Thursday’s Taipei Times revealed that the unveiling of the memorial provided a rare opportunity for Taiwan’s representative in Washington, D.C. to meet with the American president. Careful, Mr. Bush, China might accuse you of PROVOKING it:
US President George W. Bush shook hands and chatted with Representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) on Tuesday while attending the dedication of a memorial to those killed by communist regimes around the world.
Actually, that’s not why I brought the subject up at all. The real reason is that one line in the story reminded me of something I wanted to write about a month ago:
The VOC Memorial was more than a decade in the making. The US Congress passed an act in 2003 on the establishment of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to raise funds to build the monument in memory of the more than 100 million people killed by communist regimes — from China and Soviet Union to Cambodia and North Korea. [emphasis added]
Recall that a month ago, cost was one of the major complaints raised against renaming the Chiang Kai-shek memorial in Taipei. It seemed to me at the time that one of the best ways to counter that argument would have been to call for the establishment of a private charity to raise funds for the renaming. After all, "It costs too much," can hardly be said once people OTHER THAN YOURSELF voluntarily commit to paying for it. Pass the hat around, and see just how much the Taiwanese value the re-dedication. Those who hate the idea would be free to give nothing. But I’ll bet those who WERE committed would’ve given, and given generously.
Both the World War II Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington were funded chiefly by private donations. While I’m sure their respective foundations encountered the problem of free ridership, I note that in the end, the memorials DID manage to get built. What we have here is a nice, small-government approach to the problem, which has the additional virtue of helping build civil society at the same time.
UPDATE (Jun 21/07): That was predictable. The Butchers of Beijing threaten war over Wu’s handshake with George Bush:
[Chinese officials] expressed stern-faced concern and spoke of dire consequences during a press conference as China made clear its fury that Bush had even chosen to acknowledge Wu’s visit.
“We insist to keep the current peaceful relations as we promised Taiwan’s citizens. We have prepared to stop (prohibit) any activities, conduct and any excuses to divide Taiwan away from China in whatever cause, the activities are going to cause serious harm. Chenshuibian’s (President of Taiwan) conspiracy of an independent Taiwan causes serious harm in our peaceful relations. We will resort to military action if they continue these irresponsible actions,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yang Li. (rough translation). [emphasis added]
Hat tip to The View from Taiwan.