The Foreigner in Formosa

Chinese Stash Assets Overseas In New York Real Estate

The smart money's outside of China...

China To Have Largest Christian Population By 2030

Change is afoot:

...Easter Sunday thousands of worshippers will flock to this Asian mega-temple to pledge their allegiance – not to the Communist Party, but to the Cross.

But the Communist Party's totalitarian impulses are never far from view:

"They want the pastor to preach in a Communist way. They want to train people to practice in a Communist way," said the house-church preacher, who said state churches often shunned potentially subversive sections of the Bible. The Old Testament book in which the exiled Daniel refuses to obey orders to worship the king rather than his own god is seen as "very dangerous", the preacher added. [empasis added]

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UPDATE (Apr 22 / 2014): A Christian refugee from China predicts more religious persecution in the land of his birth. Safe bet there.

UPDATE (Apr 28 / 2014): Chinese government demolishes church after promising not to. We've seen what Chinese assurances have been worth in the past.

Furbo

Very worthwhile discussion of the Italian concept of "furbo":

It's Interesting That He [Ron Paul] Cites the Italians for Their Perspicacity... because that lets me talk about my favorite Italian word, furbo, meaning full of cunning and slyness.

"Furbo" is very important in Italian culture. Even more than in our own.

Let's say, for example, I say I believe George Bush that Al Qaeda perpetrated 9/11.

The fact that I'm saying I believe him exposes me to several risks. What if he's lying? If he's lying to me, he's played me for a fool. I would have shown that my furbo is rather weak.

But what if I instantly claim he's lying, instead? Well, then I can never be accused of having had the wool pulled over my eyes by him. My furbo would be strong.

Now, most cultures, of course, respect skeptics and treat the guileless as amiable fools.

But in many cultures, you can only show so much furbo before you begin looking like a fool from the other direction. Not a fool because of what you believe; but a fool because of the incredibly long list of things you don't.

Italy, however, prizes furbo to the extent that it's pretty hard to be considered a fool based on your conspiracy-theorizing. Italy overvalues furbo, and undervalues skepticism about skepticism itself...

Chinese Plotting To Steal Arctic Resources

"All your resources are belong to us." Deutsche Welle has the story on the Communist thieves of Zhongnanhai:

Five countries are considered “Arctic states” - Canada, the US, Russia, Norway and Denmark (along with Greenland and the Faeroe Islands). Finland, Sweden and Iceland are also members of the Arctic Council which deals with the future development of the North Pole region. China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are trying to achieve permanent observer status.

[...]

"Countries closer to the Arctic, such as Iceland, Russia, Canada, and a few other European countries may tend to wish the Arctic were private or that they had priority to develop it," Cui Hongjian, head of the European department of the China Institute for International Studies, told reporters before Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Europe. "But China insists that the Arctic belongs to everyone just like the moon."

Small wonder China finds itself hated by all its neighbors.

Hat tip: Instapundit

Is China's Real Estate Market Heading For A Crash?

At the very least, it's tapering off.

Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ

A Tale Of Two Building Occupations

First, in Ukraine:

Ukraine's acting president Oleksandr Turchynov is promising amnesty for pro-Russian demonstrators if they give up their weapons and abandon government buildings under siege in two eastern Ukrainian cities.

Second, in Taiwan:

Students who have broken the law during protests against the cross-strait service trade agreement will not be treated differently from other lawbreakers, Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) said yesterday.

Curiously enough, no KMT members were ever arrested when they broke the law in 2006 while protesting against former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian.

But, I guess the law just doesn't apply to you if you're a KMT man...

KMT Continues To Lie About The Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement

Yesterday:

With the implementation delay of the Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement, many countries have placed a hold on their current trade negotiations with Taiwan, said Economic Minister Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) yesterday.

Today, one of Taiwan's trade partners called Chang on his bullshit:

The current dispute over the cross-strait service trade agreement would not negatively affect the US’ position on Taiwan’s bid to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesman Mark Zimmer said.

KMT Admits Their Trade Pact With Chinese Communists Strip Taiwanese Of Democratic Liberties

From today's Taipei Times:

Former Executive Yuan spokesperson Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉) has recently come under fire for posting a message on Facebook saying that students who participated in the Sunflower movement [a protest movement against a service trade agreement made between the KMT & the Chinese Communist Party] could face job-hunting difficulties due to their “perceived anti-establishment tendencies.”

Hu...said several high-level managers at private corporations had told him they planned to include questions such as “Did you participate in the student movement?” and “Do you support the student protesters’ anti-establishment behavior?” into their list of routine job interview questions.

Know your place, peasants. You may think you have some sort of right to "free-speech" and "freedom of assembly"...but pro-Communist Red Fat Cats will do their damndest to make sure you'll never work in Taiwan again!

Hu Yu-wei has done the people of Taiwan an enormous favor by this frank admission. But he would do them an even greater favor if he were to name which companies have adopted this policy of Communist repression.

That would provide democracy-loving Taiwanese the information they need to boycott traitorous freedom-hating companies and bankrupt them.

Punch back twice as hard.

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Postscript: Of course, there is no need for the thuggish Hu Yu-wei to name names.

All that is necessary is for but a single student to be asked an irrelevant political litmus test question during a job interview, and the 500,000-strong student movement can arrange the rest.

The China Post Projects Its Own Love Of Autocracy Onto Others

Taiwan's worst English-language newspaper put out a howler today:

...the Sunflower students, who violated the law by hijacking the parliament and storming the government house of the Executive Yuan, [conducting a peaceful sit-in at government buildings against an economic surrender agreement with Communist China] have succeeded in imposing their “people's democracy” on Taiwan. Theirs isn't democracy. It's monocracy. [Emphasis added]

Monocracy? Mono, as in ONE?

500,000 Taiwanese students came out to protest the KMT's dangerous backdoor economic deal with the Communist Party of China.

Hate to break it to ya fellas, but:

500,000 >>> 1

Guess that old trope about Asians being really good at math was just a myth...

Oh, but wait, the best part comes at the end of the China Post's latest editorial:

The last card President Ma may play may be to invoke the Statute Governing the Relations between the People in the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area to have the trade in services agreement go into force by an executive order. [emphasis added]

..it's probably the only way to ensure Taiwan's economic survival.

Evidently, the only way for Taiwan to avoid the dangers of monocracy...is for its president to govern by dictat!

Joe Hung Still Counsels Surrender To Communist China

Joe Hung's latest:

...will the grandiose Sunflower activists call it quits? They believe they are tough and strong, but there is another interpretation of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” It means: when the situation becomes almost impossible, those who are truly strong are wise enough to pull out, rather than being totally decimated.

Well, no, it doesn't mean that at all. As usual, "Traitor Joe" gets it completely cockeyed once again.

Perhaps Joe Hung refers to a facetious screwball interpretation however, which suggests that apathy and cowardice are preferable to perserverance and resolution.

Understandably, such an aphorism holds greater appeal to a man who's sold his soul to the Communist Party of China:

Better Red than dead, huh Joe?

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UPDATE: Students obtain promise from speaker of the legislature, Wang Jin-pyng, to push for a law for the monitoring of agreements made between democratic Taiwan and Communist China.

Which is something the Taiwanese wouldn't have received had its students taken Joe Hung's ill-considered advice.

Shut Up, They Explained

KMT government of Taiwan "requests" Polish media retract news of President Ma Ying-jeou's bloody crackdown on student protesters

You can take the KMT out of martial law, but you can't take the martial law out of the KMT.

Ma Ying-jeou's Bloody Crackdown: Taipei Police Beat 76-Year-Old Man With Truncheons

From today's Taipei Times:

A 76-year-old man yesterday filed a lawsuit against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and other government officials, saying he was seriously beat up by police officers during a crackdown on the occupation of the Executive Yuan on Sunday night to Monday morning last week.

[...]

“I was sitting with the students during the occupation of the Executive Yuan [on Sunday night], and because I am too old to stand up immediately when police came to evict the students, several officers beat me hard and I had to stay in a hospital for six days,” he said.

Chou filed a lawsuit of attempted murder against Ma, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), National Police Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞), and Taipei’s Zhongzheng First Precinct Police Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧).

Chou said police beat him with batons and shields until he lost consciousness. He said he woke up to find himself in a hospital.

Chou showed reporters a large area of bruises on his back.

(Image from the Taipei Times)

Shocked by President Ma's latest barbarity, reporters on the scene immediately rushed to the home of the China Post's Joe Hung for his take on the news. Hung, a staunch supporter of the KMT's self-proclaimed right to brutalize Taiwan's unarmed citizenry, had this to say:

 

When further pressed on the hypothetical question of whether
80-year-olds are fair game for similar treatment, the octogenarian Hung grew silent for a moment, before ordering reporters off his damn lawn.