Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
Lien Chan, the two-time loser for the Taiwanese presidency, finds it unbearable that independent candidate Dr. Ko Wen-je is trouncing his baby boy Sean Lien in polls leading up to the election for Taipei mayor:
"He [Ko Wen-je] calls himself a commoner and us the privileged few, but I call him a ‘bastard.’
Taiwan's Kuomingtang. Keepin' it classy since February 28, 1947.
President Ma Ying-jeou on Friday told a Japanese envoy that the Asian country should review the imbalance of tourist flow between the two nations.
[…]
[In a previous meeting with former Deputy Minister Okada Katsuya, the] president was quoted to have said that Taiwanese tourists visiting Japan greatly exceed that of Japan to Taiwan, and that Japan should take measures to rebalance the difference.
Perhaps it's not surprising that Ma's response to this "problem" is both lazy and incompetent. Because the most obvious solution is for his government to pony up the funds for a tourist promotional campaign in Japan.
But of course, that would take effort.
His government could also get off its duff and do a marketing study about how to make the country more attractive to Japanese tourists, and then go about following the study's recommendations.
More work, again.
(President Ma Ying-jeou makes the teenage "crucifix"-gesture to ward off the evil expectation that he do the job he was elected to do. Whined Ma: "Oh, maaaaan, Foreigner, all your proposals sound TOO HARD. Why can't I just let somebody ELSE do it, instead?" — Image from the Want China Times.)
Another option would be for his government to stop going down-market with its ardent pursuit of low-income Chinese tourists. It's entirely possible that concentrating on this niche discourages higher-income Japanese from visiting…
A different angle would be for Ma to tackle some of the anti-Japanese bigotry that the KMT fostered during its decades-long misrule of the country. I once witnessed (with my own eyes) a Taiwanese woman in her 30s walk up to a Japanese man in a bar and, unprovoked, tell him straight to his face in English, "I don't like Japanese."
(Fortunately, it was a foreigner pub, and there weren't any Taiwanese men around. The situation might have escalated quickly had any drunken, Japan-hating, Chinese nationalists been present.)
By my reckoning, that Japanese man probably told his family and a few of his co-workers about his unfortunate experience with Taiwanese hospitality. Undoubtedly, a few other Japanese later heard about it second-hand. Does Mr. Ma think that's the kind of word-of-mouth which encourages Japanese visits to Taiwan?
Finally, if Ma Ying-jeou wants more Japanese tourists (or tourists from any country, really), he could see to it that the country's legal system charges and prosecutes Taiwanese who assault tourists. His pathetic failure to do so is certain to leave a few foreign tourists crossing Taiwan off their itineraries.
Update: After sleeping upon it, I realized this post gave the false impression that Taiwanese in general behave badly towards Japanese tourists. So to clarify: most Taiwanese are cool. Really cool.
However, Taiwan has a very small, ugly minority (who usually prefer to be called "Chinese") which rabidly hates Japan and all things Japanese.
Having made that qualification, an encounter with even one of the latter is enough to ruin a vacation…
UPDATE (Aug 31, 2014): With more temperate language, the Taipei Times makes much the same point.
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I hope Tyler Cowen is wrong about this, but…
In Asia, the most likely future candidate for this problem [economic regression] is Taiwan, where real wages were largely stagnant from 2000 to 2011. In 2012, Taiwan’s trend was even more disturbing: Its economy grew 1.3 percent, but real wages fell 1.6 percent, both adjusted for inflation. Taiwanese capital has flowed into China, creating a new class of Taiwanese millionaires but hollowing out the country’s manufacturing base as capital was reallocated to the mainland.
There is an anti-democratic camp in Taiwan which blames the introduction of democracy itself for the country's problems – insinuating that Taiwan would be better off under a KMT autocracy or martial law. This appears to be a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, as the experience of South Korea plainly shows:
(Graph of South Korea's nominal GDP from Wikimedia.org)
Two Asian countries (Taiwan and South Korea) both democratized at roughly the same time, and yet their economic paths after democratization were very different. To my mind, the chief difference between the two is that South Korea didn't leave its own industry to wither on the vine while flooding Communist China with investment capital.
Taiwan, unfortunately, did.
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Visiting Communist Party apparatchik Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) must feel right at home watching President Ma of Taiwan brutalize the citizenry.
Using members of the Taiwanese mafia, no less – for plausible deniability. That PhD in law from Harvard sure does come in handy sometimes.
With a bloody face, a wound on his forehead and blood-stained clothing, Liang Po-chou (梁伯洲) told reporters at the square in front of the temple that he was assaulted by five or six people using steel blowpipes.
Liang said he was there with his father, Changhua County Councilor Liang Chen-hsiang (梁禎祥) of the Democratic Progressive Party, and other people trying to show Zhang posters with slogans against the cross-strait service trade agreement and slogans that the future of Taiwan is a matter for 23 million Taiwanese people to decide.
The “gangster-like people” began beating him when he was trying to argue with executive officers of the temple because he was angry that they asked staff to set off firecrackers on the streets in an attempt to disperse people who refused to leave, Liang said.
Perhaps the Strongman-In-Shortpants ran out of policemen willing to do his dirty work.
(Chinese mafia runs security for Taiwanese mob boss president Ma ("Fredo") Ying-jeou. Image from the Taipei Times.)
Professor Jerome Cohen must be very, very proud of his former student's scrupulous adherence to the rule of law.
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Profiles of seven of China's most prominent political dissidents.
Oddly enough, there's never been much mention of them in the pages of the China Post – a paper which styles itself as Taiwan's "Chinese nationalist" newspaper.
Perhaps they ran all out of ink after printing David Kan Ting's numerous fawning columns about Communist princeling Bo Xilai…
And now, a few words from the owner of one of Taiwan's largest media congomerates.
Red Fat Cat & Tiananmen Square denialist Tsai Eng-meng
Would he lie to you?
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Last week, China began constructing an oil rig within Vietnamese waters to steal crude from the third world nation. Vietnam responded by sending ships to the area, which were promptly attacked by Chinese vessels:
Chinese ships have been ramming into and firing water cannons at Vietnamese vessels trying to stop Beijing from putting an oil rig in the South China Sea, according to officials and video footage Wednesday, in a dangerous escalation of tensions over waters considered a global flashpoint.
Just today, Vietnamese mistakenly took out their frustration on Taiwanese factories:
Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday.
The brunt of Tuesday's violence, one of the worst breakdowns in Sino-Vietnamese relations since the neighbours fought a brief border war in 1979, appears to have been borne by Taiwanese firms in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces that were mistaken for Chinese-owned companies.
[…]
Gates were smashed and rioters set 15 factories on fire…
China cannot expect Vietnamese to respect Chinese property rights while the Chinese blithely violate theirs.
But it's a shame that this perfectly-understandable anger was taken out on the Taiwanese, though. Because (as readers of this blog are no doubt aware): Taiwanese are not Chinese.
In vain, Taiwanese companies themselves belatedly scrambled to communicate this elementary fact:
Some Taiwanese firms had spray-painted messages on the road and across their gates saying "We Support Vietnam" in an effort to distinguish themselves from Chinese enterprises.
Perhaps the current government of Taiwan might have alleviated the situation if had spent less time pretending to be China, and concentrated its efforts on sending the message that Taiwan is a completely different country altogether.
Without such efforts, Taiwan will always be unjustly blamed for the crimes of the Chinese. And the Taiwanese government will be forced to pay to evacuate its citizens whenever tempers erupt over cases of China's villainy.
As Aesop might've said:
Those who impersonate international outlaws are often mistaken for international outlaws.
UPDATE: You speak the truth, sir!
“We have to establish a distinct identity [from China],” Mr. [Antonio] Chiang said. “Or not only will this happen in Vietnam, but other countries, too.”
UPDATE (May 18/2014): Others see Taiwan's One China policy as a contributing factor.
Rigging the system to save its lawmakers' seats. Shameless.
But then, one expects little better from a dictatorial Leninist party steeped in the undemocratic habits of 38 years of martial law:
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said that a controversial proposal to increase the documents required by petitioners during recalls of elected representatives is intended to “reduce possible abuses in the process.”
[…]
The party’s move has raised doubts, as it comes during a public campaign for recalling legislators that was launched after the cross-strait service trade act row. Many of the officials under fire are KMT members.
…the KMT-proposed amendment…would require petitioners to provide photocopies of identity cards and affidavits — in addition to the existing requirements for name, address and national identification number… [emphasis added]
What, no notorized copies of the petitioners' last proctological exam?
Goodbye, predictable Rule of Law. Welcome, capricious Rule of Man.
Congratulations, KMT. You have officially turned Taiwan into a legal laughingstock.
(The majesty of Taiwanese law. Image from Foreign Policy)
UPDATE (May 13/2014): The Taipei Times points out something that I've considered of late:
When activists take to the streets [and engage in civil disobedience]…the government and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers condemn such acts, urging the dissidents to express their opinions within the democratic system in a lawful way.
However, when activists want to play by the rules [by utilizing Taiwan's electoral recall laws], KMT legislators seem to suddenly decide that the law is not so sacred after all and seek to change the rules.
[…]
“If the people cannot vent their anger within the system, they will certainly start their resistance outside of the system,” [attorney and rights activist Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎)] said.
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His lordship Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) sues Taiwanese students for implying that he's cowardly.
Kuomintang lawmaker Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) yesterday pressed charges against a group of activists who gathered at his constituency office to give him a fake turtle shell with his name carved on it.
“A turtle hiding in its shell” (縮頭烏龜) is an idiom in mandarin [sic] Chinese used to describe a person as a coward.
This CANNOT stand! Don't they realize how thin-skinned the veteran KMT legislator is? How easily bruised his delicate feelings are?
They should realize Lu Hsueh-chang is sensitive and fragile, and needs to be handled gently. Very, very gently.
Like you would a tender little strawberry…
"Freedom of speech is all well and good, I suppose. But criticism of ME isn't a constitutional right!"
— Lu Hsueh-chang: The KMT's Strawberry Legislator
UPDATE (May 7 / 2014): It appears I'm not the only one to make the "Strawberry Generation" connection with Lu Hsueh-chang's childish antics:
“If the lawmaker decided to sue us for likening him to a head-retracting turtle, he is not only substantiating the claim, but also acting like a member of the strawberry generation,” Wei said.
“Strawberry generation” is a term used to refer to young people whom the older generation feel are not able to handle adverse circumstances and are easily bruised, like strawberries.
“A legislator who cannot handle criticism from the public and turns to lawsuits when he is upset does not have broad enough shoulders for politics,” Wei said. “Calling him a head-retracting turtle is not a false accusation since he has been hiding under the party’s umbrella during all the disputes.” [emphasis added]
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