Taiwan, China, and other things. Recovered from the defunct TypePad platform.
From Strategy Page:
China has ordered its scholars to dig up any historical evidence for early Chinese presence on rocks, reefs and uninhabited islands in the South China Sea…This Chinese effort has one major flaw; it ignores the fact that for thousands of year the Chinese imperial government (which lasted until 1910) disregarded seaward expansion or exploration.
There were a few exceptions, but yes, that's largely true.
I swear, this sounds like a satire from the People's Cube:
A follower of a Chinese religious leader who has reportedly been persecuted for more than a decade and recently incriminated by the Chinese government for undertaking “illegal acts of goodwill” has come to Taiwan seeking assistance…
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Image of the Tiananmen Square Massacre from the New York Times
The New York Times has an interesting detail I was not aware of:
…top army commanders were summoned to headquarters to pledge their support for the use of military force to quash the protests.
One refused.
In a stunning rebuke to his superiors, Maj. Gen. Xu Qinxian, leader of the mighty 38th Group Army, said the protests were a political problem and should be settled through negotiations, not force, according to new accounts of his actions from researchers who interviewed him.
“I’d rather be beheaded than be a criminal in the eyes of history,” he told Yang Jisheng, a historian.
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"All your resources are belong to us." Deutsche Welle has the story on the Communist thieves of Zhongnanhai:
Five countries are considered “Arctic states” – Canada, the US, Russia, Norway and Denmark (along with Greenland and the Faeroe Islands). Finland, Sweden and Iceland are also members of the Arctic Council which deals with the future development of the North Pole region. China, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are trying to achieve permanent observer status.
[…]
"Countries closer to the Arctic, such as Iceland, Russia, Canada, and a few other European countries may tend to wish the Arctic were private or that they had priority to develop it," Cui Hongjian, head of the European department of the China Institute for International Studies, told reporters before Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Europe. "But China insists that the Arctic belongs to everyone just like the moon."
Small wonder China finds itself hated by all its neighbors.
Hat tip: Instapundit
That works out to about 14¢ per Filipino left homeless (given that there are about 700,000 left homeless after Typhoon Haiyan).
Or in other words: just about enough to buy each of them half-a-can of Coke.
Postscript:
A day-laborer, Bill Gates, and Xi Jinping walk into a bar. Each gets a beer, but each finds his mug has a fly in it.
The workman pours off the fly and drinks the rest. Bill Gates sets his glass aside and buys another.
Meanwhile, Xi Jinping grabs the insect by its wings - violently shaking it while screaming:
"Spit it out! Spit it out!"
[Cheapskate jokes. I love 'em!]
UPDATE (Nov 13, 2013): CNN now reporting that 2 million people in the Philippines require food.
Evidently, the Chinese are either too stupid or heartless to realize that half-a-can of Coke isn't going to make much difference…
In the form of a kids movie about giant robots battling cartoonish monsters:
Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is a box office smash in China, but the Chinese military doesn't like it one bit, calling the movie blatant propaganda used to spread "American values and ideas."
The story's over a month old – don't know how I missed it.
But somehow, I find it strangely comforting that the officer corps of the PLA is composed of a bunch of cowardly bedwetters.
Taipei's Grand Hotel wins that dubious honor, and then takes the cake:
Clashes broke out between Tibet support groups and Grand Hotel staff in the lobby yesterday after the management canceled a room reservation made by the groups in preparation for the arrival of a delegation headed by Sichuan Province Governor Jiang Jufeng (蔣巨峰).
“We have signed a [room rental] contract with you and it was clearly written on the contract that the room would be used to hold a press conference. How can you cancel our reservation at the last minute? Is this how the Grand Hotel honors its business contracts?” Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) president Chow Mei-li (周美里) asked Grand Hotel manager Michael Chen (陳行中) after being informed of the cancelation. [emphasis added]
Granted, it's understandable that the hotel management would want to avoid unpleasantness under their roof. The type of unpleasantness that might ensue after renting rooms to antagonistic parties. However, a contract is a contract, and having signed it the hotel was obligated to manage the situation as best it could.
But instead, hotel management decided to compound their error by plunging themselves into a public relations fiasco:
More serious verbal and physical conflict broke out when Tibetans accompanying Chow grew impatient and took out banners and Tibetan flags that were to be used to decorate the news conference venue. They shouted slogans calling on Jiang to release the more than 300 monks arrested from Kirti Monastery in the predominantly Tibetan area of Ngaba in Sichuan Province and to withdraw troops and police that had placed the monastery under siege.
The manager and other members of the hotel management tried to take the signs and banners from the Tibetans by force.
The two sides pushed and shoved, while hotel management and staffers chased Tibetans running around the lobby with Tibetan flags in hand. [emphasis added]
What a lovely picture that makes — tourism workers in democratic Taiwan reduced to acting as paid goons of the Chinese Communist Party.
"Room service? This is the C.C.P. delegation. Someone here spotted a cockroach and a Tibetan on the premises. Would you kindly send somebody up to remove them?"
(Operating under the theory that "no publicity is bad publicity", thugs in the employ of Taipei's Grand Hotel set upon an unarmed Tibetan dissident in full view of press photographers. Image from the Taipei Times.)
But the hotel's antics were was all for nothing, because when police arrived, they took one look at the rental contract and admitted the Tibetans had a point. After which management conceded, grudgingly allowing the press conference to go forward . . . in a different room in the hotel.
Heaven forbid anyone should ever label Michael Chen, manager of Taipei's Grand Hotel, a collaborator.
But one really does have to wonder at the new paint job he's given the place…
UPDATE (May 24/11): Taiwan's premier communist-funded newspaper, The China Post, spikes the story.
Imagine that.
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