The Foreigner in Formosa

Loyal Son Of The Yellow Emperor Sells Out Taiwan

Taiwan Today has the story:

The ROC Military Supreme Court sentenced former Maj. Gen. Lo Hsien-che to life imprisonment July 25 for selling secrets to mainland China and jeopardizing national security.

(Major General Lo Hsien-che image from Taiwan Today.)

SinoDaily describes the information Taiwan's Turncoat General is said to have passed along to China:

. . . documents Lo handed over to China included details of the Po Sheng (Broad Victory) command, control and communications system that Taiwan is buying from US defence contractor Lockheed Martin for US$1.6 billion.

They said Beijing is believed to be extremely interested in learning more about the project, which gives the Taiwanese military some access to US intelligence systems.

Other information leaked by Lo reportedly covered the army's procurement of 30 Boeing-made Apache AH-64D Longbow attack helicopters and the army's underground optical fibre network.

As for motive, there are some reports that Maj. Gen. Lo was seduced by a Chinese female agent. Lo, on the other hand, claims he turned traitor only after Chinese Intelligence threatened to expose damaging photos of himself in the company of Thai prostitutes, taken while he was stationed in Bangkok. (As utterly improbable as THAT scenario may sound...)

Others may speculate that he was merely doing some "eventual reunification" freelance work. As some Chinese Nationalists have occasionally been known to do.

 

Tales Of The Gold Monkey

No, not the old TV show.  Turns out the Los Angeles zoo built an enclosure for some golden snub-nosed monkeys from China, only to have the deal go sour.  Now the zoo is left with a 7.4 million dollar boondoggle.

I'm tempted to say that the reason is that American officials blanched when Beijing tried to designate their country, "Chinese L.A."  But the real reason is more prosaic than that:

"[The Chinese] were resentful that federal policy on importing any endangered species required that any money exchanged for that animal had to be used to conserve the habitat and wild population of that species," said David Towne, a Seattle-based consultant who helped broker the original deal.  [emphasis added]

The Chinese certainly have point here.  The zoo was supposed to pay $100,000 a year for the simians, and none of it was supposed to grease the palms of Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks?

Hey, those guys gotta eat too, y'know !

Chinese Nationalist Nitwits Punked By April Fool's Gag

First heard about this on Michael Turton's site.  Saturday's Taipei Times tells the story:

The hoax article titled “Pandemonium breaks out at Taipei Zoo” said that Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), the two pandas that arrived in December as gifts from China, were discovered to be Wenzhou brown forest bears dyed black and white after zoo workers noticed unusual sexual behavior.

The next day, Taiwan's China Post had more details:

[Taipei] Zoo spokesman Jason King said the zoo was flooded with phone calls from as far afield as Britain, Japan and Canada, whose callers asked if the pandas were forest bears in disguise.

O-kaaay.  Here's one big clue in the original story all those geniuses seemed to miss:

The Taipei Zoo’s . . . Connie Liu (劉長春), said she became suspicious when the pandas . . . began to spend almost all of their waking hours having sex. Pandas are notorious for their low libidos, which make them difficult to breed in captivity.

. . . “They would do it doggy-style and every armchair zoologist knows that pandas favor the missionary position — when they do it at all. Their behavior caused chaos. Children screamed and parents became irate.”  [emphasis added]

Now, the thing to remember is that newspapers are generally a bit Victorian in their use of language.  No serious article will ever, EVER contain the expression, "doggy-style."

(The part about pandas favoring the missionary position should have been a dead-giveaway, too.  Jeez, when I was 10 or 12 years old I knew that human beings were almost unique in the animal kingdom in their usage of the missionary position. * )

Speaking of that . . .

Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) did not see the funny side either and expressed concern about the prank’s negative impact on panda conservation education.

“The story carried incorrect information on panda behavior and could mislead the public,” he said. “The Taipei Zoo made a lot of effort to get the pandas at the zoo and we don’t want to see our efforts being destroyed.”

Golly, Mr. Yeh, maybe the truth is that your zoo just hasn't been doing a very good job in the education department.  What have YOU been doing to inform zoo-goers that pandas prefer the, ah, ventro-dorsal position?

Glad to see the Taipei Times isn't apologizing to the likes of Jason Yeh and the Chinese Communist Party's paid mob of professional complainers.  Folks've got a bad case of humor-deficit disorder if they can't laugh at lines like this:

“Whenever the moaning from the panda enclosure gets too loud we gotta go in there and hose ’em down with cold water,” [a zookeeper] said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* A quick google shows that a few other animals DO use the missionary (ventro-ventral) position.  Mostly whales, it looks like -- and on rare occassions, chimps and gorillas.

Taiwan's Ma Tries To Have His Sovereignty And Eat It Too

From Monday's China Post:

President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday the delivery of two giant pandas from China was not an internal / domestic transfer as described by a United Nations agency, as the animals went through customs and into quarantine when they arrived in the country.

Ma's position is unfortunately untenable.  Pandas are endangered species, and according to international law, cannot be given away as gifts FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY -- they can only be loaned.

However, Taiwan did not accept the pandas as a LOAN from China.  Ma's government instead accepted them as a GIFT.

The only time international law allows this is when the endangered species are given away as gifts WITHIN A COUNTRY'S OWN DOMESTIC BORDERS.  Province-to-province, as it were.

So to recap:  President Ma accepted a GIFT of two pandas, which was advantageous to him because it allowed Taiwan to avoid paying astronomical $1 million a year panda loan payments to China.  But that gift came at a cost, because it could not be legally accepted under international law without admitting that the transfer was a domestic one.

Then to assuage voters, Ma the politician found it convenient to maintain the opposite.  The transfer wasn't domestic at all, because "the animals went through customs and into quarantine".

What logical contortions the poor man puts himself through in order to maintain his country's sovereignty . . . while destroying it at the same time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE:  I would also like to direct the reader's attention to Article III (Sec. 3c) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora:

An import permit shall only be granted when . . . [the government of the importing state] is satisfied that the specimen is not to be used for primarily commercial purposes.

Of course, the loudest arguments in favor of Taiwan accepting the pandas were the commercial ones.  They'd be boffo box office at Taipei's Mucha Zoo.  They'd draw in over 6 million visitors.  They'd bring in foreign tourists.  Oh, and don't forget the merchandising . . .

By the way, how much of all that money, money, money will go towards panda conservation? 

Not one red copper New Taiwanese dollar.  Because they're gifts, not loans, remember?  Taiwan's on the no money down, no yearly fees program.  In contrast, at least 50% of the fees America pays to China for loaned pandas must be directed towards preserving the animals in their native habitat.

My point here isn't really that the wild cousins of Taiwan's new pandas are getting the short end of the bamboo shoot.  I'm simply saying that the importation of these creatures was illegal under international law, since it's clear they were brought into the country for "primarily commercial purposes".

UPDATE #2:  The American Fish and Wildlife Service has a number of requirements for reviewing panda importation applications.  One of these is that the application must include:

a bona fide scientific research proposal, i.e., one that is properly designed using scientific methods focusing on a specific topic, that advances and/or supplements the scientific knowledge of panda ecology, and that is specifically relevant to the expertise of the institution.

Now, we have been told that the Taipei Zoo will conduct research on their new arrivals.  But I AM curious:  Has the zoo submitted its research proposals?  Have these proposals been peer-reviewed?  Are they available for public criticism?  And if not, why not?

Oh yes, and one final thing.  Does the zoo have "a plan to ensure that the public display of pandas will not interfere with the research activities"?

Or would such a plan interfere too greatly with the animals' primary function of income generation?

Taiwan Accepts Pandas From China; Sacrifices Sovereignty

From today's Taipei Times:

Two giant pandas made a trip from Sichuan Province, China, to their new home in Taiwan yesterday. Tuan-tuan (團團) and Yuan-yuan (圓圓), both four years old, arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:02pm.

The pandas, whose Chinese names, when put together, mean “to reunite,” were offered to former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) during his visit to China in May, 2005.

"To reunite".  Wow.  Almost as subtle as Spain sending a couple of Iberian lynxes (collectively named "Columbus rocks") to Bolivia.

An analysis piece at the Times describes the game that's afoot:

With all eyes fixed on the arrival of the two endangered animals in Taiwan yesterday, few paid attention to China’s maneuver to bypass the international export treaty for endangered species classifying the transport of the two pandas as a “domestic transfer.”

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora stipulates that the transfer of endangered species between two countries must abide by the covenant. The CITES Secretariat, however, said on Monday that it considered China’s export of the two pandas as “domestic trade.”

Taiwan Society secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the importation of the two animals was an overt attempt by Beijing to push toward its goal of Taiwan’s de jure unification with China and part of its strategy to “internalize” the Taiwan question.

“The former Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government internationalized the Taiwan issue, but the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] administration cooperates with Beijing to internalize it,” he said.

It is manifest in the four agreements signed by the both sides, Lo said. Taking the example of direct cross-strait flights, all airports open for such services are “domestic.” The cross-strait food safety mechanism does not need to go through the international health organization either, he said.  [emphasis added throughout]

Years ago, I had an online exchange on another blog with a disagreeable Aussie leftist on the subject of Taiwan.  The details have been lost to the ether and my own fading memory, but part of his argument was that Taiwan is part of China (China says it's so, so it must be true!).  And because it's a domestic affair, other countries should just butt out.

I find myself thinking more about that conversation lately.  Because I think if we were to have that same conversation now, he would find himself heavily armed with Beijing's arguments.  Taiwan accepts pandas from China on the basis of DOMESTIC transfers.  Check.  Taiwan accepts flights from China as DOMESTIC in origin.  Check.  And last, but not least, Taiwan now publicly refers to itself as a REGION of China.

How would I respond to my interlocutor now, I wonder?

Welcome, little Tuan-tuan and Yuan-yuan.  Willkommen kleiner Ans und Chluss.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT:  All of my posts on the pandas may be found here.

Lame Excuse Of The Week

As part of his Peace-Through-Powerlessness policy, President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday reduced the frequency of Taiwan's military live-fire exercises, so they'll now be held biannually biennially instead of annually.

Give the government points for creativity, however.  They're not reducing Taiwan's military readiness to ingratiate themselves with the Butchers of Beijing.  Why heavens, no.  They're doing it because all that analysis stuff is just too darn hard:

The military will stage its major war games every other year instead of holding them annually, Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday morning.

“Because the cycle of the live-fire Han Kuang Exercises is too short, making it difficult for the military to have adequate time to correct and adjust shortcomings found in each drill, we have decided to hold the series of drills every other year instead of annually,” Chen told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.  [emphasis added]

Fortunately for Western civilization, the planners of Operation Overlord weren't quite so dilatory after live-fire exercises in anticipation of the Normandy landings were conducted at the end of April '44.

Had Eisenhower and Montgomery followed the KMT's standard, D-Day might still have happened -- sometime in 1946.

As it was, the military planners of D-Day instead put their noses to the grindstone, figured out what went wrong during Exercise Tiger, and launched the invasion.  And they did all that not in two year's time, but in ONE MONTH'S.

It's an unfair comparison, really.  Because the allies in 1944 were serious about their nations' defense, while the KMT of 2008 is most assuredly not.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POSTSCRIPT:  The runner-up for this week's award would have to be the reason floated for not renaming a couple of Chinese pandas, which will soon arrive in Taiwan.  (Their names, when spoken together, sound like the Chinese word for "Unification").  From Tuesday's Taipei Times:

. . . Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) [said on Sunday that] the rights of the two giant pandas China has offered as a gift to Taiwan should be respected. Hau was referring to the pandas’ names, which he said could not be changed without violating the animals’ rights.

[...]

In this political burlesque, government officials harp on the rights of pandas and request a police motorcade to ensure a smooth drive from the airport to Taipei Zoo. Limbs of Taiwanese can be broken, blood of Taiwanese can be spilled, Tibetans can be spirited to the hills of Neihu (內湖) in the dead of night, but the pandas must be comfortable. Men can be jailed, beaten, drugged or executed without a word of condemnation, but we should respect the names the pandas have grown accustomed to in order not to confuse them.

A more likely explanation is that Beijing has communicated that VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN if the pandas are ever given new names.  But instead hearing the truth, Taiwanese are treated to cock and bull excuses that these animals have some sort of "right" to the names Beijing's propagandists cynically attached to them.

Which reminds me of my mother's dog.  The one I've dubbed, over my mother's objections, "Stinky".

A cruel animal abuser I must be.  But it's a funny thing:  Whenever I call him that, he never gets QUITE SO CONFUSED OR OFFENDED as to turn down the the dog biscuits I give him . . .

A-Groveling We Will Go

Taipei City Hall prepares a delegation for a big Beijing pow-wow kowtow for a couple of pandas.  No word yet as to whether Taipei will offer sanctuary to members of that other rare Chinese species, the endangered saffron-robed Tibetan monk.

The Foreigner wants to know: couldn't these "One China"-obsessed pols at least have had the decency to wait until AFTER the blood had dried in the streets of Shangri-La?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:  Taipei's High Court dismisses the City Zoo's bid to import panda bears from China.  For now.

Beijing Takes The 'Happy' Out Of The Happy Meal*

This is penny ante stuff:

The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported yesterday that soccer fans have been unable to collect a complete set of World Cup pins from McDonald's restaurants because China has confiscated the Taiwan pins, which were made by a Chinese factory.

McDonald's restaurants in Taiwan are giving out 33 pins -- one for each of the 32 World Cup countries plus Taiwan. The Taiwan pin looks the same as the other World Cup pins but is printed with Taiwan's formal name, the Republic of China (ROC).

[...]

McDonald's hired a Chinese factory to make the pins, the first shipment of which slipped through Chinese customs, the report said. But when China realized what was printed on the pins, it confiscated them from later shipments...

You mean McDonald's only now discovered that communists don't make reliable suppliers?  Maybe they should have paid attention to the travails of the Taiwanese construction industry, after Beijing announced, "No gravel for you!"

(Image from the Jun 19, 2006 ed of the Taipei Times.)

It's a pity that the communist Chinese empire can't hold together unless kids are prevented from completing their World Cup pin collection.  Forget Joe Cool and the World War I ace - now everyone's favorite beagle has a new persona:  Splittist Snoopy.

Say, does anyone remember the heat the Taiwanese government took a while back when they turned down Beijing's panda bear offer?  Various pro-communists in Taiwan tried to get the administration to capitulate, tugging on heartstrings by claiming that the children of Taiwan would weep inconsolably due to their own government's hard-heartedness.

Just where are all those complainants, now that it's communist CHINA makin' the young 'uns cry?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Just for the record, World Cup soccer pins are actually given to purchasers of Big Macs, not Happy Meals.

The Business of Pandas

In the middle of the debate over whether Taiwan should accept China's "generous" offer of pandas, it should be pointed out that American zoos are having a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to theirs:

Lun Lun and Yang Yang have needs.  They require an expensive all-vegetarian diet.  They are attended by a four-person entourage, and both crave privacy.

...A six person crew travels around [Georgia] six days a week, harvesting bamboo from 400 volunteers who grow it in their backyards for the zoo to provide their pandas' daily needs.  (Zoo Atlanta tried growing its own on a farm, as the Memphis Zoo does, but Lun Lun and Yang Yang turned up their noses.)

Picky little buggers, aren't they?

...their care runs five times what it costs to board the next most expensive animal - an elephant.

One more time with that one: They're FIVE TIMES more expensive to keep than ELEPHANTS.

...But the real sticker shock comes from the fees [they] must pay the Chinese government: $2 million a year to rent a pair of pandas....If cubs are born, the annual fee increases by an average of $600,000.

Because of the costly loan obligations, [the Atlanta, Washington, San Diego and Memphis zoos have joined together] - to negotiate some budgetary breathing room...."If we can't renegotiate, they absolutely will go back," [said the chief executive of the Atlanta Zoo].  "Unless there are significant renegotiations, you'll see far fewer pandas in the United States at the end of this current agreement."

Pandas are a big draw.  At first, anyways.  But:

...after the first year, crowds dwindle, while the expenses remain high..."Year three is [the] break-even year," [said the director of the Memphis Zoo.]

..."After that, attendance drops off, and you start losing vast amounts of money.  There is a resurgence in attendance when babies are born."

(From "Costly zoo strategy: Pandas as loss leader" from the Feb 13th edition of the International Herald Tribune.  Sorry, no link is available.)

I'm unaware of what the lease arrangements for the pandas offered to Taiwan are.  But whether they're more favorable or not, my argument against accepting the pandas has always been legal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (Mar 23/06):  The Taipei Times has the same story that was cited in this post.

In the middle of the debate over whether Taiwan should accept China's "generous" offer of pandas, it should be pointed out that American zoos are having a bit of buyer's remorse when it comes to theirs:

Lun Lun and Yang Yang have needs.  They require an expensive all-vegetarian diet.  They are attended by a four-person entourage, and both crave privacy.

...A six person crew travels around [Georgia] six days a week, harvesting bamboo from 400 volunteers who grow it in their backyards for the zoo to provide their pandas' daily needs.  (Zoo Atlanta tried growing its own on a farm, as the Memphis Zoo does, but Lun Lun and Yang Yang turned up their noses.)

Picky little buggers, aren't they?

...their care runs five times what it costs to board the next most expensive animal - an elephant.

...But the real sticker shock comes from the fees [they] must pay the Chinese government: $2 million a year to rent a pair of pandas....If cubs are born, the annual fee increases by an average of $600,000.

Because of the costly loan obligations, [the Atlanta, Washington, San Diego and Memphis zoos have joined together] - to negotiate some budgetary breathing room...."If we can't renegotiate, they absolutely will go back," [said the chief executive of the Atlanta Zoo].  "Unless there are significant renegotiations, you'll see far fewer pandas in the United States at the end of this current agreement."

Pandas are a big draw.  At first, anyways.  But:

...after the first year, crowds dwindle, while the expenses remain high..."Year three is [the] break-even year," [said the director of the Memphis Zoo.]

..."After that, attendance drops off, and you start losing vast amounts of money.  There is a resurgence in attendance when babies are born."

(From "Costly zoo strategy: Pandas as loss leader" from the Feb 13th edition of the International Herald Tribune.  Sorry, no link is available.)

I'm unaware of what the lease arrangements for the pandas offered to Taiwan are.  But whether they're more favorable or not, my argument against accepting the pandas has always been legal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (Mar 23/06):  The Taipei Times has the same story that was cited in this post.

Pandas for Taiwan: Much Ado About Nothing?

Outsiders may view with incredulity the current controversy in Taiwan about whether to accept two panda bears from China.  No missiles are being fired, no IEDs are exploding, and no suicide bombers are going kabloey.  So what's the big deal?

Imagine if you will then, if Kim Jong-il of North Korea made an announcement.  He's just met with Howard Dean, and the two of them have come to an agreement that a couple of extremely rare Korean snow wallabies* will be sent to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

American children are delighted.  After all, what could be cuter than a Korean snow wallaby?  National Zoo officials are ecstatic.  What a coup!  How many zoos in the world can boast of such an exotic animal?

There's a slight snag, though.  The North Koreans correspond with the National Zoo, but refuse to submit any of the required paperwork to the American government (who they denounce as "brigandish imperialists").  Howard Dean and the Democratic Party** calls upon the administration to swallow their pride and break American law - let the snow wallabies in "for the sake of the children".

What would the Bush administration do?

And that in essence is the problem facing Taiwan today.  Should Taiwan flirt with lawlessness for trivialities?  For nothing more important than pandas?

But all of this should be obvious.  Like Howard Dean in the snow wallaby fable, Ma Ying-jeou, head of Taiwan's pro-communist party, calls upon Taiwan's PRESIDENT to break Taiwanese law.  Surely Ma, who studied law at Harvard, is cognizant of Louis D. Brandeis' admonition:

"If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

Here then, is the big deal:  while the issue of bringing pandas to Taiwan is trifling, the issue of whether Taiwan's government should break its own laws in order to get them is really much more serious.

Perhaps unaware of Brandeis' warning, one commenter writes:

"In the end, little children are going to cry because pandas are not coming to Taiwan because (insert explanation to your child)?"

My explanation would be that the pandas are not coming because the Chinese are too arrogant to think that the law applies to them.  I would patiently explain that however much a child may desire candy in a store, he cannot steal it.  Because merely wanting something, be it candy (or panda bears), is not a sufficient reason for breaking the law.

Of course, those that cavalierly run through red lights may have more difficulty in finding an explanation.  And in Taiwan, that sadly constitutes a great many people.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* So rare is this animal in fact, that none have ever been observed in either the wild or in captivity.

** Apologies to Howard Dean and the Democratic Party for comparing them to Ma Ying-jeou and Taiwan's main opposition party in this What If? scenario.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE (JAN 15/06):  A vaguely-related Dilbert cartoon.

UPDATE (May 04/06):  Wednesday's Taiwan News had a good bilingual summary of the issue.  Although the piece had this rather strange translation:

Those in U.S. political circles who lean toward China are known as the “embracing panda faction,” while those that oppose China are known as “dragon slayers.”

Um, aren't the people making up the "embracing panda faction" usually referred to as "panda-huggers"?

UPDATE (May 04/06):  Wednesday's Taiwan News had a good bilingual summary of the issue.  Although the piece had this rather strange translation:

Those in U.S. political circles who lean toward China are known as the “embracing panda faction,” while those that oppose China are known as “dragon slayers.”

Um, aren't the people making up the "embracing panda faction" usually referred to as "panda-huggers"?

Beijing Slaps Taiwan In The Face While Offering Olive Branch

Saturday's papers were abuzz with stories about how China had chosen two pandas for the Taipei Zoo.  China demonstrated a nice, Orwellian touch when it claimed that the pandas were meant to be "goodwill presents to the people of Taiwan,"  but simultaneously had a communist spokesman warn that, "...risk is on the rise, as Beijing sees [Taiwan's constitutional reform efforts] as a provocative step towards formal independence."

There's a wrinkle amidst all this heartwarming goodwill, though: the government of Taiwan is not permitted to have any say into this generous offer whatsoever.  After all, since there is no Taiwanese government (to China's thinking), why should any of the standard bureaucratic forms be submitted to a non-existent government?  When Taiwan's government insisted upon asserting its authority, Lien Chan, former head of Taiwan's pro-communist party, objected that Taiwan's government was politicizing the issue and ruining peaceful cross-Strait exchanges.

Yes, shame on you, Taiwan.  When Beijing tells you to jump, you'd better jump.  So saith Lien Chan.

Lien's successor, Ma Ying-jeou agreed, saying, "It is important to make Taiwanese feel the friendship of China." 

(Golly, I don't know about you, Mr. Ma, but those two pandas have made me forget ALL ABOUT China's 800 super-friendly missiles packed with high explosives pointed at Taiwanese homes and schools.)

Not surprisingly, The China Post was also on board.  "Let's do it for the children," was their position:

"The authorities may cite many reasons why the giant pandas from China shouldn't be imported, but none of them can beat the one the children of Taiwan have for their presence in Taipei. The children love the giant pandas. They want the cuddly bears to live amongst them...Will the government forget about [exercising its authority] for just this once?"

But The China Post kinda gives away the whole game plan away with that last line.  They want Taiwan's government to surrender its rights just this once.  Just this once...until the next time comes.

(Tellingly, they don't call upon China to recognize the authority of Taiwan's government just this once.)

Perhaps though, I'm being churlish.  Pandas are indeed cute, cuddly things.  I'll bet the kids sure WOULD love them.  What the Taiwanese government needs is a counter-offer, something generous that it's willing to freely give to the communist government.  You know, reciprocity.

Taiwan'll agree to take YOUR pandas without any political interference, if YOU'LL do the same for OUR gift.

But what to give?  A couple of Formosan pangolins just isn't going to cut it.  How about art?  Everybody loves art.  Maybe a statue for dreary Tiananmen Square?  I was thinking about something along these lines:

That'd sure look great in bronze.  A little something for China's "tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free."

Your move, China.

UPDATE (JAN 10/06):  A letterwriter to the Mon 9th ed of the Taipei Times suggested keeping the pandas kind of like "human shields" near the presidential building to help deter a decapitation strike (sorry, no link to the letter to the editor is available).  I half-seriously considered the same possibility yesterday, but didn't include it in the post.  Few things would turn international opinion against Taiwan like caging a couple of panda bears near a military target.  But the letterwriter also proposed renaming the pandas "Democracy" and "Freedom" once they arrive on Taiwan's shores.  That, I like.

UPDATE (Mar 5/06):  Rather than giving the Chinese a statue of the Goddess of Democracy, Taipei Times columnist Johnny Neihu had another tongue-in-cheek suggestion:

Why don't we send China a couple of Formosan black bears? They're "solitary animals" that will "usually not attack unless they are threatened," as the Government Information Office's Web site on Taiwan's fauna explains.

I think Beijing has a lesson or two to learn from Taiwan's bears. I say the only way we should let furry-faced Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓) into Taiwan is by giving them political refugee status.