The Foreigner in Formosa

Breaking News

TAIPEI -- Legislators belonging to Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were incensed yesterday when they learned that the Mongolian government is proceeding with oil exploration plans without consent from the Republic of China.

"We can't let the Mongolians get away with this," one unnamed lawmaker was quoted as saying.  "Mongolia, as defined by our constitution, is part of the R.O.C.'s sovereign territory.  Any oil found there, and all the revenues thereof, rightfully belongs to us."

"We demand that Presi... -- er, make that MISTER -- Ma immediately recalls our ambassador from Ulan Bator to let them know we mean business.  Mongolia needs to be reminded that its territory is historically, geographically and legally a part of the R.O.C."

"Right now, I don't think any of us are ruling out war as a last resort, by Guang Gong's beard!" the veteran legislator added.

To the dismay of his party colleagues, Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou has so far remained curiously silent about the crisis.  However, sources close to the former Tiaoyutai warrior have informed the public that Ma has given the go-ahead for a fleet of American-built F-16s to escort a single passenger airliner into Mongolian airspace on Wednesday. 

While there, the Taiwanese commuter craft is expected to carry a number of "One China" activists, who will express their displeasure at Mongolian splittism with the traditional shouting of slogans and throwing of water bottles.

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Note to the reader:  While it kind of kills the point of satire to actually SAY it's satire, I don't want some poor unsuspecting websurfer to get the false impression that any of this really happened.  So yes, it's satire.  None of it happened.  Or at least, it didn't happen EXACTLY like this . . .

Nonetheless, it serves to illustrate the larger point that it'd be a whole lot easier to sympathize with the Republic of China's claims over the Senkaku Islands if they weren't just another item on Taiwan's absurd laundry list of territorial pretensions.

Madman Ma and Taiwan's Department of International Gunboat Diplomacy

Having a spot of computer problems, but've been watching with interest the fallout from last week's sinking of a Taiwanese fishing boat by the Japanese coast guard near the Senkaku Islands.  Japan's Kyodo News reports on the racheting-up of tensions:

. . . Meanwhile, the [Taiwanese-owned Kidd-class] warship carrying KMT lawmakers and press is reportedly scheduled to depart for the islets Wednesday.
     ''This would be for survey maneuvers, so we can definitely send a vessel,'' Defense Minister Chen Chao-min told reporters.
     Further endangering bilateral ties, a fleet of Taiwanese ships steamed full tilt Monday toward the islets to protest the incident.
     Accompanied by nine patrol vessels, a Taiwanese fishing boat entered what Tokyo said were its territorial waters in a bid to land on one of the islets.
     Local TV news footage showed a U.S.-made Taiwanese Cobra attack helicopter escorting the fleet.
     Japan Coast Guard vessels reportedly blocked the protest boat from the island landing, eventually driving it back by spraying it with water cannons.
     Taiwanese Premier Liu Chao-shiuan told lawmakers last week that he would not rule out war with Japan over the islets, while the island's Foreign Ministry dissolved the special committee for managing ties with Japan.  [emphasis added throughout]

The Kyodo News also tells of the plight of Taiwan's ambassador to Japan:   

     Taiwan's top representative to Japan urged the island's Foreign Ministry on Monday to let him resign over a worsening diplomatic row between Taipei and Tokyo over a ship collision in disputed waters.
     ''I had pleaded to the Foreign Ministry to replace me before July,'' said Koh Se-kai, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Japan in the absence of official ties. ''They won't let me step down.''

[...]

     Hardliners on Japan in Taipei, including ruling Nationalist Party lawmakers, have slammed Koh for ''being too soft'' in his handling of the incident.
     Koh has broken ranks with the Foreign Ministry to defend Japan's response to the incident, saying Tokyo's expression of regret should satisfy Foreign Minister Francisco Ou's demand for a formal apology.
     Ou has rejected expressions of regret by Tokyo . . .

Pity poor Koh, the diplomat who still labors under the false notion that it's his job to be, well, diplomatic.

WRONG.  It's his job to be the goat.  Oh, he can leave -- but only AFTER the KMT conducts their two minute hate session of him.

Er, but I did notice this one howler in the Kyodo News story, however:

     Taiwan's response to the incident also appears to have split the leadership among those seeking to ratchet down tensions with Tokyo, mostly DPP lawmakers and other DPP-linked political players, and KMT and ministerial-level officials, who have adopted a hard line toward Japan.  [emphasis added]

Taiwan's independence-minded DPP was decimated in the parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year, reducing them to an impotent opposition party.  To call them part of Taiwan's leadership would be a bit of a stretch.  Aside from that though, it's a good piece.

Speaking of good pieces, the Taiwan News published a bang-up editorial on the crisis yesterday, which the View from Taiwan comments on.  Not much for me to add to either of these, other than to ask what the Ma administration's reaction would have been if a Taiwanese vessel had been sunk in disputed waters by the CHINESE coast guard.  Would American warships loaded with truculent KMT legislators be dispatched to the scene?  Or flotillas of civilian protest ships accompanied by American attack helicopters?  And finally, would the Taiwanese government under President Ma Ying-jeou be placing the option of WAR upon the table?

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POSTSCRIPT:  A short background to the Senkaku Island dispute from Wikipedia, while a more in-depth background can be found at GlobalSecurity.Org.   John J. Tkacik from the Heritage Foundation wrote a piece about the general subject back in 2005 which is still worth a look.  (Especially since Beijing offered some ominous moral support to Taiwan last week by denouncing Japan for its treatment of Taiwan, China.)

Recommended reading would also include this document, as well.  It concludes on this note:

International law presents many unanswered questions about the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute. Can claims of sovereignty based in fourteenth century Asia be judged by norms developed in Europe centuries later? What is the nature of discovery and occupation for uninhabited islands? What is the critical date when the dispute crystallized? Were the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands part of Taiwan or of Okinawa before 1895? How does one interpret ambiguous treaties?   [Because the disposition of the Senkakus was not explicitly mentioned in post-war treaties governing Japan -- The Foreigner]  Finally, how will the disputed islands affect maritime jurisdiction. Even if ownership of the islets is settled, can that sovereign claim an EEZ or continental shelf from islands that have never been inhabited and seem to have no economic life. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would appear to say no, but several countries claim extended jurisdiction from such features.  [emphasis added throughout]

Gotta love that second sentence.  Can claims of sovereignty based in fourteenth century Asia be judged by norms developed in Europe centuries later?  It's as though the author anticipated twelve years in advance Joe Hung's argument for why the Senkakus belong to Taiwan:

Taiwan's claim of sovereignty [over the Senkakus] is on a much more solid ground [than the Japanese claim]. The Ryukyus [which include the island of Okinawa -- The Foreigner] was a kingdom, which became a vassal state of China's in 1372. The Emperor Hong-wu of the Ming dynasty proclaimed China's suzerainty over the tiny but prosperous kingdom by sending an imperial commissioner to perform the first investiture of the king.

Funny, but al-Qaeda says pretty much the same thing when it claims Spain in the name of the Master Faith.  Al-Andalus IS, WAS, and always WILL be part of the Islamic Caliphate . . . 

(Say now, you don't suppose Koreans or Vietnamese get a mite twitchy hearing all this talk justifying Sinofascist land grabs on the basis of a country's former vassal status to China?)

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UPDATE:  Tuesday's Taipei Times has more details on the Taiwanese protest flotilla that was sent to the Senkakus on Monday, as well on the Taiwanese ambassador's attempt to resign:

Representative to Japan Koh Se-kai submitted his resignation yesterday after he was accused by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers of being a “traitor” for “siding with the Japanese.”

[...]

Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) lashed out at Koh for not announcing his resignation at the legislature, saying that he treated his resignation as “child’s play.”

Usually ambassadors quit by placing a letter on someone's desk and are allowed to slink quietly out the back door, but not Koh.  Koh must be the first Taiwanese representative in history that is expected to resign in front of a jeering mob.

More civility from Taiwan's party of decency:

Lin Yih-shih, Kuomintang whip, demanded Ou not to accept Koh's resignation and make sure that the envoy appear before the legislature for interpellation.

[...]

Another Kuomintang lawmaker, Lu Chia-chen, charged Koh was a "straggler." "Premier Liu Chao-schiuan should take disciplinary action at once and have Koh referred for prosecution," he urged.

Treason, straggling, failing to appear before a council of KMT grand inquisitors... capital crimes all.  Memo to the next ambassador to Japan:  Tear a page from Nikita Khruschev's playbook and learn how to bang your shoe on the table.  Your bosses will eat it up.

Message: I Care

Saturday's Taipei Times on Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's refusal to tour flooded areas in southern Taiwan:

This weekend there are dragon boat races around the country, and consistent with his sporting image and past practice during his time as Taipei mayor, Ma was set to take part in a dragon boat contest in Taipei.

But politicians from both sides of the fence have expressed dissatisfaction with Ma, saying that he should be tending to the wounds of the farming industry and other sectors in the south, who are mopping up after seasonally heavy rainfall.

Ma should have known from the outset that canceling his dragon boat jaunt and touring rain-affected areas in the south was the sensible political thing to do. It seems he did not. But now that he has changed his mind and pulled out of the Taipei bash, he hardly looks any better: It is perfectly obvious that he was responding to harsh criticism and not out of a last-minute crisis of conscience.

[...]

If [Ma's] spokesperson is to be believed, the president now believes that touring disaster-affected areas poses a risk to the Constitution, given that the premier is the executive’s traditional link man in delivering onsite relief.

We can only deduce that when presidents Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) toured disaster zones during their tenure that they also came perilously close to damaging the nation’s most important document.  [emphasis added]

So, instead of either participating in the races or touring the waterlogged south, Ma is doing neither.

Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian all apparently toured Taiwanese disaster areas, but I'll do the Times one better.  Remember all the fuss the China Post made about Hu Jintao touring earthquake-stricken Szechuan province?

For all the losses, sufferings and agonies, Beijing can take some comfort from the fact that the earthquake has rallied the country behind the government, which has been constantly criticized by Western countries for human right abuses. Suddenly, such criticisms disappeared, thanks to the earthquake that prompted Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao to respond instantly and effectively -- an evidence of their care and concern for human rights.  [emphasis added]

Guess this would have to mean, by the Post's own reasoning, that PRC President Hu Jintao cares more about human rights in China than Ma Ying-jeou cares about them in Taiwan.

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UPDATE (Sep 17/08):  President Ma decides to visit areas hard hit by Typhoon Sinlaku.

Taiwan's Diane Lee Panicked By Panić

That's Panić as in Milan Panić (PAN-itch).    Wikipedia may help brush away the cobwebs:

Milan Panić or Milan Panic . . . (born 20 December 1929 in Belgrade in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) is an American multimillionaire, a Newport Beach and Pasadena, California-based business tycoon. Panić served as Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992-1993.  [emphasis added]

Now, I'm not going to argue that it's a GOOD thing for dual citizens like Panić to serve as PRIME MINISTERS of foreign countries and still retain their American citizenships.  (Nor will I suggest, as per Dr. William Fang, that dual citizens are disloyal opportunists, either.) 

What I will say is that the case of Milan Panić illustrates the principle that accepting high political office in a foreign country is not sufficient in and of itself to strip an American of his citizenship.  Panić was a naturalized American who became prime-minister of his native Yugoslavia for about six months.   When he lost power he returned Stateside -- and returned as an American.

It's 2008, and many have probably forgotten Panić's brief but fascinating political career.  But in late 1992, the man's name was on everyone's lips.  Hard to believe that Diane Lee of Taiwan, who obtained her dual American citizenship in 1991, could have easily ignored the case.  Hard to believe -- and hard to argue that Diane Lee, Taipei city councillor and Taiwanese legislator, should have been stripped of her American citizenship . . . while the Yugoslavian who became P.M. should keep his.

More Thoughts On Diane Lee's Dual Citizenship Woes

[An earlier post on this issue can be found here.]

The story in a nutshell:  A Taiwanese woman stays in America for several years, and undertakes the lengthy process of becoming a dual U.S. / R.O.C. citizen.  Upon returning to Taiwan, she enters political life under the aegis of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party.  Now, she is aware of a Taiwanese law which states that no one possessing dual citizenship may hold a government job (those that do must return ALL their government salaried earnings back to the State!)  Despite this, the woman doesn't renounce her new American citizenship legally, and is eventually discovered.

When she IS found out, she's asked to give back her accumulated paychecks to Taiwanese taxpayers.  The sum total of which equals . . . $3.29 MILLION U.S. dollars.

Naturally, the woman in question -- Diane Lee of the KMT -- insists she's the victim of overly-complicated American citizenship law.  Lee claims she ASSUMED the U.S. government would strip her of her citizenship when it discovered she had taken a government position and signed an oath to the Taiwanese government. 

Meanwhile, her detractors believe she had more cynical motives:  THEY believe she deliberately kept her American citizenship secret as an emergency escape hatch in case any . . . unpleasantness . . . with China happened to arise.  Three million bucks at stake sure buys a whole lotta ignorance of the law, her opponents argue.

Dr. William Fang of the China Post wrote a column BLAMING AMERICA FIRST for Lee's troubles, which smacked of crude partisanship.  Personally, I can see plenty of blame to go around on this one.  But since Fang pointed his finger at America, let's start there:

1)  Where was American Immigration in all of this?

After assuming her political posts in Taiwan, Diane Lee apparently visited America using a non-immigrant visa in her Taiwanese passport.  This was ILLEGAL -- dual American citizens like Lee are required to use their American passports when re-entering the country.  So why didn't American Immigration officers discover Lee doing this?  Granted, INS maybe didn't have its act together before 9-11, but is there any excuse for them now?  

Another thing:  the form for a U.S. non-immigrant visa asks the applicant about the length of their previous visits to America, as well as previous visas that were issued.  (No questions about previous U.S. citizenship, though.) 

Anyways, Lee lived in the States for more than six years -- so why didn't anyone take the time to pull her file to have a look-see?  Unless of course, she lied on her application form . . .

2)  Why didn't the KMT vet its candidate more carefully?

Chinese Nationalist Party headquarters, 1994:

Well, Ms. Lee, your credentials certainly SEEM impressive.  Just out of curiosity though, it says here you spent more than six years living in America.  Did you ever think about, y'know, getting a green card or maybe emigrating there, or something?

REALLY?  Dual citizenizenship in 1991?  No kiddin'!  Now, normally I'd run this by Huang in Legal, but the guy's off on yet another one of his month-long vacations, the lazy bum . . .  ;-)

But, what the hell -- we'll just take your word for it that this won't become an embarrassing problem later down the line!

Readers can decide for themselves the probability of Diane Lee's interview ending on such a note.  Onto then, to the character issue.  In his column, Dr. Fang says when Lee took her oath of office in Taiwan she became a woman with a "dishonest record" whose oath could not be trusted, and America should have stripped Lee of her citizenship because of her "illicit relationship with another country."  

In other words, dishonest oath-breakers having illicit relationships with other countries ( ! ) should be expelled by the U.S. . . . but welcomed with open arms by the KMT.

Recalling Oliver Twist's introduction into a gang of juvenile pickpockets:

Consider yourself -- at home.
Consider yourself -- one of the family.
We've taken to you -- so strong.
It's clear -- we're -- going to get along . . .

3)  Isn't Diane Lee responsible for looking out for numero uno?

Get this:  SIX years elapsed between the time Diane Lee received her Green Card and the time she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1991.  That's 2,200 days she could have picked up a pamphlet or two and learned the rights and responsibilities belonging to Americans with dual citizenship.  For my previous post on this matter, I found this U.S. publication which EXPLICITLY informs dual citizens on "How to give up your U.S. citizenship." 

There're two words for not doing your homework when so much is at stake:  willful ignorance.  And what's more, Lee then allowed her entire future income to ride on her "assumption" that her U.S. citizenship would be cancelled.  Cancelled by some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in a little Washington office somewhere.  A bureaucrat she'd never met before.  A bureaucrat who might easily have lost or mis-processed or just plain FORGOTTEN about her file. 

But oh well, la-de-da.  Why should Lee pick up a phone to check up on the nice man?  It's only money, after all.