Did anybody else notice?

At approximately 5:00 PM today on FTV (民視新聞), a reporter who was telling viewers about what former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was eating today (Is this "news"?) was wearing a cap bearing the logo for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Can you say "WTF?!"?

What came to mind right away was the September 16, 2006 incident in which an FTV cameraman got into a scuffle with the crowd at a rally to support Chen Shui-bian. The reason for the scuffle was that the cameraman had a "Depose [Chen]" (倒扁) sticker on his camera and was wearing a red jacket (the color worn by the anti-Chen demonstrators [紅衫軍] led by Shih Ming-teh [施明德]).

Are you paying attention?

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Flashing lights: Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, FTV, 民視新聞, redshirts, 紅衫軍

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: FTV, media, redshirts, Taiwan, 台灣, 媒體, 民視新聞, 紅衫軍

Cut to the chase
In yet another idiotic interpellation, Lee son-of-a-former-premier Ching-hua (李慶華) repeated another version of the same stupid question that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) zealots have been asking their DPP opponents for ages. This time, Presidential Office Secretary-General Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) gave him a direct answer. Tuesday's Taipei Times has the details:

KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) asked what National Day the Presidential Office will be celebrating tomorrow after the office refused to put up placards saying "Celebration of the Republic of China's National Day" as it has in the past.

Yeh said the office will celebrate the National Day of the Republic of China, but added that the republic includes only the land inhabited by the 23 million Taiwanese -- and not Outer Mongolia and China as claimed by the former KMT regime.

Why can't others (cough, Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九], cough) be as direct? Yes, the ROC (the current PRC + Tibet + Outer Mongolia) doesn't exist anymore, but some people nevertheless like to celebrate the birthdays of those who left us long ago. And yes, October 10 is the "birthday" of the ROC, but that was a foreign country whose territory had never included Taiwan. (More on that below.)

I'm not 100% pleased with Yeh's answer, but at least she didn't hem and haw and duck and dodge.

Anyway, be prepared for lots of foolishness that will most likely occur during Wednesday mornings activities and will most likely include Lee Ching-hua and the faux "non-partisan" Shih Ming-teh (施明德). (See James Soong [宋楚瑜] in the center of the Taiwan Matters! header for another example of foolishness.)

Abbie... something
An article by author Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) on the editorial page of Tuesday's Taipei Times helps readers try to make sense of this confusing mess:

The ROC that originally did not include Taiwan collapsed in late 1949 as the result of the communist revolution. Its exile government escaped to Taiwan, a place which didn't even participate in the founding of the country but was now commandeered as ROC territory. It's not very strange that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) said in a meeting in his Yangming Villa on March 13, 1950, that: "Late last year, the Republic of China perished as a result of the degeneration of the Mainland, and today we are the people of a perished nation."

The situation that arises when a country that no longer exists brings its national title, flag, constitution and system to use in a place that wasn't even part of the founding of that state is abnormal, regardless of whether we ar talking about Taiwan or the Republic of China. This is also the reason the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been discussing its "normal country" resolution.

Commenting on the resolution, however, KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that, "I don't think there's anything abnormal about the Republic of China."

But there aren't too many perished states around that have brought their national title, flag, constitution and system to a place that wasn't even part of the state's founding. So if you say there's nothing abnormal about that, then you are probably the one that is a bit abnormal.

That's already a good portion of the original, but I highly recommend reading the whole article.

RELATED LINKS:
* Fellow blogger Michael Turton quotes an overlapping section of the Lee Hsiao-feng article above in a post on The View from Taiwan about the contorted logic in a South China Morning Post article.
* Read the original Mandarin version of Lee Hsiao-feng's article.
* Tuesday's China Post quotes Yeh slightly differently in an article that gives a completely opposite version of what is planned for tomorrow by the redshirts. It also contains something which seems to be simultaneously a lie and a stunning admission:

[P]articipants in the celebration in the Presidential Plaza tomorrow should not carry large backpacks, clubs, knives, megaphones, balloons, zoom lens cameras, umbrellas, or placards, flyers and banners unrelated to the Double Ten celebration.

These items are banned because they were used by the 'Red shirts' who [...] laid siege to the Presidential Plaza on last year's National Day [...]

* Tuesday's Liberty Times has the Mandarin version of what Yeh said, but with a different focus.
* An essay by pro-democracy writer Jerome F. Keating, PhD on how the US' appeasement of China has led to the current situation here was reprinted in Monday's Taipei Times. Go read it.

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Monikers: Taiwan, 台灣, Republic of China, 中華民國, ROC, Yeh Chu-lan, 葉菊蘭, Lee Ching-hua, 李慶華, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, redshirts, 紅衫軍

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Lee Ching-hua, redshirts, Republic of China, ROC, Shih Ming-teh, Taiwan, Yeh Chu-lan, 中華民國, 台灣, 施明德, 李慶華, 紅衫軍, 葉菊蘭

Will their red shirts be exchanged for striped ones?

Shih Ming-teh (施明德) -- the leader of last year's redshirt mobs (紅衫軍) which claimed to oppose corruption (反貪腐) and not distinguish between blue and green (不分藍綠) -- and 15 of those participating in his failed attempt to "depose" the democratically-elected president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), were indicted yesterday. Saturday's Taipei Times has the details, including this list of Shih's partners in crime:

Among those indicted with Shih were Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春), People First Party Legislator Shen Chih-hwei (沈智慧), former KMT legislator and Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs Director Lee Yong-ping (李永萍), Taipei City Research & Development Evaluation Commission Emile Sheng (盛治仁) and New Party Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新).

Nine others were named in the indictment: Chien Hsi-chieh, Liu Kun-li (劉坤鱧), Chang Fu-chung (張富忠), Jerry Fan (范可欽), Wang Li-ping (王麗萍), Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), former New Party legislator Cheng Lung-shui (鄭龍水), former Chinese Unity Promotion Party chairman Lin Cheng-chieh (林正杰), Chinese Culture University professor Yao Li-ming (姚立明) and lawyer John Wei (魏千峰).

If found guilty, the defendants could be sentenced to a maximum of two years imprisonment.

Why this story was on page 3 instead of Saturday's front page is anybody's guess.

The charges are related to the Double Ten "besieging" of the Presidential Office by Shih's mobs, which included the most partisan of partisans that only a fool would believe was neutral. (Cough, Emile Sheng, cough!)

Meanwhile, over NT$20,000,000 that was donated to Shih's "anti-corruption" campaign is still unaccounted for. Things that make ya go "Hmmm."

Others' takes
A-gu (阿牛) at That's Impossible makes a couple of important points:

The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office wrapped up the preliminary investigation yesterday. The Executive is not directly involved. The prosecutor in this case said Shih knew he was acting illegally and had no regrets, an important reason he pressed charges.

Meanwhile, since it was then KMT chairman and Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] who violated all precedent and allowed these people their month long, 24 hour-a-day rally in the first place, some DPP people said Ma owes an apology (to the city? to Shih? I'm not sure). Using rhetoric that you may hear on a playground, Ma's response was that A-bian should say he's sorry since the whole parade was a result of A-bian's (unproven) corruption. Ma added that the KMT had already brought a bill to alter the Assembly and Parade Law, a decision made soon after Ma became chairman.

Ah, yes! What about the already-indicted, Hong Kong-born former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman's involvement? After all, while shedding crocodile tears about the responsibility being unfairly placed on his shoulders, he was out feeding the mobs bread and soymilk paid for with KMT money and even sharing the stage with Shih.

A-gu has even more links, so be sure to click on over to read his full post.

Fellow Taiwan Matters blogger Michael Turton relates by e-mail that he hopes Shih isn't turned into a martyr because of this. I agree with his sentiments 100%, but we all know the pan-blue media will do so anyway. Michael also says he should have a post on the subject up sometime on Sunday. [UPDATE: Michael's post is up.]

Remembering recent history
Here are some real-time posts related to the aforementioned events:

* September 13, 2006: BBC angers all who care about Taiwan
  - I slam the BBC for their biased "reporting" of Shih's mobs.

* September 16, 2006: Non-partisan protesters?
  - Michael Turton photographs some of the "non-partisan" mob meeting at a KMT landmark. Coincidence?

* September 16, 2006: Circling the Presidential Office
  - Friend from Across the Strait gives us his view via the Hong Kong media. On a recent visit to the US, a Hong Kong-born restaurant owner with whom I engaged in political conversation blindly echoed everything the HK media had told her.

* September 16, 2006: Will Chen Resign?
  - Michael Turton rhetorically asks the question from the title and blasts the foreign media's failure to present facts by which the average reader could begin to understand the situation.

* September 27, 2006: The Economist Misses a Chance
  - Michael Turton smacks down The Economist for their deceipt.

* September 27, 2006: Pan-blue hypocrisy just keeps rolling on
  - In that day's Taipei Times, Jerome F. Keating (linked in Michael's post above) takes on the baldfaced lies of Shih's campaign.

* October 9, 2006: On the Eve
  - On the eve of the Double Ten mob activities, Michael continues to inject a healthy dose of facts into the fabrication-filled "discourse" via which the foreign media has been poisoning the public.

* October 12, 2006: Voters of Taipei: recall Ma Ying-jeou
  - I point my middle finger in Ma Ying-jeou's direction for his wishy-washy stance on when the law needs to be enforced and tell him to "take some responsibility."

* October 13, 2006: Requiem for the Red Shirts
  - Feiren recaps the China Times' strategic step back from their earlier provocations (more info in the January 5, 2007 post linked below) in the aftermath of the Double Ten fiasco.

* October 26, 2006: Bloomberg Blue Bias
  - STOP_Ma guest blogs about Bloomberg stenographer James Peng's exaggeration of the number of participants in Shih's mobs and other biases.

* November 2, 2006: Guest Blogging: Jerome Keating on Shih Ming-deh
  - Jerome examines whether Shih is a "Hypocrite, Maudlin, Schizophrenic, or a Pawn in Search of Redemption."

* November 4, 2006: First Family Indictment Extravabonanza!
  - Jason points out Shih's hints for the military to become involved as well as his mendacious claims of "success."

* December 30, 2006: Enemies of Press Freedom
  - Feiren tells of the China Times' smearing of the rational opponents of Shih's mobs.

* January 5, 2007: KMT's China Times Connection
  - Feiren reminds readers of China Times editor/Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) propaganda minister Yang Tu's (楊渡) transparently-veiled call to violence.

Note that most of the posts linked above contain numerous links within. Check a few of them out if you need to refresh your memory.

What would you do?
In light of these indictments, my greatest concern is that this is using the wrong approach. I'm sure there are many other laws that could be more appropriately applied to this case. There was lots of violence involved (including violence against police who didn't assist with their illegal behavior [original version]), public airwaves were used to communicate directives to the mobs, tens of millions of dollars of cash were collected and remain out of sight, and more.

What are your thoughts? Reply in comments [at Taiwan Matters], or send us an e-mail via the address listed in the sidebar.

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Portents of future passed: Taiwan, 台灣, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, redshirts, 紅衫軍, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Ma Ying-jeou, redshirts, Shih Ming-teh, Taiwan, 台灣, 施明德, 紅衫軍, 馬英九