Month: June 2008

Saturday's Taipei Times on Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou's refusal to tour flooded areas in southern Taiwan:

This weekend there are dragon boat races around the country, and consistent with his sporting image and past practice during his time as Taipei mayor, Ma was set to take part in a dragon boat contest in Taipei.

But politicians from both sides of the fence have expressed dissatisfaction with Ma, saying that he should be tending to the wounds of the farming industry and other sectors in the south, who are mopping up after seasonally heavy rainfall.

Ma should have known from the outset that canceling his dragon boat jaunt and touring rain-affected areas in the south was the sensible political thing to do. It seems he did not. But now that he has changed his mind and pulled out of the Taipei bash, he hardly looks any better: It is perfectly obvious that he was responding to harsh criticism and not out of a last-minute crisis of conscience.

[…]

If [Ma's] spokesperson is to be believed, the president now believes that touring disaster-affected areas poses a risk to the Constitution, given that the premier is the executive’s traditional link man in delivering onsite relief.

We can only deduce that when presidents Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) toured disaster zones during their tenure that they also came perilously close to damaging the nation’s most important document.  [emphasis added]

So, instead of either participating in the races or touring the waterlogged south, Ma is doing neither.

Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian all apparently toured Taiwanese disaster areas, but I'll do the Times one better.  Remember all the fuss the China Post made about Hu Jintao touring earthquake-stricken Szechuan province?

For all the losses, sufferings and agonies, Beijing can take some comfort from the fact that the earthquake has rallied the country behind the government, which has been constantly criticized by Western countries for human right abuses. Suddenly, such criticisms disappeared, thanks to the earthquake that prompted Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao to respond instantly and effectively — an evidence of their care and concern for human rights.  [emphasis added]

Guess this would have to mean, by the Post's own reasoning, that PRC President Hu Jintao cares more about human rights in China than Ma Ying-jeou cares about them in Taiwan.

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UPDATE (Sep 17/08):  President Ma decides to visit areas hard hit by Typhoon Sinlaku.

That's Panić as in Milan Panić (PAN-itch).    Wikipedia may help brush away the cobwebs:

Milan Panić or Milan Panic . . . (born 20 December 1929 in Belgrade in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) is an American multimillionaire, a Newport Beach and Pasadena, California-based business tycoon. Panić served as Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992-1993.  [emphasis added]

Now, I'm not going to argue that it's a GOOD thing for dual citizens like Panić to serve as PRIME MINISTERS of foreign countries and still retain their American citizenships.  (Nor will I suggest, as per Dr. William Fang, that dual citizens are disloyal opportunists, either.) 

What I will say is that the case of Milan Panić illustrates the principle that accepting high political office in a foreign country is not sufficient in and of itself to strip an American of his citizenship.  Panić was a naturalized American who became prime-minister of his native Yugoslavia for about six months.   When he lost power he returned Stateside — and returned as an American.

It's 2008, and many have probably forgotten Panić's brief but fascinating political career.  But in late 1992, the man's name was on everyone's lips.  Hard to believe that Diane Lee of Taiwan, who obtained her dual American citizenship in 1991, could have easily ignored the case.  Hard to believe — and hard to argue that Diane Lee, Taipei city councillor and Taiwanese legislator, should have been stripped of her American citizenship . . . while the Yugoslavian who became P.M. should keep his.

[An earlier post on this issue can be found here.]

The story in a nutshell:  A Taiwanese woman stays in America for several years, and undertakes the lengthy process of becoming a dual U.S. / R.O.C. citizen.  Upon returning to Taiwan, she enters political life under the aegis of Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party.  Now, she is aware of a Taiwanese law which states that no one possessing dual citizenship may hold a government job (those that do must return ALL their government salaried earnings back to the State!)  Despite this, the woman doesn't renounce her new American citizenship legally, and is eventually discovered.

When she IS found out, she's asked to give back her accumulated paychecks to Taiwanese taxpayers.  The sum total of which equals . . . $3.29 MILLION U.S. dollars.

Naturally, the woman in question — Diane Lee of the KMT – insists she's the victim of overly-complicated American citizenship law.  Lee claims she ASSUMED the U.S. government would strip her of her citizenship when it discovered she had taken a government position and signed an oath to the Taiwanese government. 

Meanwhile, her detractors believe she had more cynical motives:  THEY believe she deliberately kept her American citizenship secret as an emergency escape hatch in case any . . . unpleasantness . . . with China happened to arise.  Three million bucks at stake sure buys a whole lotta ignorance of the law, her opponents argue.

Dr. William Fang of the China Post wrote a column BLAMING AMERICA FIRST for Lee's troubles, which smacked of crude partisanship.  Personally, I can see plenty of blame to go around on this one.  But since Fang pointed his finger at America, let's start there:

1)  Where was American Immigration in all of this?

After assuming her political posts in Taiwan, Diane Lee apparently visited America using a non-immigrant visa in her Taiwanese passport.  This was ILLEGAL — dual American citizens like Lee are required to use their American passports when re-entering the country.  So why didn't American Immigration officers discover Lee doing this?  Granted, INS maybe didn't have its act together before 9-11, but is there any excuse for them now?  

Another thing:  the form for a U.S. non-immigrant visa asks the applicant about the length of their previous visits to America, as well as previous visas that were issued.  (No questions about previous U.S. citizenship, though.) 

Anyways, Lee lived in the States for more than six years – so why didn't anyone take the time to pull her file to have a look-see?  Unless of course, she lied on her application form . . .

2)  Why didn't the KMT vet its candidate more carefully?

Chinese Nationalist Party headquarters, 1994:

Well, Ms. Lee, your credentials certainly SEEM impressive.  Just out of curiosity though, it says here you spent more than six years living in America.  Did you ever think about, y'know, getting a green card or maybe emigrating there, or something?

REALLY?  Dual citizenizenship in 1991?  No kiddin'!  Now, normally I'd run this by Huang in Legal, but the guy's off on yet another one of his month-long vacations, the lazy bum . . .  😉

But, what the hell – we'll just take your word for it that this won't become an embarrassing problem later down the line!

Readers can decide for themselves the probability of Diane Lee's interview ending on such a note.  Onto then, to the character issue.  In his column, Dr. Fang says when Lee took her oath of office in Taiwan she became a woman with a "dishonest record" whose oath could not be trusted, and America should have stripped Lee of her citizenship because of her "illicit relationship with another country."  

In other words, dishonest oath-breakers having illicit relationships with other countries ( ! ) should be expelled by the U.S. . . . but welcomed with open arms by the KMT.

Recalling Oliver Twist's introduction into a gang of juvenile pickpockets:

Consider yourself – at home.
Consider yourself — one of the family.
We've taken to you – so strong.
It's clear — we're — going to get along . . .

3)  Isn't Diane Lee responsible for looking out for numero uno?

Get this:  SIX years elapsed between the time Diane Lee received her Green Card and the time she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1991.  That's 2,200 days she could have picked up a pamphlet or two and learned the rights and responsibilities belonging to Americans with dual citizenship.  For my previous post on this matter, I found this U.S. publication which EXPLICITLY informs dual citizens on "How to give up your U.S. citizenship." 

There're two words for not doing your homework when so much is at stake:  willful ignorance.  And what's more, Lee then allowed her entire future income to ride on her "assumption" that her U.S. citizenship would be cancelled.  Cancelled by some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in a little Washington office somewhere.  A bureaucrat she'd never met before.  A bureaucrat who might easily have lost or mis-processed or just plain FORGOTTEN about her file. 

But oh well, la-de-da.  Why should Lee pick up a phone to check up on the nice man?  It's only money, after all.