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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