KMT wealth management

The incomes of the two major parties in Taiwan were revealed yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) made NT$3.5 billion (US$121.5 million) last year, primarily on business investments, far outpacing the amount made by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), information from the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) showed.

Stock dividends accounted for almost NT$2.9 billion last year and made up more than four-fifths of the KMT’s total earnings, raising concerns about the extent to which the party depends on earnings from its assets and not donations.

The figures, published on Thursday by the ministry, reveal that political contributions to the KMT amounted to NT$240 million, or 6.9 percent of its earnings. It also earned NT$251 million in vote subsidies and an income of NT$76 million from party dues.

The DPP, meanwhile, received NT$192 million in political contributions and a total income of NT$626 million.

The article points out that the bulk of the investment income comes from two party-owned investment companies. President Ma, currently Chairman of the KMT pledged years ago to get rid of the party assets, which the KMT claims have been placed in trust. These assets were accumulated during the martial law era when the KMT ran the KMT party-state. The party should have been stripped of them years ago.

If the KMT made $2.9 billion from stock dividends, then, given a 5% return on investments, the KMT must have something like $60 billion NT, or $2 billion US, in investment assets.

One wonders which companies are the target of those investments. As a friend of mine pointed out to me yesterday, the people and party running the current cross-strait economic interaction -- which largely benefits big business -- are also the people and party running the KMT. But there's no conflict of interest there, of course. The assets are in trust. In fact the KMT even forgot they had them.... damn the DPP for reminding them during every election....
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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! Delenda est, baby.

Sanity Break

Sanity break: my friend Russ McClay posted this to Facebook, saying:‎ "1400 or so photos I shot off my balcony this afternoon. Strung them together like a string of beads to make this 24fps clip. Funny how the clouds are very active but they don't really go anywhere....One photo every 5 seconds. 1 hour = 720 images. 720 frames @ 24fps = 30 seconds. The video is about 1 minute...so about 2 hours."
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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! Delenda est, baby.

An Old Whine In New Bottles: Ma to "fight corruption" with new Agency

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy. -- Peter Ustinov

Big news this week as President Ma has created a new anti-corruption commission. Here's the news:

Revisions to the Court Organic Act that were passed earlier this year will see Taiwan emulating Japan and South Korea by setting up a new special investigation unit under the Taiwan High Prosecutor's Office. Prosecutors with a high level of integrity and strong investigative skills will be assigned to this unit and will exclusively pursue investigations of major corruption and economic crimes that involve legislators, government ministers, high-level military officials, the heads of the five yuan (major branches of the central government), and the president and vice president. In preparation for the establishment of this unit, Counselor Shen traveled to South Korea at the end of October to gain experience by observing how prosecutors there conduct anti-corruption activities.

WHOOPS! Oh wait! SORRY! That was 2006 (here). Let's try again from the Taipei Times.....

“After the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel [SIP] revealed a serious scandal involving several Taiwan High Court judges, I decided to establish the nation’s first anti-corruption agency,” Ma told the ceremony.

The purpose of the AAC is to prevent corruption, because prevention should precede crackdowns, he said, adding that its creation should deter public servants from engaging in corrupt activities.

“As the agency investigates corruption cases, one precondition is that it must collect sufficient evidence [of corruption] before it makes an indictment [of a public servant],” Ma said, adding that this should increase the conviction rate.

A great idea, having sufficient evidence of corruption before indicting someone. Is Ma saying things were different when he was the Minister of Justice?

What he appears to mean, though, is that the SIP simply lost too many cases against DPP politicians....

Yes, it's looking like the rewind button, as the DPP noted after the commission was announced:

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday said it feared the new agency could represent a “second wind for the SIP, which has become a tool for the current administration to carry out political oppression.”

It's not difficult to see what is going on. The Special Investigations Panel (SIP) has basically gone dead in the water. It is now being sued by 26 civic groups for its handling of the Chen Shui-bian case:

A group made up of 26 civic organizations yesterday sued the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP), accusing it of forging documents, subornation of perjury and abuse of judicial power.

Led by Taiwanese National Party (TNP) Chairman Huang Hua (黃華), the groups filed the lawsuit with the Taipei District Court against the SIP, which they said cut a deal with former -Chinatrust -Financial Holding Co (中信金控) vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) to testify against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in an attempt to imprison him.

Koo, who was involved in a scandal over Chinatrust’s bid for rival Mega Financial Holdings Co (兆豐金控) — known as the Red Fire Case (紅火案), after the name of the offshore company used to conduct the illegal transaction — returned to Taiwan in 2008 after evading an arrest warrant and hiding in Japan for two years.

The banker testified at the time that he had donated about NT$300 million (US$10.4 million) of his illegal profits to Chen, currently serving a 17-and-a-half-year term for corruption and money laundering, as a kickback.

Koo’s lawyers told the Taiwan High Court in May that Koo did not remit the money to Chen, adding that he testified out of fear of being detained upon his return to Taiwan.

I blogged on that testimony a little while back (a good post, if I do say so myself). The prosecutions against the DPPers mostly ran aground -- Yunlin County Chief Su Chih-fen was found innocent, the embezzlement charges against Chen Shui-bian were laughed out of court, and now the Koo family has testified that their testimony in the conviction of Chen for taking bribes from them was extorted by the prosecutors. The Special Investigation Panel was also behind the laughable investigation into Su Tseng-chang for allegedly running off with 36,000 documents from the government files.

In other words, the SIP has basically become a worn out tool that couldn't get the job done, so it looks like the KMT is now going to add another unit to go after "corruption" in the government which of course was the task of the SIP.

The Taipei Times ripped this move this week, arguing that: "In all likelihood, the AAC will become the AADPPC, or the Agency Against DPP Corruption, especially in the lead-up to January’s presidential election." More tellingly, they identified the Administration's real attitude on "corruption":

Just how determined is the Ma government to stamp out corruption? Recent moves regarding the rampant and ongoing practice of vote buying are telling. From December 2008 to May last year, 26 local officials belonging to the KMT were indicted around the nation for vote buying. How did the government reward Hsin Tai-chao (邢泰釗), the chief prosecutor at the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, who is credited with being Taiwan’s leading prosecutor against the practice of vote buying? He was transferred to Kinmen Island. That shows real determination.

Today the DPP complained that Ma had appointed two biased individuals to head up the new AAC, confirming the worst fears of the pro-Taiwan opposition. In some one-party states I know, slander is the tool. In Taiwan, it is looking like accusations of corruption are the charge de jour.

However, the new AAC will have to move fast if it is going to affect the elections -- they are just six months away....

This is a twofold pattern -- first the typical pattern of authoritarian inefficiency, in which overlapping bodies are created to carry out identical tasks, partly because of Authority's dissatisfaction with the original and partly to keep everyone divided and competing against each other for the approval of Authority. Instead of reforming and strengthening the SIP, which is what should be done....

The other pattern is the formation of bodies to carry out tasks of political control when the original ones fail to please their masters. A good example of this pattern is the creation of the National Communications Commission (NCC) in 2006. The tasks it was charged with were already being carried out by the telecoms bureau and the Government Information Office (GIO). However, that was during the Chen Administration and those organizations were not sufficiently servile towards the KMT even though, even under the Chen Administration, the rank and file were predominantly pro-Blue bureaucrats. Hence the KMT-controlled legislature went ahead and created the NCC under its control to shape the media's presentation of politics....(from this old post):

The irony of the move against the NCC is that the NCC was created under the Chen Administration in 2006 by the KMT controlled legislature to bring mass media under the control of the government. The Executive Branch, then controlled by the DPP, argued that it should have the authority to appoint NCC commission members, but the legislature clearly intended that it would have the last word on who the commission members were. Since the legislature was controlled by the KMT and its allies, the intent of the law was obvious: it was a legislative end-run around the DPP controlled executive branch intended to restore KMT control over the media and chill pro-Taiwan speech by centralizing control of the media oversight in KMT hands.

As a commentator in the Taipei Times observed, even the utterly pro-KMT NCC was still too independent. And now the SIP, a recent invention, is being marginalized by a new body. How long before that one is tossed by the way side?

ADDED: A friend reminds me that "Mr Clean", Chen Ding-nan, who was Chen Shui-bian's first minister of justice, pushed for the establishment of an independent anti-corruption commission along the lines of Hong Kong`s ICAC almost as soon as he got into office. This proposal (raised in various forms by various DPP premiers) was of course totally boycotted by the KMT.
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Daily Links:

• A very theoretical look at the South China Sea vs Senkakus. Meanwhile recent agreement between the claimants in the South China Sea is incomplete. Not that it matters because Beijing will promptly violate it.
• Nat Bellocchhi's excellent piece on the Lee Teng-hui indictment
• Far Eastern Sweet Potato looks at the relative decline of Taiwan's Navy
• David goes to the DPP rally on Thursday and comes back with good pics.

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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! Delenda est, baby.

CONFERENCE: Small Islands, Big Issues: Ireland and Taiwan in Comparative Perspective

Just as long as they don't compare the beers.....

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Title: Small Islands, Big Issues: Ireland and Taiwan in Comparative Perspective
Location: University College Dublin
Dates: 1-4 September 2011

Principal organizers: Dr Brian Jackson (UCD John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies), Rev John Scott (LSE Taiwan Research Programme) and Dr Fang-Long Shih (LSE Taiwan Research Programme)

Full details, including speakers and abstracts, can be found on the conference website. Booking details for attendees will be available from next week:

http://www.irelandtaiwanproject.net/

This is the first ever conference on Ireland and Taiwan, and it will break new ground in mutual understanding between the two locations. Both are small islands adjacent to powerful neighbours with which they have had complex histories. In both locations we can see histories, politics, and cultures marked by contested subjectivities and identities, as well as struggles over democracy and human rights. A focus on the human situation in both places invites the application of discursive categories such as colonialism and post-colonialism; globalization and localization; and nationalism and hybridity. It also invites explorations of the goals, problems, and limits of sovereignty and independence in the context of sub-ethnic and religious divisions, as well as of the complex relations with a nearby metropolitan "other" and of diaspora experiences in the era of post-national globalization. At the same time both contexts resist the straightforward appropriation of such categories and demand their sophisticated reworking. This is the rationale for the conference.


There are 11 panels planned, and around 32 scholars are planning to participate (currently 9 from the UK mainland, 10 from Taiwan, 8 from Ireland, 2 from the USA, 1 from China, 1 from Hong Kong, and 1 from Northern Ireland). A number of particularly distinguished scholars will be involved.


We hope to see you there.


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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! Delenda est, baby.

Polli Sigh for the KMT

Dasi, an old trading post on the Dahan River, retains an old Taiwan feel. There are many stores with long histories in the town.

Global Views Survey Research Center with a couple of things out this week that make Ma look less than impressive. First, the satisfaction survey. Ma's approval rating is down to 32%; the negative evaluation stands at 55%. My own theory is that there is a sort of baseline approval for Presidents here that hovers around 30% to which the polls return unless something major is going on.

The legislature also has low evaluations but the public will return them all anyway. I'd love to see those figures for Ma broken out by voter type (KMT voter, DPP voter, independent).

The same center's poll has Ma and Tsai neck and neck at 37.3 vs 37.2, respectively, for 2012. Lots of undecideds. The Taipei Times has an article on it today:

A total of 73.8 percent said they had no knowledge of Tsai’s cross-strait policies, while 52.5 percent agreed that the DPP should adopt a more open policy toward cross-strait affairs.

The poll was conducted with a sample base of 1,229 voters, with a margin of error of 2.8 percent and a confidence level of 95 percent.

Ma’s campaign office spokesperson Lee Chia-fei (李佳霏) said the Ma camp would take all poll results into reference, adding that the administration would continue to focus on giving the public a solid performance.

DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said the recent indictment of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) could have also contributed to the results of the poll, adding that there was growing public recognition of a political witch hunt against Lee Teng-hui.

Chen added that he believed Tsai’s election prospects would continue to rise, as support for the KMT in central and southern Taiwan weakens.

Speaking on the party’s internal surveys, DPP poll director Chen Chun-lin (陳俊麟) said: “We have also noticed a similar trend in Ma’s support ratings, which are especially pronounced in Taiwan’s central and southern farming districts.”

The question about Ma's views on the future of Taiwan drew some interesting answers -- 5.3% thought he supported independence, while only 33.6% thought he supported annexation. Weird.

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Daily Links

• Amendment of Sense of Congress on F-16 and sub sales. Very supportive.
• Think six Japanese tourists would not want to pay for two taxis?

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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! Delenda est, baby.

DPP Nuclear Power Policy Paper

Spent this week in Dasi. The town still has many buildings from the 1920s and 30s lying around; here is the facade from one. The stylized lions are really great.

Here is a short policy paper the DPP sent around outlining their Nuke-free Homeland Policy. Hope they realize the coal and oil plants will also all have to go over the next decade or so as well.

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2025 Nuclear Free Homeland Initiative

Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan

Policy Paper 2011

What is the "2025 Nuclear-Free Homeland Initiative"?
The "2025 Nuclear-Free Homeland Initiative" aims to decommission the First, Second and Third Nuclear Power Plant in Taiwan and to prevent the commercial operation of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Taiwan will be able to reach its goal of obviating the need for nuclear energy by using other alternative energy sources, improving the power generation efficiency, energy conservation, industrial restructuring, and the liberalization of the electricity industry.

Why 2025?
It’s difficult to give up nuclear energy immediately since it requires the consensus of the whole society. 2025 is the deadline for decommissioning the Third Nuclear Power Plant, but Taiwan has to strive to change the power structure so as to stop using nuclear power by 2025.

How could Taiwan replace nuclear power?
(A) Increase the proportion of renewable energy: the DPP’s initiative calls for increasing renewable energy by about 6.5% of total electricity generation by 2025.
(B) Improve the efficiency of thermal power: In addition to increasing power generation efficiency, invest in thermal power plants in order to reduce the amount of carbon emissions.
(C) Construction of natural gas power plants as priority because natural gas is a cleaner energy, and future power plants should give priority to using natural gas.

What are other methods to reduce power consumption in the long-term?
(A) Energy Conservation: the Government can encourage people to use energy-saving products.
(B) Adjust industrial structure: instead of just focusing on economic growth, we should encourage green policies among energy-intensive industries.
(C) Liberalization of the electricity industry: the government should liberalize the electricity market, which not only alters the issue of Tai-Power’s monopoly, but it also encourages the development of the renewable energy industry

Why should Taiwan completely give up using nuclear power?
Of all the world's 564 nuclear power plants in operation, six of them have experienced accidents, and the probability of more accidents is approximately more than 1%. Japan and Taiwan are both in earthquake-prone areas. For this reason, what happened in Fukushima may also occur in Taiwan. If a severe damage happens in one of the three nuclear power plants near Taipei, tens of millions of people will have to be evacuated, which is a plan that cannot be implemented. Also, it may result in the paralysis of state capital. The cost of shutting down the government and rebuilding the damaged area and the risk of trade and economic loss is too high a price to pay for Taiwan.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Short Links For Wed

Way to busy to write a blog post today. So some links for your perusal:

FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY: What is with Brookings lately? Another strange piece, this one from an NCCU person on cross-strait relations. A few observations in it are dead on, but..... My favorite sentence is the reference to the "present euphoria" with regard to cross-strait relations.

WHOA: Senators Webb and McCain warn China on the South China Sea. Webb recently said that the US will soon face "a Munich moment."

D'OH 1: Taiwan falling behind China in cross-strait military balance.

D'OH 2: Beijing Kitty Hawks (here) Canadian politician attempting to suck up to CCP by J Michael Cole.

TRES INTERESTING: How Japan is leveraging Taiwan expertise and firms to enter China market. The Diplomat explains why China wants the whole South China Sea. The superb James Holmes on Sen. Webb's Munich Moment remark.
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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! Delenda est, baby.

Soong of Ice and Fire

There are no men like me. There's only me.

Like Lazarus beckoned from his tomb, People First Party (PFP) Chairman and former KMT heavyweight James Soong has risen from the political dead. Despite being defeated for president in 2000, for Veep in 2004, and buried in 2006 for Taipei mayor,  merely by combining the words "President" and "me" in the same sentence, Soong has performed Cardio-Presidential Resuscitation on himself.

First came the untrammeled joy in the pro-Taiwan camp. The Taipei Times reported with barely restrained glee on the will-o-wisp of Soong running as an independent presidential candidate.

Concerns mounted yesterday about an emerging rift in the pan-blue camp amid speculation that People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) could run for election in January.

Facing a tough battle next year, some members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) fear Soong’s entry on a separate ballot would take votes away from the party’s legislative candidates.

Soong, who came within 320,000 votes of winning the presidency in 2000, has refused to say whether he would run next year as a district or at-large legislator, but PFP officials have confirmed that the idea is being considered.

Soong's party, the PFP, has been making noises about running its own slate of legislative candidates against the KMT in heavily pro-KMT districts. This might actually hurt the KMT, maybe even more so than a Soong run for the Presidency -- he's nearly 70, got clobbered in the last election he ran in, and his party is an afterthought to the KMT among the pan-Blues. Can't even say "the pro-China side", as the PFP appears to follow the Han Solo Creed: Look, I ain't in this for your revolution, and I'm not in it for you, Princess.... In the city council election last year, of 314 city council seats at play in the five major municipalities, the PFP won a whopping.....four. That is not the sign of a surging political banner....

That canny politician former President Lee Teng-hui even fanned the flames of the Soong Revival, saying that Soong was qualified to pursue a higher position in politics than legislator. Soong has been playing coy, saying he is considering running for President....or maybe just legislator in Hualien. Hualien has been sturdily pan-Blue since the Deluge; the current County Chief, Fu Kun-chi, is an ardent pan-Blue even though he is technically independent since for some corruption thing he had to leave the KMT and run against the KMT candidate in the last election [yawn]. Fu also came out this week in support of a Soong run for local legislator, saying he did not want to see a split in the pan-Blue side.

Soong is obviously seeking some kind of leverage for something he wants -- a run in Hualien would be a guaranteed pan-Blue seat, so Soong would get elected if there was no competition from the KMT. Yet it is difficult to see him actually getting that seat for promising not to do something -- once he publicly announced he wasn't running for president, his leverage would disappear, and the KMT might still play hardball and run a candidate against him in Hualien, removing him forever from political circulation if Soong is defeated.

Nor would his PFP candidates pack their tents if he ordered; they need those legislator positions to feed and water their patronage networks. If Soong wants to keep the PFP viable, this election has to be taken seriously by the PFP; the KMT has nearly iced the party, reclaiming its politicians or cannibalizing its seats.

Ma and Soong are often said to detest each other and it is easy to fantasize about him running just to spite Ma -- yes, that's right, spending millions of dollars and gallivanting around Taiwan for six months just to be a thorn in Ma's side. Sorry. Can't see that.

Nope, if Soong doesn't get something important out this and then doesn't run for President, no one will ever take the talk of a Soong presidential run seriously again. This. is. it.

Hard to say at the moment, but I am going to go out on a limb here and argue that Soong is trying to gain leverage to keep the PFP alive in the legislative elections. Simply by combining "president" and "me" in the same sentence Soong has riveted the attention of both the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps (thankfully diverting everyone from the unseemly sight of two DPP politicians at each other's throats over allegations of sexual misbehavior). He has also gotten plenty of free PR from Taiwan's Golden Retriever media, always eager for a new story. Smart move by a politician whose name is often paired with the word "canny".....
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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! Delenda est, baby.

Daily Links, July 18, 2011

What's being harvested on the blogs out there?

BLOGS:

• Ben Goren contacts the WTO and finds that Taiwan has still not submitted an English version of ECFA.
• Koxinga's wife Lady Tung, pt 2.
• YFFM on Princess Syndrome among the femmes in Taiwan. I think it is meant satirically. Also Floyf looks at Taiwanese men vs Western men.
• Drew on our ride on Sunday in Miaoli. The weather was amazing.
• LiefinTaiwan with another collection of excellent photos, this time from Wutai.
• "The most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen"
• Steven Crook on Sandimen
• The Writing Baron goes to a soil and water conservation park
• A Hungry Girl's restaurant roundup
• Chinese media aren't going to educate their people about Taiwan

MEDIA:

• June Teufel Dreyer's testimony at the recent hearing on Why Taiwan Matters
• Dutch firm to redevelop derelict port district in K-town.
• A nimble Taiwan can counter the assassin's mace of Chinese missiles.
• Academic with some good observations on the independent travelers from China, including the comment that Chinese tour firms owe Taiwanese $173 million. If Taiwan makes a billion gross from China annually in tourism, at a 5% return that's basically the industry profit since Ma boosted the tourism numbers.
• AmCham also reviews travel guides for Taiwan
• China offers a few scraps on South China Sea, so long as you do what it wants. Sound familiar?
• Deception by the boatload: As Brahma Chellaney reminds, the Chinese promised that carrier wouldn't become a warship when they bought it. Stop believing China.
• Taiwan tries to slow the disgusting practice of shark finning
• Is ECFA working? from The Economist
• WantChinaTimes on the freeing of an alleged rapist on bail -- who promptly fled. Who could have predicted that?
• Taiwan wins world under-12 baseball championship
• Inflated abortion figures used to argue that women's bodies should be more strictly policed, lest they make their own decisions. As the better China Post coverage notes, the issue is the economy and costs of child-rearing, not that the laws permit women take charge of their own bodies.
• DPPers accuse each other of consensual sex. If only people were concerned about public policy, and not desperately worrying about what other people are doing in private with their bodies, what a different and better world we'd live in.
• CIER predicts Taiwan's annual growth at 5.02%. That's .02, not .01 or .021. CEPD also expects 5% growth this year.
• US heat wave shows no signs of abating. If only there were some theory with 150 years of scientific research behind it, supported by virtually all climate scientists, and all the world's major scientific organizations, that could help us explain the unusual weather.....

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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! Delenda est, baby.

Book Review: Bradt Travel Guide, Taiwan

Taiwan
Bradt Travel Guide
by Steven Crook
344 pages
www.bradtguides.com

Steven sent me this book for review a few months ago, and I set it aside to use on my trip to Pingtung in March and April so that I could test it under genuine travel conditions. I am happy to report that it passed beautifully: it's useful, informative, beautiful, and comprehensive, an excellent companion for anywhere in Taiwan.

The book is well organized. It is divided into two major sections, one an overall guide to Taiwan's history, culture, food, religion, and similar. This section also provides basic travel information, and suggests itineraries and budgets. The discussion of Taiwan's history and culture is well-balanced and properly nuanced; the information provided in the travel section is comprehensive and useful. It is aimed at travelers in the brackets above the budget travel that the Lonely Planet guides are focused on. Thus, it seldom lists the myriad el cheapo flophouses available all over the island, but instead lists places to stay that have some unique feature to recommend them, such as a good view or interesting architecture. For example, in Kenting it lists the Chateau Beach Resort, Mykonos, Bossa Nova, and Moon Shy Boutique Lodge, among others.

The sections devoted to individual towns and regions do a good job of including anything an outsider might reasonably want to visit, mostly major tourist spots. For example, for Keelung it points visitors to the Miakow Night Market, the Qingan and Dianji Temples, the French cemetary, and Heping Island. Around Keelung it sends you to Jinguashi, the Gold Ecological Park, and Jiufen. It also gives a good rundown on Keelung's history, including its mini-civil war in the 19th century between rival immigrant groups and its long interaction with outsiders that make Keelung such an interesting place to hang out, hike, and photograph.

Similarly, the section on Tainan not only offers a rich view of history, but concise and informative descriptions of its many historical sites, divided by period: Han settlement, Koxinga, and Japanese. The guide gives information in English and pinyin (with tone marks which I have omitted) so the non-Chinese reader can at least take a stab at the placenames. A typical entry:

Wind God Temple (Fengshen Miao) (8 Lane, 143 Minquan Rd, Sec 3, 0700-2100 daily) This is the only temple devoted to the wind god in Taiwan, which is perhaps surprising given the frequency of typhoons. The Wind God is believed to have influence over all the give elements: earth, fire, metal, water and wood. Smaller icons depict the Thunder God, who holds a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other, and his wife the Lightning Mother, who carries a pair of circular mirrors. At the time of the temple's founding in 1739, the ocean was a stone's throw away (the walking maps posted on street corners show the old waterfront) and the Government Reception Archway (Jie Guanting) was where VIPs arriving from the mainland would disembark. Take a close look at this stone archway and you'll find carvings of dragons, lions, and sages.

Although all aspects of this book are outstanding, including its luscious color photography sections stuffed with gorgeous color imagery of Taiwan, but as a Taiwan history buff, I most enjoyed its rich and detailed presentation of local history. I highly recommend this useful and informative text; both first-time travelers and long-time expats will find this a rewarding addition to their library on Taiwan.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

China's soft power hard at work

A brilliant day in Miaoli today. Even the butterflies wanted to be photographed.

I've blogged on those disgusting intelligence and propaganda organs of the Chinese, the Confucius Institutes, several times before (most recently and in-depth). From Australia comes heartening news this week:

A petition with more than 4000 signatures tabled in the upper house of the NSW Parliament calls for the government to remove the Confucius Classroom Program from the schools where it operates: Chatswood Public, Fort Street High, Mosman High, Kensington Public, St Marys Senior High, Kingsgrove North High School and Coffs Harbour High.

The government has confirmed that controversial topics, including the Tiananmen Square massacre and China's human rights record, will not be discussed in the program, raising questions about China's influence over content.

The article also notes how little spending was necessary for China to reap propaganda and intelligence gains:

China pays NSW schools more than $200,000 to promote its language and culture through the Confucius Institute, based at the Education Department's Ryde office.

There's not much more you can say about this.
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Daily Links:

• Taiwan makes it to the big time: Andrew Sullivan takes notice of Taiwan's funeral strippers.
• Taiwan Church News on the Lee Teng-hui indictment.
• Scaffolding collapse in Taichung injures 12. David on Formosa was downtown and grabbed several good photos. Start here.
• Farmers rally against land seizures. Expropriations and the Farmer's lot
• Taiwan defeats Cuba in baseball.

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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! Delenda est, baby.

Huffpost Completely Misrepresents Taiwan's Status and History

Huffington Post totally misrepresents Taiwan's status and history in a slide show of nations not recognized. Taiwan's status is tricky, but it is possible to get it right with a little research. Clearly that was too great a hurdle.
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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! Delenda est, baby.

Lin Cho-shui analyzes LTH indictment

Lin Cho-shui, former DPP politician and current political commentator, sets out some of the problems with the Lee Teng-hui indictment:

All the evidence presented in Lee’s indictment is identical to that set out in the charges against former National Security Bureau (NSB) chief accountant Hsu Ping-chiang (徐炳強). Hsu was found not guilty, so there is no good reason to indict Lee on the same grounds.

Based on the principle of double jeopardy, the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) states that a case in which a final judgement has been reached can only be retried if it meets certain conditions, such as the original evidence or testimony was false, new evidence has been discovered or the prosecutors, investigators or judges in the original case acted unlawfully or negligently. If these conditions are not met, the case cannot be brought to trial again.

This regulation exists to prevent malicious prosecutors from heaping endless litigation on a person. The principle of double jeopardy also preserves the order and stability of the legal system by ensuring that the courts do not get bogged down with frivolous cases.

The case against Lee is based on the same grounds as Hsu’s indictment. The evidence is the same and the conduct of the original prosecution and trial has not been found to have been in any way unlawful, so the case does not meet any of the conditions required for a retrial.

This is a long, ringing defense of Lee and a scathing denunciation of the prosecution and should be read in its entirety.  It has a problem that the Taipei Times editors should have spotted and removed:

It was correct to indict former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for instances of blatant corruption. It is true that the president’s state affairs fund is much larger than a mayor’s special allowance fund and that Chen and his family employed all sorts of means to misappropriate government money.

Chen Shui-bian was found innocent of misappropriating government funds -- the prosecutors lost the trial and then two appeals on the charge of embezzling the state affairs fund. It would be nice if Lin's antipathy to Chen was smacked down by the editors before it lands the Taipei Times in legal trouble.

ADDED: Maddog comments insightfully below:

Shorter Lin Cho-shui (林濁水): "Despite their history of 'crying wolf' with charges against DPP officials, Itotally believe all of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) charges against Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)."

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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! Delenda est, baby.

F-16s? Now's the time

This earth god shrine is on the Floo Network. Poor fellow got splinched....

In The Diplomat Matt Anderson of CSIS argues for the sale of F-16s to Taiwan:

The first difference is that the F-16 production line could be permanently shut down if no new orders are received by the end of this year. On the surface, it appears that this will prompt the typical reaction by the military industrial complex to push arms sales in order to boost revenues and save jobs. But this time things are different. After the F-16 production line closes, there will be no other similar US fighter jets to sell to Taiwan. And other foreign militaries are probably less likely to anger China with sales of their own planes. After the F-16, the only options that could address the problem would be even more capable planes, like the F-35. If Beijing strongly disapproves of the sale of F-16s to its renegade province, the sale of more advanced aircraft would likely evoke exponentially stronger protests from China.

Another difference is how the debate is coinciding with US electoral cycles. Arms sales to Taiwan have been a part of US presidential politics before. However, awareness of and potential resentment toward China has rarely been so heightened. China’s rise has increasingly taken the lead in US geopolitical calculations of both policymakers and average voters. The last mid-term election saw a trend toward anti-China pandering on the economic front, and, since that time, China’s image has plunged in the eyes of many Americans because of its perceived belligerence. The underdog story of Taiwan, with its liberal, democratic society, could become prominent in the foreign policy debates of the next presidential election if the arms sale debate is still simmering.

A final difference in the current situation is that Beijing and Washington have a rare convergence of interests in the next Taiwanese election. Both sides would prefer to see Ma Ying-jeou re-elected. But to secure victory, Ma will likely have to prove to Taiwanese voters that he isn’t selling out their hard-fought de facto sovereignty with his pro-mainland policies. Ma could help his re-election chances if he could show to the Taiwanese electorate that he’s still prepared to defend the island from any unilateral move toward reunification by the PLA. US arms sales could be a clear signal that Ma is steadfast in his intent to adequately provide for the defence of Taiwan. In the event he fails to secure what is perceived to be a needed arms sale, then more provocative actions or statements may be required to co-opt the Kuomintang’s pro-independence rivals and move Ma closer to the middle.

Aside from the pro-forma hacks on the pro-democracy crowd, which is Provocative^®:, Anderson advances the argument that it would actually be better for stability to sell F-16s now than have to sell more advanced fighters later. The idea that Ma is going to become "provocative" if he doesn't get F-16s is laughable -- he need merely make noise in their favor, as he is doing now. But he really doesn't want the aircraft, and the Obama Administration really doesn't want to give them.

Further down he notes that the US public is less happy about China than it used to be, and US corporations, China's main constituency in the US, are also less enthused about China's mercilessly mercantile business environment. This means that the moment to sell F-16s has arrived.

This week Taiwan spokesman Philip Yang was in Washington to ask for the fighters. Yang's public calls for the sale should be read against Peter Lee's piece in the Asia Times which reveals much information about the little game Washington and Taipei are playing. Lee says:

The issue has become a Catch-22 for Taiwan, in which TECRO cannot submit an [Letter of Request] to AIT because [AIT] is under State Department orders to deny it, and then TECRO is told by the State Department that the LoR cannot be processed because it was not received, he said.

This is why we won't get those fighters despite an array of impressive arguments for the sale. But since we can't get the fighters, we should build more missiles, says this analyst in Foreign Policy.

Man, I was saying that in letters to the old Taiwan News 15 years ago. Good to see the rest of the world catching up.
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Daily Links:

• UDN Poll has Ma up 43-37 on Tsai
• Poagao's one hour vid of his trip to Xiamen
• CSIS: China's new wave of aggressiveness in the South China Sea
• China's increasing penetration of N Korea.

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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! Delenda est, baby.

Taiwan Market Share in China Dropping: ECFA effect?

Former Presidential advisor Huang Tien-lin argued in the Taipei Times the other day that ECFA has led to a drop in Taiwan's share of the China market because Taiwanese businesses are undertaking a new wave of movement to China in the wake of the liberalization of trade:

South Korea’s market share in China rose from 9.6 percent in 2001 to 9.9 percent last year. It is not a significant change, but the small rise shows that South Korea’s market share has approximated the growth in its trade with China during the past decade. On the other hand, Taiwan’s market share fell from 11.2 percent in 2001 to 10.6 percent in 2007 and 8.6 percent last year. The main drop occurred after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power and embarked on improving relations with China. The largest drop occurred after the ECFA took effect, from 8.6 percent last year to 7.5 percent in the first five months of this year.

So why is this happening?

The answer is simple: It is happening because Taiwan signed the ECFA. After liberalizing trade, the manufacture of products for the Chinese market has been moved to China, meaning that those goods are no longer imported from Taiwan. This trend has been accelerated by the recent ECFA-related relaxation of restrictions on Taiwan’s core high-tech industries.

If the ECFA, a framework supposed to connect Taiwan with China, is carried out in its entirety, a “center-periphery effect” — the attraction of a smaller market to a much larger market — will occur and production of semi-finished products and other Taiwanese products will move to the “center” — China — and Taiwanese businesses will grow roots there. Taiwanese exports to China would stagnate, before beginning to decrease. This implies that the items on the ECFA early-harvest list would be the only ones to have benefited from the agreement, while the harm caused by the ECFA on the overall economy would greatly outweigh the benefits.

Huang closes by noting, correctly, that the tourism surge from China is simply a way of making locals too besotted with money flows to notice their industries are slipping away and their living standards are falling.

If Huang's assertion is correct, what we should see is a dramatic rise in Taiwanese investment in China.  AFP reported in Dec 2010:

TAIWANESE companies have invested US$13.3 billion (S$17 billion) in China this year, up 119.8 per cent from the previous year, a report said on Friday.

However, remember that China's demand for imported goods has been rising for most of the first half of the year, which means that the South Korean share is a larger, faster growing share of a growing pie -- Taiwan's exports to China are not falling. But a problem here is that 2009 was a down year from 2008's economic crisis, meaning that the dramatic rise may merely be a resumption of trends extant prior to 2008 -- and Taiwan's investment in China was rising under Chen as well. A second issue is whether the trend reflects superior South Korean competition rather than Taiwanese industry moving to China. A third issue is the validity of the statistics -- China announced numbers for 2010 that were half Taiwan's, saying investment was only $6.7 billion. That same article reported that Taiwan firms invested in China saw a threefold rise since 2007 in reinvestments in Taiwan.

I would like to see more numbers that can clearly delineate this trend, whatever it may be. I wish Taipei Times commentators would use more numbers.....
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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! Delenda est, baby.