The Foreigner in Formosa | Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.

The Daily Gut On Chiu Yi

Just to flesh out the story a bit: Chiu Yi tries his damnedest to get a former president's secret service protection revoked – a president who was shot at in 2004 and physically assaulted in 2008.

But suddenly Chui Yi gets his rug snatched, and he appears on national TV. Cries about it like a little girl. Oh, and he won't step foot out of the house now without police equipped with riot shields and helmets and batons and everything.

The Arquette Sisters are right, though. "Yakety Sax" DOES make everything better. Even "The Phantom Menace".

(ESPECIALLY "The Phantom Menace".)

UPDATE: Fixed the links.

Lame Excuse Of The Week

As part of his Peace-Through-Powerlessness policy, President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday reduced the frequency of Taiwan's military live-fire exercises, so they'll now be held biannually biennially instead of annually.

Give the government points for creativity, however. They're not reducing Taiwan's military readiness to ingratiate themselves with the Butchers of Beijing. Why heavens, no. They're doing it because all that analysis stuff is just too darn hard:

The military will stage its major war games every other year instead of holding them annually, Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday morning.

“Because the cycle of the live-fire Han Kuang Exercises is too short, making it difficult for the military to have adequate time to correct and adjust shortcomings found in each drill, we have decided to hold the series of drills every other year instead of annually,” Chen told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee. [emphasis added]

Fortunately for Western civilization, the planners of Operation Overlord weren't quite so dilatory after live-fire exercises in anticipation of the Normandy landings were conducted at the end of April '44.

Had Eisenhower and Montgomery followed the KMT's standard, D-Day might still have happened — sometime in 1946.

As it was, the military planners of D-Day instead put their noses to the grindstone, figured out what went wrong during Exercise Tiger, and launched the invasion. And they did all that not in two year's time, but in ONE MONTH'S.

It's an unfair comparison, really. Because the allies in 1944 were serious about their nations' defense, while the KMT of 2008 is most assuredly not.

POSTSCRIPT: The runner-up for this week's award would have to be the reason floated for not renaming a couple of Chinese pandas, which will soon arrive in Taiwan. (Their names, when spoken together, sound like the Chinese word for "Unification"). From Tuesday's Taipei Times:

. . . Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) [said on Sunday that] the rights of the two giant pandas China has offered as a gift to Taiwan should be respected. Hau was referring to the pandas’ names, which he said could not be changed without violating the animals’ rights.

[…]

In this political burlesque, government officials harp on the rights of pandas and request a police motorcade to ensure a smooth drive from the airport to Taipei Zoo. Limbs of Taiwanese can be broken, blood of Taiwanese can be spilled, Tibetans can be spirited to the hills of Neihu (內湖) in the dead of night, but the pandas must be comfortable. Men can be jailed, beaten, drugged or executed without a word of condemnation, but we should respect the names the pandas have grown accustomed to in order not to confuse them.

A more likely explanation is that Beijing has communicated that VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN if the pandas are ever given new names. But instead hearing the truth, Taiwanese are treated to cock and bull excuses that these animals have some sort of "right" to the names Beijing's propagandists cynically attached to them.

Which reminds me of my mother's dog. The one I've dubbed, over my mother's objections, "Stinky".

A cruel animal abuser I must be. But it's a funny thing: Whenever I call him that, he never gets QUITE SO CONFUSED OR OFFENDED as to turn down the the dog biscuits I give him . . .

KMT Begins Purge Of Citizenry

The front page of the Taipei Times featured a story about police home searches of Taiwanese who have been involved in independence-related activities. The story speaks for itself, but there were a couple points I'd like to mention. From the Times:

The agents prevented [the news desk director of an independence paper] from taking pictures as they searched [his house], and he engaged in a verbal dispute with them.

“An agent who appeared to be the leader told me that I could be charged for interfering with official duties and asked me to delete all the pictures that I took,” [Chen Tsung-yi] wrote. “I didn’t know much about the law, so I deleted the pictures.”

For purposes of comparison, in America it is apparently OK for people to take photos of the police. Legally it's a mixed bag, however, as FlexYourRights.org explains:

Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal [What about within PRIVATE places, such as your own home? — The Foreigner], so long as you don’t interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested.

Police don’t like to be watched or documented in any way, so they’ll sometimes bend the rules to stop you. We’ve heard many stories about people who got arrested for taping police, and the charges are usually dropped. If you’re taping or photographing police, make sure you don’t interfere, because “obstruction” is the most likely charge, and you’ll want to be able to defend against it. [emphasis added]

Despite the risk of arrest, we don’t discourage the taping and photographing of police. Video evidence is uniquely effective in exposing police misconduct. If you acquire video or photographic evidence that warrants an official investigation, create and secure copies of the evidence, then forward it to local police monitoring groups such as civilian review boards, ACLU, and NAACP chapters. You should also obtain legal representation for yourself in case the police department retaliates against you.

Nonetheless, that's America and this is Taiwan. I've no idea what the local law is regarding the matter.

Getting back to the Taipei Times' story:

Meanwhile, political columnist Paul Lin (林保華) penned an article in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Wednesday in which he said police from his local precinct had come to his house for no reason.

Paul Lin said he suspected the visit had something to do with recent articles he has written on police abusing their power and disregarding human rights.

In response, police said they were on a routine household visit and that it had nothing to do with Paul Lin’s background or his political opinions. [emphasis added]

Err, I was under the impression that the Japanese-era law permitting police "household visits" was laid to rest just last year. In fact, I went out of my way to PRAISE the KMT for repealing the law, which I regarded as a license for law enforcement to go on legal fishing expeditions.

Since the law is obviously still in force, I withdraw my previous compliments.

UPDATE: It just struck me to wonder how the existence of digital images on someone's camera could POSSIBLY prevent or interfere with a police search.

Taking the pictures, yes, I can see how that MIGHT interfere, under certain circumstances. The cops want to search a cabinet, let's say, and the homeowner stands in their way with his trusty Nikon.

But if the homeowner stands off to the side and unobtrusively clicks away, I don't see how that constitutes interference any more than if he was simply standing there watching.

UPDATE #2: Deleted files, photos or e-mails aren't destroyed, so Chen Tsung-yi's data may still be readable. When one of my digital camera cards became corrupted a few years ago, I was able to recover MOST of my pictures using the $30 PhotoRescue program.

UPDATE #3: This is beyond satire. British police tell 64 year-old man that photographing teenage gang members may constitute assault. How long before Taiwanese police start using THAT as an excuse?

UPDATE #4: A good editorial on the general topic of videotaping police over at Fox News.

UPDATE #5: Oh, that's nice.

Part II: Taiwan And The Process Of The Rule Of Law

[Part I of this series can be found here.]

On December 8th, the Heritage Foundation invited the Taiwanese government to give a response to a November 25th seminar which was critical of the rule of law in Taiwan.

The government's seminar
is about an hour and forty five minutes long. The Taipei Times reviewed this on Friday, and Michael Turton gave his own thoughts earlier today. Both reviews are worth reading.

A rough outline of the Heritage Foundation's December 8th seminar:

00:00 — 06:48 Introductions

06:49 — 20:00 KMT legislator and Judiciary Committee member Hsieh Kuo-liang's statements. Seemed affable enough.

20:00 — 30:48 Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Chin Jeng-shyang thrills everyone in the audience with organizational charts of the Taiwanese legal bureaucracy. Contrary to the Taipei Times' account, I found this part WAS audible — but the Times was right about Chin not being able to read his own writing.

(Paragraph-upon-paragraph of full text loving reproduced onto PowerPoint screens. If you're like me, you'll find yourself impatiently wondering what the point of all this was.)

30:49 — 43:47 National Police Agency Senior Executive Officer John Chu attempts to excuse actions of Taiwanese police during the visit of an unofficial representative of the Chinese government. Didn't much care for the way he barked at the audience.

At 38:14 Chu claims the Taiwanese police didn't confiscate flags — they only prevented protesters from crossing into restricted areas. Mighty peculiar then, that only people carrying PRC flags were left unmolested by Chu's policemen.

43:48 — 51:28 Yates asks the panelists when they think preventative detention is appropriate, and what reforms (if any) should be made to the current law.

Hsieh proposes tinkering with the duration of preventative detention, but seems quite comfortable with the underlying premise that the accused is guilty until proven innocent.

51:29 — 52:59 More Q&A

53:00 — 54:30 Hsieh informs the audience that Taiwan has no laws against purgery, and this is the reason the Taiwanese government breaks client-lawyer confidentiality. (The Ministry of Justice apparently videotapes all conversation between people kept in preventative detention and their attorneys.)

54:31 — 1:17:09 More Q&A

1:17:10 — 1:20:47 Gerritt van der Wees calls John Chu on some of the more dishonest elements of his presentation.

News to me was van der Wees claim that the suggestion to throw eggs at the Chinese representative was never serious: it was instead a sly pun a reporter made based on the similarity in Mandarin between the words "egg" and "missile".

John Chu sticks to his guns, insisting that Taiwanese independence party politicians offered cash prizes for hitting the Chinese envoy on TV.

Evidence please, Mr. Chu.

1:20:48 — 1:44:48 More Q&A

I've seen earlier reports that these three KMT representatives were sent to the U.S. with Goebbelesque pictures of smiling children giving flowers to Taiwanese police — as "proof" that reports of police brutality in Taiwan have been exaggerated.

Unfortunately, they didn't show them at their Heritage Foundation talk. Would've been fun to see the incredulous reaction if they had.

UPDATE (Dec 20/08): My impression of Hsieh Kuo-liang may have been a tad too generous. From Saturday's Johnny Neihu:

Alright, so LA is not a model city for police-suspect relations, but dude, next time you want to make a wisecrack about the Rodney King beating and the riots following his attackers’ acquittal, don’t do it at The Heritage Foundation!

Yeah. You go to the Heritage Foundation (a think-tank populated by conservatives and neo-conservatives) and then try to get them to accept the specious logic that Taiwan can't have a police brutality problem, because Los Angeles has that problem instead.

Neihu's right. Think-tanks don't generally hire people who are dumb enough to believe that.

Mr Hsieh, your audience thought you were a complete tool. And it doesn’t help a government’s image when a patronizing showman who loves talking about himself in the same breath as he slanders an unindicted suspect (by referring to him as a likely criminal) is the head of the legislative Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.

Taiwan And The Process Of The Rule Of Law

[Part II of this series can be found here.]

The Heritage Foundation featured a seminar on the topic on November 25th. Apologies to any other blogger who might have covered this already.

The seminar is about an hour and ten minutes long, and well worth watching if you've got the time. Here's a rough outline:

00:00 — 07:54 Introductory Remarks

Heh. Stephen J. Yates' yields the floor to the keynote speaker:

"So without further introduction, I'd like to turn the podium over to Dr. Shieh Ching-jyh, who is — I believe I've got it correctly — he is quite literally a rocket scientist. And apparently, you DO have to be a rocket scientist to understand the Rule of Law in Taiwan."

07:54 — 17:10 Dr. Shieh describes his case and his encounter with the Taiwanese legal system

17:11 — 18:30 Shieh describes Taiwan's preventive detention law

18:31 — 19:30 Shieh describes trial-by-media

19:31 — 20:40 Shieh discusses his acquital

20:41 — 24:30 Shieh talks about desirable changes to the law. He also points out Taiwan's Presumption of Guilt standard.

24:31 — 27:51 Stephen Yates asks the audience to consider the appropriateness of using preventative detention in alleged terrorist cases vs. governmental corruption cases

27:52 — 38:38 Shieh mentions somewhere here that the government does not pay for the defense of civil servants who are accused of corruption crimes. Makes you wonder how any Taiwanese government could function if its members were the perpetual targets of partisan lawfare.

38:39 — 39:25 Yates mentions that in Shieh's case, the prosecutors in their closing arguments cited newspaper stories to suggest "reasonable suspicion" that a crime had been committed. Yates remarks:

"A reasonable suspicion based on a media account of anonymous sources is not exactly a high legal standard to find someone guilty based on a reasonable doubt."

39:26 — 41:32 More Q&A

41:33 — 45:45 A Taiwanese media ass-hat tries to get Shieh to say a few good things about Taiwan's legal system. The CTI reporter essentially asked, Dr. Shieh, don't you feel that the system worked? After all, you WERE acquitted!

Shieh's reply was that the PROCESS WAS THE PUNISHMENT. Shieh was held incommunicado with the outside world for 59(?) days without charge in a cell with 2 other people. That 5' X 9' cell was apparently so small that the three prisoners were unable to lie down flat.

More shocking however, were Shieh's revelations about Taiwan's legal discovery process. Prosecutors apparently confiscated 40 boxes of evidence from Shieh's office and home, and yet the defendent was not permitted access to that evidence.

Shieh's acquital was only made possible by a miracle: the prosecutors' evidence-gathering team somehow overlooked 2 key documents — documents they DIDN'T confiscate and which Shieh was thus able to use in his own defense.

Wild stuff.

45:46 — 1:09:41 More Q& A

I'm a little ashamed now that I didn't follow this case a few years ago.

More Taiwanese Police Misconduct

From Friday's Taipei Times:

More than 100 [Tibetan refugees] 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.

Now, the Tibetans in question WERE breaking Taiwan's assembly law by demonstrating without permits. The police response was however, also unbounded by law. Doubtless, judges are granted a measure of discretion when adjudicating these types of cases. But I'm pretty sure there's not a single statute on the books that authorizes law enforcement to pick up suspects and just abandon them SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF FRICKIN' NOWHERE.

The most sinister interpretation of this is that the police were trying to send a signal. Engage in forbidden dissent, and we can make you "disappear". Temporarily — though that could change in the future . . .

And the kindest interpretation? OK, Taiwanese authorities wanted to remove Tibetan protesters from Liberty Square (or Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, or whatever it's being called these days). Possibly on the basis of "numerous complaints" from Communist Party tourists from China. But Taiwan's higher-ups didn't want the Tibetans jailed because that might turn them into an international cause celebre. So instead the cops were instructed to remove the ralliers and make their lives difficult, on the theory that that might help dissuade them from illegally protesting again in the future.

According to this explanation, the police acted out of cowardice, not deliberate malice. No real harm done then, and problem solved. Gin and tonics all around.

No harm done — except when one of these poor bastards gets dropped off by police and meets with an unfortunate accident. Because it's 3 am, remember? Pretty easy time to get mugged, or run over, or what-have-you. And when that happens, who's morally (if not legally) responsible?

The police department that put him there at three in the morning, that's who.

UPDATE: Today's Taipei Times comes to some of the same conclusions, but also pointed out the fact that the Tibetans didn't speak Mandarin — which made it difficult for them to return back to Taipei after the police drove them from the city.

Also of concern is the behavior of police in apprehending Tibetan protesters at the same location and, in some cases, taking them to the hills of Neihu District (內湖) — in Taipei City terms, the middle of nowhere — and dumping them there. In some cases the hapless Tibetans did not even have the language skills to ask for directions.

It is not clear what this technique might be called in the National Police Agency officers’ manual, but from a legal standpoint it borders on abduction.

Dumping protesters in remote locations is a practice that must cease forthwith. If not, the police will once again invite scrutiny from international rights observers — not something that they would relish given the thoroughgoing incompetence of senior police in dealing with foreign observers.

I ran to the supermarket a few times in the wee hours of that morning, and it was a bit nippy. I was only outside for 5 or 10 minutes, though, and it was probably colder in the mountains around Taipei, too. Wonder if any of the Tibetans were dressed for it?

Breaking The Golden Thread

"Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt . . ."

— Viscount Sankey LLC in Woolmington v. DPP [Just how ironic is THAT case name? — The Foreigner]

From today's Taipei Times:

[A spokesman] later said [Taiwan's] Presidential Office was in favor of [changes to a Taiwanese law] if "a balance could be reached between presumption of innocence and public impression of the suspect." [emphasis added]

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou must have learned some VERY cutting-edge legal theories when he earned that PhD in law from Harvard University. So cutting-edge in fact, that Ma's standard of justice shares less in common with Lord Sankey's than with China's Cultural Revolution.

Might make for a good reality TV program, though. Let's call it, "The People's Republic Court". All Taiwan needs to do is find some KMT Judge Wapner wannabe — he can be in charge of the "presumption of innocence" part of the verdict. Meanwhile, a special 1-800 number at the bottom of the screen could allow viewers to vote, in order to give weight to the "public's impression of the subject."

At the trial's conclusion, a television producer of unusual probity and wisdom would be on hand to split the difference. To reach the delicate equilibrium of justice. Ma's balance point, if you will.

All of Taiwan owes Ma Ying-jeou a debt of gratitude. It was high time SOMEBODY finally put the "Show" back into the Show Trial!

Postscript: Now we know how sincere the KMT was when they decried populism in Taiwanese politics. Over there at Harvard, Ma's former law professors ought to hang their heads in shame.

UPDATE: Despite his many critics and political enemies, President Richard Nixon NEVER had his secret service protection stripped from him by the American Congress, as Taiwan's KMT now proposes to do to former President Chen Shui-bian.

(Nixon did however, voluntarily waive his secret service protection roughly ten years after he resigned from office.)

Sounds Like Somebody’s Hankerin’ To Harvest A Few Organs

Guess there's not enough Falun Gong members in Taiwan to fit the bill. From Friday's China Post:

The Presbyterian Church has been meddling in China's domestic politics for nearly a century. It has driven a wedge between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan by instilling hatred for mainland Chinese in the hearts and minds of Chinese on Taiwan.

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.

Profiles In Courage

"You're a good looking boy, you have big broad shoulders, but he is a man. It takes more than big broad shoulders to make a man, Harvey, and you have a long way to go. You know something? I don't think you will ever make it."

— Helen Ramirez, High Noon

From the China Post's Nov 19th editorial, Chinese Reunification: The Moral High Ground

To defend eventual [Taiwan's] eventual reunification [with China] is not "surrendering to tyranny." It is an act of moral courage. It is seizing the moral high ground.

Exhibit A: A Taiwanese president orders the Taiwanese police to confiscate the Taiwanese flag from Taiwanese citizens in order not to give offense to a visiting Chinese Communist Party representative.

Courageous enough for ya?

And Exhibit B?

Dalai Lama not welcome to visit: Ma

"We generally welcome religious leaders from all over the world to visit Taiwan, but I think at the current moment the timing isn't appropriate."

That would be Taiwan's lion-hearted president, Ma Ying-jeou. Who BOLDLY and STEADFASTLY defended that moral high ground — by blacklisting a Nobel Peace Prize winner. (A Peace Prize winner who, if you'll recall, China routinely refers to as, "A wolf in monks robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast.")

But don't you doubt for a minute Ma's indomitable spirit:

[Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi] also stressed that Beijing has not contacted the Taiwan government on the Dalai Lama issue.

And there you have it. The Butchers of Beijing didn't even need to pick up a phone for Ma Ying-jeou to RESOLUTELY anticipate their wishes. After which, he FIRMLY — and DARINGLY — and INTREPIDLY . . . uh, complied with them.

All kidding aside, I think we can put a new twist on an old J.C. Watts quote here. Character is doing the right thing — even WHEN China is looking.

Postscript: A hat tip to Notes from a Former Native Speaker for reminding me of the China Post editorial.)

UPDATE: Despite what Bevin Chu from the China Post may think, NO political party in Taiwan has a lock on the moral high ground.

[KMT] Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday urged the president to reconsider his decision.

“From a religious perspective, it is a positive thing for the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan … His visit to Taiwan would mean something in the world,” Wang said, urging the government to reconsider the matter and make arrangements for a visit.

[…]

DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) expressed regret and condemned Ma for rejecting a potential visit by the Dalai Lama.

Noting that former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had both received the Dalai Lama, Cheng said leaders from democratic countries such as the US, France and Germany have also met with the Dalai Lama as a way to exert pressure on China.

UPDATE #2: Michael J. Cole wrote a good column about this. Especially liked the conclusion:

Ma has often talked about creating “win-win” situations. Inauspicuously for him, he’s about to get a taste of the “lose-lose” by having to choose his poison.

Last year, Prime Minister John Howard of Australia initially refused to meet the Dalai Lama under pressure from China — then reversed himself when public pressure mounted. Since Ma's approval ratings are pretty low, there might be some leverage there.

Strawberry Jam

I've been remiss in not blogging about Taiwan's Wild Strawberries * student movement — though not through any lack of sympathy. These students began their protests roughly a month ago, in response to the ill-treatment meted out by Taiwanese police to citizens protesting the visit of an envoy from China.

Their chief demands were then, and still remain:

1) That Taiwan's president and premier apologize for law enforcement's excessive use of force.

2) That the security chiefs responsible should resign.

3) That Taiwan's restrictive assembly laws be liberalized.

Now, the interesting thing is that the Wild Strawberries are small in number — a few hundred on bad days, perhaps a thousand on good. However, Michael Turton points out that Taiwan's Confucian culture confers a great deal of respect to students. Because of this sticky situation, the China Post's Joe Hung has written a couple of clumsy columns deriding the 'Berries. From the latest of these, Mass Rallies, Wild Strawberries:

One thing these young students do not know, but their behind-the-scenes organizers know full well, is police brutality is universal and historical. Do students really believe an apology of a president or his chief executive can end police police brutality? Anybody who replaces [Taiwan's chief of police] will condone police brutality either for what he believes may contribute to the maintenance of peace and order or just to keep his job.

Police brutality in Taiwan? Ho-hum. God has willed it thus. And there's nothing to be done . . .

Universal, police brutality may be, but Doc Hung forgets that the RATES are not. I'm sure there are isolated cases of police crossing the line in Denmark — but which in country would Hung rather be arrested, Denmark or Zimbabwe? Switzerland or North Korea? In which of these countries do the authorities think they can get away with a heavy hand? And why is that so?

The reason is that in modern democratic states the police do not operate as the private praetorian guards of the party in power. They are ACCOUNTABLE to the public. Their job isn't merely to maintain peace and order and Hung supposes, but to SERVE AND PROTECT the rights of the citizenry.

Now, as a practical matter, I don't envision Taiwan's president or premier apologizing, nor do I think the police chiefs will resign. I can however, imagine the authorities apologizing for individual excesses. In fact, they've already gone and done so in at least one case.

More of that needs to happen. In those cases where law enforcement exceeded its authority, the chiefs SHOULD apologize. On the other hand, in cases where reasonable force was used, no apology is necessary. Because everyone understands that the cops are going to use force when Molotov cocktails start flying. What they don't understand however, is why the police saw fit to dislocate a woman's finger when she was doing nothing more offensive than holding a Tibetan flag.

If the Taiwanese National Police Agency General Wang Cho-chiun and National Security Bureau Director Tsai Chao-ming can't apologize for THAT, then they really are little better than hired thugs in the service of the Communist Party of China.

Hung proceeds to attempt to excuse the confiscation of Republic of China (Taiwanese) flags by the ROC police:

. . . do the idealistic students truly think those who "proudly" displayed national flags of the Republic of China shortly before and right after the arrival in Taipei of Chen Yunlin, China's top negotiator on Taiwan affairs, were doing their "patriotic" duty?

Irrelevant. It's absolutely irrelevant what anybody's "patriotic duty" was. Waving your own country's flag may or may not be a patriotic duty (depending on whom you talk to), but it certainly is a free speech right. A right guaranteed by Article 11 of the ROC constitution, I might add.

One might more reasonably ask the world-weary Joe Hung whether he truly thinks those ROC citizens who proudly displayed their county's flags were committing a seditious or traitorous act. If not, what crime were they committing, Dr. Hung?