The Foreigner in Formosa

China's Navy

An interview with a retired Japanese Air Force rear admiral:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/31/2003278138

The admiral believes that an outright invasion of Taiwan from China would fail because China couldn't control the sea lanes between the two countries for logistical support for the troops it would land.  He also thinks that a blockade would fail, because Chinese submarines are easy to detect.

Needless to say, he predicates these outcomes upon intervention by America and Japan on the side of the Taiwanese.

UPDATE (Nov 17/05):  Interestingly, the former Japanese officer doesn't feel that the 8 submarines President Bush offered to Taiwan are needed.  Wretchard at The Belmont Club disagrees, and thinks they're crucial.

The importance of submarines for Taiwan

Family Ties

Back around May or June, it became clear that there would be a leadership contest within the ranks of the KMT for a new chairman.  The chairman at the time, Lien Chen, had lost two presidential races, and his attempts to have the March elections declared null and void were going nowhere.  Unless the KMT wanted to to be led by its own version of Harold Stassen, Lien had to go.

Lien still had his supporters however, and they began to grow more vocal.  The nadir came when a group of elderly men kowtowed on hands and knees in front of him on national television, weeping and begging him for the sake of the party not to resign.  It was suspiciously like a scene from Imperial China, where a man had to decline supplicants three times before he accepted the job of Emperor.

One of the two contenders for the post, by the surname of Wang, hedged his bets.  Wang said that he was eager to get the job, he was champing at the bit, he was raring to go.  Unless of course, Lien still wanted the job.  In that case, Wang would graciously bow out, because obviously the party would be much better served with a two-time electoral loser at its helm.

The other contender, hizzonner Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of Taipei, was made of sterner stuff.  Ma wanted the job, whether Lien quit or not.  Suddenly, Lien's "unanimous annointment" strategy began to fall apart.

It's safe to say that no foreigner could ever have predicted the gambit that Lien would then employ.  It could only have been conceivable to someone raised in the Chinese culture of 'filial piety'.  For what happened next was that an old KMT stalwart named Ma Ho-ling went to the press and weighed in on the issue.

If my son runs against Lien Chan, said Mayor Ma's father, I will commit suicide.

Gee, thanks for your support, Dad.

Lien ended up resigning, Mayor Ma became the new KMT chairman, and Ma's father didn't drink any cyanide-flavored kool-aid.

I repeat the story now, because yesterday, Ma's father was hospitalized.

On this matter, my heart goes out to Mayor Ma.  His father however, gets no sympathy from me.

Child Sacrifice

Moloch is said to have been an early semitic god who feasted on the flesh of his worshippers' own children.

We would be wrong to think that he had vanished into antiquity:

Slide Show

For Moloch lives.  Still today, he lives.

Hat tip to Sandmonkey (Oct 31, 2005 entry).

Prospects after Reunification

Would reunification of Taiwan and China be an easy thing?  Not according to this story from Taiwan News:

Cultural gap between Taiwan, China seen as substantial

The three major points are:

1. Taiwan has received cultural influences from Japan and SE Asia which makes it different from China.
2. Taiwanese culture was unaffected by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which completely changed mainland Chinese culture.
3. Taiwan has more of a First World mentality than China.  China is much more a 'dog-eat-dog' society.  As one contributor to the story said, "If you put a Taiwanese child down in a China, he'll be eaten alive."

Them Dogs is Smart...

The Taiwan News had an interesting story about the intelligence of dogs.  In some ways, dogs seem to be smarter than wolves or even chimps(!), because dogs pay attention to the things that people do.  That is to say, they've been bred to socialize with people, so they watch for social cues that can help them solve problems.

Dogs' smarts linked to their relationship with people

Indonesia

Hat tip to Dog Pundit for this story:

Members of "The Religion of Peace" cut off the heads of 3 schoolgirls in Indonesia.

The victims were 16 years old.

(Photos from Reuters via Dog Pundit.)

Happy Ramadan, Jihadi assholes.

The Special Arms Bill

Currently, the most serious military threat to Taiwan is not invasion, but blockade.  The Chinese have a huge submarine fleet, which if unopposed, could easily accomplish this.  Hence this story from The Taipei Times, which outlines Taiwan's need for better submarine detection aircraft.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/25/2003277279

Don't expect this to get fixed any time soon, though.  Taiwan's KMT party has blocked voting on the special weapons bill 31 times (or is it now 33?) in the legislature, and doesn't seem to be in a mood for compromise.  Why you might ask, is the KMT blocking the purchase of weapons it itself requested from America in the late 1990's?

The actual excuses that the KMT offers for their actions seem to change from week to week.  Here's a brief list, constructed from memory, along with rebuttals:

1.  The price is too high.

The old KMT of Chiang Kai-Shek or Chiang Ching Kuo would have jumped at the opportunity to buy weapons to resist China; the new KMT spurns the chance.  Government offers to remove certain items from the bill to reduce the price have left the KMT unmoved.  Of course money not spent on weapons can be used to build schools or roads, but what good does that do you if your country's children are turned into communist serfs?

2.  The weapons are outdated.

There is some truth here.  The weapons are, in fact, not America's top-of-the-line.  However, what actually matters is whether the weapons are qualitatively better than the ones available to China.  (I believe that this is true for the weapons under discussion.)  What this argument seems to say is that Taiwan doesn't like outdated weapons; it instead prefers really, really outdated weapons.  Like the ones it currently has.

3.  The Americans just want to make money selling weapons to us.

First of all, if selling weapons to the Taiwanese was such a profitable enterprise, why is it that no one aside from America does it anymore?  Secondly, people have literally thousands of needs that are met by purchasing things from others.  You expect to pay the security guard in your apartment building a fee, so why on earth would anyone expect to get Patriot missiles for free?

4.  The weapons are useless anyways.  America won't intervene in the event of a Chinese attack, so resistance will merely delay the inevitable.

Sad to say, there might be some truth here.  Taiwan would probably fall to a Chinese attack without direct American help.  However, it's total conjecture to say that the Americans wouldn't help.  I personally think that they would, but I cannot be certain.

If the KMT really believes that America won't help Taiwan during crunch time, then it should publicly inform the Taiwanese electorate, and run a political campaign advocating open and transparent negotiations for Taiwan's immediate surrender.  If it wins, then it should avoid the "inevitable" and try to get the best deal that it can.

The failure of the KMT to do this betrays an utter lack of sincerity on their part regarding this argument.

5.  The Second Gulf War shows how self-defeating invasion can be.  The Taiwanese would fight like tigers, possibly with even more ferocity than the Iraqi "insurgents".

Maybe they would, and then again, maybe they wouldn't.  I could be wrong, but I don't think that the Taiwanese have any religious ideology promising them 72 virgins if they die in a suicide bombing.  Insurgencies can be crushed, and the Chinese would have no qualms in employing much harsher measures against Taiwanese resistance than Americans are using in Iraq.  Surely this should be Taiwan's last choice for a defensive strategy, not its first.

6.  Taiwan could unilaterally disarm and it would be perfectly safe.  In the current international climate, China would be prevented from attacking Taiwan by the UN and international opinion.

This bizarre "theory" was actually forwarded in an editorial in a Taiwanese newspaper (The China Post).  You might want to ask the Tibetans how well that worked out for THEM.

7.  We don't want an arms race with China.

You're already in an arms race with China - they're racing and you're standing still.  Soon you'll be left by the wayside.

Must-See 3D TV

I was at the Warner Village cinemas in Taipei earlier this week to see the new "Wallace and Grommit" movie.  It was pretty good, although I don't think it's necessary to put sexual innuendo into a family movie to get adults into the theaters.

In the lobby was a 3D widescreen television.  This was a kind that I'd never seen before, which didn't require the wearing of any special glasses.

It was mostly just playing TV commercials - French commercials.  Razors floated in front of the screen while rotating.  Pop bottles doing the same, then pouring out their contents.  The best was one for a detergent or fabric softener, where a feather gently swayed from side-to-side as it fell through the air.

Most of them were very well done, like the concession stand ad with popcorn bursting out of the screen, threatening to hit the viewer.  One or two weren't very good, and just gave me a headache.  For some reason, seeing all of this reminded me of some of Schwartzenegger's sci-fi action flicks.  The future looks very cool, indeed.

A Trip to the Past

Anyone out there interested in the political wrangling over a flood prevention bill here in Taiwan?

Flood prevention bill

No, didn't think so.

Since it's such a slow news day,  I thought I would feature kind of a sad story about a missed opportunity that was outlined in Sunday's Taipei Times.  Back in the early '70s, the Republic of China (Taiwan) still held the seat reserved for "China" on the UN Security Council.  It became clear to everyone except the Taiwanese government that the ROC would lose its seat to the People's Republic of China.  While there were many who wanted dual UN recognition for the PRC and the ROC, Chiang Kai-Shek was set against it.  He was certain that the ROC would be able to cling to its seat.

The rest is history.  Taiwan lost that security council seat, and because of the obstinancy of an aged dictator, wasn't even given the consolation prize of a General Assembly seat.  For the last 15 years or so, newly-democratic Taiwan has gone to the UN, cap-in-hand, asking for the seat that it could have had in 1971.

Each time, its request is rebuffed.  And the chance that it was once given may never come again.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/10/23/2003277026

Mr. Lee Goes to America

Former Taiwanese President Lee Dung-hway, a practicing Christian, has previously compared the Taiwanese situation to that of the Jews during Exodus.  For those who are not familiar with the analogy, an Oct 23rd China Post write-up elaborates on the theme:

Comparing the present situation in Taiwan to the 40-year exile of the Israeli people following their exodus from Egypt, as recorded in the Bible, Lee said a number of people in Taiwan are disoriented and are thinking about going back to slavery in China, just like the Israeli people back then.

While it took 40 years for the Israeli people to reach their promised land, Taiwan cannot wait another 40 years, Lee said.

Having been ruled by foreign powers for more than 300 years, Taiwan must stand firm to its belief that "Taiwan is Taiwan, not a part of China" in order to secure its autonomy, he asserted.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/detail.asp?ID=70675&GRP=B

(On the topic of certain Taiwanese tempted to yield to slavery, I shall write another time.)

Lee's speech was delivered in LA during his current trip to America.  In the speech, he also labeled China a 'slave state', urged the free world not to invest in China, and called for a strategic alliance between America and Asian democracies India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/10/23/2003276957

Ya gotta love that guy.  The Butchers of Beijing must be apoplectic.

Give 'em hell, Lee!

Sino-Japanese off-shore petroleum field dispute

The Chinese and the Japanese have been arguing for some time over sea territory between Shanghai and Okinawa.  The territory is said to have 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and possibly 100 billion barrels of oil.

It seems that the Chinese may have begun extraction from the disputed territory from a rig which was built in their own seas.  To mark the occasion, they paraded 5 warships in the area.  The whole situation is a little akin to that preceeding the First Gulf War, when Iraq accused Kuwait of horizontal drilling into Iraqi oil fields.

Japan is, of course, understandably unhappy about this.  They've announced that they'll soon begin drilling in the disputed zone.  In response, China said that doing so would be considered "an invasion" of Chinese territory.

Watch for more of this, as China "peacefully" rises.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asiapacific/detail.asp?ID=70686&GRP=C

China News

The Butchers of Beijing arrest 50 people for praying without a license:

China detains underground church leaders

Strategic partnership, Mr. Clinton?

Olympic Torch Relay

There were a few big stories today, but here's a seemingly minor one:

For some time, the Chinese Olympic Committee has been "generously" offering to allow the 2008 Olympic torch relay to pass through Taiwan.

What's the catch?

Well, Beijing would classify Taiwan as part of China's "domestic relay route", thereby asserting its "right" over the country to the rest of the world.

It's all part of the regular battle over verbal symbolism between the two countries.  Outsiders would be mistaken to be dismissive of the matter.  The average man on the street told ad nauseum that "Taiwan is a part of China" is apt to sooner or later believe The Big Lie.

Words mean things.  They matter.

Fortunately, the Taiwanese Olympic Committee today rejected the entire exercise in self-abasement.

Taiwan Cool on Offer of 'Domestic Route' in Olympics

Introduction.

This is the first post for The Foreigner in Formosa.  Welcome to the site.

I envision this blog as a kind of information clearing-house and electronic diary.  First and foremost, I plan to provide links to interesting or significant stories & editorials from the three English newspapers that are published in Taiwan.  The emphasis will be on subjects directly or indirectly related to Taiwan.

With regards to these, I will sometimes provide my own thoughts and comments, based upon an anti-communist, pro-democracy weltanshuung.  Those with differing world-views may not find that this blog suits their tastes.

C'est la vie.

Readers should bear in mind that the opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Taiwanese.  Rather, they are those of an outsider, a stranger, a foreigner in Formosa.

In short, they are mine, and mine alone.

- The Foreigner.