Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
Modern people often feel very superior to their ancestors.
Many living today would not have survived long in the environment their forefathers had to contend with.
Honor the builders.
Respect the voiceless dead.
— The Stoic Emperor (@TheStoicEmperor) April 29, 2018
"It was [Taiwan Governor] Ch'en Ch'eng who initiated one of the world's most successful land reform programs on April 12, 1949."
— Joe Hung, A History of Taiwan. (2000). p. 261.
"Incidentally, no reform has ever succeeded in Chinese history."
— Joe Hung, "Can Tsai Ing-wen win next year?" The China Post. February 23, 2015.
At least ONE of them is lying. But is it Joe Hung, or is it…Joe Hung?
From today's Taipei Times:
A 76-year-old man yesterday filed a lawsuit against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and other government officials, saying he was seriously beat up by police officers during a crackdown on the occupation of the Executive Yuan on Sunday night to Monday morning last week.
[…]
“I was sitting with the students during the occupation of the Executive Yuan [on Sunday night], and because I am too old to stand up immediately when police came to evict the students, several officers beat me hard and I had to stay in a hospital for six days,” he said.
Chou filed a lawsuit of attempted murder against Ma, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), National Police Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞), and Taipei’s Zhongzheng First Precinct Police Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧).
Chou said police beat him with batons and shields until he lost consciousness. He said he woke up to find himself in a hospital.
Chou showed reporters a large area of bruises on his back.
(Image from the Taipei Times)
Shocked by President Ma's latest barbarity, reporters on the scene immediately rushed to the home of the China Post's Joe Hung for his take on the news. Hung, a staunch supporter of the KMT's self-proclaimed right to brutalize Taiwan's unarmed citizenry, had this to say:
When further pressed on the hypothetical question of whether
80-year-olds are fair game for similar treatment, the octogenarian Hung grew silent for a moment, before ordering reporters off his damn lawn.
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So yesterday I promised to conduct an informal survey of a few Westerners regarding their recognition of the following terms:
My hypothesis was that recognition of Term 1 would exceed that of Term 2, which in turn would greatly exceed that of Term 3.
This is in direct contrast with the editors of the China Post, who inexplicably maintain (not as a hypothesis, but as a cold, hard fact!) that Term 3 garners the greatest recognition.
As it turns out, both I and the China Post are incorrect, as the results indicate:
| Term | Number Of People Who Recognize The Term |
| "China's eternal first lady" | 0 |
| May-ling Soong | 0 |
| Madame Chiang Kai-shek | 0 |
The informal survey was conducted among 5 Westerners – three of whom were twentyish in age, and two who were fiftyish. My favorite response came from a fiftysomething, who upon hearing the name, May-ling Soong, asked with a completely straight face, "Is she Korean?"
Ha! Dennis, I love you, man!
So there you have it. In the West – apart from the geriatric wards and a few amateur history buffs like myself - May-ling Soong is an utter non-entity.
A nobody.
And what's more, this applies not only to her, but to her husband as well. For it was a genuine surprise to me that even the fifty-year-olds didn't recognize the name, "Chiang Kai-shek".
But how's that for cosmic justice? Chiang Kai-shek murdered Taiwanese in 1947, and what's history's reward?
Consignment to the same faceless anonymity as his 28,000 victims.
(Image from A Hot Cup of Pleasure)
Postscript: Of course, a sample size of 5 does not a scientific poll make. But, I wager, that's 5 more than the editors of the China Post ever bothered to ask.
Which is entirely in keeping with the newspaper's slap-dash philosophy: "Why get the facts straight, when you can just make shit up?"
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[Pretty graphic image in the postscript. Readers may not wish to be eating while they scroll down.]
Interesting study concluding that babies as young as 6 months old already have the rudiments of a conscience, and can tell the difference between right and wrong (in their own fashion). Not sure that I necessarily buy the method behind it, but intuitively the general concept seems valid – that morality is hardwired in us at birth to some degree or another.
Of course there are always exceptions, whom we generally describe as being sociopaths. Take for example, when the subject of the revolutions taking place in the Middle East came up. Carl Natong, a frequent commenter at Taiwan's pro-Communist China Post, had this to say:
Just think of our own country and family. Never mind about DEMOCRACY, COMMUNIST or other's system of gov't. Never mind what Uncle Sam shouting about DEMOCRACY.
Translation: a pig is a dog is a boy. Mullah Omar = the Dalai Lama = Ayatollah Khomeini = Mahatma Gandhi. And oh yes, all political systems are created equal. Who are WE to judge?
(And when Chiang Kai-shek or the Chinese Communist Party give you the orders to kill unarmed civilian protesters — be it February 28th or June 4th – you'd better damn well shoot. You OBEY the bloody orders your Chinese Fuhrer gives you. And you do it for mom, pop and the Fatherland.)
Poor Carl. Now that Taiwan's a democracy, the poor dear must be ever so disappointed that he can't find that plum political prison kapo job he was born and bred to believe was his birthright.
As an antidote to Carl Natong's ravings, I offer a short quote from someone who has just a little more grey matter. Someone who IS able to distinguish the difference between dictatorship and democracy. Someone who was there at Tahrir Square when Egypt's dictator went into forced retirement. A blogger who goes by the nomme-de-guerre Sandmonkey:
Tonight will be the first night where I go to bed and don't have to worry about state security hunting me down, or about government goons sent to kidnap me; or about government sponsored hackers attacking my website. Tonight, for the first time ever, I feel free…and it is awesome!
Postscript: Lot of Sinofascist conspiracy-theorizing at that China Post link, speculating about who are the devious instigators behind the current Middle Eastern demonstrations. (America and the CIA of course being the perennial favorites. Although it is strange that none of the Post's resident whackjobs have yet to mention the Japanese the Nipponese, the Jooos, the Alien Saucer people or hallucinogens in the Nescafe. But just give 'em some time . . .)
Truth be told, the only instigators are the Arab leaders themselves. Hosni Mubarek was pressured for THIRTY FREAKIN' YEARS by FIVE different American administrations to democratize — or at least liberalize — and the stupid bastard didn't. (In that sense, he shares a lot in common with another stupid evil bastard, Chiang Kai-shek.)
So eventually the balloon goes up, because people have decided that they didn't want to put up with any of Mubarek's shit anymore. Exactly why this is so hard for the China Post and its tinfoil hat-wearing commenters, I really don't know.
(What's doubly tragic is that the Communist Party of China no doubt believes their own idiotic propaganda that democracy is a Western plot to destabilize their country, and will take all the wrong lessons from Egypt and Libya. So instead of liberalizing and aiming for a soft landing, they'll add to their apparatus of coercion and repression. "Oh, look at us, we are so damn clever." Thereby doing nothing more than postponing the Gotterdammerung that's certain to happen there someday when the population explodes in hateful rage. And when that day happens and Chinese blood is flowing through the streets like a river, it will be the C.C.P.'s own damn fault.)
Again, I quote Sandmonkey, who tells how the benevolent Egyptian regime treated a blogger who was documenting police corruption. It's eerily similar to some of the human rights abuses one hears about in China:
[Khaled Said was] a 28 year old Alexandrian man, who got killed on the hands of two policemen a few days ago [This was back in June of 2010 — The Foreigner]. And the story is equally disturbing and terrifying in its simplicity: He simply was sitting in a Cyber Cafe, when two policemen walked inside and demanded the ID's of everyone who was sitting there. When he refused to give it to them, they grabbed him, tied him up, dragged him out of the Cafe, took him to a nearby building where for 20 minutes they beat him to death, smashing his head on the handrail of the staircase, while he screamed and begged for his life, and as people around watched helplessly, knowing that if they did something, they would be accused of assaulting a police officer, which would pretty much guarantee them a similar fate. This went on for 20 minutes. Think about that. You are beaten to death, by those who swore to protect you, while the people in your neighborhood watched silently, and as your pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. 28. Not yet married. Still having the rest of your life ahead of you. No More.
After the police discovered he died, they took the dead body to the Police station, where the Police [Chief] ordered them to throw it back on the street and call an ambulance, in order not to be held responsible for him. When his brother- who had American citizenship- found out, he went and confronted the head of the Police in his neighborhood, who told him that the story isn't true, and that his brother was a known drug offender and that he died from asphyxiation, for swallowing a bag of drugs when the police caught him with it.
This is Khaled before the "Asphyxiation":
This is Khaled after his "Asphyxiation":
Sandmonkey sardonically remarks:
"Amazing what Asphyxiation does to you these days, no?"
It's worth noting that under the former military dictatorship of the Chinese Nationalist Party, Taiwan too had its own share of 'accidental' deaths. Which thankfully, are now mercifully rare – since the advent of democracy. And oh, what a bitter pill that must be to Carl and the rest of his fellow KMT die-hards!
One thing I DO wonder though: did Khaled here take Carl Natong's Peter-Pan advice and "just think of his own family and country" while the cops of Mubarek's dictatorship were beating him into an unrecognizable pulp?
And if he DID follow Carl Natong's perfectly marvelous suggestion, did "just thinking of his own family and country" during his last few horrific minutes on this earth make his journey into the next world one iota easier?
The story does have an epilogue, though, which Sandmonkey doesn't elaborate on. Only 7 months after this atrocity, one of the chief communication centers for the opposition rallies was an Egyptian Facebook page. A page titled, coincidentally, "We are Khalid Said".
It's a page which currently has 464,000 friends.
Correction: Make that 464,000 — and counting . . .
UPDATE: Way heavy post. For a little levity, see SatireWire's latest: Charlie Sheen to help Arabs take freedom to 'Next Level'
UPDATE #2: A generally positive LONG-TERM view, by Anne Applebaum.
UPDATE #3: Great stuff from Michael Totten on Libya. And he also wrote this, a long but amazing travelogue of his trip there (I believe from 2004). A sample:
I met one shopkeeper who opened right up when he and I found ourselves alone in his store.
“Do Americans know much about Libya?” he said.
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
He wanted to teach me something about his country, but he didn’t know where to start. So he recited encyclopedia factoids.
[ . . . ]
“And Qaddafi is our president,” he said. “About him, no comment.” He laughed, but I don’t think he thought it was funny.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Comment away. I don’t live here.”
He thought about that. For a long drawn-out moment, he calculated the odds and weighed the consequences. Then the dam burst.
“We hate that fucking bastard, we have nothing to do with him. Nothing. We keep our heads down and our mouths shut. We do our jobs, we go home. If I talk, they will take me out of my house in the night and put me in prison.
“Qaddafi steals,” he told me. “He steals from us.” He spoke rapidly now, twice as fast as before, as though he had been holding back all his life. He wiped sweat off his forehead with trembling hands. “The oil money goes to his friends. Tunisians next door are richer and they don’t even have any oil.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“We get three or four hundred dinars each month to live on. Our families are huge, we have five or six children . . ."
Hmm. "Keep your heads down and your mouths shut." To a Sinofascist of Carl Natong's ilk, there's a rosy vision of Taiwan's Paradise Lost.
UPDATE #4: Very cool ABC news report yesterday about the subterfuge Libyans used to bypass Gaddafi's blocking of Facebook. Facebook gets blocked? No problemo. Just use dating sites to communicate with each other, instead!
When Mahmoudi created his pretend profile on Mawada, he figured 50,000 supporters would be enough to take to the streets. But using various aliases on the dating site, he said he ended up with 171,323 "admirers" by the time Libya's Internet crashed last Saturday.
Pity that I can't locate the video clip for y'all.
UPDATE #5: Never knew two thirds of the people living in oil-rich Libya only earn $2 a day. Might be someone's been skimmin' from the kitty.
Also some very hopeful stuff there on the emergence of civil society in Libya based on the tribes. Of course, tribalism is a dirty word at Taiwan's China Post — but it should be remembered that it was the tribes of Iraq which prevented Al Qaeda from seizing power there.
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Fascinating story about a West German policeman who killed Benno Ohnesorg, a left-wing protester back in the '60s. That killing (and the policeman's subsequent acquittal) ended up becoming one of the primary catalysts for the creation of the terrorist Red Army Faction.
What if everything we knew about the case was wrong?
According to new documents uncovered by two German researchers, [the policeman] Karl-Heinz-Kurras was not the "fascist" cop of popular indignation, but a longtime agent of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and a member of the East German Communist party. [emphasis added]
[…]
While there is no evidence that Kurras acted as an agent provocateur in shooting Ohnesorg, it is doubtless true that had his political sympathies–and his covert work for the Stasi–been known in 1967, the burgeoning radical student movement would have been deprived of its most
effective recruiting tool. As Bettina Roehl, the journalist daughter of terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, argued in Die Welt, the glut of post-Ohnesorg propaganda helped establish "the legend of an evil and brutal West Germany," while simultaneously minimizing the very real brutality of Communist East Germany.
Something to keep in the back of one's mind for future cases of police brutality * towards democratic protesters in Taiwan. There are some (like myself) who are fairly quick to suspect KMT orders (or more insidiously, unspoken incentives) for such conduct. Like the West Germans though, we might sometimes be looking for answers on the wrong side of the Wall. Or the Strait, as the case may be.
With regards to Kurras, there are some unsettling questions. Was he acquitted fair-and-square? Or was he, in fact, the beneficiary of a police cover-up?
If the latter, then West German society certainly paid a heavy price for that single miscarriage of justice. **
* The two most egregious incidents within the last year have been the dislocation of a woman's finger in response to her carrying a Tibetan flag last November, and the running down of two elderly protesters at a democracy march last month. In the first case, no law enforcement officer has ever been held to account. While in the second, the driver of the police cruiser was slapped with ONE WHOLE DEMERIT on his work record.
One demerit. For driving twice the speed limit near an area in which a pre-scheduled political rally was taking place. For crashing into two senior citizens with enough force that one had to have his foot and lower leg amputated, and the other was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage.
One demerit.
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. After all, he DID have pretty good excuse: "Those 67 and 68 year-olds darted out into traffic like a coupla GAZELLES, I tells ya !"
Who wouldn't believe a story like that?
** Not that Taiwan hasn't paid its own high price for miscarriages of justice. In reading this account of the 2-28 Massacre, it's hard not to speculate that the entire bloody business in 1947 could have been avoided if the police (Tobacco Monopoly Agents, actually) had been willing to punish four of their own for maltreating a female cigarette peddler.
But then, sometimes it's easier to mow civilians down with machine guns, than admit that you're wrong.
Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party takes a historical monument — a gate built during the Qing Dynasty — and paints their own party symbol on it. Surprise, surprise.
Really though, if the KMT wasn't so single-mindedly obsessed with their own self-aggrandizement, they'd take the Qing-era site, and paint a Qing Dynasty flag on it.
That would be the rational thing to do. If The Party was even remotely concerned with the preservation of history.
(Image from Photoalbum.Davison.ca)
Of course, this would create the intriguing problem of what to do about historic Japanese-era buildings. Oh, what to do, what to do?
UPDATE: Letters from Taiwan has a post on the subject. Sounds like the KMT culturally vandalized the historic site back in 1966. (Hat tip to The View)
UPDATE #2: More at Arthur Dent's site.
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Guess there's not enough Falun Gong members in Taiwan to fit the bill. From Friday's China Post:
Hard to figure out exactly what the author means by "China" here. First of all, if he means the Republic of China (Taiwan), then he's surely in error, because Taiwan was a colony of Japan a hundred years ago. Any "meddling" that might have taken place a hundred years ago would therefore have been in Japanese imperial affairs, not in China's domestic politics.
On the other hand, if by "China" the author is referring to the People's Republic of China, then again he's wrong, because Mao expelled all Western churches back in '49.
I'll assume then, that by "China" the writer means "Taiwan", and by "nearly a century", he means 60 years. That would suggest that the editorialist bears a grudge regarding the Presbyterians' opposition to human rights abuses by Taiwan's former dictators.
Such complaints by KMT apologists are a bit rich, however:
In 1975, after the KMT confiscated romanized Bibles and prohibited the printing of romanized texts, the [Presbyterian Church of Taiwan] issued "Our Appeal — Concerning the Bible, the Church and the Nation" which asked that the government respect religious freedom and carry out political reform.
Talk about meddling! In the 1970s the KMT dictatorship in Taiwan OUTLAWED Bibles written in the Taiwanese vernacular. In doing so, it violated two fundamental principles held by all modern democratic states: that of religious freedom and that of separation of Church and State. (Which should come as no surprise, because Taiwan in the '70s was no democracy.)
As for any "wedge" that has been driven between the Taiwanese and the Chinese, the writer conveniently forgets to mention any possible role that decades of Chinese belligerence and threats of war might have played in fostering anti-Chinese sentiment — or that KMT anti-communist propaganda might have played a role as well.
UPDATE: Noticed a few similarities between this 2004 Bevin Chu blog post from a few years back and the piece in Friday's China Post.
Technically, it's not plagiarism, since I believe Mr. Chu wrote the Post's editorial as well. But it's still quite a long passage to simply CUT-AND-PASTE, however:
As part of his election campaign, Chen Shui-bian ordered Chen Yu-hao, former chairman of the Tuntex Group and a fugitive exiled to the US, placed on Taiwan's "Ten Most Wanted" list. Chen Shui-bian was desperate to cast himself as a squeaky clean political reformer at Chen Yu-hao's expense.
A furious Chen Yu-hao responded by appearing on television and revealing the ugly truth. Chen Shui-bian had eagerly pocketed a fortune in political contributions from Chen Yu-hao over the past decade.
When Chen Shui-bian tried to deny the charges, Chen Yu-hao revealed that ROC legislator Shen Fu-hsiung, a DPP "elder" with a reputation for honesty within DPP circles was an eyewitness who saw Chen Yu-hao hand First Lady Wu Shu-chen a bag full of cash.
Considering Shen was also Chen Shui-bian's campaign manager, Chen Yu-hao's revelation put Shen in a somewhat awkward position. Rather than lie, Shen went into hiding for the following week.
What happened next was like a scene out of a black comedy by Stanley Kubrick.
A delegation of ministers from the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan, a long time abettor of Taiwan independence, paid an emergency visit to Shen. What textual truth did these supposedly devout Christians share with him? They solemnly assured Shen that it was not a sin to lie as long as it was in a good cause. In other words, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, unless of course it advances Taiwan independence."
Be that as it may, I cannot find any corroboration for Chu's story about Taiwan's Presbyterian Church. I can only speculate that Church leaders may have said something about "forgiveness" at the time (as Christians often do), and that Chu has misinterpreted — or, to be less kind, twisted — their statements to suggest the Church advocates the telling of deliberate falsehoods.
UPDATE (Dec 13/08): Mr. Chu's account of the Chen Yu-hao story appears a bit one-sided. From AsiaTimes Online:
In early February [of 2004] Chen Yu-hao faxed three letters to opposition legislators claiming that he had made donations to the election campaign of President Chen Shui-bian. At first he tried to claim that Chen Shui-bian had simply pocketed the money, a claim that was refuted by officials from Chen Shui-bian's own DPP, who produced photocopies of the receipts.
[…]
The DPP also pointed out that Chen Yu-hao had given donations 10 times as large to both the other rival candidates for the 2000 presidential election; Lien Chan of the Kuomintang (KMT) and James Soong, then running as an independent candidate got NT$100 million each.
On top of this Chen Yu-hao had given another NT$100 million to the KMT in the early 1990s, which somehow never made its way into party coffers but ended up in the private bank accounts of Soong's family members.
[…]
There is no doubt that Soong transferred NT$248 million of KMT funds into the bank accounts of his family members in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp, of which NT$100 million came from Chen Yu-hao and another NT$80 million from construction company boss Liang Po-hsun. Liang is also a fugitive from Taiwanese justice, accused of embezzling money from the Overseas Chinese Bank. And while Soong claims the money was to be used for party purposes, there is no evidence that it was so used, and Soong never attempted to return the money – neither when he left the KMT secretary-general's post nor when he left the party itself in late 1999.
(Indirectly, of course!)
Finally started reading Forbidden Nation, Jonathan Manthorpe’s book on Taiwan. The opening chapter is a little sad to read now, brimming as it is with statements like "[The Taiwanese] have only recently extricated themselves from the coils of the corrupt and dictatorial one-party Kuomingtang state, and see no reason to jump into the arms of another one…"
Well, we were ALL a bit more optimistic back in 2005. But getting back to the question: What’s the Augustus-Taiwan connection that Manthorpe suggests? I’ll just briefly summarize his argument (from pages 32-33).
In 30 B.C., Marc Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide, and Octavian conquers Egypt. Within the next 50 years, a lucrative trade between Rome and India apparently develops, via Egyptian ports on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Merchants from India travel abroad, scouring Southeast Asia for ever more exotic goods to ship to the Roman market. Hindu missionaries follow those merchants, as do Indian colonists. Ethnic Malays wind up being displaced from their land, or leave when they find conditions in the new Hindu monarchies are not to their liking.
And where do these Malays go? Well, at least a few of them find their way to Taiwan. Where they end up founding some of the aboriginal tribes that continue to exist on the island to this very day.
Way cool stuff.
(Brian Blessed as Emperor Augustus from I, Claudius)
Commentary:
First off, I’ll admit I know nothing about Indian imperialism two thousand years ago. But I’m somewhat sceptical of the notion that absent the Roman conquest of Egypt, India wouldn’t still have been tempted to establish colonies abroad.
Now, if someone tells me increased Roman-Indian trade sweetened the pot, further fueling India’s colonial ambitions, then sure. I’ll buy that.
Correction (Feb 8/08): Egypt, of course, has ports on the Red Sea, not the actual Indian Ocean. The correction’s been made to the post.
A further boost to Octavian’s reputation came from his reception of envoys from India, seeking to negotiate a trade agreement for the spice route via the Red Sea and Egypt.
(from Richard Halloran’s Augustus: Godfather of Europe, p 304)
Correction of Correction (Sep 15/25): Ancient Egypt did in fact have ports on the Red Sea.
Sep 22/25: It’s a nice story, but as far as I can tell, the Malays never colonized Taiwan. Don’t know where Manthorpe got the idea they did.
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What’s with the China Post‘s soft spot for political murderers?
A well-known retired [Taiwanese] Mafioso, Chen Chi-li died in Hong Kong not long ago. He was the head of the Bamboo Alliance, one of the largest mob families in Taiwan. He was arrested; indicted for assassinating Jiang Nan, the author of [a biography critical of former dictator Chiang Ching-kuo]; convicted of murder; sentenced to life imprisonment; and paroled after serving seven years in jail. He then exiled himself to the former British colony. The assassination caused a sensation in the United States, where the author lived and was considered a martyr who had fought for freedom of speech. The godfather claimed at his trial in Taipei that he did it for the good of his beloved Republic of China by order of Wang Hsi-ling, director of [Taiwan’s] Military Intelligence Bureau.
[…]
…there’s no dearth of busybodies in Taiwan. Our ubiquitous police turned out in droves to watch the procession from Taoyuan International Airport to a huge vacant lot in Neihu where funeral services would be held for the deceased mobster. An estimated 800 cops checked and double-checked hearst escorts and those who wanted to get into the Neihu lot where Chen Chi-li would lie "in state."
[…]
Why wouldn’t our busybodies let the now harmless godfather rest in peace?
When Don Corleone’s daughter gets married, the Feds show up to take pictures of the attendees. And that’s just the way it works. A person chooses to lead a certain kind of life when they join the mob, and being tailed by law enforcement is part of it. While it’s understandable that Chen Chi-li’s family pays its last respects, it’s a little more puzzling why anyone else would. Government has a compelling interest in this case to ask, "Who, exactly, kisses the ring of this former political assassin?"
Monday’s Taipei Times reports on the reception the former mafia leader’s corpse received once returned to Taiwan:
Fellow gangsters said that [Chen Chi-li] did not understand why the government would treat a patriot like him as a criminal.
Wu Dun (吳敦), a former Bamboo Union member who was arrested with [Chen Chi-li] for the Liu murder, told reporters last week that "The government had treated [Chen Chi-li] very unfairly."
"It is very disappointing that a man who sacrificed himself for the county was forced into exile overseas," Wu said.
Following [Chi-li’s] death and the return of his body to Taiwan, fellow gangsters, some celebrities and media have begun portraying him as a patriot and a hero.
Chang An-le (張安樂), the former leader of the Bamboo Union gang, said [Chen Chi-li] was not a normal gangster, but an idealist who had made money doing the right thing.
Such praise forced President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to complain that the media should not turn the gangster into a hero.
The China Post is a publication largely aimed at a foreign readership, so not even it can go that far. Instead, it frames the issue in humanitarian terms. Lost somewhere in the debate however, is why the KMT-controlled Taipei city government seems friendlier to public displays of fealty and devotion to deceased mafia bosses than it is to rallies in favor of Taiwan obtaining U.N. membership.
UPDATE (Nov 15/07): Part 2 of this post can be found here.
UPDATE #2: Father Bauer at the China Post distanced himself from the paper’s position a few weeks ago, and yesterday the paper seemed to back away from implying that Chen Chi-li was a patriot.
Incidentally, my position on police monitoring of Chen Chi-li’s funeral is quite independent of Chen’s character. Had this been the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi himself, I would STILL want police to be present if a thousand mobsters showed up.
