The Strange Letter of Defector Justin Lin

"When you see the desolating abomination standing where he should not (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains

A reader alerted me to this blogpost by Evan Osnos at the New Yorker of Oct 4. It is about Justin Lin, the Chinese economist now at the World Bank, who defected from Taiwan in 1979.... Osnos writes:

Lin is a global ambassador, of sorts, for Chinese economics. He also discusses his remarkable background—notably his decision at the age of twenty-six to walk away from his Army post in his native Taiwan and swim across the Taiwan Strait to a new life on the mainland. He left behind his wife, who was pregnant, and a three-year-old son. In China, he chose to “evaporate,” as he told me, by adopting a new name and passing himself off to classmates as a Singaporean. What drove that decision? To help answer the question, Lin recently gave us a copy of a letter in Chinese that he wrote to a cousin in 1980, a year after his departure from Taiwan, seeking to explain his motivations and asking for help in supporting his wife.

Read the whole letter carefully. Lin swam away from the ROC and to the PRC in May 0f 1979. On 1 Jan 1979, not five months before, President Carter recognized the PRC and derecognized the ROC as the government of China. On 1 Jan 1980 the mutual defense treaty with the ROC was invalidated by Carter. On Dec 10, 1979, ROC police assaulted the human rights protest in Kaohsiung in a famous incident.

1979 was a pivotal year in Taiwanese history. The letter says it is written prior to April, 1980 (references to studying for exams in April and to the 17 million people of Taiwan and to being gone almost a year). The entire letter is about the future status of Taiwan. There is no mention of the pivotal events of 1979 in this letter, all which have great bearing on the status of Taiwan. Instead, nearly the entire letter, but for the paragraph on what to do about Lin's family and a few personal remarks, is spent developing a treatise for the cousin about what "our generation" should do for the future of Taiwan, to ensure that it is annexed to China. A belief his cousin obviously shares.

This letter was written to a cousin in 1980. Mrs. Lin avers that it was years before she found out he was still alive in this 2002 article and Wiki says she took a $31K payment within a year from the Taiwan gov't because Lin was "missing." But the cousin knew he was alive within a few months -- and never told the wife? Yet Lin instructs him to use a pet name when he contacts her! Lin also refers to his defection embarrassing the authorities and to his fame in Taiwan.

Interesting letter eh?
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Understanding the Party-State

A reader passed me this review of The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor on the Party in China. Much of this extremely perceptive piece is applicable to another nation.... recognize anything?

The irony is that the Party itself, its complex workings hidden from public scrutiny, is the ultimate source of corruption. The inner circle, comprising top Party and state functionaries as well as chiefs of industry, communicate via an exclusive phone network, the ‘Red Machine’ – possessing one of its unlisted numbers is a clear sign of one’s status. A vice-minister tells McGregor that ‘more than half of the calls he received on his “red machine” were requests for favours from senior Party officials, along the lines of: “Can you give my son, daughter, niece, nephew, cousin or good friend and so on, a job?”’

.....

There are, of course, many states, some even formally democratic, in which a half-secret coterie controls the government; in apartheid South Africa, for example, it was the Broederbond. What makes the Chinese case unique is that this doubling of power between public and hidden realms is itself institutionalised.

.....

The notion of the Party-state cannot do justice to the complexities of 20th-century Communism: there is always a gap between Party and state, and the Party functions as the state’s shadowy double. Dissenters call for a new politics of distance from the state, but they don’t recognise that the Party is this distance: it embodies a fundamental distrust of the state, its organs and mechanisms, as if they needed to be controlled, kept in check, at all times. A true 20th-century Communist never fully accepts the state: he accepts the need for an agency, immune to the law, which has the power to supervise the state’s activities.

Go thou and read. Very insightful. It is easy to see how, if the CCP choses, it will attempt to guide "political liberalization" in China; China can study political liberalization in Taiwan (and Singaporean evolution as well) to understand how it can manage the transition to a facade of liberalization as well as escape the prosecution of its leaders for their innumerable crimes against humanity.
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Throwing open the floodgates

If it were deliberate irony, it would be unbearable. But it is strategy, not irony. From an article on letting independent Chinese tourists in....

Taiwan is set to accept independent Chinese visitors, Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo said Monday.

Speaking at a legislative session, Mao said the Cabinet had determined in principle that Taiwan would open its doors to three categories of Chinese visitors -- tourists, business visitors and visitors to outlying islands -- but that details of the opening were still in the pipeline.

Management would differ for these three categories, Mao said in response to questions raised by two Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers.

Details would be publicized in the near future, he said, but for example, management of general Chinese tourists would be strictest, and would include restrictions on the number allowed to enter Taiwan each day.

So...they are going to let in more businesspeople and tourists. And then there is this from the other day on the rise of Chinese prostitutes in Taiwan....

Recently, in accordance with government policy to allow Chinese to visit Taiwan for leisure and business, more people are arriving as tourists or businesspeople, but just staying and working illegally, the official said.

In March, more than 100 Chinese nationals were caught working as prostitutes in the landmark Tower 85 in Kaohsiung.

Further investigation found that all of the women came into the country as businesspeople.

“It costs only about 30,000 Chinese yuan [US$4,500] to get forged job certificates and forged invitations,” a Kaohsiung police officer said. “So a lot of [Chinese] who don’t even know how to read and write could become chief executives of some department store or real estate groups in China and come to Taiwan for ‘business.’”

..............

NIA officials said that more Chinese choose to come into Taiwan as businesspeople or tourists because it’s much harder to check their identity than through a fake marriage.

Police officers said that, although the government has relaxed entry regulations for Chinese nationals, “they don’t care if there is sufficient manpower to deal with the change.”

But we're going to let in more Chinese as prostitutes and illegal workers businesspeople and independent tourists. These will be strictly regulated, at first. Like the students from China will be strictly limited, initially. And the ECFA concessions will favor Taiwan, in the early stages. And the President assures us there will be no political talks, at the moment.

ADDED: A reader reminds that in Taiwan new laws are being proposed to allow one-woman brothels. Sort of like the Hong Kong SAR.

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Daily Links, Oct 18, 2010

Sunset on Jenping creek in southwestern Taichung city.

Busy days full of events....

BLOGS

• Michael C in India rides a local trail. With bonus camel pic!
• Kerim writes: The Fujiwara effect http://bit.ly/9lKLtb will likely cause unusual rain in Taiwan this week. http://bit.ly/9j55Fb /via @davidonformosa. Sad: Pic of Megi about to ravage the Philippines.
• Sundays in Fengyuan.
• Corey gets muddy on Yangmingshan
• West African cuisine... in Danshui
• Dwight rides the east coast.
• Peace with China has ugly caveats.
• Finding Rokko aerodrome on Google Earth.
• Stardust 20 kms
• History repeats itself with the Flag
• Taipei's Museum of Drinking Water. Hurry before the exhibits evaporate.
• Though a passionate hater of Sun Moon Lake, I still found this post attractive.
• Peter Martin on cross-strait relations

MEDIA

• China doing business with Iran in violation of UN sanctions. Showing once again how China, the largest investor in Iran, takes advantage of the US obsession with the Middle East to divert US attention and resources from the real prize: East Asia and the future. And at a profit, too.
  
• DPP's Tsai Ing-wen leads the KMT's Eric Chu in The City Formerly Known as Taipei County.
• Chiaotung University student owes one hotel after setting the place on fire. He wanted to wish his g/f a happy b-day, so he set up 99 candles on the bed, lit them, and then went out to get her.....
• Kaohsiung City Council votes to not invite any Chinese officials who are human rights violators and recommend central government do the same.
• Liberty Times editorial rips the government's position on the Senkakus.
• How crazy is Taiwan's legislature? Read this.
• Taiwan bike firms eying investments in Indonesia.
• Manila hopes to attract more Taiwan investment as well
• Taiwan dollar nearing two-year high on hot money inflows.
• Yes it is true that in Taiwan children are myopic at fantastic rates. But they are nothing compared to the politicians....
• European Chamber of Commerce wants more Chinese imports to Taiwan, and a trade pact with Taiwan.
  
• US-China talks on maritime security.
  

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EPA against renewable energy

Does the protection in agency name Environmental Protection Agency mean anything? UDN -- that's right, the pro-KMT paper -- editorializes:

They blamed the government and state-owned Taiwan Power Co., which on behalf of the government acts as the only renewable power buyer, for erecting procedural barriers that make the approval for power purchase impossible.

Taipower and the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) responded with their own newspaper ads, arguing that both solar and wind energy are unreliable and cannot possibly replace energy generated by traditional thermal or nuclear power plants.

Taipower and EPA also stated that, under the Renewable Energy Development Act, the prices at which the government is allowed to purchase electricity generated by the private sector using solar power or other renewable means were "unreasonably high" -- five times higher than that for electricity supplied by Taipower.

The key point is that nobody in Taiwan has ever espoused that solar energy should replace traditional power generation. Nevertheless, President Ma Ying-jeou has put renewable energy development on a priority list, and the Legislative Yuan lent its support by passing the act.

Secondly, since the rates at which the government purchases solar power or other renewable electricity from the private sector were determined by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, should the ministry be blamed for the "unreasonably high" rates?

In any case, traditional electricity has been available at rates that were far too low -- among the lowest in the world. Who decided these low rates and why has no official had the guts to raise them?

The UDN editorial, which is quite sensible, especially for UDN, raises a couple of key points. One is the EPA's bizarre position on power generation (compare to Beijing reporter Jonathon Watts' presentation in Taipei this week) in which it argues for coal and nukes over renewables. This is consistent with its many other "pro-industry" positions. The other is Taiwan's absurdly low power costs. Various numbers are out there on the net, including these from 2005:

For industrial electricity rate: the average rate in Taiwan is $0.055 USD per kwh, $0.136 USD in Japan, $0.078 USD in United Kingdom, and $0.058 in South Korea. For other developed countries, it is $0.056 USD per kwh in Canada, $0.053 USD in France and $0.052 USD in United States. China still has the lowest electricity rate among these industrial countries with the rate of $0.032 USD per kwh.

Residential electricity rates are 40% higher in Taiwan than industrial rates. This policy is meant to subsidize industry and has been in place since the 1950s. Another comparison in this review of wind power prospects in Taiwan (from the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research) similarly has Taiwan comparatively lower than many countries, but only slightly lower than Korea and a little higher than China.

Low electricity costs have all sorts of nasty effects. They encourage the development of electricity-intensitive industries such as metals processing that are often huge polluters. They discourage the adoption of conservation practices, since electricity is too cheap to conserve. Once the public becomes accustomed to them they hold rising prices against the party that raises them, meaning politicians shy away from price adjustments. Because the public demands low prices, the government chooses coal, whose costs are enormous but whose nominal price is low, as its fuel. The low price is the key factor holding back Taiwan's renewable development:

Analysts say the low price that state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) pays for renewable energy makes it difficult if not impossible to make new wind and solar farms profitable.

"Many parts of Taiwan hold large potential for solar power and other renewable energy," said Wang To-far (王塗發), a former legislator who now teaches economics at National Taipei University. "It's essential that we raise prices to support [this] industry."

A lack of government support means Taiwan's renewable energy sector lags far behind those in other industrialized countries, he said.

Data from Taipower shows that it pays an average of NT$2.38 per kilowatt hour (kWh) for wind-〝generated electricity, far below the NT$3.23 that wind energy operators say they need to break even.

The rate is also below what other countries pay to purchase 〝wind-〝generated electricity. Germany pays an average of NT$4.1 per kWh, Spain NT$3.14 per kWh and Ontario, Canada, NT$4.04 per kWh.

Power prices in Taiwan are set by Taipower, which is under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The irony of this short-sighted anti-renewables policy is that Taiwan has some of the world's most important solar cell makers and also possesses considerable potential for manufacturing wind energy systems. There is also some geothermal potential though the only plants here closed in 1994. Unfortunately the Developmentalist State mentality, with its preference for big dirty projects that send cash down through patronage networks to local politicians, and its abiding contempt for renewable energy, still grips Taiwan's energy and economic policy.
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Crisis of Life website

Dr. Walther passed this on to me....

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Three days before the start of the international conference on biodiversity in Japan (Convention on Biological Diversity,18-29 October 2010), freeeye.tv in collaboration with the biologist Dr Bruno Walther launches the video project www.crisisoflife.net

This educational non-profit video project, accompanied by texts and weblinks, hopes to inform about the ‘crisis of life’ itself.

The negative impacts of the biodiversity crisis on our quality of life will only increase unless the sustainable management of the planet’s living resources becomes a global concern and leads to changes in policies and management on local, national and international levels.

Because this topic is still not receiving sufficient attention by the media, Dr Walther (Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute) and video journalist Klaus Bardenhagen have interviewed several experts on biodiversity over the past two years, in which they talk about the threat to and the value of biodiversity, as well as possible solutions to the biodiversity crisis.

The consequences of continuing business-as-usual could be devastating, with species extinctions and ecosystem collapses on a global scale. To avoid such calamities, we need a new kind of global governance which maintains biodiversity and ecosystems as a global commons cared for by all of humanity.

Dr. Bruno Walther
Research Fellow
Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute (TESRI)
1 Ming-Shen East Road, Jiji, Nantou 552, Taiwan, R.O.C.

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Daily Links:

• Intelligent people drink more. You always knew it.
• FT says China has blown up all it had gained in 12 years in just the last year.
• Taipei Times editorial notes problems of "peace" talks with Beijing.
• US to resume military sales to Beijing.
  

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Shorties for Saturday

The new science park in Taichung on the NW side of the city, some 400 hectares, is going to have a 3,000 hectare belt of low density mixed development around it. This is probably why land speculation in that area is rife.

Contrary to news reports in the pro-Green media, polls show that Taichung mayoral candidate Su Chia-chuan polls better in the city than in Taichung county. He is decisively behind Jason Hu.

Kaohsiung Mayor took a nap during the Fanapi flooding. Apparently the prosecutors office is looking into this. That's just the kind of ugly move that could make a martyr out of her....

Note that the new regulations on Chinese students in Taiwan do not make it against the law for Chinese students to work in Taiwan. Just against regulations. And you know how everyone closely adheres to regulations in Taiwan. Regulations say that students from Calormen China admitted to Archenland Taiwan can only be 1% of all students. And you know how everyone closely adheres to regulations in Taiwan. BTW you did notice that the 1% is only "in the initial stages", right?

Here is the letter of 200 CCP heavyweights who called for free speech. Note how they compare free speech in colonial Hong Kong to modern CCP's repression of same in an independent country. Interesting how in context of call for free speech in China there is no mention of Taiwan.....too hot button?
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Daily Links:

• Taiwan's harbors to be consolidated under state-run corporation
  
• Cooperation between economic zones in China and Taiwan.
• Latest Taiwan What's Up is out.
• Mark Blacknell in Taiwan
• Asahi Shimbun: Ma takes hit over wussy Liu Xiaobo response.
• Nation's tax policy favors rich under Ma.
• Sanmenxia Dam: a legacy.
  

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Walking in Old Taichung

What a great Saturday, the perfect day to go with the perfect weather. My partner in climb Drew is in the States so I squired his wife around the Dajia River today, a leisurely 70 kms of wetlands and rice fields. Then a friend called and invited me down to a tour of one of the oldest areas of Taichung city, the Jenping Village area, for food and what turned out to be a walking tour.

Taichung city. Plans to demolish all the old buildings in the area and put in luxury high-rises are already under review. Lots of money to be made, it is claimed, selling the new buildings as speculative investments to monied Chinese.

Light and shadow in a ditch.

Our tour guide says settlement in this area dates from 1710. There are still several buildings dating from the end of the 19th century in the area.

Adobe but not Photoshop.

This structure dates from the latter half of the 19th century. Unfortunately many of the oldest buildings were destroyed in the massive floods of Aug 17,1958, which made Morakot look like a kindergarten wading pool.

A view from inside. Our guide on the tour grew up in this building.

Puppet shows are common offerings to the gods; here everyone gets in on the fun.

This district is located off Yungchun Rd a block from the intersection of Liming Rd and Huanchung Rd.

Children of the Corn.

An ingenious water-assisted device for husking rice. The water flows into the holder at one end, raising the club at the fore.

Close quarters.

Farmers were having a busy Saturday.

We stopped at a little temple shoehorned into the rice fields.

Our guide shows the route in red. The area, with its small, pleasant roads and evocative old houses, has become a popular jogging, strolling, and light biking destination. Unfortunately the designations on the map are informal as the government has plans to destroy it to help millionaire developers get even more cash. Note also the inevitable political effect: when local histories are wiped off the map, local identities suffer.

Objects of worship.

Art?

Some of the owners really put money into making their homes look nice.

We stepped off the path to examine these deliberately cemented in stones. Can you guess what they were used for?

In many older houses the mud bricks are faced with a plaster of rice husks and mud.

An old brick wall, now exposed.

I want this house!

A pigeon cage, nearly as big as any local home, which may house hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable racing pigeons.

Giving a lecture.

I'll bet you eat this common vegetable frequently. Can you guess what it is? Or is your heart just too empty?

This very interesting old house had a symbol on the wall. Note how it is offset from center -- for good fengshui. The principle is that the yang side is bigger than the yin, I was informed.

Heading out the gate, which was deliberately made small for defense.

With dusk approaching beautiful clouds rolled in from the mountains to the east.

Taiwanese can think of endless uses for old doors.

This was the first two-story building in the area, a fact noted with pride on the sign there.

Irrigation facilities.

Would you like to grow up here?

Wrecked.

Resting at the local earth god temple.

Sure wish I knew enough about flowers to identify this one.

Fishing in the Jenping River. The fisherman were all trying to catch Tilapia (wu guo yu), a commonly farmed fish and now an escapee found in every creek and irrigation ditch in the land.

Local cyclists enjoy a road ride on their mountain bikes.

At sunset thousands of bats came out to feast on the clouds of gnats.

With darkness falling, it was back to the base for eating, drinking, and image comparing.
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Ultimate Nigerian Scam

I think this pic is the perfect complement to this post... A friend of mine was sent this important letter:

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Dear Prospective Partner,

I am writing to you on behalf of Mr. Chen Shui-bian. My name is Mr. David Wei and I am a top management executive here at the Bank of China, United Kingdom. Our bank website is www.boc.cn.

My friend Mr. Chen Shui-bian has presented a subtle offer which will need the help of a partner like you to complete successfully. Mr. Chen Shui-bian is in a difficult situation and he must immediately relocate certain sums of money out of the Bank of China in Beijing, China. More so, this must be done in such a way that it must not be tied to Mr. Chen. The sum is currently deposited in the name of an existing legal entity. Your role will be to:

[1]. Act as the original beneficiary of the funds.
[2]. Receive the funds into a business/private bank account.
[3]. Invest/Manage the funds outside of China.
[4]. Value of funds: $47 Million US Dollars.

Everything will be done legally to ensure the rights to the funds are transferred to you.

If you agree to partner with Mr. Chen, he will compensate you with 20% of the total sum. Should you prefer I re-contact you with more express facts, you can send me your:

[1] Official Full Names:
[2] Company or Personal profile:
[3] Daytime Telephone No:

For Mr. Chen Shui-bian's current profile visit this site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8250099.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8233342.stm

You can email me at .....

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Yesterday's Daily Links

• Canada's Harper wants closer ties with China.
• Gregory Clark, move over! You have competition.
• The commission on rivers in Taiwan has met once in the last two years.
• Rare earth ban also hits Taiwan businesses in China.
• Ben passes around blog sticker on taking shark fins.
  

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WSJ blog says Taiwan Bowing out of Senkaku Island "dispute"

From the Department of Huh? comes this strange blog post from WSJ, which says "When Japan and China revived their long-running spat over a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea last month, one player stayed conspicuously low-key: Taiwan":

This time, however, the response from Taiwanese authorities was restrained, leading many observers to wonder whether warming ties to China have to led to a new conciliatory tone on the subject between the mainland and the island it considers a breakaway province.

Although it’s unclear just how much improving relations with China have affected Taiwan’s stance, Taiwan’s response has been less forceful than in years past. After the dispute, President Ma Ying-jeou waited until Oct. 5 to issue a formal statement, while current Premier Wu Den-yih stressed not only Taiwan’s sovereignty over the islands and the safety of its fisherman, but also restraint to avoid inciting any controversy. On Sept. 24, John Chiang, vice chairman of the ruling Kuomintang party, claimed while attending a trade fair on the mainland that the Diaoyutais belonged to all Chinese people — to much fanfare there, and great scandal in Taiwan.

In the official statement released by the island’s president last week, the government stated its continued claim to the islands and clarified it has no quarrel with China over the islands, since by Taiwan’s constitution the two continue to be part of a united China, and that both Taiwan’s and China’s disputes are with Japan, not with each other. But it goes on to clearly set Taiwan off from China as separate entities that will not join together to oppose Japan.

Clearly an off-base post -- the response wasn't muted compared to the past -- it was exactly the same or arguably, increased. Taiwan isn't "bowing out". In this case the international media was more interested in Beijing's whining and growling and peeing on the floor over the arrested fishing boat captain -- when Beijing was similarly holding Vietnamese fishermen and boats in disputes in the South China Sea (!) -- hence the Taiwan response was lost in the media glare that focused on the Tokyo-Beijing ruckus.

What was the Taiwan response? Let's see.... in the 2009 incident Taiwan sent 5 Coast Guard vessels to confront an equal number of Japanese vessels when a Taiwanese fishing boat captain was arrested. Similarly, in 2008, when a Taiwanese fishing vessel "collided" with a Japanese fishing boat, the Coast Guard sent 5 ships to confront Japanese vessels. In this year's incident, however, there was escalation -- 12 vessels were sent. That's right -- how did the The China Post, the KMT's English-language cheerleader, describe the situation: "unprecedented"...

When Huang and Yin's “Kan En No.99” fishing boat was blocked by seven ships from Japan, which claims the islets as its exclusive economic zone, an unprecedented number of 12 CGA ships provided protection and shielded the protest boat from being attacked.

That exact word was also used by Premier Wu in describing Taiwan's response: unprecedented.

Wu yesterday said the government had taken an “unprecedented” hard-line stance to deal with the matter by dispatching 12 coast guard vessels to protect the fishing boat.

Wu said the government’s resolution to protect Taiwanese fishermen and the nation’s territory would remain unchanged, adding that the government will continue to take a “hard-line” stance on the issue.(Taipei Times)

As I said, I could not find a single piece in the international media that mentioned this provocation, as The Foreigner rightly identified it. I think the WSJ blog has seriously misread the situation. Taiwan is not 'bowing' out. Rather, the governing party declared solidarity with China in a situation that puts it at odds with Japan, not bowing out but re-aligning. This is, at best, a new kind of status quo, but putting Taiwan ships in harm's way for the ultimate benefit of Beijing sure looks a lot like escalation to me. Taiwan News said it the last time around, but it is still true....

We have difficulty in understanding why Ma is so eager to "set aside the sovereignty dispute" with a PRC regime that threatens Taiwan's existence but is unwilling to "set aside" a dispute over the Tiaoyutai islets with a friendly northern neighbor.

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Taiwan: so useful if it didn't exist it would have to be invented

A friend of mine sent me this tale in an email the other day. He is an American married to a Taiwanese and living in southern China....

....I would expect that China's history books have reamed Japan pretty well because of their nasty behavior in China in WW2, so public support of China policy (like they care about support) is going to be high. However, I am still reeling from a conversation with my two hip, 27 y.o. colleagues, who I hang with and who have had dinner with my wife and I.

The subject of Taiwan and Japan came up obliquely, I mentioned that Taiwan people have an affinity for Japanese culture that developed during their "benevolent occupation". Ding! Wrong fact to bring up. They jumped on top of me and robotically stated "Taiwan is a part of China and China was never occupied by Japan". Along with various statements about hating Japanese.

After collecting my senses, I asked how they could explain how my parents-in-law both speak Japanese if they were not educated by Japanese. They accused me of stating that their history books are wrong. Of course, I explained how every country's history books are wrong, that they are a tool for whoever is in power.

College educated (maybe that makes it worse), one has worked for 3 foreign companies and is a sparkling personality. That's why it is so disturbing, it means perhaps 99% of the people are misinformed about such a significant and recent fact of history. Hearing about propaganda and seeing the effect of it, are different things.

Jim Mann argued in The China Fantasy that the urban middle classes would ally with the State to enable them to maintain their position and assets and lifestyle against the masses below.

The State also connects to the educated urban middle classes in another way -- many of these hip, educated types are in service businesses that are dependent on the state flows of credit to local construction and land development -- real estate, law, accounting, engineering, consulting, interior design, architecture, and similar, or on foreign firms which are there on the sufferance of the State and buy and sell to and from its firms and projects. Westerners, especially Americans, have weird dramatized ideas that Leninist states like China or the KMT state on Taiwan succeed by a kind of coarse and obvious repression, but the reality is that they succeed by getting buy-in into the System from constituencies whose support they need. If you see past the surface, the KMT and CCP govern in the same manner: both Chinese Leninist parties co-opt their needed constituencies using flows of money and credit out of the central government to the construction-industrial state and those it feeds.

I suspect this is why so often you hear about educated urban middle-class professionals in China who are savvy analysts of Chinese government domestic politics and who are often properly and creatively skeptical about what they are fed about the domestic situation, but who immediately become mindless authoritarian blusterers if Tibet or Taiwan is mentioned. Such hollow nationalism represents a safe area in which hip urban types can display agreement with the State. While ignorance at the domestic level can be perilous for the assets of the rising middle class, bombastic nationalism is cost-free. Taiwan is thus all too useful.
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The Constitutional End Run around the People

"The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote."

Several months ago a commenter argued that the government could never get around the people and annex Taiwan to China -- even though just that event had occurred with ECFA. In fact it is unfolding before our eyes...

Weirdness in this Taipei Times story the other day. In it Ma trots out the same misreadings of history that pro-China types always do, but with the bonus of apparent confusion at the Taipei Times. Take these opening paragraphs:

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the Republic of China (ROC) has had sovereignty of Taiwan since 1943, when Japan “agreed” to give the ROC government claim to Taiwan proper and the Penghu Islands.

While some argue that the Cairo Declaration of 1943 was little more than a press release, Ma said, in his view, the communique signed by the three leaders — ROC president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), US president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill — in Cairo should be treated as a “treaty” in international law.

The Cairo Declaration isn't a treaty; it is merely a declaration of intent by the three Powers, which can change as time changes. But as I often note when people mention Cairo, neither the UK nor China nor the US owned Taiwan in 1943; Japan did. None of those powers had the right to give away what they didn't own, and certainly not without consulting the people of Taiwan.

The current status of Taiwan is determined by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, for which it was arranged that Japan would give up sovereignty over Taiwan. No recipient was named -- hence, the status of Taiwan is undetermined. That is the way the western powers wanted it, since things had changed in the intervening nine years.

The strange thing is the 1943 date for Japan "agreeing" to give away Taiwan. At first it was suggested to me this might be some kind of ROC Year error for the 1952 Treaty of Taipei (in which Japan does not give Taiwan to the ROC, never mind what the pro-China team says) but it looks like some kind of weird translator or editor error. UPDATE: I have heard from someone who knows that the TT screwed up, not Ma.

The Taipei Times excellently editorialized a few days ago on a habit of Ma's in public events and speeches -- using assertions of mutual Chineseness between the two countries on either side of the Strait to blur over differences....

During the portion of his Double Ten National Day address that focused on cross-strait relations, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) turned to ethnicity to play down the differences between the two countries.

“The people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are ethnic Chinese — descendants of the legendary emperors Yan and Huang,” Ma said.

While many would dispute this contention, emphasizing ethnicity and ancestry as a means to encourage reconciliation or, conversely, foster alienation misses the point completely. The reason is simple: The longstanding conflict across the Taiwan Strait has nothing to do with ethnicity and lies instead in the political, ideological and imaginary spheres.

A function of Chineseness is this discourse of expansion is to provide the rationale, half of which is spoken: we're all Chinese... The other half is assumed: ....so we must be in one country. As the article notes, the real problem isn't ethnicity but the differing political and historical experiences of the two sides. Ma deploys "Chineseness" as an antidote to the evolution of a democratic identity based on historical and political experience. Again, this is yet another version of the struggle between the KMT's vision of Taiwan as an ethnic Han state in which citizenship is based on "race" vs the DPP's vision of Taiwan as a multicultural nation in which citizenship is defined democratically.

Ma continuously plucks at three strings of the annexation lyre. One is that Taiwan belongs to the ROC via the Cairo Declaration. The second is the unity in "being Chinese". The third is the ROC Constitution. Ma invokes the Constitution because in his discourse it says that Taiwan is part of China, which means there is no need to hold referendum on the subject of Taiwan's status (remember ECFA -- no need to hold a referendum -- same program, different objective).

Of course, the reader might well ask hasn't Ma promised that Taiwan's future will be decided by its 23 million people? There are several fixes for that. One is to follow the ECFA model and simply have the rubber stamp legislature provide some kind of popular cover. Another would be to treat the issue as already decided -- didn't the public implicitly approve the Constitution when they voted for the President of the ROC? I suspect Ma is leaning toward some version of the latter.

Note also that Ma has changed the Status Quo in the Taiwan Strait by moving toward China and rejecting the relationship between Taiwan and China that evolved under the Lee and Chen Administrations. Needless to say, no one will complain about this change in the Status Quo; no one has even mentioned the Status Quo since Ma Ying-jeou came to power in 2008 (bet ya hadn't noticed that it has more or less disappeared from the discourse...). The Status Quo in its dying stages became merely a rhetorical shackles to handcuff Taiwan's growing democratic and independent identity. I'm curious to see whether a DPP President in 2012 will resurrect the Status Quo zombie-like from its grave....
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Daily Links

• This author makes the same point I often do in China vs US in the pipeline 'stans: all we've done in Central Asia is bankrupt the US while making the area safe for Chinese expansion. How they must laugh themselves to sleep each night in Beijing at the thought of US stupidity.
• Glimpsing Taipei/Taiwan's future -- Hong Kong housing prices and Chinese immigrants.
• Apple Daily Poll showing the KMT's Chu solidifying over the DPP's Tsai.
  

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