The Foreigner in Formosa

Lee Teng-hui On Taiwan's Current Government

From Monday's Taipei Times:

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of incompetency, lashing out at his administration for failing to offer concrete measures to curb public apprehension over events such as the recent melamine contamination and the poor performance of the TAIEX.

Now, I've seen a few possible explanations for the governments' poor performance:

1)  President Ma Ying-jeou is attempting to create a precedent for a "Queen of England" presidency for Taiwan.  Unfortunately for him, he has no Taiwanese model for him to draw upon.

2)  The KMT has been out of power for 8 years, and its governing skills are out of practice.

Without disagreeing with point #1, I'd like to elaborate a little upon point #2.  While it's true that the KMT lost control over the executive for the last 8 years, it DID have effective working control over the legislative branch over the same time frame.  So how did it spend its time?  Did the KMT spend the last 8 years KEEPING ITS GOVERNING SKILLS SHARP by actually passing into law legislative proposals that would benefit Taiwan? 

Or did it DULL THAT EDGE by spending those 8 years engaged only in pointless, petty obstructionism? *

I've seen the China Post sneer at former President Chen Shui-bian's record, asking what it was that Chen accomplished over the last 8 years.  I can think of a few things**, but let me turn the question around.  What did the KMT-dominated LEGISLATURE accomplish in the last 8 years?  They had a majority, after all.  Their votes were law -- Taiwanese presidents have no veto power.

Once more,  what legislative successes can KMT lawmakers boast about on THEIR resumes?  Hmm?  Anyone?  Anyone?  I'm waiting . . .

A former marathon winner comes out of a long retirement for a big race.  He thinks he's got a good chance to win again.  But does he?

Not if he's spent the last 8 years scarfing down doughnuts and grousing about how easy kids today have got it.  If he hasn't spent enough time in training, maintaining his skills, our runner's fans are in for a major disappointment.
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*  Speaking of pointless, petty obstructionism, here's a case in point:

The Presidential Office is thankful that the US government sent an official notification on Friday to Congress on the sale of five major packages of weaponry to Taiwan, officials said yesterday, adding that the move signaled a new era of mutual trust between Taiwan and the US.

“The notification of the US government put an end to the turbulence of the past eight years and rebuilds mutual trust between the US and Taiwan,” Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chih (王郁琦) said yesterday.

Uh-uh -- you don't get off that easy, Mr. Wang.  Your boss, President Ma Ying-jeou, spent TWO YEARS boycotting those arms packages when he was in opposition.  As KMT chairman, Ma blocked 'em 60 times in the legislature.  Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet . . .  Sixty times.  You can't pawn THAT off on the former president, buddy.

In the end, Ma relented on the special arms bill.  By that time however, America viewed him and the KMT as fundamentally untrustworthy.  And the U.S. put the weapons sale on hold.

And so it was that the KMT was reduced to begging -- BEGGING! -- for that which it had so casually boycotted and dismissed as unnecessary just a few months earlier:

The United States could see its credibility among Taiwanese at stake if it fails to approve a pending Taiwan arms procurement package . . .  [Taiwanese] Defense Minister Chen Chao-min said Monday.

Please, please, please, sell us these weapons.  'Cause if you don't, uh . . . you'll, you'll . . . look really bad.  Really, REALLY bad . . . The passive-aggressive approach -- yeah, that's the ticket!

As for the credibility of the Ma Ying-jeou administration, we'll escape unscathed.  Why, we're a lean, mean, governin' machine.

With the 24% approval rating to prove it.

**  At the top of my head, Chen's accomplishments as president include the de-politicization of Taiwan's military, increased democritization (via a new referendum law) and his partially-successful attempts to de-normalize Taiwanese worship of former dictators Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo.

Set against that record are troubling charges of corruption and money-laundering.  Which if proven true, make his presidency a very mixed bag.

Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much

Yesterday's China Post headline:  [KMT President-elect] Ma proclaims love for Taiwan

And the story in today's papers?  Ma Ying-jeou asks the Taiwanese Postal Service to delay releasing a set of stamps featuring his portrait alongside the word, "Taiwan."

Hey, give the guy a break, everybody.  It should be obvious Ma LOVES Taiwan ...  He just doesn't want to be caught dead having his picture on ANY stamp which bears the stinkin' name!

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UPDATE (Apr 4/08):  Apparently I wasn't the only one who had that reaction.  From today's Taipei Times:

A group of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday criticized president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) after he expressed reservations over the use of the word “Taiwan” on postage stamps, and accused him of discarding the name “Taiwan” like “toilet paper” after using it to win the March 22 election.

[...]

The DPP legislators said Ma had expressed no such reservations when he used the slogan “Taiwan marches forward” in his election campaign.

The Writing On The Wall

[Warning:  This is a serious post.  If you've already seen the Jan 2 entry, you might want to take a cold shower or something before giving this a read.]

Taiwan's vice-president feels the need to ask the electorate to forgive her party's recent missteps.  Which would seem to augur poorly for her party's chances, given that the legislative elections are only 12 days from now...

Vice-President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday blasted the Ministry of Education over its "manhandling" of the re-emplacement of the inscription at National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall, saying she was sorry the project had been handled without consideration of public sentiment.

At an election rally in Jhonghe, Lu, the first Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight to criticize Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng's (杜正勝) decisions regarding the hall, said the minister should be blamed for DPP's recent waning popularity. 

"From my observations, the ministry's mishandling of the former CKS Hall issue was a major blow to the party's support over the past few months. Tu must apologize to the public for not handling the matter in a more genteel and agreeable manner," she said.  [emphasis added]

Time to play pin the tail on the scapegoat.  Yes, Tu engaged in some regrettable and counter-productive name-calling, but there are plenty of other people responsible for the independence party's fall in fortunes - not the least of whom would be Lu's boss, President Chen Shui-bian.  (Bit hard for her to blame the big guy in public, though.)

Anyways, let's not forget the circumstances here.  Recall that the Taiwanese Central Government:

• paid for 240,000 meters of prime real-estate in central Taipei *
• paid for the construction of a monument to Chiang Kai-shek
• paid yearly for the maintenance and upkeep of said monument

Then one day, after making this sizable investment, the national government decided it wanted out of the dictator-glorification business.  So it tried to rename the hall.  At which point, the Taipei City government said, not so fast.  We love CKS, and we WANT him glorified.  But instead of making the national government a fair market-value offer on the property so that the monument could continue to send this message, the city government decided to take the cheap and confiscatory route instead:

We hereby proclaim Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to be a temporary historical site, they said.  The national government may still "own" it in some kind of legalistic sense, but from now on, we in City Hall, WE will control it.  Don't even think of damaging or desecrating this ancient (27 year-old) artifact - not a SINGLE nail may be used to hang a new sign, nor a single old name-plate be removed.  And just to show you we mean business, we'll call out the police and set up road blocks to prevent anybody from doing so.

(My, political speech sure is grand.  And cheap too, when it's on someone else's nickel!)

At this point the central government said, playtime's over, and sent the national police to protect the folks sent in to change the name on the door.

In a nutshell, THOSE were the circumstances under which Tu said what he said.  He may not have been "genteel and agreeable," but it's not always easy being "genteel and agreeable" when you're in the middle of a good, old-fashioned showdown.
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POSTSCRIPT: During the standoff, I often thought that both sides should have asked a court to decide who has jurisdiction over the monument.  (Based on purely libertarian principles, I think the national government had the stronger case.)  Surely that should have been the FIRST step, instead of the face-saving FINAL one, taken by City Hall only after it had already backed down.

(On the other hand, you might argue it was wise the courts weren't involved.  Because no matter WHAT the judge's ruling, someone was bound to be disappointed, and the court's political impartiality would have been subsequently questioned by one side or the other.)

Leaving that aside, I wonder whether this affair hasn't filled Taiwanese businessmen with a certain sense of unease.  After all, they just witnessed City Hall arbitrarily declare the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall a temporary historical site.  They know Taipei was busy spending big bucks finding a panel of "experts" to testify in favor of that ruling.  And if those businessmen happened to be CKS fans, no doubt they were busy applauding.

But here's the thing:  if City Hall can do that to a 27 year-old monument belonging to the national government, why can't it do the same to a 27 year-old FACTORY belonging to YOU as well?

Just think of the shakedown possibilities here:  "Hello Mr. Businessman, we'd like an especially LARGE campaign contribution from you this year.  And if we don't get it, maybe we'll announce your shop is a temporary historical site.  (We've done it before, you may have noticed.)  Now, don't let the process worry you - we'll just spend THE NEXT YEAR assembling a group of "experts" who'll decide whether or not to make that status permanent.  In the meantime, please don't forget you're forbidden by law from making ANY changes to the building's interior or exterior."

"Terribly sorry if that puts a crimp in your operations, old bean, but this is our precious historical heritage we're talking about!"

As I see it, the only defense a businessman would ever have in that scenario would be public opinion.  And were I in his shoes, I'd be very uncomfortable having my investments protected by anything so fickle.

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* Or stole.  Stole it fair and square, the KMT will have you know!

Taunting The Opposition

OK, I know it's campaign season here in Taiwan, and politicians want to fire up their supporters.  But are statements like this really necessary?

[Ministry of Education Secretary-General Chuang Kuo-jung] has become a household name because of his snappy comebacks and caustic remarks about the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its top leaders, including calling presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) "sissies," "gay-like" and "wimps."

You wouldn't walk up to a semi-reformed ex-convict and question HIS manhood, would you?  Well in a way, the KMT is a bit like that ex-con.  The party doesn't behave as badly as it used to, but it's hardly a model of what a loyal opposition should look like, either.  Ultimately, the KMT didn't use violence* when the sign on the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in Taipei was recently changed over its objections to "Liberty Plaza" - and as a reward, its leaders were called a bunch of effeminate pansies!  Good grief, do the pro-independence parties really want to ENCOURAGE the KMT to bust heads during future confrontations of this sort?

Naturally, homosexual organizations and women's groups were outraged.  This kinda took the cake, though:

[Lai Yu-mei, secretary-general of the Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association,] said schoolteachers have complained about Chuang. "We've been receiving a lot of protest phone calls every day," she continued, "and most of the teachers were disgusted and didn't know how they could teach children with Chuang setting such a bad example." [emphasis added]

Ya don't know how to do your job when politicians in the background start talkin' trash?  Here's an idea:  Why doncha just suck it up and TEACH instead of whining about it...ya pantywaists.

(Oooo.  Sure hope all those bad-ass schoolteachers don't get all medieval on me now.  Heavens to Mergatroid, they could keep me after class and make me write a hundred lines on the blackboard yet!)

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*  I am assuming here that the KMT supporter who drove his truck over 6 people during the name-change stand-off was nothing more than a deranged individual acting on his own.

Myanmar or Burma?

After the transition in Taiwan to democracy, name rectification became a topic of discussion here.  But in the case of Burma, the transition ran in the other direction.  So the question is, if a junta, rather than a democratic government, engages in name rectification, should foreigners legitimize the new official names by accepting them?

Some thoughts by James Fallows at The Atlantic.

Burma, not Myanmar

It's Myanmar, a reader objects

Confusion in the media re: Burma / Myanmar

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UPDATE (Sep 30/07):  Yesterday's China Post also featured a story on this subject:

"The democratically elected but never convened Parliament of 1990 does not recognize the name change, and the democratic opposition continues to use the name 'Burma.' Due to consistent support for the democratically elected leaders, the U.S. government likewise uses 'Burma,'" the State Department Web site says.

UPDATE #2:  Over at The Corner, Jonah Goldberg had a thought:

Wouldn't it be smart for everyone [in Burma] to wear monk robes and, I suppose, shave their heads? The images would have enormous impact, the troops wouldn't know who is and who isn't a monk, and it would give a thrilling "I am Spartacus!" narrative twist to the uprising.

Penny Wise and Pound Foolish

Terrific set of editorials in Taiwan's China Post on Monday - from a blogger's point of view, anyways.  Both deal with issues of Taiwanese sovereignty.  The first, "Did Taiwan give up sovereignty over the Tiaoyutai Islands?" makes the case those islands belong to Taiwan rather than Japan, then takes the government to task for not pressing Taiwan's claim assertively enough:

Taiwan's Coast Guard Administration appears reluctant to confront Japanese patrols over the Tiaoyutai [known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands - The Foreigner], where Yilan* fishermen now often get caught for "intrusion" into Japanese "territorial waters."  Activists have been forbidden to make any protest trips there...

You want an international incident...over THIS???

(Image from twhistory.org)

The second editorial, "What's in a name?" ridicules President Chen Shui-bian's efforts to have the country named "Taiwan" rather than "Taiwan, China":

[President Chen] is obsessed with the idea of getting Taiwan to accede to the United Nations under its rightful name. His government bristles whenever anything from Taiwan shown abroad is said to be from Taiwan, China.

That's why the Government Information Office lodged a complaint with the organizers of the Venice Film Festival, who, under pressure from Beijing, listed Taiwan-produced films as entries from Taiwan, China. Among them was "Se Jie (Lust Caution)," directed by Ang Lee of "Brokeback Mountain" fame. It was originally described as a production from "USA and China" for it was shot in both countries. It was later changed to Taiwan at the request of its producer. That in turn drew complaints from China. Then the name was settled as "USA/China/Taiwan."

[...]

All this sounds like silly gags in a bad TV sitcom. Can't we try just to forget whatever name other countries in the world choose to attach to our island nation?  [emphasis added]

Ironically enough, the Post's conclusion is contradicted by the very example it provides.  The Venetians didn't "choose" to list Taiwan-produced films as originating from "Taiwan, China"; they were PRESSURED by Beijing into doing so - by the China Post's own admission.

Be that as it may, we're still faced with the question:  Is this, as the Post claims, just a silly semantic quibble?  Isn't the whole "Taiwan" vs. "Taiwan, China" vs. "Chinese Taipei" debate on par with arguments over tomayto-tomahto or Germany-Deutschland?  Shouldn't Taiwan just get a life and ignore trivialities?

What's amusing is that a paper that spilt so much ink complaining about the renaming of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall would have the face to turn around on a dime and subsequently ask its readers, "What's in a name?"  Let me guarantee you, the China Post wouldn't be nearly so philosophical about that question if Tokyo started referring to Taiwan as JAPANESE-Taipei.  Nosiree - the China Post would be the first to regard THAT as an attempt to de-legitimize Taiwan.

No Czech newspaper would nonchalantly ask, "What's in a name?" if Berlin started talking about "Sudetenland, GERMANY" once more.  Not if it didn't want to appear treasonous, it wouldn't.  And papers in the Baltics wouldn't give little sermons about semantic freedom if Vladimir Putin had pressured other countries into referring to Lithuania as RUSSIAN Vilnius.

No, in both cases, the Czechs and Balts would be swift to recognize their own self-interest.  They'd instantly see those names as something sinister, as preludes to future attacks upon their national sovereignty.

Maybe now you can see why I was so impressed that the China Post printed both those editorials on the same page.  Because recognizing that the second piece calls upon Taiwan to surrender its sovereignty in one arena, the writers compensated by defending it in another.

Now, I may be one of the world's worst chess players, but even I know that as a general rule, the key to success in that game is to protect your important pieces, while sacrificing your unimportant ones.  Yet, the China Post counsels the exact opposite.  The Post would have Taiwan defend the sovereignty of the Senkakus - risking war through "confrontation" with Japanese patrols ** - over a relatively insignificant group of islands 7 square kilometers in size, on which not a single Taiwanese lives, or ever HAS lived.  That, while ignoring Chinese threats to the sovereignty of Taiwan Island itself - an island 36,000 square kilometers in size and populated by 23 MILLION people.

There are only two possible conclusions here.***  Either those guys are even worse chess players than I am...or, this is a game they deliberately want Taiwan to lose.

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* Yilan is a county on Taiwan's north-east coast.

** A Taiwanese confrontation with Japan over the Senkakus risks war with not only Japan, but America herself:

The 1960 US-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security applies to territories under the administration of Japan, including the Senkaku Islands. In November 1996, Assistant Secretary of Defense Campbell stated that the basic position of the US is that the Japan-US security treaty would cover the Senkaku Islands. Secretary of Defense William Perry reconfirmed this fact on 03 December 1996.

A conflict is, perhaps, what the China Post hopes for.  Stir up Chinese nationalist sentiment in Taiwan and provoke a war with Japan and its ally, America.  Chinese nationalists then have their excuse to renounce America, and openly ally themselves with their communist brethren across the Strait.  From twhistory.org:

But the fight for sovereignty of the Diaoyutai [Senkakus], even to the extent of debating Taiwan's international position and legitimacy, has been continuously examined and contended, with some people [in Taiwan] even advocating a United People's Republic of China, or so-called Overseas Chinese, fighting together for the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai...  [emphasis added]

With the strategic goal of uniting Taiwan with the PRC accomplished at last, the victor in any war for the Senkakus' would be largely besides the point.

*** Actually there is a third possibility.  While as a general rule the good chess player protects valuable pieces and sacrifices weak ones, he sometimes does the opposite in order to BAIT his opponent.  Parenthetical point #2 above represents an example of what this might look like.

The opponent in such a case would be none other than the Taiwanese people, who, if misled into taking the bait, would be lured away from a democratic ally and into the arms of authoritarian one.

Why China Airlines Should Keep Its Name

Been gone for a month, so I'm woefully out of touch with local events.  About the only things I heard about are the big typhoon and the airplane that blew up on the runway in Japan. Didn't see footage in the foreign media of the former, but there sure was plenty of the latter.

(Image from Aug 21st ed of the Taipei Times)

One thing I DID notice was that none of the foreign media bothered to mention that China Airlines is in fact a TAIWANESE airline.  And with some new Chinese product or another being recalled every 3 or 4 days, it suddenly dawned upon me that here was ONE reason for not renaming the company that Taiwan's China Post managed to overlook.  Here goes:

China Airlines should not be renamed "Taiwan Airlines" out of a simple desire to maintain Taiwan's good reputation.  After all, when a China Airlines jet blows up on the tarmac, isn't it better from Taiwan's perspective that foreigners mistakenly take it to be a Chinese, rather than a Taiwanese, company?

Heh.

Victims Of Communism Memorial

Thursday's Taipei Times revealed that the unveiling of the memorial provided a rare opportunity for Taiwan's representative in Washington, D.C. to meet with the American president.  Careful, Mr. Bush, China might accuse you of PROVOKING it:

US President George W. Bush shook hands and chatted with Representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) on Tuesday while attending the dedication of a memorial to those killed by communist regimes around the world.

Actually, that's not why I brought the subject up at all.  The real reason is that one line in the story reminded me of something I wanted to write about a month ago:

The VOC Memorial was more than a decade in the making. The US Congress passed an act in 2003 on the establishment of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to raise funds to build the monument in memory of the more than 100 million people killed by communist regimes -- from China and Soviet Union to Cambodia and North Korea.  [emphasis added]

Recall that a month ago, cost was one of the major complaints raised against renaming the Chiang Kai-shek memorial in Taipei.  It seemed to me at the time that one of the best ways to counter that argument would have been to call for the establishment of a private charity to raise funds for the renaming.  After all, "It costs too much," can hardly be said once people OTHER THAN YOURSELF voluntarily commit to paying for it.  Pass the hat around, and see just how much the Taiwanese value the re-dedication.  Those who hate the idea would be free to give nothing.  But I'll bet those who WERE committed would've given, and given generously.

Both the World War II Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington were funded chiefly by private donations.  While I'm sure their respective foundations encountered the problem of free ridership, I note that in the end, the memorials DID manage to get built.  What we have here is a nice, small-government approach to the problem, which has the additional virtue of helping build civil society at the same time.

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UPDATE (Jun 21/07):  That was predictable.  The Butchers of Beijing threaten war over Wu's handshake with George Bush:

[Chinese officials] expressed stern-faced concern and spoke of dire consequences during a press conference as China made clear its fury that Bush had even chosen to acknowledge Wu’s visit.

“We insist to keep the current peaceful relations as we promised Taiwan’s citizens. We have prepared to stop (prohibit) any activities, conduct and any excuses to divide Taiwan away from China in whatever cause, the activities are going to cause serious harm. Chenshuibian’s (President of Taiwan) conspiracy of an independent Taiwan causes serious harm in our peaceful relations. We will resort to military action if they continue these irresponsible actions,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yang Li. (rough translation).  [emphasis added]

Hat tip to The View from Taiwan.

Renaming Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall

My initial reaction to the way it was handled was to label it a Trainwreck, though I'm actually of several minds on the subject.  Part of me is still disappointed that the Chen administration didn't take bolder action.  But another sympathizes, and even approves, of the road taken.  I previously wrote that Chen should have based his actions on whether he thought they would pass legal muster; elsewhere, Michael Turton pointed out that this is something that may have been unknowable:

In addition to the ongoing struggle between the two competing nationalisms, one Taiwanese, the other Chinese, the issue also shines a light on another problem: the ambiguous lines of authority in the government here.  [emphasis added]  There is a general complaint that democracy has made everything messier, and it is quite true: democracy has forced the government to figure out what the rules are, and in most cases they are vastly unclear, with multiple and conflicting lines of authority. Foreigners constantly complain that different government agencies tell them different stories about what is needed to accomplish this or that, but actually that is the experience of everyone on the island, at almost every level. In the past, Taiwan was governed by men, not laws, and so to get something done, you had to find out who was in charge of that thing. But now, no matter what the issue is, lines of authority are extremely unclear.

Given uncertainty over the legality, the right approach may have been the cautious approach.  Imagine first if President Chen HAD decided to make people like me happy, and ordered the "Chiang Kai-Shek" engraving jackhammered off the memorial's facade.  Then, imagine his choices if a court subsequently decided AGAINST him.

Far as I can see, he'd only have two options:  backtrack by ordering the "Chiang Kai-Shek" inscription re-engraved (MAJOR loss of face!), or defy the court (thereby becoming the lawless dictator Chinese nationalists always claimed he was).

Suddenly the virtue of the banners and scaffolding, which I previously derided as half-measures, becomes clear.  Chen knows the chance he may be forced to retreat on this isn't negligible, so he's committing as little as possible.  A probing action, if you will.  If he loses, he doesn't lose much - just some temporary scaffolding and a few banners.  Much preferable to the TV news endlessly repeating clips of cold, hard stone being re-engraved and lovingly polished by Chiang loyalists.

One other thought - one that isn't original, but worth repeating just the same.  If Chen's goal here was to rename CKS Memorial Hall, then so far, he has failed.  (He may yet still win, but for now, the dedication to Chiang is still etched in stone, for all to see.)  If however, his goal was to bait Chinese nationalists into defending (even embracing!) Taiwan's former dictator, then he succeeded quite spectacularly.  To wit,  I offer this encomium, delivered as a response by Taiwan's China Post:

History attests that Chiang, the man and his career, stood for Freedom, Democracy and Science...*

Plenty of freedom and democracy during 4 DECADES of martial law under Chiang and son.  One of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld comes to mind:  "Courtiers who flatter princes with virtues they do not have, insult them with impunity..."

As a second illustration, I point to the behavior of Chiang supporters during a recent religious ceremony on site for victims of the 228 Massacre:

The ritual was performed mainly in peace, despite a few instances where opponents to the hall's name change shouted verbal insults at the families.  [emphasis added]

NIIICE.  Dunno if there's any footage of that, but it just might be useful.  Come election time, I mean.

(Cartoon from the Apr 1/07 edition of the Taipei Times.)

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* Digressing from the subject of this post, I thought I'd mention this curious sentence from the the China Post's May 21st editorial:

...Taiwan's independence-seeking DPP government under [President] Chen, defying cautions by its mentor and protector the U.S., has resorted to pushing anti-China and anti-Chiang campaigns to advance its separatist agenda through undemocratic and illegal means.

To placate China, the U.S. has indeed voiced opposition to name changes of Taiwanese state firms. To my knowledge, however, it has been notably silent on the Taiwanese de-Chiangification campaign.

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UPDATE (Jun 2/07):  An overview of the issue for general readers can be found here.

Train-Wreck

My initial reactions to the rocky attempt to rename Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.  But first, a little background:

Earlier this year, Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian decided to rename the Chiang memorial, on the grounds that it was inappropriate for the capital of a democracy to host giant monuments to former dictators.  Because the legislature is dominated by Chinese nationalists who revere Chiang, Chen undertook the re-dedication via an administrative procedure.

After denouncing Chen for his ingenuity, Chinese nationalists in the legislature insisted that the change could only be made by an act of THEIR branch of government.  Since the opposition possesses a legislative majority, they essentially believed they had a veto over the plan.

Not to be outdone, the Taipei local government (again, a body dominated by Chinese nationalists) got into the act.  Invoking an administrative procedure of his own, Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin, son of one of Chiang's generals, designated the hall as a temporary historical site.  In doing so, he put the local government on a collision course with the national executive branch, because such sites cannot be legally altered.*

(Why?  Well, it's kinda hard to rename a structure if you can't take down the old nameplate.  Or screw the new nameplate anywhere onto the walls!)

Faced with this fly-in-the-ointment, the Chen administration decided to square the circle, by covering up the old "Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall" nameplate with scaffolding.  Large canvas banners proclaiming "Democracy Memorial Hall" were hung from the outside walls.  Finally, a new nameplate was unveiled in the gardens, in such a way that the structure was unmolested.

What a coincidence that Sunday's Taipei Times featured a picture of an elderly protester who busied himself shouting that the president had no, uh, gonads.  Because my reaction was that maybe that old coot had a point there.

I mean, if President Chen didn't think the name change would pass legal muster, he shouldn't have bothered with the whole endeavor.  The law's the law, even if you're president and you don't happen to like it.  On the other hand, if Chen DID think the courts would rule in his favor, he should have insisted the old nameplate be removed.  None of these phony-baloney half measures, with banners and scaffolding.  To HECK with the local government.  Tear down the old stone engraving, and put up the new plaque.

Yes, yes, City Hall said that anyone doing that would be arrested.  But if you TRULY believe the courts will vindicate your actions, then you also have to believe that the workmen will ultimately be released.  And that somebody in City Hall will in turn have to answer charges of false imprisonment of the workmen.  Workmen who were, after all, only doing their job.

As it was, Chen's wishy-washiness mollified no one.  Those banners?  City Hall said the NAILS used to hang 'em up damaged the "historical site".  The scaffolding?  Changed the site's appearance.  Grievous breaches of the law, meriting fines, said the city of Taipei. 

(Not content with that, local authorities had the banners and scaffolding torn down a few days later, anyways.)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks Chen comes out looking weak here - a bit like a certain duke from an old nursery rhyme:

The Grand Old Duke of York
He had 10,000 men
He marched them up the hill
And he marched them down again...

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* Actually, I'm sure they CAN be altered, but only with permission from the local government.  Permission which Taipei City Hall would be loath to grant.

I Did Not Know That

From Tuesday's editorial in Taiwan's China Post:

Chiang Kai-Shek fought for democracy.

Ah.  Just for the record, Chiang was re-elected president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) by the National Assembly in 1954, 1960, 1966 and 1972.

So...exactly who were his opponents in these elections?  What independent political parties did they belong to?  Were the people of Taiwan ever consulted on these votes?  And what was the fate of unfriendly media figures during these election cycles?

If there are serious answers to those questions, then I'll admit Chiang fought for democracy.  Otherwise, I'll keep in mind the example of Julius Caesar, who claimed to be savior of the republic, yet quickly accepted the post of dictator-for-life.

Here's something else I didn't know:

Chiang was supreme commander of the victorious Allied forces during WWII.

Critics and supporters alike can all agree that Chiang's conception and execution of Operation Overlord was masterful.  Simply masterful.

Won't Get Fooled Again

Taiwan's China Post came out a few weeks ago against a referendum on Taiwan attempting to join the U.N. under the name, "Taiwan," saying the question is superfluous:

...everyone [in Taiwan] wants Taiwan to rejoin the United Nations, from which the representative of Chiang Kai-shek was ousted in 1971.  As far as the United Nations is concerned, the question of Chinese representation has long been settled.  In fact, the world body formally acknowledges Taiwan as a province of the People's Republic of China.  As a result, if we want to accede to the United Nations, we have no alternative but to apply as Taiwan, which should be accepted by the world organization as an independent, sovereign state rather than a province of China. The people should not be asked to vote on an issue of whether their country should or shouldn't try to acquire U.N. membership as 'Taiwan.' The answer is there before the question is asked.  [Emphasis added]

When the China Post says "everyone" here wants to join the U.N. as "Taiwan", the casual reader is liable to think that they include themselves in that number.  But if that were true, how can one explain their near-apoplectic response to the Chen administration's efforts to add "Taiwan" to the names of state-owned enterprises?

In other words, how can the paper tell us with a straight face that they want to enter the U.N. under the name 'Taiwan', when only one or two months ago it was bitterly opposed to the creation of a Taiwan Postal Service?

The truth of the matter is that the China Post doesn't want Taiwan to ever join the U.N. as 'Taiwan'.  That would smack too much of independence for their Greater China sensibilities.  But rather than be men about that and admit it, they'd rather disingenuously claim that the result would be a foregone conclusion, and then call for a boycott of the referendum.  That way, if enough of the electorate fails to vote, the initiative will go down in flames.  Which is what they wanted all along.

Just remember that foregone conclusion the China Post talks about now.  Because if the referendum fails,  the paper will do a pirouette and claim without embarrassment that it failed not because of the boycott they themselves called for, but because the "people" never wanted to join the U.N. as 'Taiwan' in the first place.

That's the little game the China Post and Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) played during the 2004 referendum.  It worked once, so why SHOULDN'T they try again?

This Is Not About YOU, John Chiang

Earlier this week, John Chiang, an illegitimate descendant of former Taiwanese dictator Chiang Kai-shek, launched a lawsuit over the dismantling of his grand-dad's statue by the city of Kaohsiung:

"I can't bear to see the statue of the late president being disassembled.  I demand Mayor Chen publish an apology in the islands three main Chinese-language newspapers and pay a symbolic NT$1 in compensation [for] the city's rude behavior..."

"I shed tears when I saw on the TV that it (the city government) disassembled the [Chiang Kai-shek] statue into more than 200 parts * ..."

The fact is that while John Chiang shed tears, others cheered.  I know of no moral calculus that says John Chiang's displeasure must weigh more heavily than the approval of others.

There is, I believe, only one instrument with which the conflict between Chiang supporters and critics can be resolved:  Democracy. This is where Taiwan's China Post gets their "Cultural Revolution" analogy all wrong.  Unlike Mao's China, Taiwanese mobs are not  roaming the streets smashing Chiang statues.**  Instead, the people of Taiwan chose known anti-Chiang politicians to be their leaders, and those politicians are enacting that part of their program.  When pro-Chiang politicians are elected to executive positions, I will take that as evidence that the Taiwanese wish Chiang to remain in his place of honor.

Some might object that anti-Chiang politicians were elected for other reasons, pointing to poll numbers to support that claim.  Fair point, though I notice that Chiang defenders are not quite so confident about their numbers as to call for a democratic referendum on the issue.  Guess it's easier to bluster about Chiang's "solid support" in Taiwanese society than it is to risk a humiliating loss at the polls on the question.

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* While it was initially reported that the Chiang Kai-shek statue in Kaohsiung was broken into 200 pieces, the correct number was quickly established to be 79.  For emotive purposes, John Chiang continues to use the inflated figure.

** There was however, one troubling case of arson directed against one of Chiang Kai-shek's holiday villas recently, and it's my hope that the perpetrator will be found and punished harshly.   De-Chiangification must take place under the rule of law and under democratic auspices, not according to the whims of individuals with butane lighters.

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UPDATE (Apr 21/07):  The difference between John Chiang and Cho Seung-Hui's grandfather could not be starker:

John Chiang: "I shed tears when I saw on the TV that [the city government] disassembled [my grandfather's] statue into more than 200 parts."

Cho Seung-Hui's grandfather:  "Son of a bitch.  It serves [my grandson] right he died..."

Delusions Of Grandeur

Alonso Quixano...or the Knight of the Rueful Figure?

Joshua A. Norton...or His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I of the United States?

Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon III...or the Duke of France?

And, dare I say it:

Taiwan, the country...or the One, True China?

The Lost Golden Age Of Dictatorship

(Cartoon from the Apr 2/07 ed of the Taipei Times.)

Pitiful, really.  From last Saturday's pro-Chiang march:

The main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) staged a march in Taipei near the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon to protest a government campaign attacking the legacy of late President Chiang Kai-shek, 32 years after he died in 1975.

[...]

During the rally, former KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou, who is considered the frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race, conceded Chiang had made errors, but told the protesters that historical figures must not be unfairly judged.

"No historical figures were perfect, and we could reassess Chiang's legacy but must not deny all of his accomplishments," Ma said.

"He wasn't a saint, he was like you and me and [could] make mistakes, which we will review," he said. "But don't write him off completely because of them," Ma continued.

Now, I done some bad things in my time.  Never sentenced men that I knew were innocent to political prisons or death, though.  So in that sense, Chiang wasn't EXACTLY like me.  And in all likelihood, he wasn't like any of you, either.

A Taiwanese independence group held a less flattering protest at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial a day later, performing mock funeral rituals:

Traditionally, sealing the coffin -- when family members hammer nails into the lid to seal it -- is the last part of a funeral before burial.

Wang presented a sharp metal stake with a sign that read "Site for future Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" and asked all participants to hammer it into the ground.  [Taiwan's president is trying to rededicate the Chiang memorial as a Democracy hall - The Foreigner]

As he hammered, a member of the crowd shouted: "Let's seal it so the evil spirit of Chiang Kai-shek will never be able to get out again!"

Undeterred, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held yet another pro-Chiang rally a few days later, on the anniversary of the former dictator's death.  "Destroy Taiwan independence" was one of their slogans.  (Given the party's obstruction of the special arms bill, I'd say they're doing a bang-up job at that.)

After the initial rally, the Taiwan News had some food for thought about one of Chiang's reputed accomplishments:

The common myth that the  [KMT] takeover saved the Taiwan people from "the Chinese Communist bandit regime" [after World War 2] is merely a historical "what if" that excludes numerous other possibilities, such as United Nations trusteeship or the granting of independence to a government formed by the Taiwan people.

Precisely.  Though there is another, more depressing, possibility.  Had the KMT not come to Taiwan, the Taiwanese might have foolishly welcomed re-unification, even with the communists.  They did, after all, cheer during the early days of post-war re-unification, prior to the KMT's depredations.  What really would have happened is unknowable, by both Chiang defenders and detractors.

The Taiwan News also described the KMT's unhealthy nostalgia:

...the event's real aim was to "review the good fortune and prosperity brought to Taiwan in the era of the two Chiangs [Chiang Kai-shek and his son, Chiang Ching-guo - The Foreigner]," according to KMT Acting Chairman Chiang Pin-kin.  Another KMT spokesman openly expressed the hope of restoring the "golden age" allegedly experienced by Taiwan in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to the "two Chiangs."

Chiang surely did SOME good for Taiwan, but in the final analysis, it doesn't matter.  No democratic country ought to glorify former tyrants, build statues in their name, or speak of "golden ages" of dictatorship.  That's bad - no, DANGEROUS - for that country's democratic soul.  When certain parties in Taiwan make a fetish out of the "oneness of purpose" that existed prior to democracy, they shouldn't be surprised when the youth of Taiwan subsequently begin forming Hitler fan clubs out of admiration for the even greater unity that existed in Nazi Germany.  For it is their example which leads the way.

Tomb-Sweeping Day

The story of Keith Richards snorting his dad's ashes with coke made the papers here, and just in time for Tomb-Sweeping Day.  Lordy-be.  I can only imagine what Taiwanese make of us Westerners after THAT little show of filial piety.

For those who don't live in Taiwan, Tomb-Sweeping Day is a holiday set aside to pay obeisance at the tombs of one's ancestors.  People typically trim away vegetation that has grown over family graves over the course of the year; in subtropical Taiwan this can entail quite a bit of work, particularly for children from urban centers who may've never handled a pruner or hedge-trimmer in their entire lives.  A good piece on Tomb-Sweeping Day holiday can be found here.

Joe Hung also wrote an interesting column on modern observances of this holiday.  I was unaware that the holiday used to be unfixed (the 15th Day of the Spring Equinox, so it fell on either Apr 5th or 6th).  It was fixed on Apr 5th by late Taiwanese dictator Chiang Ching-guo in order to honor his father, Chiang Kai-shek, who died on that day.  As part of a recent de-Chiangification campaign, it has been suggested that the holiday become unfixed again.

I don't know if Tomb-Sweeping Day will be returned to its TRUE Chinese roots and become unfixed again, but I beg to differ with Dr. Hung on one point.  De-Chiangification is NOT de-Sinicization - unless one starts with the proposition that dictatorship is an inherent and essential part of Chinese-ness.

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UPDATE:  The Taiwan News reports that Richards was joking about his dad's ashes.

UPDATE (Apr 7/07):  Good pic of the day's observances from Friday's Taipei Times:

Frankly, I'm a little surprised to see this picture at all.  Last time I showed some Taiwanese friends a couple pictures I'd taken of local tombs (mixed in with other photos - I'm not THAT morbid), they were horrified.  Said the ghosts were going to follow me now.

And There'd Be Even MORE Tourists If It Were Dedicated To Mao Tse-tung

Tough to defend the existence of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on moral grounds, so the latest argument is a naked appeal to economic self-interest.  From Sunday's editorial in the China Post:

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall has become a tourist attraction that's extremely popular with tourists, especially visitors from mainland China.  It contributes immensely to the development of Taiwan's tourist industry.

The abolition of this historic site would deprive the island of a major tourist attraction and do tremendous harm to the lives of countless businesspeople who rely on this tourist center to make a living.

Making pilgrimages to monuments to authoritarianism is about the LAST thing that subjects of a communist state ought to be doing.  If Chinese tourists come to Taiwan, let them visit monuments showing Taiwan's commitment to democracy instead.

Lenin's Tomb is a pretty big tourist attraction too, but that's entirely beside the point.  Bury the sonofabitch already.

Dealing With The Past

For some time now, I've been reflecting on the similar situation that Hungary, Estonia and Taiwan face in removing statues dedicated to communism / authoritarianism, but it took Dr. Keating to actually write about it.  Finding myself in such agreement, I had to search pretty hard to find ANYTHING to disagree with:

A side issue of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial [relative to renaming it] is whether to tear down the walls.  A few extra gates could be built to ease access, but taking down the walls will serve no great purpose.

The rationale behind the proposal to tear down the walls was to reflect "democratic openness" in keeping with its new name (the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall).  This initially seemed to me an exercise in overly esoteric symbolism, but a few days later, I changed my mind.  Instead of being a serious suggestion, the proposal should be viewed as a diversion (or perhaps an opening bid in a negotiation).  I mean, for days afterward, the big story wasn't "Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall to be renamed", but "KMT vows to defend memorial walls".

Masterful.  And if the memorial IS renamed, President Chen ends up looking magnanimous when he says, "OK, you win.  The walls can stay."

Aside from that, there's something Dr. Keating brought up that I wanted to elaborate a bit more upon:

...above Budapest, the Liberty Statue monument prominently stands on Gellert Hill overlooking the city and the Danube River.

This monument too has received its own rectification -- a rectification of inscription.

Originally erected in 1947 by the conquering Russians, it used to bear the hypocritical inscription: "Erected by the Hungarian Nation in memory of the liberating Russian heroes." Some liberation!

The Hungarians quickly realized the destructive and oppressive nature of these heroes. In 1956 they rebelled and were severely put down.

(Liberty Statue in Budapest, Hungary.  Image from Academic Programs International.)

Dr. Keating didn't have space in a single newspaper column to flesh out the expression "severely put down".  I'll retell but a single story that readers might not be familiar with:

When the Red Army rolled into Hungary in 1956, their tanks initially took relatively heavy losses against Molotov cocktails.  To prevent this, the Soviets did what anyone pupilled in the ethical school of Marx and Lenin would have done: they simply tied Hungarians to their tanks and used them as human shields against the flaming glass projectiles.

Some liberation, indeed.  Reckon I wouldn't judge too harshly Hungarians if they busted a Red Army statue into a couple hundred pieces after hearing that some petty local magistrate wanted to present it as a token of eternal friendship to the Russians.

Restorations

OK, I knew that the name of the Chiang Kai-Shek Airport was initially supposed to be the Taoyuan International Airport, and was only given that name because the dictator died.  So in a way, renaming it back to the "Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport" is only restoring it to what it should have been called in the first place.

But I didn't know that the building of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall also usurped a previous plan:

In July 1973, ‘Taipei reading’ (volume 67) had an article about the project, ‘Ying-Pien New Community.’ The government originally planned to raise 1500 billion NTD to build a ‘modern business center’ across 62 acre area in Hsin-Yi Road. There would be five 18- to 50-level business buildings, three 24- to 30-level international hotels for tourists and apartments, four department stores, conference hall, world trade center, culture centers, and entertainment facilities. There would be transportation systems between buildings, and moving tracks for pedestrians. In the cover and content of this journal, we can see the scenographs, and all of them are towering glass-covering buildings. This project is full of the imagination of ‘modern and technology advance,’ and it was set to start the development in June, 1974. However, Chiang Kai-Shek died in 1975, and the plan was suddenly changed to use the land for Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall.

(from Chih-Hung Wang, via Global Voices Online)

Mischievous thought:  If the name of Taiwan's main international airport can be restored, then why can't the original vision for the memorial's parcel of land be as well?  The Chinese Nationalist Party never ceases to claim that Chiang was the sole cause of Taiwan's economic miracle, so what better monument could there be to such a man than a few 50-story skyscrapers?

Sprucing-Up The Place

Thursday's Taipei Times displayed a front-page photo of the Presidential Office, with a potted plant set in a place formerly reserved for a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China.

(Photo from the March 15th edition of the Taipei Times)

A day later, an editorial in the China Post read, "DPP's attempt to cut ties with China will backfire."

Much as I'd like to say they're all wrong, I can't.  Yes, I know why President Chen, a TAIWANESE nationalist, would wish to remove a symbol of CHINESE nationalism.  But replacing a picture of Sun with a PLANT?

That's a slap in the face.  It needlessly mobilizes his political enemies, while antagonizing voters who straddle the fence.  When you're engaged in a struggle with the Chinese Nationalists over the name of the Post Office and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, why open another front?  Removing the "China" from the titles of the Taiwan's Post Office and other state institutions is a worthy cause necessary for distinguishing this "China" from the REAL one.  And dismantling the cult of Chiang isn't de-sinification; it's democratization.

But near as I can tell, Sun Yat-sen, unlike Chiang, never hurt Taiwan.  In politics, you have to pick your battles, and I'm sorry to say, I have agree with the China Post when it says that Chen is over-reaching here.

Hope I'm wrong.

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UPDATE (MAR 19/07):  A few townships controlled by the Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party removed portraits of SITTING President Chen Shui-bian during the height of the anti-Chen protests in September / October 2006.

All The King's Horses, And All The King's Men

I had to read this story twice to fit it all together.  In the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, a statue of Chiang Kai-shek was taken down recently.  The mayor of the Taiwanese city of Tahsi requested the statue, but he didn't want it for HIS town.  Instead, he hoped to send it as a gift to the village in China where Chiang was born.

So the trucks rumble into Tahsi sometime before 5 in the morning.  I'd like to think that the lead driver was a broad-faced teamster smoking a cheap stogie.  Driver steps from the cab and says, "We got your Chiang statue for ya.  Just sign right here, mac."

One little problem though.  The 8.17 meter statue had been broken up.*  Into 200 pieces.

Butterfingers.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Tahsi is in Xikou, China.  He's trying to persuade the Chi-coms of Chiang's village to accept the statue of their former enemy.  And apparently, he's been making progress.  So he gets a phone call, telling him that, y'know that statue you were kinda hopin' to give away as a gift?

Well, there's been a little complication.

The China Post reports the mayor was "heartbroken".  Having lost a set of dinner plates on my last move**, I know exactly how he feels.

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* The statue was 8 meters tall?  Just how much did the damn thing weigh, anyway?  In defense of the teamsters, it must have been one heck of a job even to load up the broken pieces.

** I didn't, really.  I just made that part up.

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UPDATE (Mar 20/07):  Looks like the statue was only segmented into 79 pieces instead of 200, and my footnoted questions were appropriate:

[The sculptor of the statue said that] the way the bureau removed the statue was correct given the statue's size and weight.

Taiwan's Trade With Denmark At All-Time High

The story's from a few weeks ago.

Bilateral trade between Taiwan and Denmark
set a new record of US$907.8 million in 2006 thanks to the signing of
a double taxation avoidance treaty between the two countries in
August, 2005, according to Taiwan's representative to the North
European country.

Those numbers, of course, could easily change - particularly if some Danish newpaper takes it upon itself to publish cartoons of the Prophet Chiang Kai-shek.  Peace Be Upon Him.

Was Chiang Kai-shek Really So Bad?

That was the question the China Post's Joe Hung posed in his column on Monday.  Let me begin by stating that it's entirely fair for Hung to enumerate the beneficial things Chiang did for Taiwan (though at the same time, some of the things he lists are debatable, even refutable).*  And I certainly take his point that historians should endeavor to tell all the facts, not just cherry-pick the ones they happen to like.

But when he says that history isn't judgment, I confess to being a bit baffled.**  Can we now expect the China Post will stop slamming President Chen Shui-bian's record?  Because by definition, Chen's record IS history, isn't it?  And didn't Dr. Huang just finish telling us that that's something we're not ALLOWED to judge?

By strange coincidence, I ran into a quote during my vacation arguing rather the opposite, by Yale Classics professor Donald Kagan:

Finally, I must explain and defend my use of what has been called "counterfactual history".  Some readers may be troubled by my practice of comparing what happened with what might have happened had individuals or groups of people made different decisions or taken different actions.  I believe that anyone who tries to write history rather than merely chronicle events must consider what might have happened; the only question is how explicitly he reveals what he is doing.  Historians interpret what they recount, which is to say they judge it.  They cannot say that an action was wise or foolish without also saying or implying that it was better or worse than some other action that might have been taken - that, after all, is "counter-factual history".  [emphasis added]  All true historians engage in the practice, with greater or less self-consciousness.  Thucydides, perhaps the greatest of historians, does this on many occasions, as when he makes a judgment of Pericles' strategy in the Peloponnesian War:  "such abundant grounds had Pericles at the time for his forecast that Athens might quite easily have triumphed in this war over the Peloponnesians alone." (2.65.13; emphasis added [by Kagan])

I think there are important advantages in being so explicit.  A clear statement puts the reader on notice that the assertion in question is a judgment, an interpretation rather than a fact.  It also helps to avoid the excessive power of the fait accompli, making clear that what really occurred was not the inevitable outcome of superhuman forces or of equally determined and equally mysterious forces within the historical actors.  Instead, what happened was the result of decisions made by human beings acting in a world they [did] not fully control.  It suggests that both the decisions and their outcomes could well have been different.  I continue this practice in examining the life of Pericles.

- p xiii-xiv of Donald Kagan's Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy

I perhaps should have underlined Kagan's claim that all true historians judge history, whether they're conscious of it or not.  Because after making a point of admonishing his readers not to judge history, Hung goes on to do exactly that:

The fact, however, is that despite [the 2-28 Massacre and the White Terror], Chiang was a good autocrat...But for [Chiang's] defense force and American intervention, Taiwan would have been a province of the People's Republic of China before the end of 1950.

Now, I happen to agree it was A GOOD THING that Chiang helped prevent Taiwan from falling to the communists, but I also recognize that that sentiment is a JUDGMENT.  A judgment with which most Marxists, and more than a few leftists, are liable to disagree.

I'll close with a story about a friend of mine, a semi-professional videographer.  Fellow went down to 2-28 Memorial Park with an interpreter on February 28th to conduct a few interviews with family members of 2-28 Massacre victims.  He's hoping to do a documentary on 2-28 sometime, though he apparently has other projects on the front burner right now.  Anyways, instead of a FEW interviews, he was surprised to find that a long line of Taiwanese old-timers began to form, each wanting to tell the wai-guo-ren*** with the camera their story.

Their stories were depressingly similar.  "The KMT army came to my house one night and took my father away, and we never saw him again.  I just want to know the truth of what happened to him."  This my friend heard, over and over.

I wasn't there, so I don't know what questions my friend asked of the interviewees.  For that reason, I don't know if it even occurred to him to ask them whether they thought Chiang Kai-shek was "all that bad".

I'll venture to say though, that they would have scoffed at the notion that that's something they shouldn't be allowed to judge for themselves.

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* Particularly amusing is Hung's statement that Chiang's KMT controlled runaway inflation.  While it is true that there was high inflation in Taiwan at the end of World War II, inflation increased - not decreased - during the first few years of KMT administration of the island.  The uprising that occurred on February 28, 1947 was in part a reaction against the KMT's gross economic mismanagement, if not outright thievery.

It takes a bit of nerve for Dr. Hung to praise the KMT for controlling hyperinflation, when in fact it was something they were largely responsible for.

** It should be clear what Hung's Georgetown professors were driving at.  It is indeed a tricky thing to judge those who have gone before us by our own moral standards.  The ancient Greeks and Romans lived in a different moral universe from our own, and I don't see much use in spending a lot of time denouncing them for keeping slaves.  The question then, I think, is whether the KMT of Chiang's time also dwelt in a different moral universe, or whether it was one which more closely resembled our own.

I would argue the latter.  I suspect that if one looked carefully enough, one could still find original records of slave sales in ancient Rome.  Why would anyone conceal such records, when they were a normal part of the world in which they lived?  Contrast that to the KMT's behavior after 2-28; they concealed evidence, and even attempted to justify their conduct by inventing a cockamamie story about there being 100,000 Japanese troops hiding in the Taiwanese mountains waiting - waiting! - to join forces with the Taiwanese rebels. [note to self: find the link for this later]

100,000 Japanese troops hiding out in the Taiwanese mountains.  In 1947.  Riiight.

In the world of law, people who commit crimes sometimes try to plea criminal insanity.  "I didn't know what I was doing - I didn't know what I was doing was WRONG."  But such a plea is usually not taken very seriously if it can be proven that the suspect tried to lie or conceal evidence after the fact.

Maybe that's because the act of hiding evidence is not usually associated with men who are innocent.

*** Mandarin for "foreigner"

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UPDATE (Mar 27/07):  A good Johnny Neihu piece mostly devoted to this topic.  He expresses astonishment that Chiang could not have known what his subordinates were doing in Taiwan around the time of the 2/28 Massacre:

Unaware! Chiang was a control freak who distrusted his subordinates so deeply that he countermanded his generals mid-battle. At one point he held 82 government posts simultaneously, including chief of the government, army and party, plus -- rather bizarrely, the presidencies of the Boy Scouts and National Glider Association. To believe that he could have been "unaware of conditions on Taiwan" is pushing it just a little.

I didn't know that.  Though Neihu's list DID jog my memory about something else - that Chiang's army was based on Leninist lines, with each unit having both a military and a POLITICAL officer.  The job of the latter was to spy on the former, to make certain he was loyal.  If it looked like the military officer might be mutinous, the political officer was authorized to put a bullet in his head.

It's therefore hard to imagine Chiang not being aware of the situation in Taiwan with all of those political officers floating around, each one of them regularly reporting back home.

Going 'Postal' Over Name Changes

I confess to being fairly neutral on the issue of "Taiwanizing" names of state-owned enterprises here, so I was somewhat bemused to read the China Post's vehement opposition last Sunday:

It seems as if the government of President Chen Shui-bian will never cease to change names and symbols perceived to connect Taiwan with the Chinese nation.

According to reports made public over the past few days, the Cabinet has begun preparations to change the names of several major corporations and institutions that are majority-owned by the state.

These reports say that China Airlines, an international carrier that has operated for some 47 years, will have to change its name to "Taiwan Airlines" or perhaps "Formosa Airlines."

...[in doing so] , a major brand name that has been carefully built up for nearly half a century would be dismantled virtually overnight to satisfy the political correctness of the current lame-duck administration.

I don't want to be mean here, but you might want to google "China Airlines"+"safety record" to give you some idea about how "carefully" the brand name was built up over the last fifty years.  Maybe renaming the company is an act of mercy which might help distance it from its formerly dismal reputation in this arena.

(I say "formerly" for a reason.  The paper neglects to inform its readers that it was under the Chen administration that China Airlines began to improve upon passenger safety.)

Taiwan's China Post mentions a few other name-change candidates as well:

There is also the matter of Chunghwa Telecom, whose name sounds innocuous enough in English, but which translates as "China Telecom".

[...]

There is also...China Steel, as well as Chunghwa Post, the national postal service whose name in Chinese literally means "Chinese Postal Administration."

The paper breezily dismisses the argument that the name changes will avoid confusion, claiming, "these institutions have been working fine for many decades."  And for companies that serve local consumers, that's probably true - for now.  No one walks into the local post office and thinks that it's owned by the Communist Party of China.  On the other hand, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou has promised to allow Chinese firms to operate in Taiwan if he's elected president in 2008, and if that happens, then local consumers might very well wish to have some way to distinguish between Taiwanese companies that bear the "China" moniker and their Chinese equivalents.

The case is even stronger for companies which serve foreign customers.  Surely, not many foreigners can be expected to know that China Airlines is Taiwanese, while Air China is Chinese.    There's a good business reason why Pepsi is Pepsi, and not "Cola-Coca". 

It's called product differentiation.

The claim that such changes remove Taiwan from the Chinese fatherland becomes surreal when one considers that the Taiwanese government has also suggested dropping the Republic of China calendar in favor of the Christian calendar.  As a fellow blogger previously observed, how would Taiwan's adoption of the calendar that Communist China itself uses move Taiwan any further from China?

(I wrote more on this in a post back in February.  Scroll down to the March 1st update.)

The China Post objects to these name changes on cost grounds, and I'm not in any position to argue with any of its figures at this time.  I do however, doubt that "Formosa Airlines" will have to renegotiate quite as many air service agreements as the Post asserts it will, and I also doubt that the China Post was quite so worried about cost when it was time to change Japanese-era names to Chinese ones.

I understand full well why the KMT said "hang the cost" and renamed things in Taiwan 50 years ago.  They were Chinese nationalists, and they they did it because it appealed to their base.  And President Chen?  Well, he's a Taiwanese nationalist.  It shouldn't be surprising that he, too, is trying to appeal to HIS base.

Any talk of a "Cultural Revolution" is absurd.  The China Post is free to argue against these changes, and none of its owners or writers will EVER be sent to a re-education camp.  Moreover, redress is merely A SINGLE democratic election away.  If the KMT objects strongly enough to President Chen's policies, it can always reverse them.

IF it wins the presidency, that is.

The paper closes by bitterly suggesting that President Chen should "direct his subordinates to stop wasting time and money changing names and symbols, and start thinking about how to properly govern the country instead."  Here, the Post utterly confuses Chen's priorities.  Chen DID try to "properly govern" the country, only to witness the KMT block most of his legislation.  Having dammed the political water from flowing in productive directions, did the KMT really not anticipate it overflowing the banks and running in non-productive directions instead?

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UPDATE:  Written Wednesday, this post was left unpublished until I could check it for grammar and sentence flow.  By Friday, the China Post revealed a name change it DOES support:

Thus, to facilitate its rule of Taiwan if it regains power with Ma [Ying-jeou] assuming the [Taiwanese] presidency in 2008, the KMT should lose no time...[in addressing] the issue of "indigenous consciousness"...[It should consider] changing the KMT of China into the KMT of Taiwan, or at least eliminating the word "China" since, in the present political climate, such a name may mislead people into believing it is a party of the People's Republic of China (PRC), or an organization closely related to the PRC, thus incurring the charge of national betrayal.  [Emphasis added]

Sounds like a Cultural Revolution in the making here.  Why, the KMT got along just fine for the last 100 years with its present name!  And what of the STAGGERING costs of ordering new letterhead and namecards...

Acts Of Brutality

Well, there goes THAT promise.  The one where I was going to wait a few days before commenting on current events here in Taiwan.  Let's just say the devil made me do it.

Actually, it was the China Post, and its claim yesterday that changing the airport's name from Chiang Kai-Shek to Taiwan Taoyuan International was "a show of brutal power".

Somebody call the International Criminal Court.  President "Snidely Whiplash" Chen just renamed an airport.  Why, this is the greatest injustice in the history of the world!

Cost

The China Post's first objection was the expense.  Twenty one million NT dollars ($640,000 US), give or take.  That, and the move did nothing to improve the economy.

Which isn't bad as arguments go.  It's just that I wonder if someone could produce for me an editorial by that paper denouncing the KMT's renaming of Taiwanese streets, neighborhoods and mountains back in the late '40s.  A great many of THOSE had Japanese names prior to retrocession, and all of them were given Chinese names afterwards.

In the process, I daresay the KMT spent a whole lot more than $21 million NT.  And on top of that, post-war Taiwan was in a far poorer position to afford that kind of money than it is today.

So I ask you: Did any of the KMT's more expensive name changes do anything to improve Taiwan's economy back then?  If they didn't, where was the China Post's outrage?

Cutting the cord

Even more absurd was this statement:

"The name change of Chiang Kai-shek International Airport is but the latest example of [President] Chen's...all out efforts to cut the umbilical cord between China and Taiwan."

Maybe there are some linguists out there who could help me out a little here.  Isn't the word "Taoyuan" Chinese, or does it originate from some other language, like Swahili or something?  Pray tell, how does an airport name change from Chiang Kai-shek (a Chinese PERSON) to Taiwan Taoyuan (a Chinese PLACE*) move Taiwan any further from China?  They're still both Chinese names, or am I missing something?

It's a bloody Cultural Revolution, is what it is!**

Next, the China Post makes mountains out of molehills.  Renaming airports is just like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and will end up just as badly.  President Chen and Chairman Mao are the same, both denouncing and destroying people.

It seems more than a little ironic that on the same page as this bit of hysterical hyperbole was a column about the REAL Cultural Revolution.  You know, the one where 11 year-old kids had to denounce their parents after the Red Guards killed them.  Re-education camps, that sort of thing.

Try as I might, I found nothing in that column about the survivors objecting to any airport name changes Mao might have made at the time.  Though I'm sure the ones he actually DID make must have increased their sufferings immeasurably.

Actually, when you think about it, Chiang's wholesale renaming of Taiwanese place names and his White Terror period resembles Mao's Cultural Revolution far more than anything that Chen's done.  Despite that however, the China Post continues to hail Chiang as a "symbol of the Chinese nation and a towering figure in contemporary Chinese history".

As for Chen?  Why, six years in office, and he STILL hasn't killed or imprisoned anyone yet.

Amateur!

A Rose by any other Name, yada yada

The paper closes with philosophical food for thought, asking us, "What's in a name?  A rose smells as sweet if called by any other name."

Which of course, is a testable claim if ever I saw one.  Perhaps instead of "Taiwan Taoyuan", the airport should have been named in honor of another "towering figure" in contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese history:

Now picture the editors of the China Post landing at Taiwan's Hideki Tojo International Airport after a long overseas flight.  That rose still smellin' just as sweet NOW, fellas?

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* Please, no objections that Taoyuan is Taiwanese and not Chinese.  There's at least one "Taoyuan" township in northeast China.

** This heading sounds a lot better when read aloud in a Cockney accent.

Statues For Me, Not For Thee

When it was proposed a few weeks ago that statues of Chiang Kai-Shek be removed from Taiwanese military bases, the KMT's biggest objection was that doing so would do violence to history and remembrance.  Sure, Chiang may have been a dictator, but he was a big part of Taiwan's past, so his role shouldn't be minimized or forgotten.

Now, it would seem to me that someone making this argument would quite naturally be in favor of memorials to other controversial individuals or groups in Taiwan's history - the Taiwanese aboriginal units that fought on the side of the Japanese during World War II being perhaps, a prime example.

Silly me.  When Taiwanese aborigines suggested that a monument be built to honor their war dead, the KMT's intellectual consistency flew out the window.  It was perfectly reasonable that Taiwanese military bases house hundreds of statues of OUR guy - the guy behind the White Terror - the KMT said.  But somebody in Taiwan wants one - ONE! - memorial to people who fought for Japan?

Why now, that's just completely beyond the pale!

Thus does the KMT's carefully-constructed "Stonewall Jackson" argument collapse.  The KMT put forward the notion that America tolerates statues to people who fought for the Confederacy on its soil, therefore, Taiwan ought to similarly continue to honor the Chiangs.  But surely, aborigines who fought for the Japanese fall into the same category as America's Confederates.  They too, fought and died for a wrong cause. 

The entire affair illustrates the kind of tolerance that the KMT demands for itself, but is still unwilling to grant unto others.

(The Taipei Times has a picture of the Taiwanese aborigines defending their honor from the epithets hurled by the pro-KMT press here.)

Rearguard Actions Part III

Imagine for a moment that you're in the market for a new house, and you're locked in a heated negotiation with the seller.  You make a number of lowball offers, but he doesn't budge from his initial position.  At last, you agree to his price, partly because it's within your budget, and partly because you REALLY have your heart set on that house.

But then, a funny thing happens.  Two weeks after your bargaining session, he calls you with an unexpected offer.  He's gonna give you a break - you cab have the house for a price near your initial offer.  Needless to say, you're left scratching your head.

A very similar thing recently happened regarding statues of former dictator Chiang Kai-Shek in Taiwan.  The military proposed removing Chiang statues from bases and military schools.  "Never!" cried the KMT.  What if we just got rid of old or damaged statues, the military then proposed.  "Not a single one goes," answered the KMT.  And soon, the KMT got its way.  The Taiwanese military agreed to the KMT's price, and the statues remained in place.

Then, just like in my parable, a funny thing happened.  Two and a half weeks after winning the battle over the Chiang statues, a curious editorial appeared in the China Post.  Not surprisingly, they defended Chiang's record as president and general.  There was, however, this bit of added criticism:

While in Taiwan, the Gimo had a personality cult started. His defeated army that came with him and the people of Taiwan were taught to worship him as the "savior of China." The Military Academy in Fengshan claims its roots in Whampoa, of which he was the founding commandant. His statues were erected there and in practically every other military installation to perpetuate that leader worship.

We are glad that none of Chiang's successors have tried to develop a personality cult.

I had something similar to say regarding Chiang's deification in an earlier post.  So what was the China Post's proposed solution?

Military installations should remove his statues to put a formal end to his personality cult, but the Military Academy must be allowed to keep its founder's statue to remember his contribution to the education of the cadre for the Army of the Republic of China.

Now, the reader is suddenly in much the same position as the buyer of my story.  Let's be honest: it isn't very often that a seller will table his bottom line demands AFTER winning for himself a better deal.  Here's a couple of theories for you to take your pick from:

1)  The KMT and the China Post were always willing to be reasonable about removing Chiang statues, but the proposal seemed so radical and arbitrary that it would have been a major loss of face for them to show any signs of initially accepting any part of it.  This theory implies that the Chiang supporters would have been more comfortable with a quieter, more slowly-implemented policy.  It also implies that the pro-independence parties either badly bungled the handling of the issue by moving too quickly and publicly, or that they deliberately tabled a motion that they knew would get shot down in flames, simply to gin up support from Chiang detractors.*

2)  The China Post recognizes that the KMT has won the battle, not the long-term ARGUMENT.  Perhaps they realize that the statues of the Chiangs are numbered (see my reasoning here) and are beginning the long process of retreat on the issue.**  It was not for nothing that I titled these posts, Rearguard Actions; the entire point of a rearguard action is to fall back to a more defensible position.

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* Another possibility should be mentioned, too.  The independence parties may have merely wanted to stimulate DEBATE regarding the place of a dictator's statues in a democratic society, not to actually remove them.  Conducting an under-the-radar removal policy would have left the independence parties open to charges of being undemocratic sneaks, and would not have served the purpose of provoking debate on the statues so that some kind of societal consensus on them could be reached.

(It's times like this that I think it unfortunate that I can't read Chinese.  While expat bloggers have debated the issue at length, I have absolutely no idea of what the quality of the debate has been like in the Taiwanese press.)

** I confess preferring Theory 2 to Theory 1, but admit to being puzzled by the abruptness and scale of the China Post's retreat on the issue.  If this editorial is to believed, then "the long process of retreat" seems like it may not be quite so long after all.  I AM surprised that the China Post arrived at their current, fairly reasonable position without proposing some sort of more incremental, intermediate step.

Albanian Statue Controversy

Finally got around to reading Saturday's edition of the Taipei Times, and my jaw hit the floor when I saw a one paragraph piece on Albania.  WTF?  Muslim groups in Albania are opposing plans to erect a statue in honor of their country's most famous daughter: Mother Teresa.

You heard me.  Mother-freakin'-Teresa.

(Image via Nobelprize.org.)

At this point, I'm thinkin' it's one of those April Fool's Day stories.  Gotta be.  But no, Reuters reported it as well:

...Muslim groups in [the Albanian city of] Shkoder rejected the local council plan for a Teresa statue, saying it "would offend the feelings of Muslims."

[...]

"We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place because we see her as a religious figure," said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder's mufti or Muslim religious leader.

...men in one Shkoder bar said they would prefer a monument to an Albanian fighter who blew himself up in order to avoid being captured by enemy Serbs...

So, Muslim clerics are opposed, as are the faithful.  At least, the pub-crawling beer-drinkers among them, anyways.

Now, what's wrong with this picture?  Democratic Taiwanese can't TAKE DOWN down statues of dictators, while Muslim Albanians can't PUT UP statues of saints?*

This one's filed under 'Islamofascism', although I realize that's a bit of an exaggeration.  What I SHOULD do is create a new category called, "Muslim Lack of Graciousness Towards Other Religions," and put the post there.

But I'm much too lazy to do all that.  Sue me.

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* My first post on the failed efforts to remove Chiang Kai-Shek and Chiang Ching-Gwoh statues from Taiwanese military bases can be found here.  The second is here.

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UPDATE:  ABC News places a more positive spin on the story, stating that the city's largest Muslim group has given the proposed bust of the Roman Catholic nun their blessing, despite the objections of three smaller organizations.  Still, the other groups ARE busy doing their best impression of communist China, warning everyone that social peace could be shattered by green-lighting the "provocative" memorial.

Rearguard Actions Part II

During the debate a couple of weeks ago over whether statues of Chiang Kai-Shek and Chiang Ching-Gwoh should be removed from Taiwanese military bases, a couple of arguments were made that merit a bit of scrutiny.  The KMT tried to make the case that because Americans honor Dwight D. Eisenhower and Stonewall Jackson in their military academies, the Taiwanese military should continue to similarly honor the dictatorial Chiangs.  Let's take a look at their arguments:

1.  Dwight D. Eisenhower

A statue of this general and American president apparently stands in West Point Military Academy.  This, the KMT says, is proof that it's not a violation of military neutrality to have monuments to a political leader in a military school.

(Dwight D. Eisenhower photo from Wikipedia.)

It  should be pointed out that as far as political leaders go, Eisenhower is pretty uncontroversial.  You know all those "I Like Ike" buttons?  Believe it or not, people wore them because they actually, well, LIKED Ike.  They never had to worry that if they didn't wear them they might be sent to Green Island.* 

Sure, intellectuals of the time may have been "Madly for Adlai", but Eisenhower's domestic policy was to leave the Democrats' New Deal in place, while promising to administer it more efficiently.  If he'd been a Reaganesque figure, his statue in the military academy might've (might've!) garnered a little more political opposition.

The second point - and how do I put this delicately? - is that Eisenhower was a general who actually won a war.  In contrast, Chiang Kai-Shek, by virtue of his military genius, managed to lose VIRTUALLY ALL OF CHINA to the communists.  I leave it to the reader to decide which of those two achievements is more deserving of being immortalized in bronze.

2.  Stonewall Jackson

A statue of the Confederate general still stands on the grounds of Virginia Military Institute.  The KMT believes this demonstrates that monuments to important figures shouldn't be cast aside just because they happen to be subject to disputes over the rightness or wrongness of their causes.

(Stonewall Jackson photo from Wikipedia.)

Stonewall Jackson DID fight for the Confederacy, and as such, it must be admitted that he's a bit more controversial than Ike.  The Civil War may have been about Northern tariffs on imported manufactured goods and about the constitutional right to secession, but no one can deny that it was also about slavery.  And ultimately, Jackson fought on the wrong side of the latter issue.  Bearing this in mind, I'll make the best case that I can in favor of retaining Jackson's VMI statue.

The first thing that should be noted is that it's not Chiang's cause that most people object to - it's his actions vis-a-vis his democratic opposition.  In our time, we can look at someone like Stonewall Jackson and shake our heads sadly that he died unconsciously serving an unjust cause, despite his own personal goodness and decency.  But with Chiang, the situation is reversed:  fighting communism was a just cause, but his methods of political repression towards the Taiwanese were thoroughly lacking in decency.

Secondly, Stonewall Jackson is worthy of commemoration because he was one of America's greatest generals EVER.  Even his Northern enemies never gainsaid this.  I wonder how many Chiang loyalists, let alone his communist enemies, seriously believe that Chiang Kai-Shek was one of China's greatest?  In addition, Jackson's military writings have stood the test of time, and are still part of the curriculum at VMI.  150 years after Chiang's death, will his written works on military matters still be studied by Taiwanese cadets?  I'm not an expert, but I'm willing to guess not.

Finally, it should be remembered that Virginia Military Institute is a STATE, not a NATIONAL military academy like West Point (or the Taiwanese military schools).  Stonewall Jackson taught at VMI, was one its most illustrious graduates, and is buried nearby.  It seems entirely appropriate to acknowledge the historic importance of such a man at the local, not the national, level.

This comes back to the part of my previous post where I wrote a bit about giving a decent nod to history.  People don't usually complain too much if a statue of Ike or Stonewall pops up here or there.  Even a "controversial" figure like Reagan can have aircraft carriers named after him without a fight from folks on the other side of the aisle. 

The reason for that kind of tolerance is that admiration of great men in democratic countries is usually carried out in moderation.  No Ike follower demands a bust of his hero in every barracks, no Stonewall fan expects a photo of his idol to be prominently displayed in every school, and no Reaganite insists that the main drag in every town be renamed the "Ronald Reagan Parkway".  If any of them did, their plans would soon encounter significant opposition from people with different values, different outlooks, different heroes.

In a pluralistic society this is a good thing, because if society over-celebrates a handful of men, then other worthy men will end up being overlooked or crowded out.  Like it or not, town squares have only a finite amount of space upon which to construct memorials.**

Of course, a very few "heroes by consensus" like George Washington can avoid this fate, but the Chiangs will never be counted among their number.  In Taiwan, the Chiangs are controversial figures - controversial being an understatement.  At this stage, all the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten their hands now.

I take it as a given that many leaders are interested in being celebrated by future generations, and if that desire motivates them to leave behind a positive legacy, then it serves a beneficial social function.  But democracies have a vital interest too: Democracies need to communicate to their would-be leaders that if they wish to obtain enduring fame and honor, they mustn't kill or imprison their democratic opponents.

One way of conveying that message is to remove statues exalting those who have.

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* Taiwan's Green Island was used as political prison up until the late 1980s.

** Society not only has a limited amount of resources with which to celebrate great men, but a limited interest in doing so as well.  Life goes on, and there are other priorities in life besides paying obeisance to those whose time has passed.

Rearguard Actions

"I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one."

- Cato the Younger (95-46 B.C.)

Sometimes when you procrastinate blogging about something, the issue ends up going away before you get a chance to write about it.  On the surface, the March 18th proposal to remove Chiang Kai-Shek and Chiang Ching-Gwoh statues from Taiwanese military bases looks like just such an issue.  Not a day had passed before the Ministry of National Defense busied itself trying to mollify KMT outrage by assuring everyone that only worn-out fiberglass statues would be permanently removed.  The KMT was left unappeased however, and by March 22nd, even this compromise plan was dead in the water.*

(Chiang Kai-Shek image from Wikipedia.)

So, no issue, no post, right?  Move along folks, there's nothing to see here...

Except that the issue really ISN'T dead.  In response to the KMT's statue victory, President Chen on March 25th renamed Taipei's version of the White House from the clunky "Long Live Kai-Shek Hall" to the terse "Presidential Office".  In doing so, he was obviously of the belief that a building should named after the function it serves, rather than after the dictator who once happened to work there.  At any rate, more marginalization of Chiang-era monuments is almost certain to happen in the future if Taiwan's democracy is allowed to mature.  Actually, I'll go even further to suggest that that Chiang statues will someday be discarded, REGARDLESS of democracy's fate in Taiwan.  More on this though, later in the post.

(Presidential Office image by The Foreigner)

One of the main objections that the KMT have to Chiang iconoclasm is that they say it smacks of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  Mao's Red Guards wanted to eliminate traces of a past they didn't like, and those who would remove the Chiang statues want to do exactly the same thing.  President Chen is therefore a modern Maoist madman, QED.

The fundamental difference that they overlook however, is that the Taiwanese State is behaving entirely within constitutional limits.  There are no coercive extra-legal groups entering institutions and private homes to destroy Chiang relics.  Children are not being encouraged to inform on their parents.  There is no violence being used to achieve the goal.  Members of the independence party spent time in the Chiang's political prisons for advocating democracy, and asking them to be grateful to the generalissimo and his son at this stage is asking a little much.  Free men do not typically glorify those responsible for freedom's suppression.

The other thing that they overlook is that Chen's actions, unlike Mao's, have democratic legitimacy.  I'm unaware of any polls on the issue, so I don't know the level of public support for removing Chiang statues.  But I DO know that Chen was democratically elected, so he at least has the CONSENT of the people.  Surely the Taiwanese people knew after electing the head of an independence party TWICE to the presidency that he would carry out at least some of the more symbolic aspects of the party platform.  If a member of a reunification party is someday elected, I fully expect him to undertake opposing measures.  That's the way democracy works.

I will agree with the KMT that iconoclasm can be taken too far, and sometimes, it is.  Great are the efforts being taken today in certain quarters to transform America's Columbus Day into a day of sackcloth and ashes.  Feminist preoccupation with gender neutral language can border on self-parody.  And reversing the L.A. county commissioners' decision to remove the tiny cross from the Spanish mission on the county seal has become something of a conservative cause celebre.  The argument that we shouldn't erase our past just because we aren't entirely happy about it is one that I do take seriously.  Up to a point, anyways.

Sometimes however, iconoclasm is entirely appropriate.  I can recall years ago a communist, er, columnist from my hometown's daily newspaper lamenting the changes in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Her protests then were similar to the KMT's today.  You Russians were Bolsheviks, she said, and you ought to be proud of your wonderful history.  You fought and beat the Nazis.  Your collectivist system has given you wonderful social programs.  Leave all of your communist-era statuary standing so that future generations can be inspired by the marvelous accomplishments of your magnificent Revolution.

And so on.

I had no blog back in those days, so I'll respond to that columnist now.  Madam, your line of thinking, and the KMT's, concedes entirely too much to tyrants; it allows them to rename St. Petersberg to Leningrad, but in the name of preserving history, doesn't permit democrats to do the reverse.  It's not cricket that a megalomaniacal caudillo can plaster every spare wall in a country with portraits of his ugly mug, while his democratic successors are left responsible for their care and upkeep. 

Even if you believe that SOME statues of the generalissimo should remain as a matter of giving history its due, the question should be: How many are really needed to perform this function?  The China Post last week had a picture of a courtyard containing at least six busts of Chiang Kai-Shek that I could count.  There may well have been more outside the camera's field-of-view.  Having six busts of one man in a single place isn't an example of a decent nod in history's direction - it's deification.  It's allowing the dead hand of a dictator to continue ruling from beyond the grave.

It should be stated that Chiang Kai-Shek was no Hitler or Stalin, and that Taiwan was much better off under him than it would have been under Mao T'se Tung.  Still, to say that Taiwan's deceased president wasn't a Mao or a Stalin is hardly anything to brag about, and it's not a particularly compelling argument to make in favor of retaining his monuments.  To pull down statues of a man like Thomas Jefferson because he had feet of clay would be an act of historical vandalism.  Pulling down statues of a strongman who sent Taiwanese to political prisons doesn't quite fall into the same category.

Ultimately, the Chiang memorials will probably meet with the fate of monuments to another generalissimo: Francisco Franco.**  Most of Franco's statues have been removed slowly over time, but a few still stand here and there throughout Spain.  I hope they aren't destroying the ones they take down, and put them instead into museums.  The Russians had a great idea where they crammed all of the communist statues from the entire Soviet Union into one park in a Moscow suburb.  To me, that would be poetic justice - leaders so devoted to their own self-aggrandizement should have a single park devoted solely to their egotism, as a sort of cautionary example.

(Francisco Franco image from Wikipedia.)

There are a few other arguments I've heard in favor of keeping the statues, but I'll have to discuss them in some other post some other time.  What we CAN expect is that the KMT will to fight to the last to protect its symbols from Taiwan's independence parties.  As I've outlined, I think they'll lose the historical battle as democracy entrenches itself further in Taiwan.  But what if democracy doesn't grow stronger?  What if the KMT embraces the Chinese Communists, and they manage to pull the country into Beijing's orbit?  What would happen to the statues in Chinese Vichy?

I suspect that their fate would be EXACTLY THE SAME.  Communists can be relied upon to twist arms to remove images of men who are symbols of resistance to their rule.  Statues of such men might someday inspire men to rebel, and that cannot be permitted.  Americans may tolerate Confederate monuments on Southern soil, but the Communist Party of China is not nearly so magnanimous.

Given the recent crop of KMT leaders, I don't see the modern KMT offering anything more than token resistance, either.  The KMT's recent behavior suggests that they're perfectly willing to sell their souls and jettison their most beloved symbols in order to curry favor with the Communist Party of China.  I offer this as but one example.

Ironic, isn't it?  When the independence parties want Chiang Kai-Shek statues removed, the KMT deride it as an act of historical vandalism.  But should the Communist party of China ever call for their removal, watch how swiftly the KMT hail the move as a pragmatic act of reconciliation!***

If you're still unconvinced, then consider the additional pressure that will come when large numbers of Chinese tourists begin visiting Taiwan.  Reflect for a moment upon the grief that Taiwanese businessmen routinely get from pushy Chinese delegations when they try to display ROC flags at product conventions around the globe.  Now, just imagine a MILLION Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan each year - a good portion of them stamping their feet and whining about Chiang statues and ROC flags and God knows what else.  I'll bet that a lot of those complainers are going to loudly announce to their tour guides that they'll never come back, and they'll threaten not to recommend Taiwan as a travel destination to the folks back home unless "provocative symbols" are removed from sight.

At that point, the KMT will face a choice between principle and pragmatism.  Is it the Generalissimo...or the customer, who is always right?

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* Or was it "suspended"?  "Abolished"?  Or has it just "ceased to apply"...

** "Despite Franco's death and an expected burial tomorrow, doctors say the dictator's health has taken a turn for the worse." - Chevy Chase

*** If the KMT eventually abandons Chiang Kai-Shek because he serves as an anti-communist symbol, I wonder if Taiwan's independence parties might not someday adopt him for that very same reason?  I don't think it's probable, but people with a cause sometimes pick the unlikeliest of people to be their heroes...

February 28

It's not just a date in Taiwan, but a national holiday.  The day commemorates the 1947 massacre of 27,000 Taiwanese by KMT troops from China, which followed a failed revolt instigated by the KMT's rapacious occupational policies.  It's always an uncomfortable time for the capitulationist KMT party, which still wields considerable influence in Taiwan and indeed holds a majority in the Taiwanese legislature.

Interesting then, how the English-language pro-KMT China Post tries to paper over the massacre:

As a matter of fact, it is not important to find out the chief culprit. He may be Gen. Chen Yi, the administrator-general of Taiwan from 1945 to 1947. He may be Keh Ching-en, Chen's chief of staff. He may be Maj. Gen. Liu Yu-ching, the commander of an infantry division sent to Taiwan from China to "suppress" what was considered a rebellion. He may be Chiang Kai-shek, the head of state, as [a new] special report charges. The fact is that they are all dead, and it's of no practical use to blame any of them, unless the writers of the [latest] report and the man who commissioned it had some ulterior motive.

Just who exactly does the China Post think they're kidding?  Of course it matters whether Chiang Kai Shek, former dictator of Taiwan, was responsible for the February 28 Massacre.  It matters a great deal whether Chiang Kai Shek was a decent leader who simply made an error in judgement in appointing a bad governor to administer Taiwan, or whether he was chief architect of an atrocity.  If the former is true, then he deserves our sympathy.  If the latter, his portrait should immediately be removed from Taiwan's currency, public schools and government offices.  Mass murderers do not merit statues in public places, nor should roads or buildings be named in their honor.  There is no Adolf Hitler International Airport in Germany, for obvious reasons.  (And let me be clear: Chiang Kai Shek was no Hitler, but 27,000 people winding up murdered isn't small potatoes, either.)  If the Generalissimo was behind the massacre, then I can't for the life of me see why there should still be a Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.

The China Post's editorial goes on:

The [new] report is supposed to be a result of historical research. The writers are all historians, one of whom heads the Academia Historica. It seems that they forget what history is. History is understanding. History is a dialogue between the past and the present. History does not pass judgment. History is what notable events historians record just as Leopold von Ranke says "wie eigentlich gewesen (as is truly seen)."

What blather is this?  "History does not pass judgement"?  Of course it does!  It's history's job to tell us who's responsible for what.  What did Nixon know, and when did he know it?  Some historian somewhere positively SALIVATES over the possibility that he'll be the one who finds the memo that definitively answers that question.  Regarding the matter of World War I, historians initially assigned the lion's share of the blame to the Central Powers.  Twenty or thirty years later, revisionist historians found evidence that the war wasn't caused by evil intent, but by a series of misunderstandings and tragic blunders.  And about twenty years after that, the counter-revisionists found new evidence that once more pointed to prior German militarism as the war's prime motivator.

And so it goes.  Future evidence will be found to strengthen the claims of one side or another, for the study of history never ends.  But the China Post's point that history is "a dialogue between past and present" eludes me.  Yes, history can speak to me, at least in a metaphorical sense.  And yes, people of today can ask questions about the past that perhaps never occurred to those who came before us.  But precisely how does claiming that history is a dialogue between past and present invalidate the latest study regarding Chiang Kai Shek's culpability?

If anything, this claim is an unintended DEFENSE of the motives of the authors of the study.  For it is THEY who are engaged in dialogue with the past, asking tough questions - questions that were forbidden during the dark days under dictatorship.

There is then the obligatory attack on Taiwanese President Chen Shway-bian:

President Chen Shui-bian spoke at a meeting to mark the publication of the special report. He cited Chiang Kai-shek as the chief culprit. Is he one of those few people wishing to know who masterminded the massacre? Is it part of his hate-China campaign?

First, the China Post implies that few Taiwanese are interested in knowing the truth regarding the massacre.  I have no reason to know whether this is true or not.  But even if it is, how does it invalidate the question?  Discovery of the truth, like discovery in general, is always pioneered by the few.  Galileo was one of "those few wishing to know" about the heliocentric solar system.  Why should scorn be heaped upon Galileo for wanting to know what most others were too busy or uninterested in learning?

The statement about Chen hating China is one of the reasons why I've avoided using the term, "pro-China" to describe the KMT and its political allies.  For if one faction is pro-, then it's natural for most to assume that the other side must be anti-.  At that point, it's too easy to characterize the "anti-China" parties as haters.

But seekers of Taiwanese independence are not necessarily China haters, any more so than young adults moving away from home are haters of their parents.  It's possible to like China (or ones parents) without wanting to live under the same roof as them.

The China Post feels that the next point is important, for it's mentioned in Joe Hung's column as well:

The people of Taiwan are not hateful people. Nor are they vengeful people. They know hatred makes everybody unhappy.

It's indeed proper to point out that the Taiwanese people have not been hateful or vengeful, and have not visited revenge upon Chiang Kai Shek's descendants.  For Taiwan's former dictator has been dead many years, and whatever his responsibility for the 228 Massacre was, his grandchildren are blameless of the crime.*

But the implication here is not that the Taiwanese should be congratulated for the extraordinary decency they've shown to the Chiang family, but that those asking questions should be condemned for bringing up painful periods of history.  Let sleeping dogs lie; don't threaten the peace of Taiwan.  Murderers of 27,000 people mustn't be blamed, for blame is something to be reserved for those who ENQUIRE about the guilt or innocence of historical figures.

Finally, the China Post closes with a plea for forgiveness:

In fact, they believe the feud between islanders and mainlanders that the February 28 Incident begot was disarmed when President Lee Teng-hui proclaimed Peace Memorial Day in 1998. He apologized for the massacre on behalf of his Kuomintang government.

The massacre should not be condoned, but what is needed is forgiveness, which does not seem to be included in the dictionary of President Chen and those who wanted to publish the special report.

A few points here.  As a pro-KMT paper, it's in the China Post's interest to argue in favor of forgiveness for the KMT.  Let's face it:  it's a tough job politically to get people's votes after you've massacred their grandparents.  People don't usually forget little things like that.

This doesn't mean that the China Post is necessarily wrong in asking people to move on; it just means that they're not a disinterested party in the discussion.  At the same time though, one should note that the China Post has no trouble demanding additional Japanese apologies for World War II, yet reflexively shrinks from calling for KMT apologies for the 228 Massacre.  Former KMT leader Lee Teng-hui (whom the China Post openly despises) apologized ONCE they say, and that ought to be good enough for everybody**.

One last point, a point about forgiveness.  Christians might read and be sympathetic to the China Post's calls for forgiveness, because it's what their religion instructs them to do.  Sometimes I get the sense that in America this is given a bit too freely, as illustrated by the parents of a school shooting victim I once saw on TV, who tearfully stated in front of the camera that they didn't hate the perpetrator, and that they forgave him.

That interview was conducted on the same day their son was murdered.

The same freakin' day.  I'm sorry, that's not godly; that's downright creepy.

I've since become slightly familiar with the Jewish attitude towards forgiveness, which is a little more grudging than that of Christians.  Jews too, believe that forgiveness is an imperative, but that the perpetrator must first apologize, and then promise not to repeat the transgression.  Only then, can they ask forgiveness from the victim.  At that point, only the victim - not his friends, not his family, not even God Himself - can grant that forgiveness.

It logically follows from this that murder is perhaps the one truly unforgivable sin. 

Why?

It is unforgivable because only the victim can grant forgiveness.  But once murdered, the victim is NO LONGER ALIVE to offer that forgiveness. 

Agree with that approach or not, it's something to think about the next time some huckster comes by opportunistically demanding from you forgiveness on the cheap.

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* The Chiang family may be blameless for the crimes of Chiang Kai Shek, but they are not above using the force of the law to bludgeon those who would learn the truth.  The editorial also states that John Chiang has mounted a lawsuit against academics who would dare to look at the historical record and suggest that his grandfather may have fallen somewhere short of sainthood.  Perhaps Mr. Chiang should be reminded that the study of history should be conducted using reason, research and argumentation, rather than bailiffs, judges and 154 million dollar libel suits.

** This brings to mind a Finnish joke I once read in Ann Landers or Dear Abby.  A woman asks her husband of twenty years why he never says, "I love you."  The man replies, "I told you that the day we were married.  Why should I have to repeat myself?"

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UPDATE (Mar 4/06):  The Taipei Times had an account the February 28 commemmoration, along with KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou's appearance at same:

Ma, who spoke in broken Hoklo, was heckled by the audience...

He spoke in Hoklo (the native Taiwanese language), rather than Mandarin?  Wonder how his Hoklo compares to the pandas?

OK, cheap shot.  Anyways, the hecklers called the capitulationist chairman a "slave of China", and shouted, "Long live the Republic of Taiwan."

As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "Tough crowd, tough crowd."