Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
The Interview shelved indefinitely.
Seeking to repair relations between America and a wrathful Kim Jung-un, the Obama administration announced it would swiftly arrest and convict the film-maker responsible: Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.
“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the US.” – B. Obama pic.twitter.com/N1aQoVwRId
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 19, 2014
With us, as always, is eminent historian Joe Hung of Taiwan's China Post, to explain the complex constitutional rationale behind China's exploitation and genocide of Tibetans, Uighurs and Falun Gong adherents:
Sounds legit.
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From today's Taipei Times:
“The Taiwan issue will not remain unresolved for a long time. We will not abandon the possibility of using force; according to the law, it is also an option to resolve the issue by military means if necessary,” said Liu [Jingsong], a former president of the influential Chinese Academy of Military Sciences. [emphasis added]
In response to the Communist Party's barbarous threat, veteran political commentator Joe Hung of Taiwan's China Post enthusiastically gushed:
That's truer than you know, Joe. Truer than you know.
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Kinda demolishes pro-Communist Joe Hung's lunatic contention that China follows the "kingly way, which is based on benevolence, justice and morality," doesn't it?
The Belmont Club on Xi Xinping's purges of the Chinese Communist Party:
The Shuanggui pronounced (SHWANG’-gwei) is the secret police of the Communist Party of China, otherwise known as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection or CCDI. They don’t arrive with flashing lights and thumping rotors. They just show up and then they take you with them, often forever. And they’ve been hard at work arresting tens of thousands of Chinese communists, torturing them to extract confessions and otherwise rounding up anyone connected with Zhou Yongkang, recently the internal security chief of China and head of its oil industry; one of the most powerful men in China now headed for life imprisonment and secret death.
Of course, Putin could stanch the hemorrhaging by calling off his invasion of Ukraine and pulling back his tanks and troops.
But since that's not going to happen, then yes – holy water looks like the Russian economy's last best hope.
#Russian priest sprinkling holy water on the central bank's servers in an attempt to stop the fall of #Ruble. pic.twitter.com/vTTQAv4Boo
— Rokas Beresniovas (@beresniovas) December 6, 2014
We always hurt the ones we love:
While most pundits thought [KMT politician Alex] Tsai originated several negative campaign tactics that are thought to have been a top factor in [Sean] Lien’s loss [in Taipei's mayoral race], a Lien campaign official yesterday said that the strategy originated with Lien’s father, former vice president and former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰).
The official, who wished to remain anonymous, said that surveys conducted for internal use only suggested that Sean Lien would lose to Ko by just 10 percent.
“We expected we would lose the election; we just did not expect to lose by this wide a margin,” the official said.
Elsewhere in the news:
Even President Ma Ying-jeou is not immune, with his position as Kuomingtang chairman looking less and less secure by the minute.
If Ma steps down as KMT chairman, may I nominate Chairman Emeritus Lien Chan for a second stab at the job?
Oh, pleasepleaseplease Santa – I don't want much, and I've been awfully good…
POSTSCRIPT: Whut? You mean the Lien family had ulterior motives in having Sean Lien run for the mayorship of Taipei?
Sean Lien’s defeat is not merely a setback for his personal political career: It also severely tarnishes his father’s position and political stature in Taiwan — and in Beijing as well.
Likewise, the special privileges awarded by Chinese [Communist Party] authorities to Lien family businesses could be revoked or reduced in due time.
But, but – the China Post assured us that Sean Lien wasn't in it for the money. He was only seeking to become mayor out of a deep sense of altruism and commitment to public service for the people of Taipei. They gave us their WORD!
This is my shocked face.
Loserdom runs in the family: Taiwanese electorate overwhelmingly reject Sean Lien in Taipei mayor's race
Elsewhere, a great many other KMT candidates also went down to thorough defeat
It's difficult to feel much sympathy for the KMT, given their open disdain for large swathes of the voting public. When the KMT's Honorary Chairman Lien Chan dismissed Taiwanese who lived under Japanese colonialism as "bastards", that had consequences. When the KMT had students beaten for protesting the Kuomingtang's plan for Taiwan's economic anschluss under Peking's suzerainty, the party lost votes, too.
And, to add insult to injury, the KMT couldn't resist insulting members of the student Sunflower Movement by refering to them as young people with "bad morals".
Not a wise thing to say about a political faction that brought out 500,000 students to Taipei streets earlier this year. And that doubtless enjoys support from other adults and students who didn't openly participate.
Evidently, the KMT believed its own bullshit – that since the Sunflower Movement's street protests eventually fizzled (as most street protests usually do), that the students' political concerns had disappeared as well.
Kuomingtang reports of the Sunflower Movement's demise were greatly exaggerated, then. And their campaign slogan, "Vote KMT – Because we're BETTER than you low-life sons-of-bitches," apparently wasn't the big vote-getter that the Party's political warfare geniuses thought it would be.
No doubt, we can all count on the China Post to condemn Lien's astonishing breech of Confucian propriety and traditional ethics.
Ah, no. I guess not.