Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
Money for nothin' and your lap dances for free.
(Image from . . . ah, hell, I don't know. This pic's been on my hard drive for ages!)
UPDATE (Jul 22/2009): The original (uncropped) photo was from the October 29th, 2005 edition of the Taipei Times. Can't find it on their website anymore, but here it is at Muzi.com.
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High-class mainlander Comsymps over at Taiwan's China Post, working like stakhanovites to convince Taiwanese to surrender to the Communist Chinese.
Actually, if that's the tack you want to take, then the right to determine one's political status is being trampled right now — by the ROC constitution. And in the complete ABSENCE of any independence referendums! Because it takes all kinds to make a country — Taiwan independence advocates, elderly Japanophiles . . . youthful America lovers:
I am a proud citizen of Taiwan / Japan / America. I want my country to include Taiwan / Japan / America. I refuse to be classified as a citizen of the Republic of China! The R.O.C. constitution is trampling over my right to determine my political status!
A reply to all of them might go something like this:
The classical liberals of the nineteenth century believed that individuals should be free to determine their own lives. It is why they advocated private property, voluntary exchange, and constitutionally limited government. They also believed that people should be free to reside in any country they wish. In general, therefore, they advocated freedom of movement. Governments should not compel people to stay within their political boundaries, nor should any government prohibit them from entering its territory for peaceful purposes.
An extension of this principle was that individuals should be free to determine through plebiscite what state they would belong to. This is distinctly different from the collectivists’ notion of “national self-determination,” the alleged necessity for all members of an ethnic, racial, linguistic, or cultural group to be incorporated within a single political entity, regardless of their wishes. Thus, for instance, the Nazis demanded that all members of the “Aryan race” be forcefully united within a Greater Germany under National Socialist leadership.
[Similar demands made by Chinese nationalists, be they KMT or CCP — The Foreigner]
Classical liberalism is closer to “individual self-determination.” Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises argued in Liberalism (1927) that the liberal ideal allows individuals within towns, districts, and regions to vote on which state they would belong to; they could remain part of the existing state, join another state, or form a new one.
Mises stated that in principle this choice should be left to each individual, not majorities, since a minority (including a minority of one) might find itself within the jurisdiction of a government not of its own choosing. But because it was difficult to imagine how competing police and judicial systems could function on the same street corner, Mises viewed the majoritarian solution to be a workable second best. [emphasis added]
Communist Party fellow-traveller (and faux-individualist) Bevin Chu is a big fan of the the majoritarian solution — not for the honorable intention of empowering self-determination but for crushing it. The Post usually endorses this scheme of Chu's, but on this one occasion feigns mild disapproval:
Suppose Beijing were to argue that "The political status of China must be determined by the 1.3 billion people of China. The political status of the 1.3 billion people of the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau must be collectively determined by the 1.3 billion people of the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau by popular referendum."
Polls have revealed that 95% of the public [in the Communist People's Republic of China] opposes Taiwan independence. Does anyone doubt what the outcome of a referendum on Taiwan independence would be?
Good one, Bev. And while we're at it, let's keep those rebellious Danes in the Reich by means of a referendum among all true-blooded Germanic Aryans!
POSTSCRIPT: Quite frankly, it's surreal to be talking about independence referendums in Taiwan when the Chinese Nationalist Party controls both the presidency and 75% of the legislature.
Independence referendum in Taiwan? Not gonna happen.
For a long, long time.
Always a hoot when the Confucian collectivists at Taiwan's China Post invoke individualism (!) to rationalize Taiwan's annexation by the Chinese Empire. On Wednesday, the paper even tried to get away with the dishonest suggestion that Ayn Rand would have been cool with that.
From the editorial, A thought experiment on 'right to self-determination':
[…]
But this conventional definition, considered utterly non-controversial by mainstream political scientists, is in fact conceptually defective at its very core, and gets us into all sorts of trouble. One might say that the politically-correct "national right to self-determination" is one of those things that we know for sure that "just ain't so".
Really? Try telling that to the freed peoples of the Austro-Hungarian, British, Turkish and Soviet Empires. "Hey — ya'll have no national right to self-determination. Howdya like them apples?"
OK, now that Rand has been injected into the whole Taiwan independence debate, let's see what her actual thoughts on secession were:
Sounds like the lady was dead-set against it. But there's a catch . . .
Now, that part about the "mixed economy" is actually a huge caveat. After all, even the most capitalist countries in the world possess at least SOME elements of socialism. . .
We can clearly see that Rand whole-heartedly approved of the right to national self-determination — for free peoples.
UPDATE: Consistent with that secession quote, I just found some pretty strong support for Taiwanese independence over at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.
Eat your heart out, Bevin Chu. A is still A. Eh?
UPDATE #2: More from Rand herself —
[A free nation] has a right to its sovereignty (derived from the rights of its citizens) and a right to demand that its sovereignty be respected by all other nations.
Taiwan's China Post, denouncing the country's main independence party's efforts to prevent recognition of Chinese diplomas in Taiwan:
Let's leave aside the irony of the China Post now posing a champion of the individual (the paper which obsequiously applauded Taiwan's martial law-era rulers as it mercilessly crushed the rights of individuals for 40 years).
No, let's instead look at the security implications of the policy. Mr. Peabody, if you'll do the honors and set the Way-Back machine back to the 1970s:
[…]
Based on a huge cache of hitherto secret East German intelligence documents, including complete Stasi mole files of two British academics code-named "Armin" and "Diana," Insight/BBC has established the Stasi had a high recruitment success rate among American and British exchange students. "Regardless of whether these were students from Britain or other countries, as a general rule one out of 10 attempts to recruit someone for the secret service were successful," says Pieter Richter, a former HVA analyst. [emphasis added]
There you have it. A full TEN PERCENT of American & British students who studied in East Germany returned home as communist spies.
What would the number be for Taiwanese students studying in China, I wonder? Fewer language barriers. Fewer cultural differences to work against their recruiters' effectiveness. A "Greater China" mentality already inculcated into many of them by a Chinese nationalist educational establishment . . .
So I'll say 20%. Yes, twenty percent. Give or take some change.
Postscript: I seem to recall blogging on this subject a couple years back, and that 10% figure seems to ring a bell. Worth repeating now, now that the policy isn't just a hypothetical anymore.
Chinese tourists to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan are being treated to disturbing evidence of their government's persecution of Falun Gong. And there are objections aplenty:
Tseng Kuo-chi (曾國基), director of administration, told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview that the protests by Falun Gong members were directed at Chinese tourists, who normally visit Sun Moon Lake, Alishan, the National Palace Museum and other popular tourist attractions.
Chinese tourists may have been the targets, but a Canadian visitor to the lake was found to be unhappy as well:
The Taipei Times contacted Tseng after it ran a letter on Monday from Canadian Paul Gallien, a high school teacher who visited Sun Moon Lake last week and was disturbed by a Falun Gong display he saw at one of the shoreline temples.
“Part of the display included very graphic images of dead bodies, including a pregnant woman with parts of her skin and flesh removed revealing an unborn child within the womb,” Gallien wrote.
[…]
Traveling with his two-year-old daughter and her five-year-old cousin, Gallien said he doubted the two youngsters “have necessary faculties to avoid being traumatized by such photographs.”
Even though I don't have children, I know where he's coming from. On the other hand, the Canadian government requires cigarette makers to print gruesome images on cigarette packs, in an effort to discourage people from smoking. 51 billion cigarettes sold yearly in Canada works out to . . . oh, I don't know HOW many packs. But it's a good bet Mr. Gallien's kids will come across at least some of these at grandpa's house or the neighbor's living room or even as litter on the side of the road.
(You oughtta see the anti-smoking warnings the Aussie government requires. Hope you're not eating when you take a gander at the gangrened foot.)
If governments mandate the printing of nasty photos to educate people on societal ills, they have absolutely no room to object when private individuals or organizations do likewise.
POSTSCRIPT: Personally, I'm of the notion that "The Lake of the Sun and the Moon" is whole lot more poetic than the Chinglishy "Sun Moon Lake."
UPDATE: Now, I guess I can't object if the Taiwanese government tries to REASON with the Falun Gong group about this. Certainly, if I was a member of that religion, I would have concerns that distasteful images might turn some observers against my cause. But if Falun Gong wants to run that risk, then that's their business.
UPDATE #2: Falun Gong displays grisly photos outside a provincial legislature in Mr. Gallien's home country. A few kids may have walked by, I dunno.
UPDATE #3: Falun Gong displays similar pictures on a shanty outside a Chinese consulate in Vancouver, B.C. for 7 or 8 years. On a public sidewalk.
(The mayor, under pressure from China, eventually got his way and had the hut dismantled. While the fate of the structure is being appealed, Falun Gong adherents are nonetheless still at liberty to protest AND DISPLAY THEIR PICTURES outside the consulate, minus their makeshift hut.)
All this is not to pick on Mr. Gallien, whom I sympathize with. I simply point out that Falun Gong is free to use graphic images in public places within Gallien's home country to protest China's ill treatment of their co-religionists.
So why should they not have that very same right in Taiwan as well?
UPDATE #4: Now that Taiwan's opened the door to the Chinese, we can probably expect opponents of the regime to be attacked by hired goons or mobsters, as was done in this case.
UPDATE (Apr 23/09): Wednesday's Taipei Times' editorial on the issue.
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. . . if they'd openly campaigned on a platform of turning Taiwan into Beijing's offshore brothel?
Somehow, I kinda doubt it. But as I was reading over the China Post's latest editorial supporting the-policy-Chinese-Nationalists-dared-not-speak-of-until-they-won-power, it struck me. Why, didn't the Post used to go on and on about how MORALLY-DEPRAVED Taiwan had become once the KMT had lost the presidency?
Yes, they did. So it's pretty entertaining to watch these self-appointed watchdogs of societal morality now cheerleading plans to legalize PROSTITUTION.
The chairman of the Taiwanese organization tasked with negotiating with China . . . has a family member who was doing business with China.
These aren't the droids you're looking for . . .
Well, that makes it alright then . . .
Chiang said he knew very little about his son’s business and rarely asked about it. He also said that he had not used his position to secure any business deals for his son. [emphasis added]
If you say so, Chiang . . .
Ah. So at least ONE person realized there was a potential conflict of interest here . . .
Farmer Bao: Is that a thief I hear in my hen house?
Answer: There ain't nobody here but us chickens!
Speaking of which, Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party was quick to defend that strangely-out-of-place voice emerging from the hen house:
[Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan said] that Chiang was not a “policymaker” or “negotiator” in cross-strait affairs, but rather the “executor” of the council’s policy and that the Chiang issue was therefore “irrelevant.
I . . . see. Chiang is the CHAIRMAN of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation — but he has absolutely NOTHING to do with the organization's policies or negotiations.
(No doubt the poor guy just comes in 3 times a week to mop up and clean the windows. So lay off him, already !)
Support from another quarter:
It may come as a surprise to nepotism-lovin' Lin, but some large corporations categorically forbid the hiring of family members. From the (American) National Conference of State Legislatures:
Makes sense to me. Lots of small mom-and-pop operations hire family members because the benefits of doing so outweigh the disadvantages. For larger operations, the situation may be reversed, and it's rational for corporations to adopt anti-nepotism policies.
Flash quiz: Which organization does the country of Taiwan more closely resemble? A mom-and-pop convenience store on the corner? Or a large corporation?
* Despite Lin Yi-shih's retrograde views on nepotism and conflict-of-interest, I must extend grudging admiration to the KMT for choosing a former dentist to be their party whip. No, really. I simply cannot imagine a better man for the job.
(Cue Steve Martin, from Little Shop of Horrors.)
POSTSCRIPT: The title of this post is shamelessly paraphrased from the Taipei Times' original, "SEF head regretful over son's PRC ties." Paraphrased, because it turns out that the SEF chairman is decidedly NOT regretful over his son's PRC ties. As Shaw-Chang Maa of the SEF puts it:
I earlier quoted someone from the Mainland Affairs Council who swore up and down that Chiang WASN'T a "policymaker" or "negotiator". That this conflict-of-interest was "irrelevant".
Yet now, Shaw-Chang Maa comes forward and says that media silence about Chiang's conflicts-of-interest is CRUCIAL to Taiwan's economic well-being.
Maybe some folks ought to sit down and get their talking-points straight.
What, didn't you see this coming?
1) Record number of Chinese tourists in Taiwan
AsiaOne.com reports:
2) [KMT] Legislator proposes bill to decriminalize prostitution
Hey, a lot of average Joe Ho's love their ho's. And think of the damage to Sino-Taiwanese relations if some two-bit sheriff somewhere were to turn around and ARREST them for it !
Now the thing is, I'm actually pretty libertarian on prostitution and drug legalization issues. So ideologically-speaking, I ought to be applauding the KMT on this one.
But the timing is rather suspect. And just because I'm libertarian on this doesn't mean I can't be cynical about it as well.
UPDATE: I should note that Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party isn't all of one mind on the issue:
THERE'S the problem in a nutshell. Too many KMT politicians are pro-China; too darn few of them are pro-Cleavage.
UPDATE #2: I understand the new tourism slogan will be, "Taiwan: Touch (A Lot More Than Just) Your Heart"
UPDATE #3: Heh. Some hardware geeks from Australia agree the Yao Yao and Shu Shu ads should be banned — not because they're exploitative of women, but because their voices are so annoying.
UPDATE #4: Another heh.
UPDATE #5: "Doctor, you forgot your calipers." The immortal scene from The Aviator.
David Gelernter, the computer scientist who was maimed by the Unabomber a few years back, discusses the discovery of a Trojan horse program originating from China:
Nice turn of phrase there. The Chinese government's reaction was certainly telling. Chinese officials COULD have calmly announced that **ahem** freelance hackers must be at fault, and that they'd launch an investigation to find those responsible.
Instead what the world heard was the shoe on the table. LIES, LIES, these are all LIES! Those devious CANADIAN schemers are trying to start a new COLD WAR for their own malicious purposes!
Very . . . Kremlinesque. China launches Cold War-style cyber attacks — then accuses the VICTIMS of its attacks of trying to start a Cold War.
Gelernter outlines why China's cyberwarfare was so difficult to uncover:
His conclusion?
GhostNet reminds us that the new Cold War won't be fought with the threats and weapons of the old one. Americans might have less trouble keeping in mind occupied Tibet, the war on Chinese Christianity, the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents and members of Falun Gong, the one-child-only decree and other specimens of PRC tyranny if they didn't find Asian-on-Asian violence so deucedly boring. Instead of paying attention to those issues, we simper about mutual respect and cooperation–without acknowledging the fact that China is today the world's most powerful Evil Empire. The Soviets favored large armies and nuclear arsenals, but China is our new Cold War enemy, and her favorite weapons will also be novel: financial weapons, trade weapons, cyberweapons. Welcome to Cold War II. [emphasis added]
UPDATE: Just ran across reports of Chinese cyber-warfare against India, from the Truth about China blog. More about that from the Times of India.
From last Monday's Taipei Times:
166 countries get National Geographic, and Taiwan gears up to be the FIRST COUNTRY IN HISTORY to slap it with fines for objectionable programming? For two documentaries touching on the subject of the People's Republic of China? Which not even the PRC (which also receives National Geographic) has complained about?
Hmm. My Spidey-sense is tingling . . .
Ho said parents complained that their children were terrified after watching the goat-beheading scene in the film, where blood was splattered everywhere. The documentary was broadcast at 1:30pm, Ho said.
“It [beheading the goat] was not a religious ritual and the goat was killed because of a feud between two families,” Ho said. “The scene lasted about two minutes and was not blocked by any mosaics. Neither did the channel warn the audience about the gory scene to come.”
Let's be honest: it DOES sound pretty grisly. Couldn't have been that bad though if no one from 166 other countries complained about it.
(BTW, is Mr. Ho implying that showing gory goat-beheadings on TV are only objectionable when they're done as a result of family feuds? That they're A-OK when they're part of religious rituals?)
There was another documentary the Taiwanese government just couldn't . . . stomach:
“The documentary explicitly showed the internal organs of the mummy,” Ho said, “The channel did warn the audience about the scene, but members on the panel thought it was more appropriate that the documentary was aired at a later hour.”
You've got to be kidding me. The general practitioner in my neighborhood has a gigantic 3' X 4' anatomical poster prominently displayed in his office. You know the one — the cut-away kind which shows EVERY internal organ of a man's GI tract, from the esophagus right down to the anal sphincter.
And yet a few dessicated and unrecognizable body parts on the small screen are somehow more objectionable than that?
We are being told to accept two things here:
1) These two programs are uniquely offensive — out of the hundreds or thousands of documentaries that National Geographic has aired.
And:
2) Of all the parents there are to be found in a 166 countries, that Taiwan's parents are unequaled in their squeamishness.
Unlikely. The Chinese Nationalist Party is hot for surrender to unification with China. And so Radio Taiwan International is issued an order not to criticize China. KMT-friendly media compliantly see no evil when Chinese tourists come to call. And KMT shills pretending to be parents issue bogus complaints about educational networks like National Geographic, which are to be punished for confusing impressionable youths with negative images of the PRC.
After all, the KMT has labored mightily to convince the young in Taiwan that China is the land of cute and fuzzy pandas (and money, money, money!). Why permit anyone to muddy the waters with images of family feuds and goat decapitations?