FYI: This Man Knows Bugger-All About Advanced Chemical Kinetic Techniques To Investigate And Manipulate The Behavior Of Chemical Reactions For Relatively Large Molecules Using Crossed Molecular Beams

He was however, a lecturer at National Taiwan Police College, so I guess that DOES count for something!

KMT legislator Wu Yu-sheng, who claimed that Lee Yuan-tseh did not deserve the Nobel Prize in Chemistry he was awarded in 1986.

(Image of KMT legislator Wu Yu-Sheng from the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan website)

From Monday's Taipei Times:

A number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators criticized former
Academia Sinica president [and Nobel Prize winner] Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) yesterday over Lee’s remark that local enterprises offered more money to the KMT’s presidential candidates than they did to those from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) called Lee’s remark “ridiculous” and “pointless.”

“[The remark shows] he did not deserve the Nobel Prize [in chemistry] and he failed Taiwan and its people,” Wu said.  [emphasis added]

Wu might want to remind himself that while politicians may win their seats through their expertise at excitable windbaggery, people usually win Nobel Prizes in chemistry for their contributions to the science of chemistry — not for their political opinions.

Lee's comment is a simply verifiable claim, one way or the other.  If Taiwan has a transparent political donation system (which may be a big IF), the numbers can be crunched and Lee's hypothesis proven . . . or disproven.

As for Wu's assertion — that Lee doesn't deserve the Nobel Prize in chemistry — that too, can be simply verified.  All Wu has to do is peruse Lee's entire published body of chemical research, and demonstrate in an empirical manner where Lee got it all wrong.

Should be a piece of cake — for even the most dim-witted individual with an advanced degree in chemical kinetics.

UPDATE (Mar 18/09):  Special thanks to the commenter who pointed out an error I made in the caption.

The mistake has (very belatedly) been corrected in the post.

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Ma Ying-jeou, Meet Vaclav Klaus

Klaus would be the president of a country that DOESN'T hide its national symbols — and gets a mite tetchy when members of the Empire trample his nation's sovereignty:

The Czech Republic becomes the first former Soviet satellite to run the European Union today, as it takes over the EU presidency from President Nicolas Sarkozy after six months of dynamic crisis management.

[…]

In Prague Castle, the presidential seat, Klaus is refusing to fly the European flag for the next six months. He came face-to-face there with another verbal brawler, Danny Cohn-Bendit, the Franco-German Green. The encounter pitted the arch Eurosceptic against an ardent Euro-federalist. Cohn-Bendit accosted Klaus, unfurled the European flag and demanded to know why it was not fluttering over the castle.

"No one has ever spoken to me here in this tone. You aren't on the barricades of Paris. I have never heard anything so insolent in this hall . . . The way Cohn-Bendit speaks to me is exactly the way the Soviets used to speak."

Some nations are blessed with presidents who've got guts.  While others have presidents who are so lacking in that department that they order THEIR OWN COUNTRY'S FLAGS CONFISCATED to placate visitors from neighboring tyrannies.

(Hat tip to Ezra Levant)

Roll Out The Red Carpet

From the Dec 30th edition of the China Post:

. . . the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has accused President Ma Ying-jeou of selling out Taiwan's interests when he dashed hopes of a visit by the Dalai Lama next year.  "The Dalai Lama has visited Taiwan twice, but at the current moment, the timing isn't appropriate for that," was Ma's response.  But days later, he said the Dalai Lama was always welcome.

But that's not the end of the story.   Because what Ma does is much more important than what he says.  You wanna send a message, send a telegram.  Or better yet, a few days after issuing your "sincere invitation", demonstrate just exactly HOW welcome the Buddhist leader is — by violating the rights of Tibetans.  Maybe it'll make him feel right at home!

From the Dec 12th edition of the Taipei Times:

More than 100 Tibetans have been staging a sit-in at Liberty Square in Taipei since Tuesday, demanding that the government grant them legal resident status or at least a work permit.

They were forcibly removed from the demonstration site and dropped off in the outskirts of the city, including Guandu (關渡), Nangang (南港) and in the mountains in Neihu (內湖) at around 3am yesterday.

[A] majority of the group — who speak little Mandarin — struggled to find their way back . . .

Mi casa es su casa, indeed.  You can spot a phony like Ma a mile away.

The Guardian Of National Dignity

From Friday's Taipei Times:

in his New Year's address yesterday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) vowed to protect the sovereignty and dignity of the Republic of China (ROC) during the course of improving business relations with Beijing.

Those are Ma's promises; this is the reality:

The Taichung County Government's New Year's Party promised to be a raucous affair, as the county planned to have a live simulcast with revelers in China's Xiamen.

Part of the deal involved an agreement to ban the display of national flags . . .

Party on, Wayne.  Party on, Garth.

Taiwan’s Ma Tries To Have His Sovereignty And Eat It Too

From Monday's China Post:

President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday the delivery of two giant pandas from China was not an internal / domestic transfer as described by a United Nations agency, as the animals went through customs and into quarantine when they arrived in the country.

Ma's position is unfortunately untenable.  Pandas are endangered species, and according to international law, cannot be given away as gifts FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY — they can only be loaned.

However, Taiwan did not accept the pandas as a LOAN from China.  Ma's government instead accepted them as a GIFT.

The only time international law allows this is when the endangered species are given away as gifts WITHIN A COUNTRY'S OWN DOMESTIC BORDERS.  Province-to-province, as it were.

So to recap:  President Ma accepted a GIFT of two pandas, which was advantageous to him because it allowed Taiwan to avoid paying astronomical $1 million a year panda loan payments to China.  But that gift came at a cost, because it could not be legally accepted under international law without admitting that the transfer was a domestic one.

Then to assuage voters, Ma the politician found it convenient to maintain the opposite.  The transfer wasn't domestic at all, because "the animals went through customs and into quarantine".

What logical contortions the poor man puts himself through in order to maintain his country's sovereignty . . . while destroying it at the same time.

UPDATE:  I would also like to direct the reader's attention to Article III (Sec. 3c) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora:

An import permit shall only be granted when . . . [the government of the importing state] is satisfied that the specimen is
not to be used for primarily commercial purposes.

Of course, the loudest arguments in favor of Taiwan accepting the pandas were the commercial ones.  They'd be boffo box office at Taipei's Mucha Zoo.  They'd draw in over 6 million visitors.  They'd bring in foreign tourists.  Oh, and don't forget the merchandising . . .

By the way, how much of all that money, money, money will go towards panda conservation? 

Not one red copper New Taiwanese dollar.  Because they're gifts, not loans, remember?  Taiwan's on the no money down, no yearly fees program.  In contrast, at least 50% of the fees America pays to China for loaned pandas must be directed towards preserving the animals in their native habitat.

My point here isn't really that the wild cousins of Taiwan's new pandas are getting the short end of the bamboo shoot.  I'm simply saying that the importation of these creatures was illegal under international law, since it's clear they were brought into the country for "primarily commercial purposes".

UPDATE #2:  The American Fish and Wildlife Service has a number of requirements for reviewing panda importation applications.  One of these is that the application must include:

a bona fide scientific research proposal, i.e., one that is properly designed using scientific methods focusing on a specific topic, that advances and/or supplements the scientific knowledge of panda ecology, and that is specifically relevant to the expertise of the institution.

Now, we have been told that the Taipei Zoo will conduct research on their new arrivals.  But I AM curious:  Has the zoo submitted its research proposals?  Have these proposals been peer-reviewed?  Are they available for public criticism?  And if not, why not?

Oh yes, and one final thing.  Does the zoo have "a plan to ensure that the public display of pandas will not interfere with the research activities"?

Or would such a plan interfere too greatly with the animals' primary function of income generation?

Taiwan Accepts Pandas From China; Sacrifices Sovereignty

From today's Taipei Times:

Two giant pandas made a trip from Sichuan Province, China, to their new home in Taiwan yesterday. Tuan-tuan (團團) and Yuan-yuan (圓圓), both four years old, arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:02pm.

The pandas, whose Chinese names, when put together, mean “to reunite,” were offered to former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) during his visit to China in May, 2005.

"To reunite".  Wow.  Almost as subtle as Spain sending a couple of Iberian lynxes (collectively named "Columbus rocks") to Bolivia.

An analysis piece at the Times describes the game that's afoot:

With all eyes fixed on the arrival of the two endangered animals in Taiwan yesterday, few paid attention to China’s maneuver to bypass the international export treaty for endangered species classifying the transport of the two pandas as a “domestic transfer.”

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora stipulates that the transfer of endangered species
between two countries must abide by the covenant. The CITES Secretariat, however, said on Monday that it considered China’s export of the two pandas as “domestic trade.”

Taiwan Society secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the importation of the two animals was an overt attempt by Beijing to push toward its goal of Taiwan’s de jure unification with China and part of
its strategy to “internalize” the Taiwan question.

“The former Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government internationalized the Taiwan issue, but the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] administration cooperates with Beijing to internalize it,” he
said.

It is manifest in the four agreements signed by the both sides, Lo said. Taking the example of direct cross-strait flights, all airports open for such services are “domestic.” The cross-strait food safety mechanism does not need to go through the international health organization either, he said.  [emphasis added throughout]

Years ago, I had an online exchange on another blog with a disagreeable Aussie leftist on the subject of Taiwan.  The details have been lost to the ether and my own fading memory, but part of his argument was that Taiwan is part of China (China says it's so, so it must be true!).  And because it's a domestic affair, other countries should just butt out.

I find myself thinking more about that conversation lately.  Because I think if we were to have that same conversation now, he would find himself heavily armed with Beijing's arguments.  Taiwan accepts pandas from China on the basis of DOMESTIC transfers.  Check.  Taiwan accepts flights from China as DOMESTIC in origin.  Check.  And last, but not least, Taiwan now publicly refers to itself as a REGION of China.

How would I respond to my interlocutor now, I wonder?

Welcome, little Tuan-tuan and Yuan-yuan.  Willkommen kleiner Ans und Chluss.

POSTSCRIPT:  All of my posts on the pandas may be found here.

The Presumption Of Innocence

Some confusion over what that means from a letter-writer to the Taipei Times:

You guys on a daily basis keep pushing the “innocent until proven guilty” thing regarding former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). You even have academics reminding your readers that it’s a basic human right. Correct?

Astonishingly, your same paper on a daily basis keeps pushing the “Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) selling out Taiwan’s sovereignty” thing based on your assumptions that closer ties with China lead to unification with China under China’s terms. Now isn’t this branding the KMT “guilty until proven innocent?”

No, actually, it's not.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is a presumption that applies to courts of LAW, not to the court of PUBLIC OPINION.

Big difference.

Look, literally MILLIONS of people believed O.J. Simpson was guilty of murdering his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman.  And in the court of public opinion, people are entitled to hold whatever opinions they like about criminal suspects.  But in courts of law, things are supposed to work a little differently.  In a court of law, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the defendant is in fact guilty of the crime with which he has been charged. 

Personally, I DO think that the KMT is selling out Taiwan.  That's my own opinion, and that's a POLITICAL opinion.  But should the day ever come that some ambitious prosecutor decides to prosecute KMT President Ma Ying-jeou in a court of law on the charge of treason, then they will have to PROVE in a courtroom (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Ma did, in fact, "sell out Taiwan".

Until they do so, Ma Ying-jeou is innocent before the eyes of the law.  But what about before the eyes of the citizenry and foreign observers?  Why, they are at liberty.  At liberty to keep their own counsel on the matter.

UPDATE:  Just move along, there's nothing to see here.  KMT politicians in the Taiwanese city of Taoyuan produce a calendar featuring a People's Republic of China holiday (National Day — Oct 1st) as well as a make-believe, non-existent holiday called "Reunification Day".

But since the KMT isn't trying to sell out Taiwan to Communist China, there's absolutely nothing to worry about.