Category: Taiwanese Politics

I’ve written quite a few posts about the visit of China's negotiator to Taiwan already, and — barring any flashes of new insight — this'll probably be the last post specifically devoted to the subject.  Here's a couple things I'd like to note before I move on:

1)  Injured Reporters

Taiwan's China Post has tried to make a lot of hay about the fact that a number of reporters were hurt during the night of the anti-unification protests of Nov 5th and 6th.  In particular, the paper points to a Chinese reporter who was attacked by the crowd. (Although the Taipei Times said this reporter was merely surrounded.)

Now, in any contest of believability between the two, the Times would win hands down.  But it certainly wouldn't surprise me if the crowd HAD treated the Chinese reporter roughly.  Such treatment of reporters wasn't exclusive to one side however; by Saturday Taiwan's Minister of the Interior publicly apologized to a reporter who was beaten by a policeman with a short bamboo quarterstaff.

It seems likely though, that several injuries were accidental.  Many reporters were no doubt hurt (through no fault of their own) due to badly-thrown water bottles and other projectiles.  Yes, these people were injured, but it's stretching it to say they were DELIBERATELY attacked by the crowd, as the Post insinuates.

There's one final category which the English press has given scant attention to, namely, reporters who were hurt because of their own sheer recklessness.  I have but one example.  On the morning of Nov 7th, I saw on television a fairly wide-angled shot (taken safely from the sidelines) of a Molotov cocktail being hurled towards police lines from the crowd.  Streak of light through the black air.  A flash of flames on the padded armor of the riot police. 

And within SECONDS, 3 or 4 men with video cameras raced from the sidelines within 5 feet of police lines, so that they could capture the event up close and personal.

Now, the cameramen I'm talking about weren't injured, but they very easily COULD have been.  Ye Gods!  These idiots had just charged headlong into a Molotov cocktail crossfire zone.  What if the thrower had had a buddy?  What if a second petrol bomb was already in mid-flight?  They were facing the police; there's no way they could have dodged it. 

But hey, anything for some juicy footage — and a nomination for the 2008 Darwin Awards.

2)  Collateral Damage from the Temporary Outlawing of the ROC Flag

In order to appease Chen Yunlin of China, President Ma Ying-jeou ordered Taiwanese police to confiscate their own nation's flag from protesters and passersby.  The implications for civil liberties and freedom of speech should be obvious, so I'll discuss them here no further.  But the effect of one incident in particular I think has been under-explored:

From this day forward, taxis with ROC flags upon them are at an economic disadvantage in Taiwan.  Anytime a Chinese official visits in the future, cab drivers must take into consideration the possibility that police under Ma Ying-jeou's direction will divert them or send them on their way, fareless.  By his toadying to China, President Ma — the man who claimed to love Taiwan and the Republic of China — has created an economic incentive for taxi drivers to remove all symbols of national patriotism from their vehicles.

And just who are these drivers?  Are they all Taiwanese independence advocates?  Hardly.  A good number of Taipei cabbies are KMT men.  KMT men who may not be pleased to have their idols treated by Ma Ying-jeou's police as false gods.  A sad story from today's Taiwan News:

Not a cab driver, but a KMT man just the same.  No wonder the KMT's mouthpiece newspaper, the China Post, has been too ashamed to print even a single story about the flag confiscation policies of KMT President Ma.

After protests erupted in Taiwan because of visiting Chen Yunlin (a Communist Party negotiator from China), I thought I'd pick up a few Taiwanese papers to see photos that didn't make it into the English-language press.  Here's one from page A6 of Friday's Apple Daily News:

(A better version is probably available on their website, but the site's in Chinese and I can't navigate it.)

Anyways, Chen Yunlin is the guy in middle, in the back seat. Here's a digital close-up:

Jeez, 7,000 Taiwanese policemen guarding him, and Chen STILL looks like he's gonna wet himself.  Not too many anti-CCP protests back where he comes from, I guess.  Or maybe he bought into all that Xinhua and China Post propaganda that Taiwanese compatriots are just DYING to reunify with the motherland.

Musta been a rude awakening.  

Guy on the left doesn't seem to be enjoying himself much, either.  But that glowering driver looks pretty scary, though.  Bet HE could teach Ma Ying-jeou's stormtroopers a thing or two about breaking the fingers of people carrying Tibetan flags.

Speaking of which, Taiwan Matters! had a pic of the woman whose finger was dislocated by police acting under orders from China's puppet president in Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou.  Note to foreigners:  you may be better off trying to unfurl a Tibetan flag in downtown Lhasa than you are now in downtown Taipei.

(Image from Billy Pan's Blog via Taiwan Matters!)

If this is how Ma Ying-jeou safeguards the democratic freedoms of Taiwanese, I'd sure hate to see what it'll like when he puts the sledgehammer to them!

Postscript:  For purposes of completeness, here's a close-up of the caption for the Apple Daily News picture:

UPDATE:  Added attribution of third image to Billy Pan's Blog.

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These aren't the droids you're looking for.  Move along:

Believe Wang Cho-chuin, or your own lyin' eyes:

You have learned much, young Wang Cho-chuin.  But you are not a Jedi yet.

(Hat tip to Tim Maddog for calling this video to my attention.)

UPDATE:  In another report, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou also denied he had any hand in the decision of Taipei's Grand Hotel to remove ROC flags from their premises when a Chinese delegation came to stay.

If we take Ma at his word (!), we can only conclude that the board members of the Grand were responsible for the decision.  They were the ones who chose to hide their nation's flag when the Chinese Communists came to call, like shame-faced teenagers stashing Penthouses under the mattress.

That of course, is their right.  The Taiwanese government gave the board members of the Grand the concession to run the hotel, and to run it as they see fit.

On the other hand, it is also the right of the defenders of Taiwanese sovereignty to publish the faces of these anonymous sunshine patriots.  Name 'em and shame 'em.

The Taiwanese police were shocked — shocked! — earlier this week to find a music store playing music.  Not just ANY kind of music, mind you, but patriotic French TAIWANESE music.  The kind which offends visiting Nazi CHINESE overlords:

But everybody is having such a good time . . .

And so Major Strasser ordered the place to be closed.  From an earlier report in the Taipei Times:

And what excuse did the Taiwanese police find?  Unlike Captain Renault, they didn't need one.  Because according to the country's new president, Ma Ying-jeou, the police ARE the law.  To be obeyed without question.  No matter how arbitrary or quixotic their whims might be. 

(Maybe, if you're lucky, they'll condescend to giving you whatever excuse they find.  Some time AFTER the fact.)

Exaggeration?  The Taipei Times quotes Puppet President Ma:

Nothing there about police being obligated to obey the law themselves.  THAT might interfere with enforcement of Ma's illegal orders to confiscate Republic of China flags from ROC citizens on ROC soil.

Ma's doctoral thesis at Harvard Law School must have made for fascinating reading.  I understand the title was, "When I Become President, The Cops Will Have Carte Blanche To Do Whatever I Damn Well Tell 'em To Do."

More complex Harvard legal theory from this erudite scholar:

Arrest first, find excuses later.  Or in this case, close the shop down first, and accuse it of violating the Noise Control Act after the media calls them on it.

Noise Control Act?  Are you kidding me?  Two years ago, Ma Ying-jeou (then Taipei's mayor) not only tolerated, but ENCOURAGED the gathering of hordes of people protesting the former president.  More than a few of which blew AIR HORNS in the middle of the city, at all hours of the night. 

Police issued not a word ordering THEM to stop.  But I guess some folks find shrieking air horns to be sweeter to the ear than Taiwanese anthems.

(Video of Shih Ming-teh protests against former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian from YouTube.  Ma YIng-jeou himself makes appearances at 00:08, 02:39, 02:55 and 04:35.)

Now Ma is president, and he doesn't want an envoy from China to see ROC flags.  Or hear Taiwanese patriotic songs.

Sure picked a funny time to start cracking down on NOISE POLLUTION.

UPDATE:  An indirect quote from Taiwanese law enforcement regarding a related incident surrounding the Chinese negotiator's visit:

Another policeman said he was simply following orders.

He was only obeying orders?  Never heard THAT one before . . .

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.

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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!