Hsieh-Ma debate

What'd we miss?

I was busy doing family things on Sunday, so I didn't get to see the debate between Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) -- candidates in Taiwan's 2008 presidential election to be held on March 22, 2008. However, videos of the debate have been uploaded to YouTube by others.


9'03" YouTube video: "2008/02/24 總統大選電視辯論會Part.01 如何改善通貨膨漲 -蔡孟珊"
(Translation: Presidential Election Televised Debate Part 01:
How can the effects of inflation be lessened?
[question asked by] Tsai Meng-shan)


Above is part 1 of the debate, uploaded by YouTube user ricky200708. See the remaining 22 parts on his YouTube channel. I haven't had the time to watch the whole debate yet.

The next one is scheduled for March 9, 2008. Feel free to discuss Sunday's debate in the comments.

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Buzzers and bells: Taiwan, 台灣, Taiwan 2008 Presidential Election, 2008年台灣總統大選, debate, 辯論, Frank Hsieh, 謝長廷, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Taichung mayor Jason Hu disses young people

He also has a strange definition of "young"

This past Sunday, the great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) Demos Chiang (蔣友柏) wrote something on his blog criticizing the sore loser behavior of eternal Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) following Lien's loss of the 2004 presidential election. Chiang's mother, Chiang Fang Chih-yi (蔣方智怡), subsequently apologized to the KMT on his behalf (not that he wanted her to do so) and submitted her party resignation.

As if Chiang Fang's behavior wasn't foolish enough, Taichung mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) gave his own response to Demos Chiang -- a response which I hope will alienate many young voters:

台中市長胡志強表示，年輕人不了解事實就發表意見，建議大家多包容。

[Maddog translation:]
Taichung mayor Jason Hu said that people should be extra forgiving [of Demos Chiang], because young people will express their opinions without understanding the facts.

Demos Chiang is 31 years old. Would raising the voting age in Taiwan from 20 to, say, 40 please the KMT?

Who needs to grow up?
An editorial in Friday's Taipei Times titled "KMT elders should grow up" had this to say about the matter:

Is this what the KMT is about? A party that cannot tolerate dissenting opinions or listen to views voiced by young people?

Everyone in the country saw Lien's poor sportsmanship after his richly deserved defeat in the 2004 presidential election.

Demos Chiang merely wrote the truth, so why does the old guard of the KMT so quickly dismiss it as a youngster's lack of maturity and understanding?

The KMT, after losing power in Taiwan eight years ago to the Democratic Progressive Party, has since made attempts to strengthen its pro-localization stance as it tones down talk of eventual unification with China.

But winning people's hearts is more than just about adopting new party platforms. It requires a willingness to take in different opinions, especially from the younger generations.

After all, maturity does not necessarily come with age, and young people can often be critical thinkers with an acute understanding of history.

Just in case you aren't one of those who witnessed the behavior of Lien and his followers after losing that election, have a look at this video which mocks them thoroughly for being such sore losers.

Abuse of power?
In other news involving Mayor Hu, he is being accused of "abusing municipal resources to campaign for [...] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)." This doesn't surprise me, because when Hu's vehicle had the accident in which his wife lost part of her left arm, he was using a city vehicle to campaign for Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英). As the bluer-than-blue World Journal (世界日報) tells us:

【本報台北十九日電】台中市長胡志強、邵曉鈴夫婦18日晚間7時50分在國道三號台南縣段出車禍，坐在公務休旅車第二排的邵曉鈴左手臂開放性骨折、顱內出血，一度昏迷，送柳營奇美醫院急救，醫師為了搶救性命，替她截肢。

胡志強夫婦18日晚南下為國民黨籍高雄市長候選人黃俊英助選，欲趕回為中華隊加油時，途中發生車禍，胡志強和隨扈等四人輕傷。

事發後，奇美醫院院長詹啟賢、副院長李浩銑立即趕到組成醫療團隊，晚間9時左右邵曉鈴被推入手術房，胡志強在門外焦急等待。

國道八隊獲報趕到現場，見台中市政府的深藍色公務休旅車在北上內側車道往左側翻，邵曉鈴全身是血，被抬到路肩等待救護車；與公務車擦撞的小客車則撞上內側車道護欄，駕駛人廖俊傑無大礙。

[Maddog translation of highlighted segments:]
At 7:50 PM on the 18th [of November 2006], Taichung mayor Jason Hu and his wife Shaw Hsiao-ling were involved in a traffic accident on the Tainan County section of National Highway Number 3. [...] On the evening of the 18th, Jason Hu and his wife headed south to help Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying with his campaign. [...] Upon receiving news [of the accident], the 8th Squadron sped to the scene and found a dark blue van belonging to the Taichung City Government [...]

We'll have to wait to find out if the latest accusation is true, but as the report above shows, Mayor Hu has done this sort of thing before.

24/7/365
Coincidentally, as I was closing the browser just after I found the above article, look what came up on my TV screen:


Much TV's 「今晚誰當家」("Who's the Boss Tonight?")
helps KMT politicians Jason Hu (胡志強) and Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋)
look like "regular guys" by showing how well they treat their wives.
(Note also the coincidental subtitle about "driving a nice car...")
Just more pan-blue brainwashing, if you ask me.

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Nothin' but a number of names: Taiwan, 台灣, Jason Hu, 胡志強, Chinese Nationalist Party, 中國國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT, 國民黨, Demos Chiang, 蔣友柏, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Ralph Jennings lies about Taiwan

Calling Ralph what he is

This Reuters piece by Ralph Jennings made me nauseous:

Taiwan to axe "China" from name of Mandarin Chinese
Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:26pm GMT

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan plans to change the name of its official Mandarin Chinese language in public schools to a term that avoids referring to China, a curriculum planner said on Thursday, another move to distance the self-ruled island from Beijing.

[...]

The island now plans to do away with "zhong-wen", the name of the official language, because of its reference to "China", said Chen Wan-yi, a curriculum architect with the Ministry of Education.

Mandarin Chinese's new name would be "hua-yu," which does not pinpoint a country. The change could come into force in schools by 2010 once the proposal is approved, he said.

Most people in Taiwan speak Mandarin, which originated in China and is all but universally spoken there.

So many lies, so little time
First of all, the textbooks I see my students carrying to class say "國語" (guoyu, or "national language") on the cover -- not "zhong-wen" (中文, or "Chinese"), so Ralph is lying to you, as even the pro-unification (duh, look at the name) United Daily News (聯合報) will reveal. [See "* CLARIFICATION," below.]


The cover of the textbook says "Guoyu" (國語) or "National Language."
Next, "hua-yu" (華語) is not a "new name" for Mandarin. Even if he means that it's new to Taiwan's schools, Ralph is not telling the whole truth about "pinpoint[ing] a country." If you click the link, you will see that it means "Chinese language" which should immediately bring "China" to most people's minds.

Furthermore, Mandarin is not "all but universally spoken" in China. Even China's own media admits that "only 53 percent of people in China can communicate in Putonghua, or Mandarin."

Is Ralph a pathological liar or a professional one?

* CLARIFICATION: After reading a post on Arbiter of Waste, I realized that my explanation may be lacking a key piece of the puzzle which would help those unfamiliar with the context to put it all together. That would be that the term "國語" (guoyu, or "national language") is not explicit in naming "Chinese" as the language being taught/learned. Changing the name of the curriculum to "華語" (Huayu) does indeed make the "China" part explicit. See also this other instance of the definition of "華" (Hua) linked in a related post by A-gu (阿牛). [/clarification]

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Truths and consequences: Taiwan, 台灣, Ralph Jennings, 唐甯思, Reuters, 路透社

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!

Ma Ying-jeou supersizes his cadre of spokespersons

The recent Green Card Crisis landed on Ma Ying-Jeou, KMT's presidential candidate, reveals how incompetent Ma is in terms of crisis management. Based on what I learned from Taiwanese forums, although pan-green supporters are excited to see that Ma is still unable to provide sufficient material to prove that he doesn't currently hold a valid USA Permanent Resident status (the Green Card)[see the end of this post], the possible fact of "Taiwanese President is a USA Permanent Resident" doesn't seem to bother pan-blue supporters even a bit. Instead, what they really worry about is how stupid their God of Image now appears to be, and this God of Image seems to be incapable of covering up his own shit.

Amazingly, adding to this worry of incompetence, Ma's camp made another hilarious move: expanding the number of spokespersons from 3 to a humongous total of 22.

Now, with a common level of wit, can anyone tell me how the hell is this gonna work, and how the hell will it help to improve the crisis management of Ma ?

Obviously, Ma completely misses the point. The main reason his green card becomes a crisis is not that his spokespersons spoke badly. It's because his spokespersons don't have any convincible materials to say, so they (and Ma himself) lie all the way through until they couldn't. It seems that Ma is ready to exercise his old trick again: whatever goes wrong, it is never my fault --- I don't know, I didn't know until I read the newspaper, I wasn't informed about the decision, ... With so many spokespersons around, it's even easier for Ma to deny any responsibility of any announcement -- well, when did he ever take any wee bit of responsibility for anything that went wrong under his administration anyway?

A spokesperson represents the idea of a camp. If Ma can't drive his camp with 3 spokespersons, I don't think he can drive his camp with 22 directions. It will contribute nothing but creating slots out of nothing to share with more people. It looks to me that Ma's camp already starts the process of "cake sharing" even before the cake is baked.

References:

綠卡效應 馬總部再增19位發言人

TVBS 2008-02-02 13:12
綠卡風暴不只讓外界，就連國民黨內部很多人都認為，馬團隊的危機處理能力很差，現在，馬英九陣營就決定，要另外增加19位發言人，很多被認為是名嘴級的立委都證實被接觸過，不過他們也說，發言不難，難的是到底會不會有充分資訊，能不能被充分授權。

踢爆！馬英九「家人沒有綠卡」大謊言
This discussion column over a pro-green forum「與媒體對抗」 about Ma's green card issue received nearly 2,000 posts in a couple of days. Lots of discussion and information.