something to convince higher-ups that you are actually doing something... because China certainly has spies inside the Ministry of the Interior who can get whatever information the lizhangs have access to.
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Daily Links:

• DONT MISS: Perry Link on Liu Xiaobo.
• DONT MISS: The Anniversary of the End of Martial Law, musings from the awesome Mark Harrison
• AIT Chairman deplores lack of cross-strait dialogue. What exactly would such dialogue accomplish? Also, it would be great if FocusTw stopped regurgitating the KMT position on the 1992 Consensus, and instead just went with the actual history. 
• Taiwan ceramic artist revives lost ware.
• Wuerkaixi with moving tribute to Liu Xiaobo
• President Ma calls on China to come into compliance with UNCLOS
• At China MFA press conference, someone bravely asks how Cairo Declaration can be binding but Sino-UK agreement, not binding.
• Nikkei: New South Policy meeting limited success
• Nat Palace Museum makes images available
• Weird article in The Diplomat gets everything on Cairo and Potsdam wrong, throws in error on 1992 Consensus too just for fun. Am working on response.
• China's TAO office fumes over changes to Taiwan curriculum.
• Brian H on esports as yet another site for China to whine about Taiwan's independent populace
• TWEETED: Solidarity on Twitter: I wonder if Taiwan's strategy of giving Catholic missionaries knighthood, I mean citizenship, is also about Vatican diplomatic recognition

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Chen Deming goes Godwin

'Where such laws hold,' said Gandalf, 'it is also the custom for ambassadors to use less insolence. But no one has threatened you. You have naught to fear from us, until your errand is done. But unless your master has come to new wisdom, then with all his servants you will be in great peril.'

Brainless, belligerent PRC envoy to the KMT went all Godwin this week, comparing DPP Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen and her popularity to Hitler (TT):

Chen said that while people do make correct judgements, sometimes it takes time for them to gain an understanding of the problems, citing Germany under the rule of Hitler during World War II as an example.

“The German people elected Hitler as their leader with a big majority, which in the end caused a tragedy that was mourned by the whole world. Germany was the victim and the German people were subjected to the greatest woes,” Chen was quoted as saying.

The Hitler comparison caught a lot of attention among foreigners, but in fact Chen was threatening to kill Taiwanese and take their island in the usual PRC manner: Tsai would lead them to disaster! The disaster is the PRC attack on Taiwan, of course.

ALSO: Frozen Garlic has a laff.

UPDATE: Commenter observes:

Apart from the stupidity to refer to Hitler at all, there are at least two factual errors/misrepresentations in this short paragraph by Chen Deming: Hitler himself was never elected at all let alone with a big majority. His party became the strongest party in 1933 but only got a small majority together with the Conservatives above the other parties.

To name Germany a 'victim' blandly disregards all the other countries and peoples who were hit much harder during WW II. It also neglects that Germany started WW II in the first place. This is revisionism of history, a technique not unknown to the PRC (and many other countries). btw I'm German

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Daily Links;

• Taiwan pushing the US for subs.
• Pro-KMT paper criticizes KMT Veep pick Jennifer Wang for her housing speculation. Basically, she's a daily reminder that the KMT is a party in which connected insiders can make a rich living off the government.
• Manila paper on China's expectations of conflict over Taiwan
• The beautiful blog Synapticism on Nanfangao, with pics, of course. 
• Solidarity with a great post on population changes between 1974-2014 for regions in Taiwan and also notes TISR poll which shows that pan-Green is now number 1 political ID in Taiwan.

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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!

In case you were wondering what the post-annexation future would look like....

China Reform Monitor says:

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"Scouts" from China’s central government and members of the pro-Beijing Democratic Party are meeting about whether or not to push forward Article 23 of the Basic Law. The article states “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets.” Before the end of the year Beijing would like to use the measure to crackdown on dissidents from the mainland that now enjoy freedom of speech and association in Hong Kong. Some Democratic Party members of the legislative council, like Chang Wen-kuang, are hesitant, however. In comments carried by the Ming Pao he gave four reasons his party should oppose the law: (1) there is no imminent need to increase state security; (2) it will weaken the Hong Kong peoples’ confidence in the legislature; (3) Hong Kong’s special administrative region's chief executive Donald Tsang does not have enough support from lawmakers; (4) if forced forward, the measure might cause a public backlash making Taiwan more resistant to unification.

Editor’s Note: Article 23 has long been a political hot potato in Hong Kong. In 2003, Beijing first tried to push it forward and as a result, Tung Chee-hwa, then Hong Kong’s chief executive, faced 500,000 street protesters. About a year later, after being branded a Beijing stoolie, Tung agreed to a series of compromises to weaken the measure before he "stepped down owing to foot pain."

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Comments like this show how important Taiwan is in enabling Hong Kong to retain some its democratic rights. They also show what Beijing's ultimate plans for Taiwan are.

Another thing that is shown here is how Hong Kong was not returned to "China" but given to the PRC in all its authoritarian glory. An important function of the constant use of "China" rather than "PRC" in this discourse is that it blurs over what is actually going to occur -- Taiwan is not going to become part of some mystical, transcendent "China" but instead Taiwan will be annexed to the very concrete PRC and will suffer whatever fate PRC officials determine for it.
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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!