Cole on the Aerotropolis in Taoyuan and Traditional Media failure in Taiwan

J Michael Cole, who is leaving the Taipei Times, writes of traditional news organizations in Taiwan and how they are utterly failing the nation and their readers:

If newspapers like the Taipei Times, which a good number of people in Washington, D.C., rely on almost exclusively for their information, were more serious about reporting news that matter, much greater effort would be made to plug the many gaps that exist in their reporting. Only then would we avoid situations where Taiwan “experts” cannot understand why a delegation led by Chen Deming (陳德銘), the new chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), plans to visit the Taoyuan Aerotropolis next week.

Had the Times and other publications like the Central News Agency been more responsible organizations, they would have reported a lot more on the build-up to the mega-project in Taoyuan, including the expedited hearings which did not meet the standard protocols set by the Executive Yuan for such projects (e.g., the number of public officials in attendance) and where self-help organizations were told that whatever the outcome of the hearings, if the government decided to demolish people’s homes for the project, they could do nothing about it.

The government wants all hearings to be completed by the end of the year, with bidding to start next year.

Responsible news outlets would also focus a lot more on the protests that are brewing over the issue, press releases by the Taiwan Rural Front and other groups, and the suicide earlier this month of a farmer who stood to be among the thousands of victims of the Aerotropolis project. They would also point out that former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), a native of Taoyuan and former county commissioner there, has been hired as a “consultant” for the project and is now seeking foreign investment.

Of the US$15 billion-plus, 4,700-hectare mega-project, more than 3,200 hectares will involve land expropriation, affecting as many as 12,000 households and several dozen schools, which will all be destroyed if the project is allowed to proceed. [Taoyuan's own promotional news site concedes residents are worried about compensation -- MT]

Responsible news organizations would have connected the dots earlier by reporting on the growing instances of government-sanctioned land grabs, the role of land developers and investors, and the manner in which the government has sided with those against the victims. They would have placed more emphasis on those developments, and they certainly would not have buried the few articles they had on the subject in the little-read inside pages, as the Times often does.

And lastly, news outlets worth their salt would have emphasized the fact that under regulations passed last year, China can now participate in infrastructure projects and act as contractors. As CommonWealth magazine reported in late 2012, “Chinese investors are zeroing in on four sectors [of Taiwan’s economy following the new regulation] – landmark infrastructure projects, the high-tech industry, commercial real estate, and logistics and transportation.”

An epic and deadly serious rant. Taiwan Journal had a piece on the aerotropolis back in 2008 that explained what a giveaway it is going to be, and the legislation as passed is online here. There's a PDF of a presentation on it here that gives the rah-rah point of view for it.

After some outcry on the proposal to eliminate laws favoring aboriginal employment, the legislation does stipulate that 3% of employees in the aerotropolis zone must be aboriginals. There was another side to the aerotropolis' threat to national security -- its threat to bring in Chinese under the laws eliminating many labor regulations. But service businesses in the area may not hire Chinese. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how many Chinese workers are slipped in when Chinese firms get the infrastructure bids.

I'm quite curious to see what will happen when Chinese firms actually start taking business from local construction firms. Will they be smart enough to integrate local firms into their operations and take over the KMT's patronage networks? My bet is that they will act with the same arrogant indifferent bullying clumsiness they do everywhere else, and in a couple of years, local construction firms are going to be very very unhappy with the KMT for selling them out to the Chinese.
_____________
Daily Links:

• This year is the 50th of the Cairo Declaration, which in KMT mythology is gave Taiwan to China. If you see a text begin by asserting China's claim to X based on Cairo, you're reading right-wing Chinese expansionist propaganda.
• Eslite pulls book, apparently because the Chinese Communist Party doesn't like it
• Once again Commonwealth nails it with a great piece on branding in Taiwan
• No dude, hawks are not UFOs
• Oz on the Sanwan to Nanzhuang bike trail. Miaoli is the great secret of Taiwan.
• Tie Non visits the famous cat village.
• An old dojo in Taichung

_______________________
[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!

Taipei Times Editorial on TI: Who has Egg on Face?

I went down to Lukang today and couldn't believe my eyes. Some prime loser erected this monstrosity right on the famous Mo Ru (lit: "rub breast") Lane, which has lots of historical houses, a couple of historical sites, and temples that date back to the 17th century. The lane is kept in that kitschy historical style so often seen in Taiwan. 

I was planning a longer post on how ridiculously stupid the Transparency International index for Taiwan in 2013 is, and lo and behold, the Taipei Times put out an editorial on the burgeoning mess with Transparency International's ridiculous conclusions on corruption in Taiwan, entitled "How to deal with egg on your face". Apparently the TT believes that the government has egg on its face. Actually, the editorial consists largely of remarkably silly and unconsidered claims. Thanks for the blogfodder, guys! It observes:

Last week, Transparency International (TI) released its 2013 Global Corruption Barometer report. The local media immediately picked up on the fact that the survey said 35 percent of Taiwanese respondents reported having paid bribes to the judiciary. The media then inferred from the various category results that the nation’s overall rating placed it third among the Asia-Pacific region’s most corrupt nations.
....

TI has an impeccable reputation: Few would question its integrity or the quality of its work. Ma has on several occasions even met members of the organization to express his support. The government should not paint TI as the enemy just because it is unhappy with this year’s findings. The way that the Presidential Office, the Cabinet, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have reacted will do little to help the situation.

........

The government was keen to say that previous reports found corruption of less than 5 percent, so this year’s high figure must be incorrect. It was a ploy that was doomed to failure. If it had confidence in its own figures, and if these figures were to be believed both in Taiwan and abroad, the government would not concern itself with the report’s findings. However, the government is very concerned, and many people in Taiwan and overseas trust the findings. If the government wants to go on the offensive, it needs to choose its targets more carefully.

The focus of the criticism then moved to the fact that TI commissioned a Shanghai-based market research agency to carry out the Taiwanese part of the survey, which some believe casts doubt on the findings’ accuracy. Such politicized criticisms are unlikely to find sympathy or support abroad, as TI commissions local or regional agencies to carry out the surveys in each country, and it will naturally enforce consistent standards and regulations, without which international comparisons would be impossible. To say errors were caused because a Shanghai-based agency was responsible for Taiwan’s survey is simply not a persuasive argument.

There's much here to unpack... ;let's take the last paragraph first. TI believes that pointing out that the bizarre numbers are "politicized criticisms" which are unlikely to find support abroad is belied by a simple point: an article in The Diplomat. This article is written by, well, a foreigner, who lives in Washington DC. One of those the TT insists is unlikely to sympathize with Taiwan in this case.

The TT also claims that it is "simply not a persuasive argument" to claim that since a "Shanghai-based firm" conducted the polls, it must be erroneous. But TT is wrong. First, the argument is that the 36% figure who paid a bribe for government services in the last twelve months (not bribes to the judiciary) is absurd because no poll taken by various groups in the last decade has been anywhere near that number. According to the TI results, corruption has increased 18-fold since 2006, when the same survey reported just 2%. No one is claiming that the figure is absurd because a Chinese-based firm reported it. It's absurd because it is inconsistent with all previous findings.

The reference to the origin of the data -- in a Chinese organization -- exists to explain why the data is insane. In point of fact, it was not a "Shanghai-based firm" that conducted the survey, but the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) based in Beijing, according to The Diplomat piece, which notes:

Although CASS is China’s oldest and one of its most respected social science research institutions, it is also directly under the direction of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) State Council (cabinet). It of course, therefore, also has strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

For example, in announcing its new president last month, a CASS publication said, “The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the Chinese Government recently announced Wang Weiguang as the new president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).” It also said that in this position, Wang would also hold the title of “secretary of the Party Group of CASS.”

In listing the CRC as one of its affiliates, WIN/Gallup itself writes that “CRC cooperates closely with the Chinese government.”

Another interesting thing I saw in Lukang today: a homemade, gasoline-powered tricycle.

I got to thinking about what this number, 36%, means, on my 110 km ride down to Lukang and back over Dadu Shan today -- lots of time to think. According to TI, 36% of people in their poll answered that they had paid bribes for government services. Well, few children solicit services on their own; the payments must have been made by adults. Taiwan has over 18 million registered voters, so let's use the number 19 million for the total number of adults in Taiwan, just to be generous. Multiplying by .36 gives us 6.84 million bribe-paying Taiwanese. Anyone know any of these? Anyone paid a bribe themselves?

The absurdity only grows worse because for the vast majority of government service users, the routine payment for the service is sufficient. Such bribes would have to be paid for services that are less routine, most likely by businessmen seeking favors. By males, in other words. I would bet money that the bribe-paying population consists largely of males -- of which there must be around 10 million or so, meaning that, if we arbitrarily assign 3/4 of bribes to males, more or less half of all adult males in Taiwan have paid a bribe for government services. In the last twelve months. That is, on its face, insane. Especially since no other survey has come close to these results.

Of course all this playing with numbers is arbitrary, but you get my point: when you start thinking about the numbers -- which the Taipei Times apparently did not -- the outstanding silliness of the TI results becomes apparent.

Saw this really cool windscreen-equipped bike in Lukang today.

Or, you could look at some other methodology, a scholarly one, using that wonderful tool, Google. For example, you could look at comparative studies like this one which assess South Korea as consistently more corrupt than Taiwan. The percentage having paid a bribe in South Korea in 2013? 3% (BBC has a list of all nations). TI's results don't make sense in a comparative perspective either -- Taiwanese are paying bribes at 12 times the rate of South Koreans, according to TI. Heavens! Don't let the Taiwanese find out the Koreans are beating them there too!

Note that TI says Taiwan is more corrupt than Vietnam, and the same as Indonesia. LOL.

Or you could look at another methodology, such as the CCI developed by Kaufman. Here are numbers for Taiwan from 1996 through 2011 (last section, scroll to bottom). Note that they vary little over time. It is not difficult to find theses and papers that use the CCI to look at Taiwan. For example:

Estonia has been a “green country” since 2000. In the last decade, it has achieved the second highest score among Eastern European and post-Soviet Union countries, as it moved from the 71st to the 80th percentile. South Korea still remains in the “yellow area”, but has come closer to the 75th-percentile threshold. Taiwan ranks slightly above South Korea; according to the indicator, its score has somewhat deteriorated in the last years, but still remains among the best in East Asia, and therefore it is a case worth looking into. Finally, there is Ghana, which still ranks at the 60th percentile, but appears to have improved much in the last decade. It is considered as a good example in Sub-Saharan Africa, so it is an interesting case for analysis, even if it still needs further improvement to really become an achiever.

In fact, on the CCI Taiwan has consistently been among the best in Asia. Again, the TI numbers for 2013 don't make sense.

Finally, you can look at the simple fact that CASS is now attempting to distance itself from the TI mess, according to the South China Morning Post. You don't distance yourself from claims that you have confidence in. If you read between the lines, you can also see that The South China Morning Post also feels the TI claim is not defensible, for it also refers to previous scores by Taiwan on the TI index. Indeed, the mere running of such an article implies that as well.

Hey wait....isn't SCMP one of those foreign types who weren't going to be sympathetic?

It should be blindingly obvious to any rational human who bothers to look into it that there is something wrong with the methodology behind the TI numbers, if they are not simply made up outright.

Egg on whose face? The Taipei Times', of course. Shame to have run such an outstandingly unconsidered editorial when the information was out there to support the government's case, and easily found.

UPDATE: A friend suggested that the problem is actually simple. Somebody left off a decimal point, should be 3.6%.
_______________________
[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!

Taipei Times Editorial Page on history: say what?

A vendor waits for customers

Lately the strange rightward shift in certain editorials of the Taipei Times has sent any number of people scurrying to their keyboards to ask me WTF is going on with those editorials. This week's piece  was hard to classify....

The effort continues and only last week, Taiwan supporters were excitedly clamoring over the release of a declassified CIA document from 1949 which said that from a legal standpoint, Taiwan could not be considered to have been part of the ROC. All that is fine, but in the end, no amount of legal documents, historical findings, maps, obscure quotes or other materials will convince Beijing to abandon its longstanding claim that Taiwan is a renegade province of China that needs to be “reunited,” by force if necessary.

Does the Taipei Times really imagine that anyone who studies these matters thinks if they wave a document that Beijing will suddenly change its mind? Probably there is a nutcase or two who thinks that, but no one sober does. Who is the Taipei Times talking about here?

Actually, no one was excitedly clamoring, for I was on the discussion list where the document appeared in its wanderings around the web, that appearance being the one that triggered the article in the Taipei Times about the report "CIA report shows Taiwan concerns". Erudite list members quickly pointed out that the document was released in 1993. Hence, no clamor. Just a document of historical interest. This did not stop the Taipei Times from making the same point again in the next paragraph.

Beijing’s recent behavior with regard to its territorial claims in the South China Sea, or the even sillier contention made more than once during the past weeks in the Chinese Communist Party-controlled media that Okinawa, Japan, might also be part of Chinese territory, should be enough to drive home the reality that historical facts and international law will not influence Chinese thought.

So I'll make the the same point again: no one seriously believes Beijing will pay attention to international law. But the editorial goes on to repeat the same point a couple of more times, in case you missed it the first two times...

....Relying on prayers and entertaining fantasies about a Eureka document that will succeed in deflating Beijing’s claims where everything else has failed serves no purpose other than delaying an outcome that should not be inevitable.

....However, Taiwan should not kid itself — old maps and declassified missives are a waste of time, no matter how valid the cases they make.

....Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Russians, the French and others would have been foolish to sit and wait for the Nazis as they advanced across Europe armed only with legal documents and maps.

Yes, we should have a consensus on resisting China. But part of constructing that consensus is building a shared identity. And that identity has to have a past that presents a strong and true alternative to Beijing's false claims. That past must be plausibly legitimate. That's one of the key uses of history, and of documents like this.

Further, knowledge of the past is extremely useful in summoning help for the present and future..... One can imagine how the TT's position would play in reality:

Taiwan independencista: You should support Taiwan independence!
American Shiao Ming: Why? The Chinese say Taiwan has been part of China for centuries.
Taiwan independencista: Never mind that! We are looking to the future! We don't believe we are part of China!
American Shiao Ming: Why not? Aren't you Chinese? Weren't you given back to China in 1945!
Taiwan independencista: I don't know! Who cares!? Why is this history important?! What I think now is more important!
American Shiao Ming: Ok, sure. Whatever.

The flaw in the Taipei Times' position is simple: China legitimates its position via appeals to history (among its many approaches) and it is necessary to know that history in order to respond to those claims. Moreover, since history legitimates, proper use of it can help others who might want to rally to Taiwan's side to support us. We are not just talking to Beijing here, but to the whole world, including uncaring and uncommitted Taiwanese at home. By legitimating our position through law and history, we define ourselves as different from the expansionists in Beijing who ignore law and history. Key!

The Taipei Times should take notice that it is common for people who delve deeply into the history of Taiwan to have very little support for annexing it to China, and for the political parties that advocate annexation. Instead of accusing people of searching for a magic bullet, perhaps the editorialist should make a better attempt to understand the uses, functions, and effects of historical knowledge.

One of the great victories of the KMT in shaping the Taiwan consciousness was getting the Taiwanese to care so little for their own history. Let's not ape that trend.

UPDATE: J Michael responds here.
________________
Daily Links

• People in Taiwan exchange life in fast lane for life in the slow lane
• China forces Maldives to give up sister city agreement with Taiwan. Good thing there's a diplomatic truce between Taipei and Beijing, eh?
• Foreign academic criticizes Hsinchu city government, it goes after his work permit. No chilling effect there! And note the reference to the unconstitutional, authoritarian, and evil spying program of the NSA. The Bush-Obama security state helps legitimate security states everywhere now. Way to leave the world a better place than you found it, American elites. 
• Taiwan's submarine options and US-China relations, paper by Jens Kastner
• My Several Worlds visits the Lin An-tai historical house in Taipei (with pics)

_______________________
[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!

My Letter on Chen Shui-bian Incarceration Issues

Letter on Chen Shui-bian incarceration in Taipei Times today. My thanks to the editors for printing it. They cleaned up a typo and strengthened the beginning. Title is also better than I could have thought of...

+++++++++++++

Focus on urgent issues

William Cox’s letter (Nov. 26, page 8) is obviously well meant, but illustrates several major problems with foreigners commenting on former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) medical issues. Such foreigners frequently err, as Cox does.

For example, Chen has a desk and does not write on the floor. Errors like that enable opponents to discredit pro-Chen foreigners as well-meaning fools who know little about Taiwan. Cox also appears to be unaware that prisoners in Taiwan are generally treated the same way as Chen is, and that, in fact, his incarceration is good by Taiwanese standards. For example, he was sent to one of the best hospitals in the nation for treatment, a privilege no ordinary prisoner would have received.

Few Taiwanese share this strange desire to help Chen. Most see him as, at best, a traitor to the pro-Taiwan cause; at worst, as a thief. Chen’s son recently admitted that their homes in the US were purchased with campaign funds. While converting campaign funds to personal use is legal, that money belongs to the Democratic Progressive Party on behalf of all people who worked to put him in power, as well as those murdered during the Martial Law era. Yes, Chen is a political prisoner. However, his incarceration might have been avoided had Chen behaved in a modest and ethical manner.

The truth is that the issues surrounding Chen’s detention are a minor issue not worth well-meaning outsiders’ time. Foreigners who want to help Taiwan should be focusing on more urgent issues that affect many lives, such as the forced conversion of farmland to industrial parks, the environment, carbon dioxide emissions, traffic, official corruption, human trafficking, the north-south divide, the plight of foreign workers, farmers, fisheries, urban livability, deepening democratization and so on.

If Chen comes up, it should only be as a minor poster boy for an urgently needed general program of prison reform. Taiwan-supporting foreigners, please stop wasting your time with a man who abused and betrayed your trust and whose case will merely divert your energy and impair your credibility as a speaker in Taiwan.

Michael Turton
Greater Taichung

+++++++++++++

The last sentence pretty much encapsulates how I see Chen, which is why I almost never discuss him on this blog anymore.
_______________________
[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! Delenda est, baby.

J Michael hits a nerve

The old south wall at Anping Fort in Tainan.

J Michael Cole of the Taipei Times scored with a top-notch piece in the WSJ on how the Ma Administration's inability to clean house in its own military and intel ranks is impacting US willingness to sell Taipei weapons. An excerpt:

Much ink has been spilled in recent months over the Obama administration's reluctance to sell Taiwan the 66 F-16C/D fighters it has been requesting since 2007. A final decision is expected by Oct. 2, and while many observers predict that political considerations will lead Washington to nix the deal, another factor may be at work: the penetration of almost every sector of Taiwanese society by Chinese intelligence. For the U.S. government and defense manufacturers, any arms sale to Taiwan carries the risk that sensitive military technology will end up in Beijing.

This worry is not new. Anyone who has followed developments in Taiwan over the years knows how deeply Chinese forces have infiltrated Taiwan's military, especially its senior officers. For years American officials have looked on in amazement as newly retired Taiwanese generals traveled to China for a round of golf, were wined and dined by their counterparts in the People's Liberation Army, and no doubt had their inebriated brains picked for information.

Taiwan's reputation has not been helped by a string of embarrassing cases involving members of the armed forces or civilians who spied for China. Some of the programs compromised involved American assistance, such as the Po Sheng "Broad Victory" upgrade to the military's command and control infrastructure. Even more damaging are the instances when culprits got away with a light sentence. Earlier this year Lai Kun-chieh, a software engineer, received a mere slap on the wrist for attempting to pass information about the PAC-3 Patriot missile defense system to China.

Also puzzling is the apparent lack of coordination between border, airport, immigration, foreign affairs and defense agencies over the return to Taiwan this month of Ko-suen "Bill" Moo. Mr. Moo was a former top salesman for Lockheed Martin who was arrested in Miami in 2005 and sentenced to 6.5 years in jail for trying to sell, among other items, an entire F-16 engine to China. Taiwanese authorities failed to meet Mr. Moo at the airport on his arrival, despite being tipped off by the U.S., and haven't been able to track him down since. The 64-year-old, who was involved in the Po Sheng project, had close friends within the upper echelons of the Taiwanese air force. It is alleged that he was part of a small group within the Taiwanese Air Force known as the "gang of four," which included former Defense Minister Chen Chao-ming.

President Ma, recommended J Michael, needs to clean house. This problem has been festering for years and there has been little apparent progress. Anyone in Washington who wants to deny weapons sales to Taiwan can plausibly point to this issue as an excuse not to sell the island nation weapons.

The response, I've heard, has been quite intense. Reportedly the President himself was angered by the article and a KMT legislator said that Cole's work visa should be investigated. There was also some anger at the MND. It's hard to fathom why; whenever a Chinese spy is busted there is a flurry of articles saying that Chinese penetration of Taiwanese military and intelligence may affect its ability to procure advanced weapons. For example, from earlier this year when an ROC general was busted for schlepping secrets to China:

Taiwan has detained a major general on charges of providing military secrets to China, the defense ministry said Wednesday. Analysts said he may have compromised a vital military communications network that uses U.S. technology. The case is the most serious Taiwanese spy scandal in decades and could make the U.S. reluctant to share military technology with Taiwan

or from the Examiner:

However, Chinese penetration of ROC defenses is a concern to the United States and will likely be a factor in a decision whether or not to sell advanced F-16 fighter jets to the Chinese Nationalists exiled on Taiwan.

Etc etc etc. It's not like the effect of Chinese penetration of ROC security services wasn't known in the highest circles and it's not like it hasn't been said before. Recall this Lawrence Eyton piece from 2002 in the Asia Times on a similar spy case:

It also follows the release of an alarming statistic by the Ministry of National Defense according to which more than 3,000 former Taiwan military officers are now either doing business or working in "consultancies" in mainland China.

Apparently it's just not ok to draw attention to the problem in an essay length piece. Big loss of face, you know.

This also raises another issue: by not making an ostentatious attempt to clean house, is the Ma Administration, which doesn't want F-16s sold to Taiwan, deliberately handing Washington an excuse that would give it plausible deniability? Probably not; one should never attribute to maliciousness what can be explained by incompetence.
________________________
Daily Links:

• Don Rogers, a great friend of Taiwan, discussed in his college newsletter
• Rising cost of living slashes demand for adoptions.
• Victoria Linchong still needs financing for her pro-Taiwan film. See here and here for more information. 
• Economic weakness: SinoPac slashes forecast for growth to 4.7% this year.
• Eyedoc posts some great comments from Andrew K on aboriginal marriages, the Koxinga clan, and intermixing in pre-Qing Taiwan. 
• John Copper's piece in the National Interest on why the US needs Taiwan was picked up by Zack Beauchamp on Andrew Sullivan's blog. Zack, ya could have pointed out that Copper is a longtime supporter of the KMT and thus, while arguing that the US needs Taiwan, himself supports the party that wants to annex Taiwan to China. How's that again? BTW, for your question demanding evidence about why China would want to sail its subs off the coast of the US... please see recent history of Chinese warship sailings around Japan. Why should China want to sail in Japanese waters? And yet it does. Why does any expansionist state do what it does?
• Taipei Bike Film Festival Seeking submissions

_______________________ 
[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! Delenda est, baby.

Capitulationist Raccoons Shall Not Be Mocked!

Taiwan News hosted an AFP piece on how the Taipei Times' wonderful parody on Apr 1 saying that the pandas in Taiwan were fake -- which received worldwide interest and acclaim (great work, guys) -- met a frosty reception among the pro-China crowd which accused the paper of lese majeste...toward pandas...

However, Taipei zoo director Jason Yeh was not amused and demanded a correction of the report he said had "seriously damaged" panda conservation education.

"We urge the newspaper to correct this improper story as it sends the wrong message. The joke has gone too far which not only hurt its credibility but the conservation education," Yeh said yesterday.

The zoo had received dozens of phone calls locally and from abroad complaining about the article, he said.

Lawmaker Wu Yu-sheng of the ruling Kuomintang party also demanded the paper apologise for publishing an "untrue and baseless" report.

The Taipei Times has defended its move, saying readers should be capable of telling a joke from the truth.

Actually, the Taipei Times got the story wrong. It's not the pandas that are fake, but the feelings that sent them over.

_______________________
[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!

Man of Many Letters

Before we get into the meat of this post, I'd like to direct everyone to this great Asian Studies Toolbar by John Noyce. It has links to Asian Studies stuff on the internet, media, journals, blogs, and a host of other stuff. Installs automatically, easy to use, and customizable.... and he has fantastic taste in Taiwan blogs.

When I was younger I aspired to be a man of letters, and now that I've reached that age where my waistline expands as my hairline recedes, I've reached that goal -- letters are my life. Today a response I made to a piece of Chinese propaganda in the Yale paper a few weeks ago made its way into a letter in the Taipei Times. Stuff that gets into any media, however semi-serious, needs to be responded to, because those responses reach people.

More fun with letters occurred a couple of weeks ago when Taipei-based David Pendery responded to my response to him. It's mostly evidence-free rambling:

Again, we can see his point, but in sum, what Turton implies is that Taiwanese voters concern themselves more about a plate of free beef noodles and a little questionable assistance with a legal problem than the education of their children, the state of their economy, the environment they live in, crime and public order, the cost of housing, infrastructure development, etc. Such a claim I will not abide by.

Ultimately, I would be more inclined to agree with Jerome Keating -- whatever his political view -- when he wrote that the KMT "is not monolithic. Contrasting viewpoints abound and power struggles continue beneath the surface."

Such a view undermines Turton's apocalyptic prediction of a "permanent majority."

In any event, I am not endorsing or criticizing any one party.

Rather, I am trying to point out that respect for the various viewpoints in this country, to say nothing of more empathetic, impartial and tolerant attitudes toward Taiwanese voters and their issues (yes, their issues) is necessary to make progress in this country.

As a matter of fact, the LDP wasn't a monolith either, but it did enjoy a 38 year grip on Japan. One quirk of this exchange: the letter he responded to was a truncated version of this longer piece which the Taipei Times had already published. The TT published two versions of the same letter!....what had happened was that I sent in the first piece but about 8 days went by and it wasn't published. I figured it was too long, so I lopped off the limbs and sent it back as a response to Pendery, and they ended up publishing both. My favorite part of Pendery's letter, unmarred by numbers or critical thought, is the part where he claims he isn't "criticizing any party." His original letter said:

Instead of apportioning blame and howling about the injustice of it all, the DPP and its supporters need to wake up to reality and rein in their worst instincts. The supercilious tone of the DPP's cheerleaders, their self-righteous declamations of exactly what anyone and everyone in Taiwan should and must think and do, and their routine denigration of one half or more of Taiwan's population have gotten utterly tiresome. These are all reasons, I think, that many people are in the process of drumming the DPP out of power.

LOL. Boy, it's a good thing Pendery isn't criticizing any one party, eh?

Finally, I also sent in a letter on the problem with the districting arrangements, which as I noted in my post on gerrymandering below, favored the KMT. It didn't make the Taipei Times' grade, so here it is, gratis:

++++++++
How the Districting Affected the Election

Although the conventional wisdom assigns the DPP defeat in the Jan 12 legislative election to the disatisfaction with Chen Shui-bian, and the "failing economy", the reality is that structural factors played a key role. Among these were the districting arrangements, which favored the KMT.

According to the law, districts must be drawn by population, and must follow city and county boundaries. These sensible, strict rules generally prevent the drawing of cross-district boundaries that result in the absurd districts so common in the US. Based on these, the Central Election Commission's original proposal alloted 8 districts to Taipei City, 12 to Taipei County, and 6 to Taoyuan. For Tainan city and county, just five districts were created.

To understand the effect of this on the vote, it is necessary to look at the voting population, not at the general population. In Tainan those five districts average 283,000 registered voters each (the national average is 230,000 voters); for Taoyuan, the same average is 225,000; for Taipei County, 235,000; for Taipei City; 251,000. Of the districts that CEC created by cutting up counties, 4 of the 5 largest by voting population are in Tainan. Using the Taoyuan average as a standard, the Tainan area should have had at least one more district. Using the Tainan average for the north, roughly speaking, Taoyuan has 1 extra seat, Taipei city 1 extra seat, and Taipei County 2 extra seats.[MT: the effect is even more pronounced because if you drop the five districts on the east coast and the islands, whose populations are unusually small, the average for the populated west coast and Ilan is about 240,000 voters per district. The average district size in both Taoyuan and Taipei County is smaller than that. Any way you measure it, it sure looks like somebody shoehorned in extra districts in the north.]

Of the ten largest districts (by voting population) created out of counties, seven are in the south: the five Tainan districts and the two in Yunlin County. There is no apparent reason for this (though of course the "right" size is debateable) -- Pingtung County, with a general population of 834,000 (631,000 voters), was chopped into three small districts, while Tainan county, with a general population of 1.1 million people (847,000 voters), was awarded three giant seats. Conversely, the CEC had no trouble creating districts in Taichung County, Pingtung, Kaohsiung City, Nantou, and Miaoli of under 200,000 voters -- a figure that would have awarded Tainan at least two more seats. In Kaohsiung, where the KMT has a powerful local presence, districts averaged only 229,000 voters each.

In sum, the CEC's original proposal created smaller districts in Blue areas and very large ones in Tainan, essentially denying more than 200,000 voters in Tainan representation that was granted to voters in other districts. Size matters greatly; the KMT won 18 of the 20 smallest districts. Had the election been more closely contested, the "extra" Blue seats would have had a strong impact.

Another effect of the districting plan is the large number of safe Blue seats. Counting the islands (3), the east coast (2), Keelung (1), Hsinchu County (1), Taichung County 2 (Yen Ching-piao), the North (26), and Blue-leaning Miaoli (2) and Nantou (2), and assuming a loss here and there, almost half the seats are safely Blue. The Blues need only win half the remainder to win an overwhelming legislative majority.
+++++++++

I deleted the remainder, mostly criticisms of the DPP's election planning.

[Taiwan]