Taiwan Matters!: Recommended: <i>AToL's</i> look at the anti-Chen protests

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Recommended: AToL's look at the anti-Chen protests

Just in case you haven’t gotten your Shih Ming-teh fix yet today, I highly recommend Tsai Ting-I's insightful piece from earlier this week on the “Depose Chen” movement in Asia Times Online. Tsai examines the protests and the missteps on both sides that has resulted in the current karnival on Ketagalan Avenue with an even hand.

Tsai does a good job explaining the ongoing investigations of the president and his family, but Tsai really hits the nail on the head with this:

“The local media's numerous speculative and often exaggerated reports have sparked public anger. And Chen further fueled the indignation over the cases after he broke the silence to defend himself. He questioned the origin of the opposition Kuomintang's huge assets and cited another politician's wife's failure to declare her jewelry assets. In doing so, he gave the impression of trying to "justify" his misdeeds by citing others' wrongdoings.”

Bingo. Throw in a presidential office that has fumbled the public relations ball, a bitter former rival with a flair for theatrics (the part about Shih preparing a will was so cheesy that it sent coffee shooting out my nose), plenty of support (moral or otherwise) from the opposition, and a bevy of hyperventilating academics and we have ourselves a real party.

You can read the rest on your own here.

[Taiwan] [Shih Ming-teh] [Chen Shui-bian]

1 Comments:

At 4:38 AM, Tim Maddog said...: Note, however, the memes in the Asia Times article (the very same ones which appeared in Gluck's BBC pieces), which appear -- unquestioned:
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...protesters on Saturday adopted all kinds of red apparel, ... to signify their anger.
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I wonder what color people who are angry at China would wear. The article is published under a "Greater China" banner, BTW.

Here's another meme which re-appears:
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... received NT$109 million from more than a million citizens within seven days. The accomplishment gave a big boost to Shih and his colleagues,. [sic]
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... before that last sentence gets suddenly edited. ;-)

We don't know how many people -- only how many dollars, as Echo pointed out.

The "deep green" implication comes up here:
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... Chang Fu-chung, spokesman for the campaign, who had supported the DPP over the past two decades.
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But a couple of minutes of research brings up this tasty morsel:
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Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) deputy legislative caucus whip Wang Shu-hui (王淑慧) yesterday appealed to two DPP government officials to resolve their dispute over a construction project in Kaohsiung County.

Conflict arose earlier this week between Kaohsiung Country Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) and the Ministry of Education's (MOE) political deputy minister Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) over the construction of a new building at Fong Shan Junior High School in the county.

Yang claimed that Fan's husband, Chang Fu-chung (張富忠), interfered in the process for selecting an architect to design the building, and on Friday Yang asked Fan to step down.
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This infighting involving Chang and Fan vs. other DPP figures goes back a while and most likely has something to do with his participation in this nonsense. That last link knocks 25% off of the "two decades" claim.

Paragraph 14 of 26 of the Asia Times article is where finally brings up "The local media's numerous speculative and often exaggerated reports."

That part is good, but the question remains how those memes made it unchallenged into the Asia Times article.

And finally, yes, the part about Shih preparing his will is more lunacy from our local Charles Bronson lookalike. It reminds me of a scene in To Live and Die in L.A. where a suicide bomber is shouting, "I'm ready to die!" When can we start calling these anti-Chen people terrorists, and when is William Friedkin gonna make a movie about this shit?

Tim Maddog