The Case against Taiwan Independence

The Case against Taiwan Independence
Not just the Numbers
Bevin Chu
October 30, 2000

Executive Summary: The case against Taiwan independence rests not just on the fact that an overwhelming majority of Chinese on Taiwan firmly oppose Taiwan independence. The case against Taiwan independence rests also on constitutional law and simple logic, considerations even more fundamental and compelling than just the numbers.

Taiwan Independence is Dead. Long live Taiwan Independence!

The Taiwan independence elite routinely asserts, with Alice in Wonderland logic, that “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state, its current name is the Republic of China.”

At other times they assert, with equal vehemence and perfectly straight faces, that “Taiwan has the solemn right to secede from China,” and demand a United Nations supervised referendum/plebiscite as prelude to the founding of a sovereign and independent “Republic of Taiwan.”

Never mind that their latter claim contradicts their former. Never mind that their latter claim amounts to an indirect admission their former claim is transparent self-deception. Never mind that if they genuinely believed they were already independent, they would not continue to demand independence. If the Taiwan independence elite had the scantest respect for the laws of man or logic they wouldn’t be Taiwan independence zealots in the first place.

The Taiwan Independence Elite demands the Right to determine your Future

The Taiwan independence elite routinely insists that “The twenty-three million people who live on the island of Taiwan have a right to determine their own future.”

When they make this claim on local Taiwan television, they usually affect an air of unassailable self-righteousness, with the unspoken implication they have surely seized the moral high ground.

In fact they have done nothing of the sort.

Taiwan independence advocates comprise a piddling 10% to 15% of Taiwan’s population. Since Chen Shui-bian’s inauguration, on air polls conducted by the major prime time TV talk shows reveal public sentiment against Taiwan independence running as high as 10 to 1, and never less than 7 to 1.

When the Taiwan independence elite claims “The twenty-three million people who live on the island of Taiwan have a right to determine their own future,” what they really mean is “Two point three million Taiwan independence zealots who don’t give a damn about real democracy have the right to determine the future of the twenty point seven million who disagree with them and vehemently oppose Taiwan independence.”

When is an Opinion Poll not an Opinion Poll? When it’s Taiwan Independence Propaganda

During WWII Japanophile Quisling Lee Teng-hui willingly, eagerly collaborated with Taiwan’s brutal Japanese colonial occupiers, and wept when he learned Japanese Emperor and war criminal Hirohito had died.

During his 12 year long regime, Lee Teng-hui ordered the ROC’s Ministry of Education to conduct frequent “polls,” asking members of the ROC public “Do you consider yourself Taiwanese or Chinese?”

Lee’s purpose in conducting these “polls” was not to collect data about citizens of the Republic of China for use by governmental policy makers.

Lee’s purpose was to deliberately frame the Taiwanese/Chinese identity issue in the public imagination as an either/or choice. Lee’s purpose was to systematically instill doubt in the minds of Chinese citizens on Taiwan about their Chinese identity. Lee’s purpose was to precondition citizens of the Republic of China into thinking of themselves as citizens of a future defacto satellite of Japan to be known as “The Republic of Taiwan.”

Fortunately, as recent, genuine polls reveal, he was less than completely successful in his efforts.

Ninety-One Percent of the Taiwan Public considers itself Chinese

On Thursday October 26, 2000, on “21:00, Quan Min Kai Jiang” or “21:00, Speaking Your Mind,” a popular politically-oriented talk show, the question for the evening was:

“Who are we? Should the president’s standard reply be: Taiwanese? Taiwan Huaren? Or Taiwan Chinese?”

For those unfamiliar with the current controversy raging on Taiwan, answering “Taiwanese” means the respondent considers him or herself “Taiwanese, neither culturally nor politically Chinese.” Answering “Taiwan Huaren” means the respondent considers him or herself ethnically and culturally Chinese, but politically a foreign national, e.g., an ethnic Chinese Singaporean. Answering “Taiwan Chinese” means the respondent considers him or herself both Taiwanese and Chinese, e.g., both a Virginian and an American, with no conflict between the two.

Of the 8,543 viewers who called in, 657 or 8% said “Taiwanese,” 106 or 1% said “Taiwan Huaren,” and 7,780 or 91% said “Taiwan Chinese.”

Surprised?

If you are, you’ve been exposed to too much Taiwan independence disinformation, disseminated by our “fair-minded,” “objective,” “unbiased” mainstream media.

Results such as these reveal that the Taiwan independence elite’s contention that “Taiwanese are not Chinese,” and “Taiwan is Taiwan, China is China,” are bald faced lies. The Chinese people on Taiwan, to the consternation of their self-appointed nomenklatura, know damned well who they are.

They are Chinese. The name of their country is not “Taiwan,” but China — the Republic of China.

Ninety-Five Percent of the Taiwan Public opposes giving the DPP more Power

The week before, on Friday October 20, 2000, on the same program, the question for the evening was:

“The political scene is in chaos. Are you willing to help the DPP gain a legislative majority, allowing A-Bian [President Chen Shui-bian] to consolidate his power?”

Of the 16,710 viewers who called in, 806 or 5% said they were “willing,” 15,817 or 95% said they were “unwilling,” and 87 or 1% said they were “not sure.”

Why did such an overwhelming majority of ROC citizens, 19 out of every 20, declare they were “unwilling?”

The answer is they are deeply concerned that with a DPP majority in the legislature backing him, A-Bian might be sufficiently emboldened to conveniently forget the solemn promises he made to them not to move toward Taiwan independence.

The Case against Taiwan Secession. Not just the Numbers

At this point defenders of Chinese national unity could simply declare victory, having proven decisively that Taiwan independence is contrary to the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens on Taiwan.

As favorable as the numbers are to Chinese reunification, the case against Taiwan independence does not rest solely on the indisputable fact that a democratic majority opposes Taiwan independence. The case against Taiwan “independence” or Taiwan secession also rests also on legal and logical foundations more fundamental and compelling than just numbers.

UN Referendum/Plebiscite? Fuggedaboudit!

In fact the UN supervised referendum/plebiscite on independence the Taiwan independence elite demands is not even an option. It is not an option because it is an international law proviso which applies only to colonies, or more accurately, “soon to be former colonies.”

Taiwan does not qualify for a UN sponsored referendum/plebiscite because it is not a colony, but a province of China. Taiwan is an integral part of the Republic of China, a sovereign and independent nation founded in 1911 by Dr. Sun Yatsen, the “George Washington of China.”

The Taiwan independence elite inadvertently conceded this fact when they attempted to hide its “Republic of Taiwan” wolf under “Republic of China” sheep’s clothing, but instead painted themselves into a legal and logical corner.

That’s the trouble with lying. No matter how clever you think you are, you can never keep your story straight.

The Taiwan independence nomenklatura, for all its affectations of reverence for “the democratic will of the 23 million people of Taiwan,” secretly knows the score. They know if a permanent, legally binding, “let’s be done with it once and for all” referendum/plebiscite were held on Taiwan today, they would be humiliated, and Taiwan would be reaffirmed as an integral, inalienable part of One Unified China.

Lucky for them no one is about to call their bluff.

For a thorough demolition job on the Taiwan independence nomenklatura’s idiotic quest to become a member of the United Nations General Assembly as the “Republic of Taiwan,”

See:
Can Taiwan join the United Nations? by Herb Ho

Chen Shui-bian should instead demand that Bejing share China’s UN Security Council seat with Taipei as part of the price of a negotiated reunification settlement with the Chinese mainland. Who knows? He might even receive a Nobel Peace Prize for demonstrating “the vision thing.”

Sawing off the Branch One is sitting On

As the Framers of our American Constitution astutely observed, the people retain in perpetuity the right of revolution. The right of revolution is the right to throw out everything that went before and start over from scratch. The right of revolution is a fundamental right derived from nature, with logical and moral priority over man’s law.

So far, so good.

The problem arises when the Taiwan independence nomenklatura, out of either ignorance or duplicity, conflates the fundamental right of revolution with the derivative right of referendum/plebiscite.

Many of the DPP’s obdurately pro independence legislators boast advanced law degrees from highly respected European or Ivy League American law schools. Yet few if any of these ostensible legal experts grasp the critical distinction between the right of referendum/plebiscite, and the right of revolution. They have been educated, as the famous quip goes, beyond their intelligence.

The right of referendum/plebiscite under the Constitution of the Republic of China pertains only to routine matters of public policy, such as whether or not to build the controversial “Nuclear Four” power plant, and then only within the legal framework of the Republic of China.

This right of referendum/plebiscite may not be invoked outside the constitutional framework of the very same Republic of China from which its authority derives.

The Taiwan independence nomenklatura is comprised in large part of DPP Members of the Legislature of the Republic of China, elected in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China, deriving any and all legal authority they might exercise from the Constitution of the Republic of China.

For them to demand a referendum/plebiscite overthrowing the Republic of China and establishing a Republic of Taiwan, while invoking legal authority derived from provisions within the Constitution of the Republic of China, is a constitutional law non-starter.

To invoke the legal authority of a political system one is simultaneously repudiating and attempting to overthrow, is akin to sitting in a tree while sawing away at the branch one is sitting on. It is akin to standing on a scaffold and taking a sledgehammer to it, all the while denying that the scaffold is the very thing holding you up.

See:
Taiwan Independence, Whim of an Elite
Mister Lee [Kuan Yew] goes to Taipei

Taiwan independence zealots are of course free to attempt to establish an “independent Taiwan nation” by exercising their right of revolution.

But they had better realize in advance that Chinese patriots have the equal right to prevent the disintegration of their nation, China, that “a revolution is not a dinner party” and sure as hell isn’t a free lunch. And as recent polls make abundantly clear, Chinese patriots far outnumber Taiwan independence zealots, even if we count only China’s Taiwan region and not the Chinese mainland.

Secession for Me but not for Thee

Secessionists typically assert that a self-defined subset of people inhabiting a self-defined geographical region on earth has the right to govern itself and need answer to no “higher” authority.

This proposition is either valid or it is not.

It can’t be both. One can’t have ones’ secessionist cake and eat it too.

Yet this is exactly what almost all secessionists, including Taiwan secessionists, try to do.

Secessionists, with the exception of rigorously consistent, radical libertarian secessionists, almost never grand subsets of individuals within their own political entities the identical right of secession.

Once the prospect of political disintegration confronts them and threatens their “independent republics,” tailor-made to suit them, they suddenly start singing a different tune, and cite the desperate overriding need for national unity, national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

What gives them the right to claim the “self-determination moral high ground,” while simultaneously denying it to others who would secede from them?

If one purports to uphold “the right of secession” then one obligates oneself to really and truly uphold the right of secession, for anybody and everybody, everywhere and all the time. Otherwise one is merely tailoring the principle of “the right to secession” to legitimize nation-building on ones’ own terms, not upholding a hallowed, universal principle.

Universal Secession versus Taiwan Secession

Taiwan secessionists rank among the most hypocritical. For example, the Taiwan independence elite objects to Beijing’s unwillingness to renounce the use of force in its determination to nip Taiwan secession in the bud.

This is absolutely true.

What of it?

So are the Taiwan independence elite. They are equally unwilling to forswear the use of force. I have yet to encounter a single Taiwan independence advocate willing to renounce the use of force to prevent secession from their “independent Republic of Taiwan” should it ever become a reality.

Taiwan independence zealots have explicitly defined their “independent Republic of Taiwan” as “Tai, Peng, Kin, Ma,” short for “Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu.” They have said nothing about acknowledging the equal right of anyone who detests their “Republic of Taiwan,” including Aborigines, Hakkas and “mainlanders,” the solemn right to secede from it. They have said nothing about forsaking in advance the use of force to prevent secession from their precious “Republic of Taiwan” which would lead to its political dissolution.

And they never will.

Quite the contrary. Taiwan independence zealots have threatened to deal harshly with “Tai jian” i.e., “traitors to Taiwan” at the appropriate time. To get a sense of what they might have in mind for those they consider “Tai jian,” one need only recall the 2-28 Incident of 1947, when Taiwan independence fanatics, working hand in glove with diehard Japanese Fifth Columnists, went on a week long rampage, slaughtering thousands of unarmed “mainlanders,” including women and children.

Universal Secession versus American Empire

As a conscientious libertarian I myself endorse the principle of a radical, consistent, universal right of secession, more or less along the lines proposed by seminal Austrian economist Murray Rothbard.

Unfortunately in our less than perfect world, implementation is invariably selective and calculated to benefit certain political players, and not others. To Balkanize and weaken certain political entities, and not others.

If the Benevolent Global Hegemonists in our own nation’s capitol were to practice what they so sanctimoniously preach to China, and renounce the use of force against fellow Americans who yearn to be free and independent of our own oppressive federal Leviathan, hundreds of libertarian radicals would promptly declare tiny plots of land to which they hold legal title to be independent republics. They would conduct referenda/plebiscites in which they voted themselves heads of state, and immediately cease paying taxes to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States of America.

If our federal Leviathan were to refrain from using force against this homegrown secessionist vanguard, as our meddling Washington foreign policy elites demand Beijing do regarding Taiwan, these independent republics would stand.

Witnessing their successful precedent, countless once apathetic members of the Great Silent Majority would promptly follow suit, and America would soon consist of thousands, even millions of tiny independent, or at least autonomous, republics, none of them paying a dime in taxes to the swarms of worthless parasites in Washington.

We all know of course none of this is about to happen.

That is not the point. The point is why such a scenario is so unlikely.

The reason is our own federal Leviathan itself refuses to renounce the use of force against those would secede from our American Empire.

Knowing full well what the IRS and the police would do to him or her, the average American citizen quite understandably calculates that the price of genuine liberty is simply too high and every April 14th obediently, meekly writes out a check for his or her unconstitutional but ever escalating federal income taxes.

Universal Secession versus The Great Game

When our foreign policy elites prattle on about “the right to self-determination” they are not talking about genuine respect for exalted universal principles, but about Rudyard Kipling’s “The Great Game.” They are talking about “We get to divide and conquer you, but you don’t get to do it to us.”

As long as this realpolitik status quo prevails, any foreign political leader would have to be a complete idiot to abide by such high-minded principles when everybody else is either ignoring them or selectively exploiting them to their geopolitical advantage.

Until Taiwan independence zealots and their fellow travelers in Tokyo and Washington are prepared to loudly, visibly, publicly endorse and abide by a universal right to secession, not merely for Taiwan and Tibet, but for Okinawa, Alaska, Hawaii and Texas, for cities, counties, towns and villages within Taiwan, they would do well to shut their mouths, as they have no right whatsoever to speak of the “self-determination moral high ground.”

Mister Lee [Kuan Yew] goes to Taipei

Mister Lee [Kuan Yew] goes to Taipei
Bevin Chu
October 04, 2000

Lee Kuan Yew, Nemesis of Taiwan Independence?

If the fanatical TAIP, aka Taiwan Independence Party, aka “Jianguodang,” is to be believed, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore is the Nemesis of Taiwan Independence, the James Cameron T2 Terminator of Taiwan Independence. About twenty TAIP members, a significant percentage of the fringe party’s membership, picketed the Taoyuan Westin where Lee Kuan Yew was a VIP guest and the National Palace Museum where his wife was a VIP visitor. Their angry banners read,

“Lee Kuan Yew, Betrayer of Taiwan, Get out!”

Talk about killing the messenger. Actually they were just getting warmed up. Taiwan independence “ji ben jiao pai” or “fundamentalists” from both the DPP and TAIP then went on the evening talk show circuit to rant incoherently against the venerable Senior Minister, a guest of ROC president Chen Shui-bian, who knew Lee when Chen was still Mayor of Taipei.

After enduring their diatribes one Taiwanese woman viewer phoned in and wondered why Taiwan independence zealots, who are in the quaint habit of referring to themselves as “Brave Taiwanese,” were so anxious about what the former leader of the tiny city-state might say about Taiwan. Did they think Singapore was about to launch a military invasion of Taiwan?

Be Afraid. Be very Afraid

Actually the Taiwan independence zealots’ concern may not have been entirely misplaced.

Taiwan independence zealots are worried that Lee Kuan Yew’s utterances during his unofficial or “officially unofficial” visit to Taipei might be like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Chaos Theory, generate a Perfect Storm halfway around the world, and bring down their Taiwan independence House of Cards.

For while the Senior Minister at age 77 is no spring chicken, his political vision remains a perfect 20/20. Lee Kuan Yew, the Sage of Singapore, in contrast with Lee Teng-hui, the Tinpot of Taiwan, sees with crystal clarity the utter futility of Taiwan independence. Lee Kuan Yew has never been one to mince words or pull punches, and like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” could easily have embarassed the Taiwan independence zealots under the full glare of the media spotlight, had that been his intent. It was of course not, and Lee Kuan Yew has since quietly returned to Singapore.

Reunification is Inevitable

As SM Lee told Asiaweek magazine, [September 22 , 2000, Vol. 26 No. 37 Asiaweek, “The Sage of Singapore”]

“If China does not disintegrate, reunification is inevitable. That’s what I told president Lee Teng-hui. If China disintegrates, all bets are off, so why try to pre-empt? It’s a matter of time for them to get the system changed. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore will be useful to them for another 10 to 20 years because we still know bits and pieces which they do not know. In another two or three generations we may be learning from them. This is going to change the world, unless they implode, which I don’t think likely.”

This of course is the last thing Taiwan’s Quisling elite wants to hear.

Motivated by unprincipled and shortsighted opportunism, Lee Teng-hui and his ilk sold out their own people and cast their lot with Taiwan’s brutal colonizers, the Japanese. Having sold their souls to become ersatz, second class Japanese, the last thing Taiwan’s Quisling elite wants to contemplate is the distressing prospect they might have bet on the wrong horse.

Selling One’s Soul

The week before last Chinese historian Li Ao showed a remarkable photograph on his nightly TV talkshow, an ancient black and white photo of Chinese Quislings caught in the act of consumating their Faustian bargain with Taiwan’s colonial oppressors. These Quislings stood in a circle around an chest high pile of wooden ancestral plaques. Surrounding this inner circle of Quislings was a second, larger circle of Japanese officials. These Japanese officials’ duty was to witness the Quislings set fire to their ancestral plaques, to watch as the plaques turned to ash, to listen as the Quislings declared they were no longer Chinese and had always been Japanese.

The Quislings’ reward for their soul-degrading self-abasement? Material comforts and political privileges denied the majority of courageous Taiwan Chinese who could not bring themselves to engage in such self-demeaning behavior, not to mention immunity from “comfort women” sexual enslavement if one was a woman or forced labor at the frontlines if one was a man.

See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil

Not surprisingly, when Japanophile Quisling No. 1 Lee Teng-hui was dogged by Taiwan reporters who demanded to know whether he thought Lee Kuan Yew’s visit might be of help in restarting cross straits talks, he testily shot back, “No help!”

Not surprisingly, when Japanophile Quisling No. 2 Vice President Annette Lu learned of the Senior Minister’s impending visit she sternly warned him not to “deliver information or influence people.”

Optimistic predictions about China’s future from Lee Kuan Yew are especially upsetting to Taiwan’s Japanophile Quislings, because they contain the unmistakable ring of truth. Lee Kuan Yew, the Ludwig Erhard of southeast Asia, is not one to indulge in idle speculation. Lee Kuan Yew and his Peoples’ Action Party led Singapore, a minuscule city-state of 3 million out of Third World poverty and into First World prosperity in a mere 30 years. Singaporeans currently earn even more per annum than Canadians.

Taiwan’s Quisling Elite demands Taiwan Independence. Ordinary Chinese on Taiwan Don’t

The Taiwan independence elite claims to have its finger on the political pulse of Taiwan, and claims that its elitist dream of an aptly named “ROT” or “Republic of Taiwan” is shared by the Taiwan public.

The Taiwan independence elite is half right.

The Taiwan independence elite does indeed know what the public on Taiwan wants. The problem for them is the Chinese people on Taiwan don’t want what the Taiwan independence elite wants. The problem for them is the hearts of Chinese people on Taiwan do not beat to the Taiwan independence tune. And that makes them mad.

Eighty-seven Percent of Taiwanese affirm, “We are also Chinese”

On Monday September 25, 2000 for example, on “Er Yi Lin Lin, Quan Min Kai Jiang,” a politically themed TV talk show hosted by Li Tao, Taiwan’s answer to Larry King, copycat suspenders and all, the question for the evening was:

“Are Taiwanese also Chinese?”

Of the 5070 viewers who called in, 4399 or 87% agreed, 632 or 12% disagreed, and 39 or 1% were not sure.

For the record, Li Tao, host of “21:00, Quan Min Kai Jiang” which might be translated loosely as “21:00, The People Speak,” makes little effort to disguise his own Taiwan independence sympathies, so he is hardly susceptible to the charge that he fudged the numbers to favor Chinese reunification.

Besides, Li Tao’s show, as popular as it is, is hardly the only one of its kind. Viewer response on the other popular politically oriented primetime TV talk shows such as “Da Jia Lai Sheng Pan” (“You be the Judge”), “Ba Dian Da Xiao Seng” (“Big and Little Voices at 8:00”), and “Xiang Diu Lun” (“Relativity”) during recent months has been virtually identical.

Taiwan viewers have repeatedly and soundly rejected the DPP’s Taiwan independence agenda and vented mounting frustration with Chen Shui-bian’s insincere foot dragging on resuming cross straits reunification talks.

Air Force One

Shortly after his inauguration, while inspecting a brand new Boeing 737 destined for service as the ROC’s own “Air Force One,” Chen Shui-bian invoked a lame metaphor about how Taiwan was an airliner and A-Bian was a Chuck Yeager Pilot with the Right Stuff who would fly 23 million passengers safely to their destination.

A-Bian’s risible attempt to do a Ronald Reagan Great Communicator number elicited no little amusement among opposition party legislators, who piled on with extended tongue in cheek airplane metaphors of their own. In fact the most telling metaphor of all is that 23 million Chinese on Taiwan are nothing less than victims of an airline hijacking, and the Taiwan independence elite are their hijackers.

Citizens of the Republic of China have been dutifully paying taxes to the government of the Republic of China. Citizens of the Republic of China have been dutifully voting for candidates running for the office of President of the Republic of China. Citizens of the Republic of China paid good money for tickets on the understanding their seats were on a plane belonging to China Airlines, and their final destination, One China.

Little did they know that once aboard the air crew would suddenly remove their blue “China Airlines” uniforms to reveal green “Taiwan Airlines” uniforms underneath, and announce that “we have assumed control of the plane and shall be proceeding not to the destination indicated on your ticket, but to a new destination of our choosing. Next stop, Tokyo.”

Or as mealy-mouthed DPP spokesmen have become proficient at “explaining” to incredulous ROC citizens, “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country, its current name is the Republic of China.”

Yeah, right. “And I’m Chow Yun Fat, internationally reknowned movie star from Hongkong, my current name is Bevin Chu.”

As I said before, for 23 million hapless passengers of China Airlines Flight 2000, a hijacking is the only airplane metaphor that really resonates.

Ninety Percent of Taiwanese have No Confidence in Chen Shui-bian

On Friday September 22, 2000, on “Er Yi Lin Lin Quan Min Kai Jiang,” or “21:00, The People Speak” the question for the evening was,

“Do you have confidence in the government of President Chen Shui-bian?”

Of the 10,814 viewers who called in, 1,000 or 9% said yes, 9,759 or 90% said no, and 55 or 1% had no opinion.

When A-Bian invoked his airliner analogy he was probably thinking Charleton Heston in “Airport.” The ROC public on the other hand, was almost certainly thinking Peter Graves in “Airplane.”

Seventy-four Percent of Taiwanese say DPP should not reject Reunification

On Wednesday September 13, 2000 on “Ba Dian Da Xiao Seng,” or “Big and Little Voices at 8:00,” the question for the evening was,

“Should the DPP as the ruling party continue to reject reunification?”

Of the 6,654 viewers who called in, 1,760 or 26% said it should, while 4,894 or 74% said it shouldn’t.

Taiwanese 12 Times more satisfied with Chiang Ching-kuo than with Lee Teng-hui

On Friday September 1, 2000 on “Er Yi Lin Lin, Quan Min Kai Jiang” or “21:00, The People Speak,” the question for the evening was,

“Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian: which of the last three presidents during the past 13 years are you the most satisfied with?”

Of the 10,993 viewers who called in, 8,662 or 79% answered Chiang Ching-kuo, 719 or 6% answered Lee Teng-hui, and 1,612 or 15% answered Chen Shui-bian.

These numbers are all the more astonishing considering “mainlander” Chiang Ching-kuo, whom Taiwan’s quisling elite assures us was a ruthless dictator hated by all Taiwan Chinese, died twelve years ago, while “native Taiwanese” Lee Teng-hui, aka “Mr. Democracy” left office only four months ago.

So what happened?

Plenty. It didn’t take long for “native Taiwanese” to figure out that while Lee Teng-hui might have been “one of us,” so what? Lee Teng-hui was a Ferdinand Marcos crook who was robbing “us” blind. Chiang Ching-kuo on the other hand, while “from out of state” and an authoritarian to boot, was at least an honest authoritarian, a clean authoritarian, an uncorrupt authoritarian who genuinely cared about the well-being of the Taiwan people.

Score one for the Chinese people on Taiwan. Score zero for Taiwan’s Quisling elite.

Who stands in the Way of Taiwan Independence? The Chinese People on Taiwan

Poll results such as these are clearly devastating to the Taiwan independence elites’ transparent fiction, disseminated uncritically by our “objective” western media, by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek magazine, that the ROC public “yearns for Taiwan independence” and considers itself “Taiwanese, not Chinese.”

On-air polls are of course, as I have freely acknowledged, not “scientific.” No matter. Results such as these are fully consistent with other more “official” gauges of public sentiment, not the least of which was the recent presidential election.

In fact the Taiwan independence elites’ conduct, which drowns out their words, is proof positive they know perfectly well how the ROC majority feels about Taiwan independence. That’s why A-Bian campaigned the way he did, talking up his “New Centrist Path” and distancing himself from the DPP’s pro independence party charter. That’s why A-Bian solemnly promised, if elected, NOT to make the slightest move toward Taiwan independence. That’s why the Taiwan independence elite sings one tune inside Taiwan to attract votes from a political center decidedly unenthusiastic about Taiwan independence, while singing a very different one outside Taiwan to perpetuate the false impression held by most westerners that the ROC public longs for an independent Republic of Taiwan.

Virtual China

Most American readers’ reaction by now is, or ought to be, “There’s got to be some mistake! This can’t be right? Our mainstream media can’t possibly be that wrong about Taiwan independence, can they?”

As libertarian anti-interventionists familiar with the real story behind Kosovo know, the answer is “No mistake. Our mainstream media has in fact gotten it exactly wrong.” As John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine, a techie with no political axe to grind, put it in a June 17, 1997 op-ed piece, “My Trip to China”:

“China was not what I expected… Let me say this: our media is doing a crummy job of keeping us abreast of what’s going on over there… Anyone who thinks this is anything like Russia or the Eastern bloc is as wrong in their assumptions as is imaginable. I would advise you to go see for yourself what’s really going on.”

Dvorak is being far too kind. Our academia/government/media establishment has treated the American public with the same casual contempt that Christoff, the Svengali-ish media mogul played by Ed Harris, treated his unwitting puppet Truman Burbank, played by Jim Carrey, in the 1998 SF hit, “The Truman Show.”

The ROC Military vs. Taiwan Independence

My father had to be hospitalized the week before last for an operation. He checked himself into a room at the Veterans’ Hospital in Shilin. Both his roommates were diehard anti-communists, veterans of China’s Civil War against Mao Zedong’s PLA. I should have taped their remarks. They know who the real enemy of the Republic of China is, and weren’t shy about sharing their views with anyone who would listen.

One hint: It ain’t the PLA.

Just who is it that stands in the way of Taiwan independence?

Is it merely the ruling elite in Beijing? Is it “merely” 95% of 1.3 billion Chinese across the Taiwan Straits? Or is it every other officer, noncom and enlisted man in the Republic of China’s armed forces on Taiwan?

Remember Mel Gibson’s Scottish nationalist epic, “Braveheart?” Remember the scene where Irish troops unexpectedly defect from the ranks of Edward Longshank’s English to join Braveheart’s Scots? Pro Taiwan independence “China experts” and strategic analysts who drone on in authoritative tones about relative troop strengths and armament specifications are utterly clueless about what might in fact happen if Taiwan’s Quisling elite provokes open warfare between Chinese soldiers on Taiwan and Chinese soldiers on the mainland.

A-Bian on the other hand, knows this. That’s why immediately after his inauguration he dutifully rushed to every last military academy graduation ceremony on the island, frantically waving red, white and blue Republic of China flags and shouting “Zhong hua min guo wan shui!” or “Long live the Republic of China!” at the top of his lungs until he was red in the face. Let me tell you, pro reunification New Party, People First Party and Kuomintang Reform Faction members got some good belly laughs watching the pro independence A-Bian go through those motions!

Not that it did any good. The TAIEX just fell from a 52 week high of 10,393 to a new 52 week low, below the psychologically important 6500 support level. Poor A-Bian. He can’t understand why nobody believes him. It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that four months after his inauguration he still can’t bring himself to say three little words, could it?

“I… am… Chinese.”

Read All About It

Singapore’s Straits Times is currently featuring a special webpage dedicated to Lee Kuan Yew’s newly published autobiography, “From Third World to First.”

If there is something else I can do that would enable my fellow Americans to better understand how the Chinese people feel about Taiwan independence, than to turn them on to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore’s superb newspaper, The Straits Times, I can’t imagine what it would be.

Read especially the segments on “Relations with Taiwan’s Leaders,” “SM Lee, the go-between,” and “Deng Xiaoping’s China,” by clicking on the pulldown menu.

An hour devoted to Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s uncannily perceptive political insights is worth a hundred squandered on scribblings by China-hating “China experts” such as William Triplett and Edward Timperlake, authors of “Year of the Rat” and “Red Dragon Rising.”

The Orvillian Newspeak of Orville Schell

The Orvillian Newspeak of Orville Schell
Bevin Chu
September 14, 2000

Journalism Theory 101A: Quotations from Chairman Schell

“Nine-tenths of good journalism is writing a piece over and over until you get it right… Journalism is in peril… but what is possible is to send young journalists out into the world with at least the ability to know what writing with integrity is.”
— Orville Schell
“Schell set to beef up journalism school”
San Francisco Examiner, Sunday June 16, 1996

Journalism Practice 302B: Orvillian Newspeak

“The news is whatever I say is the news.”
— David Brinkley, former NBC Anchorman and media industry icon

“What is news? You know what news is? News is what you news directors interpret it as. News is what we at CNN interpret it as. The people of this country see the news that we think they oughta see.”
— Ted Turner, Founder of CNN

“We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with issues and subjects that we choose to deal with.”
— Richard M. Cohen, former Senior Producer of CBS News

“Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
— Richard Salant, former President of CBS News

Who is Orville Schell?

Orville Schell is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley and Vice-chairman of Human Rights Watch/Asia.

The San Francisco Chronicle describes Schell as a

“China expert, journalist, cattle rancher, human rights activist… Schell grew up on the East Coast in a well-to-do family with a commitment to social justice. His father started Helsinki Watch, the precursor to today’s Human Rights Watch, and his brother Jonathan wrote “The Fate of the Earth,” an apocalyptic account of nuclear devastation, in 1982.”

In other words, Orville Schell is both a journalist and an advocate. We should not be surprised therefore to learn that Schell is an “advocacy journalist,” what libertarian media analyst Edith Efron termed a “News Twister.” And an old money, east coast limousine liberal, to boot.

And why is He saying those Terrible Things about China?

Let’s examine what “China expert” Schell has been saying about the subject of his purported expertise.

In an opinion piece entitled “China’s Dysfunctional Public Relations Barrage,” New York Times, September 2, 2000, Schell writes:

“As Beijing sees it, the reason China’s diplomatic and trade relations with the United States don’t always go smoothly starts with unfair American press coverage and hostile politicians in Congress. Still believing in the efficacy of political propaganda, the Communist Party hopes to change things with [a] public relations offensive.

China’s leaders… export blame for China’s less-than-perfect global relations, obscuring two crucial facts: China is no longer being preyed upon, and the means to solve many of its key international problems are actually in the hands of the government itself… suggesting that “hostile foreign forces” are the problem in hot spots like Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong is a curious abdication of the very sovereign power that Chinese leaders aspire to protect.

And externalizing the cause of problems preempts… initiative at home on their own… there is a larger ailment that this dose of public relations will not cure, and that is Beijing’s anachronistic but stubborn tendency to see China’s national progress as obstructed by foreign interference.”

From Orvillian Newspeak to Ordinary English

Let’s translate Schell’s patronizing, innuendo-laden Orvillian Newspeak into plain English, the kind of unsubtle, unadorned text professional actors refer to as “on the nose.”

Schell says American press coverage is not unfair and politicians in Congress are not hostile. And if they are, what of it? It’s China’s own fault. If the Chinese would just pay attention to us and do what we tell them, we might cut them some slack.

Schell says only Beijing is clueless enough to still “believe in the efficacy of political propaganda.” Our own Pentagon/CNN Military-Media Industry Complex would naturally never attempt to “change things with public relations offensives.”

Never mind that in 1995 Cassidy and Associates, retained by ROC president Lee Teng-hui for the princely sum of $4.5 million, greased enough palms in Congress to clear the way for Lee’s politically-motivated “private” Cornell University trip, that Cornell admits receiving a $2.5 million donation from a “friend” of Lee Teng-hui afterwards.

Never mind that in 1992 Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, hired by Croatia, Bosnia, and the Kosovo Albanians successfully circulated fabricated reports of massive rapes of Moslem and Croat women by the Serbs.

Never mind that in 1991 Hill and Knowlton, hired by Kuwait, successfully circulated “Wag the Dog” horror stories of Iraqi soldiers looting Kuwaiti incubators leaving Kuwaiti babies to perish on cold hospital floors, stories uncritically parroted by CNN, Amnesty International, and get this, Orville Schell’s own Human Rights Watch.

See:
Are the Serbs Demons? by Benedict Neumann

Whom does Professor Schell think he’s talking to? Does he imagine we are suffering from amnesia? Does he imagine we are like goldfish, who don’t remember from one moment to the next how far we’ve swum?

A Chinese official introducing China’s new exhibit suggested that “understanding between peoples is the most important thing to stress when discussing the relationship between two nations.”

See:
China brings its PR message to US, The Straits Times Interactive: East and SE Asia, September 7, 2000.

Uncontroversial, right? Platitudinous maybe, but hardly controversial, right?

Wrong. Beijing’s “A Close Look at China” is what got Schell into his barely controlled snit, what provoked him to launch his preemptive strike against China even before the exhibit opened.

What was Schell’s problem?

Schell’s problem was Beijing had the cheek, the effrontery, the gall, to suggest that there might be a way to perceive China other than the way Schell’s media/academia/government elite has ascertained is the correct way, the approved way, their way for Americans to perceive China.

What right did China have to cast doubt on The Gospel according to Schell? What right did China have to confuse the American public with half-truths? That was a right reserved for Schell’s opinion-making elite. Schell actually entitled a June 29, 1997 New York Times article of his “What to Think About China.” I kid you not.

Humanitarian Interventionists fancy themselves not only as “holier than thou,” but also as “more conscious than thou.” Certainly infinitely more conscious than the “clueless gerontocracy in Bejing.”

In fact they flatter themselves.

Most media establishment insiders such as Christiane Amanpour and the good Professor are intellectual conformists, mediocrities who have never formulated a truly original concept in their life. Their value systems were absorbed unconsciously and uncritically from the intellectual mainstream around them. Their timidity when challenged to “think outside the box” is rivalled only by their defensiveness when other, more original minds confront them with heretical alternatives outside their zone of comfort.

The notion that perhaps the wisest, most farsighted policy for America might simply be to leave China alone, to allow China to succeed or fail, on her own terms, is simply unthinkable to these post-Woodrow Wilson, post-Teddy Roosevelt Babbit busybodies.

If Schell is as convinced that our American system of government is the finest in the world, as his Human Rights Watch moralizing implies he is, libertarian anti-interventionists challenge him to redirect his energies toward getting our own house in order, so that our American Experiment might offer a more convincing example to the rest of the world.

“Rogue nations,” excuse me, “nations of concern” might even fall over each other in their rush to emulate us, without any need for us to hold a gun to their heads to persuade them of the error of their ways.

Who knows? Schell could experience a Road to Damascus conversion. But you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.

Schell says China “is no longer being preyed upon.” When Chinese complain about foreign meddling in China’s internal politics, they are merely diverting attention from their own failures. There are no hostile foreign forces creating problems for China in Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong.

No longer being preyed upon???

If you did a double-take here, if you’re still picking your jaw off the floor, you’re not alone.

Never mind that as recently as 1959 CIA black ops types supplied weapons, training and “advisors” to the “pacifist” Dalai Lama and instigated a violent uprising in China’s Tibetan region.

Never mind that as recently as 1996, four short years ago, our Humanitarian Interventionist commander in chief dispatched two carrier battle groups to the Straits of Taiwan and in a brazen display of 19th century gunboat diplomacy sided with a separatist elite in a Chinese Civil War.

Never mind that as recently as 1999, just last year, he provided an encore by “accidentally” bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade with precision laser-guided smart bombs delivered by a state of the art B-2 Stealth Bomber.

As the Wizard of Oz put it, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

Schell says for China to complain when meddlesome foreign elites [which mind you, don’t exist] persist in interfering in China’s internal affairs is an “abdication of sovereignty.” Presumably not complaining when foreign elites interfere in ones’ domestic politics constitutes an “affirmation of sovereignty.”

To top it off, Schell says Chinese who object to foreign interference “have an ailment,” in other words, they are sick in the head. Chinese presumptuous enough to dispute Dr. Schell’s diagnosis and demand a second opinion are being “stubborn” and their perception “anachronistic.”

Just Shut Up and Bend Over

Schell warns us that, “Old notions of sovereignty are changing, and to gain permanent normal trade status with the United States, coexist successfully in a changed world and win global respect, China needs to look at new ways of relieving tensions.”

Translation: China had better wise up to the way things are going to be under the New World Order. Or else.

As Strobe Talbot put it in a now infamous July 20, 1992 article “America Abroad: The Birth of the Global Nation” in Time Magazine, “The internal affairs of a nation used to be off limits to the world community. Now the principal of “humanitarian intervention” is gaining acceptance.”

Jiang Zemin’s speech at the United Nations Millennium Summit declaring that “Without sovereignty, there will be no human rights to speak of, that respecting the right of nations to run their own internal affairs is the principle of democracy as applied to world affairs” is sure to receive a failing grade in Professor Schell’s compulsory course on “Human Rights under the New World Order.”

As the good professor puts it, “Instead of trooping over to New York to engage in transnational propaganda, its leaders might better serve their country by staying home and seeking ways to reframe its relations, on its own, with both its own constituent parts and the larger world.”

Translation: “Just shut up and bend over.”

As Madeleine Albright told the NBC Television ‘Today’ show on 19th February 1998, “If we have to use force it is because we are America! We are the indispensible nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”

No translation needed.

The Real Problem: China has a Bad Attitude

Schell informs us that, “Anti-foreignism took root and was confirmed by the Japanese occupation in World War II. It was codified during Mao’s revolution as Leninist anti-imperialism. In the fever of today’s marketplace such revolutionary ideology has been muted… “

A century and a half of naked “might makes right” foreign aggression, summarized in one dry, lifeless sentence. Not even to provide historical context, which might evoke unwanted sympathy for China’s point of view, but to establish Schell’s controlling premise:

“China has a bad attitude.”

Schell speaks of “anti-foreignism.” He informs us “anti-foreignism” “took root,” “was confirmed,” “was codified” and is today “muted.” Muted only because Chinese today are afflicted with “marketplace fever,” which Schell makes sound like a bad thing.

“Orville Schell,” his Berkeley predecessor Tom Goldstein assures us, “has worked at some of the highest levels of journalism for more than a quarter of a century and he is just full of wisdom and terrific ideas.”

Either Schell is working at levels too high for us mere mortals, or else Schell has a problem communicating in plain English.

China was minding her own business in 1842 when the British Navy sailed halfway around the world, held a gun to China’s head, and said “Buy my opium, or else,” and “Sign over Hongkong, or else.”

China was minding her own business in 1895 when the Japanese Navy sailed across the East China Sea, held a gun to China’s head, and said “Sign over Taiwan, or else.”

China was minding her own business in 1900, when the so-called “Eight Powers” held guns to China’s head and said “Give us Treaty Ports, or else,” and when Chinese resisted, murdered thousands, sacked the Summer Palace and looted it three ways from Sunday.

China was minding her own business in 1931, when the Japanese Army marched into Mukden, held a gun to China’s head and said, “Sign over Manchuria, or else.”

China was minding her own business in 1937, when the Japanese Army marched into Nanking and in two months slaughtered 300,000 unarmed civilians.

So what if foreign powers invaded China, extorted Chinese territory at gunpoint, murdered millions of her citizens, and treated others like second class citizens in her own land? None of those are the real problem.

The real problem is China has a chip on its shoulder. The real problem is the Chinese have a bad attitude.

Schell may be full of something, but it clearly isn’t “wisdom and terrific ideas.”

No Clear and Present Danger

During an intellectualcapital.com interview “Is There a Clear and Future Danger?” Thursday, June 26, 1997, former GOP presidential candidate Pete DuPont asked Tom Clancy, author of “Red Storm Rising” and numerous Cold War thrillers:

“Could China be a realistic fear? Ross Munro and Richard Bernstein’s book “The Coming Conflict with China,” has certainly captured the attention of many in the defense community. What do you think?”

Clancy’s sharp, almost testy reply was highly instructive:

“How can we have a conflict with China? The Pacific Ocean’s in the way and they don’t have a navy.”

See:
Is There a Clear and Future Danger?

The Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule

As Clancy astutely observes, if we have a conflict with China, it will be because our Benevolent Global Hegemonists deliberately went out of their way and crossed the widest ocean on the planet for the express purpose of picking a fight with a distant nation with which we don’t even share a common border.

In other words, we are the ones provoking a showdown with China. China is not the one provoking a showdown with us. We are the aggressors, not the Chinese. We are the ones initiating force, not the Chinese.

Does anybody remember the Monroe Doctrine? Forget the Monroe Doctrine, does anybody remember the Golden Rule?

Neocon hawks posture as devout Christians, but seem to have forgotten Christianity’s central ethical tenet, the Golden Rule, namely, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Or as pre-Christian era Chinese ethical philosopher Confucius worded it, “Do nothing to others that you would not have done unto you.”

We sent our navy 8000 miles west across the Pacific Ocean in 1996 and threatened China’s Fujian coast. We got right up in China’s face. We butted into a Chinese Civil War which has no bearing whatsoever on America’s national sovereignty or territorial integrity.

China did not send her navy 8000 miles east to threaten our California coast. China did not get in our faces. China did not butt into our American Civil War in 1861, because it was none of China’s business, having no bearing whatsoever on China’s national sovereignty or territorial integrity.

As Charlie Reese, anti-interventionist columnist with the Orlando Sentinel lamented,

“We ought to be the good guys, and we aren’t.”

The Pentagon’s New Global Enemy for the 21st Century

Andrew Marshall notes in a 30 August 2000 Independent piece entitled “The US is thinking itself into a new global conflict” that “The Pentagon’s target, apparently, is China, the new global enemy for the 21st century.”

“The US is thinking itself into a new global conflict. This time, it is not in Europe; it is in the Pacific… in a document called Asia 2025… the China threat, a nuclear power, one point two billion people the other side of the world, is satisfyingly Soviet-shaped and justifies… more heavy airlift, more sealift, more attack submarines, aircraft carriers and long-range bombers, not less… Of all of the projects spawned by the new “menace”, the really big one is the National Missile Defence (NMD)… America says it is aimed at North Korea and Iran; it isn’t, or at least not only at them. It is aimed at China, and maintaining US dominance in the Pacific.”

See:
The US is thinking itself into a new global conflict

Red Corner? Or Red White and Blue Corner?

Remember “Red Corner,” Jon Avnet’s “Two Minutes of Hate” propaganda film, starring Richard Gere? Remember how Richard Gere had the premiere deliberately moved up to coincide with Jiang Zemin’s state visit to America?

See:
Salon’s review of Red Corner

In what has to be the supreme irony, our own federal law enforcement has been treating the hapless Lee Wenho almost exactly the way the Richard Gere character was depicted as being treated by a “human rights violating” Beijing government in “Red Corner.”

In fact as American expats in Shanghai or Beijing can testify, American businessmen who run afoul of the law in China are not treated as depicted in “Red Corner,” but are simply declared persona non grata and deported.

If Schell is serious about exposing xenophobia, or “anti-foreignism,” as a menace to world peace and human rights, he need not look 8000 miles west across the Pacific.

He need only look at the neoconservative National Review and Weekly Standard, where primitive xenophobia and paranoia really do fester just beneath a thin outer skin of “civilized, scholarly discourse.”

From Schell’s ivory tower perch in Berkeley he need only look a few hundred miles southeast to Los Alamos, where a Kafkaesque nightmare is being visited upon American scientist Lee Wenho in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, where neocon “human rights champions,” better known as lynch mobs, have brushed aside all concern for Due Process and Presumption of Innocence, and are shrieking, “Fry the spy!”

Or maybe that’s a little too close to home?

Losing Face vs. Losing Territory

Schell writes,

“Far from losing face, China would gain nothing but world respect and gratitude if, for example, it could see its way to unilaterally renouncing the use of force in the Taiwan Straits and evince more respect for the right of Taiwanese to determine their relationship to the mainland. It would gain similarly if it could grant Tibetans a greater quotient of real autonomy and then encourage the Dalai Lama to return to Lhasa, and if it would permit Hong Kong the political latitude to elect its leaders in a truly democratic manner.”

Schell’s unsolicited advice to China about how she can curry favor with Schell’s Humanitarian Interventionist nomenklatura is so Politically Correct and Conventionally Wise, therefore plain wrong, simply figuring out where to begin taking it apart is a challenge in itself.

First, Schell has it exactly backwards. What Schell should have said is,

“Far from losing face, America would gain nothing but world respect and gratitude if, for example, it could see its way to unilaterally renouncing the use of force in the Taiwan Straits and evince more respect for the right of Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to determine their relationship to each other. America would gain similarly if it could acknowledge her individual states a greater quotient of real independence, as is their constitutional right under the original Articles of Confederation.”

The Taiwan region of China would not remain separate from the mainland were it not for our Benevolent Global Hegemonists and the Taiwan Relations Act. Taiwan and the mainland are being artifically held apart by active, sustained, ongoing US military intervention. Absent this foreign military intervention, the minority Taiwan independence elite would be forced to compromise and to negotiate in earnest for genuine autonomy, rather than to pay insincere lip service to reunification while stalling for time and plotting eventual independence.

Second, Schell is mighty cavalier about China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity. “Just let Taiwan and Tibet go,” Schell opines, “Why be such a tightass? What’s the big deal?”

Is Schell a champion of Southern Secession? American Indian secession? Of Alaskan independence? Hawaiian independence? Texas independence?

For a real eye-opener on just how the sovereign nation of Hawaii was colonized and annexed at bayonet point by the United States,

See:
The Overthrow of the Monarchy, by Pat Pitzer, Spirit of Aloha, May 1994, the in-flight magazine of Aloha Airlines

Is Schell prepared to allow California, as of this year over 50% Hispanic, to hold a plebiscite, secede from these United States and possibly be annexed by [or restored to, depending on one’s point of view] Mexico?

Is Schell prepared to allow south Florida, overwhelmingly Cuban in population, to hold a plebiscite, secede from these United States and possibly even be annexed by a post-Castro Cuba?

Notwithstanding Schell’s Strobe Talbot-esque political [as contrasted with economic] globalism, is Schell as cavalier about American national sovereignty and territorial integrity? Is Schell as willing, nay eager, to “just let Alaska, California, Hawaii, Texas go?”

If he is, can we anticipate Schell vocally demanding Alaskan, Californian, Hawaiian, Texan independence or autonomy? As vocally as he demands Taiwan and Tibetan independence or autonomy?

Why do I doubt it?

What’s Good for the Chinese Goose is Good for the American Gander

Schell concludes with,

“The truth is that most solutions for what internationally bedevils China will not be found in New York because what needs fixing is in Beijing. What China needs is not better global propaganda, but bold new vision and leadership dedicated to recasting the way it imagines itself in the world. Whether the present leadership is imaginative or strong enough to undertake such a reappraisal is another question. But… China’s leaders would have accomplished something to be truly proud of. Moreover, their world stature would soar and they would find that myriad other tensions, around issues like trade arrangements with the United States, would dissolve on their own.”

Inverting Schell’s unsolicited wisdom we get,

“The truth is that most solutions for what internationally bedevils America will not be found in Beijing because what needs fixing is in Washington. What America needs is not better global propaganda, but bold new vision and leadership dedicated to recasting the way it imagines itself in the world. Whether the present leadership is imaginative or strong enough to undertake such a reappraisal is another question. But… America’s leaders would have accomplished something to be truly proud of. Moreover, their world stature would soar and they would find that myriad other tensions, around issues like trade arrangements with China, would dissolve on their own.”

Amazing, isn’t it?

A Remedial Class in American Values for Professor Schell

“Imperialism and nationalism are incompatible notions. A genuine patriotism entails respect for the patriotism of others. It is clearly incompatible with invading other countries, humiliating other countries or subordinating them to one’s geopolitical needs. An American patriot loves his country, appreciates its system of government but accepts that it works very well only here. It is not for export, any more than Islamic theocracy or the Eastern Orthodox Church is. This is what differentiates the patriot from the imperialist. The empire builder is sure that his country has reached the pinnacle of civilization and therefore is obligated to impose it on the rest of the world.”
— George Szamuely
“Podhoretz’s Paradox”
Decline of the West, July 6, 2000

Got it, Orville?

Why Pick on Schell?

Next to neocon warmongers Robert Kagan and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, or Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, authors of “The Coming Conflict with China,” not to mention sundry crypto white supremacist websites on the net, liberal bleeding heart Orville Schell comes across as positively innocuous, a veritable Teddy bear.

So why pick on him?

Because China-baiters who have difficulty repressing and camouflaging their racial animus give themselves away, and thus limit the amount of mischief they are able to inflict.

Schell’s cavalier misrepresentations of China’s history and lazy stereotyping of the Chinese people, on the other hand, while every bit as biased as that of more strident China-baiters, come across as intellectually respectable, “scholarly.”

Given that Schell’s “kinder, gentler” China-demonization provides convenient intellectual cover for anti-China, anti-Chinese, and anti-Chinese-American bigotry, the mild-mannered, professorial Schell may turn out to be more, not less dangerous than the “Let’s nuke Beijing!” thug with spittle dribbling out one side of his mouth.

Freedom and Democracy disappear in Taiwan

Freedom and Democracy disappear in Taiwan
Bevin Chu
August 31, 2000

Freedom and Democracy vanish from Taipei’s “Tiananmen Square”

On August 22, citizens of the Republic of China woke up to discover that a row of familiar signs in front of Taipei’s Presidential Palace had suddenly and mysteriously vanished, overnight. The eight giant signs which lined one side of Taipei’s counterpart to Tiananmen Square for almost two decades, read “Zhi Yu Min Zu, Tong Yi Zhong Guo,”or “Freedom and Democracy Shall Reunify China.” These eight Chinese characters were clearly visible in the background during Chen Shui-bian’s May 20th inauguration ceremony. They appeared in electronic and print media images of the event held in Presidential Square.

What happened to them? Where did they go?

An AFP article which got zero notice outside Taiwan, but which was picked up by the English language China Post noted:

“The removal of the slogans sparked speculation over the new government’s political intentions.”

Freedom and Democracy are dead. Long live Freedom and Democracy

The removal of the slogans as it turns out, was indeed, “politically motivated.” The signs reading “Freedom and Democracy Shall Reunify China” were demolished by Chen Shui-bian, who only three months ago at his inaugural ceremony stood before them and shouted:

“Long live freedom and democracy!”

Chen Shui-bian stood before them and said:

“The government should rule on the basis of majority public opinion. The interests of the people should reign supreme over those of any political party or individual… [I understand I must put] national interests above those of political parties… from the moment I take my oath and assume the presidency, I will put all my efforts into fulfilling my role as a “president for all people.””

Chen Shui-bian stood before them and said:

“I fully understand that, as the popularly elected 10th-term president of the Republic of China, I must abide by the Constitution… and ensure the well-being of all citizens… I pledge that during my term in office, I will not declare independence, I will not change the national title, I will not push forth the inclusion of the so-called “state-to-state” description in the Constitution, and I will not promote a referendum to change the status quo in regard to the question of independence or unification. Furthermore, there is no question of abolishing the Guidelines for National Unification and the National Unification Council.”

Wow. Sounds pretty good. Almost as good as “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

Freedom and Democracy, Victims of Collateral Damage

The Republic of China’s 1991 “Guidelines for National Unification” read:

“the two sides of the Taiwan Straits should foster a consensus of democracy, freedom and equal prosperity, and together build a new and unified China.”

The twenty year old signs A-Bian ordered demolished read:

“Freedom and Democracy Shall Reunify China.”

Does anyone else smell a rat? Does anyone else suspect something is rotten in the State of Denmark? Does anyone else doubt A-Bian’s sincerity? Anyone who has not been duped by warm and fuzzy sounding Taiwan independence propaganda knows exactly what happened.

Freedom and Democracy had to be sacrificed. They were hanging out with the wrong crowd, Reunification. One might say that Freedom and Democracy were “collateral damage” in the Taiwan independence elite’s Jihad against the Satanic Forces of Chinese Reunification. As Madeleine Albright might argue, Freedom and Democracy were Chinese Reunification’s “willing executioners.”

The Taiwan independence elite’s attitude is Freedom and Democracy are nice to have as long as they don’t stand in the way of their precious “Republic of Taiwan.” As long as Freedom and Democracy were useful in garnering sympathy for Taiwan independence, fine and dandy. After all, “Freedom!” and “Democracy!” go over big with well-meaning, gullible Yanquis. We can be counted on to write our windbags in congress and demand that by golly America is going to stand up for a “Free and Democratic Taiwan” against the Bogeyman from Beijing.

But just let Freedom and Democracy work against Taiwan independence, then watch out.

A Room with a View

Can’t you just picture A-Bian, glaring petulantly out his office window at the hated second half of the slogan “Shall Reunify China,” dying to take a blowtorch to it, but caught on the horns of a dilemma? Can’t you just hear A-Bian, known for his bad temper, ranting at cowering flunkies:

“Am I going to have to see that goddamned slogan every time I look out my window for the next four years?”

A-Bian knew if he ordered only the last four characters “Shall Reunify China” taken down and the first four characters “Freedom and Democracy” left up, even an idiot would realize what he just did.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened next.

“Freedom and Democracy” were immediately torched and hauled off to the scrap heap, right along with “Shall Reunify China.”

Chen Che-nan, Acting Secretary-General to the President, [is that a great title for a brown-nosing flakcatcher or what?] then told the press the private industry group which underwrote the construction of the signs had requested they be torn down for safety reasons, a claim promptly and categorically denied by the group named.

Freedom and Democracy vs. What Really Matters

For the past 12 years Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura has had no qualms whatsoever about nullifying the ROC electorate’s freedoms and democratic institutions whenever they stood in the way of Taiwan independence. I’m not accusing Taiwan independence elitists of deliberately, systematically, maliciously setting out to extinguish every last spark of Freedom and Democracy on Taiwan. I’m merely pointing out that if one pays attention to what they do, instead of what they say, one quickly learns Freedom and Democracy don’t rate very high on the Taiwan independence elite’s shortlist of What Really Matters.

If you want to seehow quickly the Taiwan independence elite changes its tune when the Sanctity of the Democratic Process frustrates their Taiwan independence goals, look up “Taiwan’s Little Emperors.” The dirty little secret about Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura is that its highest priority has never been Freedom and Democracy, but the establishment of a “Republic of Taiwan, Freedom and Democracy Optional.”

Their aptly named “ROT” would in fact be a reincarnation of the puppet regime known as “Manchukuo,” presided over by Henry Puyi, the “Last Emperor” depicted in Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic of the same name. It would be independent in name but in fact a client-state of a rightist dominated Japan hostile to China first, and America second.

Chinese Bankers vote for Reunification

If you want to know what people want, don’t waste time conducting surveys asking them “What do you want?” Most of the time what you’ll get is not what they want, but their wish list for Santa Claus. What you’ll get is what they would order for lunch if they know in advance somebody else is picking up the tab. What you’ll get is what free market economists refer to as “moral hazard,” irresponsible behavior detached from any serious consideration of the consequences of what happens when it comes time to pay the piper. The only time this rule does not apply is when a free lunch is not involved.

See:
Taiwan Independence and Free Lunches

If you’re serious about wanting to know what people really want, don’t ask them directly. Simply look at what they’re willing to pay for out of their own wallets. “Money talks,” as the vulgar expression goes, “and bullshit walks.” If one earnestly wants to know how private Chinese citizens on Taiwan feel about Chinese Reunification, one need look no further than the “Freedom and Democracy Shall Reunify China” signs.

The twenty year old signs were a public service sponsored by the privately funded Bankers Association, which paid for their original cost of construction and annual maintenance. Taiwan’s banking industry voted, with their NT dollars. Taiwan’s bankers know only too well for Taiwan to have any economic future, it will be as an integral part of what American multinationals refer to as “Greater China.”

Taiwan’s Weighted Index or TAIEX fell another 273 points yesterday. From a 52 week high of 10,393, it closed at 7543, a new 52 week low. Taiwan’s shareholders, who are overwhelmingly small, individual investors rather than large managed funds, are voting with their NT dollars, right alongside Taiwan’s bankers. They too are casting a vote of “No Confidence.” During the Cold War Douglas MacArthur referred to the island of Taiwan as “an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the western Pacific.” Did I hear somebody say “Titanic?”

A Free Republic of Taiwan? Or a Republic of Taiwan, For Free?

If one asks Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura, “What do you want?” They’ll reflexively tell you they want a “free and independent Republic of Taiwan.” If one asks Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura, “What’s wrong with One China comprising two equal but autonomous regions, the ROC and PRC?” They’ll turn up their noses and dismiss any such suggestions as “unacceptable.”

So far, no surprises.

But be so impolite as to overstep the polite bounds of “normal” conversation and ask them the personal price they’re willing to pay to get what they want, or say they want, and watch their body language.

Ask them if they personally, are prepared to grab an M-16, volunteer for combat, and risk having their spinal column severed by a stray round out of nowhere, or their legs turned into a pink mist by the one antipersonnel mine that escaped their notice.

Ask them if they personally, are prepared to return from the front lines of a Chinese Civil War they provoked in a body bag, or live the remainder of their lives in a wheelchair.

Then watch them shift uncomfortably in their seats as they assure you “Of course I am.”

You’ll quickly discover that what Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura wants is not a “free and independent Republic of Taiwan,” but a “Republic of Taiwan, for free, dependent on the US Seventh Fleet.”

Fraudulent, hypocritical lip service to Freedom and Democracy is the rotten tooth Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura places under its pillow at night, with the expectation that a carrier battle group will be there next morning, courtesy the American Tooth Fairy.

Freedom Fosters Chinese Reunification

Citizens of the Republic of China demand freedom. But much to the chagrin of Taiwan’s Japanophile elite, Chinese on Taiwan use their freedom to “fraternize with the enemy,” i.e., their fellow countrymen on the Chinese mainland.

They demand the freedom to travel, ship freight, mail letters and packages directly to any and all regions of their own country, including the Chinese mainland. This freedom, commonly referred to as “San Tong,” or “Three Links,” is something Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait demand, as is their right as citizens of One China.

The lower 48 states belong as much to American citizens from Alaska or Hawaii as to residents of California or New York. Similarly, the Chinese mainland belongs as much to Chinese citizens of the Republic of China, as it does to Chinese citizens of the Peoples Republic of China.

Amazingly, some DPP politicians may be beginning to see the light. I say “may be” because it’s too soon to tell if they really “get it” yet.

Xiamen is a port city in Fujian province, directly across the Taiwan Strait, the mainland province most Chinese on Taiwan hail from. “Taiwanese,” so-called, is merely the Chinese dialect spoken in the Minan region of Fujian. Frank Hsieh, incoming DPP Party Chairman and Mayor of Kaohsiung recently declared matter of factly that, “Kaohsiung and Xiamen are two cities within the same nation.”

No kidding! Will wonders never cease?

Chinese on Taiwan demand that Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura respect ordinary Chinese citizens’ right to invest in the Chinese mainland, build factories on the Chinese mainland, make religious pilgrimages to the Chinese mainland, visit relatives on the Chinese mainland, marry fellow countrymen from the Chinese mainland, bring their husbands or wives to Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. Citizens of the Republic of China demand that Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura respect their right to do all these things and more without official harassment.

This right is being denied them by an arrogant political elite.

No, not by Beijing, which earnestly wants to bring the two sides closer together. But by Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura, which does not, and which is determined to keep the two sides apart by hook or by crook, the will of the people be damned.

Lee Teng-hui’s cross Straits “policy,” euphemistically dubbed “jie ji, yong ren” or “avoid haste, be patient” has served no other purpose than to hinder, impede and obstruct the spontaneous reconvergence of the two halves of a divided China.

When Chinese on Taiwan firmly rejected Lee Teng-hui’s autocratic “head in the sand” proscription against direct contact with their mainland brethren, Mr. Democracy’s all too typical reaction was in essence “If you don’t like it, you can lump it.” The last thing in the world Lee Teng-hui and Taiwan’s Japanophile elite want is for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to spontaneously merge back with each other.

When Freedom conflicts with Taiwan independence, Freedom goes while Taiwan independence stays.

Democracy Fosters Chinese Reunification

Citizens of the Republic of China value “democracy,” or to be more precise, what George Washington and most of our Founding Fathers preferred to call “republican government.” But much to the chagrin of Taiwan’s Japanophile elite, the Chinese people on Taiwan favor reunification with mainland China.

Earlier this week on “Da Jia Lai Seng Pan,” or “You Be the Judge,” a popular viewer call-in show on GTV, the on-air survey question asked was “Do you favor reunification, independence, or the status quo?”

Out of 6,840 viewers who phoned in and voted, 4,858 voted “reunification,” 1,792 voted “independence,” and 190 voted “status quo.”

That works out to 71% in favor of reunification, 26% in favor of independence, and 3% in favor of the status quo.

On air polls are of course not scientific, but results like this are quite typical, provide useful anecdotal evidence about mainstream sentiment, and are entirely consistent with the results of the March 18 presidential election, when 61% of the vote was split between four candidates who favored reunification.

The 71% figure for viewers supporting reunification is especially revealing, since even DPP officials concede that a substantial percentage of the 39% who voted for Chen Shiu-bian were not endorsing Taiwan independence, but merely wanted to rid themselves of “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui’s rampant corruption. These voters voted for Chen only because Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tse, advisor to Chen Shui-bian, assured them Chen would not foment Taiwan independence and reignite a still unresolved Chinese Civil War, but devote his energy to cleaning up corruption.

Let’s glance at the numbers:

71% – 61% = 10%
39% – 10% = 29%

The 26% who phoned in and voted for independence closely approximates A-Bian’s 39% plurality, minus an estimated 10% to 15% who liked the sound of A-Bian’s anti-corruption pledges but who do not endorse Taiwan independence.

These figures are all the more astonishing when you consider that fact that Lee Teng-hui has for the past twelve years misdirected the immense financial and political resources of the Leninist KMT party/government machinery into brainwashing the ROC public into thinking of itself as “Taiwanese, not Chinese.” Lee Teng-hui, like Mao Zedong before him, learned to his dismay just how persistent Culture with a capital C can be, how badly Culture can trip up the dirigiste ambitions of sundry self-appointed social engineers and “nation-builders.”

Four years ago “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian successfully blocked a New Party election reform bill requiring an either an absolute majority or else a run-off election. This March 18 A-Bian squeaked by with a 39% plurality. A run-off election would have put the immensely popular pro reunification former Taiwan Provincial Governor James Soong in the president’s office.

When Democracy conflicts with Taiwan independence, Democracy goes while Taiwan independence stays.

Freedom and Democracy will reunify China

The Taiwan independence elite has been selling Taiwan independence as if Freedom and Democracy on Taiwan justified, even necessitated Taiwan independence. Libertarians who follow Sino-American relations have probably detected a predictable spin imparted to mainstream media news articles and opinion pieces [what’s the diff?] dealing with Taiwan independence. Their spin goes something like this:

“Taiwan [never the ROC] is drifting away from China [never the PRC]. Taiwan is developing its own distinctively Taiwanese political and cultural identity.”

Sound familiar?

The truth, with almost boring predictably, is just the reverse.

Freedom and Democracy on Taiwan, and eventually the Chinese mainland, will reunify China. Absent artificial constraints imposed from the top down by insolent Taiwan independence “nation builders,” the mainland’s geographical proximity, the pressures of economic globalization, China’s venerable and durable cultural traditions, would draw the two sides of the Taiwan Strait toward each other like a pair of powerful magnets.

The Taiwan independence elite knows this, and doesn’t like it one bit.

This is why they have engaged in Orwellian historical revisionism with a Japanese twist for the past decade, frantically rewriting Taiwan’s primary and secondary school textbooks to indoctrinate Chinese children on Taiwan into admiring Japan and despising their own country, China. Not even the best aspects of Japan, of which there are many, her fine arts for example, but the worst aspects of Japan, her fanatical militarism.

Neoconservative and liberal Taiwan independence fellow travelers are not going to suddenly pretend they don’t appreciate the significance of this kind of control of the public school curriculum I hope?

Lee Teng-hui camouflaged his unsavory neofascist Japanophilia under a garment labeled “Freedom and Democracy,” and got away with it for 12 years. Hapless Chinese citizens on Taiwan could only grit their teeth as ignoramuses within our mainstream western media canonized Lee as “Mr. Democracy.”

A-Bian has no Room for Error

“A mediator between Beijing and Taipei has revealed that former President Lee Teng-hui was opposed to reunification all along, although he gave the impression that he supported the move.”
— Ching Cheong
“Alas, Beijing believed Taiwan’s ex-leader”
The Straits Times Interactive, Aug 20, 2000

Lee is now a fading memory. Now comes A-Bian.

Chiu Yi-ren, one of the younger generation of DPP officials, agrees with what New Party officials have saying for years. After being jerked around by Lee Teng-hui for 12 long years, Beijing has completely run out of patience. Consequently “A-Bian has no room for error.”

Let’s hope A-Bian understands the destructive folly of his predecessor’s example, of paying insincere lip service to peaceful reunification by day, while fomenting ugly separatist hatred by night.

Let’s hope A-Bian is not “pulling a Lee Teng-hui” when he says,

“Under the leadership of Mr. Deng Xiaoping and Mr. Jiang Zemin, the mainland has created a miracle of economic openness… Today, as the Cold War has ended, it is time for the two sides to cast aside the hostility left from the old era. We do not need to wait further because there is a new opportunity now for the two sides to create an era of reconciliation together… we believe that the leaders on both sides possess enough wisdom and creativity to jointly deal with the question of a future “one China.”

Freedom is making a comeback, and Democracy is making a debut on mainland China

Liberal Democratic former president Jimmy Carter and conservative Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have both traveled to mainland China and confirmed that village level elections on the Chinese mainland are the Real McCoy.

[Not that it’s any of our business of course.]

Let’s hope Freedom and Democracy don’t bow out on Taiwan even as they make their appearance on the Chinese mainland, just because they happen to have “creative differences” with a Quisling elite’s dream of Taiwan independence.

The White Knight, Third World Damsel in Distress Syndrome

The White Knight, Third World Damsel in Distress Syndrome
Originally posted at Chinese Community Forum (CCF)
Bevin Chu
August 23, 2000

The summer heat is lingering on. What we have here probably does not help cooling it down. Bevin Chu contributes to the heat when he shares his observation of how some China-demonizers are created following marriages of Western men and Chinese women. He offers an explanation for this “syndrome.”
— CCF Editors

It’s extremely tempting to assume that Western men with Chinese wives will naturally be more benevolent toward China, will be less inherently hostile.

It seems so logical, so reasonable. However, it is a priori logic. I have discovered empirically, to my deep dismay, that the contrary is often the case. Some of the worst, most virulent China-demonizers I have had the misfortune to come across are Western men with Chinese wives.

I confess I was shocked at first. How could this be? What the hell is going on?

Why does one after another Western husband of a Chinese wife harbor such intense hatred of China? What did China ever do to the Western husband, other than supply him with a wife?

As I dug deeper I began to get a feeling for the psychological rationale for this perverse hatred of the wife’s country of origin, a hatred shared by both the Western husband and the Chinese wife.

The couple will collude in a peculiar “White Knight, Third World Damsel in Distress” Dynamic.

The shared premise is that the Western husband has swooped down from an “advanced, more civilized” nation and rescued the Third World lass from a “fate worse than death,” namely being trapped in a “primitive, backward country,” and here’s the kicker, “filled with primitive, backward men.”

The Western husband gets to stroke his own masculine ego. The Chinese wife gets to live out her Chinese “Cinderella Complex” fantasy by being rescued by a “superior” Western male.

The Western husband immerses himself in a warm sense of “racial superiority.” The Chinese wife distances herself from her own “inferior” identity by indiscriminately bashing all Chinese men.

Their own innocent children alas, are the ones who will suffer the most from their shared racism. Especially sons, if any. Daughters can simply reenact the mother’s pattern. This is an option not open to the sons in this by definition unequal and unbalanced relationship. It is truly tragic.

Instead of relating to each other as fully equal human beings, instead of acting as a bridge between two cultures, instead of promoting peace and harmony between the West and China, as they might reasonably be expected to do, but don’t, the couples I describe unthinkingly perpetuate a uniquely repugnant strain of sexism and chauvinism.

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying, deliberately or otherwise. I did not making a universal statement. To allege that all Western husbands of Chinese women were involved in the distasteful dynamic I outlined would be an absurd, and bigoted claim.

My own cousin is married to big-hearted German man, who is my personal friend. One of my most simpatico internet pen pals is married to a considerate, un-chauvinistic American man whom I like. One of China’s most admired heroes is USAF General Claire Chennault of WWII Flying Tigers fame, whose widow Anna Chennault is Chinese.

My remarks apply only to those couples who have indicted themselves by their own behavior.

Those who have had the misfortune of encountering one of these men know exactly whom I’m talking about. These Caucasian husbands often seek out China-themed fora for the express purpose of bashing China as a nation, and Chinese men as a racial class.

[For the record, I was referring to National Review Online’s China-baiter in Residence, John Derbyshire, who decided to amuse himself by “trolling” the Chinese Community Forum online forum.]

Men and women of goodwill, both Asian and Caucasian, can only be grateful when they encounter couples who don’t fit this regrettable profile. Individuals of high self-esteem, who chose each other on the basis of personal affinities and not sexual politics, provide gratifying counter-examples to this all too common Madama Butterfly/Lakme/Suzie Wong Syndrome.

Taiwan Independence, Whim of an Elite

Taiwan Independence, Whim of an Elite
Bevin Chu
August 17, 2000

The Will of the Majority? Or the Whim of an Elite?

Taiwan independence advocates would have an impressionable American public believe that Taiwan independence is a “grass roots movement reflecting Taiwan’s democratic will of the majority.” Classical liberal and libertarian anti-interventionists who happened to catch Taiwan independence “spokespersons” being interviewed on CNN this past week, or who surf the pages of the neocon Weekly Standard or liberal New Republic know what I’m talking about.

In fact the Taiwan independence movement is nothing of the sort.

Historians of western European history have noted wryly that, toward its end, “the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.” The same could be said of the “Taiwan independence movement,” which from its postwar inception has been neither Taiwanese, nor independent, nor a bona fide grass roots movement.

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura, Tokyo’s Samurai Fascists, and Washington’s Benevolent Hegemonists

The Taiwan independence movement is not a grass roots movement, but an elitist agenda. An antidemocratic, realpolitik agenda, imposed from the top down by three foreign policy elites:

A Quisling Nomenklatura in Taipei, Samurai Fascists in Tokyo, and Benevolent Global Hegemonists in Washington.

The aims of these three elites sometimes coincide, and sometimes collide. Taiwan “independence” thrives in the pestilential swamp where the three elites’ special interests overlap. These elites’ power to foist their private agendas on the wider public is concentrated, focused. Their own citizenry’s power to resist, let alone overturn these elites’ agendas, on the other hand, is dilute, diffused.

These elites have no objections to framing their Taiwan independence agenda in populist terms to bolster public support, or neutralize popular opposition. But make no mistake, these elites rule not by the consent of the governed, but by the whim of the governors. When push comes to shove, when ordinary ROC citizens get in the way of the juggernaught known as the Taiwan Lobby, do not delude yourself about whose privileges have priority, and whose rights will be steamrollered.

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura

The first of these three foreign policy elites is an obsequious Quisling Nomenklatura in Taipei, which sees itself as Japanese, not Chinese. Not ordinary, decent, hardworking Japanese, but the worst, most treacherous elements of Japanese society, Japan’s fanatical right-wing militarists. Prominent among them are Rape of Nanking denier Shintaro Ishihara, neofascist Governor of Tokyo.

This Quisling Nomenklatura’s raison d’etre, its prime directive, its niche in the malignant political ecology of Taiwan independence, is to act as willing puppets, proxies, “front men,” for Samurai Fascists in Tokyo and Benevolent Global Hegemonists in Washington, both of whom need pretexts for the revival of naked gunboat diplomacy against China.

Lee Teng-hui sees China through the Eyes of a Japanese Militarist

Many China “experts,” handicapped by psychological naivete when it comes to the mind set of Taiwan’s separatist elite, have been baffled by Lee Teng-hui’s frequently erratic behavior.

Former ROC legislator Fu Kuen-chen, ROC legislator Fung Hu-hsiang, and dissident scholar Li Ao, Taiwan’s own Vaclav Havel and current nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature have noted on the other hand, just how easy it is to understand Lee Teng-hui, once you appreciate how he sees the world. If you want to understand Lee Teng-hui’s position on just about any issue under the sun, simply ask yourself “How would a right-wing Japanese militarist determined to reconquer Taiwan and transform it back into a Japanese colony see the issue?”

You will then have your answer.

Consider the following news headline, which flew beneath the radar of most China-watchers, but speaks volumes, providing one is familiar with the context and able to read between the lines.

“ROC President’s New Book Rolls off the Press in Japan, Tokyo, July 25 (CNA)”

The book is “Asia’s Strategy.” It is the third book to be written by Lee Teng-hui in Japanese, to be published first in Japan and to hit the bestseller lists first in Japan. It is the third book of its kind to be be translated into Chinese and published in Taiwan only after making its debut in Japan. Published by the Kobunsha Publishing Company of Tokyo, “Asia’s Strategy” was in fact ghostwritten by Mineo Nakajima, president of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Got that?

A 250 page volume nominally authored by a Chinese president, presumably representing the national interests of the Republic of China, was in fact written by a Japanese rightist, in Japanese, published first in Japan for the edification of Japanese readers. Within this Japanese rightist authored and published anti-China tract, not the first but the third of its kind, Lee vows to “devote the rest of his life to strengthening relations between the people of Taiwan and Japan.” Not the people of China and Japan, mind you, but the people of Taiwan and Japan.

Do I really need to say more?

See “Taiwan Independence and the Stockholm Syndrome.”

ROC Investors Just Say No to A-Bian

During the four months following Chen Shui-bian’s narrow victory, hopes have run high. Maybe, just maybe “A-Bian,” as he is in the habit of referring to himself, in the third person, would be more pragmatic, more realistic, more reasonable than his Kamikaze pilot predecessor Lee Teng-hui. Lately those hopes have fallen in synch with Taiwan’s stock market.

“Taiwanization” is a Quisling euphemism for Japanization. “Taiwanization” is a Trojan horse whose belly conceals the forces of Japanese neocolonialism. According to an August 5 Straits Times article “It’s called ‘Taiwanisation,” “under President Chen Shui-bian and the Democratic Progressive Party, the Taiwanisation process begun during President Lee Teng-hui’s last term, would continue and even gather pace… Chinese history would be taught as foreign history.”

On inauguration day a pleased as punch A-Bian, grinning ear to ear, went on television and exhorted the ROC public to “Buy stocks!” Their democratic will frustrated by “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui’s manipulation of the election, ROC voters, millions of whom are also investors, promptly held an unofficial runoff election of their own. This time they voted with their NT Dollars. They phoned their brokers and yelled “Sell!” An election ballot for Taiwan’s presidential election may have be free for the asking, but shares of Taiwan Semiconductor are not.

The TAIEX has slipped steadily since Chen Shui-bian was elected on March 18 and inaugurated on May 20. From a 52 week high of 10,393, Taiwan’s Weighted Index has fallen to a recent low of 7670. The problem is not Taiwan’s market fundamentals, which are relatively healthy. The problem is Taiwan’s political climate, which is anything but. The problem is Taiwan’s arrogant separatist nomenklatura, which cares more about converting 23 million citizens of the Republic of China into citizens of a “Republic of Taiwan” against their will, from the top down, than it does about protecting their lives and livelihood.

These numbers, alarming as they are, do not begin to tell the whole story behind public lack of confidence in the pro-independence Chen regime. Lee Teng-hui and now Chen Shui-bian have been propping up TAIEX share prices for the past several years. They have been desperately throwing money misappropriated from government pension funds and Post Office Certificates of Deposit at the problem, to little avail.

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura is nearing the end of its rope. Over half the available cash reserves available to defend the TAIEX have already been frittered away. Investor confidence remains shaky. All that is necessary for Taiwan’s stock market to drop off a precipice into uncontrolled freefall is another separatist induced political crisis. The remaining funds would be utterly inadequate to stem the panic selling that would ensue. Millions of ordinary ROC citizens’ hard-earned wealth would be wiped out in a single trading week.

Annette Lu-natic praises “efficient” Japanese Colonial Rule

The astonishingly accurate Rule of Thumb for Lee Teng-hui applies equally to Annette Lu, Chen Shui-bian’s vice-president, whom former political prisoner Li Ao refers to as “that crazy woman,” “that mad harridan.” Annette Lu recently attended a lovefest hosted by right-wingers in Japan, where she gushed about how grateful she was that Japan defeated China during Japan’s 1894 war of aggression against China and occupied Taiwan for 50 years, because “efficient” Japanese colonial governance spared Taiwan from “incompetent Chinese rule.”

Annette Lu considers herself a feminist. Ms. Lu will expound at great length to anyone who will listen why she deserves to be considered the “Godmother of Taiwanese Feminism.” Ms. Lu did not comment on whether the “comfort women” of Taiwan, Korea and the Philippines, who were abducted at bayonet point by the Japanese Imperial Army and subjected to gang rape by up to 60 Japanese soldiers a day, who were promptly executed if they refused to comply, shared her nostalgia for “efficient” Japanese colonial governance.

Ms. Lu did not comment on whether the 300,000 unarmed civilian victims of Japan’s 1937 Rape of Nanking, including women who were first raped, then disemboweled, then photographed as “souvenirs,” whose infant children who were tossed into the air and impaled on the tips of Japanese soldiers’ bayonets, shared her warm recollections of Japanese “efficiency.”

I hate to say I told you so, but …

According to a Straits Times report Annette Lu met with Koki Kobayashi, a member of Japan’s Parliament in Taipei today. She declared that Japan should create a coalition of North-east Asian nations that would include Taiwan and South Korea, but not China. She “did not say why she did not suggest allowing China to join the proposed group,” but “the Japanese lawmaker agreed with Ms Lu.”

Taiwan Independence “hard-liner” Lin Chung-mo hides behind America’s Skirts

Taiwan independence zealots, demagogues and buffoons do not rate the appellation “hard-liners.” Normally an epithet, “hard-liner” flatters them. Despite negative connotations, “hard-liner” implies positive attributes like firmness, toughness and resolve. Taiwan independence “hard-liners” however, are anything but firm, tough and resolute.

Pro-reunification legislators recently confronted “hard-line” DPP legislator Lin Chung-mo on a live “McLaughlin Group” type talk show on Taiwan television. They demanded to know what DPP “hard-liners” proposed to do if DDP separatism provoked a shooting war with the mainland.

Lin’s reply, without the slightest hesitation or hint of irony, was “Heng jian dan. Bao ze mei guo de da tueh.”

“Very simple. Hide behind America’s skirts.”

“Bao ze mei guo de da tueh” is literally “hug America’s thigh,” but “cling to America’s skirts” or “hide behind America’s skirts” is more idiomatic.

Lin’s attitude was typical. The only thing atypical was Lin’s candor. Most Taiwan separatists know better than to flash their “Ace in the Hole” so casually, so freely.

The term for “independence” in Chinese is “du li.” Du means alone. Li means to stand. Du li means “to stand alone.” Taiwan’s separatist elite never tires of asserting that “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent nation.”

Maybe it’s just me. But strident Taiwan separatist assertions that Taiwan is “in-dependent,” i.e., “not dependent,” and “stands alone,” are a little hard to reconcile with the image of the Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura as terrified children in diapers, sucking on their thumbs and clinging to Uncle Sammy’s thigh for dear life. Political cartoonists could have a field day.

Tokyo’s Samurai Fascists

The second foreign policy elite is comprised of diehard Samurai Fascists in Tokyo who have never forsaken their megalomaniac dreams of a Japan-dominated “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

Twelve of the nineteen members of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori’s Cabinet, and the Governors of Tokyo and Osaka, are Taiwan independence fellow travelers.

This has not escaped the notice of Annette Lu, who urged Chen Shui-bian “not to pass up this rare opportunity to strengthen ties with Japan.” For Taiwan independence forces to place far more emphasis on relations with the United States, Lu warned, was “not necessarily a wise strategy.”

Washington’s Benevolent Hegemonists

The third and final leg of this unsavory triad of arrogant elites consists of our very own, homegrown “Benevolent Global Hegemonists,” whose job is to be the Enforcer, the hired muscle, the leg-breakers for the Taipei and Tokyo elites.

Stimulus: Lee Teng-hui provokes a crisis in the Taiwan Straits.

Response: William Jefferson Clinton dispatches two carrier battle groups to the rescue.

The World’s Only Remaining Superpower, Madeleine Albright’s “Indispensable Nation,” which “stands tall and sees further into the future,” at the pinnacle of Charles Krauthammer’s “Unipolar Moment,” is in the trenchant words of former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, being “played like a fiddle.”

Pity the poor hegemonists.

The Taiwan Independence Elites’ True Agenda

What is uppermost in the hearts and minds of these foreign policy elites? What exactly is it that they’re after? What’s their angle? Is it, as they never tire of assuring us in the oily tones of used car salesmen, heartfelt compassion for suffering of the Chinese people?

China has an estimated population of 1.329 billion. One point three billion on the mainland. Another twenty-three million on Taiwan. Another six million in Hongkong. After a century and a half of humiliating abuse by foreign powers, the one feeling shared by China’s 1.329 billion people is relief. Relief that the Chinese people need no longer endure further abuse by the same foreign policy elites now affecting such tender concern for their well-being.

Does anybody believe Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura and their Samurai Fascists fellow travelers in Tokyo actually feel what China’s 1.329 billion people feel?

Or do they feel something very different?

Is the emotion they’re feeling instead, anxiety?

Anxiety that “bad karma” may be coming back to haunt them? Anxiety that what went around in the 19th century, may come around in the 21st? Anxiety that China may be, gasp, a superpower sometime during the 21st century? Perhaps even, God forbid, THE superpower of the 21st century?

Living Well is the Best Revenge

The China Threat theorists should chill out.

China is neither Nazi Germany, nursing grievances about the unjust Treaty of Versailles, nor fascist Japan, nursing grievances about the unjust Treaty of Kanagawa.

See:
A Republic, Not an Empire

China does not thirst for revenge. The Chinese, like the Spanish, know that “living well is the best revenge,” and that “an eye for an eye only makes everyone blind.” All China demands of the Tokyo and Washington elites is “Don’t tread on me!” Surely America, among all the nations of the world, ought to be able to understand that.

A Chinese expression says “those who engage in thievery assume others are out to rob them.” China demonizers, the dedicated, hard-working professional Sinophobes on the so-called “Blue Team” in particular, would do well to consider whether the panic they’re experiencing doesn’t originate in the dark recesses of their own subconscious.

The Democratic Will of the Taiwan People

Americans who want to know the true “democratic will of the Taiwan people” need only consult the results of the recent ROC presidential election of March 18, 2000.

Sixty-one percent of ROC voters who went to the polls voted against the candidate and party distinguished by their advocacy of Taiwan independence, Chen Shui-bian and the DPP.

So why did the pro-independence candidate win?

The reason Chen won, with a 39% plurality, was the anti-independence vote was split. Two anti-independence candidates, James Soong and Lien Chan, received 37% and 23% of the vote respectively.

But why was the anti-independence vote split?

Mr. Anti-Democracy

The anti-independence vote was split because Newsweek’s “Mr. Democracy,” Lee Teng-hui, then Chairman of the ruling KMT, wanted his own party’s candidates to lose.

Millions of loyal KMT members wanted the immensely popular James Soong, former Governor of Taiwan Province, to run on a Soong/Lien or Lien/Soong ticket with then Vice-president Lien Chan. Such a ticket would have meant a landslide victory for two candidates opposed to Taiwan independence.

This was intolerable to Lee Teng-hui, who openly declared that he considered himself the Moses of Taiwan independence, and the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian his successor Joshua. To ensure that his own party’s candidates lost, KMT Chairman Lee deliberately blocked efforts to set up a Soong/Lien or Lien/Soong ticket, eventually forcing James Soong out of the party.

When Soong subsequently ran as an independent, he did so in the belief he could win, even with Lien splitting off part of his support. As the results show, he wasn’t far from wrong. He got 37% to Chen’s 39% and Lien’s 23%. He lost by a slim 2% margin.

But why did a candidate with less than an absolute majority win? Doesn’t the ROC have run-offs for presidential elections?

No it doesn’t.

Why the hell not?

An Antidemocratic Unprogressive DPP

The ROC doesn’t have run-offs for presidential elections because four years ago “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui and “Taiwan’s Son” Chen Shui-bian successfully blocked a New Party proposal to amend the ROC’s election laws. Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura is painfully aware of how few voters support Taiwan independence. Dyed in the wool Taiwan separatists have never amounted to more than 15% of the island’s population.

A run-off election this March would have put the reformist, pro-reunification “mainlander” James Soong, not A-Bian, in the president’s office. An absolute majority requirement would make it impossible for a pro-independence candidate to become president and impose a pro-independence agenda on the ROC electorate.

See: “Taiwan’s Fraudulent Election.”

Taiwan Independence is “Box Office Poison”

If the ordinary man in the street actually yearned for Taiwan independence, why didn’t he vote for Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence DPP? Here was his chance to do so. Was anybody stopping him? More to the point, if the ordinary man in the street actually demanded Taiwan independence, why didn’t Chen Shui-bian ringingly affirm his previously expressed dream of declaring independence the moment he got into office, as part of his campaign platform? Why instead did Chen promise that if elected, he absolutely, positively would not make the slightest move toward independence during his four year term?

Could it have been because during the runup to election day even DPP legislators and party officials were muttering under their breath how “Taidu shi piao fang du yao,” or “Taiwan independence is box office poison?”

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura knew this was their moment of truth. Obstinately cleave to “Taiwan independence forever!” and remain an opposition party, forever. Or uphold, or pretend to uphold Chinese reunification, and become the ruling party, now.

We all know what Chen chose.

Mainland China’s Tragic Detour

At watershed moments in history, tiny but determined elites can and have decided the fates of millions, for good or for ill.

When Mao’s Communists defeated Chiang’s Nationalists in 1949, less than 5% of China’s population were members of the Chinese Communist Party. Most of China consisted of illiterate, apolitical peasants whose ideology began and ended with not wanting to starve to death. The life and death struggle between communism and capitalism in 1949 China was a struggle between two educated political elites.

Mao’s victory forced the Chinese mainland to take a tragic, three decade long detour down a socialist blind alley. Fortunately Deng Xiaoping, the man whom Mao denounced as the “Number Two Capitalist Roader,” saw the error of Mao’s dirigiste ways. Deng’s successor Jiang Zemin is dismantling China’s money-losing state owned enterprises as fast as humanly possible, and bringing mainland China back onto the path of free market capitalism.

China bashers, predictably, dismiss mainland China’s reforms as “too slow.”

Too slow? Compared to what?

No nation in history has reformed its economic system and improved the lives of as many of her people as swiftly as China has during the last two decades. Sure, mainland China still has a long way to go, but let’s not pretend we don’t appreciate how astonishingly far she’s already come. Not only economically, but socially. Beijing is arguably more tolerant toward private social conduct that doesn’t threaten China’s political stability, such as homosexuality, than authoritarian neoconservatives Gary Bauer or Jesse Helms.

“Taiwan doesn’t want to reunify with mainland China because it doesn’t want to live under totalitarian communism” just doesn’t cut it as an excuse any more.

The Successful Hongkong Model

Remember the epidemic of doomsday scenarios conjured up by professional China bashers within our liberal media and neocon think tanks?

PLA tanks rolling into Hongkong? Hongkong Democrats rounded up and jailed a la Tiananmen Square, Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring or the Hungarian Uprising?

It never happened.

Hongkong has been unmolested now for three straight years. Even former British appointed Hongkong Governor Chris Patten, whom no one can accuse of being an apologist for Beijing, has freely acknowledged that Beijing has kept its word regarding Hongkong.

Hongkong Democrats were wrong in 1997 about Hongkong, and the DPP is wrong in 2000 about Taiwan.

When is the President of these United States of America not an American?

Since inauguration Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu have defied a broad-based, grass roots public outcry demanding that they state unequivocally “I am Chinese.” They have refused to comply. They have bobbed and weaved. They have played lawerly word games. Annette Lu’s mealy-mouthed response was a real gem,

“If being Chinese means being a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, then I am not Chinese.”

Excuse me Annette, but that wasn’t the question. The question was “Are you Chinese?”

How can the Vice-president of the Republic of China not be Chinese?

How can the Vice-president of these United States of America not be American?

What are patriotic Americans to make of an American politician who after being elected to the office of Vice-president of these United States of America, evades demands that he ringingly affirm “I am an American?”

What are patriotic Chinese to make of a Chinese politician who after being elected to the office of Vice-president of the Republic of China, evades demands that she ringingly affirm “I am Chinese?”

If Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu want to be “Taiwanese” and “Citizens of Taiwan” so badly, they should have declared their candidacy for President and Vice-president of the “Republic of Taiwan.” They should not have run, under false pretenses, for President and Vice-president of the Republic of China.

One of the eligibility requirements for President and Vice-president of the Republic of China is that the candidates be Chinese.

What can I say? The Chinese Constitution is funny that way.

The Republic of China is not Taiwan

The Republic of China is not “Taiwan.” Taiwan is a Chinese province. Taiwan is merely one of thirty odd Chinese provinces.

The Republic of China on the other hand, is a nation. A nation whose territory includes not only Taiwan, but the Chinese mainland as well. There is no nation on God’s green earth named Taiwan. There is only the Republic of China.

Article Four of the Constitution of the Republic of China spells out Taiwan’s legal status, clearly and unambigously. Both the Chinese mainland and all offshore Chinese islands, including Hainan Island and Taiwan, are inseparable parts of a single, indivisible China.

Even though the mainland portion of China is currently under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, a rival Chinese political party, it is nevertheless an integral part of China. Even though the mainland portion of China is referred to as the People’s Republic of China, it is not a foreign country. Rather, the regions controlled by the CCP and the regions controlled by the KMT (and now DPP) are autonomous regions of a single, indivisible China.

If the Taiwan separatist elite is willing to acknowledge this overarching premise, there will be no Straits conflict, and everything else can be discussed, calmly, peacefully, between fellow Chinese.

If on the other hand, Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura remains obdurate, and persists in its efforts to turn China’s Taiwan province back into a Japanese colony, de facto or otherwise, then all bets are off. Patriotic Chinese on both the mainland and on Taiwan, including within the ROC armed forces, will not sit idly by for fifty years, but will reunify China by force, now. Then instead of One Country, Two Systems, Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura will find themselves living under One Country, One System. They will no longer need to concern themselves about a shrinking New Taiwan Dollar, because they will be using Renmingbi.

Beijing can be rigid and inflexible in some areas, but if the Taiwan separatist elite will acknowledge the truth of One China, in earnest and not merely as a cover for ongoing covert separatism, then the Taiwan region of China will be left alone for a half century, while the mainland liberalizes politically and catches up economically. At the end of this half century, both sides can then reunify peacefully, in the manner of east and west Germany, and in the near future, north and south Korea.

The ball is in Chen Shui-bian’s court. Is Chen going to obediently live out the role of Joshua assigned him by Lee Teng-hui? Or is he going to surprise us all and transform himself into a statesman on the order of Korea’s Kim Daejung? Only time will tell.

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura doesn’t want to be Chinese. It wants to be Japanese

Beijing’s offer of “One Country, Two Systems, Fifty Years, No Change,” is eminently reasonable and surprisingly accommodating. Yet Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura has repeatedly rejected it out of hand, based on utterly subjective, non-rational considerations.

Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura’s real sticking point, as they have conceded in their more candid moments is, “We don’t want to be Chinese.” Taipei’s Quisling nomenklatura prefers instead to be Japanese, or ersatz Japanese, as I noted in “Taiwan Independence and the Stockholm Syndrome”

This, naturally, is not the objection Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura will cop to when western observers wonder why they continue to drag their feet, when German reunification has already made history, and Korean reunification is about to.

They know that their real motivation, however much it may ingratiate them with Japanese rightists, is extremely unlikely to elicit the slightest sympathy from Americans, certainly not veterans of WWII’s Pacific Theater. Certainly not survivors of the Bataan Death March. Certainly not survivors of the Japanese Imperial Army Unit 731’s ghastly “medical” experiments.

Instead Taipei’s Quisling Nomenklatura will recite the comforting catechism they know western sympathizers want to hear. Freedom, democracy, human rights, undying enmity to godless communism.

The Republic of China and the California Republic

Whether individual American states have a right to secede from the Union is for Americans to decide. It is none of China’s business, and China to her credit has never presumed to make America’s internal politics her business. China’s Manchu court after all, did not to take sides in our American Civil War back in 1861.

Now would sanctimonious liberal and neocon interventionists Sam Gejdenson and Dana Rohrabacher return the favor, and butt out? Please?

China is not America. The Republic of China, or for that matter the People’s Republic of China, is not “These United States of America.” China is not a federation of sovereign states like “These United States of America,” or even “The United States of America.”

Rather, China is more akin to one of America’s fifty sovereign states. The Republic of China in this sense is more akin to The Sovereign State of Virginia or The California Republic.

Just as an individual county belonging to one of America’s sovereign states is an administrative region of that state, and does not have a constitutional right to secede from that state, so China’s provinces are administrative regions of a sovereign China, and do not have a constitutional right to secede from China.

Both the ROC and PRC versions of China’s Constitution agree. The Province of Taiwan is indivisible part of China. Taiwan does not have any constitutional right to secede from China.

Treason is the Reason

The Constitution of the Republic of China is a One China Constitution. There is no Two Chinas Constitution. There is no One China, One Taiwan Constitution.

Elected officials of the Republic of China who honor the”One China Principle” are patriots fulfilling their solemn duty to uphold the laws of the nation in which they hold office.

Elected officials of the Republic of China who violate the “One China Principle” by promoting Taiwan independence once they have gotten into office, are cowards guilty of high treason.

All patriotic, pro-reunification Chinese on Taiwan demand of their elected officials is that they uphold and defend the Constitution of the Repulic of China.

Is that really so much to ask?

Jesse Helms, Senator from Taiwan

Jesse Helms, Senator from Taiwan
Bevin Chu
April 06, 2000

“Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) reportedly embarrassed his staffers by referring to North Korean President Kim Jong Il as “Kim Jong Two” when reading from a prepared speech. To correct this mistake, in Helms’s next speech the staffers helpfully spelled the name phonetically as Kim Jong Ill. Helms referred to him that time as Kim Jong the Third.”
— “Brickbats”
Reason Magazine, May 1995

Two Chinese States?

In an op-ed piece entitled “Two Chinese States,” published Friday, March 31, 2000, in the Washington Post, Jesse Helms, Republican senator from North Carolina, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations wrote:

“President-elect Chen’s election marks the first peaceful transfer of power from a ruling Chinese party to its democratic opposition. Taiwan’s democratic transformation, begun by President Lee, is complete. The Republic of China’s experiment in democracy is no longer an experiment–it is a proven reality.”

Helms’ observation is half right. Chen Shui-bian’s election does indeed mark the ‘peaceful transfer of power from a ruling Chinese party to its… opposition.’ Unfortunately Mr. Democracy Lee Teng-hui’s transfer of power, however “peaceful” was anything but democratic. The transparent charade foisted on the ROC electorate on March 18 under the guise of a “free and fair election” was one more in an unbroken line of imperial successions in Chinese history. So far at least, Taiwan’s experiment in democracy is a failed one. For details see “Farewell, Mr. Democracy.”

Helms wrote:

‘The nation that was known for the better part of 40 years as “Nationalist China” now is “Democratic China.” No wonder Beijing feels so threatened. That is why, in the days leading up to Taiwan’s election, mainland officials sought desperately to scare Taiwanese voters into rejecting Chen.’

Wrong.

The “Peaceful” Transfer of Political Power

When Lee Teng-hui visited South Africa several years ago, he proclaimed that his most cherished dream before he went to his reward, was “to peacefully transfer political power.” This seemingly innocuous phrase went over the heads of most China watchers. But not the New Party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates Li Ao and Fung Hu-hsiang. Li and Fung were alert to Lee’s sematic games.

What Lee said was he hoped to “transfer” political power. Not “yeild” political power, not “relinquish” political power to whomever the voters chose at the polls, but “transfer political power” to whomever Lee anointed as his successor.

The Emperor of Taiwan

To understand Lee’s language, one has to first understand Lee’s mindset. Lee doesn’t think like the average elected chief executive of an “advanced” western democracy. Instead, Lee thinks like a Ferdinand Marcos or a Suharto. To Lee’s thinking, he considered himself Emperor of Taiwan, just as Marcos considered himself Emperor of the Philippines, and Suharto considered himself Emperor of Indonesia. To Lee’s thinking it was his royal prerogative as Taiwan’s self-designated Moses to “transfer political power” to Chen Shui-bian, alias Joshua, his designated heir.

What role did the ROC electorate play in Lee’s “peaceful transfer of political power?” None whatsoever. The ROC voting public’s democratic preferences were not part of Lee’s equation. They were beside the point. Lee wanted Chen as his successor. Lee had the power. Lee would get his way.

Oh sure, Lee knew he had to go through the motions of holding an election to make the process look “democratic.” But that was merely for show. Lee would see to it that A-Bian “caught the bridal bouquet” come hell or high water. How a majority of Taiwan’s voters felt and voted was neither here nor there as far as Lee was concerned.

The Government They (and We) Deserve

Leave aside the fact that authoritarian bigot Jesse Helms hasn’t the foggiest notion what genuine democracy is. Taiwan’s pseudo-democracy has nothing whatsoever to do with why Beijing “feels so threatened.”

Beijing feels threatened because covert separatist Lee Teng-hui successfully conferred the power of his imperial presidency on overt separatist Chen Shui-bian, and because Senator Helms’ perennial chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations is a persistent reminder that the inmates are in charge of America’s foreign policy asylum.

People, it has been said, get the government they deserve. We Americans must have done something pretty damned awful to deserve both Madeline Albright and Jesse Helms.

China Threat Theory

Helms wrote:

‘Premier Zhu Rongji went so far as to warn the people of Taiwan that if they elected Chen, they “won’t get another opportunity to regret.” The people of Taiwan told Zhu what he could do with his threats.’

Nonsense. In fact the “people of Taiwan,” the overwhelming majority of whom resolutely oppose Taiwan independence, told Chen Shui-bian, not Zhu Rongi, what he could do with his reckless and irresponsible “Long Live Taiwan Independence” rhetoric. Even after Chen flip-flopped, swearing up and down that if elected he absolutely, positively would NOT declare Taiwan independence, the people of Taiwan still voted against him, by a margin of 61 to 39 percent. Imagine how much lower his numbers would have been had he not loudly repudiated his pro-independence ideology?

Chen won solely because ROC election laws do not provide for run-off elections, and because KMT Party Chairman Lee Teng-hui deliberately prevented his own party from nominating James Soong, purposely splitting the anti-separatist vote between the immensely popular Soong and the unelectable Lien Chan.

Forever Munich, Forever 1938

Helms wrote:

“Now it is the United States’ responsibility to ensure that Zhu can never fulfill his threat to make Chen’s election the final democratic election in China… the Clinton administration has tried to buy peace in the Taiwan Strait by kowtowing to the Chinese Communists… the administration sticks doggedly by its Chamberlainesque approach… Those who support economic engagement with China must recognize the Clinton policy for what it is — appeasement.”

Oh please. Not the specious “totalitarian communist Goliath denying a democracy-loving David’s right to exist” thesis. Not the imperialistic, un-American “It’s America’s solemn duty as the world’s only remaining superpower to make the world safe for democracy” thesis. And God have mercy on us, not the brain-dead “Chamberlainesque appeasement no! Churchillian firmness si!” or as George Szamuely puts it, “Forever Munich, Forever 1938” thesis.

Forever Vietnam, Forever 1960

What is Helms’ alternative? Helms demands that:

“The United States must make clear to Beijing that there is no military option in dealing with Taiwan by (1) approving Taiwan’s full defense request… (2) sharing theater missile defense technology with the aim of bringing Taiwan under a regional missile-defense umbrella; (3) passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which will junk antiquated restrictions prohibiting senior U.S. officers from visiting Taiwan, expand the advice our experts can give them and establish direct, secure communications between our two militaries.”

In short, Helms proposes that Americans repeat every one of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson’s Asian policy blunders of the early and mid 60s, which incrementally but inexorably dragged America down into the futile and costly quagmire known as Vietnam. First materiel. Then “advisors.” Then air support. Then ground troops. Then the Hercules transports filled with bodybags. Mission Creep Redux. Helms has no excuse. After all, he was there. The lesson of history, it seems, is that nobody ever learns a damned thing from history.

Blank Checks and Moral Hazard

Mind-bogglingly, Helms proposes that:

“The United States can help Chen restart the cross-strait dialogue only by allowing Taiwan to engage the mainland on the basis of peace through strength. A renewed dialogue with Beijing can be successful only if it is undertaken on the basis of political strength as well.”

Say what? Write a foreign separatist political leader a blank check, to be filled out with American soldiers’ blood, and subsidized with American taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars? This is supposed to encourage Chen to engage in serious cross-Straits dialogue? Is Helms kidding?

See:
Taiwan Independence and Free Lunches

East and West Germany, North and South Korea, East and West China

Helms wrote:

“Just as East and West Germany were part of “one Germany,” they were nonetheless separate “states.” The same holds true for the two Korean states and for the two Chinese states–the People’s Republic of China in Beijing and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Accepting this objective reality does not require abandoning the possibility of reunification.”

Wrong.

Neither West Germany nor South Korea were headed by pro-Japan Quislings like Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian. Neither West Germany nor South Korea were saddled with Stockholm-syndromized, Japanophile elitists dead set against reunification on any terms, deliberately dragging their feet and sabotaging all good faith efforts at negotiating a gradual, peaceful reunification.

Jesse Helms, Clueless

Whether Helms is sincere, or whether he is paying pro forma lip service to reunification, only he knows for sure. But one thing is certain, the only nation the Taiwan independence elite wants to reunite with is the Japanese Empire.

The problem is not that the Taiwan independence elite doesn’t want to live under communism. The problem is not that the Taiwan independence elite doesn’t want to live under authoritarianism. The problem lies somewhere else altogether.

Hell, mainland Chinese don’t want to be communists. Mainland Chinese don’t want to live under authoritarianism. They haven’t wanted to since Mao’s asinine and tragic Great Leap Forward and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Contemporary mainland Chinese hate communism, probably more than anybody in the world, including even the Russians. Nobody hates Hell as much as someone who has lived inside the inferno.

We just don’t want to be Chinese!

No. Communism is not the issue. Even authoritarianism is not the issue. The real issue is the Taiwan independence elite doesn’t want to be Chinese. The real issue is they have a emotional hang-up about identifying themselves as Chinese.

The Taiwan independence elite had no problem with communism in the past. After all, Lee Teng-hui, would be Father of a Republic of Taiwan, was a card-carrying member of Taiwan’s Communist Party. The only reason he survived was he ratted out the same five members he recruited in order to save his own miserable hide. They were executed by firing squad. Lee became “Mr. Democracy.”

Nor has the Taiwan independence elite ever had a problem with authoritarianism. Demagogue Chen Shui-bian and harridan running mate Annette Lu are themselves bonafide petty dictators, and have made no effort whatsoever to conceal their admiration and nostalgia for fascist Japanese colonial rule.

To understand the bizarre psychology underlying the Taiwan independence elite’s obsession with denying their own ethnic and cultural identity, see “Taiwan Independence and the Stockholm Syndrome.”

China’s Free Market Communists

Perception often trumps reality. More than one western China hand has noted, only half-jokingly, that the smartest PR move Beijing could make would be to simply change the name of Chinese Communist Party to something less emotionally loaded. Some have suggested “Social Democratic Party of China.” I prefer “Chinese Capitalist Party.” That way they wouldn’t even have to change the initials on their official party stationary. While they’re at it they might want to change the design of the flag, the national anthem, and take down Mao’s portrait above Tiananmen Square.

Ironically if the authoritarian capitalists ruling China were to do so they would not be misleading anybody. On the contrary, they would be reflecting current reality far more honestly than they are doing now, when they refer to themselves as “communists.”

The reality is American college faculties probably contain more dyed in the wool communists than the Chinese Communist Party. For that matter, the United States congress probably contains more bonafide Marxists than the Chinese Communist Party. Senator Paul Wellstone for example, is probably to the left of PRC President Jiang Zemin.

How many “communist” countries, after all, can boast not one, but two stock exchanges? How many “communist” countries have, according to Nobel laureate in economics Robert Mundell, a private sector comprising over 60% of China’s GDP? A private sector larger not only than Sweden and Denmark’s (50%), but larger even than France and Germany’s (55%).

It’s a New Era, Jesse

Helms wrote:

“… just as the two German states eventually reunited under democracy, so too do we hope that the two Chinese states may one day reunite–under democracy.”

Helms may be sufficiently out of touch with the real world that he actually believes he is ingratiating himself with the DPP by advancing such arguments. If so, Helms is in for a surprise. This line of argument may have pleased the outgoing KMT, but it’s not about to win him any Brownie points with incoming DPP hardliners. Lee Teng-hui is no longer KMT party chairman. Liu Tai-ying is no longer KMT business affairs manager. If Helms wants the Taiwan Lobby’s generous six figure checks, made out to the Jesse Helms Institute to keep rolling in year after year, he’d better get a clue.

The Senator from Taiwan

“The Jesse Helms Center was created to preserve the works Jesse Helms. It includes congressional documents and other such memorabilia. It also appears to act as a center for questionably legal donations. Many of the contributors to his center are companies or countries that Helms often acts in the interest in. It’s illegal for foreign governments to donate money to a political campaign, but not to an independent center.

The Jesse Helms Center has used this to raise large sums of money for itself and also as a way for foreign countries to give money to Jesse Helms. Taiwan, which Helms supports, donated $225,000 to the center in 1993. Kuwait donated $100.000 to the Helms Center after the Persian Gulf War.

If the center was simply something set up by a few independent citizens for individuals to ‘appreciate’ Jesse Helms, the donations would not be suspicious. However, Helms’ links to this center are hardly passive. Helms’ wife and daughter serve on the Board of Directors of the center along with his foreign relations chief of staff and a former chief legislative assistant… Helms also evidently helps to set up some of the donations.”
— House of Crooks Presents: Jesse Helms

Farewell, Mr. Democracy

Farewell, Mr. Democracy
Bevin Chu
March 30, 2000

Mr. Democracy vs. the Democratic Process

Lee Teng-hui, lame duck president of the Republic of China, is no champion of democracy. Lee’s ludicrous “Mr. Democracy” label was the result of wishful thinking by embarassingly naive reporters for Newsweek magazine with almost zero understanding of what they were writing about.

China-haters and Taiwan “independence” fellow travellers, usually one and the same, suffer from selective amnesia. They conveniently forget just how Lee Teng-hui became president of the ROC.

Lee did not rise through the ROC political hierarchy “democratically,” the way Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan rose through America’s. Lee’s presidency was conferred upon him. The late Chiang Ching-kuo conferred the ROC presidency on Lee, the same way Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek conferred the ROC presidency on Chiang Ching-kuo, the same way Deng Xiaoping conferred the PRC presidency on Jiang Zemin.

Lee became president of the ROC not by means of democracy, but by imperial succession. The only difference is Lee put a democratic face on his ascension to the throne by holding a direct election, after the fact. Exploiting advantages conferred upon him by an imperial presidency, including a state-controlled media and an inexperienced, gullible electorate, Lee ensured his own “democratic” victory.

Unfortunately for Lee, this was a gambit he could use only once. Had “Mr. Democracy” been eligible for another term, and chose to run, he would have been trounced, but good, by James Soong.

Mr. Democracy vs. Term Limits

Lee could not legally run for another term, not without yet another constitutional amendment. Mr. Democracy has had the ROC Constitution amended five times in nine years for two reasons. One, to increase his personal power and two, to pave the way for Taiwan independence.

Previous amendments systematically raised the threshold for impeachment so high Lee is now virtually an elective monarch. Another amendment would mean six amendments in ten years.

It is widely rumored the only reason Lee has not demanded another amendment and another term, is our own US State Department secretly confronted “Mr. Democracy” with an ultimatum, “Step down, or else.”

Mr. Democracy vs. Chiang Ching-kuo

Chiang Ching-kuo earnestly believed Lee would carry on Chiang’s program of political liberalization, of glasnost and perestroika. Chiang was wrong. New Party legislator and vice-presidential candidate Fung Hu-hsiang, who once served as Chiang’s executive secretary recalls how Chiang did so many things right. He lifted martial law. He abolished media censorship. He legalized opposition political parties. He promoted “native” Taiwan political talent to higher office. If anybody deserves the title “Mr. Democracy,” it’s Chiang Ching-kuo, not Lee Teng-hui.

Unfortunately the one thing Chiang messed up, he messed up royally, his choice of successor. He inflicted the despotic Quisling Lee Teng-hui on the people of the ROC, for twelve long years. Such is the downside of “benevolent despotism.” One never knows if the next guy in line is another “Mr. Democracy.”

Mr. Democracy, meet Mr. Mann

In an article entitled “Taiwan President Taking a Bad Rap” (Wednesday, March 22, 2000
Los Angeles Times) columnist Jim Mann wrote:

“Taiwan’s president [Lee Teng-hui] is being charged with secretly wanting the opposition DPP to win the election. Lee, so this argument goes, is an ardent Taiwanese nationalist who sympathizes with the DPP’s past support for the cause of independence for Taiwan… Are these accusations against Lee valid? … did Lee actually work behind the scenes against Lien and the KMT, his own party? There’s little evidence to support such a charge… “

Little evidence to support such a charge?

In August 1994, Liu Tai-ying, Chairman, Business Affairs Committee, Kuomintang, met with then Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Shih Ming-teh, and offered to pay the cost of the DPP’s new headquarters building. Liu Tai-ying freely admits this event took place but claims that President and KMT Party Chairman Lee Teng-hui knew nothing of the offer. Skeptics consider this even less believable than Hillary Clinton not knowing about the White House Travel Office firings. Liu Tai-ying also offered to underwrite the DPP’s entire annual budget, to the tune of $4.3 million U.S.

Mann must be kidding.

Mr. Democracy vs. Ma Ying-Jeou

Mann wrote:

“The argument that Taiwan’s president wanted his own party to lose ignores what he said and did during this campaign and previous campaigns. Two years ago, when the DPP’s Chen was running for reelection as mayor of Taipei, there were similar charges that the president secretly wanted him to win because Chen was Taiwanese and his opponent, Ma Ying-jeou, was from mainland China. Instead, Lee campaigned vigorously for Ma, who proceeded to win.”

As John McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Group likes to say, “Wrong!”

For starters Lee discouraged Ma’s nomination. When Ma was nominated by the KMT hierarchy in spite of Lee’s wishes, because nominees John Chang and Jason Hu lacked the charisma to beat Chen, Lee refused to attend Ma’s rallies. Finally, a week or so before election day Lee relented.

Ma did not win because Lee campaigned “vigorously” for Ma, because Lee did not campaign “vigorously” for Ma. Lee campaigned grudgingly, half-heartedly for Ma. Getting Lee to campaign for Ma was like pulling teeth. Ask KMT “non-mainstream faction” members who drafted Ma to be their party’s nominee.

Mr. Democracy vs. the New Party

Ma won because New Party members sacrificed their own better qualified candidate Wang Chien-hsuan, in order to block the separatist Chen’s path to the ROC presidency. What they did was referred to as “qi Wang, bao Ma” or “dump Wang, save Ma.” Ask DPP members registered to vote in Taipei. You’ll be subjected to an earful of angry profanity directed at “mainland pigs.” Two years later they still resent Chen’s loss, and place the blame squarely on the pro-reunification New Party.

Mr. Democracy vs. Lien Chan

Mann wrote:

“In recent months, Lee publicly denounced Chen as unreliable. And he declared that, if the DPP came to power, there would be instability between Taiwan and China. These don’t seem like the actions of a DPP cheerleader. They look more like the actions of a leader who hoped his own KMT would win so that he would retain a degree of power after he was no longer president.”

Wrong! Recent months? Try recent days. Again Lee reluctantly went through the motions of supporting his own party’s candidate for appearance’s sake. But he did so only after he was reasonably confident his strategy of “qi Lien, bao Bian” had taken effect.

Mr. Democracy and the Order of Lenin

Jim Mann just doesn’t get it.

The KMT, like the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is a Leninist political party. For that matter, so is the “opposition” DPP. KMT tradition mandates that whoever is president is also automatically party chairman, and vice-versa. That’s right. Just like the “Communists” in Beijing.

If Lien Chan were elected, Lee would be forced to step down as party chairman. Besides, by Lee’s lights Lien is not sufficiently committed to Taiwan independence. That’s why many pro-reunification KMT members supported Lien against Chen. Rightly or wrongly, they believe Lien to be a closet advocate of reunification.

If on the other hand, Chen were elected, Lee could argue he needed to retain the chairmanship in order “to rescue the party in its hour of need.”

No. Lee did not hope his own KMT would win so that he would retain a degree of power after he was no longer president. Instead Lee hoped Chen Shui-bian, whom Lee compared to Joshua and himself to Moses, would win. Lee hoped after he conferred the ROC presidency on Chen Shui-bian, that Lee would at least be able to retain his own party’s chairmanship.

Mr. Democracy vs. James Soong

During the election Lee Teng-hui marshalled the entire resources of the KMT party machine to smear James Soong with false accusations of embezzlement. A subsequent Control Yuan investigation cleared Soong of any and all wrongdoing. The damage however had already been done. Soong never fully recovered in the polls.

See:
The Least of Three Evils

Mr. Democracy to A-Bian’s Rescue

On the other hand, Lee Teng-hui ordered evidence that Chen Shui-bian defrauded a wealthy Chinese-Malaysian tycoon out of a fortune in a phony lottery scheme suppressed until after election day. Prosecutors have since announced that the handwriting on a sheaf of incriminating documents match Chen’s handwriting samples. Too late. Chen is already president-elect, soon to be president, with full executive immunity. Chen meanwhile, has openly declared his intention to cover for benefactor Lee Teng-hui. Who says there’s no honor among thieves?

L.A. Confidential

The Academy Award winning film “L.A. Confidential” painted a riveting portrait of Los Angeles during the 1950s, on two levels. On the surface, the mythical Los Angeles of Jack Webb’s police drama “Dragnet,” viewed through Eisenhower era rosed-colored glasses. Beneath the surface, beneath the Tinseltown glitz, a Dark City of Rodney King police brutality and Heidi Fleiss sex scandals which persists even today.

Just the Facts, Mann, Just the Facts

Mann wrote:

“The conspiracy theory of Taiwan’s election is too simplistic to bear scrutiny. Chen didn’t win because the Taiwan president secretly supported him… Lee Teng-hui looks above all like King Lear, an elderly ruler in decline… His downfall is the stuff not of conspiracy but of tragedy and pathos.”

What is too simplistic to bear scrutiny is Mann’s glib but irrelevant King Lear analogy. Misleading literary allusions are a sorry substitute for hard facts. Newsweek in 1996, and the Los Angeles Times in 2000 have presented us with a “Pleasantville” version of Taiwan’s “democracy” akin to the sanitized Los Angeles Jack Webb depicted in Dragnet.

Mr. Democracy, be careful What You Wish For

The iconoclastic Li Ao recently suggested that Chen Shui-bian will sell out Taiwan independence for personal political advantage. According to Li Ao, Chen Shui-bian is actually an unprincipled opportunist wolf in Taiwan independence sheeps’ clothing.

If Li Ao is right, and Li Ao ought to know, having known Chen for twenty years, then Lee Teng-hui may have outsmarted himself by turning the reigns of the ROC government over to someone who will wind up making a deal with Beijing and relegate Taiwan independence to the dustbin of history.

If Li Ao’s prediction proves correct, Chen Shui-bian’s election will prove an ironic and unexpected benefit to both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The fact is Deng Xiaoping’s, and now Jiang Zemin’s intention, was never to overrun Taiwan in order to impose doctrinaire “communism” on the island, but merely to prevent the loss of sovereign Chinese territory.

Beijing is perfectly happy to permit Taiwan an extraordinarily high degree of local autonomy, even to keep its own armed forces, as long as Taiwan remains part of China. A pragmatic deal struck between the Chen regime in Taipei and the Jiang regime in Beijing would be a win/win proposition for America, for mainland China, and for Taiwan.

The only losers would be Robert Kagan and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. These Armchair Warriors, these Profiles in Courage would be instantly deprived of their newest and most likely candidate for Son of Evil Empire. Better luck next time, fellas.

Appendix:

Taiwan’s Newest Export — KMT Corruption
An Abbreviated Chronology of Liu Tai-ying’s Influence Peddling

Liu Tai-ying’s official title is “Chairman, Business Affairs Committee, Kuomintang” (or KMT), the ruling party of the Republic of China (Taiwan). He is the man President Lee Teng-hui has entrusted with Taiwan’s most notorious overseas export: political influence peddling. He is the prime suspect behind the 15 million dollar bribe to Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. In short, he is Lee Teng-hui’s Ambassador of “Checkbook Diplomacy.”

The Kuomintang is reputed to be the world’s wealthiest political party. Americans may be surprised to learn that unlike their own political parties which are required by U.S. law and custom to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, the KMT openly owns and operates a wide range of highly lucrative business enterprises, from which it competes unfairly by exploiting its status as ruling party of the R.O.C.

What follows is a paper trail, thoroughly documented and a matter of public record, of Liu Tai-ying’s long and sordid history of illegal and unethical influence peddling at home and abroad.

Liu Tai-ying’s Paper Trail

1. In August 1994, Liu Tai-ying met with then Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Shih Ming-teh face to face, and offered to pay the cost of the new DPP Headquarters building. Liu Tai-ying freely admits this event took place but inisists that President and KMT Party Chairman Lee Teng-hui knew nothing of the offer. Skeptics consider this even less believable than Hillary Clinton not knowing about the White House Travel Office firings.

2. On the same occasion Liu Tai-ying offered to underwrite the DPP’s entire annual budget, to the tune of $4.3 million U.S. Both building and budget offers were turned down, but considering that the DPP is the largest pro-independence party in Taiwan, they cast more than a little doubt on Lee Teng-hui’s public expressions of support for reunification with the mainland.

3. Liu Tai-ying’s boss, KMT Party Chairman Lee Teng-hui not long ago declared his intention to offer the United Nations $1 billion U.S. for a seat in the General Assembly. This brazen attempt to bribe the world body was ignored, but reveals the “anything is for sale” world view of the KMT leadership.

4. On behalf of Lee Teng-hui, Liu Tai-ying engaged the high-powered public relations firm of Cassidy and Associates for the astronomical sum of $4.5 million U.S. in order to smooth the way for his politically-motivated “private” 1995 Cornell University trip.

5. Cornell University admits that they received a $2.5 million U.S. donation from a “friend” of Lee Teng-hui after Lee’s trip.

6. In February 1994, Liu Tai-ying paved the way for Lee Teng-hui’s Indonesian state visit by making a $100 million U.S. contribution to Indonesian president Suharto.

7. In April 1995, Liu Tai-ying prepared the way for Lee Teng-hui’s mid-East trip with generous contributions to Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

8. In April 1995, Liu Tai-ying attempted to bribe Israel with an offer ranging between $250 and $400 million U.S. to allow a state visit by Lee Teng-hui. Israel turned him down.

9. In 1994 Liu Tai-ying arranged for the sale of the Hong Kong Times office building at the bargain basement price of $190 million H.K. The building was resold only three months later for the sum of $580 million H.K. Why was the spread so great? Who pocketed the profit? These and other troubling questions remain unanswered.

10. Liu Tai-ying arranged for the purchase of an office building in Japan at the exorbitant price of 13.9 billion Yen. The building has been appraised as having a market value of only 6.5 billion Yen. Who pocketed the 100% profit? Did it pay for Lee’s Japan visit? These are reasonable questions.

11. Liu Tai-ying’s annual salary of $700,000 U.S. exceeds that of R.O.C. President Lee Teng-hui, which in turn exceeds that of U.S. President Bill Clinton. Liu’s bar-hopping lifestyle compares with that of Clinton advisor Dick Morris, as does his ego. He boasts of having single-handedly raised $800 million U.S. for the KMT over a period of three short years, without apology for the unethical means by which he did so.

12. Liu is well connected with the heads of Taiwan’s “Four Big Enterprises,” namely Evergreen, China Trust, the Cathay Group and Formosa Plastics. It was Liu who introduced Mark Middleton, President Clinton’s Special Assistant to the “Four Big Enterprises.” That Evergreen was subsequently fined by the State of California for making an illegal $890,000 U.S. campaign contribution does little to dispel suspicion about Liu’s involvement in the latest Clinton bribery scandal.

Conclusion

Liu Tai-ying and his boss Lee Teng-hui are of course responsible for their misdeeds and must answer for them. Nevertheless our overview is not intended as an indictment of Liu and Lee as individuals, but rather of endemic, systemic corruption. Lee Teng-hui’s “corruption as a way of life” must be rooted out before the Republic of China can become a democracy in more than name only. It is only when clean government has been reestablished at home that the R.O.C. will cease to be an exporter of corruption abroad.

Written by Fung Hu-hsiang, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy at National Central University
Member of the Legislature of the Republic of China

Translated by Bevin Chu
R.A., Texas

Taiwan’s Fraudulent Election

Taiwan’s Fraudulent Election
Bevin Chu
March 24, 2000

Clinton in Wonderland

Taiwan election shows vitality of its democracy, says Clinton
Agence France Press, March 18, 2000
WASHINGTON — President Bill Clinton on Saturday hailed the the election of Mr Chen Shui-bian as President of Taiwan. [sic!]
“I congratulate Mr Chen Shui-bian on his victory,” the US leader said in a statement released by the White House. “This election demonstrates clearly the strength and vitality of Taiwan’s democracy. I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue,” he said.

Whether Slick Willy actually believes this arrant nonsense, or merely feels compelled to pay pro forma lip service for “diplomatic” reasons, only he knows. But libertarian anti-interventionists need not be bound by the Orwellian Newspeak of beltway insiders, and are free to tell it like it is.

Meanwhile, back in the Real World

On March 18, 2000, history repeated itself. The Republic of China’s Y2K presidential election turned out to be a replay of the 1994 Taipei mayoral election. In 1994 “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui, Chairman of the KMT, coerced Mayor Huang Ta-chou, the KMT incumbent, who knew he was unelectable due to voter dissatisfaction with his job performance, to run in a three way race.

What was Lee Teng-hui’s motive?

Lee is a pro-Japan Quisling and a covert Taiwan separatist. In an infamous 1995 interview with the late Japanese journalist Ryotaro Shiba, Lee likened himself to Moses, leading his people out of Egypt, i.e., China, and to the promised land, i.e., Japan. Lee later likened rabid separatist Chen Shui-bian of the “opposition” DPP to Mose’s successor, Joshua.

Lee wanted to split enough of the pro-reunification vote from the pro-reunification New Party’s Jaw Shau-kang to ensure that Chen Shui-bian would ascend to office of Mayor of Taipei, a traditional stepping stone to the Republic of China’s presidency.

This sleazy, anti-democratic electoral sleight of hand, calculated to deny the voters a result which actually reflected the popular will, was referred to as “qi Huang, bao Chen,” or “dump Huang, save Chen,” and successfully handed the keys to the City of Taipei to Chen.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Now, fast forward to March 18, 2000. KMT Party Chairman Lee Teng-hui deliberately coerces his own party’s unelectable Lien Chan, whose numbers are mired in the low to mid teens, to run against the immensely popular pro-reunification James Soong, whom Lee excommunicated from the KMT and who subsequently ran as an independent.

As in 1994, Chen Shui-bian, aka Joshua, wins again. This dog and pony show was referred to as “qi Lien, bao Bian” or “dump Lien, save Bian.” This time, by a slim margin of 300,000 votes out of 12 million registered voters and an 83% voter turnout, Chen was handed the keys to the Presidential Palace. Soong received 37% of the vote. Lien received 23%. Again, this split the pro-reunification vote, clearing the way for rabid separatist Chen to squeak by with a mere 39% plurality.

Sixty one percent of the voting public in the Republic of China voted against the separatist Chen. Taiwan’s Y2K election may be a lot of things, including a cruel hoax perpetrated against a politically naive electorate still struggling to cope with the darkside of “democracy,” but the one thing it is categorically not is a mandate for Taiwan independence.

Better Living through Chemistry

Even many of those who voted for Chen did not do so because they advocate Taiwan independence. They voted reluctantly for Chen’s party, the DPP, and only because they could no longer endure the KMT’s endemic corruption. They voted for Chen only because Lee Yuan-tse, the ROC’s only Nobel Laureate (for Chemistry), abused the power of his office.

Lee, a Taiwan independence diehard and head of the prestigious taxpayer funded Academia Sinica, went on TV in a slick campaign ad endorsing Chen. Oozing with sincerity, Lee assured borderline Chen supporters who harbored grave reservations about Chen’s fanatical separatism, not to worry. He, Lee, would transform Chen from a separatist Mr. Hyde into a “kinder, gentler” Dr. Jekyll, who would make peace with the mainland, presumably through chemistry.

Chen has thanked Lee profusely, convinced that many undecideds swallowed Lee’s appeal hook, line and sinker.

Are Run-off Elections Undemocratic?

In many European and western hemisphere democracies, election laws would mandate a run-off election to establish an absolute majority and solid electoral mandate. If such a run-off election were held in Taiwan, right this minute, Chen Shui-bian would lose by a landslide, and the Taiwan independence elite damned well knows it.

Yet this obscene travesty of the “democratic process” is going to be spin-controlled by Taiwan independence Quislings and China-hating beltway bombardiers as “the Taiwanese people’s yearning for freedom and independence.” Count on it.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Opinion Polls

The week before the election Lee not only misused party resources, but public resources to brainwash trusting pro-reunification KMT members to “save Lien, dump Soong,” on the false pretext of preventing the pro-independence Chen from winning.

Among his many transgressions, Lee violated ROC election laws, which prohibit the release of poll results starting ten days prior to election day. The purpose of these laws are to prevent the misuse of phony polls designed to influence election results.

What did “Mr. Democracy” do? Lee ordered the release of not one, but two sets of poll results. One real, one phony.

Real poll results, which accurately reflected how far Soong was in the lead, were supplied to the “opposition” DPP Chen Shui-bian’s campaign committee, helping them fine-tune their campaign tactics to shifting public moods.

Phony poll results, which falsely alleged Lee Teng-hui puppet Lien Chan was leading Soong, were deliberately leaked to the public at large. Thousands of red cloth election banners with the white characters “qi Soong, bao Lien” or “dump Soong, save Lien,” were cranked out and distributed island-wide. This had the predictable effect of panicking at least several hundred thousand, if not millions, of grassroots KMT members to do just that.

Many grassroots KMT members who have never been able to bring themselves to believe Lee was in fact a “separatist wolf in reunification sheep’s clothing,” obediently voted for Lien. They now realize, too late, how badly they were duped.

The Japanese Connection

Hsieh Chi-ta, a New Party legislator and former judge, respected even by her political enemies as a stateswoman of impeccable honor, has done her utmost to encourage both the protestors and riot police to remain calm, however righteous their anger might be.

As she spoke she reminded the media and the Taiwan public about an aspect of the cross Straits crisis which is often neglected, deliberately, the Japanese Connection.

Even elementary school girls in Japan, when they receive an award, stand and shout “Lee Teng-hui, wan sui!” or “Long live Lee Teng-hui!” Naturally they do it in Japanese, not Chinese. But why do they perform such a bizzare ritual at all? What does Lee Teng-hui have to do with Japan?

The anwer is, plenty.

They do it because everyone in Japan, even adolescents, know that Lee Teng-hui is to coin a phrase, a “Japanese cuckoo’s egg in China’s nest.” They do it because they know Lee Teng-hui is deliberately engineering an apocalyptic showdown between China and America. They do it because they know China-haters like Chris Cox are too dense to realize that while his irrational bigotry is focused on China, he has forgotten which Asian nation bombed Pearl Harbor. They do it because they want Japan to stand on the sidelines while China and America destroy each other, and when the dust has settled, assume the mantle of Asia’s premier superpower.

Japan’s Proposal

None of this is a secret if one knows where to look. Just read Lee Teng-hui’s book “Taiwan’s Proposal,” ghost-written by a Japanese neofascist and published in Japan, not Taiwan. Pray tell, why is a book entitled “Taiwan’s Proposal” authored and published in Japan by militant Japanese right-wingers? Is “Taiwan’s Proposal” really Taiwan’s Proposal, or “Japan’s Proposal?”

Much of what I write probably comes as a shock to those who don’t speak Chinese and hence have little clue about what’s actually going on in Taiwan, including instant experts among our sanctimonious foreign policy elite. But it’s hardly a secret to anyone who speaks Chinese, lives here a few months, and spends a little time watching the surfeit of nightly “McLaughlin Group” type political talk shows.

A Taiwanese Tiananmen

If only my fellow Americans back home could receive live Taiwan cable TV news coverage. What they would witness is a Taiwanese Tiananmen Incident. Outraged grassroots KMT members who voted for Soong, have joined outraged grassroots KMT members who voted for Lien. Together with support from other segments of the Taiwan public, they are protesting in front of KMT party headquarters, and are refusing to leave until Lee resigns his party chairmanship.

They are chanting, among other slogans, “Lee Teng-hui, xia tai!” or “Lee Teng-hui, step down!” The flag they are waving is the red, white and blue flag of the Republic of China, not any so-called “Taiwan” flag.

The protestors are protesting not against “democracy,” but against anti-democratic chicanery and election fraud inflicted upon them by their own party chairman, a “stealth separatist” who delivered their nation into the hands of the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian, a opportunistic traitor belonging to another party.

At Tiananmen, protestors chanted “Deng Xiaoping, xia tai!” Lee Teng-hui gloated. Now Lee’s political chickens have come home to roost.

The Ministry of Truth

What has the Fifth Estate’s response been? Lee Teng-hui’s state-controlled Taiwan media, and much of the mainstream western media, with a few noteworthy exceptions which deserve high praise, have been sniping at the protestors, portraying them as a “mob,” as “anti-democratic,” as “sore losers.” They have been self-righteously demanding of the protesters “Why don’t you accept the results of a democratic process?”

Chen’s Clintonian Doublespeak

To which one might ask, why doesn’t Chen Shui-bian, President Elect of the Republic of China, accept the result of a democratic process? Chen began his “acceptance speech” with a ringing declaration about how “the Republic of China’s presidential election” had been successfully concluded, and how he had been elected, get this, “President of Taiwan.” He did not refer to “the Republic of China” again. After that it was Taiwan this and Taiwan that.

On previous occasions Chen has stated, in classic Clintonian doublespeak, that “Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state, its current name is the Republic of China.”

Right. Oral sex is not sex. It all depends on the meaning of the word “is.”

What Chen did was equivalent to crossing his fingers while lying through his teeth. The office he ran for was “President of the Republic of China,” not “President of the Republic of Taiwan.” Republic of China voters who cast their ballots, cast them for a president of the Republic of China, not a president of the Republic of Taiwan.

The fact is Chen offered himself as a candidate under false pretenses. Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian both committed election fraud. What resulted was the farthest thing from a “free and fair election.”

If Chen wants to run for President of the Republic of Taiwan, he is free to do so. I suggest however that Chen first state clearly what he is doing in advance, so voters can decide if those terms are acceptable to them, and Chen first establish a Republic of Taiwan before deciding he has a right to be its President.

The latter would call for first waging a successful war of independence. Good luck on both counts.

Chen will not succeed in his dream of Taiwan independence. Never mind Beijing. Patriotic Chinese on Taiwan, who are “mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more,” and outnumber pro-Japan Quislings, won’t let it happen.

Names Change, Patterns Remain

Let me keep it real simple. Chen Shui-bian did not win this “democratic” election. “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui conferred the Republic of China’s presidency on his designated heir Chen Shui-bian, the same way Deng Xiaoping conferred the Chairmanship of the Chinese Communist Party on Jiang Zemin, and the same way Chinese emperors have conferred the imperial throne on their successors since time immemorial. Chen Shui-bian is merely China’s newest emperor.

“Mr. Democracy” vs. Pro-democracy Demonstrators

The PRC government tolerated a sit in demonstration which paralyzed the heart of Beijing for several months before finally losing patience and brutally inflicting deadly force against the protesters.

“Mr. Democracy,” Lee Teng-hui waited all of two days before ordering helmeted riot police to drive pro-democracy protestors from the plaza in front of KMT headquarters. The police obliged, clubbing unarmed, elderly KMT members with heavy batons. White-haired senior citizens have been hospitalized with concussions. I myself was lucky, and was merely soaked by water cannons.

What is being released is 12 long years of pent-up rage and frustration endured by patriotic Chinese on Taiwan as they watched the Quisling Lee Teng-hui hijack their beloved country before their very eyes.

Taiwan’s Imelda Marcos takes a Powder

Lee Teng-hui is currently in hiding. His staff told Mayor Ma Ying-jeou of Taipei Lee had “a mild case of the flu” and needed rest.

Yeah, right. “Mr. Democracy” is probably quaking in his boots at the prospect of being spotted in public by the Republic of China’s citizenry. Remember what happened to the Ceaucescus? Long overdue comeuppance for a petty tyrant.

Tseng Wen-hui, aka Mrs. Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan’s own Imelda Marcos, has been reported seen boarding a plane at Taoyuan Airport, accompanied by fifty, count ’em, fifty suitcases, bound for Switzerland. Local political observers don’t think she’s on a two week vacation.

The drama, now into its third day, continues to unfold as I write. Tensions remain high. Stay tuned for further developments. In the meantime, will someone please notify Human Rights Watch? Amnesty International? How about Mike Chinoy? Richard Gere even? Anybody?

Taiwan’s Day of Decision

Taiwan’s Day of Decision
Bevin Chu
March 16, 2000

CN and TW

On the internet “Taiwan” is abbreviated TW, and “China” is abbreviated CN. This manner of referring to the two Chinese political regimes vying for the title of legitimate ruler of all China is dangerously misleading. It implies that the PRC or People’s Republic of China comprises only the continental portion of China, and the ROC or Republic of China comprises only the offshore Chinese island of Taiwan. Worse, it implies that something named “Taiwan” which does not even contain the word “China,” has nothing to do with China.

In the case of internet abbreviations, this is not the result of any dark conspiracy, merely regrettable semantic imprecision. It is harmless enough as long as politics is not part of the equation. Unfortunately politics often is, at which time the “CN vs. TW” formulation is the source of infinite confusion and mischief.

As the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius once explained,

“Above all it is essential to refer to things by their correct names. If things are not referred to by their correct names, then our language will not reflect reality. If our language does not reflect reality, then our actions will not reflect reality, and will be exercises in futility.”

George Orwell, who warned against the abuse of the English language by the totalitarians in our midst, could not have put it any better.

Americans need to be reminded that the name of our great republic is These United States of America, not “The United States of America,” and that the name of our Department of Defense, before we learned to dissemble, was the Department of War. Chinese on Taiwan meanwhile, need to be reminded that the name of the government which is holding its presidential election is the Republic of China, not “Taiwan.”

Even if out of convenience, expediency or laziness China watchers don’t always employ the proper terminology, and I myself plead guilty, we must never forget that an objective reality exists independently from our misleading linguistic formulations, which we neglect at our own peril.

McCain’s Mother and the “Little Guy”

According to a Thursday, March 2, 2000 article by Steven Mufson in the Washington Post entitled ‘McCain’s Mother and the “Little Guy'”‘

“… Roberta McCain, mother of presidential candidate John McCain, flew the Taiwanese flag out her apartment window last October on the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in the Chinese civil war. She lives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington and is said to be sympathetic to the capitalist, self-governing island of Taiwan, which Beijing asserts should be reunified with the mainland.”

“Taiwanese flag?” What Taiwanese flag?

Blue Sky, White Sun, Red Earth

I assume Mother McCain was referring to the Republic of China flag. The Republic of China flag features a white twelve pointed sun on a blue background on a red field. It is known as the “qing tien bai re, man di hong” or “blue sky, white sun, red earth” flag. It is the flag of the old KMT, of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek, of the party which in 1911 overthrew the “Last Emperor” portrayed in Bernardo Bertolluci’s Academy Award winning epic.

Republic of China Flag

Taiwan separatist zealots, busy counting their chickens before they’ve hatched, have designed a “Taiwan” flag, such as it is. Their would-be “Republic of Taiwan” flag sports a red eight petaled chrysanthemum on a white field with green borders. It was modeled on the Japanese emperor’s Chrysanthemum Flag, but with only half the petals.

Would-be “Republic of Taiwan” Flag

Why only half the petals you ask? Excellent question. Because Taiwan “independence” Quislings, deathly afraid of displaying any genuine independence, felt obligated to defer to their former colonial overlords, the Japanese, hence only half the petals. So much for their shrill demands for “dignity” in reunification talks with Beijing.

Japanese Emperor’s Chrysanthemum Flag

The Quisling Lee Teng-hui once permitted separatist fanatics to raise this ersatz Japanese flag on a flagpole over Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek International Airport for several days, before protests from patriotic Taiwan Chinese forced him to order it taken down. I doubt this is the flag Mother McCain was flying. I doubt Mother McCain has ever laid eyes on the “Taiwanese flag.”

The Little Guy against the Big Guy

“Joe McCain, her other son… said, “My mother is a free market type, a Western democracy type… [my] mother “has always had great affinity for Taiwan… she always favors the little guy against the big guy.””

So Mother McCain “always favors the little guy against the big guy.” Really? Always? During the Vietnam War, which incidentally the Vietnamese refer to as “The American War” — Imagine that! — Mother McCain’s “little guy” was Vietnam. The “big guy was the World’s (soon to be) Only Remaining Superpower. Did Mother McCain favor “the little guy against the big guy” then? Did she favor the Vietnamese David over the American Goliath while her son was a guest at the Hanoi Hilton?

Will the day ever come when libertarian anti-interventionists no longer have to endure this kind of smug, facile, self-congratulatory, cracker barrel, “David versus Goliath” formulation from every Benevolent Global Hegemonist and his mother? I sure as god hope so.

A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

Mother McCain’s gesture of solidarity was made toward a Taiwan that no longer exists, having been destroyed by Lee Teng-hui in what I refer to as Phase Three of Taiwan’s modern political evolution.

See:
Taiwan’s Pseudo-Democracy

Mother McCain’s political naivete is humorous, and has the makings of comedy. Senator McCain’s abysmal ignorance combined with colossal arrogance, a mix shared by too many of his colleagues in Congress, sets off alarm bells, and has the makings of political tragedy.

“Mr. Democracy’s” Rigged Ballots

Taiwan’s voters are being treated to a special ballot on March 18. Rigged ballots. In past years whenever an independent candidate was listed on the preprinted paper ballots, his “Party Affiliation” was indicated as “None.” This year, the space for independent candidates James Soong and Hsu Hsing-liang’s “Party Affiliation” have been left blank!

This amounts to an open invitation to less alert Soong and Hsu voters to stamp their ballots in the blank space below their candidate’s names instead of above their candidate’s name.

Is this a big deal? You’re goddamned right it is. Voting regulations specify that if a ballot is stamped in the incorrect space, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the ballot is discarded as null and void.

Now nobody on Taiwan believes the ruling KMT deliberately left the space below former DPP Chairman Hsu Hsing-liang’s name blank so that Hsu’s supporters would be disenfranchised. Hsu is not going to get more than one or two percent of the vote.

But plenty of ROC voters have no trouble believing Lee Teng-hui deliberately ordered the space below former Taiwan Provincial Governor James Soong’s name left blank so Soong’s supporters would be disenfranchised. Soong after all, according the last round of polls conducted was in the lead.

“Mr. Democracy’s” Jack Booted Thugs

In case anyone thought I was exaggerating when I warned darkly of a revival of the White Terror, imagine the following fictional scenario.

A corrupt, scandal-ridden American president faces imminent impeachment. Fortunately for the White House, Congress boasts a “friendly” majority. Unfortunately for the president, the Speaker of the House is fed up with the president’s unrepentant wrongdoing and intends to defect to the opposition party. The speaker’s defection may precipitate more defections, an opposition majority, and as a result, the criminal prosecution of the soon to be out of power president.

The day after the Speaker holds a press conference revealing what he’s done, IRS and FBI agents surround his home. Black uniformed SWAT Teams burst in and turn the Speaker’s home inside out, with the pretext of searching for evidence in an unrelated case against a personal friend of the Speaker. Press kits, prepared in advance, are handed out to the television crews, who were notified in advance, all the better to capture the event live on TV, in a calculated attempt to influence voters.

Would Taiwan independence fellow travellers and China bashers refer to such a president as a “champion of democracy?” Would they weave elaborate excuses for him?

No?

The President in this fictional case is “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui. The Speaker of the House is Liu Sung-fan, President of the Legislative Yuan, the Republic of China’s closest counterpart to our own House Speaker. Three weeks ago, disgusted with Lee Teng-hui’s overt corruption and covert separatism, Liu defected to reformist James Soong’s camp. For this the 70 year old, six term senior lawmaker of the ROC Legislature was subjected to political persecution rivalling that inflicted against mainland political dissidents.

Liu’s case is not unique. Other KMT members who have defected to the Soong camp have received similar “special” treatment. Welcome to Taiwan’s “thriving democracy.”

These are the shabby depths to which Newsweek magazine’s “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui is willing to stoop in his determination to promote Taiwan independence. The Taiwan separatist elite’s apologists should ask themselves the following question. If the ROC electorate really wants Taiwan “independence” as badly as separatists claim, why does “Mr. Democracy” Lee Teng-hui feel compelled to resort to such anti-democratic measures to ram through his secessionist agenda?

To Uphold Democracy

According to Government Information Office Director-General Chao Yi, another Lee puppet, the arrival of more than 400 foreign journalists on Taiwan to cover the presidential election “indicates that the international community attaches great importance to the ROC’s upcoming election, as it symbolizes the consolidation and progress of the country’s democratic system.”

Oh, please.

Voting with One’s Dollars

In fact an election of sorts has already been held, and the results are not nearly so flattering.

TAIWAN SHARE PRICES POST HISTORIC NOSE-DIVE OF 617.65 POINTS
Taipei, March 13 (CNA) Share prices opened low and closed even lower on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TAIEX) on Monday, with the weighted index, the market’s key barometer, plunging a record one-day fall of 617.65 points to close at 8,811.95. Affected by uncertain political factors five days before the presidential election, the bourse opened at 9,279.9 points… Losers outnumbered gainers 582 to 13… All eight major categories lost ground…

TAIWAN STOCK PRICES DROP BY 195.55 POINTS
Taipei, March 15 (CNA) The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TAIEX) lost ground on Wednesday, with the benchmark-weighted price index plunging 195.55 points to close at 8,640.03.

Taiwan’s shareholders have already voted, with their portfolios, and they have voted a resounding, thunderous NO! No to Lee Teng-hui. No to Chen Shui-bian. No to Taiwan independence. They have done so decisively and unequivocally, by withdrawing their personal fortunes from Taiwan’s economy. Just as during the Cold War refugees voted with their feet across the Berlin Wall, across the Florida Straits, so Taiwan voters are voting with their NT Dollars.

They are fearful Lee Teng-hui’s covert “qi Lien bao Bian” i.e., “dump Lien, save Bian” string-pulling may have ensured that Lee’s real hand-picked successor Chen Shui-bian, will succeed him and carry on Lee’s drive toward separatism, the opposition of Taiwan’s citizenry be damned.

Election Day

Saturday March 18, 2000, the day after tomorrow, is election day in the Republic of China. The office the candidates are running for is President of the Republic of China.

Taiwan does not have a president. It never has. Taiwan is a Chinese province, not a sovereign state. The highest office for the Chinese province of Taiwan is, or rather was, until Lee Teng-hui abolished it in flagrant violation of the Republic of China’s Constitition, Provincial Governor.

Who will become President of the Republic of China? I sure as hell don’t know, and neither does anyone else. If the candidate who has won the hearts and minds of the largest number of voters in the ROC wins, it will be former Governor James Soong.

But Lee Teng-hui’s White Terror has wreaked havoc to the democratic process. Any hope of an authentically free and fair election is already out of the question. If Soong wins it will be in spite of Lee Teng-hui’s pseudo-democracy, not because of it. It will be, as title of the Phil Collins tune goes, “Against All Odds.”

Post Script: The Stars and Stripes — Made in Taiwan

When neoconservative would be patriots thump their chests and propose amendments against “desecrating the American flag” I have to laugh. More than a few of these “Champions of American Values” think nothing of violating their fellow Americans’ fundamental right to free trade, including the importation of cheap textile products, specifically American flags, from various regions of China, including Taiwan, Hongkong, and the Chinese mainland.

Eight out of ten American flags flying on flagpoles in these United States of America are made in the Republic of China, aka, “Taiwan.”

Neocons who wouldn’t recognize a fundamental American value if it bit them on the ass, have been floating trial balloons about a constitutional amendment making it punishable by law to destroy squares of nylon fabric imported from Taiwan, as if they were the Shroud of Turin. So what if it tramples over the rights of sovereign American citizens to dispose of their private property as they see fit?