The View from Taiwan

Monday, April 07, 2014

This is just sick: CTI Host Wants to "serve" student protester.

Making the rounds and causing a furor in Taiwan is this video from CTI (Taipei Times). You don't need to hear a translation to grasp that this CTI host is disgusting beyond belief. It will give you some idea of the low standards of Taiwanese talk shows and television as well as the mindset of the pro-Blue side; this station is rabidly pro-Blue. The young lady in the video, Andrew of Taiwan in Cycles informs me, is the daughter of a Blue city councilor who is a community worker, philanthropist, and single mother.

The whole 12 minutes of this garbage is here. The host also tries to claim other protesters are having sex right in the LY, in each case the reality is nothing like that. Unable to present a convincing case for the services trade pact or show how the students are wrong, the KMT can only launch garbage attacks like this one.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, forgot this one. KMT legislator Tsai Cheng-yuan presented doctored photos to make it seem like the students in the LY are sexually misbehaving. The shot of the women is not from the protest.
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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!

Sunday, April 06, 2014

Wang Materializes in Front of the LY

Banyan Q3. Are there differing opinions of the TiSA within the Kuomintang?
President Ma: The KMT holds a unanimous view internally but differs greatly from the opposition.

Well well. Eventful day as Speaker of the Legislature and KMT heavyweight Wang Jin-pyng showed up at the Legislative Yuan today to talk to the students. Taiwan Voice sent this around Facebook:

Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng takes humble approach, shakes students' hands, Lin Fei-fan and students warmly receive Wang's goodwill.

Arriving at the legislature, LY President Wang made remarks in front of building, apologizing for the disruption that ensued as a result of the Cross Strait Services Trade Agreement. He said that he will face these problems squarely and not avoid them, making a promise that "for now" there will be no review of the agreement. Wang made a last request for the students to end the occupation.

He then went inside the legislative chambers, shaking the students' hands and asking for their well-being. He also thanked the medical staff that have been taking care of the students all along.

Lin Fei-fan, representing the students, said that in their 20 days of occupying the legislature, this is the first time they have seen some goodwill gestures. His response was welcoming, but he stood firm on the purpose of their movement.

"We have seen and we have heard [Wang's goodwill], but we would like to emphasize our position on first passing the bill to monitor cross strait agreements, the citizen's version, and then we can review the agreement," Lin said.

In regards to leaving the legislative chambers and end the occupation, Lin said they will hold a meeting for about an hour and then give a response on that issue.

LY President Wang plays a key role in resolving this stalemate, but he must show that he intends to stick to his promise of not reviewing the agreement for now and respecting the students' opinion. His attitude and approach, however, is different from President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Jiang Yi-hua, both having shown no intentions in negotiating with the students and advocating their removal through force.

With Wang was DPP Whip Ker, who, readers may recall, was the man Wang called allegedly to assure him that his case had been fixed with the prosecutor's office, the phone call that sent Ma Ying-jeou haring off after Wang Jin-pyng's hide.

Before Wang met with the students -- thus separating himself from Ma, who is looking more and more like Saruman barricaded inside The Orthanc as the Ents smash it to pieces -- he went out and held a press conference. Bloomberg says:

Taiwan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said he will halt a lawmakers’ review of a trade pact with China until an oversight bill passes, in a concession to students who have occupied the legislature for 20 days over the deal.

Once again, Wang opts for delay. Immediately the Foxconn CEO came out in support of Wang's move. KMT caucus leader Lin Hung-chi responded by declaring that Wang's position left him in "great shock". The order to say this apparently came down from above, since Lin was with Wang when he made the announcement and later in the chamber. Clearly Wang is now (again) in the middle of a public split with the party leadership and on its face, with the party caucus. Notwithstanding this, caucus leaders all went into the chamber with Wang. Do you think they didn't agree beforehand on what would be said and how and to who?

Make of that what you will. Perhaps Wang knows that his support base within the party is large. As several longtime observers pointed out, Wang can't be doing this alone. This incident shows starkly how much power Ma has since he controls party resources and who can run for party seats: only Wang is openly defying him. But Wang's defiance may signal a massive split within the KMT...

....or else simple monkey-wrench-in-the-works defiance for its own sake, since Ma spat on him and rejected him. Who can tell?

These ostensible splits between Wang, Ma, the Taiwanese legislators, and the party Old Guard (where are they?) appear whenever anyone puts pressure on the KMT. What's new here is the openly public nature of the split, and the intensity of it. A longtime observer pointed out that Ma is scheduled to teleconference with CSIS on Apr 9th. Ma will not accept any questions that have not been approved prior to the interview, so don't expect too much, it will look and taste like Banyan's interview of Ma for The Economist.

Or perhaps it is the KMT playing eleven-dimensional chess with all of us.

As for the oversight bill, it is set up so that if there is a delay in ratification of future pacts, they become law. LOL.

Meanwhile...
If the trade pact is so awesome, why do its supporters consistently claim that Taiwan must sacrifice to make headway? This, very subtly, emphasizes that the pact is the dog its opponents say it is. Letters from Taiwan observes in a brilliant piece:

Back to the dental market, the CSSTA is potentially a great threat to the business I work for. That threat is now generating a sense of fatalism amongst Taiwanese distributors. If Chinese companies start to invest in or buy Taiwanese device distributors, international suppliers will shift their communication to the Chinese companies and Taiwanese distributors will become only ‘local sub-dealers’. The contracts we enjoy with our international partners today may be reformulated so that we can no longer directly communicate with them as partners but have to take direction from Chinese distributors who have been awarded contracts to manage the ‘Greater China Area’. If China can convince these suppliers that they can manage distribution in Taiwan as a ‘local area’ in their business chain, Taiwanese businesses will lose their economic sovereignty and be forced to accept terms of business from Chinese companies if they want the rights to distribute products in their own country. And President Ma, through ECFA, CSSTA, and planned CSGTA, is encouraging this trend. That is very bad news for independent Taiwanese distributors, and ultimately, for Taiwanese dentists.

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Daily Links:

Ham-handed MOFA strikes again: Polish media asked to retract story. Don't they realize how stupid they look?
For amusement purposes only: In the Taipei Times, John Copper explains why the students are protesting. Bad in every way.
J Michael rips a certain powerful representative office
A Chinese student describes studying Taiwan History at SOAS
Taiwan and Hong Kong should influence China, not vice versa
Taiwan's thaw with China turning to slush
Taiwan erects artificial reefs from old boats, Chinese scavenge them.
US expresses support for Taiwan's entry into the TPP
Useful: Roundtable of Taiwan financial leaders discussing China stuff

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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!

Leisurely time out of Meinong

Drew of Taiwan in Cycles rocks down the enjoyable 27.

Saturday Drew of Taiwan in Cycles and I headed out to Meinong in Kaohsiung ~~county city~~ Municipality for a small exploration of the roads and hills north of the city. There's a lot out there, and we're already planning a return. Drew's post is here. Click READ MORE....

How many were at the 3/30 protest? Thank god we have the establishment media to tell us +UPDATED+

Great Sunflower links at the bottom, don't miss 'em. On to WSJ's bizarre estimate of the crowd last weekend....

What will Chinese investment actually be? and other shorts/linkfest

Recall that President Ma himself has said that the services pact with the Borg (slogan: "You are Chinese; we will assimilate you") will create only 12,000 jobs. I got to wondering how much investment that represented. Fortunately MOFA has already told us in that letter they sent around.

As of the end of January 2014, the government had approved 495 mainland Chinese investment cases, with investment of US$870 million. The mainland company officials, specialists and family members who have come to Taiwan in association with these cases number just 264, while these firms have provided jobs for 9,624 Taiwanese.

US$870 million divided by 924 = $90,400 of investment per job. For 12,000 jobs, that's a total of just over US$1 billion, or 1/200th of Taiwanese investment in China. So the government wants to sell Taiwan to China for an additional billion of investment. May as well sell it for $24 and be done with it...

Inside the Sunflower Movement: Ian Rowen, whose scholarly piece on Chinese tourism here I will hopefully have a chance to look at this weekend, says that the kids are alright:

Indeed, mainland Chinese and Hong Kong students joined their classmates inside the occupied parliament from nearly the beginning of the movement. Tian’anmen protest leaders Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi entered the compound the second night to express their support for the students. And people from Shanghai to Brazil connected through rapidly developing ad hoc volunteer crews using new media channels like Facebook, Google, LINE and more.

Sunflower sympathizers in Taiwan and beyond turned their Facebook profile pictures black in solidarity. A collaborative online platform, g0v.today, was set up via Hackpad to consolidate and update information and video feeds in both Chinese and English. As of Monday it had over 1,900 collaborators.

As much as these tools have enabled activists to spread their message, they have also been used to smear students. Within Taiwan, volleys of text messages were sent attempting to link Black Island student leaders Chen Wei-ting and Lin Fei-fan to the opposition DPP’s past presidential candidate, Tsai Ying-wen, a legal scholar and past official who has largely stayed out of the fray.

Meanwhile, information outside of Taiwan has been surprisingly hard to access. Across the Strait, most of China remains behind the Great Firewall, with little to no coverage in state-owned media. Globally, posts to Reddit, Youtube, and other influential sites coming from within and beyond the Occupied Parliament seem to have been professionally down-voted, manipulated by forces few fully understand.

The whole thing is long and excellent. Rowen does not say that the DPP is controlling the students -- he shows the nature of DPP legislator's involvement in that piece. If you think Rowen is too sympathetic, Cindy Sui of BBC discussed how they are distant from both parties. I have not noticed in her many pieces on Taiwan that she is particularly pro-Green, and of course BBC itself, as I have observed on many occasions, is strongly pro-China). One of the KMT conspiracy theories is that the DPP is controlling the students (a retired pro-KMT college professor spews all the KMT propaganda tropes here, they are "professional students" etc. It's high comedy, and the person who translated it must have been in stitches. Note that the title, subversively, is a Monty Python reference.). Speaking of the students, they were on Reddit the other day, very creditably. For example:

The cost of this trade pact, simply put, will be our freedom and the future of our country. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. On the economic front, our economy is already 38% reliant on China, with China only 2.5% for us. This is unbalanced. And you can probably imagine the impact of this on our democracy, our freedom of speech, etc, especially China's stated aims is to use its economic ties to impact our political system. This trade pact will increase this unequal dependency further in the future, maybe not in 1 or 2 years, but definitely in 10-20. And we fear that this will be a course we cannot reverse in the future.

The Reddit discussion is strongly focused on exactly those aspects that are needed -- the trade pact is unfair, it is undemocratic, it is a neoliberal sellout, and it will do little for the economy of Taiwan. The struggle against it is part of the global class struggle. The students are well aware of what is at stake. They are obviously not dupes.

Speaking of neoliberal sellout, Peter Lee at Chinahand has a piece on the students that offers some good points but is marred by errors and misunderstandings. Dead on:

The CSSTA opens various Taiwan and PRC service industries to mutual investment. It is a piece of neo-liberal free trade bullshit whose advantages to Taiwan’s economy have probably been oversold. It will provide some windfall profits for some Taiwanese fat cats in the financial services sector as PRC money floods in, but will probably do little to boost wages and employment, or get the Taiwanese economy out of its overall economic rut.

But then there's this:

Fatally, the inter-party negotiations were put in the hands of the speaker of the legislature, the KMT’s own Wang Jin-pyng. Wang a native Taiwanese politician from the DPP’s southern stronghold and a failed presidential candidate, turned out to be a KINO (KMT in Name Only), and for reasons either of principle, ambition, or cussedness, concluded a generous agreement with the DPP that allowed for a series of 16 public hearings followed by a line-by-line review of the agreement in the Home Affairs Committee.

The DPP, which loathes the unilateral outreach of the KMT to the mainland and longs for a politically advantageous crisis, seized the opportunity Wang gave them to drag out the public hearings for over six months, even though the constitution stipulates that any executive order that isn’t acted on by the legislature automatically takes effect after three months. [MT: Lee errs here. The treaty is not an executive order and doesn't fall under that article, though the KMT has tried to make that work.]

Lee doesn't understand Wang at all. At the moment the KMT has three basic components: the Old Guard mainlanders, the Ma faction, who are also right-wing nationalist mainlanders but are hated by the Old Guard, and the Southern KMT, the term for the Taiwanese legislators who are KMTers. Wang is often portrayed as the leader of the Southern KMT. But let's remember that when Wang ran for KMT chairman against Ma, the Old Guard supported Wang. Wang is not some subversive Taiwanese leader of the anti-Ma Taiwanese opposition in the KMT as Lee attempts to depict him. Rather, he's the tongs by which the mainlander Old Guard handles the Taiwanese KMTers; he unites the two groups. He's an insider. Wang is a master politician, compromiser, and horse trader. It was this aspect of his political abilities that resulted in his willingness to drag out the trade agreement, he must horse trade with the DPP, and of course, the fact that the Southern KMT doesn't want to vote for it and probably doesn't support it.

Consider this. Legislators all over Taiwan represent factional and clan networks that are heavily intermingled with local organized crime businesses. Organized crime is in the service business. They run services like gambling, prostitution, and loan sharking, but also legitimate service businesses like hair salons, bus companies, and schools. Chinese who come over and open services are going to compete directly with ordinary Taiwanese, for sure, but also with local organized crime elements of local political factions. The services pact is a dog supported by 20% of the population, and it will directly hit the business relations of many local legislators.

Why are they voting for it? Well, Ma the pro-China ideologue wants it and his faction is running the KMT. They means they control the resources from (1) the central government, resources used to reward local patronage networks with flows of government cash and (2) party resources for getting legislators re-elected. Now you understand why Ma remained as party Chair. Ma is in a position to prevent the re-nomination and election of KMT legislators and compel them to vote for the pact against both common sense and their own interests. That is why the students have demanded that Ma lift that pressure and allow the legislators to vote their ~~consciences~~ interests.

Lee then attributes all the action to the malign conspiracies of the DPP -- after criticizing the DPP for being conspiratorial Lee then engages in conspiracies of his own. His discussions of the DPP should probably be ignored; his discussion of Dave Brown's letter in the Nelson Report and the DPP's response is inane (I point out the many problems with Brown here). Lee's gin-soaked expat disdain for Taiwan and its democracy makes the piece hard to read; alas, as an analytical standpoint, disdainful cynicism will lead one astray, as it does in this case (Lee wrote an apologetic for the deployment of pro-PRC gangsters in a piece at Asia Times/Counterpunch a couple of weeks ago, at least this time they come under his general disdain). But at the bottom he makes a good point I've been making for some time about US Taiwan policy:

If the DPP does gain the presidency in 2016, the PRC will be facing an interesting situation in which four of the Asian democracies—Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, and India—are committed to a policy of resisting the PRC’s eastward military and economic expansion and preferentially developing their own China-excluding economic and security order.

US Taiwan policy is at odds with its policies elsewhere in Asia. Everywhere else, it is committed to resisting PRC expansion (in fact it was just complaining about China's treatment of Manila this week). But in Taiwan, US policy is committed to helping Chinese expansionism. Say what?

This US position is even more harshly if implicitly critiqued in Cole's Say Goodbye to Peaceful Unification. Of course we've all been saying for years that the island would go crazy if Ma ever made a deal that handed Taiwan to the PRC. And Sunday was a demonstration a half a million strong, a small taste of that. US policy is inexplicably retrograde: here is a whole island of people who don't want to become part of the PRC and US policy at the moment is to coddle the PRC and brush off potential allies.

Meanwhile, in contrast to Lee, John Tkacik presents the POV of someone who really loves Taiwan in the Washington Times.An excellent piece, it also explains the problems with the pact very clearly. But it is symptomatic of the increasingly bizarre US domestic media world where this protest is completely unreported: a soft blackout. The piece appeared in the Washington Times, not exactly a mainstream paper. The mainstream media in the US is awful, so bad I've had people contacting me to ask if Taiwan is safe to visit, because no one knows what is going on. Indeed, someone posted a graphic of CNN the other day on Facebook -- lead story was Chile earthquake, next SIX stories were about the Malaysian aircraft that went missing. I wish those gremlins that stole the aircraft would return it so that story would die. Europe is better, as always: the Guardian also has a pro-Taiwan piece, and I've heard Le Monde has good coverage.

Speaking of Dave Brown, my piece on that letter is, at the moment, second below Brown's Johns Hopkins webpage when you search "Dave Brown Taiwan". Brown's inept letter was widely reported in the Taiwan media. The traffic spike I got from that is unreal. Apparently Alan Romberg has ripped the movement in the Nelson Report as well (UPDATE: Not as bad I thought); all the reliably pro-KMT US commentators are being mobilized. Nat Bellocchi supports the students in the Taipei Times. Meanwhile in The Wall Street Journal Rupert Hammond-Chambers argues that the US needs to enhance its economic ties with Taiwan. Its conclusion:

By publicly declaring its backing for Taiwan's bilateral and multilateral economic ambitions—including a bilateral investment agreement with Washington and a path to participation in TPP—the U.S. would lend invaluable support to peace and stability cross-Strait relations. The U.S. would help ensure that Taiwan's domestic debate on China policy takes place not just in the shadow of a rising China, but amid expanding Taiwan ties with trade partners around the globe.

Meanwhile, recall that one of the student demands is that there be a mechanism for oversight of cross-strait pacts prior to passage and implementation of the Services Pact. The Ma Administration unveiled one yesterday.

The Services Pact is exempt.
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Daily Links:

It's dangerous to say we are all Chinese in Hong Kong now. Taiwan is watching Hong Kong. So good to see the support for Taiwan in Hong Kong these days.
Bob Sutter, a rock, says that US may ask Taipei to detail its South China Sea claims and join it in condemning Beijing. Good luck with that, eh?
Students face legal woes.
Ma has put prosecutor Huang Shih-ming's resignation on hold for days.

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Irritant Time with the US

For pete's sake don't miss this excellent piece by William Pesek: Is China Losing Taiwan? on the protests. Except for its strange title -- China never had Taiwan -- it's awesome.

Chang An-le the longtime gangster who started a pro-annexation political party here showed up in front of the LY to harangue the students today. A comical moment occurred when he accused them, basically, of not being good enough to be Chinese. I'm sure that was a really effective comment. He left at 5 but promised to come back. Rumors flying around that the legislature will convene to pass the pact tomorrow.....

Recall that the Ma Administrations goal of putting Taiwan into China's orbit has two complementary parts. The first involves pushing the nation into Beijing's arms. The second involves distancing it from the US. Enter the irritants, issues used to keep relations with the US troubled. The ractobeef issue has risen from the grave, resurrected to once again vex US-Taiwan relations as the ractopork issue. FocusTaiwan reports:

Taiwan will insist on barring imports of U.S. pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said Tuesday.

The COA said that U.S. pork currently accounts for between 18 percent and 20 percent of the country's exports*, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture issuing certificates that particular batches do not contain ractopamine residue.

The official made the remarks as a U.S. report said that Washington is concerned about Taiwan's ban on beef offal and pork containing ractopamine and could pressure Taiwan to lift its ban on ractopamine-containing pork imports.

The official noted that hog raising is the highest-grossing aspect of Taiwan's agricultural sector, adding that Taiwan will continue to insist on no imports of pork containing traces of ractopamine, while its own hog industry will also not use the drug.

What a coincidence! Just as Taiwan is about to pass major trade treaty with China, it disturbs trade negotiations with the US over the ractopork issue.

Unlike beef, which isn't much produced in Taiwan, pork is a major product. Ma has wisely positioned this policy so it has a broad swathe of support. The whole issue with ractobeef was that under the international trade agreements, by letting in ractopamine-dosed beef, Taiwan had given up the right to let in anything else dosed with ractopamine. Since heavily subsidized US ractopork threatens Taiwan's pork producers -- no starry-eyed innocents themselves when it comes to dosing pigs with drugs -- the government objected to beef to protect the pork producers.

*I think they mean Taiwan pork imports
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Daily Links:

Manila is taking Beijing to court over its absurd claim to the South China Sea.
Ma claims to be thinking about national trade conference to discuss the issues arising from the services pact. LOL.
MOEA to institute services pact "education" at universities.

Monday, March 31, 2014

Meanwhile... there's an election on: posters!

Out and about in Changhua and Taichung, photo'd lots of signs for the party primaries. Click on read more to...

UPDATED: Wall of people there to protect LY according to news reports, many locals joining in to protect their students. They know what is at stake.

Chang An-le, the pro-unification gangster, is threatening to attack the students in the LY, as Cole reports:

Chang, who should be in court defending himself, was released on bail in June 2013 a few hours after his return to Taiwan, which he’d fled amid a nationwide crackdown on organized crime 18 years ago. Rather than be tied up with lawyers and court summons, Chang, also known as “White Wolf” (白狼), has appeared on TV shows, brushed elbows with local KMT politicians, bought support with “humanitarian” aid, and opened campaign offices around the country — even in Tainan, the “heartland” of Taiwanese independence.

And he’s flexed his old unreformed muscles by threatening various people, including the leaders of an NGO fighting for the rights of laid-off workers, the Dalai Lama, and Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德). Chang himself showed up briefly after the first goon “knife” incident at the LY, surrounded by individuals you’d never trust your daughter with (the same thug-looking types who surrounded him when Chang sat a few meters away from me at a popular drinking hole in Taipei a few months ago).

With no end of the occupation at the LY in sight, Chang has now called upon 2,000 of his “friends” to retake the legislature tomorrow, April 1. Given who his friends are, it’s difficult to imagine that they would do so through gentle persuasion (the irony of a man who advocates for unification with an authoritarian regime seeking to liberate the legislature is an unctuous one). “Netizens” with ostensible ties to Chang have also now called for the occupation of movement leader Lin Fei-fan’s home in Tainan. The message was left on the “White Justice Alliance” Facebook page. Ahead of the movement’s mass protest on Ketagalan Blvd and around the LY on March 30, Lin had received a text message on his cell phone threatening that “blood would be spilled” if their proceeded, a threat that was taken seriously enough as to warrant police protection for the two students..

Recall that in 2008 Ma's sister met with Chang...

Eight years ago I wrote up a long one on who the White Wolf is.

I sure hope the police arrest him, but I doubt they have the guts.
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Daily Links:

Statement on Taiwan from the Community of Democracies at the wonderful Taiwan Corner.
Marshall Sahlins responds to McCord's defense of the Confucius Institutes here. Absolutely rips him.
Ma Ying-jeou's point of no return. Cole strikes again.
Steve Tsang at CPI says it is time for Ma to meet with the students
TAITRA and US&FCS Sign “Trade and Investment Statement of Intent” to Strengthen Trade and Investment Cooperation... wait wasn't the stalling of the Services Trade Pact supposed to show Taiwan was a bad partner no one would do business with?
Why the pact threatens the aborigines.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

500K People at least Protest for Taiwan democracy

Apple Daily says it all: 500,000 showed up. Some media are estimating as many as 700,000. Well, except for the pro-China media, which put out even lower numbers than the police. Kudos to the DPP, which did not hijack the protest and remained in the background. My son reported no DPP flags there. Kudos also to the students of Taiwan, who turned out in huge numbers and who did a great job organizing the rally. The enormous turnout shows how the people of Taiwan, especially the young, have incorporated the ideal of democracy into the Taiwan identity. No time to blog today, enjoy some links....
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Daily Links:

MEDIA AWESOMENESS: The Diplomat publishes piece defending Confucius Institutes from academic at GWU, which hosts a Confucius Institute, but does not inform readers of that. Nor does academic. FAIL. Marshall Sahlins responds to McCord here.
IMPORTANT: Ma said yesterday protest won't affect Ma-Xi meeting. Heh. Meaning that he is going to accelerate it now. The protest must have Beijing and the KMT running scared. Will KMT legislators bolt? Will this impact the upcoming elections? And most important of all, what will legislative Speaker and Ma rival Wang Jin-pyng do? He canceled the fifth round of cross-party talks on the trade pact ahead of Ma's speech and the protest (here).
Cole: Does sunflower movement have an exit strategy? Excellent piece. Cole owns this movement, no one has done a better job of bringing it to the world.
WSJ pegs rally at 350K
Reuters, reporting from alternate universe, says 100K turned out. It must suck to be a Reuters reporter with no television, Google, Facebook, or Twitter in their office.
Premier Jiang rejects student demands. Two things -- (1) Jiang is being the hardass in the tradition of the Benevolent Great Leader sending out underling to do the nasty stuff and (2) Ma would like Jiang to follow him as President and party leader, I suspect, but this clash has probably put a stake in his political career.
FocusTaiwan, the government news site, desperately struggles to make the 3,000 pathetic counter-demonstrators from Saturday look as if they were big.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

NELSON REPORT: David Brown on Hsiao Bi-khim's letter

DPP legislator Hsiao Bi-khim wrote a letter to the Nelson Report, this is a response from David Brown at SAIS at Johns Hopkins. Brown is on the Board of AIT and is a former foreign service officer. His political sympathies will be obvious from the tone of the letter and the direction of its numerous errors and omissions.

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

LOYAL READER COMMENTARY ON BI-KHIM/DPP LETTER in last night's Report....Asia expert and SAIS scholar Dave Brown offers some helpful perspective, followed by a note from the hard-working team at TECRO here in DC:

Chris,

Thanks for sharing Bi-Khim's open letter. She deserves respect, but this piece is a partisan statement of DPP views on the current crisis in the LY [MT -- to which Brown replies with a partisan statement of KMT views]. That's her job, of course. [MT -- Hsiao is a politician. What is Brown's job as a SAIS scholar?]

You and others will note that it omits much of the story concerning the STA, which the DPP has opposed from its signing last June. She conveniently omits the DPP's record of obstruction of LY consideration of the agreement.[MT -- just as Brown conveniently omits the KMT's similar record]. That began in the special LY session last fall and continued with dilatory handling of forums on the agreement.

The week before March 17, the DPP had repeatedly prevented the planned article by article review of the STA at the LY committee level. That obstructionism was the proximate incentive for the KMT to ram through a decision moving the STA from committee to plenary consideration on Mar. 18. [MT -- both parties were engaged in it but it was very obviously the KMT that was blocking the process, as Cole notes. For example, here and here. As the pro-KMT China Post notes, it was the KMT that blocked the podium on Mar 13. Recall that the KMT does not want a floor vote, because their legislators don't want to be seen voting for this dog. They want it to become law administratively. Thus DPP obstructionism was not the "proximate incentive" but merely a KMT excuse. And another error here -- the pact was sent for plenary review on the 17th, not the 18th. Brown has the chronology all wrong.]

It is remarkable that the students reacted so quickly that same evening to occupy the LY. [MT -- this is unconscionable. The Interior committee "closed" the review on March 17 (China Post report) and the protesters occupied the legislature on the evening of the 18th. How is over 24 hours "quickly?" They were not even the same day as Brown claims!]. The KMT has accused the DPP of instigating this action, an accusation that many believe [MT -- and those believers are KMTers]. Unnamed DPP politicians were reportedly on the scene later that evening [MT -- yes, they and TSU legislators were there to protect the students from the police. They were hardly unnamed as they were in their party clothing and easily recognizable -- they were on TV and in thousands of videos and stills!]; and the party endorsed the action the following day, and then encouraged all its members to support the students' illegal occupation.[MT -- of course. When people support your values, you should support them. Hint, hint.].

A DPP poll published a few days earlier had indicated that a plurality of DPP members (40%) were dissatisfied with the party's knee-jerky opposition to every step forward in cross-strait relations [MT -- poll is here]. So rather than have the DPP LY caucus responsible for continuing to block consideration of the STA [MT -- the KMT caucus was blocking too], wasn't it in the DPP's interest to have students play that role? [MT -- yes. Perhaps Brown should ask why the protests have majority support and why so many students, including many of my own, were willing to come out. Not to mention that 70% of the public supports a line by line review, the review the KMT was trying to stop. And as polls show, that dog of a pact only has 20% support now.].

Bi-Khim portrays this as a struggle for democracy. It's really another fundamental clash of approaches toward the mainland and toward Taiwan's future [MT -- Ummm... hello! What is that but a struggle about the future of Taiwan's democracy!]. But if its about democracy, is the DPP's repeated physical blocking of LY action democratic? [MT -- is the KMT's? Obviously, the DPP's tactics are in the realm of normal tactics practiced by both parties in Taiwan's democracy. Obviously cutting off the review before it occurred was not.]

The DPP's problem is that the KMT, divided as it is, has a LY majority, and the DPP will go to whatever lengths are necessary to block the majority when their key interests are involved or when it suits the DPP's election mobilization goals to exploit issues for political advantage. [MT -- Brown is obviously trying hard to gin up a DPP conspiracy here. Can we have some actual evidence, please? O wait... Brown doesn't have any.]

I suspect that the fall election is a key consideration in how the party is handling the issue. In this country we would not permit such obstruction to occur in the Congress, and we would not view the DPP's obstruction tactics as legitimate democratic action.[MT -- once again, the 'only the DPP is doing it' refrain. Let's quote The China Post on the Mar 13 fun: "Several KMT legislators blocked the podium to prevent anyone from taking it; on the other hand, DPP legislators stood along the roster and held every microphone installed on the table."]

Taiwan is a democracy in transition. It faces challenges and some of those challenges come from the DPP. [MT -- let's recall why we're a democracy in transition -- because the KMT shot thousands of people and locked up thousands of others, and suppressed democracy here for decades, while the people who formed the party you say is engaging in 'undemocratic' tactics stopped them. You bet some of the challenges come from the DPP, but the vast vast majority of the problem is the "success" and legacy of the KMT.]

Dave

UPDATE: As J Michael Cole observes:

Brown was not speaking on behalf of AIT, as he is only a board member, nor was he a hatchet man on the Ma Ying-jeou government payroll. He’d simply involved himself into a very complex issue without fully understanding its context. And who could blame him, given that the media he likely relied upon for his information about Taiwan often couldn’t tell the difference between the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan? However, sources tell me that Brown hadn’t set foot in Taiwan in about seven years, sadly a not unusual absence for academics that are considered experts on the island’s politics.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Discourse and Ideology in the Media and the Taiwan Student Protests

Charles grabs a photo on our coast ride the other day.

One thing that's really great about the recent student protest is that it is being covered in the international media. For example, the WSJ had an article on the student leaders' rejection of Ma's offer for talks this week. Yet.... and one thing that's really terrible is the coverage in the international media. Well, actually, that's not true. When you flip through lefty media sites, this protest against a neoliberal trade pact by students and the common people, against a pact opposed by the majority of the people, including occupation of the legislature and massive international coverage, what sound do you hear?

*crickets*

Way to go, fierce defenders of the people!

Today I read Banyan at The Economist. You can't expect too much from The Economist of course, since it is basically a helpless prisoner of its pro-corporate ideologies. But the interesting thing to me about the Banyan piece is how much the positioning of Ma and the students in the discourses swirling around the occupation of the legislature is guided by Establishment economic and social tropes and above all, by outright concealment of Ma's actual position. This has two complementary results: it makes Ma look more middle of the road than he really is, and it makes the students look more radical than they are. The reality is that the middle of the road democrats are the students, and the right-wing radical is Ma Ying-jeou. One way the Economist accomplishes this is by framing:

Mr Ma sees the pact as a reward for the more conciliatory approach to China that he has adopted since he became president. The students occupying the legislature, as well as opposition parties who back them, claim that the trade deal....

Ms "sees" but the students "claim". No bias there! Think of all the other words that could be used: Ma argues and the students contend. Etc. Uncorrected is Ma's error that the police don't think it worthwhile to clear out the legislature. They don't have the authority to do that, only the Speaker of the legislature can.

Naturally Banyan (and other mainstream media writers) will never make clear that Ma is a right-wing Chinese nationalist expansionist who did his thesis on how China owns the Senkakus and appears to believe China owns Okinawa -- note that the underlying issue of the political-annexation aspects of the treaty, so important in many discussions of it, doesn't appear in this article, which presents the whole affair from his position and treats him as a sympathetic character, while focusing solely on economics. The students understand this political context, but Banyan removes it from the reader's purview. This helps make the students appear more radical than they are. In fact in another piece sympathetic to poor put-upon Mr Ma, Banyan argues that Ma is -- no, really -- defending Taiwan:

But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”.

In a way that piece is even worse...awesomely, it accuses the students of resorting to undemocratic means (because protests are undemocratic?) but fails to take note of the KMT's behavior. Space is lacking. Anyway...

The Economist piece also unloads all the neoliberal tropes that are taken up in a piece by J Spangler over at The Diplomat. First, Banyan describes:

Three days after the students began their occupation, Mr Ma argued that failure by the legislature to approve the agreement “could have serious consequences” (see Banyan). Going back on the deal, he said, could result in Taiwan being “regarded as an unreliable trade partner” by China as well other countries with which the island wants to negotiate free-trade pacts.

This trope is really common, I've been hearing it from people who both support and oppose that dog of a services pact. It's the kind of zombie insight people come out with when their brains are on media autopilot. Jonathon Spangler over at The Diplomat today squeezed a whole piece out of it. Judging from the contents of my inbox, many who read it assumed that Spangler was a pro-KMT foreigner. So did I, the first time I read it.

But on second reading I realized that Spangler's alignment with the KMT's position on the treaty, right down to repeating its rhetoric, isn't the result of him cheerleading for the KMT (it's unlikely that someone who obviously cares so much about ordinary people could be pro-KMT) but rather, is a consequence of the way Ma and the KMT have deployed neoliberal trade rhetoric as a front for their annexation of Taiwan to China by slow economic strangulation. Spangler writes:

Yet the deleterious effects of failure to implement the CSSTA would not only be domestic or bilateral; the international implications would be equally grave. Taiwanese history over the past decades has represented an arduous struggle for diplomatic recognition. Indeed, it is the foundation upon which almost all of the island’s foreign policy depends. Reneging on a bilateral agreement, such as the CSSTA, would serve as a clear indication to the international community that the local government lacks the capacity to effectively engage in international relations. The logic runs like this: If Taipei cannot succeed in fulfilling an already signed trade agreement with its closest neighbor and most significant trading partner, the risks involved for other countries in deepening economic ties with Taiwan may outweigh the potential benefits. For better or worse, international image and reputation are key to diplomatic relations. Should Taiwanese lawmakers fail to push through the agreement at this late a stage in negotiations, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Three issues here. First, Ma and the KMT have cloaked their sellout in neoliberal trade and political science rhetoric. By doing so, they can get others to forward their propaganda for them, since these ideas are widely subscribed to in the media and academia. Second, has anyone ever examined this idea to see whether it is in fact true by looking at the way countries behave in the real world? Finally, the logic of this argument runs like this: let's f@ck the 99% so that Taiwan can look "credible" when its 1% sits down and makes big business sellout trade deals with the 1% of other countries. That's neoliberal logic at its finest: the world's nations are so many game preserves and ATMs for the 1%... Aware of this, Spangler argues that Taiwan's ordinary people can and should be protected. Good luck getting any of that done....

Does having to renegotiate treaties and other treaty issues make one less credible on the international scene? Hmmm... how many times in your life have you ever heard anyone say "China tore up the 17 point agreement with Tibet! I'm not doing a trade agreement with them!" Or how about the SALT/START talks. Salt II never ratified by US, which withdrew in 1986 (wiki). Nevertheless, Russia and the US went on to negotiate the START pacts. In fact US non-ratification of treaties is normal, other countries still seek it out to do business with. If you think renegotiating, withdrawing, and unilaterally tearing up treaties and agreements means that other countries will stop negotiating pacts with you, I suggest you type the phrase "withdrew from the pact" in Google, or a similar phrase, and start reading. It's totally normal for nations to engage in such behavior and then to move on to cut deals in the future. Either humans have the memories of pocket calculators or maybe, just maybe, nations make deals with other nations based on current and future expected issues, and not on what such and such a state did with some other state at some time in the past. Can you imagine:

AIDE: Mr President, Chile promised Peru to hold a plebiscite in 1893, but failed to do so.
PRESIDENT: Scratch Chile. We obviously can't do business with them. What about Italy?
AIDE: Sir, after they changed governments in WWII, they left the Axis.
PRESIDENT: Who can trust them now? What about Thailand?
AIDE: It took them twenty years to negotiate a mere extradition treaty with India.
PRESIDENT: Is there anyone we can do business with?

Reality? Everyone knows that Taiwan's relations with China are special and no one is going to say: "Wow! Taiwan renegotiated a pact with China! OMG WE CAN'T DEAL WITH THEM!" The US isn't going to stop trying to include Taiwan in the TPP. N Zealand and Singapore aren't going to tear up their trade pacts. Other nations aren't going to stop sitting down to talk with Taiwan, unless Beijing puts pressure on them (did we get a promise in this pact for Beijing to stop that? Hahaha).

So, to cut to the chase because I know you are tired of reading, what is the function of the "sign the pact or else no credibility?" It's mere rhetoric to bully small nations into signing those unequal pacts with larger states. It's a form of shock doctrine designed to get the population to go along with a sell out by creating fear of being weeded out (another favorite trope of Ma's). It's a club wielded by Ma Ying-jeou to bash Taiwan's people into submission.

It's not inevitable that China will swallow Taiwan (in fact I am coming to the conclusion that China's rising power is making that ever less probable), but it will certainly become inevitable if academics keep forwarding these zombie insights exploited by the KMT that are completely untrue yet cannot be killed.
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Daily Links:

RALLY ON SUNDAY on Ketegalen Blvd
LiveStream from Inside the Legislature: thanks, Sean Su. You're awesome.
Wen Chi-yu on Ma Ying-jeou's communications problem. At CFR no less, usually a bastion of anti-Taiwan Establishment writing, they've had a couple of really good pieces on the rallies.
Fumao Today: vids of the protest
NYTimes: China reacts to the protests
Tea Leaf Nation: social media and the student protests
Why did the rally happen? Academic/Activist explains.
NPR blog: why they stormed the legislature
Water rationing in Tainan
Haha. KMT plans counterrallies on Saturday.
A ~~Ma Ying-jeou~~ DPP ad from a previous election gets an update.
Hundreds of Hong Kongers publish ad in Liberty Times warning Taiwan to avoid dangers of Sinicization.
Taiwan specialist Chris Hughes responds to a misleading article about him.
CDC warns of scrub typhus among ticks while tomb sweeping.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Presser with the Student Leaders

News Translation
Taiwan Voice 2014/03/26 (Facebook)
Press Conference with Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting

It is often overheard that the student protesters (coming from the top universities in Taiwan) outmatch the Ma administration intellectually, but yet they are still portrayed as troublemakers. Here is a transcript of a press conference with two of the student leaders following the mayhem at the Executive Yuan that shows these students are thoughtful, smart, and resolute.

Press Conference with Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting at 9:30 after President Ma’s press conference held on the morning of March 24

Lin Fei-Fan: Of course, members of the the student movement group are bound to hold different opinions. But even if there were differences, they were slight ones concerning strategy; our cause and demands have remained consistent. From both what happened yesterday afternoon and evening when they occupied the Executive Yuan, it simply showed that we were trying to seek any possibility of negotiation between the government and the students through various means.

Reporter: Do you worry that the situation might go out of control?

Lin Fei-Fan: I have been thinking about every possibility that might have caused these uncontrolled situations, and no doubt the Ma Government shoulders the greatest responsibility. Why would people storm into the Executive Yuan under one command? They were enraged by the Ma Government, because during yesterday morning's press conference, Ma Ying-jeou avoided responding directly to our plea and sounded much like a broken record playing government propaganda. That was the last straw for the protesting students who sat peacefully for six days. They had to take the next step. So I believe my fellow studen, after yesterday's protest, that they understand “victory is only possible when we persist calmly and steadily”.

Reporter: Should the services trade pact be sent back for a line-by-line review? Should it be put through a vote at the legislature or be returned to the legislative committee for review?

Chen Wei-Ting: Our demand has always been the same: the review should only be conducted AFTER passing a bill to monitor cross-strait agreements, and only by doing so can we establish a model and standard for truly democratic review procedure. President Ma mentioned South Korea yesterday, but actually the review process in South Korea’s FTA negotiation with China is more rigorous than Taiwan. He argued that the reason for not establishing such bill was because the four guidelines that have been established by the Executive Yuan. But “guidelines” do not supersede the legal status of law. Also, explaining the content of the agreement to the public and enabling the review process are two totally different matters. We are not completely against the services trade pact, but we want to first establish a bill to ensure that members of the parliament can directly review the trade pact and the people can directly participate in its process, and conduct the review afterwards.

Reporter: Some claimed that you have deliberately planned and initiated the conflict yesterday afternoon, to divert the police’s attention and make way for occupying the Executive Yuan? Is that true?

Chen Wei-Ting: The conflict was not premeditated. I only noticed there was commotion outside when I walked out to go to the bathroom. I have been told frequently that a lot of people outside the parliament building are very emotional and exasperated. Still, it is definitely not our plan.

(Journalists asked him to use microphone so that everyone inside the parliament could hear his reply. They say thank you for your hard work. Applause from the entire crowd.)

Lin Fei-Fan: Asking now if this conflict was premeditated is totally pointless. What you should be asking is, why are there so many young people furious, what fueled their discontent? The Ma administration of course. During yesterday’s morning press conference, he did not respond directly to the demand of the students who have been sitting in for six days straight. So asking questions like “is it premeditated” or “is there an internal conflict” is meaningless. I think the question you should be asking now is: How should the Ma administration deal with their discontent? This should be the focus.

Reporter: Do you worry that the public opinion might be shifted after the occupation of the Executive Yuan?

Lin Fei-Fan: Right now, our stance is: before the Ma administration meet our demand or is willing to open a dialogue with us, we will not leave here voluntarily. We believe the most important thing right now is to call for more concerned citizens to participate. Their faith and courage should not falter as a result of yesterday’s suppression by the police. Instead, they should firmly believe in a more affirmative, proactive, peaceful yet unyielding action so we might have a chance of victory.

Responding to reporter’s questions about the bill to monitor Cross-Strait agreements:

Chen Wei-Ting: I mentioned the signing of a bill to monitor Cross-Strait agreements, which would require all political parties to sign a consent, guarantee that they would promote and ensure the legislative passing of this bill. Only by doing so can we have a complete parliament monitoring mechanism, where the public can participate in the review process of Cross-Strait agreements, achieve true openness and transparency of future review processes and ensure the protection of rights and the people’s voice be heard.

Reporter: Regarding the strikes and students’ boycott of classes that will soon follow and the huge impact they will have on nationwide economy, do you have a detailed plan for it?

Chen Wei-ting: Of course strikes will impact the economic activities in our nation. But I ask, doesn’t the services trade pact impact the whole nation’s economic activities as well?

Loud applause from the entire crowd

Chen Wei-ting: What I meant was, the services trade pact will have a huge impact on nationwide economic activities. We are not mandating any strikes or student boycott of classes. Therefore, if there are strikes, it would totally be voluntary and acted out on their own will. Only by doing so will these strikes generate the desired impact. When these workers realize how much the services trade pact will affect them and decides to go on strike, it is the people’s choice, the decision is theirs.

Reporter: Some question the two of you cannot represent all the people in Taiwan, yet you occupied Taiwan’s parliament. We want to know your response to these people’s comments.

Lin Fei-Fan: I believe there are all kinds of opinions out there, all of which we respect. We occupied the parliament because it was not functioning properly. Our goal is very clear: we want the parliament to function properly. During the occupation, we seek a more institutionalized solution that comply with the rule of law. Actually what we are doing is quite simple, we are not attempting to represent all these other different opinions.

Reporters: Some see occupying the Legislative Yuen is a waste of the taxpayers’ money.

Lin Fei-Fan: I think what really is squandering the taxpayer’s money is a parliament that is not properly run and has lost even its most basic and normal function in supervising democracy. (Applause)

Reporter: Hsiao Chia-chi, Deputy Minister of the Interior discovered that cakes in his office have been eaten and his spare change stolen. What do you think of that?

Lin Fei-Fan: We know that those who entered the Executive Yuan consisted of different groups and individuals. If there had been money missing, or cakes been eaten without permission, we do not encourage such actions. If these incidents are proven true, then you should have Hsiao Chia-chi report to the police and have them collect evidence. If he has solid proof, he can file a charge against the suspect. If his properties were damaged, this is what he should do.

Reporter: Will boycotting classes achieve the desired result?

Lin Fei-Fan: We have only called for students to go on strike starting today. Yesterday some of those NTU professors held a press conference on campus, voicing support for our demand. We want to take one step further, so that the professors can go on strike too. How do we evaluate the result? To be honest, there is no need for such evaluation. All you need to do is stand out, participate in our action, take to the streets, and keep on defending this place persistently. There really is no need to evaluate. (Loud Applause)
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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Monday, March 24, 2014

=UPDATED X4= Police Clear Executive Yuan Protesters using water cannon, violence

UPDATE 4: Frozen Garlic moves towards the position many of us are now reaching, that the students should declare victory and leave the LY.

Ma's speech from yesterday in English

UPDATE 3: Video of police clearing protesters

Once again, English feeds and links

UPDATE 2: A-gu rips the Ma government on his awesome blog

UPDATE 1 Student response:

In response to the continuing developments at the Executive Yuan, we release the following joint statement between the student occupiers of the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan:

“Under orders from President Ma Ying-jeou, thousands of riot police have started violently dispersing our peaceful occupation of the Executive Yuan. Hundreds of Taiwanese citizens – mostly students - have emerged from police lines beaten and bloody. Dozens more have been sent to emergency rooms around the city.

We shed tears for our comrades, the strong and the brave that had the audacity and the courage to stand up for their country against overwhelming odds. Against a broken system, a president that has lost any semblance of credibility, a president willing to use violent force to break up a peaceful gathering of citizens, we stand for democracy, for hope, and for Taiwan.

These are Taiwan’s future generation that you are beating. A generation of hope, not of broken bones to emerge limping and bleeding due to police treatment. Some of them, as one person declared before the cameras, are the children of the very own police officers you sent to violently suppress them. Some of them could have been your own children.

Our message to President Ma is this: We will not waver. Against an undemocratic and autocratic government, we stand strong and we stand united. We demand that:

1. 1. President Ma apologize and Premier Jiang Yi-huah to step down for their role in the crisis

2. 2. The Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement be sent back

3. 3. Cross-strait agreements not to be negotiated or signed pending the passage of a monitoring mechanism for such agreements.”

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The occupation of the Executive Yuan was really stupid. The police responded with violence, as we all feared last night before I went to bed. J Michael Cole in The Diplomat:

+++++
With no sign of a resolution in sight, a group of protesters slipped past security at the Executive Yuan, the seat of the Cabinet, at 7:35 p.m. on March 23. Immediately the group inside the legislature distanced itself from the action in a press release, though from the leadership on the ground it was obvious that they belonged to the alliance. By 8:30 p.m., a few thousand people were occupying the compound. Following a brief standoff with police, protesters broke into the building through the main door or by climbing ladders to upper windows. Aside from damage to the main doors and two broken windows, there were no other signs of damage to the building. Several thousand people also gathered on Zhongxiao Road in front of the building.

Although police authorities had not acted on orders to evict the activists from the legislature — relations have in fact been rather cordial, with protesters often applauding and thanking law enforcement — Sunday’s occupation of the Executive Yuan was a major escalation, and soon there was chatter that police would intervene. The Cabinet gave the order at 10:30 p.m. and told police to do everything necessary to evict the occupiers by 11 p.m. In response, the Democratic Front Against Cross Strait Trade In Services, one of the groups orchestrating the occupation at the legislature, issued a press release, in which it called on the authorities, “to not use violence to suppress the protesters.” It also called on the government “to not release emergency orders and to not mobilize the armed forces.”

As hundreds of police with shields and batons formed a line in front of the Executive Yuan, an even larger contingent of riot police, flanked by truck-mounted water cannons, faced off with protesters behind the building on Beiping Road. At about midnight, the order was given to rid the area of protesters. About 200 riot police, armed with shields and batons, descended on the protesters as the latter were about to sit down and shouted “please don’t use force against us.” At one side, a young woman, crying, called out to her boyfriend who was among the protesters. Several black-clad riot police swung their batons at young protesters, while police used their PVC shields to hit sitting protesters on the legs. Several dozens of protesters were eventually taken out — oftentimes shoved violently and dragged around — while police pushed out of the area. Protesters complained that the riot police had masked their badge numbers. Journalists who identified themselves as such and showed identification were also ordered to leave.

+++++
Cole believes as I do that the EY undermined the Occupation's public image but thinks the police attack on the protesters will offset the damage. However, the media will blame the protesters, and many in the public will likely follow suit. This will likely be a net harm to the cause.

J Michael also said that there was little damage to the EY but other reports I heard and from what was on the feeds suggest otherwise. Apparently Premier Jiang's office was ransacked and from other offices computers and such were carried out. However, those reports have not been confirmed by media on the ground. Further, there's a report circulating that the leader of the entrance into the EY building was the son of a local KMT politician. I'm discounting that, it smells fake to me. However, bear in mind that the common KMT tactic over the years is to disrupt protests using gangsters or fake protesters.

The protesters were letting themselves be carted away passively. The beatings were totally unnecessary. 56 in hospital according to local media reports. The report of a death seems false.

This was just stupid in every way. The EY occupiers were idiots. Fortunately LY people are still there and managed to put a little distance between them and EY fools.

Also, my friend Drew asks: Where is Hau Long-bin, Mayor of Taipei? It's his city....

Images: ETTODAY, Apple Daily Facebook page
"Our Democracy Must Not Die" Benedict Young
CNNiReport
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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!