As time moves forward, Ma's administration moves backward

A group of 39 observers of Taiwanese politics from around the world -- many of whom were part of an earlier series of open letters on the erosion of justice in Taiwan under the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government -- is in the news yet again. This time, they're focusing on the indictment against former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).

Here's some of the main content [highlights mine]:

Dear President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),

We the undersigned, international academics, analysts and writers from the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, have for many years been keen observers of political developments in Taiwan. We were delighted when Taiwan made its transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and we continue to care deeply for the country and its future as a free and democratic nation-state.

However, during the past three years, many of us have felt it necessary to address publicly our concerns to you about the erosion of justice and democracy in Taiwan, most recently in April this year regarding the charges of the "36,000 missing documents" against a number of prominent former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials. We raised these issues as international supporters of Taiwan's democracy.

At this time we express our deep concern about the charges against former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), often referred to as "the father of Taiwan's democracy," who was indicted on June 30 on charges of allegedly channeling US$7.8 million from secret diplomatic funds into the Taiwan Research Institute. These charges and their timing raise a number of questions that are related both to the case itself and the integrity of the judicial system in Taiwan.

After detailing the specific questions (which you can read at the link above) -- the first of which mentions that the charges stem from events which took place about 15 years ago -- the letter continues [highlights mine]:

Mr President, as head of state you bear overall responsibility for the state of affairs in Taiwan. In democratic systems, proper checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judiciary branches are of the utmost importance. The executive and the legislative branches have a responsibility to exercise oversight and to balance activism in the judiciary, just as the judiciary serves a similar role with regard to the executive and legislative branches. Stating that your government abides by "judicial independence" is therefore not enough. It is essential that all participants in the judicial process — prosecutors, judges and lawyers — are fully imbued with the basic principle that the judiciary is scrupulously impartial and not given to any partisan preferences.

We, as members of the international academic community, are left with the impression that the indictments and practices of the judiciary in Taiwan over the past three years reflect a judicial system that is increasingly influenced by political considerations. There has been a regression in the accomplishments of Taiwan's momentous democratization of the 1990s and 2000s. As good friends of Taiwan, we are deeply unsettled by this. It undermines Taiwan's international image as a free and democratic nation.

Mr President, we therefore urge you and your government to ensure that the judicial system is held to the highest standards of objectivity and fairness. Taiwan has many challenges ahead of it and it cannot afford the political divisions created by the use of the judicial system for political purposes.

Respectfully yours,
[the undersigned]

You can say that again (and they probably will)!

Some of the prequels
Don't forget the earlier parts of this long-running series, listed here in chronological order:

* November 6, 2008: Scholars and writers from around the world publish an "Open letter on erosion of justice in Taiwan." The same letter -- as an online petition -- was signed by more than 2,000 people. (The petition is now closed.)

* November 25, 2008: Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) calls the open letter "inaccurate."

* December 2, 2008: "Eroding justice: Open letter No. 2" counters Wang Ching-feng's claims.

* January 8, 2009: Over a month later, Wang Ching-feng comes up with "clarif[ications]" regarding the open-letter writers' so-called "misunderstandings."

* January 21, 2009: "Eroding justice: Open letter No. 3" is addressed to President Ma Ying-jeou.

* January 24, 2009: Two more "US-based Taiwan experts add [their] names to open letter [No. 3]."

* January 25, 2009: President Ma claims the public had gained confidence in the judiciary in 2008 -- the exact opposite of what this Taiwan News article tells us they actually felt:

According to recent surveys conducted by Academia Sinica and the Web site Yahoo! Kimo, over 50 percent of the people do not believe in Taiwan's judicial system and over 75 percent have no confidence that the Judicial Yuan will undertake judicial reform [...]

* May 22, 2009: An estimable group of scholars and writers -- 26 in all, and each one with a deep understanding of Taiwan and the surrounding facts -- has composed an open letter addressed directly to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The letter addresses the ever-increasing problems with judicial fairness, press freedom, the lack of transparency in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rapprochement with China, the loss of Taiwan's sovereignty, and the loss of human rights. The argument the letter makes is rock solid. It is based on demonstrable facts.

* November 9, 2009: Then there were 31. The Taiwan News publishes an "Open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou by 30 international scholars" which reminds us that "a decrease of tension across the Taiwan Strait would indeed be welcome, but [...] that this should not be done at the expense of the hard-won democracy" and that "Taiwan should be more fully accepted by the international community as a full and equal partner." (Here's a version with 31 names on the web site of one of the signatories, Jerome F. Keating, Ph.D.)

* December 13, 2009: Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) submits the "GIO response to Nov. [9] open letter" to the Taipei Times.

* December 25, 2009: Richard Kagan, professor emeritus at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota and one of the signatories of the November 2009 letter, replies to Su Jun-pin's silliness in "GIO's response misses the point"

* January 8, 2010: Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) churns out A GIO response to Richard Kagan (one of the signatories of the November 9, 2009 "Open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou by 30 international scholars") in which Su compares apples and oranges by imagining that other people don't know that China wants to annex Taiwan while the Taiwanese people don't want to be part of China, ignores what has happened to Hong Kong in the past 12 and a half years, talks about the "double-taxation" issue as if China won't still get those taxes from Taiwanese businesses, pretends to forget that Taiwan's Straits [sic] Exchange Foundation (海峽交流基金會) chairman and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice-chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) referred to himself as a "rubber stamp," complains that his government has no control over anything, ignores the KMT's continued attempts to take over Taiwan's Public TV (PTS, 公共電視), confuses gains in local elections with a balanced legislature and a president who listens to majority opinion without oppressing minorities or stupidly saying out loud that he "sees them as humans," and completely omits the fact that the talks regarding an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) -- which Chinese officials say "will certainly bring about complete unification of the motherland [sic] -- have been anything but transparent and have not been subject to legislative oversight. These things, Mr. Su, are clear signs of an erosion of both justice and democracy.

* February 9, 2010: Michael Danielsen, one of the signatories of the Open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou last November, rebuts Su Jun-pin's response to Richard Kagan last month by pointing out that Democratic liberty is fundamental, "look[ing] forward to actual steps [by Su and the Ma government] that go beyond mere words."

* April 11, 2011: Another open letter criticizes the government's charges that 17 former DPP officials are responsible for "'failing to return' about 36,000 documents during the DPP administration" which ended almost three years earlier.

* April 14, 2011: In what is hard not to perceive as intimidation, the Foreign Ministry says it's going to probe this latest open letter, with Ma officials implying along the way that some of the writers were not of sound mind.

* April 17, 2011: The Chinese-language Liberty Times (自由時報) notices the intimidation factor: "The Liberty Times Editorial: KMT uses law as a political weapon."

* April 22, 2011: The Taipei Times draws a similar conclusion: "EDITORIAL: Government starts to sound like PRC."

I can already imagine how the Ma government will respond the latest letter.

How long can this continue? As long as Taiwanese allow the Chinese KMT to hold political power, it will just keep going and going and going.

---

Unsealing utensils: Taiwan, 台灣, open letter, 公開信, erosion of justice, 侵蝕司法, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, Lee Teng-hui, 李登輝

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chinese Nationalist Party, erosion of justice, KMT, Kuomintang, Lee Teng-hui, Ma Ying-jeou, open letter, Taiwan, 中國國民黨, 侵蝕司法, 公開信, 台灣, 國民黨, 李登輝, 馬英九

Lest we forget the 228 Massacre (二二八大屠殺) of 1947

What am I thinking about on this 64th anniversary of one of the most horrific events in Taiwan's history?

I'm remembering with dismay that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is still in power -- even after behaving as colonizers for over six decades -- because they still use illicit methods to get elected. Here are some examples:

* Vote buying is rampant even within their own party's Central Standing Committee, but they keep putting the guilty ones right back in.

* In the January 2010 legislative by-elections, "Two of the three seats up for grabs […] in Taoyuan, Taichung and Taitung counties were left vacant by former KMT legislators found guilty of vote-buying," reminding us of their "tradition of buying votes."

* Lee Min-yung (李敏勇) reminds readers: "The roots of vote-buying can be found in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) long hold on power and its system for distributing the spoils of government."

* Laurence Eyton enlightens in a 2004 piece in the Asia Times Online: "[The Chinese KMT] has traditionally used its wealth to engage in what it calls 'traditional electoral practices', ie vote buying […]"

I'm reminded that the Chinese KMT still uses thuggery to maintain their power. Here are some examples:

* When disgraced former Toronto-based Government Information Office (GIO) official Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) returned to Taiwan, he was picked up at airport and "assisted" by thugs in black shirts assigned by Bamboo Union (竹聯幫) gang leader Chang An-le (張安樂).

* People wearing black T-shirts and vests bearing the name of the Matsu Temple (大天后宮) physically remove college students from a protest against the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government's policies regarding students from China.

* Despite denials by police, experience should tell you who the guys in the black shirts helping to defend Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) are.

* Read my post about the movie "Formosa Betrayed," which dramatizes real incidents involving the Chinese KMT, including their use of gangsters to carry out the assassination of a political dissident on American soil.

I'm reminded that the Chinese KMT is still distorting history. Here are some examples:

* A Taipei Times editorial reminds readers about Ma's empty promises: "So much for saying that the memorial hall [renaming] issue was 'not a pressing matter.'"

* Here's a photo of a display from the renovated 228 Memorial Museum which paints former dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) as "recovering … order" instead of as being the perpetrator of the massacre.

* Exhibits at the newly-renovated museum paint peaceful protesters as "mobs."

* President Ma pretends that the Chinese KMT has "dealt with its past" to the same extent the government of Germany has done since World War II.

* On the blog of Taipei City councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) you can read some of the details (Hanzi) and see photos (containing Hanzi text and a little bit of English) and video (Taiwanese and Mandarin audio, Hanzi text and a little bit of English) detailing some of the changes to the museum.

And I'm reminded that while Chinese KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou -- elected as Taiwan's president in 2008 on a promise of "no unification, no independence and no use of force" (不統、不獨、不武) -- has long claimed to support democracy, he still doesn't. Here are some examples:

* Remember the days when Ma was publicly against direct presidential elections.

* Remember when the Chinese KMT boycotted their own referendum about Taiwan's participation in the United Nations.

* The Executive Yuan's (行政院) Referendum Review Committee (公投審議委員會) turned down proposed referendums on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China three times, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it had more than enough signatures and support in polls!

* In mid-2009, the Ma government reverted the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (臺灣民主紀念館) to its former name: the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (蔣中正紀念堂).

And I wouldn't be able to forget, no matter how hard I tried, that while Ma is in office as president of Taiwan, he primarily serves China. Here are some very recent examples:

* Ma wants people to stop calling China "China" and to call it "the mainland" or "the other side."

* A short time later, Beijing "praises" Ma for this.

* The Philippine government deports 14 Taiwanese suspects to China, basing the decision on a "one China" policy, yet Ma places zero blame on China.

People of Taiwan, when are you going to stop this from ever happening again?

If you have additional relevant examples to include in the topics above, please submit them in the comments below this post on Taiwan Matters! (use the HTML above the comment submission box for links) or via e-mail.

Further reading:
* Names and faces of some of the victims of the 228 Massacre (Hanzi)

* Wednesday, February 28, 2007 on Taiwan Matters!: Remembering two 228 Incidents (written before someone pointed out the obvious: that it should be referred to as the "228 Massacre" instead)

* Monday, March 1, 2004 on It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!: Hand-in-hand for peace (about my participation in the "228 Hand-in-Hand Rally" at 2:28 PM on Saturday, February 28, 2004)

* Monday, February 21, 2011 on Strait Talk: It's Taiwan, not China... Tales from Formosa, The Beautiful Island: "Formosa Displayed, Formosa Betrayed: Taiwan's 228 Museum Rewriting History?"

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Dates with disaster: Taiwan, 台灣, 228 Massacre, 二二八大屠殺, 228 Incident, 二二八事件, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: 228 Incident, 228 Massacre, Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT, Kuomintang, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, 中國國民黨, 二二八事件, 二二八大屠殺, 台灣, 國民黨, 馬英九

Gangsters and police hand-in-hand -- and so much more!

On Friday, May 28, 2010, the shooting murder of gang leader Weng Chi-nan (翁奇楠) which took place in broad daylight in the presence of (at least) four police officers in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led Taichung City pulled back the curtain on so much of what is wrong in Taiwan today.

The two senior officers on the scene were Taichung City Police Traffic Chief Lin Chi-you (林啟右) and Criminal Investigation Corps' Third Division head Lin Wen-wu (林文武). The two lower-ranking officers there were Shih Chang-hsing (石長興) and Sergeant Tai Chih-hung (戴志宏).

Surveillance video from the interior of the crime scene exists, but over a week later, not only has this video footage not been shown to the public to help identify and capture the shooter -- it is said to have already been partially erased. UPDATE: That page has ironically disappeared, but I fortunately saved an image of the web page. [/update]

Could somebody be hiding something, y'think? Can you say "accessories to the crime"?

Were the police officers there simply "drinking tea," as has been reported, were they "playing mahjong," or is such speculation just a distraction from what was really going on? So far, we can only rely on the testimony of seemingly untrustworthy sources. Right away all four officers on the scene claimed that they "didn't know" Wang.

But just days later, the story changes slightly. Also at the scene was retired officer Chen Wen-hsiung (陳文雄, the one you may have seen on TV yelling about people making "groundless accusations"), who now admits that he knew Wang, though he claims he "didn't know him well," and he says he invited the other four to the location. Tsk, tsk!

How long will it be before the story changes again?

Taichung Police Commissioner Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) has already resigned as a result of this scandal. However, the re-election campaign of Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) -- a Chinese KMT politician who has already held office since 2002 (thus having had plenty of time to do something about public order) -- is sure to suffer as a result of the constant attention being given to this matter.

Mayor Hu has repeatedly "declared war" on gangs, yet according to the National Police Agency (警政署), Taichung's crime rate has been the highest in the nation during the past six years.

This sure doesn't look anything like the "clean" Chinese KMT promised by Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in his 2008 presidential election campaign.

The undemocratic Referendum Review Rejection Committee
In news about Taiwan's disappearing democracy, to no one's surprise, the Referendum Review Committee rejected the second proposal for a referendum on the current government's plan to sign an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China. Even a poll by the deep-blue TVBS tells us that support for such a referendum increased from 48% to 55% [104 kb PDF file] since March 2009.

So why can't Taiwanese have a say in this matter? Referendum Review Rejection Committee chairman Chao Yung-mau (趙永茂) is claiming that "The TSU's proposal does not meet the qualification of 'approving a government policy' as stated in the Referendum Act."

This is just another of the Chinese KMT's word games which treat the Taiwanese as idiots.

The Ma government claims that the public supports ECFA, yet hundreds of thousands of signatures had been collected in support of this proposal. Could that number be the very reason the committee voted 12:4 to reject public opinion on something that could affect not only the economy but also Taiwan's sovereignty?

Radical (and mendacious) anti-Taiwan media
In a report on the latest rejected referendum, the frequently-mendacious news agency Agence France Presse (AFP) refers to the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) -- whose "spiritual leader" is former president (then-Chinese KMT) Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) -- as "a radical pro-independence party." More word games.

While I have previously complained about the TSU being infiltrated by Shih Ming-teh's (施明德) redshirts, there are only two groups which would consider the party itself to be "radical," and those groups would be the Chinese KMT and the CCP.

Why isn't anyone in the media referring to those two parties as "radical"?

China proves Ma to be a liar (How will he explain this away?)
After Ma's repeated claims that signing an ECFA with China would open the door for Taiwan to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries, Chinese officials are ironically the ones who have been more forthcoming:

On the China trade issue, Taiwan protested on Wednesday after a mainland foreign ministry spokesman said Beijing "resolutely opposed" official contact between its diplomatic allies and Taiwan.

Does it matter what Chinese officials say about this? Will that stop other countries from signing FTAs with Taiwan? Read what Franck Varga says about that below.

US Congress listens to Ma's critics, not to Ma
(and Ma listens to no one but China)
A recent report by Congressional Research Services (CRS) titled "Democratic Reforms in Taiwan" has expressed "concern" over "the prolonged detention of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as a result of complaints by writers and scholars whose open letters (see link below) have been previously covered on this blog.

An article in the June 4, 2010 edition of the Taipei Times also has this to say about the report [highlights mine]:

"A number of professors, writers, activists and ex-officials primarily in the United States have signed open letters on what they called the 'erosion of justice' in Taiwan," the report says.

[...]

The US Congress has also helped, the report says, "by pressing the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] regime to end authoritarian abuses of power in favor of freedoms for all the people in Taiwan, including the majority Taiwanese."

The report says that a sustainable democracy helps Taiwan to guard against "undue" Chinese influence as cross-strait engagement has intensified under Ma.

Whenever people criticize things about the Ma government that anyone can see with their own eyes, the Ma government will have a response that treats you like you're imagining things (or perhaps that you're "not Chinese, so you couldn't possibly understand"), but their logic doesn't hold up to the facts. That doesn't seem to bother them in the least.

But remember this: When the Chinese KMT says "up," you should think "down" -- way down -- and check things out for yourself.

Related reading:
* David Reid of David on Formosa blogs: "Rejection of referendum is a denial of democratic rights"

* Ben Goren blogs on Letters from Taiwan: "Pants on Fire"

* Franck Varga blogs about gangsters, Chinese KMT hypocrisy, and more. As Franck points out, "They [the Ma government] want to let the Taiwanese believe that other countries will not be afraid of the Chinese reaction…"

* Michael Turton blogs on The View from Taiwan about Beijing slapping Ma in the face, noting Bonnie Glaser's Nineteen Eighty-Four-like "logic."

* Look back at what Jason Hu told the Taipei Times back in 2001 when he was running for mayor.

* Taiwan Echo writes about the return to days of dictatorship -- and beyond: Ma to Send More Military Instructors to Campus -- Elementary Schools Included

* Part 13 of my series of posts on "the erosion of justice in Taiwan" contains links to all the open letters, the responses, and my earlier comments.

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Facially-tattooed tears: Taiwan, 台灣, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Taichung City, 台中市, Jason Hu, 胡志強, gangs, 黑道, police, 警察, ECFA, 經濟合作架構協議, referendum, 公投

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: ECFA, gangs, Jason Hu, Ma Ying-jeou, police, referendum, Taichung City, Taiwan, 公投, 台中市, 台灣, 經濟合作架構協議, 胡志強, 警察, 馬英九, 黑道

Is he, too, "selling snake oil"?

The Central News Agency (中央社) reported about a week and a half ago (Thursday, March 25, 2010) that Taiwan's Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) (Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT]) will start cracking down on fake medicines [translation mine]:

查緝偽劣藥 政院取締小組動起來

Executive Yuan prohibition group initiates crackdown on fake medicines

（中央社記者謝佳珍台北25日電）為打擊不法藥物，行政院長吳敦義今天指示成立聯合取締小組，加強稽查地下電台、夜市、攤販、情趣商店等偽劣假藥販售通路，並請衛生署在3個月內修法加重販售偽劣假藥罰責。

(CNA reporter Hsieh Chia-chen [ph], [reporting from] Taipei, [March] 25) In order to combat fake medicines, Premier Wu Den-yih established a task force to investigate pirate ["underground"] radio stations, night markets, street vendors, adult novelty stores, and other fake medicine outlets. He also asked the Department of Health to make stricter laws regarding fake medicines along with harsher punishments for violations.

Here's the same story as covered in the Friday, March 26, 2006 edition of the Taipei Times:

A cross-agency task force will be established to combat counterfeit drugs and medical products sold via underground radio stations, the Internet and night markets, the Executive Yuan and the Department of Health announced yesterday.

Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? The problem is that "underground radio stations" is dog-whistle politics to Chinese KMT supporters:

Dog-whistle politics, also known as the use of code words, is a term for a type of political campaigning or speechmaking which employs coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience

To these folks, "underground radio" is equivalent to "southern Taiwan," "pro-Taiwan," ""pro-DPP," and/or "anti-China," and words like those (and "fake medicines" -- which are often associated with the sponsorship of such stations) get them salivating. While a lot of discussion is already focusing on the upcoming (November 27, 2010) special municipality elections, this is an obvious attempt by the Chinese KMT to stir up their base with irrational hatred.

This is all a sham, as the following info will reveal.

The kicker
What do you think "legal" pro-Chinese KMT TV and radio stations do for whole days at a time? If you said, "Sell medicine," you'd be onto something.

Take a gander at the following screenshots from some of those blue-affiliated TV stations (and see if you can spot a familiar face in the crowd):

I'm no pirate! I've got a lab coat and a toupee! (Does it make me a Dr?) (Click to enlarge)	If you wouldn't eat cat poop or poison ivy, you should think twice about taking this, too. (Click to enlarge)	If I move a walker away and stand up, will you believe I used to need it? (Click to enlarge)
Somebody gave me FK23, so I took it. LOL Could've been FM2! (Click to enlarge)	Saying it's got no other chemicals doesn't mean it has none at all. (Click to enlarge)	Ma Ying-jeou endorses the guy selling drugs. (Click to enlarge)
Didn't trust Adimmune's H1N1 vaccine? Would you trust this? (Click to enlarge)	This claims to help high BP, diabetes, kidney problems, enuresis, impotence, and more! (Click to enlarge)	Whatever you've got, take our pills. You might not get better, but we'll profit! (Click to enlarge)

Wait! Is that KMT chairman/President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) I see? By George! It most certainly is!

And no, these aren't just commercials. Whole shows use questionable methods to sell these questionable products. (All of the screenshots above were captured between 2:53 and 3:51 PM on Saturday, March 27, 2010.) Do you think Wu's "crackdown" will affect these "above-ground" TV stations at all? Will President Ma be caught in their dragnet?

Keep your eyes on this story, but don't bet anything of value on it.

Further reading:
For earlier examples of the use of this specific tactic, search for the word "radio" in these older posts, or at least hover on the links below for a preview (original posts have links to further information):

* December 15, 2006: "10 or so sources of KMT brainwashing"

* June 2, 2007: "Behind the China Post's curtain ... lies a big conflict of interest"

* September 24, 2008: "Ma Ying-jeou's survey dips to a new low"

* The Liberty Times (自由時報) thinks Wu's "crackdown" is an attempt to shut out voices opposed to ECFA. (Hat tip to A-gu)

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Industry standards: Taiwan, 台灣, Chinese KMT, 中國國民黨, Wu Den-yih, 吳敦義, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, propaganda, 宣傳, underground radio, 地下電台

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Chinese KMT, Ma Ying-jeou, propaganda, Taiwan, underground radio, Wu Den-yih, 中國國民黨, 台灣, 吳敦義, 地下電台, 宣傳, 馬英九

In case you still had any doubts...

It should be obvious to anyone not in a persistent vegetative state (and even that might not be enough of an obstacle to miss this) that the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) being "negotiated" between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is annexing Taiwan to China.

Today's Taipei Times contains the money quotes:

MAC [Maddog note: the so-called "Mainland" Affairs Council] Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said that under the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is "region to region."

"The legislature passed the law in 1992 and since then such a legal status has never been changed no matter who is in power, including former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) or [President] Ma Ying-jeou," Liu said.

"Such a theory is not something new invented by President Ma and that is why the trade pact is called a cross-strait economic framework agreement," he said.

Liu made the remarks after being asked by the Taipei Times at a press conference yesterday morning to clarify Ma's comments describing cross-strait ties as being "between two regions."

Liu also said the administration did not want to specify a timeframe for the signing of a free-trade agreement (FTA) with China within an ECFA.

He did not say why, only emphasizing that cross-strait ties were "special."

One thing stands out here: The Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government is not treating China like the foreign (enemy) country that it is.

And in case you've forgotten how that foreign (enemy) country on the other side of the Taiwan Strait sees the ECFA, listen to their premier, Wen Jiabao (溫家寶):


0:35 YouTube video: "DPP ECFA referendum ad - with English titles"
Further reading:
* Wikisource: Act Governing Relations between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area

* GlobalSecurity.org: Remembering when (then-premier, now-VP) Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and (then-MAC Chairman, now-National Security Council Secretary-General) Su Chi (蘇起) agreed with (then-president) Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "state-to-state" theory of relations between Taiwan and China.

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More red flags: Taiwan, 台灣, Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, 經濟合作架構協議, ECFA, Mainland [sic] Affairs Council, 大陸委員會, MAC, Liu Te-shun, 劉德勳, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Wen Jiabao, 溫家寶, annexation, 併吞

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: annexation, ECFA, Liu Te-shun, Ma Ying-jeou, MAC, Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan, Wen Jiabao, 併吞, 劉德勳, 台灣, 大陸委員會, 溫家寶, 經濟合作架構協議, 馬英九

The list of signatories grows by almost 20%

Writer Jerome F. Keating, Ph.D. and thirty other scholars and writers from the US, Canada, Asia, Europe and Australia have penned a fifth open letter about the serious problems occurring under the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou.

The letter reminds us that "a decrease of tension across the Taiwan Strait would indeed be welcome, but [...] that this should not be done at the expense of the hard-won democracy" and that "Taiwan should be more fully accepted by the international community as a full and equal partner." Read the full letter at the link above, but here is a large excerpt [emphasis mine]:

During the past two decades, Taiwan has made major progress in each of these areas [freedom, democracy, justice and human rights]. It thus has been a disappointment for us to see an erosion of justice, a weakening of checks and balances in the democratic system and a decline in press freedom in Taiwan. These trends are reflected in the significantly downward ratings Taiwan received in the annual reports of international organizations such as Freedom House and Reporters without Borders.

They are also reflected in the expressions of concern by international scholars and friends of Taiwan related to the flaws in the judicial proceedings against former President Chen Shui-bian and the apparent lack of neutrality in the continuing "investigations" and indictments of other prominent members of the DPP government. We thus appeal to you again to ensure that measures are taken to ensure the impartiality and fairness of the judiciary.

Good governance, accountability and transparency based on the fundamental principles of freedom, democracy, justice and human rights are all the more essential now that your government is moving Taiwan on a path of closer economic ties with China. We believe that a decrease of tension across the Taiwan Strait would indeed be welcome, but emphasize that this should not be done at the expense of the hard-won democracy and the establishment of human rights in Taiwan itself.

Thus, the process of improving relations with the large neighbor across the Strait needs to be an open, deliberative and democratic process, in full consultation with both the Legislative Yuan and the democratic opposition, and fully transparent to the general public. We are thus pleased to hear that officials of your government have stated that any agreement with China would need to have both a domestic consensus, including approval by the Legislative Yuan, and acceptance by the international community. We trust this process will be open and consultative in ways that respect the democratic traditions begun so promisingly two decades ago.

The prequels
Don't forget the earlier parts of this long-running series, listed here in chronological order:

* November 6, 2008: Scholars and writers from around the world publish an "Open letter on erosion of justice in Taiwan." The same letter -- as an online petition -- has been signed by more than 2,000 people.

* November 25, 2008: Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) calls the open letter "inaccurate."

* December 2, 2008: "Eroding justice: Open letter No. 2" counters Wang Ching-feng's claims.

* January 8, 2009: Over a month later, Wang Ching-feng comes up with "clarif[ications]" regarding the open-letter writers' so-called "misunderstandings."

* January 21, 2009: "Eroding justice: Open letter No. 3" is addressed to President Ma Ying-jeou.

* January 24, 2009: Two more "US-based Taiwan experts add [their] names to open letter [No. 3]."

* January 25, 2009: President Ma claims the public had gained confidence in the judiciary in 2008 -- the exact opposite of what this Taiwan News article tells us they actually felt:

According to recent surveys conducted by Academia Sinica and the Web site Yahoo! Kimo, over 50 percent of the people do not believe in Taiwan's judicial system and over 75 percent have no confidence that the Judicial Yuan will undertake judicial reform [...]

* May 22, 2009: An estimable group of scholars and writers -- 26 in all, and each one with a deep understanding of Taiwan and the surrounding facts -- has composed an open letter addressed directly to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The letter addresses the ever-increasing problems with judicial fairness, press freedom, the lack of transparency in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rapprochement with China, the loss of Taiwan's sovereignty, and the loss of human rights. The argument the letter makes is rock solid. It is based on demonstrable facts.

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John Hancocks: Taiwan, 台灣, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, open letter, 公開信, Jerome Keating, 祁夫潤, human rights, 人權, sovereignty, 主權

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: human rights, Jerome Keating, Ma Ying-jeou, open letter, sovereignty, Taiwan, 主權, 人權, 公開信, 台灣, 祁夫潤, 馬英九

... or a couple of scaredy-cats?

An image from today's Liberty Times (自由時報):


President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) (left) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) (middle) appear to be holding hands yesterday as they attend a ceremony for the people who died in Typhoon Morakot two weeks ago.
Photo by 黃佳琳 from the Liberty Times (自由時報)
(Click image to see the original article.)
NOTE: This has nothing to do with frequently-heard hints that Ma is gay, and I wouldn't insult gays by suggesting that either Ma or Liu are part of that community. This is about a president who tried just last Tuesday to give international media the impression that he and his cabinet are "strong leaders." Hint to Ma and Liu: You're doin' it all wrong.

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Unhealthy relationships: Taiwan, 台灣, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Liu Chao-shiuan, 劉兆玄

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: Liu Chao-shiuan, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, 劉兆玄, 台灣, 馬英九

When pro-Ma media says so, it's even worse than that!


Rotten to the core
爛到極點
(Click to enlarge)
A survey released by pro-blue, 100% Chinese-funded TVBS says that Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) approval rating is now at 16 percent [212 kb Hanzi PDF file] following his inept and deadly response to Typhoon Morakot which began battering Taiwan on August 7, 2009, leaving a village with approximately 500 people buried in a gargantuan mudslide, thousands stranded -- some for over a week -- and tens of thousands inundated by deep flooding.


When TVBS says their own guy is doing this bad, he's doing much worse.
(Click to enlarge)
Ma took office less than 15 months ago promising "no unification, no independence, and no war" (不統、不獨、不武), but later said that the first of those actually meant that he "had not ruled out unification" [read: annexation]. Only about 10 percent Less than 9 percent of Taiwan's population support unification in any form whatsoever -- whether immediately or at some time in the future (1.2 percent wanting "'unification' ASAP," 7.6 percent wanting "status quo now, 'unification' later," for a total of 8.8 percent).

The Ma administration has also run roughshod over human rights. Last November (2008), over 7,000 police were ostensibly brought out to "protect" visiting Chinese envoy Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), but instead of merely doing that, hundreds of protesters -- most of whom were peaceful -- were brutally beaten.

That same month, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) (DPP) was detained on charges which have yet to be judged in a fair court according to the evidence. A judge (Chou Chan-chun [周占春]) who ruled that Chen could be released until such judgment was made was replaced with a different judge (Tsai Shou-hsun [蔡守訓]) who toed the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) line. Chen has now unjustly been in detention for over nine months. [If you haven't done so aleady, please go sign the petition to release Chen right now.]

Ma Ying-jeou doesn't care about Taiwan's Aboriginals
Remember in December 2007 when Ma told Aboriginals living in Taipei that he "sees [them] as humans" (我把你當人看)? [at the 7:25 mark in the video]. Then, when around 500 Aboriginals may have died in the mudslide which buried Siaolin Village (小林村), he blamed the victims for not evacuating. (Important point: The evacuation centers for that area were also buried by the mudslides.)

Where is the compassion? This cold-blooded administration has absolutely none. You must open your eyes, see clearly what's happening, and tell the world all about it. Above all, you must never forget how many Taiwanese have died (and continue to do so) because of the KMT.

FURTHER READING:
* While discussing Ma's actions during "the most crucial hours of Morakot," Taiwan Echo points out how everything Ma touches has ended up "a disaster." I recently dubbed this phenomenon "The 馬的斯 Touch®."

* Claudia Jean explains how the DPP tried long ago to do what the KMT is now trying to take credit for (and which the KMT repeatedly blocked, thus postponing vital action until hundreds of people were already dead).

* Michael Turton points out that "When [the pro-blue] UDN says a KMT administration is not popular -- it ain't popular."

* Over at Talk Taiwan, Άλισον wishes that Larry King would interview Ma Ying-jeou. On that show, a whole new audience would get to see Ma's incompetent and dangerous foolishness.

* Today's Taipei Times has an English-language analysis of the TVBS survey: MORAKOT: THE AFTERMATH: Ma, Liu approval ratings plummet in Morakot's wake

UPDATE: Here are some images showing the numbers from even more recent surveys.


A chart shows Ma Ying-jeou and Liu Chao-shiuan's (劉兆玄) "satisfaction" ratings.
Satisfied (L) vs. dissatisfied (R)
(Click to enlarge)

Here's a comparison of various surveys asking if Ma should step down (those below the black line).
Should step down (L) vs. shouldn't (R)
It should be noted that neither CNN nor ICRT could be considered "green."
(Click to enlarge)

Talking Show had a call-in survey about whether Ma should step down.
The final vote was: YES: 125,709 (98.214%); NO: 2,286 (1.786%)
(Click to enlarge)
[/update]

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Scapegoats: Taiwan, 台灣, Typhoon Morakot, 莫拉克颱風, August 8, 2009 floods, 八八水災, Taiwanese Aboriginals, 台灣原住民, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, TVBS, surveys, 民調

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: 2009 floods, August 8, Ma Ying-jeou, surveys, Taiwan, Taiwanese Aboriginals, TVBS, Typhoon Morakot, 八八水災, 台灣, 台灣原住民, 民調, 莫拉克颱風, 馬英九

Ma Ying-jeou's "Katrina"

Typhoon Morakot (莫拉克颱風) did extensive damage to large areas of Taiwan over the past weekend. Here in Taichung, it rained heavily from about Thursday night (August 6) until Tuesday afternoon (August 11).

Southern Taiwan experienced over 2,500 mm of rain from the storm resulting in widespread flooding and landslides which trapped thousands of residents of Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Taitung Counties. Several barrier lakes were also formed by landslides, creating the potential for even more devastation.


CNN's Guillermo Arduino gives details about Typhoon Morakot
(screenshot from the video linked above)
(Click to enlarge)
As of Tuesday night, at least 62 people were confirmed dead As of 10 PM Thursday night (August 13), at least 116 people were confirmed dead (that number has probably risen since I found that report), and the death toll will inevitably rise for many days to come. UPDATE: "As of Saturday [August 29, 2009], confirmed fatalities from Morakot had reached 571, with 106 others listed as missing, the Central Emergency Operation Center said." [/update]

The response (or lack thereof) and who's to blame
In the 921 Earthquake of September 21, 1999 which happened under the watch of President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), the first troops from the south (工兵) were dispatched within two hours to begin clearing roads, and within a day, 15,362 troops were dispatched during this crucial time period to assist with rescue efforts such as extracting survivors from collapsed buildings. Last Friday, people in Linbian Township (林邊鄉), Pingtung County (areas easily accessible to those with proper equipment -- boats, jet skis, etc.) who had called for help early in the morning were still waiting for that help to arrive 16 or 17 hours later.

Under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), emergency management had been improved to the point where, according to the Taiwan News, "emergency pumping equipment and other supplies or military manpower could be dispatched 10 minutes instead of hours after a [Central Operation Center] command." But after a little more than one year under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the power to make such decisions was rescinded by the central government. Yet Ma tried to shift the blame to local officials, especially DPP ones, for delaying the help.

Ma Ying-jeou hates Taiwanese people
But Ma went much further, even blaming the victims, just like the Bush administration and their supporters did following Hurricane Katrina:


1:56 YouTube video: "【莫拉克颱風】CNN專訪是否防颱不周 馬英九卸責：都是災民不走不撤離"
Translation: [Typhoon Morakot] CNN: Should Taiwan not have been more prepared?
Ma: It's all because the victims stayed where they were.
Defying common sense, Ma not only refused to declare a state of emergency -- he also refused assistance offered by Japan and the US (before doing an about-face while still trying to compile a "wish list" of what is needed).

In the meantime, rescue helicopters repeatedly passed over areas where people required help and continued focusing on the areas getting the most media coverage. The inevitable result was clashes between family members of the groups in these areas. Why didn't Ma use all the resources at his disposal and get the sick, the injured, the elderly, and those who need medication out of every area possible at the same time? Why was only one helicopter dispatched anywhere in Taiwan on the first day when so many bridges were out? (If the weather allowed one to go up, others could have gone up as well.) And why did it take until August 12 to get the big (tandem-rotor) helicopters (like the Chinook CH-47) out? The president is the one who must give these kinds of orders to the military. People will naturally come to the conclusion that most of this was the result of very ugly politics.

Chinese Nationalist Party-led (KMT) Taipei City was somehow allowed to round up 6,000 soldiers just to set up for the upcoming Deaflympics, but only 8,000 were assigned to national disaster relief in the days immediately following Morakot.

The media
While CNN was appropriately saying on Thursday, August 6 that Morakot may very well turn into a "super typhoon," Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau (CWB) was -- as late as Thursday -- "warn[ing] residents in the north and northeast [Maddog note: "especially the north and northeast," as opposed to the south, which took the brunt of the storm] that the storm was packing powerful winds and torrential rain."

On one hand, ETTV (very pro-blue) actually provided some help to people who called in. But at the same time, they were licking Ma's boots by repeatedly saying how well the government was performing and how fast they came to people's help. That's some heavy-duty spin at the very least.

On Tuesday, while TVBS was operating a phone bank to collect donations for the victims of the storm, Ma -- who (as then-president-elect) along with his wife staffed the phones sought donations for the victims of last year's Sichuan Earthquake in China -- was busy shifting the blame for the storm's devastating aftermath onto the CWB and DPP leaders. (While the CWB may have gotten it wrong, Ma -- you know, the president -- was twiddling his thumbs.)

A Yahoo poll conducted on August 10 and 11 asked 12,016 people their opinions about the Ma government's handling of this disaster. Only 4% (485 respondents) were "very satisfied." Another 10.4% (1,247 respondents) were "somewhat satisfied," bringing the "satisfied" total to 14.4% (1,732 respondents). 13.3% (1,597 respondents) were in the "not very satisfied" category while another 72.3% (8,687 respondents) said they were "very unsatisfied." That gives a total of 85.6% (10,284 respondents) who were "unsatisfied."

The aloofness
In Taimali, Taitung, Ma was met by a distraught man whose father had been washed away by floods there. What he told the man may shock you, but if you've been paying attention, it would be exactly what you should expect Ma to say.

Ma told the man, "I lost my father, too, so I know exactly how you feel." ("你的心情我完全了解 … 我父親也過世了 我非常了解這個感覺") (Listen closely from 0:53 - 1:01)

That should be all you need to know about Ma's ability to lead a country. "苦民所苦" ("I feel the people's pain"), my ass!

The resolution
This catastrophe is far from over. The Houfeng Bridge over the Dajia River -- a section of which collapsed in September 2008 during Typhoon Sinlaku, killing six people -- has still not been reopened to traffic, and at least 20 bridges are out after Morakot.

In addition, mountain roads, hotels, and many many homes (some along with their residents) have disappeared. Of the things that can be fixed, how long will it take, and at what cost?

Will this wake enough Taiwanese up? Or will they keep putting people like Ma in positions with far more power than people like himself can handle?

FURTHER INFO:
* Taiwan Floods on Twitter

* Taiwan Floods web site: 莫拉克災情網路中心

* In English for those who want to volunteer: DPP Typhoon Morakot Disaster Operations Center

* A blog set up by the DPP before Typhoon Morakot was even gone: 【莫拉克水災】南台灣救援行動網路支援中心

* DisasterTW.com (莫拉克颱風災情支援網)

* Dr. Billy Pan recruited help from other Taiwan Netizens to create a Google map detailing the disaster areas

* Claudia Jean kicks Ma Ying-jeou's ass for his and his administration's unconscionable behavior regarding this typhoon.

* Taipei Times, August 12, 2009: "EDITORIAL: A president far from his people"

* Taipei Times, August 13, 2009: MORAKOT: THE AFTERMATH: Rescue workers, mudslide survivors share shock, grief

* Taipei Times, August 13, 2009: MORAKOT: THE AFTERMATH: Ma media comments anger disaster zone survivors

* New York Times, August 13, 2009: Taiwan President Is Target of Anger After Typhoon

* Mon homme F. Varga says it's "Time To Ask Questions After Morakot," and he lists some key ones that the media and public should be asking.

* The blog of Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) (DPP) has documents from the Ministry of National Defense which reveal how slowly and inefficiently President Ma used the resources at his disposal.

* As early as August 5, scientists at NASA saw "a monster in Morakot"

* YouTube video: See how Morakot also covered villages in the Philippines with water and mud.

* According to Chinese state media CCTV on August 7, an orange alert -- the second highest level alert -- was issued in China for the storm

* Some death-defying (nearly whacked by a flying sign) raw footage shot in Hualien by TyphoonHunter (James Reynolds) as the storm made landfall

* A video I posted last year after Typhoon Kalmaegi: "Don't put your lives in the hands of the KMT"

* A playlist of the Monday August 10, 2009 edition of Talking Show (大話新聞)

(Άλισον and Claudia Jean contributed to this post.)

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Unused resources: Taiwan, 台灣, Typhoon Morakot, 莫拉克颱風, August 8, 2009 floods, 八八水災, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九

Cross-posted at Taiwan Matters!

Labels: 2009 floods, August 8, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan, Typhoon Morakot, 八八水災, 台灣, 莫拉克颱風, 馬英九