Taiwanese Heed Ford Prefect’s Advice

Listen. It’s a tough universe. There’s all sorts of people and things trying to outdo you, kill you, rip you off, everything. If you’re going to survive out there, you’ve really got to know where your towel is.

– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

The big news in Taiwan was Saturday’s march in Taipei protesting China’s passage of its anti-secession law last year.  Since I didn’t know the location of the starting point (the Songshan Tobacco Factory Park), I decided to wait at the march’s terminus on Ketagalan Blvd, near the Presidential Building.

I arrived at 3:15 pm, and was shocked by how few people there were.  The march was supposed to reach there by 3:30, but only 1000 people were present, tops.  Many more would arrive later, as the march was about a half-hour behind schedule.  But this was unbeknownst to me at the time.

It was quite a warm day – perhaps the warmest this year.  This fellow was wearing traditional Taiwanese rain gear:

Man wearing traditional Taiwanese rain gear during March 18, 2006 march

He was a pretty good dancer:

Man in traditional Taiwanese rain gear dancing at March 18, 2006 march

…though the heat quickly forced him to lose the hat and coat.

(By the way, can anybody tell me what material they’re made of?  I think the fibers are from the bark of palm trees, but I’m not sure.)

Here’s a close-up of the dog:

Dog with Taiwanese independence flag at March 18, 2006 march

Lemme just say: any dog that stands tough against communist aggression is all right by me.

I have no idea what the Chinese on the following sign says.  Obviously, the bearer thinks the country should be called the Republic of Taiwan rather than the Republic of China.  But it must be admitted that R.O.T. would be a pretty unfortunate acronym, however.*

Sign calling for independence for Taiwan as the Republic of Taiwan (R.O.T.)

By quarter to 4, there were about two to three thousand present.  A musician played a couple of rock songs.  The chorus of one was "Taiwan-guo, Taiwan-guo" (Taiwan the country, Taiwan the country).

Meanwhile, a lot of folks headed over to a nearby stand to get a free(?) towel.  I started to follow them, but stopped myself because I wasn’t sure how they would feel about giving a foreigner some of their freebees.  I needn’t have worried.  One gentleman saw that I didn’t have a towel and gave me his.  A lot of Taiwanese are like that.

Here’s the towel he gave me.  It was a bit long, so I had to fold the edges to get it all in the shot:

Towel with Taiwan independence slogans

The reason for the give-away was to highlight the troubles facing the Taiwanese towel industry due to Chinese competition.  Does anyone remember Ross Perot’s "giant sucking sound to Mexico"?  Well, near as I can recall, Mexico never had 800 missiles pointed at American cities and military instillations, nor did it lay claim to every square inch of American soil.

(Just imagine the NAFTA debates if it had.)

4 pm, and the marchers began arriving:

Sign with Taiwanese independence slogan at March 18, 2006 march.

Somewhere in the line of marchers, a woman waved to me and yelled, "We love you!"  I’d be lying if I said it didn’t choke me up a little.

Anyways, here’s another shot of the marchers.

Banners with Taiwan independence slogans at March 18, 2006 march.

And not a KMT flag to be seen.  But then, when was the last time the KMT marched to protest ANYTHING that China did?  Was it last year, when China passed its anti-secession law?  No, the KMT leader’s response at that time was to scuttle off to Beijing on a whirlwind appeasement tour.

Talk about giant sucking sounds!

But back to the rally.  At 4:15, I had to leave due to a prior commitment for Saturday evening.  It was a pity I couldn’t stay to get more shots, because the place was really starting to fill up. 

One marcher’s message to the Chinese leadership:

Say Fuck To China sign at March 18, 2006 march

Hey, Hu Jintao!  Can you feel the love tonight?

* On the other hand, it DID work out pretty well for Cary Grant’s character, Roger O. Thornhill, in North by Northwest.

UPDATE (Mar 20/06):  Click on comments to read an English translation of the tall vertical protest sign.

UPDATE (Mar 25/06):  Estimates for the number of marchers ranged between 45,000 on the low end and 170,000 on the upper.

UPDATE (May 25/06):  Have a Happy Towel Day.

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Taipei 101 Not Universally-Loved

The Taipei Times pointed out on Friday that Taipei 101 may not be the biggest tourist draw for Taiwan.  They’re probably right – I don’t imagine too many people hop a plane just to see a tall building.  They point out that:

…relying on this daytime eyesore to pump up tourist numbers is ill-advised.

But I notice that they neglect to describe its appearance at night.  Because when lit-up, I think it looks GREAT.  They then get downright mean:

It has a dildo-like ribbed concrete spire atop what appears to be a series of inverted plastic stools…

Ouch.  The building itself is supposed to resemble a tall stalk of bamboo, but I guess it’s inevitable that Freudians are bound to see phalluses wherever they turn. 

Hey fellas, try NOT using your imagination quite so much, ‘kay?  Sometimes a skyscraper is just a skyscraper.

Taipei 101 at night in black and white. Taipei, Taiwan.

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Light Saber Duel

National Review had a link to this student film featuring a light saber duel set to the Dark City soundtrack.  (It can also be found here.)  I think it features a little of the back-handed swordsmanship style from the short-lived Conan television series.

UPDATE:  It looks like the short is three years old, yet suddenly it’s getting simultaneous buzz on several of the blogs that I have links to.  Odd how that happens.

Re-Name That Tune

The March 14th edition of the Taipei Times printed a story on the front page about the campaign to remove references to the KMT from the Taiwanese army songbook.  The Republic of China was for so many years a one-party state that there was little differentiation between the KMT political party and the state; to swear loyalty to the one was to swear loyalty to the other.

Naturally, KMT legislators are not agreeable to the change:

That decision drew criticism from KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-min (帥化民), who strongly criticized this action for being akin to "forgetting one’s origins."

While I often have some degree of sympathy for this type of reasoning, the need to insist upon the military’s political neutrality in a democratic state completely outweighs the conservative argument in this particular case.  American Democrats would be entirely right to protest if West Point officers-in-training were required to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republican Party".

KMT Flogs Horse: Beast Still Dead

In the movie The Dead Zone, Christopher Walken’s character Johnny Smith is gifted (or cursed) with the power to see the future, which he accidentally uses to discover that a senatorial candidate will one day become a Hitler-like president of America.  After some moral searching, Johnny assassinates the candidate before he can unleash nuclear Armageddon.

Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone

Of course, the moral equation would be pretty easy to solve if someone happened to have completely reliable powers of precognition*.  But what if Johnny’s precognitive powers were accurate only 80% of the time?  How about 50%?  Ten?  Would assassination still be justifiable?  And suppose Johnny was just a jobless, clinically-depressed nutcase, over-reacting to outrageous political hyperbole, something along the lines of this?

Yes, that’s right.  That’s a KMT rally, with an effigy demonizing Taiwan’s president by dressing him in Nazi garb.  So, when a political party likens the country’s president to Hitler and Osama bin Laden, and one of its less stable followers goes over the edge because he fails to realize that you really meant that in a GOOD WAY, who ya gonna blame?

Why the victim, of course!  The president must have faked his own shooting!

One of the big tragedies here is that they never took the assassin alive.  Instead, when he realized that police had found the black market dealer who sold him the weapon, he destroyed much of the evidence and committed suicide.  The police did manage to wiretap the family afterwards however, and when confronted with some of their incriminating conversations, they decided to ‘fess up.

That was about a year ago.  The March 13th edition of the Taiwan News had an update in a story entitled "Shooter’s wife says ‘coerced’ to tell the truth" (Sorry, I can’t find the link).  A couple of days ago, the KMT was to hold a big, expensive rally against the abolition of the National Unification Council, and discovered that a lot of people just couldn’t muster much outrage over the abolition of a council with a $30 a year budget which hadn’t met in ten years.  Lo and behold, the wife of the assassin came forward just in time for the Chen hate-fest to recant her confession, informing the press that, ahem:

…it was not until some "nice people" presented her family with evidence that her husband had been framed that her family started to realize that the investigation closed last August was all about "judicial persecution" and was nothing short of a "savage act" against their human rights.

So the KMT Big Lie about the "stolen presidential election" is about to be told again.  And again.  What I AM curious to know is exactly what "evidence" the "nice people" happened to give her.  It wouldn’t by chance have been presented in a big, ol’ red envelope**, would it?

For more on this, I would recommend Michael Turton’s The View from Taiwan, which covers it very well.  It even has comparison photos of the now-deceased perpetrator alongside security camera shots, which should convince all but the most dyed-in-the-wool grassy knoll conspiracy geeks that the police fingered the right man.  Plenty of links, too.

One final note:  the daughter of the assassin points to the surveillance camera recording of the perpetrator, and claims that her father is innocent:

"[The man in the tape is bald.***]  My father was not bald…he just had a high forehead."

Boy, if I had a nickel every time I heard my old man say THAT…

* We can wonder whether Johnny didn’t have other options open to him for stopping the candidate from becoming president, short of assassination.  However, for the purposes of a Stephen King thriller, it might have been less than dramatically satisfying if the protagonist had merely founded a Stop Stillson! grassroots political organization.

** In Taiwan, gifts of money are customarily placed inside red envelopes.

*** Closer inspection of the grainy security camera pictures provided at The View from Taiwan seem to suggest that the perpetrator was not in fact bald, but that his hair was reflecting light from the sun.  Click the link and judge for yourself, though.

UPDATE (Mar 15/06):  A commenter raised a couple great points that merit repeating:

…did you notice the contradiction in this statement:

"…it was not until some "nice people" presented her family with evidence that her husband had been framed that her family started to realize that the investigation closed last August was all about "judicial persecution" and was nothing short of a "savage act" against their human rights."

The contradiction, of course, is that she couldn’t have been "coerced" if she didn’t realize that she was being persecuted until later. What’s more, why did the family burn both the suicide notes that didn’t look like suicide notes and the yellow jacket (that didn’t look like the yellow jacket shown in the video)? This evidence, afterall, helps the family (if they are telling the truth). (emphasis added)

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Whistling In The Dark

Every time I see Dr. Joe Hung’s photo in the commentary section of the China Post, I can’t help but smile.  He looks like a kindly old grandpa, and I’m sure that in person he’s a lovely man.  So perhaps it’s his kindly nature that motivates him to write nonsense like this:

China does not have to launch any propaganda campaign to tell the world its rise is peaceful. All historians know China, after its invasion of Korea in the second century before Christ, has never tried to expand by force except the brief period in which it was ruled by the Mongols. The invasion of Korea was ordered by the Emperor Wu Ti of the Han Dynasty before he finally made Confucianism the state cult. Cheng Ho visited Southeast Asia and part of Africa, but none of the territories he visited were colonized, albeit Ming China, at the height of a dynastic cycle and with Lady Luck smiling on it, could have easily expanded its empire.

No one should be afraid of an expansionist jingoist China. Not even Taiwan. There will be no Chinese invasion, so long as Taipei refrains from declaring independence for Taiwan. (emphasis added)

QED.  And for the Doctor’s next trick, maybe he can scour the historical records to somehow "prove" that the Red Guards won’t wreck China’s historical treasures or the Khmer Rouge won’t empty out the cities.  Heck, if he’s right about the past being 100% predictive of the future, you can throw away your smoke detector or the lock on your door and it won’t make one bit of difference.  Better still, SELL them and blow your windfall on something you like – a trip to the movies, or maybe some chocolate.  You’ve never had your house burn down or be burglarized before, so what on earth makes you think it’ll happen in the future?

In fact, the China Post has, in the past, made precisely that argument regarding Taiwan’s defense needs.  Appease China by not declaring independence and Taiwan won’t NEED any weapons.  Then Taiwan can take all the money it saves on useless armaments and spend it all on the political equivalent of chocolate: social programs.

Mmmm.  Social programs.  Politicians love ’em.  Give enough of ’em to the voters, and they’ll forgive you almost anything.

To be fair though, the folks at the China Post has been inconsistent in making this argument, so it looks like not even THEY fully believe it.  As for Dr. Hung, well, he kind of contradicts some of his own rhetoric:

Without the luck of a Godsend support from the United States after the Korean War in 1945 (sic), Mao Zedong could have easily "washed Taiwan with blood."

China wanted to wash Taiwan in blood?  And you’re telling me it’s peaceful?  Hoo boy, you’ve got me convinced!

Now, I don’t have a PhD in Chinese history like Dr. Hung does, and I’ll be the first to admit that he knows far more Chinese history than I EVER will.  But it seems to me that in his paragraph-long summary of Chinese history, he’s neglected to mention a few things – events that happened not within the Han or the Sung or the Ming Dynasties, but within the last 60 years.  And these things are not particularly supportive of his thesis.

First, there’s the inconvenient matter of the invasion of Tibet.  Then, there’s the war with Taiwan.  Next, the one with South Korea, America and the UN.

But don’t stop me, ’cause I’m on a roll here.  Does Dr. Hung forget China’s border clashes with Russia?  With India?  With Vietnam?

Forgive me if I’ve missed any.  Like I said, I’m no expert.

Somehow, the fact that "peaceful" China has fought virtually every single one of its neighbors within a span of a mere 60 years managed to slip Dr. Hung’s mind.  Or, is it that none of these really count, because China was somehow "provoked" into it – each and every time?

How fortunate then, that China wound up with atheistic communism as its political ideology.  Who needs the Buddhist mantra, "Om mani padme om," when, "The other guy made me do it," is so much more useful in justifying a gunfight?

(It’s not quite as poetic, I’ll grant you, but maybe it sounds better in the original Mandarin.)

Dr. Hung’s vision is a beautiful one, and I certainly hope he’s right.  Like I said earlier, he looks like he’s a perfectly decent man.  It’s just that one of the problems with decent men is that they’re sometimes willing to give the benefit of the doubt to those who are decidedly unworthy of it.  Since we’re talking history, I’ll close with a little quote from the Melian Dialogues in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War.  It reflects a more sober, more tragic, and I fear, more real view of human nature:

"Of the gods we believe, and of men we know; that by a necessity of their nature, they rule as far as their nature permits."

The translation’s a little rough to navigate.  Essentially it means that people are liable to use the power that lies at their disposal.  Unfortunately, the aphorism provides no exceptions; not even for "peaceful" countries which expand their military 15% a year while furiously building blue-water navies and maintaining 2.3 million man armies.

UPDATE (Mar 15/06):  Recall the China Post‘s arguments that Taiwan doesn’t need arms, and can safely spend the money on social programs instead.  Today’s China Post and Taiwan News both had pics of an anti-American weapons sales protest by a couple of dozen outside the American quasi-embassy in Taiwan.  This photo’s from the Taiwan News. (Sorry, no link available):

Capitulationist, pro-Communist Taiwanese protesting against weapons for Taiwan

To call them ‘capitulationists’ almost seems too kind.

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And I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords

The Foreigner loves niche marketing.  Want an A&W Root Beer or a ginger beer in Taiwan?  Good luck finding them – unless you go to Jason’s Supermarket in the basement of Taipei 101.  Dittos for fresh Thai galangal, lemongrass or kaffir lime leaves.  Incredibly, I hear they even have beets there.  I’ve NEVER seen beets in a supermarket here before.  Ever.  Might just have to pick some up and make me some borscht.

So I’m pleased to see that the China Post has decided to cater to a long-neglected political niche in Taiwan: the pro-invasion faction.

Foreigner, that’s hyperbole, you say. 

Alright, judge for yourself.

President Chen recently announced that the enactment of Beijing’s Anti-Secession Law last year would be henceforth be commemorated each March 14th as "Anti-Aggression Day*".  Now, I’m not sure if there’s anything particularly controversial about saying, "I’m in favor of not being invaded."  I would think that it would be kind of like saying that you’re in favor of motherhood and apple pie.  But leave it to the good ol’ China Post to come out against it:

The administration of President Chen Shui-bian on Wednesday took yet another move to vent its feelings of hatred and opposition to Beijing by designating March 14 as an "Anti-Aggression Day," to be marked annually beginning from this year.

Come on, Chen, in the immortal words of Jon Stewart: "Don’t be an invader hater".  On an important anniversary such as this, you should let bygones be bygones.  Have you considered sending Hu Jintao an FTD® Thanks a Bunch® Bouquet?

The China Post then wrings its hands over the possible outcome:

If anything, the action may only further provoke a Beijing already angered by Chen’s recent abandonment of Taipei’s long-established unification policy.

Stop it right there, Chen!  Saying you DON’T WANT China to invade is probably the surest way of MAKING them invade.  Try using a little reverse psychology.  Why don’t you offer China Taiwan’s full and unconditional surrender and see how that works, instead?

Chen:  (slowly) Reverse psychology, eh?  (boldly) Hu Jintao, I hereby offer you Taiwan’s full and unconditional surrender!

Hu Jintao:  I accept.

Chen: D’oh!

Speaking of trustworthy communists:

…as stipulated in the same law, Beijing wants to peacefully co-exist with Taiwan and, moreover, is very much willing to improve bilateral relations. That is to say, Taiwan can continue to maintain its democratic system and freedoms so long as its political leaders do not make radical moves to provoke Beijing.

Your freedoms are great, says Beijing.  Unless we happen to object to any of them.  Then we’ll peacefully co-exist with you with a very large boot up your butt.

Is this for real?  Did someone in Taiwan actually write this, or did the Capitulation Post just print this verbatim from a recent CCP Propaganda Ministry fax?

That will have to remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, for they close with a prediction:

In the year ahead and beyond, the top politicians of the ruling party are likely to hold many more anti-China activities.

Could be, could be – if you consider the declaration of an "Anti-Aggression Day" to be an "anti-China activity".  Here then, is a little prediction of my own:  in the year ahead, the China Post and the pro-communist KMT party are likely to engage in more pro-invasion activities while obsequiously serving their masters in Beijing as communist apologists.  They will also resolutely obstruct more weapons appropriations bills for Taiwan – because after all, the defense of Taiwan is ultimately nothing more than an "anti-China activity".

And in all of this, I wish them luck.  After all, in a truly democratic society, why should the one to two percent of the population who favor an attack by a foreign power** be left without anyone in the public arena to voice their fondest dreams and aspirations? 

* "Anti-Aggression Day" is meant to be one of those rip-off holidays which is special enough to have its own name, but isn’t quite special enough that you can actually take the day off.

** A poll conducted some time ago revealed that 5% of the Taiwanese public favors a Chinese invasion.  My guess is that the actual number is more like 1-2%, based on the assumption that half of the respondents were either pulling the pollsters’ legs…or stoned utterly out of their minds.

A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

President Lincoln used to ask a riddle:  if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?  He enjoyed revealing that the answer was four…because CALLING a tail a leg didn’t MAKE it one.*

By the same token, the Japanese Foreign Minister decided that calling Taiwan a province of China didn’t actually make it one, and said so in public.  Said the FM:

"[Taiwan’s] democracy is considerably matured and liberal economics is deeply ingrained, so it is a law-abiding country.  In various ways it is a country that shares a sense of values with Japan."

Whoa!  The KMT and Taiwan’s other capitulationist parties aren’t going to like hearing THAT.  For them, the single country in the world most worthy of praise and emulation is CHINA.  In response to the Japanese minister, we might soon hear some more Japan-bashing from KMT head Hizoner Ma Ying-jeou.  Perhaps something similar to his previously stated desire for a "battle to force a settlement" with Japan over the disposition of the Senkakus Islands.

Shortly after the Japanese Foreign Minister’s statement, China engaged in a little flipfloppery.  It was not so long ago – barely a week, in fact – when they called upon the United Nations to spank Taiwan for abolishing the National Unification Council.  Interfere in our internal affairs all you like, they told the UN at the time.**

But when the Chinese Foreign Minister heard that his Japanese counterpart had called Taiwan a "country", he got all prickly, angrily responding, "We are strongly protesting against this rude intervention in China’s internal affairs."

Aw, c’mon guys.  You’re either in favor of foreign interference in your "internal affairs" or you’re against it.  What’s it gonna be?

Interestingly, The China Post had a few more statements from the Japanese FM illustrating the growing resentment the Japanese feel due to China’s bullying:

[The minister likened] Japan to a rich but physically weak child who is picked on at school.

"What do you do so you don’t get bullied? There is no other way than to run away or fight," Aso told supporters last weekend in the central city of Kanazawa, the magazine said.

"You may be able to graduate from school in three years. But when it comes to countries, neighbors will be neighbors forever," it quoted him as saying.

Perhaps then, calling Taiwan a country is a demonstration of Japan’s increasing unwillingness to play the 98 pound weakling in the schoolyard.  I can’t help but think that Japan was once a Great Power, and that if it wanted to, it could be again.  It may be most unwise to push around the Japanese.

* Of course, the children’s story, "The Emperor’s New Clothes" makes essentially the same point that the truth is the truth.

There is however, a countervailing Chinese story that states the truth is whatever the powerful happen to say it is.  In this story, a Chinese emperor sees a mule, calls it a horse in front of his court, and then asks the courtiers what kind of an animal they think it is.  Those who answer truthfully are beheaded on the spot for having the effrontery to publicly disagree with the emperor.

(Similarly, Winston Smith in 1984 is told that the Party has new answers for simple arithmetic questions, and is tortured when he gives the "wrong" answers.  After sufficient "re-education", he accepts that the Party is always right about such things.)

**  Someone at the National Review or the Weekly Standard asked a question relating to China’s request to the UN to upbraid Taiwan "province" for abolishing the NUC.  When was the last time, the writer asked, when President Bush went to the UN to call for help in dealing with a troublesome American state governor?

Beleaguered

Poor China.  Under attack from all sides.  First, Taiwan cruelly and heartlessly abolished a defunct council with a $30 a year budget, and now Benedict XVI mistreats China even further by appointing Joseph Zen, a Hong Kong anti-communist bishop, as cardinal.

Imagine that.  Benedict XVI appointed someone cardinal.  Just who does that guy think he is, the pope or something?

But Beijing isn’t taking THIS lying down.  No, sir.  The "pontiff" of the Chinese government-directed "Patriotic Catholic Church", Liu Bai Nian, stepped up to the plate and denounced the move as "an act of hostility to China".  Jack Fowler over at the National Review had this to say about the new cardinal, and the basis for the Chinese government’s opposition to his appointment:

[Cardinal Zen is] a revered figure on Hong Kong, and increasingly around the world, except in Beijing, [and] is well known for his outspoken defense of religious freedom and the democracy movement.  [He is despised] by the PRC, which banned Zen from the mainland in 2000 when he defended Pope John Paul II for canonizing Chinese martyrs. Nian based his attack on Zen’s appointment on the Bible: “China’s socialist system comes from God. We should all protect it and obey it. This is what the Bible tells us to do.”  Of course, Nian is referring to Paul’s Letter to the Cantonese, 3: 7-11. [emphasis added]

What, you can’t remember Paul’s Letter to the Cantonese from Sunday school?  Don’t be so lazy, then – look it up in your Bible.  It’s probably there in the back, somewhere.