台灣敢廢除死刑嗎？Will Taiwan dare to abolish the Death Penalty?

The recent posthumous acquittal of Chiang Kuo-ching 江國慶, a soldier who was wrongly executed 14 years ago for the rape and murder of a young girl brings back the question of the death penalty in Taiwan.

 Executed soldier found innocent in posthumous trial
(click on cc icon for English subtitles) 

With Hong Kong as the only exception where the death penalty was abolished just a few years before its return to China, all other Asian countries have the death penalty on their statutes.

Taiwan often boasts of being a democracy with human values and respect for its citizens. Chiang's condemnation based on a forced confession by military intelligence officers show that some of them still suffer from a White Terror syndrome.
In many countries where the death penalty has been abolished, this was done against the wishes of the majority. Should Taiwan's politicians of all hues and creed have the courage to face up to their electorate and abolish the death penalty, they would send a message to other nations that would be hard to ignore. What better way would there be to send a message of independence to its neighbours?

In this respect, the European Union, a former nest of imperialism, has shown the way by imposing the removal of the death penalty as a condition for membership. Taiwan is one the Asian countries that has been most influenced by European culture and ideals, this without relinquishing its own soul and culture.
The recent enormous success of Seedig Bale where former colonists, the Japanese, and oppressed Aborigines are shown fighting each other without any room for concession is indicative of Taiwan's modernity. The director, Wei Te-Sheng's 魏德聖 made the decision to present fully the Seediq's merciless killing of Japanese women and children in the 1930 Wushe incident and show both the Japanese and the Seediq for what they really are: a part of our humanity, however imperfect.
Dignity is restored to the Seediq. Surely a Taiwan free of the ultimate punishment would be the logical continuity of this humanity.

Asia, along with a Taiwan's inspired leadership, must follow the EU's example. Reconciliation between former warring nations is necessary if the continent wants to be one of the centres for human development, not only economic but also spiritual. The death penalty's removal is a necessary part of the healing process in Asia. If former arch-enemies, such as France and Germany, have managed to become not only partners but friends, at all levels of society, Asian nations can also throw forever their past demons to the dustbin of history.
Could this be up for debate between Ma Jing-jeou 馬英九 and Tsai Ying-wen 蔡英文 before the next presidential election, could both agree to abolish the death penalty and turn this question into a non-issue?
It would help Taiwan to stand up proud among the chorus of nations.

溫州車事故，報紙抗命 Wenzhou Railcrash, no Let-up in Media and Public Outrage

Is this a watershed? Chinese Media fight Censorship Orders

RFI International Report 浙江溫州警方監視抗議者路透社7月27日照片

It could well be that this time public opinion won't be muzzled. In the past, Chinese authorities, local or central, have been able to muzzle opinion after ordinary citizens reacted to scandals, such as badly constructed schools resulting in children's deaths from earthquakes. This time, it's the relatively well off "upper middle class" that has been affected by the railroad disaster. Only relatively affluent Chinese can afford to take the high speed trains that are being built all over China. In the past this affluent class has been fairly uncritical of the regime since it had been reaping the benefits from the expansion of the economy.
Middle class affluent citizens have seldom been in the first line of revolts of fundamental changes in a country's political structure, unless they feel directly affected by events; as in the case of the railroad crash.
The fairly high sums paid to ten families are a proof of that concern. On the other hand many families are demanding higher financial compensation, claiming that, in a country with no social protection, the loss of someone has to be calculated against what that person represents in terms of "insurance" for retirement.

What is remarkable is not that the government has ordered the press to muzzle itself but that the orders have come out in the open in such details: Directives from the Ministry of Truth: Wenzhou High-speed Train Crash.

Unless the authorities move to ban half the words from Chinese dictionaries on Weibo, the Chinese twitter, it seems that this time, putting a few executives in jail and awarding huge sums of money to grieved relatives won't be enough to erase analysis of the lack of accountability embedded in the Chinese system of government.

It could well the tipping point towards fundamental changes in the way the Chinese view their government and how they should be governed or rather govern themselves. Responsibility rests not only with the Chinese government but Chinese citizens who have to overcome their own apathy or mistaken feeling of helplessness.

台灣開放中國客自由行 台灣柔術戰略 | Chinese Tourists Travelling to Taiwan: The Jujutsu Strategy

The number of Chinese tourists, nearly all of them on organized tours, visiting Taiwan has recently overtaken the figures for Japanese coming for vacation to the Island state. Individual Chinese visitors, allowed for the first time  (6月28日, 2011 | June 28, 2011), will certainly boost these figures to unprecedented heights. While keen to emphasize the fact that individual travel for Chinese citizens will boost the economy, the Taiwanese government and many tourist businesses do concede that there are other fringe benefits.

Winston F.C. Shen, chief executive officer of Hotel Royal Group, declared recently that "Taiwan can 'drive China to change' by welcoming independent tourists."  This is the reverse strategy employed by China on the world stage. China's economic clout has forced its government to deal with its newly found power. It has reluctantly realized that with power come new responsibilities that it cannot shirk anymore. Its recent reversal of attitude in some African countries, such as Libya and Sudan, shows that China can no longer pretend to have a neutral position on the excuse that it won't interfere in other nations' sovereignty.
Its relationship with Taiwan has undergone a major shift in the last two years. China has come to realize that brutal force and threat towards Taiwan, far from changing the opinion of Taiwan’s citizens, have in fact made them more hostile than ever towards China.

The Jujutsu Strategy

Taiwan, not being able to use the same force to advance its own interests, is using a Jujutsu strategy. As explained on Wikipedia: "Jujutsu" can be translated to mean "art" or "technique" and represents manipulating the opponent's force against himself rather than confronting it with one's own force.

Taiwanese governments and people, no matter what side or origin, have learned from their own history that they have to forge their own place as a small nation within Asia and be accepted on a different basis from China. China has based its growing strength and formidable economic power on the sheer energy coming from its huge population base. China's economic structure does not have to be an efficient one. Its continuous ability to be able to keep on drawing from a cheap home labour force, the Mingong 民工, has relieved it of the obligation to develop an efficient and organized economy akin to the German model. China has created the illusion of being a strong economy. It is, rather, a huge economy depending on cheap labour and whose expertise, for mass production, depends greatly on foreign knowledge. China is able to create high-end science and technology but it's not able yet, in spite of recent efforts, to produce this high technology in strength and depth. To continue expanding, incredibly enough for its own self-esteem, it depends on foreign powers: the most important one being Taiwan.

Taiwan is China's number one investor. When a recent fire broke out in one of Foxconn / Apple's iPad cases factories in China, it affected mainly share prices in Taiwan and the United States. Recent noises from China's generals that, contrary to US intelligence sources, they had practically no missiles pointed at Taiwan are prompted as much by the realization that China needs to appease Taiwan's public opinion before next year's presidential election as by a realistic assessment of Taiwan's importance to China's economy.Consequently, knowing that time works in its favour and that China is very much like a giant discovering its newly gained strength and clumsily trying to flex its muscles, Taiwan is finally giving an outlet to China’s untamed energy. Opening its borders to individual travel from China is a momentous historic change for the Taiwanese.

Already members of the Legislative Yuan are proposing to open its floor to Chinese tourists to let them see democracy, Chinese-language democracy, in action. As reported in the Sacramento Bee: "Taiwanese tour operators say many Chinese tourists - used to the propaganda programs on state TV - have asked to stay in their hotels to watch the freewheeling TV political talk shows on Taiwan."The Taiwanese government, KMT, DPP or otherwise, would be foolish to discard a certain paranoia towards China. No matter what type of government is in place in China, democratic, autocratic or dictatorial, China will always be a formidable and difficult neighbour. An island nation of 23 million lying an hour's flight from a country of more than 1.3 billion citizens is well advised to be wary of such untamed power.

The sheer numbers of Chinese who will come to visit Taiwan is Taiwan's biggest defence against China. The more individual tourists come to Taiwan, meet Taiwanese on their own mutual terms and engage in friendly discourse, the more Taiwan's independence, a word that yet remains to be defined, will become a fact. Taiwan will be able to send back to China its message: that Taiwan has turned into a peaceful and democratic country with all the usual imperfections found in other democracies in Europe and North America.
All these tourists will add to Taiwan's Jujutsu Strategy: Letting so many individual Chinese tourists in is a typical jujutsu manoeuvre. This will not be an invasion. These individual tourists, hopefully, will go home and be a force in China itself to convince their fellow citizens that Taiwan, although Chinese-speaking, has become something they should not try to assimilate but rather respect. The jujutsu move will have then fully come round.

One can only hope that Tsai Ying-wen 蔡英文 realizes that the Jujutsu strategy is not only Taiwan's best plan against China's threats but that it has been part of Taiwan's culture and history for the last 400 years, right from Taiwan's first constitutional government established by the Dutch for 30 years in the 17th century, through the Japanese occupation in 1895 up to the 21st century leading Taiwan into a new era of self-confidence (With the exception of February 28th, 1947 revolt 二二八 against KMT’s rule and injustice). The Taiwanese have since then switched to more subtle methods of resistance, if not more determined, against China's unprecedented challenge.
Taiwan's development and expansion into China's economy, its development of democracy, with its inevitable by-product of sanctioned corruption, and recent realization that a social revolution for more equality still is in progress augur well for the future.But, please, don't repeat this, the Jujutsu Strategy is Taiwan's secret weapon and once it has been used, as all jujutsu experts know, it will be too late for opponents to resist its force.

纪念六四 二十二周年 1989 - 2011 － 22 Years ago on this Day - June 4th

台港書籍、媒體漸進地進入中國 China Opens up slowly to Taiwanese Media and Publishing

Many Chinese Language Taiwanese Newspapers however are still blocked in China

For a few years many Taiwanese students have been buying books from China, in particular cheaper translations of foreign technical textbooks. What started as a cheaper option for students eager to save money has turned into a normal part of book selling in Taiwan. Indeed, mainstream Eslite bookstore chain among others has a dedicated floor in many of its recently opened branches, emphatically called "books in simplified characters." Of course all of these books come from China but most bookstores shy away from emphasizing the geographical nature of these publications. One has to remember that only two decades ago, any book from China was totally banned and that it would have been enough to be found in possession of a Chinese book to be arrested under martial law. In practice many innocent foreigners having brought dictionaries from Mainland China never encountered any problem.
Recently, in a similar "Alice in Wonderland through the mirror view," some Chinese bookstores have started stocking up on books from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Wangfujing Bookstore has a dedicated section of such books.

Wanfujing Bookstore: Promoting Books from Hong Kong and Taiwan

Considering that the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language (Order of the President No.37)" explicitly says in Chapter 1, article 1 that it "is enacted in accordance with the Constitution for the purpose of promoting the normalization and standardization of the standard spoken and written Chinese language" and that article 2 clearly states that normalization means the standardized characters (so-called simplified): "For purposes of this Law (...) the standardized Chinese characters." Articles 4 declares that authorities at various levels shall "take measures to popularize Putonghua and the standardized Chinese characters."
The Wangfujing bookstore being in the hands of Xinhua is, at least in spirit, breaching the law; not necessarily a bad thing. Naturally the selection of books, mainly from Taiwan, is still fairly limited. What is noticeable is that it is done with aplomb going to the point of producing promotion material. This has hardly been noticed in the Taiwanese media. a non-event.

Taiwanese Publishers in Force? (click on picture for larger resolution)

This comes at a time when Internet censorship on Chinese Language sites is intensifying. It is not clear what criteria are applied for blocking one site or another.
All English Language newspapers from Taiwan, including government sponsored sites, are freely accessible from Beijing; including the Taipei Times and the China Post. On the other hand many, but not all, Mandarin Chinese publications are blocked. Attempts to read the China Times 中國時報 or the Liberty Times 自由日報  are greeted with the notice that "the connection has been reset." At the same time on line papers such as Nownews did not provoke the ire of the censors. Many Wikipedia Chinese language pages could be accessed quite easily.

 There are dissenting views about whether there are two factions within the Chinese government, one being more liberal than the other. We can only speculate what brought about this timid liberalization on the printed word while more stringent controls are being enforced for electronic material.
In the meantime, many customers were clearly interested in the books being on offer.
One particular type of books was still missing: I could not see any travelling guide to Taiwan. Surely, with individual travel opening up for Beijing and Shanghai residents, this could have been a red-hot item.

艾未未失蹤：中共失面子 Ai Weiwei's missing: CCP Leaders Lose Face

China Internet observers have now taken to taking shots of articles on Chinese websites with the knowledge that articles routinely disappear. Ai Weiwei was arrested, disappeared for 48 hours before Chinese authorities reluctantly and indirectly admitted to his arrest.
They then proceeded to charge him with economic crimes. Maybe they thought that if they could not charge him with subversive arrests they could trump up charges that, so they thought, would be justified. They then could claim that he was a mere corrupt profiteer. The inventive charges must have come from watching too many Al Capone movies: if you can't prove Al Capone is a gangster, charge him with tax evasion. How naive! Ai Weiwei is not only innocent, but his activities and personality do not fit the crime.


AlJazeera: Chinese artist Ai held for 'economic crimes'

It's a new record: some faction of the Chinese leadership has managed to make two politically immature mistakes in only 72 hours.
First, they did not realize that the last person to arrest was Ai Weiwei. His disappearance brought immediate condemnation from many foreign governments, including the Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Commission and the DPP, albeit the MAC was a bit slow off the mark.
This brought into focus the spate of "disappearances" over the last two months. Many sites, which had published comprehensive lists, with location maps, of bloggers, journalists and writers who had been arrested and held incommunicado all over China as a probable knee jerk reaction to the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, were linked to twitter messages. This has highlighted the increase in arrests since the revolution in Tunisia and the consequent paranoiac fear inside the Chinese government of similar events in China.
The second mistake was then to believe that economic charges would be believable and accepted at face value for his arrest.
It does appear that some soft-liners managed to convince the hard line faction that accusing Ai Weiwei would not stick and come out as a ridiculous and feeble attempt to smear an otherwise well considered and honest artist. They were right: unfortunately they did not stop to think that removing the articles would have a worse effect than leaving them untouched on web sites. Don't China's Internet Bamboo Wall know that Internet users know what to expect of Chinese authorities and are careful enough to take screen shots on a regular basis?
Some leaders are still in another time dimension and have a simplified view of the digital age. The electronic bamboo wall is increasing been torn down and all past activities can be recorded.
The Chinese leaders must have realized by now:  their primeval panic has brought upon them the worst punishment of all: they have made themselves lose face.
Possibly the most terrible thing that could happen to faceless bureaucrats; for they are bureaucrats not politicians, they have lost all sense of politics, good or bad.

艾未未48小時不見了 — Ai Weiwei has disappeared for 48 hours

Ai Weiwei holds some of his 100 million 'Sunflower Seeds'. Image from artlet-blog.com.

Ai Weiwei had disappeared for the last 48 hours after his arrest in full view in Beijing airport. The world media have been clamouring for his release along with many governments. Will they be listened? Fear of change often provokes political autism.
There obviously is a struggle between the hard liners in the Chinese Communist Party who have, too quickly, childishly even, pressed on the panic button and the softies who had been multiplying speeches on the necessity to look at concepts like democracy with optimism. Were these speeches just for international ears?
It appears that the hardliners are winning, for now. If change comes to China, it won't be in the same fashion as in Tunisia; but like Tunisia, it will be unexpected and from unforeseen quarters.
Repression hasn't managed to re-invent itself but dissent always finds new ways to come through. Similarly, the Great Internet Chinese Wall is becoming old and cracked. Many Chinese blog on twitter and even sign the petition asking for Ai Weiwei's release. If more and more Chinese manage to go through the cracks of the internet bamboo wall, it means that even China with its thousands of internet watchers will not be enough to stop popular demand for a new modern way to govern China.

Ai Weiwei! Where are you? Why is the Taiwanese government silent?*

*Ai Weiwei was due to work on an exhibition in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

環球時報的消失葉 Disappearing Pages on the Global Times

Revising Reality: Erasing Memory

Liu Xiaobo's name has disappeared from the Global Times Website

It appears that the semi-official Chinese newspaper "Global Times" has erased all articles referring to Liu Xiaobo 劉曉波 from its website.
On Liang An San Di we have been mentioning the unreal opinion polls conducted to evaluate the Chinese citizens' reaction to Liu Xiaobo being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. While it is still possible to conduct searches in Google for articles published in the Global Times that mention Liu Xiaobo and then obtain numerous results, all links to such articles display the usual 404 error. The error is displayed not by a general server but by the newspaper itself.
Are criticisms of their contradictory, even fictional, reporting responsible for this? A change of strategy appears to be in place: after realizing that criticizing Liu Xiaobo in the country's media, including the prestigious and well watched CCTV's network daily news 新聞聯播，Chinese authorities slowly realized that this was possibly the worst approach in dealing with Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize.
Thanks to criticism by the State media many Chinese who had not heard of Liu Xiaobo or did not care about the Nobel Prize became then aware of his existence. Indeed, the Global Times reported that 9% the respondents polled were of the opinion that Liu should go to Norway to collect his prize. This was quite unprecented: an official press organ reporting that 9% of its population did not agree with the central authorities' decision in one of its own newspapers. Routine in many countries, but exceptional, and to be welcomed, in the Chinese media.
The Global Times then put in place a 1984 Orwell strategy: erase his name from the media. What they should have realized is that Google's search engine keeps a cache of its searches and that efforts to erase pages will even highlight the Global Times' knee-jerk reaction. And not all centrally controlled media seem to agree on this strange method of censorship. Articles published in other Government controlled media such as the China Daily that mention the Global Times's articles about Liu Xiaobo are still available on line.
This leads next to sustained speculation that there is a struggle at the top of the Chinese government about the directions to take concerning press freedom and freedom of speech in general. One side seems to defeat the other side's attempts at blocking unwelcomed reporting. Could the Global Times and the China Daily be representative of these different factions?
One thing is sure: Google will be blamed.

中國公共場所全面禁煙 Smoking Ban in China: a litmus test for the rule of law

The smoking ban to be introduced in China on May 1st is an important one in more than one respect.
Countries where smoking has been successful banned have been countries where the rule of law is at the highest level. Respect for the smoking ban will be a test on whether China, citizens and government authorities equally, is serious about the rule of law and whether the rule of law will have one day a power equal, if not separate, from the Communist Party. Citizenship will also be paramount for a successful ban because successful bans in other countries have always relied on citizens' general acceptance of such a ban.

Smokers are a difficult bunch to control and in essence are tobacco addicts. Addicts are totally dependent on their habit and will try everything to have a "right" to smoke. Will local party heads, local secretaries respect the new regulations? Will employees and policing authorities in charge of law or health enforcement feel endowed with enough authority to tell smokers to put out, no matter the power or the position?
Many observers will argue that China, being a very authoritarian regime, will find it easier to enforce the smoking ban. They are wrong. Smoking is a different beast. Authoritarian and dictatorial governments have not been successful at enforcing smoking bans. In dictatorships, not abiding by "small" regulations is a way for citizens to feel they are still in control of some private space. Smoking is felt to be one of the most private space and the most difficult to control. Addicts of any drug cannot be controlled unless the addicts make the decision themselves to quit or to accept that something else, their health or their family's well-being, is more important for their lives than the need to fulfill their addiction.

Every day in China, one sees drivers and pedestrians involved in serious accidents; mad drivers crashing by the side of highways. In fact, it is next to impossible to drive more than 30 miles without seeing a seriously crashed car by the side of a highway. This usually creates a long traffic jam leaving plenty of time for other drivers to have a good look at the wreck and possibly, only possibly, inciting them to drive more carefully.
This is in spite of an all present police force. On the other hand in Taiwan in big cities, more citizens regularly wait patiently for red lights to cross at junctions, this even when there is little traffic and to the delight of mosquitoes in the summer who bite the law abiding citizens. Not to say that Taiwanese are perfect drivers, far from it.

Sadly enough, it could well be the huge economic cost of close to four million Chinese dying of diseases induced by Tobacco smoking that might make this new health campaign successful in the long run.

薩伊德的遺產：東方主義與亞洲主義的矛盾 Edward Said's Legacy: The rise of Asianism over globalism - INSIDE Korea's JoongAng Daily

In view of Libya's battle and Korea's place in history, Korea JoongAng Daily has published a strong opinion article arguing that "We are qualified to play a key role in Asia with our progress in industrialization and democratization."

Original Article: Ideology of the Past?

Joong Ang's Daily opinion pieces argues that Asians "are qualified to play a key role in Asia with our progress in industrialization and democratization."

The author, Kim Hwan-yung, refers to Edward's view that the West view's of the East, and especially the Middle East, have been nourished from the necessity of providing justification for an invasion of countries and territories in Africa and the Middle East. While the article provides a good basis for an alternate method for Asians to comprehend today's world, it is however deficient on three fronts:

First it conveniently fails to refer to Edward Said's second book, "Culture and Imperialism," published in 1993 that expanded his very notion of Orientalism to apply to any colonized country or region of the world.

Secondly, the author of the article by using Edward Said's concept of Orientalism, rightly and legitimately, to explain and criticize the West view's of the Middle East and Japan, fails however in trying to apply this concept to his own culture, Asian and Korean, and his own arguments and logic.

Thirdly, the notion of Orientalism  defined as an ideological approach used by nations to justify colonialism and assert that they are endowed with a superior civilization and culture is not an exclusive domain of European nations and the West in general. This "orientalist" approach is being used now by nations on five continents, including Asia, to give themselves the right to dictate and impose their will upon other peoples.

Concepts such as Orientalism were and are human visions of the world we live in. They are, therefore, not limited in time or geography. If they are human visions and concepts, they can't be limited to a particular culture.  Arguing, rightly, that Asian countries have suffered from the West's Orientalism whereby Western nations have felt superior to other countries, Kim Hwan-yung then falls short of saying that Asian nations are guilty of having used the same approach in their relations to fellow Asian nation. Kim himself fails to apply the same principles to his own analysis and proposals.

His proposal that Asians should create an "Asianism' based on Asian philosophical values and concepts because it will provide better solutions is flawed. Kim asserts that "The answer could instead be better found in the Asian context."
While it is difficult to disagree with his statement that "Both Orientalism and Eurocentrism have long become passe," it is noticeable that Kim's contradicts himself by writing that "Asianism can better explain and broaden our perception of the world and its events."

The mirror side of Orientalism and Eurocentrism is his so-called "Asianism." Both going into past territories.
The worst culprit of "Asianism" was Japan before 1945. This was the very justification that Japanese imperial armies used to invade Korea, China, Vietnam, Taiwan and most of South East Asia. Former Imperial Japan was using the justification that Asians had as much, and even more, than Europe to offer to the world. Japan, blinded by its own warped vision, then decided that only an Asian unified, in fact occupied and maimed, by Japan could accomplish this goal. Korea has been a victim and a successful survivor of "orientalism" from first China and then Japan. It is better placed than many nations to fully understand the shock and lasting effects of cultural and physical invasion from other empires.
More relevant to today's world is China's own views on its own ethnic minorities to whom China feels it is bringing progress, industrialization and who have no choice but to communicate with the rest of China and the world through a Chinese prism of Mandarin culture. Unfortunately, so-called supporters of the Tibetans can't help but being guilty themselves of seeing Tibet through the deforming lens of Orientalism leaving themselves open to criticism. "Modern" Tibetans have the greatest difficulties to escape from these two sides of Orientalism and find it next to impossible to bring their own vision or narrative of what they are and their desires for their nation.

Kim feels it necessary to explain that Koreans should be able to ask themselves when he writes: “Who am I?” we must be able to say, “I am Korean, a member of the global community, as well as an Asian.” Asianism can better explain and broaden our perception of the world and its events."
This goes without saying: Koreans are, like everyone on the planet, members of the global community. On the other hand, saying that Asianism can better explain the world is dangerous and borders on intolerance. The very fact that Kim needs to write such simplistic and banal truths is more a testimony that some part of Korean society has not yet fully absorbed its colonial past.

Kim's analysis is simplistic. To bring progress to, not only Asia, but also to the rest of the world, there can be no bargaining away notions of global humanity. Our humanity cannot rely on the concept that one region of the world knows better than another what is good for humanity.
This ideology of the past, expressed under the cover of Edward Said's profound and humanistic criticism of colonialism, had better remain what it is: a thing of the past.
Edward Said would having been very surprised to see his criticism of Orientalism used an ideological justification for a so-called Asianism

利比亞的例子: 對北韓合適嗎？ UN Resolution on Libya: A precedent for North Korea?

조선민주주의인민공화국  리비아 

差五分鐘？Five Minutes to Midnight for Kim's family?

Many freedom and democracy advocates will have mixed feelings over the UN Security Council Resolution over its intervention in Libya. On the one hand it is hard not welcome the protection of civilians who would have been massacred in thousands, should the international community have remained passive while Gaddafi was killing people whom he probably regarded as personal property and who only deserved to be eliminated when they rebelled against his dictatorship. On the other, it is always with apprehension that many ordinary citizens will view the start of what can only be called a war against the Libyan government. Wars are not clean and painless interventions nor are they video games and the populations involved are always the ones suffering the most.
Let us sum up some facts:
— Libyans rose up against their dictator asking for his removal and the establishment of democracy.
— The movement was largely home-grown with, at first, little, or no logistical support from other countries.
— Their dictator was killing innocent populations indiscriminately, not necessarily protesters, and using military, police forces in a ferocious way out of proportion with the original protests. In particularly roaming in neighbourhoods and killing at random as a warning to the general population.
— What made the protesters strong was they had lost their fear of the Libyan regime, or more accurately fear was no longer enough to stop them from protesting. Many Libyans, however, were still too scared to even venture outside their houses or express publicly their dissatisfaction.
— The actions of Gaddafi's regime and family was increasingly being regarded as crimes against humanity by the international community including autocratic Arab regimes.
— The most recent news concerning Gaddafi is that he has not appeared in public for three days (at the time of writing), having supposedly retreated to his extraordinary bunker in Tripoli. Of course, he has called or forced his so-called supporters to come with children in hundreds to show up around his fortress using them a human shield against possible so-called "precision bombings" of his den.

No doubt all of these facts have not escaped the North Korean leadership. The North Korean grip on its own people is as powerful as was the Libyan's. The North Korean leadership rests within the preserve of one family and its intimate circles. As in the case of the Libyan government, some members of Kim Jong-il's  family have managed to use their country's money to invest abroad for personal gains as in the case of one Kim's son, Kim Jong-nam, who has sizeable investments in Macau casinos.
While the censorship had been nearly tight-proof for many years, it has increasingly been easier over the last five years for North Koreans to get access to foreign sources of information and technology which had been unavailable heretofore; in particular, South Korean soaps, Western movies. VCR players are deemed to be used by around 35% of the North Korean population. VCR players in North Korea are not being used to watch local programmes. While the world of South Korean soaps is somewhat removed from daily reality, South or North Korea, it is, nevertheless, a window into an alien world for North Koreans and has provoked them into believing, at least privately, less and less of their government's propaganda.
While many North Koreans, like Libyans, might be unhappy, there is no sign of rebellion except through the increased illegal border crossings into China and the much higher of refugees reaching South Korea. These are proof that the Northern Korean Dynasty is no longer frozen in a static state.
Kim's imperial rule circles are certainly aware now that, should the North Koreans find the strength to rise against their government, it would be difficult to kill them openly and quickly in numbers as Gaddafi's private army has been trying to do in Libya without some international outcry.
One of the primary factors that has made the UN resolution possible is the call of the Arab League for intervention in Libya. This, in turn, has made it possible for China and Russia to abstain in the UN Security Council vote.
There have been many rumours of preemptive agreements between South Korea and China over the granting of natural resources that would be reserved for Chinese companies in North Korea should the unification of Korea take place in tandem with a military free zone south of the Korean-Chinese border to allay Chinese fears of Western armies stationed too close to its southern border.
The North Korean continuous threats to world peace through its testing of nuclear bombs will certainly make many governments even more nervous than they were before Japan's nuclear disaster. Once Japan has managed to stand against on its own feet and there is no doubt that it will, it will certainly look at North Korea with a changed perspective. It could very well one the factors for international action on North Korea, should North Korea's population find the energy and the courage to rise.
The Japanese who have been following the radiation coming from Fukishima 福島. Another danger, as close to home, is North Korean missiles. Japan is well within firing range of North Korea.
Following the last famine, when for the first time North Koreans could travel across the country at will and with no police controls boarding trains as during the Great American depression, they discovered the real state of their country and forged new links. The regular smuggling of people, mobile phones and technology across the Chinese border has opened permanent cracks into the armour of the North Korean nomenklatura. Its days are numbered

The countdown has begun in North Korea, let's hope it won't then show us the same horrors as in Kampuchea.

李保東發表了一項聲明以澄清形勢 Li Baodong clarifies position

Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations,Li Baodong, clarifies China's position:
 "China is always against the use of force in international relations. China has serious difficulty with parts of the resolution. Meanwhile, China attaches great importance to the position of the 22-member Arab league on the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya. We also attach great importance to the position of the African countries and the African Union.
"In view of this... China abstained from the vote on the resolution."

Could it be that the ongoing democratic process in some Arabic countries is having some effect on China? It is simpler to view this statement as an expression of the importance of Africa and the Middle East to China's economic growth.
After Japan's nuclear disaster, China might be in the middle of reconsidering the future of nuclear energy. If it wants in the long run to switch to renewable energies, it will still need to consolidate its links with countries able to supply natural resources until its economy has switched to greener resources.

Some countries might have been relieved to hear that China is "against the use of force in international relations." Now the tricky part remains to convince China that Taiwan's relations with China are ruled by international law.

聯合國與利比亞：中國棄權！ China abstains in vote for UN Resolution for Military Action on Libya！

中國常駐聯合國代表李保東 Li Baodong Chinese Ambassador to the UN

The UN Security Council has adopted a resolution for military action against Libya.10 votes in favour, 5 abstentions, China has abstained! Let's welcome China's abstention. It means that China is taking its role on the international stage seriously. China, for once, has voted and decided to discard the (imaginary?) consequences of such a vote on its own treatment of dissidents in China itself. No doubt, the Arab League support for the resolution and the establishment of a no-fly zone has weighted heavily; China's image, economic and power in Africa would have been damaged, perhaps to the point of no return. Nevertheless, China, the second world power has acted responsibly within the limits of its self-image.
The resolution also calls for the protection of opponents to the dictatorial regime in Libya.

Gaddafi will probably say that Al-Qaida has infiltrated China.

Japan we are with you....大支

台灣航空公司：會說方言好處 Ability to speak Chinese dialects valued by Taiwanese Airline

With individual travel soon to come from China, it is remarkable that one Taiwanese airline, Transasia Airways 復興航空 has started to hire flight attendants focusing on their ability speak Chinese languages or dialects. The Apple Daily 蘋果日報 explains that recruits were examined for knowledge of Chinese dialects as well as their fluency in Korean. The Taiwanese English-language press did not miss this story either. The China Post quotes TransAsia Airways' spokesperson who says that "It will be very helpful for cabin crew to know how to communicate with the passengers because there will be a lot of individual tourists travelling from China to Taiwan without the help of a tour guide.”
Taiwan's official Central News Agency explains that not only traditional dialects such as Cantonese and Shanghainese are to be preferred, the company is also on the look out for "inland Chinese dialects."

A New Compulsory Manual for Transasia Airways Flight Attendants?

Is this a sign that the company expects important numbers of visitors from remote areas who are more comfortable speaking their own dialects?
Apparently, China's policy of imposing putonghua 普通話 or mandarin as a common tongue has not managed to eradicate not only Cantonese or Shanghainese as visitors to Shanghai or Canton can testify but has also failed to eradicate daily use of so-called inland dialects. These visitors will be surprised to hear not only Mandarin and English but also Taiwanese and Hakka announcements in many public transport systems in Taiwan. While the policy of having Mandarin as a common language has not only facilitated communications within China and with Taiwan, keeping one's own mother tongue alive helps to prevent dialect speakers from having a negative of the worth of their own culture and self-worth.
It is an irony of history that Transasia Airways' name in Chinese means "regain China" and that its business might show rapid growth in the years to come thanks to Chinese passengers' growing numbers visiting Taiwan.
Indeed, individual travel to Taiwan from China might be one of the most "interesting" decisions taken by a Taiwanese government.

公安司法預算比軍隊多了 Chinese Congress Budget for Security Forces and Justice overtake Army's

Amid all the excitement brought over live reporting from and about the Chinese National Congress on Weibo 微博, the equivalent of Twitter in China, Weibo micro-bloogers have been very active in commenting and criticizing members of the Chinese Congress.
According to the French daily Paper Le Monde, the very high number of tabloid celebrities, rich businessmen member of the National Chinese Congress has not gone unnoticed and has been sarcastically "welcomed" by many Weibo micro-bloggers. The one child policy has also been discussed and it seems many bloggers are asking for relaxed rules.

Chinese Weibo outruns Twitter in China (Online Marketing Trends)

What has been noticeable, however, in view of recent events in the Middle East including the blocking of certain words on Weibo's service such as 埃及、茉莉花 (Egypt, Jasmine) is the increased sums of money allocated to public security and the administration of Justice. For the first time these sums have overtaken the budget's portion allocated to the Army, which itself has seen its amount go up by 12.7 from last year when it had also been continuously increased year on year.
The question remains whether these increased spendings in security and defense will actually stop what Chinese leaders fear could be a contagion from democratic protests in the Middle East. Chinese leaders are aware, one hopes, that social unrest stems from deep dissatisfaction resulting from unbalanced development. The gap between the rich and the poor, the increased pollution depriving many villages of their means of living and the recent huge increase in food products prices have been recognised as main causes of unrest. Premier Wen Jiabao 溫家寶 did say words to this effect in his speech to the Congress.
It remains to see whether this realistic vision will be carried out soon enough so that the monies allocated to security and justice will become unnecessary.
This fear of Middle East unrest is probably unjustified. Rapid changes or so-called revolutions, peaceful or not, always start from unexpected corners. And nobody is able to predict where from. This is why they are called revolutions.

死刑槍聲 Taiwan Resumes Executions by hand gun

台灣：反死刑？
After an unofficial moratorium on the death penalty the Taiwanese government has resumed the executions of convicted criminals whose executions had been postponed. One of the executed had been "waiting" for his death for 11 years. A sad reminder of the infamous prison death corridors from the United States. Taiwan's Ministry of Justice announced Friday, April 4th that the execution of five convicted murderers had taken place on the preceding Thursday. The executions were authorized by Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu. In a precisely orchestrated movement, the executions took place in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung's jails. Cynics might argue that the choice of places for the executions were calculated acts to pacify the families of victims all other Taiwan who had been clamouring for the deaths of convicted criminals. One man executed in Taipei's jail threw a Molotov Cocktail in a private school in Taoyuan County resulting in three deaths and 15 injured. The man in Taichung had been convicted of killing two drug dealers and leaving them by the wayside. The inmate in Kaohsiung had robbed and sexually assaulted several young women previously contacted over the internet. One of them was murdered and her body thrown into a river. The other criminal from Kaohsiung had murdered two prostitutes and two other women after breaking into their homes.
There are still 40 convicts on death row in Taiwan. While Taiwanese citizens might have expected the government to abolish the death penalty, it seems strange, if not politically motivated, that suddenly five convicts were executed being chosen at random. This has not prevented the Kuomintang from losing recent by-elections in Southern Taiwan to the benefit of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), favourable to independence). The DPP is against the death penalty.

Picture of activists opposing the Death Penalty 反死刑 from the Taiwanese Government official site

Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has explained that it will continue a dialogue with the European Union on the death penalty, a statement diplomatically empty and strangely reminiscent of similar declarations by China on human rights in international forums. Recently, the Chinese government has published a long list of offences that will no longer incur the death penalty.
The Taiwanese government has reasons to be nervous on the back of having received visa-free Shengen privileges for its citizens. The EU had begun to view Taiwan as being closer to its own values including a ban on the death penalty for any member country of the European Union. Pictures published on Taiwan's government site do show activists opposing its own policy. This is a clear sign that a free debate still continues within the government.
The fact that a majority of Taiwanese, at least 70%, are in favour of the death penalty will be viewed as a feeble excuse when many European countries removed the death penalty when a majority of their populations was in favour of it as a main deterrent against crimes. Once the death penalty had been removed, violent crimes did not show any significant increase. When the question is coupled with a proposal to replace the death penalty with life long imprisonment without parole, the figure was 49% in 2000 up to 56% in 2008.
Some hard decisions will have to be taken: either remove the death penalty or, maybe more annoying, remove the hundreds of place of names bearing the two characters 人權 (Human Rights) to be seen all over Taiwan.

獨生狗 Policy of the Single Dog

Shanghai, the Chinese Megapolis, in some respects always ahead of other regions or at least claiming to be, is going to be the first place in China to implement a policy of the "Single Dog." From the 15th of May this year, Shanghai residents will only be permitted to have one dog as a house pet.

Yellow Lost Dog  Proposal for atypical building by French architect François Scali

 The City government has established rules by which extra puppies would have to be entrusted to another family, a "dog-free family" or to a designated government agency. Keeping more than one dog above the age of three months will be punished through heavy fines.
It is estimated that close to 1 million dogs are being kept in Shanghai, many of them not officially registered. Exceptions will be made for families who already have two officially registered dogs.
Shanghai is the only place to have a universal system of health insurance, at least for official residents.
I wonder if this health coverage system includes house pets, not to speak of "surplus" dogs being taken over to government approved agencies. Nobody has yet ventured to explain what will happen to these puppies being born last in line and brought to the care of these agencies.
Fortunately, cats have been excluded from this quota!

格達費/卡扎菲說六四事件顯示有理由鎮壓 Gaddafi uses Tiananmen Massacre to justify repression

Libya's dictator Gaddafi 格達費 / 卡扎菲 معمر القذافي‎ has used students' revolts on Tiananmen Square in 1989 as a justification for bombing his own people with jet-planes. One of the reasons the students' uprising did not succeed in China is that the students actually believed that they could convince their country's leaders that their demands were reasonable. They also did not intend to overthrow the government. Some Chinese leaders were not in favour of the repression. Zhao Ziyang 趙紫陽 who did believe in the students' movement was indeed put under house arrest from 1989 until his death in 2005. One of the then leaders to stand by his side when Zhao Ziyang, using a megaphone, tried to talk to the students is none other than China's current Premier Wen Jiabao 溫家寶.

Tiananmen Protests: Zhao Ziyang with Megaphone, to his left current Premier Wen Jiabao

August 30, 2009: Gaddafi, Ambassador Wang Wangsheng, Berlusconi

In spite of this demonstration of faith by Gaddafi, Chinese authorities are not reassured and are evacuating their Nationals from Libya. Relations have changed since Ambassador to Libya, Wang Wangsheng and Guo Chang, Warfare and Commercial Counsellor of Chinese Companies, were guests fo Libya's ruler with his friend Silvio Berlusconi as proudly displayed on the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs website.


As commonly said but sadly true, with friends like this who needs enemies?
My heart bleeds for Libyan people tonight. Apparently, the killings are so fierce that they are afraid to attend to the bodies of their loved ones.

陳光誠赤腳律師遭到毆打 Chen Guangcheng blind human rights lawyer beaten

While the attention of the world media has been focusing on Arab revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, one wonders whether Chinese authorities are using this brief lack of attention span from foreign media to make sure that the same uprising does not happen at home.
The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and now spreading to Algeria and Yemen, come from ordinary people who demand freedom and human rights. The protesting crowds in those countries never said that human rights had to be adapted to their particular culture or political situations. This successful method of toppling governments is problematic for many dictatorships and authoritarian governments, including the Chinese since they have adopted as a mantra that human rights have to be adapted to a particular political situation as Hu Jintao recently said when visiting the United States.
In Shandong province, human rights blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng 陳光誠 and his wife Yuan Weijing 袁偉靜 were released from jail in September 2010. They managed to film a video of the conditions of their house arrest.

Part 1/5 of Free Cheng Guangcheng 陈光诚最新视频-被监控，无人身自由

Prominent Chinese dissidents and even former CCP Party Secretaries have often been condemned to house arrest (Zhao Ziyang was placed under house arrest for 15 years after expressing sympathies to student demonstrators during the 1989 protests). It has often been inferred that such sentences were a "milder" form of punishment than ordinary jail. However, until now it has been difficult to assess its severity or get a detailed description and feeling of what it entails.
Immediately after Chen Guangcheng's video was posted, hired hooligans and government employees blocked all communication channels with the lawyer and his wife. Many citizens were beat up in the process but it has not been possible to verify with absolute certainty that the two detainees were themselves beat up. The Syracuse University College of Law, however, quotes "an inside" source that confirms the beatings.

It is difficult to understand the reasons for such extreme measures. Cheng was, after all, working within the system. His earlier actions in 1996 was when he travelled to Beijing to petition that he should not be taxed by the legal government on various items in accordance with China's Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Disabled Persons 殘疾人保障法.
Western governments have all being criticized for having had dictators as allies, such as Moubarak and Ben Ali. Maybe, in view of the new lift-up on individual travel restrictions for Chinese citizens to Taiwan, no guilty Chinese leader would have to go to Saudi Arabia.

中國很南蘇丹獨立高興 China is happy with referendum results in Southern Sudan

China says it will respect Southern Sudan's vote for independence. Obviously, it doesn't want to forfeit its chances of having access to its oil supplies. It is slowly learning that the strong hand and ignoring dictatorships is not always the best strategy.

新國家：南蘇丹 A new country Southern Sudan جنوب السودان‎

南蘇丹國旗

Of course, one question that comes to mind is whether this can be applied to Taiwan's independence. Would the Kuomintang 國民黨 be happy to hold a referendum on the independence question? Realistically, can the country (Taiwan!) afford one; it would certainly exacerbate tensions in Taiwan itself. I might have missed it but I'm not sure the Taiwanese government has issued a statement on Southern Sudan's independence, a bit too riské if you ask me. It was, however given good coverage in the Taiwanese media.

In the meantime, the Tibetan people are not holding their breath. To them, it might have taken place on planet Mars, it would not have made any difference

中国在社交网络上审查“埃及 "Egypt" blocked on twitter-like sites in China

It was difficult to see how the situations in Egypt and in Tunisia could inspire would be protesters in China. With an economy in constant expansion and some hope of a better life, one would have thought that Chinese leaders should rest easy.

However, reports are coming in that the word "Egypt" 埃及 is being blocked from all micro-blogging services in China. This is being reported from several western and Arabic media outlets.
The Chinese government might not have thought this through. Blocking the word is a sure way of rousing interest in the subject and the Tunisian method. Clearly Hu Jintao talk of Human Rights with Obama was misunderstood.
Update:  PC World reports that, for the moment, the English word "Egypt" is not blocked but its Chinese language version is censored.

中國女生的部落各在突尼西亞 A Chinese Woman blogging from Tunisia ثورة الياسمين

The independent news site Global Voices has posted extracts from a Chinese woman living in Tunisia. Posting about the so-called Jasmine Revolution 茉莉花茶革命 ثورة الياسمين the blogger is a fascinating account, not of Tunisia, but of the prism through which many Chinese people see the countries in which they live.

Tunisian soldiers serving in a police role

Her frank, at times naive, account of the Tunisian revolution is matched by her desperate desire to believe in now exiled President Ben Ali's speech and promises on Television. This is a very revealing account of the way many Chinese might be watching their television news. At the moment, the Chinese Media, including old faithful, the China Daily is relying on press agencies, making for fairly unbiased, if dry, reporting.

Here are two extracts of her reaction to injustice and to Tunisian soldiers fraternizing with the locals:

《 像突尼斯发生的这类不公平，在中国真的算不了什么。而类似的起端，对中国人来说可能真的不算什么。》

"The kind of injustice that has taken place here in Tunisia, in China, isn't really a big deal. And what caused all this are things that, for Chinese people are almost trivial."

而更为让人不可思议的是，政府虽然动用的军队，但军民的鱼水之情却是令人感叹。在游行现场，有人在与军队的人握手，有人在与军队的人行贴面礼……然后接着继续往前走，完全是一片祥和的气氛。
[…]
……说到底，还是他们心太软，要在中国政府，早就把他们杀得片甲不留，还会等到总统先逃，如果在中国，枪在谁的手里谁有理……看来突尼斯人还真的需要跟中国学一学，中国历史几千年，还没有那一个朝代被手无寸铁的没有任何组织的暴民吓跑的。
空中现在不时的响起直升机嗡嗡的巡逻声，明天的突尼斯会怎么样呢？

"Yet what's most unimaginable about all this is that although the government has mobilized the army, it's shocking how matter-of-fact soldiers are being about this. At one protest, someone went up and started shaking hands with soldiers, and others have gone up and welcomed them with cheek kisses…….only to then go on their way, it's a completely positive mood.
[…]
……to be frank, these soldiers are too soft-hearted. If this was the Chinese government, they've have killed every last one of them at the get-go, never mind holding out for the president to flee. If this was China, whoever was holding the guns would be in charge…..it seems Tunisians could really stand to learn from China; China's history goes back thousands of years, but there hasn't been a single dynasty that was chased off by completely unorganized unarmed rioters.

We keep hearing the drone of helicopters on patrol, what will tomorrow bring for Tunisia?"

I can't help wonder, what she will think, if she ever hears, about the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 or the massacre of February 28th, 1947 in Taiwan.

免簽生效 Visa-Waiver list of countries for Taiwanese - a Different History

Diplomacy and politics can bring strange results. I've recently witnessed Chinese long faces, silently annoyed, at the fact that they, the nation's most populous nation need a visa nearly everywhere they want to travel whereas their so-called compatriots do need a visa to travel around Europe. To add insult to injury they need a special permit to travel to another part of China: Hong Kong. They also need a visa to go to Taiwan, although the situation has improved and in all probability individual travel will soon be allowed for Mainland citizens.
Not that they were annoyed at their Taiwanese friends visa-free travel; no, they seem to be hemming inside a form of discontent at the situation they were powerless to change. After all, Taiwan, the invisible country, with practically no diplomatic relations with other countries had managed to be put on a par with European and American citizens.

Click on picture for legend details

This should not come as a surprise to many Taiwanese whose history has been a continuous source of cultural and political contacts with the West.

After all, its first organized form of government, with a basis in law, did not originate from China but came from the Netherlands who occupied the island for nearly 40 years. The Dutch could also be blamed for much trouble in Taiwanese history. They are the ones who encouraged and accelerated the immigration of Chinese workers from the mainland. No doubt to many Taiwanese whose country has been occupied and bombed by the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the French, Europe has always its island as a battling ground. The Japanese who came in 1895, when most of the Taiwanese wanted to remain a part of China, made it possible for Western modern culture, especially American jazz and popular music to make its way to Taiwan; first in Japanese, then in Taigi / Taiyu 台語, the Taiwanese language.
Ironically enough, the Taiwanese language embodied a new modernity. This was well researched and shown in a ground-breaking documentary Viva Tonal 跳舞時代 which describes, with many interviews, the vibrant musical jazz scene during 1930's in Taiwan. Viva Tonal made it clear that it was possible to use the Taiwanese language as an instrument of modernity and intellectual pursuit in search of Taiwan's real history. Not that many Taiwanese need to be convinced; the fact remains that in many large cities parents, while favourable to the Taiwanese language, will speak Mandarin to their children. The under 40's, while abroad, will seldom, if ever, speak Taiwanese to each other.
The different history, different histories and the different visa situations between the Taiwanese and the Chinese will certainly give food for thought to many Chinese who, until now, would have accepted without any doubt that Taiwan is part of China.
The Taiwanese have always known this open secret.

原住民不禮節民國100年 Taiwan's First Inhabitants do not welcome Taiwan's 100th anniversary

Taiwan's first peoples have a different view of Taiwan's history. They do not view the celebration of 100 years of the Republic of China, the official name of Taiwan, as a positive event. Dispossessed of their land rights, they view very much themselves as being in a similar position with other first nations and ethnic minorities whose presence is only tolerated in gaudy costumes at official events such as China's National congress where suddenly the 8% ethnic minorities are given prominence on CCTV. Not entirely different from the treatment given to First Nations in America.
To mark the Republic of China's foundation in 1911 by Sun Yat-sen 孫中山，otherwise referred to, as in Taiwan, as the father of the nation, Taiwan's Aborigines held a demonstration staged a demonstration in front of the Presidential Office on January 1, 2011, in which they accused the ROC government of repression and exploitation of the nation’s Aborigines.

President Ma's recent call for democracy in China would carry more weight if he had cleaned up his own house. He could have called for an official reparation. He could have taken a leaf from well know Australian's Foreign Affairs Minister, former PM and fluent Mandarin Speaker, Kevin Rudd who knelt in front of Australia's Aborigines and offered apologies for Australia's past treatment of its first inhabitants.
All the Taiwanese already received apologies from their own government in 1995 when then President Lee Teng-hui apologized for the crimes and murders committed by the Kuomintang-led government during the Martial Law era also know as the White Terror.
An apology and redress to Taiwan's First Peoples would have to include the Japanese who still claim that the "souls" of the Taiwanese whos erved during WWII are in the Shinto shrines in Japan and have refused the Aborigines release.  There has never been an admission to the same scale of the destruction of the Taiwanese Aborigines 原住民 or a Commission of investigation similar to the one that produced the February 28 Incident Research Report and a government Fondation to help the victims and their relatives

True, Aborigines in Taiwan have their own television channel and some tv programmes 爸媽冏很大 have broadcast programmes on mainstream television to debate the problems of marriages and young couples between aborigines and Han Chinese. On this type of programme, non aborigines Taiwanese are free to express their prejudices which are then deconstructed, amicably by firmly, by mixed couples. (sorry, no subtitles).



Apparently, this type of public debate only addresses aborigines issues at a superficial level; especially since some older participants in the talk show identified aborigines by how much they drank and by the ideas they had that aborigines women are loose women. Cliches which correspond somehow to the idea that Canadians have of their own First Nations: drinkers and cigarettes smugglers.

At least the Taiwanese police did not come shooting at the protesters, the greatest part of them Atayal 泰雅族, mainly who came and held archery demonstrations. Hopefully, some of the tourists who saw the protest were from the mainland, maybe from the Lhassa police force. They could have learned a thing or two about peaceful demonstrations.

罵總統要大陸承認民主與人權 President Ma Ying-jeou calls for Democracy in China

Using a literary turn of phrase, President Ma Ying-jeow 罵總統 has called for democracy in China. President Ma said that he hoped one day: all descendents of Emperors Yen and Huang will enjoy freedom, democracy, and rule of law, as we do here in Taiwan   我們希望有一天，所有炎黃子孫都能和臺灣人民一樣 （七頁）
Is President Ma calling for democracy because he really thinks that Taiwan's future should be in a re-united China and that he is aware that without democracy a Greater China unified on any basis is an impossible concept? Or has he not thought the whole thing through?
What Ma Ying-jeow, and many other Taiwanese, has not being able to face up to or even tried to contemplate is that, should China become a truly democratic country, it would force Taiwanese people to fully accept that, after 116 years of separation from China excluding the four years from 1945 to 1949, they have become a very different country, with a different history, culture and national identity.
The Taiwanese could not then use the non-democratic China excuse to refuse to examine whether they really want to become re-united with China.
I've asked many Taiwanese what they would like to be part of in such an event (China becoming a democracy) and the answer has always been to pause and reflect for half a minute and then declare without hesitation, sometimes evidently surprised by their own words, that they definitely would not like to be part of China, even if it became a country with democratic principles. One can see that a truly democratic China would have no problems going along with that.

Both sides of the Straits certainly share a host of cultural icons, histories, philosophies and concepts but these do not make a country. 85%- 90% of what English Canadians, Americans, British citizens, Australians and New Zelanders read, watch on television and close to 95% of the movies they see are the same but this does not make them citizens of the same country; nor do they wish to be "re-unified."
This very idea has never even crossed their minds; indeed, for example, there is a heated debate in Australia on whether it should become a republic and keep the same flag. And Scotland is getting very close to some kind of independence. The Canadians adopted their own flag in 1965 while the Chinese authorities reaction on seeing the Taiwanese flag is similar to a Spanish bull having a red scarf waved at. They lose all control and engage in a whole state of denial. The Taiwanese fully aware of this paranoia engaged in playful flag waving, especially during the Beijing Olympics, at the risk of being immediately expelled from the "mother" country.

Is President Ma trying to trick his own people into facing the future or is he just being unconscious? The worse thing could be that he believes his words could influence the leaders in Beijing.