President Ma Ying-jeou on Friday told a Japanese envoy that the Asian country should review the imbalance of tourist flow between the two nations.
[...]
[In a previous meeting with former Deputy Minister Okada Katsuya, the] president was quoted to have said that Taiwanese tourists visiting Japan greatly exceed that of Japan to Taiwan, and that Japan should take measures to rebalance the difference.
Perhaps it's not surprising that Ma's response to this "problem" is both lazy and incompetent. Because the most obvious solution is for his government to pony up the funds for a tourist promotional campaign in Japan.
But of course, that would take effort.
His government could also get off its duff and do a marketing study about how to make the country more attractive to Japanese tourists, and then go about following the study's recommendations.
More work, again.
(President Ma Ying-jeou makes the teenage "crucifix"-gesture to ward off the evil expectation that he do the job he was elected to do. Whined Ma: "Oh, maaaaan, Foreigner, all your proposals sound TOO HARD. Why can't I just let somebody ELSE do it, instead?" — Image from the Want China Times.)
Another option would be for his government to stop going down-market with its ardent pursuit of low-income Chinese tourists. It's entirely possible that concentrating on this niche discourages higher-income Japanese from visiting...
A different angle would be for Ma to tackle some of the anti-Japanese bigotry that the KMT fostered during its decades-long misrule of the country. I once witnessed (with my own eyes) a Taiwanese woman in her 30s walk up to a Japanese man in a bar and, unprovoked, tell him straight to his face in English, "I don't like Japanese."
(Fortunately, it was a foreigner pub, and there weren't any Taiwanese men around. The situation might have escalated quickly had any drunken, Japan-hating, Chinese nationalists been present.)
By my reckoning, that Japanese man probably told his family and a few of his co-workers about his unfortunate experience with Taiwanese hospitality. Undoubtedly, a few other Japanese later heard about it second-hand. Does Mr. Ma think that's the kind of word-of-mouth which encourages Japanese visits to Taiwan?
Finally, if Ma Ying-jeou wants more Japanese tourists (or tourists from any country, really), he could see to it that the country's legal system charges and prosecutes Taiwanese who assault tourists. His pathetic failure to do so is certain to leave a few foreign tourists crossing Taiwan off their itineraries.
Update: After sleeping upon it, I realized this post gave the false impression that Taiwanese in general behave badly towards Japanese tourists. So to clarify: most Taiwanese are cool. Really cool.
However, Taiwan has a very small, ugly minority (who usually prefer to be called "Chinese") which rabidly hates Japan and all things Japanese.
Having made that qualification, an encounter with even one of the latter is enough to ruin a vacation...
UPDATE (Aug 31, 2014): With more temperate language, the Taipei Times makes much the same point.
I hope Tyler Cowen is wrong about this, but...
In Asia, the most likely future candidate for this problem [economic regression] is Taiwan, where real wages were largely stagnant from 2000 to 2011. In 2012, Taiwan’s trend was even more disturbing: Its economy grew 1.3 percent, but real wages fell 1.6 percent, both adjusted for inflation. Taiwanese capital has flowed into China, creating a new class of Taiwanese millionaires but hollowing out the country’s manufacturing base as capital was reallocated to the mainland.
There is an anti-democratic camp in Taiwan which blames the introduction of democracy itself for the country's problems - insinuating that Taiwan would be better off under a KMT autocracy or martial law. This appears to be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, as the experience of South Korea plainly shows:
(Graph of South Korea's nominal GDP from Wikimedia.org)
Two Asian countries (Taiwan and South Korea) both democratized at roughly the same time, and yet their economic paths after democratization were very different. To my mind, the chief difference between the two is that South Korea didn't leave its own industry to wither on the vine while flooding Communist China with investment capital.
Taiwan, unfortunately, did.
Visiting Communist Party apparatchik Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) must feel right at home watching President Ma of Taiwan brutalize the citizenry.
Using members of the Taiwanese mafia, no less - for plausible deniability. That PhD in law from Harvard sure does come in handy sometimes.
With a bloody face, a wound on his forehead and blood-stained clothing, Liang Po-chou (梁伯洲) told reporters at the square in front of the temple that he was assaulted by five or six people using steel blowpipes.
Liang said he was there with his father, Changhua County Councilor Liang Chen-hsiang (梁禎祥) of the Democratic Progressive Party, and other people trying to show Zhang posters with slogans against the cross-strait service trade agreement and slogans that the future of Taiwan is a matter for 23 million Taiwanese people to decide.
The “gangster-like people” began beating him when he was trying to argue with executive officers of the temple because he was angry that they asked staff to set off firecrackers on the streets in an attempt to disperse people who refused to leave, Liang said.
Perhaps the Strongman-In-Shortpants ran out of policemen willing to do his dirty work.
(Chinese mafia runs security for Taiwanese mob boss president Ma ("Fredo") Ying-jeou. Image from the Taipei Times.)
Professor Jerome Cohen must be very, very proud of his former student's scrupulous adherence to the rule of law.
And now, a few words from the owner of one of Taiwan's largest media congomerates.
Red Fat Cat & Tiananmen Square denialist Tsai Eng-meng
Would he lie to you?
Rigging the system to save its lawmakers' seats. Shameless.
But then, one expects little better from a dictatorial Leninist party steeped in the undemocratic habits of 38 years of martial law:
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said that a controversial proposal to increase the documents required by petitioners during recalls of elected representatives is intended to “reduce possible abuses in the process.”
[...]
The party’s move has raised doubts, as it comes during a public campaign for recalling legislators that was launched after the cross-strait service trade act row. Many of the officials under fire are KMT members.
...the KMT-proposed amendment...would require petitioners to provide photocopies of identity cards and affidavits — in addition to the existing requirements for name, address and national identification number... [emphasis added]
What, no notorized copies of the petitioners' last proctological exam?
Goodbye, predictable Rule of Law. Welcome, capricious Rule of Man.
Congratulations, KMT. You have officially turned Taiwan into a legal laughingstock.
(The majesty of Taiwanese law. Image from Foreign Policy)
UPDATE (May 13/2014): The Taipei Times points out something that I've considered of late:
When activists take to the streets [and engage in civil disobedience]...the government and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers condemn such acts, urging the dissidents to express their opinions within the democratic system in a lawful way.
However, when activists want to play by the rules [by utilizing Taiwan's electoral recall laws], KMT legislators seem to suddenly decide that the law is not so sacred after all and seek to change the rules.
[...]
“If the people cannot vent their anger within the system, they will certainly start their resistance outside of the system,” [attorney and rights activist Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎)] said.
His lordship Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) sues Taiwanese students for implying that he's cowardly.
Kuomintang lawmaker Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) yesterday pressed charges against a group of activists who gathered at his constituency office to give him a fake turtle shell with his name carved on it.
“A turtle hiding in its shell” (縮頭烏龜) is an idiom in mandarin [sic] Chinese used to describe a person as a coward.
This CANNOT stand! Don't they realize how thin-skinned the veteran KMT legislator is? How easily bruised his delicate feelings are?
They should realize Lu Hsueh-chang is sensitive and fragile, and needs to be handled gently. Very, very gently.
Like you would a tender little strawberry...
"Freedom of speech is all well and good, I suppose. But criticism of ME isn't a constitutional right!"
— Lu Hsueh-chang: The KMT's Strawberry Legislator
UPDATE (May 7 / 2014): It appears I'm not the only one to make the "Strawberry Generation" connection with Lu Hsueh-chang's childish antics:
“If the lawmaker decided to sue us for likening him to a head-retracting turtle, he is not only substantiating the claim, but also acting like a member of the strawberry generation,” Wei said.
“Strawberry generation” is a term used to refer to young people whom the older generation feel are not able to handle adverse circumstances and are easily bruised, like strawberries.
“A legislator who cannot handle criticism from the public and turns to lawsuits when he is upset does not have broad enough shoulders for politics,” Wei said. “Calling him a head-retracting turtle is not a false accusation since he has been hiding under the party’s umbrella during all the disputes.” [emphasis added]
...will the grandiose Sunflower activists call it quits? They believe they are tough and strong, but there is another interpretation of “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” It means: when the situation becomes almost impossible, those who are truly strong are wise enough to pull out, rather than being totally decimated.
Well, no, it doesn't mean that at all. As usual, "Traitor Joe" gets it completely cockeyed once again.
Perhaps Joe Hung refers to a facetious screwball interpretation however, which suggests that apathy and cowardice are preferable to perserverance and resolution.
Understandably, such an aphorism holds greater appeal to a man who's sold his soul to the Communist Party of China:
Better Red than dead, huh Joe?
UPDATE: Students obtain promise from speaker of the legislature, Wang Jin-pyng, to push for a law for the monitoring of agreements made between democratic Taiwan and Communist China.
Which is something the Taiwanese wouldn't have received had its students taken Joe Hung's ill-considered advice.
Admittedly the competition is stiff, but Joe Hung goes full Goebbels with his latest screed on March 24th's government eviction of student protesters from Taiwan's Executive Building.
Claims Joe about Ma Ying-jeou's bloody crackdown:
"The force used to expel the Black Island Nation Youth Front mob wasn't violent at all." [Emphasis added]
Refutation comes from the equivalent of a thousand words:
(Image from 4am.tw)
No violence, you say, Joe? Perhaps this man just went to a REALLY bad barber then, eh? Took a little too much off the top. Happens all the time!
Or maybe it's spontaneous hemorrhaging. Brought on by...ebola! Yeah, that's the ticket!
Or, when in doubt, why not return to one of Joe Hung's pet tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories? The devious man in this photo quite obviously faked his own assault by snatching a riot stick from a virtuous policeman's hands and beat himself over the head with it to gain sympathy.
Oh, the lengths these sneaky devils go to!
The China Post's Joe Hung begins his latest column by informing his readers of the meaning of "grandiosity".
Instead, he might have been better served looking up the definition of violence, in order to avoid making a complete ass of himself.
Postscript: Heh. A good journalist would instantly recognize that "mob" probably doesn't apply to those who are peacefully seated.
But this is Joe Hung we're talking about, so standards of good journalism don't really apply.
Well done!
(Half-a-million Taiwanese protest a KMT-Chinese Communist Party service trade pact which they fear will strip them of their liberties. Image from the Taipei Times.)
So yesterday I promised to conduct an informal survey of a few Westerners regarding their recognition of the following terms:
My hypothesis was that recognition of Term 1 would exceed that of Term 2, which in turn would greatly exceed that of Term 3.
This is in direct contrast with the editors of the China Post, who inexplicably maintain (not as a hypothesis, but as a cold, hard fact!) that Term 3 garners the greatest recognition.
As it turns out, both I and the China Post are incorrect, as the results indicate:
| Term | Number Of People Who Recognize The Term |
| "China's eternal first lady" | 0 |
| May-ling Soong | 0 |
| Madame Chiang Kai-shek | 0 |
The informal survey was conducted among 5 Westerners - three of whom were twentyish in age, and two who were fiftyish. My favorite response came from a fiftysomething, who upon hearing the name, May-ling Soong, asked with a completely straight face, "Is she Korean?"
Ha! Dennis, I love you, man!
So there you have it. In the West - apart from the geriatric wards and a few amateur history buffs like myself - May-ling Soong is an utter non-entity.
A nobody.
And what's more, this applies not only to her, but to her husband as well. For it was a genuine surprise to me that even the fifty-year-olds didn't recognize the name, "Chiang Kai-shek".
But how's that for cosmic justice? Chiang Kai-shek murdered Taiwanese in 1947, and what's history's reward?
Consignment to the same faceless anonymity as his 28,000 victims.
(Image from A Hot Cup of Pleasure)
Which is entirely in keeping with the newspaper's slap-dash philosophy: "Why get the facts straight, when you can just make shit up?"
Been a while since I last checked the blog, and I noticed a comment on my Tsai Eng-meng post.
For those unfamiliar with Tsai Eng-meng, Tsai Eng-meng is a Taiwanese food magnate. Got his start in Taiwan, but made it big in China.
Upon returning to Taiwan, Tsai bought up some Taiwanese news media organs. And changed their editorial stances to more Communist-friendly positions.
But around the beginning of 2012, Tsai caused a stir in an interview with the Washington Post, remarking that the Chinese Communists were jolly good fellows who just couldn't possibly have killed very many people at Tiananmen Square. His reason for thinking so? Because the driver of a single tank hesitated to run over the iconic "Tank Man" of Tiananmen Square.
(As I recall, he also expressed scorn for Taiwan's hard-won democratic freedom, which he derided as a poor substitute for a walletful of Chinese redbacks.)
And so, without further ado, I submit my replies to one of Tsai's comradely supporters.
Jon: Not to side with Tsai here...
The Foreigner: Here it comes...
Jon: ...but he was citing the fact that the "Tank Man" lie [sic], which is often perpetuated in western media.
The Foreigner: Can I interrupt to say that it suits you? The whole passive-aggression routine, I mean.
If experience is any guide, I do believe you're fishing for some kind of groveling apology.
Jon: For example a supermajority of Americans believe falsely that the "Tank Man" at Tiananmen was run over by those tanks.
The Foreigner: Bullshit.
A cursory web check of the New York Times, Newsweek and Time reveals nothing of the kind. NONE of them declare that Tank Man was definitely run over by tanks at Tiananmen.
(Image from Filmatica.wordpress.com)
Furthermore, I find it exceedingly difficult to believe anybody wasted good money to poll Americans about "Tank Man". But, assuming for the moment that it IS true, you forgot to mention that the Chinese DID run over at least one man (Fang Zheng) with their tanks. (To this day, the Communist propaganda ministry maintains that Fang Zheng lost his legs in an everyday, run-of-the-mill "traffic accident".)
So perhaps Americans' beliefs are a perfectly understandable result of mistaken identity:
But here's a crazy PR suggestion: if the Chinese don't want Westerners to think they run people over with tanks...MAYBE they should stop running people over with their tanks!
Jon: He is still alive according to most accounts and the "conspiracy theory" sites claim he died months later.
The Foreigner: It is, of course, a red herring to bring up the fate of any one single individual (Tank Man) in the face of a massacre of thousands. Tsai's hasty generalization is that since Tank Man MAY have survived, then "not that many [Chinese demonstrators] could really have died."
And if Anne Frank were to turn up alive tomorrow, would this Communist quisling then argue that the Jewish Holocaust never happened?
Also, it's patently untrue to say Tank Man is still alive according to "most accounts". Wikipedia -- hardly a "conspiracy theory" site -- points out the conflicting stories on that score.
If he IS alive, let him come forward to say so to the media.
Oh, that's right. He can't. Because if he comes forward, the Chinese government will kill him.
Golly. Maybe the Butchers of Beijing really AREN'T the nice, harmless guys Tsai Eng-meng claims they are. Ya think?
(Image from The Independent)
Jon: As for "democracy-hating", there is nobody who truly loves ALL democracy. For example, the Weimar Republic elected Hitler.
The Foreigner: The "Weimar Republic" didn't vote for Hitler. The political system known as "democracy" didn't vote for Hitler.
MEN voted for Hitler. Men who hated democracy, and wanted it abolished.
Men such as Tsai Eng-meng. And yourself.
It was Germany's great misfortune that these men got what they wished for.
Jon: The French Republic massacred women and children (guillotined them).
The Foreigner: Straw man. Democracy, as a term describing a form of government advocated in the modern world, does not include the French revolutionary model lacking constitional safeguards (formal and informal).
But allow me to make a further rebuttal to your line of thinking. Around the time of the French revolution, doctors carried out a host of unproven treatments, some of which were either ineffective or even downright harmful to their patients (blistering of the skin or confinement for psychological problems, bloodletting, enema use, frontal lobotomies, "spermatorrhoea" prevention, homeopathy, and purging).
On the other hand, they also pioneered procedures which have stood the test of time, such as vaccinations, percussion-based diagnosis, and various surgical techniques.
Only an ignoramus would argue that modern doctors should be loathed and present-day medicine rejected out-of-hand simply because doctors of the past once used some questionable practices.
By the same token, only the genuinely infantile reject modern liberal democracy simply because 200 years ago, some long-dead Frenchmen didn't recognize the importance of checks-and-balances, the necessity of constitutionalism, and the limits to the perfectability of man.
(Image from CartoonPictures5.com)
Jon: The US Republic genocided...
The Foreigner: Excuse me while I look that up in the latest edition of the Oxford Chinglish Dictionary.
Jon: ...a million Filipinos in the Philippine-American War, where the US conquered and annexed an independent nation, destroying their Republic, even though the Philippine Republic used the US constitution.
The Foreigner: I believe the number is closer to 250,000...and it's debatable whether it was a deliberate genocide.
But rather than argue about numbers, I'd like to point out that most of the casualties were caused by out-of-control military officers who went far beyond what the civilian leadership ever intended. It's a cause for celebration that modern democracies have matured and figured out that their militaries need to be kept on a much tighter leash.
Why and how did this maturation take place? It occurred because democracies are blessed with a built-in feedback mechanism: the free press. In short, American anti-imperialist papers were free to report atrocities, and thereby helped bring them to an end.
Which is something that doesn't ever happen in Tsai Eng-meng's glorious Communist utopia.
Or in Tsai Eng-meng's pro-Communist newspapers, for that matter.
Oh, one last thing before we move on...you neglected to mention that America went to the Philippines with the ultimate goal of granting it its independence. Which it did, in 1946.
Poor Tibet should be so lucky!
Jon [referring to dead Philippinos]: Rather funny. Democracy is a joke.
The Foreigner: Number of Chinese murdered (or, in your parlance, "genocided") by the anti-democratic doctrine within the last 50 years: 36,000,000. Number of Chinese killed by democracy within the last 50 years: 0.
Which of those two numbers is greater than the other, Jon?
I'll allow you to take your time to figure that out. Math is hard.
But since you're fond of jokes, here's a riddle for you:
Q: What do you call an Uncle Com who tries to bamboozle people into thinking the Chinese don't run their citizens over with tanks, when he's fully aware that they DO run their citizens over with tanks?
A: A lying asshole.
But I guess you've probably heard that one before.
Jon: If you go to any of the 200 democratic countries of the world...
The Foreigner: Which "world" are you referring to? Here on planet Earth, there are only 78 democracies.
Jon: ...everyone on the street will say it's a democracy, but ask them if they can be president or a congressman, and the average folk always say "no", and ask why, and they say because they lack money or influence.
Basically democracy only elects the aristocracy (wealth or fame).
The Foreigner: Have you ever heard of a guy named Barack Obama (D)? Or Bill Clinton (D)? Or Ronald Reagan (R)? [Apr 10 / 2013 Update: Or Richard Nixon (R)?]
Word on the street is that they all came from fairly modest beginnings...
But you labor under a misconception. Liberal democracy entails the consent of the demos. It does NOT mean that everyone gets to be president for their fricken' birthday.
Money and influence help in life. If you don't have 'em, you may have to set your immediate sights a little lower. Run for dog catcher. Or the PTA. Or city commissioner.
Bust your ass at it. Do a good job. Don't steal from the public purse. Don't get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.
Do all that, and you just might get further than you ever thought you could.
But even should you fail there's one final thought you may yet still console yourself with: your well-meaning efforts have not landed you in a urine-soaked Communist political prison.
Jon: Aristotle hated democracy for this reason and preferred monarchy.
The Foreigner: Was that the reason? Or was it because he was born an aristocrat, and was quite naturally predisposed towards the form of government under which he was privileged? (Or, along similar lines, was it because he worked for Alexander the Great, and knew which side his bread was buttered?)
Nevertheless, I understand Aristotle also believed that there were some men whose very natures destined them for slavery. Never much cared for the notion, although I'm perfectly willing to admit he may have been right..about individuals such as yourself.
But let's examine your contention that "Aristotle HATED democracy" by allowing the man speak for himself:
Aristotle: "The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the few best is one that is maintained, and, though not free from difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. For the many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded not individually but collectively, just as a feast to which many contribute is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse. For each individual among the many has a share of virtue and prudence, and when they meet together, they become in a manner one man, who has many feet, and hands, and senses; that is a figure of their mind and disposition. Hence the many are better judges than a single man of music and poetry; for some understand one part, and some another, and among them they understand the whole."
-- Politics, Book 3.11
I'm not sensin' any of that "hate" you were talkin' about. He may have had his druthers, but unlike Tsai Eng-meng, he was at least honest enough to give democracy its due.
(And he certainly deserves credit for his intuition about the Wisdom of Crowds, long before anyone ever coined the phrase.)
Jon: And ALL of the Greek philosophers disagreed with elections, but rather preferred representatives to be chosen at random.
The Foreigner: It should then be a relatively simple matter for you to name at least five of them who held this opinion.
Citations of original sources, please.
"All he had was 50 cents, 50 cents, 50 cents..."
(Shaky camera-work alert. To listen, click PLAY and scroll the video off the screen.)
Update (Nov 8/2012): Tsai Eng-meng finds himself in the fine company of notable ancient Greek philosopher Mahmoud Fraudmadinejad.
Update (Dec 7/2012): What's that, Ari? You'd like to weigh in on the subject of democracy again? Why certainly, be my guest...
"The basis of a democratic state is liberty; which, according to the common opinion of men, can only be enjoyed in such a state; this they affirm to be the great end of every democracy."
--Aristotle, Politics Book 6.2
So, to paraphrase Jon's philosophical hero, Aristotle: "Liberty is the great result of every democracy."
Which just might be why would-be tyrants hate it so.
Update (Jan 9/2013): Jon averred:
"Basically democracy ONLY elects the aristocracy (wealth or fame)." [Emphasis added]
I gave 3 examples disproving this assertion. But this refutes the claim even more convincingly:
(Image from BostonReview.tumblr.com)
The chart plainly shows that half those in the U.S. Congress AREN'T wealthy. That works out to about 267 people (535 members of Congress / 2 = 267.5).
If someone has evidence that these 267 non-wealthy people are all incredibly famous (and yet, for some reason, not millionaires), then I'd be very interested in seeing it.
Update (Mar 11/2013): This just in -- 85 billionaires have seats in Communist China's top political chambers.
Number of billionaires in America's democratically-elected congress?
Zero.
(To put this into more perspective, there are a total of 95 billionaires in China as of 2012. Which means that 89% of China's billionaires have positions in China's top legislative bodies. By contrast, the U.S. has 425 billionaires, and 0% of them have positions in America's top legislative bodies.)
So it seems that there is a system in which only the rich and famous obtain political power. However, the evidence shows that that system is not democracy, but the one beloved by Tsai Eng-meng: Chinese Communism.
Update (Jul 24/2015): Yet more evidence that Communists always lie. What was that Jon said?
"the Philippine Republic used the US constitution"
But the truth about the Malolos Constitution is...
The style of the document is patterned after the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which many Latin American charters from the same period similarly follow.
Sweet baby Jesus, Jon. You've an even poorer grasp of the facts than Comrade Joe Hung.
A Washington Post image of Tsai Eng-meng, billionaire chairman of the Taiwanese food/media company, The Want Want conglomerate.
It seems that with the recent re-election of Taiwan's capitulationist president Ma Ying-jeou, the island country's small population of pro-Communist plutocrats feel emboldened to out themselves as Tiananmen Massacre denialists. Or are they simply angling for jobs in Ma's propaganda ministry?
Regardless, the Washington Post has the story:
Tsai said he . . . used to fear China’s ruling Communist Party and didn’t want to risk doing business on the mainland, but that changed after the 1989 military assault on student protesters in Tiananmen Square. While the crackdown outraged most in Taiwan, Tsai said he was struck by footage of a lone protester standing in front of a People’s Liberation Army tank. The fact that the man wasn’t killed, he said, showed that reports of a massacre were not true: “I realized that not that many people could really have died.”
Wow. It gives pause to realize these are not merely the views of a isolated flake, but the views peddled by Tsai Eng-meng's newspaper and television divisions all across the nation-formerly-known-as-Taiwan.
For the sake of consumers, one can only hope that Want Want's food is less poisonous ☠ than the noxious views of its black-hearted chairman.
Postscript: The Taipei Times reports a somewhat...less-than-overwhelming response to Tsai's Tiananmen revisionism (and his concurrent calls for a swift Taiwanese surrender):
Several netizens have also vowed to boycott food products from Tsai’s business chains, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday. At press time last night, a “Resist the Want Want Group” page created on Facebook on Tuesday — whose boycott will continue until April 24 — had attracted 405 followers.
Not exactly the tar-and-feathers treatment, is it?
A whopping four hundred and five people.
Will boycott Want Want's products.
For the next three (count 'em, 3!) months.
(Bet the democracy-hating sonofabitch loses lots of sleep over THAT.)
What's the difference between a KMT appeaser and a garden-variety appeaser?
Both feed the crocodile. But the KMT appeaser hopes it'll eat him FIRST.
Taiwan's China Post renews its perennial call for Taipei to sign a formal document of surrender to the Chinese Communist Party.
Except that "formal document of surrender" doesn't test well with Taiwanese focus groups. For some reason or another. So the paper gets out the lipstick, and dubs their red-lipped porker "a peace accord".
One wonders why the paper doesn't go all-out, and insist the agreement consist of 17 points...
(YouTube -- Never Smile at a Crocodile by Rolf Harris)
Taipei's Grand Hotel wins that dubious honor, and then takes the cake:
Clashes broke out between Tibet support groups and Grand Hotel staff in the lobby yesterday after the management canceled a room reservation made by the groups in preparation for the arrival of a delegation headed by Sichuan Province Governor Jiang Jufeng (蔣巨峰).
“We have signed a [room rental] contract with you and it was clearly written on the contract that the room would be used to hold a press conference. How can you cancel our reservation at the last minute? Is this how the Grand Hotel honors its business contracts?” Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) president Chow Mei-li (周美里) asked Grand Hotel manager Michael Chen (陳行中) after being informed of the cancelation. [emphasis added]
Granted, it's understandable that the hotel management would want to avoid unpleasantness under their roof. The type of unpleasantness that might ensue after renting rooms to antagonistic parties. However, a contract is a contract, and having signed it the hotel was obligated to manage the situation as best it could.
But instead, hotel management decided to compound their error by plunging themselves into a public relations fiasco:
More serious verbal and physical conflict broke out when Tibetans accompanying Chow grew impatient and took out banners and Tibetan flags that were to be used to decorate the news conference venue. They shouted slogans calling on Jiang to release the more than 300 monks arrested from Kirti Monastery in the predominantly Tibetan area of Ngaba in Sichuan Province and to withdraw troops and police that had placed the monastery under siege.
The manager and other members of the hotel management tried to take the signs and banners from the Tibetans by force.
The two sides pushed and shoved, while hotel management and staffers chased Tibetans running around the lobby with Tibetan flags in hand. [emphasis added]
What a lovely picture that makes -- tourism workers in democratic Taiwan reduced to acting as paid goons of the Chinese Communist Party.
"Room service? This is the C.C.P. delegation. Someone here spotted a cockroach and a Tibetan on the premises. Would you kindly send somebody up to remove them?"
(Operating under the theory that "no publicity is bad publicity", thugs in the employ of Taipei's Grand Hotel set upon an unarmed Tibetan dissident in full view of press photographers. Image from the Taipei Times.)
But the hotel's antics were was all for nothing, because when police arrived, they took one look at the rental contract and admitted the Tibetans had a point. After which management conceded, grudgingly allowing the press conference to go forward . . . in a different room in the hotel.
Heaven forbid anyone should ever label Michael Chen, manager of Taipei's Grand Hotel, a collaborator.
But one really does have to wonder at the new paint job he's given the place . . .
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE (May 24/11): Taiwan's premier communist-funded newspaper, The China Post, spikes the story.
Imagine that.
You bet your bippy. DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen must be wondering where Ruth Buzzi is when you need her.
[Update: Make that Ruth Buzzi...OR Don Rickles.]
(Laugh-In video from YouTube)
Aside from sharing Horneigh's dirty mind, Shih even looks like 'im. Give or take a couple years.
(Arte Johnson as Tyrone F. Horneigh. Image from WebPan.com)
"Hey baby, why don't you come over to MY place and prove you're not a lesbian!"
Oh, you silver-tongued smoothie. From last Friday's Taipei Times:
At a separate setting later in the day, [former DPP chairman] Shih [Ming-teh] called on [Taiwanese DPP presidential candidate] Tsai [Ing-wen], who is single, to clarify her sexual orientation, saying voters deserved “a clear answer” before voting for her.
She's 54 and single. And you ALL know what THAT means (wink, wink).
Pretty sad what history books will say about Shih, though: "Shih Ming-teh -- went from being Taiwan's Mandela to a creepy, toothless old perv so gradually that most people didn't even notice."
Hell of an epitaph.
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UPDATE: Perhap's the transition wasn't as gradual as we thought. His second favorite line to wow the ladies -- "Mmm...you like popsicles?"
(Image from WantChinaTimes.com)
Here's a sweet photo from back in the day of the wholesome Mr. Shih with his daughters. (SECOND image on the list after plugging his name into Google Image search.)
The kicker is, Shih HIMSELF released this photo during a press conference on the occassion of his 70th birthday party, a few months ago.
Charming detail: some of his buds in attendance dubbed this portrait, "Three layers of meat."
Isn't that special?
Could be, it's the illustrious Shih Ming-teh who has some clarifyin' to do . . .
UPDATE #2: Says something when Shih's gay-baiting is a wee bit too dirty for even Taiwan's China Post (hereafter referred to as the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece newspaper, for reasons obvious in the second link of this update).
Taiwan's unutterably depressing slide into Third-Worldism continues unabated, as President Ma Ying-jeou employs organized crime members to act as backup security for a visiting Chinese Communist Party envoy.
Since Taiwan's gangster governor has recently instructed his cabinet to refer to Communist China as "The Mainland" from now on -- in accordance with his interpretation of Taiwan's constitution -- one important question needs to be asked at this juncture: Pray tell, what exactly does your constitution have to say about the executive branch of government employing mafia foot soldiers as law enforcement deputies, Mr. Ma?
(Picture for illustrative purposes only: this image of Taiwanese gang members with police is not from this particular story. From Cinapig.com)
[Pretty graphic image in the postscript. Readers may not wish to be eating while they scroll down.]
Interesting study concluding that babies as young as 6 months old already have the rudiments of a conscience, and can tell the difference between right and wrong (in their own fashion). Not sure that I necessarily buy the method behind it, but intuitively the general concept seems valid -- that morality is hardwired in us at birth to some degree or another.
Of course there are always exceptions, whom we generally describe as being sociopaths. Take for example, when the subject of the revolutions taking place in the Middle East came up. Carl Natong, a frequent commenter at Taiwan's pro-Communist China Post, had this to say:
Just think of our own country and family. Never mind about DEMOCRACY, COMMUNIST or other's system of gov't. Never mind what Uncle Sam shouting about DEMOCRACY.
Translation: a pig is a dog is a boy. Mullah Omar = the Dalai Lama = Ayatollah Khomeini = Mahatma Gandhi. And oh yes, all political systems are created equal. Who are WE to judge?
(And when Chiang Kai-shek or the Chinese Communist Party give you the orders to kill unarmed civilian protesters -- be it February 28th or June 4th -- you'd better damn well shoot. You OBEY the bloody orders your Chinese Fuhrer gives you. And you do it for mom, pop and the Fatherland.)
Poor Carl. Now that Taiwan's a democracy, the poor dear must be ever so disappointed that he can't find that plum political prison kapo job he was born and bred to believe was his birthright.
As an antidote to Carl Natong's ravings, I offer a short quote from someone who has just a little more grey matter. Someone who IS able to distinguish the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Someone who was there at Tahrir Square when Egypt's dictator went into forced retirement. A blogger who goes by the nomme-de-guerre Sandmonkey:
Tonight will be the first night where I go to bed and don't have to worry about state security hunting me down, or about government goons sent to kidnap me; or about government sponsored hackers attacking my website. Tonight, for the first time ever, I feel free…and it is awesome!
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Postscript: Lot of Sinofascist conspiracy-theorizing at that China Post link, speculating about who are the devious instigators behind the current Middle Eastern demonstrations. (America and the CIA of course being the perennial favorites. Although it is strange that none of the Post's resident whackjobs have yet to mention the Japanese the Nipponese, the Jooos, the Alien Saucer people or hallucinogens in the Nescafe. But just give 'em some time . . .)
Truth be told, the only instigators are the Arab leaders themselves. Hosni Mubarek was pressured for THIRTY FREAKIN' YEARS by FIVE different American administrations to democratize -- or at least liberalize -- and the stupid bastard didn't. (In that sense, he shares a lot in common with another stupid evil bastard, Chiang Kai-shek.)
So eventually the balloon goes up, because people have decided that they didn't want to put up with any of Mubarek's shit anymore. Exactly why this is so hard for the China Post and its tinfoil hat-wearing commenters, I really don't know.
(What's doubly tragic is that the Communist Party of China no doubt believes their own idiotic propaganda that democracy is a Western plot to destabilize their country, and will take all the wrong lessons from Egypt and Libya. So instead of liberalizing and aiming for a soft landing, they'll add to their apparatus of coercion and repression. "Oh, look at us, we are so damn clever." Thereby doing nothing more than postponing the Gotterdammerung that's certain to happen there someday when the population explodes in hateful rage. And when that day happens and Chinese blood is flowing through the streets like a river, it will be the C.C.P.'s own damn fault.)
Again, I quote Sandmonkey, who tells how the benevolent Egyptian regime treated a blogger who was documenting police corruption. It's eerily similar to some of the human rights abuses one hears about in China:
[Khaled Said was] a 28 year old Alexandrian man, who got killed on the hands of two policemen a few days ago [This was back in June of 2010 -- The Foreigner]. And the story is equally disturbing and terrifying in its simplicity: He simply was sitting in a Cyber Cafe, when two policemen walked inside and demanded the ID's of everyone who was sitting there. When he refused to give it to them, they grabbed him, tied him up, dragged him out of the Cafe, took him to a nearby building where for 20 minutes they beat him to death, smashing his head on the handrail of the staircase, while he screamed and begged for his life, and as people around watched helplessly, knowing that if they did something, they would be accused of assaulting a police officer, which would pretty much guarantee them a similar fate. This went on for 20 minutes. Think about that. You are beaten to death, by those who swore to protect you, while the people in your neighborhood watched silently, and as your pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. 28. Not yet married. Still having the rest of your life ahead of you. No More.
After the police discovered he died, they took the dead body to the Police station, where the Police [Chief] ordered them to throw it back on the street and call an ambulance, in order not to be held responsible for him. When his brother- who had American citizenship- found out, he went and confronted the head of the Police in his neighborhood, who told him that the story isn't true, and that his brother was a known drug offender and that he died from asphyxiation, for swallowing a bag of drugs when the police caught him with it.
This is Khaled before the "Asphyxiation":
This is Khaled after his "Asphyxiation":
Sandmonkey sardonically remarks:
"Amazing what Asphyxiation does to you these days, no?"
It's worth noting that under the former military dictatorship of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Taiwan too had its own share of 'accidental' deaths. Which thankfully, are now mercifully rare -- since the advent of democracy. And oh, what a bitter pill that must be to Carl and the rest of his fellow KMT die-hards!
One thing I DO wonder though: did Khaled here take Carl Natong's Peter-Pan advice and "just think of his own family and country" while the cops of Mubarek's dictatorship were beating him into an unrecognizable pulp?
And if he DID follow Carl Natong's perfectly marvelous suggestion, did "just thinking of his own family and country" during his last few horrific minutes on this earth make his journey into the next world one iota easier?
The story does have an epilogue, though, which Sandmonkey doesn't elaborate on. Only 7 months after this atrocity, one of the chief communication centers for the opposition rallies was an Egyptian Facebook page. A page titled, coincidentally, "We are Khalid Said".
It's a page which currently has 464,000 friends.
Correction: Make that 464,000 -- and counting . . .
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UPDATE: Way heavy post. For a little levity, see SatireWire's latest: Charlie Sheen to help Arabs take freedom to 'Next Level'
UPDATE #2: A generally positive LONG-TERM view, by Anne Applebaum.
UPDATE #3: Great stuff from Michael Totten on Libya. And he also wrote this, a long but amazing travelogue of his trip there (I believe from 2004). A sample:
I met one shopkeeper who opened right up when he and I found ourselves alone in his store.
“Do Americans know much about Libya?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
He wanted to teach me something about his country, but he didn’t know where to start. So he recited encyclopedia factoids.
[ . . . ]
“And Qaddafi is our president,” he said. “About him, no comment.” He laughed, but I don’t think he thought it was funny.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Comment away. I don’t live here.”
He thought about that. For a long drawn-out moment, he calculated the odds and weighed the consequences. Then the dam burst.
“We hate that fucking bastard, we have nothing to do with him. Nothing. We keep our heads down and our mouths shut. We do our jobs, we go home. If I talk, they will take me out of my house in the night and put me in prison.
“Qaddafi steals,” he told me. “He steals from us.” He spoke rapidly now, twice as fast as before, as though he had been holding back all his life. He wiped sweat off his forehead with trembling hands. “The oil money goes to his friends. Tunisians next door are richer and they don’t even have any oil.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“We get three or four hundred dinars each month to live on. Our families are huge, we have five or six children . . ."
Hmm. "Keep your heads down and your mouths shut." To a Sinofascist of Carl Natong's ilk, there's a rosy vision of Taiwan's Paradise Lost.
UPDATE #4: Very cool ABC news report yesterday about the subterfuge Libyans used to bypass Gaddafi's blocking of Facebook. Facebook gets blocked? No problemo. Just use dating sites to communicate with each other, instead!
When Mahmoudi created his pretend profile on Mawada, he figured 50,000 supporters would be enough to take to the streets. But using various aliases on the dating site, he said he ended up with 171,323 "admirers" by the time Libya's Internet crashed last Saturday.
Pity that I can't locate the video clip for y'all.
UPDATE #5: Never knew two thirds of the people living in oil-rich Libya only earn $2 a day. Might be someone's been skimmin' from the kitty.
Also some very hopeful stuff there on the emergence of civil society in Libya based on the tribes. Of course, tribalism is a dirty word at Taiwan's China Post -- but it should be remembered that it was the tribes of Iraq which prevented Al Qaeda from seizing power there.
Well done, Honorary Chairman for Life Lien Chan. With any luck, next year you may yet be the proud recipient of China's "World Harmony Peace Prize". Fingers crossed!
(Where Lien can share the podium with the previous winner -- General Chi "Mahatma Gandhi" Haotian. A tireless warrior for peace, who issued the courageous order to flatten Tiananmen Square protesters with 30-ton tanks back in 1989.)
Great stuff from Taiwan's Next Magazine:
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UPDATE: News reports from Hong Kong suggest that the Butchers of Beijing wish to make their Toady in Taipei vice-president of the People's Republic of China.
Nah. For China to publicly out their unpaid $15,000 agent would simply be too good to be true. Chairman Wormtongue is much more useful behind the scenes, cutting shadowy deals with Saruman.
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Lien Chan image from Life.com)
UPDATE #2: MSNBC reports on the farce.
And to think Lien Chan came within 26,000 votes of the Taiwanese presidency. Does he really expect people to believe he's never read about the first Chinese to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize?
On second thought, this is Lien Chan of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party we're talkin' about. And the man has his priorities. When someone of his ilk has to choose between standing up for democracy advocates or bringing pandas to Taiwan, there's really no contest.
(All my panda-huggin', all my panda-kissin', you don't know what you've been a-missin'...)
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Postscript: Good on France and Nicholas Sarkozy for defying The Empire and sending ambassadors to Oslo for Liu's award ceremony. Same goes for Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
As for Japan, we'll see. On the one hand, Prime Minister Kan seems willing to bend over backwards to appease the PRC. On the other, his poll numbers seem to be tanking as a result:
Public support for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet has plunged 14.9 points since early October to 32.7 percent, reflecting growing frustration with the government . . . reflect[ing] public dissatisfaction with the government's handling of Japan's row with China and a political funds scandal dogging ruling party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa.
Inara: The Alliance has no quarrel with me. I supported Unification.
Malcom: Did ya? Well, I don't suppose you're the only whore that did.
(Image from Gamespot.com)
They'll take the whole archipelago. Chinese ultranationalists at Taiwan's China Post salivate not just over the Senkaku Islands, but over ALL the islands in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.
The Senkakus? Merely an appetizer.
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UPDATE: In claiming the Senkaku Islands for "China", the China Post of Taiwan refers to a Japanese map from 1783 (on which the islands are given the same color as China).
Hayashi Shihei, Japan's first cartographer, positioned the Senkakus as belonging to China in the eighteenth century.
This all leads to a place where the Chinese ultranationalists of the Post most certainly did intend to go. Because interestingly enough, that very same map represents Taiwan with an entirely different color from China. (China & the Senkaku Islands are colored pinkish-red on the map, while Taiwan is colored yellow.)
Ergo, if you believe the Japanese map is irrefutable proof of China's ownership over the Senkakus, then you must also hold it to be irrefutable proof that Taiwan is an country independent of China.
Q.E.D.
(Hat tip to Ampontan, who was the first to make this observation)