Ethnically-divisive paper lacks mirrors, points fingers at others

An editorial in the Thursday, May 21, 2009 edition of the logically-, geographically-, and factually-challenged China Post demonstrates once again how fucked up they are.


This is the only way to understand what is written within
(Click to enlarge)
Here are some excerpts from that editorial [the blockquoted sections below] followed by my commentary [the non-blockquoted sections]:

[p. 1]

[...]

The Blue Camp's Chinese nationalism may be bad nationalism. But the Green Camp's "Taiwanese" nationalism is a far worse nationalism.

Chinese nationalism, to its credit, was purely defensive in nature. It was a defensive reaction to western and Japanese colonialism and imperialism, specifically Britain's two Opium Wars, and Japan's relentless attempts at territorial conquest.

The editors have already set up a double standard regarding nationalism: "Chinese may be bad. No! Chinese, good! Taiwanese, bad. Very bad!"

They also ignore the "colonialism and imperialism" exhibited by Chinese towards Taiwan. But saying so would justify the Taiwanese fighting back against the behavior of the colonialists on their own side.

Let's continue on the next page of idiocy.

[p. 2]

Chinese nationalism, to its credit, is also highly inclusive. Minorities, providing they do not agitate for political secession, have been treated comparatively well by both the KMT and CCP governments.

[...]

Sure, Chinese nationalism is "inclusive" -- it tells us that everyone is "Chinese" (as long as they want to make you part of their empire) and that all others are "barbarians."

But the China Post can't explain why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) forbade speaking Taiwanese in school and on TV or why they're doing it again. In fact, the editors won't even mention it. That would knock their own argument down, and it might remind people that there are indeed Taiwanese in Taiwan.

Furthermore, you'd better not disagree with these "superior" Chinese (on either side of the Strait), or they'll kill a whole bunch of you like they've done in Taiwan and Tibet.

Let's get back to the total nonsense.

In real world practice, Green Camp "Taiwanese" nationalists are seemingly eager tools of U.S. hegemony and Japanese colonialism.

Is the U.S. trying to absorb Taiwan? Didn't the Japanese sign treaties regarding Taiwan, and aren't they sticking to those treaties? Also, isn't Japan friendly to Taiwan now?

And the repeated use of the word "colonialism" shows just how un-self-aware the editors of the China Post are.

Back to the logically-challenged editorial.

Paradoxically, the Green Camp's "Taiwanese" nationalism is also among the more virulent forms of nationalism, one that places an inordinate stress on ethnic identity.

This is exactly the opposite of the reality. The greens place no emphasis on "ethnic" identity. Anybody who identifies with Taiwan or the cause of protecting Taiwan are welcomed by our side. Have the editors ever heard of these people: Ruan Ming (阮名), Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), Robin Dale (羅賓漢), Lynn Miles (梅心怡), Linda Arrigo (艾琳達), the 26 foreign scholars and writers who wrote to President Ma, etc.? I bet they have. Do they want you just to forget? Supporting Taiwan has nothing to do with "ethnic" identity -- it's entirely political. It's about identifying with Taiwan as one's home, whether you were born here or are an immigrant like myself.

The most ethnically divisive people you can find -- for example, Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) and Hsing-yun (星雲) -- are KMT officials and supporters.

And if the word "virulent" reminds you of the way Nazis portrayed the Jews, get ready for the nastiest, most ironic bit in the piece.

Joyce Huang, a prominent Taiwanese liberal reformer, is an outspoken critic of KMT authoritarianism and "Taiwanese" nationalism. Huang accurately characterized the Green Camp's "Taiwanese" nationalism as "Hoklo Chauvinism" or "Hoklo Fascism." She compared "Taiwanese" nationalism to German Nazism.

The problems within that paragraph are myriad -- not being limited only to the mendacious Nazi comparisons and to the scare quotes on the word "Taiwanese," once again pretending that Taiwanese don't exist.

The China Post is totally obfuscating Joyce Huang's (黃智賢, Huang Chi-hsien) actual political position.

Joyce Huang is outspoken all right, but in sharp contrast to her estranged brother, DPP legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃智賢), Joyce Huang cannot be described by a truthful person as "neither blue nor green" (不分藍綠).

She is deep-blue, and you might find her being "outspoken" on the 100% Chinese-funded TVBS (AKA BS-TV) smear-fest "2100全民開講" ("Let's All Talk Bullshit"?).

A blast from the not-so-distant past
You might remember people like Emile Sheng (盛治仁), whom the media painted as a "neutral observer" during the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Sheng somehow ended up with a job as chairman of the Taipei Deaflympics Organizing Committee under the administration of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

By painting Huang as "neither blue nor green" ("Look! An outspoken critic of KMT authoritarianism!"), the China Post is doing the same thing the media did with Sheng.

But don't you believe their bullshit for even one minute! Open your eyes and be clear about these "tools of authoritarianism."


"Ma Ying-jeou course on political terminology"
An editorial cartoon from the April 16, 2004 edition of the Taipei Times
FURTHER READING:
* See how the kids' paper, the Mandarin Daily News (國語日報) is inflating Ma Ying-jeou's image for the kiddies the way students of my wife's generation were forcefed bullshit about the murderous dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) being the "greatest man in the world." The article there is titled 「陽光健康的台灣總統馬英九」 ("Sunny [as in 'positive'], healthy Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou"). Interesting how they don't let the kids know that when Ma says one thing, it's a pretty good idea to doubt his sincerity. Here's a semi-English-y Google translation for those who need it.

* Here's a blog post which reprints the original article (including pictures) and another English-y Google translation.

* Another mirror of the article can be found at NewsRumble -- just in case.

---

Hammers and nails: Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Joyce Huang, 黃智賢, Huang Chi-hsien, ethnic divisiveness, 族群分裂

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, ethnic divisiveness, Huang Chi-hsien, Joyce Huang, media, Taiwan, 台灣, 媒體, 族群分裂, 英文中國郵報, 黃智賢

An amazing success -- except for the two guys that a cop put in the hospital and the black-shirted instigator in Kaohsiung who provoked a reaction (before crying like a stuck pig when he got what was coming to him and returning to Taipei today for more of the same)

I was there at the Taipei protest, but since I'm getting to this a bit late, I'll mostly just provide some relevant links.

But first, here's a photo I took on Ketagalan Boulevard (凱達格蘭大道):


The crowd on Ketagalan Blvd. #4
(Click to enlarge)
* The DPP says that 600,000 attended in Taipei (along with another 200,000 in Kaohsiung), but Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) puts the Taipei number at a mere 40,000. Doesn't he wish?!

* I shot some video at the 517 protest. This one shows a small portion of the crowd. The question isn't "Is Hau Lung-bin lying?" It's "How big of a liar is he?" Read the full desciption on its YouTube page for more info.


1:04 YouTube video: "517 raw video - Walking past NTU Hospital"

* An Associated Press piece by Annie Huang (unfortunately repeated without editing by the Taiwan News and expectedly by the China Post) not only refers to "Tens of thousands" of attendees, it inexplicably repeats the big, fucking lie that "China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949." Can you say "zombie lies"?

* J. Michael Cole does an even more thorough takedown of the mess of lies within that piece.

* The regularly-mendacious China Post still diminishes the number of attendees, saying there were "200,000."

* David Reid blogs that DPP reclaims the streets, reminding readers about the DPP's new English-language blog which regular readers of this blog or David's should go see.

* Speaking of which, here's the DPP International photostream on Flickr and their English translation of chairperson Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) speech at the rally.

* David Reid's photos from the 517 protest as well as from the DPP's 24-hour sit-in also appear on the "citizen-journalism website and photo agency" Demotix.

* Michael Turton was in Taipei, too, and he calls the protest a "roaring success." He includes lots of photos, as you'd expect. But I disagree with one thing he says. I saw plenty of young people at this protest.

* A post on SocialForce.net (媒抗) leads to live streams of FTV and SET news coverage -- very useful for those outside of Taiwan (or even just without cable TV) who want to keep up with things.

* My Flickr photostream of images from the 517 protest begins behind the link.

* Luby Liao sent a link to a photo gallery.

* More images from the 517 嗆馬大遊行 and DPP and Free Taiwan Flickr groups. Some of my own photos are in those three groups.

* The Taiwanese Identity blog has a short post with photos on a specific theme: The Clarity of Taiwan's Identity.

* A 21-year-old police officer, said to have been driving 80 to 90 km/hr. in an area with many protesters, smashed his police car into two men in their sixties, injuring one severely and smashing half of the windshield on his vehicle. Last I heard was that he may have to have a foot or leg amputated and then cranial surgery.

* Talking Show (大話新聞), whose weekend time slots had been canceled since December 2008, had a special broadcast Sunday night covering topics such as the media's lies and the "accident" involving the police car.

That's all I've got.

---

Addends: Taiwan, 台灣, protest, 抗議, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, media, 媒體, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Taiwan News, 台灣英文新聞, YouTube, photos, 相片

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, Ma Ying-jeou, media, photos, protest, Taiwan, Taiwan News, YouTube, 台灣, 台灣英文新聞, 媒體, 抗議, 相片, 英文中國郵報, 馬英九

Dueling headlines

Note the headline of a front-page article in today's Taipei Times:

DPP chief slams cross-strait talks as failure

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that Sunday's round of cross-strait talks were a failure that made concessions on sovereignty but did not help Taiwanese businesses.

Tsai said the failure of the talks was inevitable given President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) "mindset."

She said the Ma government made four mistakes: It made concessions on sovereignty before the talks; it relied too much on China's goodwill and the Chinese economy; it avoided consultation with or supervision from the legislature and opposition parties; and it had no way of ensuring that national security officials and the government's negotiators had no conflict of interest.

Tsai said Ma had made a comment supporting Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) speech marking the 30th anniversary of Beijing's "open letter to Taiwanese compatriots," which highlighted the "one China" principle, and which was a concession on sovereignty.

The government also gave up negotiations on the "fifth freedom of the air," essentially implying that cross-strait flights are domestic flights, she said.

Compare that with the front-page headline of yesterday's China Post


I don't think that "success" means the same thing
to the China Post that it does to others
(Click to enlarge)

SUCCESS IN NANJING

[...]

P.K. Chiang, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), signed the agreements on financial cooperation, regular flights across the Taiwan Strait, and joint efforts to fight crime with his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin at the former capital of the Republic of China in the afternoon. Chen, chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), spoke before the signing, pledging more foreign direct investment in Taiwan and welcoming Taiwan entrepreneurs to invest in China.

SEF and ARATS are quasi-governmental organizations charged with the conduct of relations between the two sides of the strait.

They met for the third time since President Ma Ying-jeou was inaugurated in May of last year, easing the tensions across the strait, while his predecessor Chen Shui-bian carried on his policy of creeping independence for Taiwan.

The China Post, you may notice, does one decent thing by putting P.K. Chiang and Chen Yunlin on equal footing. On the other hand, however, they both ignore the real problems pointed out by Tsai Ing-wen, and they conjure up imaginary ones such as "creeping independence."

Home field advantage
Considering that this took place in the old ROC capital -- on China's turf -- where official Chinese media referred to Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) as "President" of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) while Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤, AKA P.K. Chiang) was called the "Chairman" of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) (hardly on "equal footing"), I'd agree with both headlines. It's "success" for those on China's side but yet another failure for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in their dealings with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Debase? How low can you go?
For the DPP, it's obvious that they wouldn't budge on whatever the status quo was at the time and that they'd never give an inch when it came to Taiwan's sovereignty. However, what I see for the KMT's own "bottom line" is that they have no bottom line.

Fool me once, shame on you. But the shameless KMT will let the CCP fool them as many times as it takes for Taiwan to be annexed.

---

Kneel-son ratings: Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chiang Pin-kung, 江丙坤, P.K. Chiang, Straits Exchange Foundation, 海峽交流基金會, Chen Yunlin, 陳雲林>, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, 海峽兩岸關係協會, Chinese Communist Party, 中國共產黨, China Post, 英文中國郵報

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chen Yunlin, Chiang Pin-kung, China Post, Chinese Communist Party, KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, 中國共產黨, 台灣, 國民黨, 江丙坤, 英文中國郵報, 陳雲林, 馬英九

It's no fun bein' an illegal alien

This story about Chinese tourists being sent back to China yesterday because they didn't have proper permits to enter Taiwan wouldn't have been so special if it hadn't been for the two groups of Chinese tourists without entry permits that were allowed entry last week.

A serious question to ask is how the hell any of these people were even allowed to board planes headed for Taiwan. Could it be yet another "test" of how far the Chinese can go in treating Taiwan as "domestic"?

Second thread
What do you think the cover story was on the two pro-blue newspapers I saw today? Take a look at what had no business being headlines:

* China Post: What's wrong with Wang?

* United Daily News (聯合報): 建仔3連敗 恐跳過先發
[Maddog translation: Wang Chien-ming loses 3 in a row, afraid he'll be benched]


What does UDN want to distract you with today?
(Click to enlarge)

Well, at least they weren't writing about their favorite subject, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

---

Entrenched entendres: Taiwan, 台灣, deep thoughts, 深思, United Daily News, 聯合報, UDN, China Post, 英文中國郵報

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, deep thoughts, Taiwan, UDN, United Daily News, 台灣, 深思, 聯合報, 英文中國郵報

Not good enough for a dime store

Before I get to a recent example of deception found in the China Post, I should inform readers of the truth -- something which even that very paper reported back on July 7, 2004:

"Since I neither rigged the vote nor faked the shooting, I am not afraid of independent probes into the shooting, just as I did not fear a vote recount," Chen [former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁)] said.

Exactly.

But before you get the wrong idea about the China Post's journalistic integrity, I should also point out some questionable content from the same article:

Chen was reelected on the following day, thanks to sympathy votes, with a paper-thin margin of 0.2 percent.

[...]

According to the police report, the suspect bore a personal grudge against Chen as he could not sell his apartment because of the economic downturn Chen induced during his term in office. [Maddog note: With the economy being what it is during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) first term, how can they even bring this up?] A New York Times reporter described the police report as one ounce found in a dime store novel. [Maddog note: That would be Keith Bradsher.]

A big chunk of that section is not fact-based. (Note how the China Post mangles the already-melodramatic Bradsher quote as well, which originally said that police were "Spinning the sort of story once found in dime store novels...")

But let's focus once again on the part of the article which quoted Chen saying in 2004 that he was "not afraid of independent probes into the shooting." I would like to ask readers to contrast that quote with this deceptive nonsense from the Friday, March 20, 2009 edition of the same paper:

Former President Chen Shui-bian, who was vehemently opposed to the investigation into the mystery-shrouded shooting in Tainan five years ago yesterday, now wishes that a new probe would be launched to find out the truth.

Do the editors at the China Post not read their own paper?

Or do they merely hope the public will rely on them to accurately provide such details instead of looking these details up themselves?

More of what they're not telling you
The China Post only hints at what Chen actually opposed -- the unconstitutional, pan-blue-dominated "319 Truth Commission" (319 槍擊事件真相調查特別委員會) (MORE: 1, 2, 3). The China Post also won't tell readers that now-Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) once told a reporter that the commission didn't have the money to come up with any evidence (yet the commission drew assumption-based conclusions anyway).

To get an even clearer picture of where the China Post takes its cues from, note how the 2005 article repeats that zombie lie about "sympathy votes." Here's a sentence from the KMT produced propaganda pamphlet known as "Bulletgate" (子彈門):

The mysterious shots caused a groundswell of sympathy votes for the pan-green ticket.

Can you spot the source of this so-called "mystery"? I knew that you could.

---

Shrouds of mystery: Taiwan, 台灣, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, Bulletgate, 子彈門, propaganda, 宣傳

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Bulletgate, China Post, Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT, Kuomintang, propaganda, Taiwan, 中國國民黨, 台灣, 國民黨, 子彈門, 宣傳, 英文中國郵報

Presidency in limbo

According to a recent survey by the very pro-blue Global Views Magazine (遠見雜誌), Taiwan's president I-don't-mind-if-you-call-me-"Mr." Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is faring even worse than George W. Bush with an approval rating of 24.9 percent. That's quite an "accomplishment" having been in office for only four months!

I don't have a direct link to the Global Views survey [UPDATE: Here's the link (560KB PDF file) /UPDATE], but here are the headlines of some Chinese-language news stories reporting the results [translations mine]:

* 遠見民調／從政以來最低民調　馬英九施政滿意度僅24.9% (via NOWnews, which is part of the pro-blue ETTV)
Global Views survey / Lowest rating since taking office, Ma Ying-jeou administration approval rating only 24.9%

* 從政以來最低 馬英九民望僅24.9% (via Apple Action News, a division of the dubiously-motivated Apple Daily)
Lowest since taking office, only 24.9% have hope for Ma Ying-jeou

* 馬上任四月施政滿意度僅24.9% (via Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao [大公報], regarded by some as a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party)
Ma in office four months, administration's approval rating only 24.9%

* 民調：馬英九獲從政來最差評價 64.5%民眾不滿意 (via China's official government "press agency," Xinhua [新华通讯社])
Survey: Ma Ying-jeou gets worst survey result since taking office, 64.5% of the people are dissatisfied

* 台刊民调：马英九上任4月施政满意度仅为24.9%
(via another Chinese government "agency" [read: mouthpiece], China News Service [中國新聞網 or 中新网])
Survey in Taiwan periodical: In office 4 months, approval rating of Ma Ying-jeou administration only 24.9%

Gee, I wonder how that could have happened...
This is clearly the result of Ma and his administration's damaging of Taiwan's sovereignty, their inability to live up to any of Ma's campaign promises, their mishandling of more than one typhoon, their slow, nonchalant, and inadequate reaction to the discovery of food products from China which contained potentially-fatal melamine, and their total failure to take responsibility for their own words and actions/inaction.

We're gonna get you, suckas!
Instead of responding to the opposition's reality-based attacks for all these things by changing tack, forming a new cabinet, or engaging in any introspection, they have decided instead to form a "counterattack squad." I wish I was kidding, but see for yourselves [translations mine]:

* 拒絕挨打 藍組反擊部隊 (via the pro-blue United Daily News [聯合報])
Refusing to take a beating, blues form counterattack squad

* 拒絕挨打、導正視聽　藍組“反擊部隊” (via the HK-based China Review News [中國評論新聞網])
Refusing to take a beating, countering the rumors, blues form "counterattack squad"

What they're saying is that they didn't do anything to cause such bad survey results and that it's all because the opposition -- meaning the DPP -- is spreading "rumors."

A brief history of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) "counterattacks"
For greater context, check out this nonsense from one year ago, from a source that could easily be called "an outlet for KMT propaganda" itself:

* Kuomintang tries counterattack on 'underground' radio stations (via the pro-unification China Post)

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The opposition Kuomintang, convinced that it lost the last presidential election in 2004 because of a rumor spread by underground radio stations, is launching a counterattack.

Wu Dun-yih, secretary-general of the Kuomintang, confirmed yesterday his party is asking "licensed" radio stations to air its propaganda.

And here's another more recent display of how the kind of propaganda they're talking about works:

Executives at supermarkets and wholesale stores said that some international food and beverage giants used to enjoy brisk sales here.

But their milk powder made in China under contract has now suffered steep drops, although they vouch for the quality and safety of their products.

Bakeries in Taipei said sales of their products have also become victims of the negative publicity about the tainted milk powder.

The bakeries using Chinese milk powder are the victims -- but not the consumers who may have unknowingly ingested a toxic chemical? The "negative publicity" is the problem -- not the fact that this toxic chemical made its way into Taiwan's food supply?

This propaganda portrays the situation as if it hadn't yet been determined whether or not this melamine problem even existed. It treats it as if all of the potentially-toxic products -- containing some of the 25 metric tons (at least) of milk powder and other affected products which are known to have been imported into Taiwan -- had already been tested thoroughly and deemed safe. And it makes it sound as if the customers were being "unreasonable" when they had a valid reason to be concerned about their safety.

Is KMT-led Taipei totally free of melamine-tainted food, as the article implies? With the amount that made it into the country, I think that remains to be seen.

I am concerned... for the people of Taiwan
Not that I have even half an iota of concern about what Ma could do to boost his ratings, but it's certainly not impossible for him to do so. I won't hold my breath waiting for him to make that happen, but unless there's some serious change, I can only imagine Ma's ratings plunging even further -- and not because of any so-called "rumors."

苦民所苦
Here's a recent photo of Ma feeling somebody's pain -- most likely his own:

... and doing so while wearing a cap that says "ARG"! (out of view)
Ma's expression is the result of being scolded by a local official
-- from his own party! --
during a visit to Nantou several days after Typhoon Sinlaku had devastated the area.
(via the NOWnews article linked above)
Opposition rumors, my ass!

FURTHER READING (Lest we forget):
* Melamine was the chemical contaminant that was found in pet food produced in China in early 2007 and which "killed or sickened thousands of animals." Has anything changed?

* Pet Food Recall (Melamine)/Tainted Animal Feed

On March 15, 2007, FDA learned that certain pet foods were sickening and killing cats and dogs. FDA found contaminants in vegetable proteins imported into the United States from China and used as ingredients in pet food.

* Melamine in pet food may not be accidental

A nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastic and sometimes as a fertilizer may have been deliberately added to an ingredient in pet food that has sickened and killed cats and dogs across the country, public and private officials say. A leading theory is that it was added to fake higher protein levels.

[...]

[...] "That melamine was found in all three of those, it would certainly lend credibility to the theory that this was intentional." [Stephen Sundlof, FDA chief veterinarian]

* Wikipedia: 2008 baby milk scandal

* Wikipedia: Food safety incidents in the People's Republic of China

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Baselines: Taiwan, 台灣, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, I feel the people's pain, 苦民所苦, survey, 民調, Wu Den-yi, 吳敦義, propaganda, 宣傳, China Post, 英文中國郵報, People's Republic of China, 中華人民共和國, Xinhua, 新華, melamine, 三聚氰胺

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China, China Post, Ma Ying-jeou, melamine, propaganda, survey, Taiwan, Wu Den-yi, Xinhua, 三聚氰胺, 中國, 台灣, 吳敦義, 宣傳, 新華, 民調, 英文中國郵報, 馬英九

Starring Joe Hung as "Ah-Q"

Joe Hung in the December 31, 2007 China Post:

No one wants to chicken out, but chickening out at the right time may be a blessing in disguise. By chickening out, as a matter of fact, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) won a game of niramekko with the Central Election Commission (CEC), a government agency under the Executive Yuan responsible for holding and supervising elections, national and local, as well as referendums.

Whatever, Joe!

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Paradoxical oxymorons: Taiwan, 台灣, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Joe Hung, 洪健昭, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, Chinese Nationalist Party, Joe Hung, KMT, Kuomintang, Taiwan, 中國國民黨, 台灣, 國民黨, 洪健昭, 英文中國郵報

Doin' my bes' to round up the mess

I have had neither the time nor the energy to write a post with as many links as I'd like, so bear with me as I round up some recent events that are on my mind and add comments before they get drowned out by newer events. I hope to add more links as I find them.

Who "raised the specter" of "martial law"?
On November 22, 2007, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Kuo Su-chun (郭素春), spouting nonsense in her usual style, said that Taiwan's democratically-elected president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) would use the 18 pan-blue-led counties' refusal to follow the Central Election Commission's single-step ballot distribution procedure as an excuse to "declare martial law." Talking Show (大話新聞) subsequently discussed whether Chen would use it or not. Days later, Chen said that people had made several suggestions about how to deal with the situation and that he would examine all possibilities.

Then came the veritable torrent of BS.

All of the "news" media in Taiwan, including the Taipei Times, twisted Chen's words to make it look like Chen had threatened to impose martial law when he had done no such thing. The English-language China Post had it on their front page -- surprisingly with a less sensational headline than the Taipei Times.

Subsequent to the fallacious reports, President Chen reassured the public that he would not declare martial law (WMV files; see the beginning of Part 5), but by that time, the distortion machine had done the dastardly deed, and far too many felt that they were obligated to admonish Chen -- all for something he hadn't done.

Rule Number 1: Remember the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," and if the allegation looks as implausible as this one did, go with your instincts, and don't repeat the accusation until you see the evidence with your own eyes, hear it with your own ears, and feel it with your own fingers. And even then, you might want to think twice.

Don't put one iota of trust in the KMT
The KMT recently aired a mostly black-and-white commercial featuring several people who expressed extreme disgust with the DPP government. The people in the commercial were portrayed as being "poor average citizens," but if you remember Rule Number 1 above, you would have had the same suspicions as I did: that none of these people was "an average Chou." The ad ends with the incredibly ironic warning: "Don't trust the DPP."

It didn't take long for my suspicions to be verified. As of November 5, 2007, it has been discovered that at least five of the people appearing in the 30-second commercial are, in fact, KMT workers. While some of them do indeed do the jobs they claim in the commercial to do, at least one who portrayed himself as a low-salaried employee (侯先生, or Mr. Hou) was discovered to be the boss. Breakfast-store owner Fang Hua-hsiung (方華雄 ) claimed he would "go broke and die," yet his business was bustling. Another of the commercial's crybabies who worried about "not being able to survive" is still driving his Benz seven years into a DPP presidency. The humanity!

Rule Number 2: When somebody with a Benz cries about "not being able to survive," what they mean is that even if everybody in Taiwan could have a free mid-price-range vehicle, he'd still cry about it for as long as there was a DPP president.

Proposed 228 law
A bill seeking justice for the infamous "228 Massacre" of 1947 that was brought up by the DPP several months ago and subsequently squashed by the opposition was suddenly front-page news a few days ago. The headlines practically screeched that the DPP sought to hold even distant relatives of those accused of crimes related to 228 to be held accountable for the crimes if the accused was deceased (or perhaps even if not). Again, even the Taipei Times did the wrong thing with this one.

Refer to Rule Number 1 again. What those front-page headlines said was the exact opposite of the truth.

The bill was written with a spirit of reconciliation in mind (something the KMT seems to know nothing about), and gave these relatives the right to defend the names of their relatives. I'm not sure if it requested their assistance in bringing facts to light, but it most certainly did not seek to punish them.

He's not a cop, but he played one on TV
Just two days ago (Dec. 5), a young man wearing a fake police uniform wa grabbed by authentic police during protests outside of the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall by people opposed to the removal of the 大中至正 inscription at the entrance to the plaza. As he was being moved by the police, the faker screeched in a manner similar to the actors in the 這個不是肯得雞 ("This isn't KFC!") commercials [KFC1, KFC2, KFC3] that he "didn't know" (something). A reporter who was befuddled by the overreaction asked if he was drunk, and he replied with something that was bleeped when aired on the news. However, the reporting -- even by FTV -- highlighted one police officer who was seen briefly pulling the suspect's hair as that officer and several of his colleagues attempted to remove the suspect from the scene. That was certainly not good behavior on the cop's part, but the crying seemed rather disproportionate.

And, as usual, there's more to the story than meets the eye at first glance.

Tests showed that the suspect was indeed drunk. Oh, and his father, Lee Yung-ran (李永然) (variously written as Lee Yung-jan and Y.R. Lee), is a lawyer employed by the KMT.

(I hope it's only "attempted-")
Murder or manslaughter
On Thursday, Peng Sheng-lu (彭盛露), the driver of a mid-sized blue truck (Taiwan-style pickup) rammed his vehicle into several media workers shooting video near a campaign truck belonging to the pan-green Taiwan Independence Party (TIP, 建國黨). The truck ran completely over an ETTV cameraman (UPDATE: His name is Wang Jui-chang [王瑞璋]), leaving a messy trail of blood and injuring the man very seriously. Police quickly extracted the driver, and people at the scene used their bare hands to turn the vehicle on its side and get the victim out.

What do you think the driver said when the cameras were focused on him and the police had him firmly in their grip? "I didn't mean it!" Reviewing video footage of the event, it appears that he did it on purpose. Oh, and he turns out to have been an employee of Mei Feng (梅峰), who styles himself a candidate for the "China legislature" in the upcoming election. And ETTV anchor Lu Hsiu-fang (盧秀芳) (sister of KMT legislator Lu Hsiu-yan [盧秀燕] and daughter-in-law of former vice-premier Hsu Li-teh [徐立德]) editorialized in her newscast that it was all the DPP's fault. SET reported late Thursday night that it looked like the suspect would be charged with attempted murder. For the sake of the cameraman, let's hope that charge doesn't become something even worse, but if it does (hell, even if it doesn't), let's hope they prosecute aggressively but not excessively.

The KMT school of violent crybabies
There is actually a school that teaches the following typical pan-blue behaviors: 1) Make shit up and/or do something violent; 2) If caught red-handed, squeal loudly like a stuck pig and say you didn't know/you didn't mean it/you're being abused/that it's martial law all over again/that the DPP is fomenting ethnic hatred; 3) Sit back, and let the pan-blue media do the rest; 4) If things go really badly, and you somehow end up being sentenced to hard time, somebody will arrange for you to escape and flee to China, where your red-handed deeds will be considered heroic.

I've seen this school with my own eyes, and so can you. All you have to do is turn on your TV and watch just about any channel at just about any time. Or pick up just about any of the newspapers you see outside of Taiwan's many convenience stores. Just be careful not to slip and fall into their ubiquitous traps.

Whatever you do, "Question everything -- especially this!"

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Several species of small, furry animals, gathered together in an island nation and grooving with their tricks: Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, pan-blues, 泛藍, media, 媒體, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Taipei Times, 台北時報

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT, Kuomintang, media, pan-blues, Taipei Times, Taiwan, 中國國民黨, 台北時報, 台灣, 媒體, 泛藍, 英文中國郵報

What took you so long?!


Cut from the same mold?
Joe Lieberman (faux left) and Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄)
Was either one ever a real "Democrat"?
Thursday's Taipei Times does an excellent job of recapping the reasons why it's such a pleasure to see former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) exit the party. Here's a big chunk of the article which contains some great reminders:

Shen said there was no need for him to stay in the party now that "bad boys" within the DPP felt nothing about his outspokenness against them. He did not elaborate.

"I am a good DPP member. People [in the party] just don't like me," he said.

[...]

Shen had been a member since 1992 when he ran for legislator under the party flag.

However, he was long considered a "loner" because of his outspokenness about the party's policies or other members with whom he disagreed.

He created a stir before the 2004 presidential poll when he gave credence to claims by tycoon-turned-fugitive Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) that the businessman had given a donation to first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) 10 years earlier.

Chen Yu-hao said Shen had been a witness to the transaction.

Shen's unwillingness to contradict Chen Yu-hao's allegations threatened to derail President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election campaign in the week before the poll.

Shen has been sharply criticized ever since by pan-green supporters, who denounced him for being a DPP apostate and for making connections with pro-blue figures.

In April 2004, Shen urged pro-green politicians to stop using the phrase "love Taiwan" as an encapsulation of their pro-localization stance, saying the phrase was detrimental to ethnic harmony between the majority Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and Mainlanders who came to Taiwan after 1945.

In May this year, Shen suffered an embarrassing defeat in the party's legislative primary along with 10 other members of DPP's former New Tide faction.

Kudos to reporter Flora Wang for presenting us with all those juicy details!

As the last sentence of the article clearly indicates, the voters were the ones who didn't like Shen -- not just other DPP politicians. Note, too, that the party allowed him to run for a DPP seat instead of kicking him out. This probably hurt them in the short run, but letting him get out of his own accord, they'll hopefully have a bit more leverage in next January's legislative elections.

The last time I saw the Shen
I seem to remember Shen threatening not so long ago to (UPDATE: links down bottom) "say bad things about the DPP all across Taiwan" if they didn't give in to his demands -- as if he hadn't already been saying such things for a long time. The last time I recall seeing Shen (I took a screenshot at the time) was in the same place he'd been appearing for a good while already -- alongside Little Bo Peep cosplayer Sisy Chen (陳文茜) on her 「文茜小妹大」 ("Sisy Chen, Gangster Gal"), a veritable fiesta of feces-flinging.


June 23, 2007
Left to right: Hsu Hsing-liang (許信良), Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍), (unidentified), Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), (unidentified), and Sisy Chen (陳文茜)
I'm lookin' for clues...
Notice the people with whom Shen yucks it up in the above image. He carries on with this bunch as if they were old Double-O colleagues in espionage.

Well, aren't they? Sisy Chen and Hsu Hsin-liang both left the DPP long ago and took up with the deep blues not so long thereafter. Tang Hsiang-lung is the creator of the 一高二低 ("DPP supporters are old, low-class, and uneducated") meme frequently used by enemy media and is one of the hosts of the ETTV smear-fest 新聞龍鳳配 ("Dragon and Phoenix").

Also notice the "poll" about the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential ticket of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) in the lower portion of the screen. Did 18,791 people really call in, or are those just more faked numbers? Oh, and the station is CTiTV (中天新聞), where the "C" stands for "China."

RELATED LINKS:
* Try not to get dizzy as you watch how the China Post views Shen's statements about the first lady through some kind of "Alien Skin" filter.
* Here's a post I wrote in 2004 (shortly before the article linked above came out) which mentions a certain "traitor in [the DPP's] midst."
* Here's another post of mine -- this one from 2006 -- helping Shen answer "What have [I] done to deserve this?" (Go see who Shen was collaborating with and learn precisely why saying "love Taiwan" hurts him so.)
* Here's a post I wrote the day after the one above about Shen running to the mendacious China Times (中國時報) for help.
* Thursday's China Post interprets Shen's departure with their usual spin.
* As usual, there are many more links within each of my own posts linked above.

UPDATE: Shen's appearance on Sisy Chen's show was just a few days before his threat against the DPP. Here are some related links:
** 民进党大佬沈富雄警告：将走遍全台批判民进党 (My translation: "DPP elder Shen Fu-hsiung: I'll criticize the DPP all across Taiwan")
** Here's a news report (WMV file), via FTV and TaiwanUS.net.
** Here's a letter to the editor about Shen's statement (Mandarin) in the June 30, 2007 edition of the Liberty Times (自由時報) by a Tunghai University graduate student of political science. [/end update]

Which side was Shen supposedly on again? Feh! Good riddance to him!

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Classifications: Taiwan, 台灣, Democratic Progressive Party, 民主進步黨, DPP, 民進黨, Shen Fu-hsiung, 沈富雄, Chen Wen-qian, Sisy Chen, 陳文茜, China Post, 英文中國郵報, China Times, 中國時報

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chen Wen-qian, China Post, China Times, Democratic Progressive Party, DPP, Shen Fu-hsiung, Sisy Chen, Taiwan, 中國時報, 台灣, 民主進步黨, 民進黨, 沈富雄, 英文中國郵報, 陳文茜

... lies a big conflict of interest

The Friday edition of the China Post bears the front page headline "Taiwan economy needs stronger bite: AmCham." [UPDATE: Here's a new link to the China Post article.] The article has the AmCham "calling for the need to relieve political wrangling, resolve regulatory morass, and to improve cross-strait as well as U.S. trade relations in order to boost Taiwan's economy." The article quotes the group's president Jane Hwang as saying that "Taiwan appears to be falling behind the other three 'aging' Asian Tigers in economic competitiveness,'" and has its executive director Richard Vuylsteke citing "the high turnover of government officials over the last seven years as a major deterrent to the country's economy."

"[T]he last seven years"? Notice how that coincides precisely with Chen Shui-bian's presidency while entirely avoiding any mention of his name.

The article's vaguely-stated goal is the opening of trade between Taiwan and its missle-pointing neighbor China, which the Taiwanese consider to be a hegemonistic bully bent on economically terrorizing the world into submission via its "one China" policy. Take a look at how the China Post blurs that goal:

Vuylsteke called for the government to get rid of negative import list of products from China, not just to help foreign investment, but also to create jobs for locals.

This flies in the face of the fact that many local jobs have been lost because of Taiwanese factories moving to China, where the labor is cheaper and safety standards much less stringent. It also ignores the fact that China is currently Taiwan's largest export market.

But there are even darker secrets hiding behind the China Post's crimson curtain.

Full disclosure
Welcome back, my friends,
to the show that never ends.
It's so sad you must attend.
Come inside, come inside.

The China Post article is hiding something that you'd never notice unless you've done the kind of research I've been doing for the past several years. AmCham's staff has yet another "Jane" -- one who has recently been employed as a pro-blue propaganda pusher by none other than the China Post.

That would be Jane Rickards.

That's right. Rickards has written articles for the China Post such as these:

* Lu fires parting shots as acting DPP chair (January 26, 2006)
   [Promulgating the meme that the DPP is too divided to win any elections.]
* U.S. urges cross-strait stability (February 24, 2006)
   [Note the AmCham banner on the podium in the image which accompanies the article.]
* President could have met U.S. officials in Alaska (May 5, 2006)
   ["Stupid Chen," she seems to be saying. "Why didn't he just kneel?"]
* U.S. visitor issues Chen administration one of the bluntest warnings (May 26, 2006)
   [Troublemakers!]
* Chen's Address May Stir Up Ethnic Tensions (June 22, 2006)
   [One of the pan-blues' favorite memes.]
* Talks called for on visit by Beijing policy maker (August 4, 2006)
   [As if there was a snowball's chance in hell of Chen Yunlin visiting Taiwan.]

See also Michael Turton's takes on Rickards, whom he says is "not what anyone would call an unbiased source" and whose writing he calls "appallingly slanted."

AmCham in Taipei describes themselves as a "non-partisan business organization." After reading the above information, does that ring true, or does it ring as hollow as a bass drum.

Pay close attention to those behind the curtain. Pay very close attention.

RELATED READING:
* On Friday, May 25, 2007, Jerome F. Keating, Ph.D. expressed his own consternation at the CP's continued contortion of history. Read that to see what else is hiding behind their increasingly ragged curtain.
* On Tuesday, May 29, 2007, Ocean Voice Radio (海洋之聲) -- an "underground" pro-green/pro-Taiwan radio station operating in a vast sea of legal and illegal pan-blue/pro-China media -- was shut down [English Google translation] by the pan-blue dominated National Communications Commission (NCC), a group which has ironically been proclaimed unconstitutional. Think they'll send 200 police to the offices of the China Post? (I don't either.)
* In today's Taipei Times, Johnny Neihu revealed the hidden conflict of interest behind a recent sordid tale in the United Daily News involving sex with a West Point cadet who was visiting Taiwan as an exchange student. Turns out that the "damsel in distress" was a friend of the reporter who wrote the story. Isn't that special? Yo, NCC?

UPDATE: The Sunday June 3, 2007 issue of the Taipei Times has an excellent editorial cartoon mocking AmCham in Taipei president Jane Hwang's actual quote of "Just do it."

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Places where needles are hard to find: Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, Jane Rickards, China Post, 英文中國郵報, propaganda, 宣傳

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: China Post, Jane Rickards, media, propaganda, 媒體, 宣傳, 英文中國郵報