2008 - 3rd Quarter
Musings on the US Presidential Elections II: McCain, Distance, Palin and More Bush
Distance, distance, distance. Distance is the watchword and battle-cry of Republican John McCain's presidential campaign for if he is to have any chance, he must distance himself from fellow Republican George Bush and from the disastrous past eight years of the Bush presidency. For that reason, on August 29th I wrote that I was not surprised by McCain's choice of ...
News from China, Is There a Pattern There?
There seems to be a clear pattern for news from China. It is simple, it is basic, and it is geared to one thing--make the ruling government look good. Any bad news must be delivered late; hopefully it will go away before it has to be delivered. SARS, let's keep that under wraps; put the doctor who blew the whistle ...
Musings on the US Presidential Elections I, Bush, Republicans and the Economy
As the US elections approach, I cannot escape one of those "Wordsworthian spots of time." It happened in the year 2000 when I was in X'ian, China looking at the terra cotta warriors. As I admired the statues and craftsmanship, a tourist group from the United States passed by and a loud mouth American who had to have been a ...
Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou, Clueless but Comforted?
While his popularity ratings plummet to an all time low, the saga of Ma Ying-jeou, little boy lost and clueless in the cross-currents of reality continues. First, Ma wonders why things are not going right and according to the script of the novels and stories he read as a young boy. These are the ones where ruler takes the pose ...
Cairo Rhetoric, Undecided Stealing, Taiwan and the UN
The 65th anniversary of the Cairo Declaration (Dec. 1, 1943) approaches and I have always wondered at its rhetoric as well as how often this simple declaration is used by some to justify the People's Republic of China's (PRC) claim to Taiwan (then called Formosa). Let us grant that the declaration was made in war time, and that it would ...
St. Andrew's Ball, Scottish Dancing Anyone?
This year the St. Andrew's ball will be celebrated on November 1st at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Every year I have posted about it since 2004; if anyone wants to see past photos just go to the heading "Another Side" click on and find the four sub-albums on St. Andrew's Ball for each year. If anyone out there will be ...
Taiwan, China Matters: a MOFA Smokescreen?
Henry Chen, MOFA spokesman, announced yesterday that MOFA has found fewer cases of Chinese pressure against Taiwan participation in international affairs. "In the first half of the year, there were relatively fewer examples of China's suppression of Taiwan." While this sounds like progress, Chen did not elaborate as to why and so leaves the whole matter in the vagaries of ...
Taiwan Commemorates Far Eastern Prisoners of War (FEPOW) Day
While Taiwan's media vacillates between focusing on President Ma Ying-jeou's dismal performance in his first 100 days and the US$ 20 million dollars that Chen Shui-bian admits he profited from by using the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) system to advantage, believe it or not a lot of other things are going on in Taiwan besides those two events. One such ...
Is Ma Ying-jeou Becoming a Parrot of the PRC?
Recently, the People's Republic of China (PRC) rejected Taiwan's bid for simple participation in other international agencies as an observer. This was allegedly Ma's new flexible and placating approach to China. Though it was quickly shot down by the PRC, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) tried to downplay the rejection and say that the PRC did not understand Taiwan's effort. ...
Taiwan's Economy Continues Sinking but Ma Ying-jeou Wants to Bring Back Chiang Kai-shek
I attended a presentation by Vice Premier Chiu Cheng-hsiung today and what he said about the world and Taiwan's economy were not encouraging. Quoting Global Insight he predicted the growth of the world economy will slow to 3% this year and 2.8% next year. Taiwan's growth would fall from 5.72% last year to 4.3% this year. Plus Taiwan's CPI would ...
Taiwan, the Gravy Train Rolls On
Well I barely posted the need for Taiwanese to examine the gravy train politics and system of rewards and punishments than Ma Ying-jeou gave a good example. Presidential Office Secretary-General Chan Chun-po confirmed that the state affairs fund (some read that as personal slush fund for politicians) has been used to give a birthday party banquet for Lien Chan, the ...
Taiwan's Political Gravy Train in Search of a Wild Lily
While hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to show their displeasure with the ineffectual performance and potential betrayal of the country's sovereignty by MaYing-jeou in his first 100 days, other media headlines have been discussing the so-called "money laundering" scandal of the former president, Chen Shui-bian. Chen had wired (via his wife) some twenty million US dollars to ...
Why There are Protests Against Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou
This August, there have already been two protests against the ineffectual leadership of Ma Ying-jeou as president of Taiwan. Ma's party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will use their press to try and downplay the actual size of the protests, their importance, and their implications. ...
Taiwan's Little Boy Ma Remains Lost in Lah-lah Land
Ma Ying-joke, the flim-flam man, the phony pony, call him what they will, for the people in Taiwan who watch the real world going on in places like Georgia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Tibet, Xinxiang etc. Ma Ying-jeou's "flexible diplomacy" remains the laughing-stock of the country. Somehow Ma still feels that by being a good little boy to the powers of the ...
McCain Picks Palin: His Safest Bet Given the Circumstances
I don't usually comment on US politics except as they relate to Taiwan but everyone is touting McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate as his boldest move yet. I don't see it that way at all. McCain is playing it safe. ...
Art Taipei 2008: Money and Freedom, a Different Perspective
Art Taipei 2008 begins today at the Taipei World Trade Center and runs through September 2nd. As an art show, it is worth attending; and because of work I do with the art community, I was lucky and already got a sneak preview. I had a VIP pass to get me through the gates for the preview and grand opening ...
To Taiwan's Foreign Media: Check out the Aughst 30 Protest Against Ma Ying-jeou
It will soon be 100 days since Ma Ying-jeou has been president of Taiwan, 100 ineffectual days. So what do the people think about Ma? How do they evaluate his first 100 days? Come to the Presidential Palace this Saturday, August 30th and you'll see what people think of the man whose popularity rating has dropped below 37 per cent. ...
Ma's New Brainchild; Give China's 1.3 billion Multiple Entry Visas
Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan's President, the president that does not want to be called president, the same one that said that Taiwan's sovereignty is not important, has come up with a new brainchild. (Notice that he does not talk about the economy after his last economic brainchild failed in less than a month.)So speaking on Kinmen where many died to defend ...
"Nineteen Eighty-Four" Revisited
With the recent events in the troubled democracies of Georgia and Taiwan, recurring images from George Orwell's seminal novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four" return. In that novel, (published 1949) Orwell predicted a divided world where three major powers Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia compete and re-align with each other. Each is so large that no two united can destroy the remaining one. As ...
China/Taiwan, Russia/Georgia:an Inconvenient Case of Cause and Effect?
Russia recently shocked the world. With a swift show of military might it steamrolled into Georgia, grabbed key strategic locations and took aim at punishing what it considers an annoying democratic gnat at its doorstep. The timing was perfect; Russia's neighbor China, one that also cares little for democracy, was hosting the Olympics, a good distraction for all. George Bush, ...
Spreading the Blame: the KMT Finds a New Excuse on Arms Delays
The farcical charade between Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the United States State Department over arms sales to Taiwan has reached a new level. For those uninformed, the old excuse as to why nothing happened was the past president, Chen Shui-bian. Remember him; he was the alleged trouble maker that stymied everything. Never mind the fact that it was ...
Katyn, Poland's Bitter Past Recalls Taiwan's Tragedy
It is September 1939 and Poland is in dire straits; first the Nazis have attacked from the west on September 1st and then on September 17th, the Russians violated their non-Aggression Pact with Poland and attacked from the east. Andrezej Wajda's film "Katyn" opens with a poignant scene from this period. Polish refugees fleeing the German invasion on the west, ...
Taiwan, the UN, What's in a Name?
We have all witnessed how quickly the People's Republic of China (PRC) kept their most recent promise to refer to Taiwan as Zhonghua Taibei (Chinese Taipei) and not Zhongguo Taibei (Taipei, China) as regards the 2008 Olympics. This broken promise followed upon the heels of the previous broken promise that they would originally use this term. But another issue now ...
Taitung and the KMT's Kuang Li-chen: She Did it All for Love
One thing about Taiwan politics, it will never disappoint. Even in the remotest of areas, scandals and bhagwa can be brewing. The latest of a long string of episodes involves the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taitung County Magistrate, Kuang Li-chen. Kuang Li-chen has gained the reputation of being a jet-setting magistrate after having taken eight trips aboard in her two ...
President Bush Makes it Clear?
Lest one think that Ma Ying-jeou is the only problem Taiwan has in getting respect in the international community, examine the recent words of the United States President George Bush. Some have conjectured that a meeting with this man might be enough to convince the leaders of the People's Republic of China (PRC) or any totalitarian state that they would ...
Ma Ying-joke's Alternate Universe
Ma Ying-joke, the naive president of Taiwan continues to live in his own little alternate universe, a universe so distant that no one can figure out where he is coming from. If you remember that yesterday I posted on how Ma boasted of the great diplomatic coup his staff had achieved by getting China to agree to use the term ...
The Buck Stops Elsewhere: Ma Ying-joke, Taiwan's Inveterate Poseur
Western media pundits in search of quick dramatic story lines have always glossed and glamorized Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou; few have observed him long and close enough to see the reality beneath the surface. For example, they always tout him as the brilliant Harvard lawyer though in reality while he did attend Harvard he never passed the bar in the United ...
The US State Deparmtent and the KMT Fail Again
The farcical dance goes on, proving once again how difficult life is for the US State Department and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to cover up their ineptitude and kowtowing to China. Without Chen Shui-bian to blame, they are at sixes and sevens in trying to explain why there has been no activity on arms sales to Taiwan. The US ...
The New Kissinger Institute: Score One for the China Lobby
I have been traveling for the past two weeks but am back in Taiwan and there is plenty to write about. First on the horizon is a blurb from Xinhua Agencies announcing that the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars inaugurated on July 29, the Kissinger Institute for China and the United States Relations. Before anyone shouts Hallelujah, there are ...
Taiwan's Black Hole and the Cultural Imperialism of Zhonghua Minzu
Taiwanese have always had a black hole in their psyche. It is a black hole caused by underreported or misrepresented history, a black hole partly caused by their own neglect, a black hole caused by 50 years of colonial rule by Japan and another 50 years of martial law, white terror and indoctrination by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It ...
Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan's One Trick Pony
While his cabinet continues making mistake after mistake in governing Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou appears to be the proverbial one trick pony and have only one thing on his mind. Elected on his promises that he would send Taiwan's economy soaring, Ma's only solution and hope is to continue to keep repeating his mantra, "run to China." Life however, is not ...
The Difference Between Two Countries: More of Ma's Tourists Take Flight
In other related news, a second group of three more Chinese tourists have jumped ship and run after they got to Taiwan. The only Taiwanese that jump ship and flee to China from Taiwan are those under indictment or criminal charges in Taiwan. But perhaps Ma Ying-jeou will use the argument that they will spend more money if they hang ...
Flimflam and Fluff: Taiwan Voters and Their Syndromes
The days of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) control of indoctrination, propaganda and media are long gone (if you can consider twenty years as long gone), but that does not mean that the KMT does not keep influencing Taiwan voters. Witness Taiwan's last presidential election where many sheep-like voters were led to believe that Taiwan's main problem was its economy ...
Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen, a Woman to Watch
I recently had the pleasure to take part in a two-hour question and answer presentation to the Taiwan Foreign Correspondent's Club (TFCC) by Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) new Chairperson. Without any canned, prepared statements, Tsai immediately launched into any and all topics that the correspondents wanted to ask and know about. With a short break in the ...
Taiwan: We'll Take Tibet's Torch over China's Any Day!
The fate of the Olympic Torch has been superceded in the international press by the Sichuan earthquake and other problems that China is facing as it tries to reduce pollution for the Olympics. But another torch is going around and it made its symbolic presence known in Taiwan on July 6th. That torch is the Tibetan Freedom Torch which began ...
Taiwan's Human Rights Struggles, 1960--1980, a New Book
Anyone involved in the Civil Rights Movements in the United States would scoff at the suggestion that the South intended all along to give blacks equal opportunity. The South was just waiting for the right moment. Anyone who knows the struggles against apartheid in South Africa would scoff at the suggestion that the Afrikaners were also just simply waiting for ...
A New Book on the Spanish Experience in Taiwan Coming Soon
Those interested in Taiwan's early encounters with the West and the outside world will be happy to know of a new book coming out this fall. The work, "The Spanish Experience in Taiwan 1626--1642: The Baroque Ending of a Renaissance Endeavor" by Jose Eugenio Borao of National Taiwan University is sponsored by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and in line to ...
Taiwan and the USA on Arms Sales with No One to Blame
The charade of the blame game goes on. Now that the United States State Department and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) cannot use Chen Shui-bian as a scapegoat for their problems and inadequacies; they don't know how to talk to each other. Case in point, Jason Yuan who is soon to be Taiwan's representative in Washington DC says his top ...
Ma Ying-jeou Continues to Talk out of Both Sides of His Mouth
Ma Ying-jeou seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth again; how else does one match his words with his actions? Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the nation's five military schools, Ma put forth the following statements. ...