Month: November 2008

Temporarily.  Although he's only 6 months into his term, so he's still got plenty of time.  From Thursday's Taipei Times:

Since Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou obviously prefers the flag of Communist China to that of his own country, I suggest Taiwanese indulge him next time.  Leave those ROC flags at home, and go ahead and bring Ma's beloved PRC flags instead. 

(Just don't forget to carry a Bic lighter as well.)

Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou, I mean.  On his election promises.  Or to narrow things down, why don't we examine just ONE of those promises he made in particular…

This Monday one of those cross-strait exchange events started rolling, when Chen Yunlin, the chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) flew into Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for a little visit.  And Taiwanese who took CANDIDATE Ma at his word were in for a rude surprise when they met with police under orders from now-PRESIDENT Ma:

But PRESIDENT Ma was just getting warmed up:

But surely these were isolated incidents?

Hmm, I think I'm beginning to notice a pattern here . . .

Now, what was that promise again that Chinese Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou made BEFORE he became Taiwan's president?

So . . . how's he doin'?

UPDATE:  Jeez, and how could I have forgotten this one:  Taiwan's Grand Hotel Removes ROC Flags for Communist Bigwig.

i-1

Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of Taiwan's main independence party, recently explained why her party was opposed to the recent visit to Taiwan by China's negotiator, Chen Yunlin.  In response, Dr. William Fang of Taiwan's China Post offered a rebuttal, titled ironically enough, "Tsai's unintelligent, ridiculous and paradoxical comments." 

Ironic, because — yeah, you guessed it — the good doctor disproves Tsai's arguments with a few unintelligent, ridiculous and paradoxical comments of his own.  Fang quotes Tsai thusly:

Whoa, whoa — let's start with Fang's parenthetical statement, in which he expresses doubt about Tsai's allegations concerning the removal of Taiwanese flags at the Grand Hotel.  One wonders whether Fang even bothers to read his own newspaper, because it was only a day earlier when the China Post featured an above-the-fold picture on the front page with the following caption (skip down to the underlined section):

If Fang maintains that Tsai is lying about the incident, then he must also logically hold that his own newspaper lied about the very same thing to its readers.  So which is it, Fang?  Are they both lying, or they both telling the truth? 

Tick-tock, tick-tock . . .

But Fang's main point with this is that Tsai is being hypocritical.  Tsai's party never paid "due respect" to Taiwan's flag, so therefore it has no right to point fingers when the KMT does likewise.  Which is right up there with admitting that yes, I may be grossly obese, but that physician has no right to tell me to lose weight, 'cause he's kinda fat, too.  (And furthermore, I'd rather stuff my face full of twinkies and die of a massive coronary rather than take advice from some hypocrite in a white lab coat!)

Wisdom from the brow of Pallas Athene, this ain't.  What Fang forgets is that the truth's the truth, whether spoken by saint, sinner OR hypocrite. Tsai's party may very well be hypocritical here * (although see my footnotes as for why I think this is a bad rap).  But that doesn't invalidate Tsai's point, namely, that Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party has just pissed on their own country's flag. 

The corollary to the truth being the truth would have to be that a lie told by a liar is always a lie.  Speaking of liars, does anybody remember this "sincere promise" Ma Ying-jeou made when he was running for president?

If elected next year, Ma said he would not allow China to demand that
the country cover national flags . . . during cross-strait exchange events in Taiwan.

You've gotta admit, it was a nice campaign slogan to fool the rubes.

And finally, one of Fang's ancillary arguments against Tsai is that it's irrelevant how the negotiator from China addresses Taiwan's president.  The president is the president, no matter HOW he's addressed.  "Mister" Ma or "President" Ma or whatever the envoy wants to call him — the differences are largely semantic.

Taking Fang at his word, I now dub Taiwan's KMT president "Buttmunch-in-Chief" Ma Ying-jeou.  Nine in ten KMT supporters agree, he's the right man for the orifice!

President Ma, Buttmunch Ma — Pot-tay-to, Pot-tah-to, right?

*  Are members of Taiwan's main independence party hypocritical about the ROC flag?  Certainly, a number of them probably prefer some other flag to the one the country has now.  But when push comes to shove, does that mean they're prohibited from defending a flag they consider to be less-than-ideal?

By the same token, it's a common occurance that a man's girlfriend might not be quite as pretty as he would like.  Someone calls her plug-ugly though, and he rises to her defense. 

And that happens whether someone of Doc Fang's ilk thinks he's got the "right" to do so or not.

Heh.  That's how the Chinese once referred to former Taiwanese Vice-President Annette Lu.  So sweet nothin's right back atcha, Chen.

😉

Sunday's Taipei Times had some of the details:

Naturally, the Taiwanese government is eager to avoid such unpleasantries:

Monday's Taipei Times discussed Chen's security arrangements in greater detail:

All told, there may be 7,000 Taiwanese police employed just to keep Comrade Chen safe.  It will be interesting to see just how proficient those special forces officers are at assuming the Roman testudo formation, though.  'Cause I've got three words for you:  egg catapults, baby.

Lest the reader get the wrong idea, I think all this security is terrific.  Everywhere he goes, let this Communist Party apparatchik cower behind Ma Ying-jeou's legions.  Let him know that he and his bosses would be eaten raw without them.  Let him flip on the TV in his room in the Grand Hotel, and let him see Taiwanese and Tibetans and Falun Gong adherants heap abuse upon his tyrannical masters in Zhongnanhai.

Hearty 2-28 Greetings, Chen Yunlin!

Bravo, lickspittles.

Most of the caption of the photo in the link above can't be read from the China Post's website, but the relevant part of it says:

Hey, mission accomplished.  The Taiwanese at the Grand Hotel avoided embarrassing the envoy — by instead embarrassing themselves. 

And their country.

In this however, they're only following the lead of Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou, who has previously stated that he wouldn't mind being addressed as "Mr. Ma" (instead of "President Ma") by visiting Communist Party officials.

Query:  When foreigners hear of Taiwanese denigration OF THEIR OWN FLAG ON THEIR OWN SOIL, why should they feel ANY SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER the next time China suppresses the ROC flag abroad?

All this reminds me of a story that appeared on The Drudge Report a few weeks back:

Now granted, "What would the French do?" is not a question that frequently keeps me up at night.  But I wonder if the French would be QUITE SO ACCOMODATING towards a thug from a foreign government that wanted to annex their country.

Perhaps while under Nazi occupation, they might.  Which alone speaks volumes about Marshal Pétain Mister Ma and the grandees of the Grand Hotel.

UPDATE:  A short backgrounder on the Grand Hotel here.

UPDATE (Nov 10/08):  A postcard of the Grand Hotel site during the Japanese era can be found at the US Taiwan Defense Command blog.