Ma Ying-jeou government under fire again

As time moves forward, Ma's administration moves backward

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

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

Dear President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Respectfully yours,
[the undersigned]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

My thoughts on February 28, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lunar New Year in Taiwan: 2011

In Taiwan, you can even call it "Taiwanese New Year"!
I'm back from a long break in blogging with a slight variation of the "traditional" New Year post. To kick things off this time around, here's a musical video wishing you a Happy Taiwanese New Year (brought to my attention on Twitter by cyrixhero):


3:58 YouTube video: "快樂台灣年 Happy Taiwanese new year "
Thursday, February 3, 2011 (That's tomorrow!) is New Year's Day as celebrated by the citizens of several Asian countries as well as by many other people around the world. Too many English-speaking people use the term "Chinese New Year" to describe the holiday, despite the fact that the direct back-translation "中國新年" is rarely used by Mandarin speakers. Chinese people usually call the holiday "Lunar New Year" (農曆新年) or "Spring Festival" (春節).

Furthermore, the holiday doesn't belong solely to the Chinese.

Start with the person in the mirror
Why should you change the way you speak? Here's an example for your consideration.

Have you ever heard of the 228 Massacre? Like many others, I used to refer to it as the "228 Incident," but when someone reminded me about how that diminishes the fact that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) killed countless Taiwanese in that "incident," I immediately made the change in my speech and writing. What I don't get is how some people who I am certain are pro-Taiwan somehow cling to the phrase "Chinese New Year."

Are you that kind of person? If so, I hope you can ask yourself why you do that and if you can change.

Simplicity
Here's a clear and simple list of reasons to help you decide to make that change:

1. Lunar New Year is not exclusively Chinese.

2. Even Chinese people call the holiday "Lunar New Year," so you won't be hurting the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese by using that name.

3. Since you're reading this blog, there's a good chance that you are in Taiwan or that you are Taiwanese. (Maybe neither of those things applies to you -- you might just be interested in doing something to help Taiwan.)

4. Way too many people already do things which confuse others into believing that Taiwan's culture is a subset of China's.

5. You don't have to do things just because others do them or because they're habits.

Language is a virus (from outer space)
For some more background (you'll have to follow the links and do some more reading), here's a recap (with some spelling changes) of a couple of my earlier posts related to why many people prefer to call this holiday "Lunar New Year" (Taiwanese: Lông-li̍k sin-nî; Hanzi: 農曆新年; Hanyu pinyin: Nónglì xīnnián):

It doesn't just belong to the Chinese

Nor is it just "politically correct." Read about it in English and/or Chinese.

Happy Lunar New Year! 萬事如意! [bān-sū jû-ì! / wànshì rúyì!]

UPDATE:
Being in a bit of a rush to begin my vacation, I missed these links (all are presented in both English and Mandarin):* How the people of Vietnam celebrate Lunar New Year* How the people of South Korea celebrate Lunar New Year* How the people of Singapore celebrate Lunar New Year* How the people of Malaysia celebrate Lunar New Year

And here's an update on the Taiwanese Romanization which I derived by using a dictionary on the web site of Taiwan's Ministry of Education (MOE):

Lông-li̍k sin-nî khuài-lo̍k! (農曆新年快樂！) Bān-sū jû-ì! (萬事如意！)

If you're Taiwanese, stop inadvertently diluting your own culture. Remember (Ē -kì-tit/Ōe-kì-tit [要記得]): Every time you say "Lunar New Year," you're saying "No!" to those who want to promote China while diminishing Taiwan.

Related reading:
* Check out the Twitter search results for "Lunar New Year." I'm seeing Tweets there by people from Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and other countries around the globe!

* See what Taiwan's Government Information Office (GIO) says about Lunar New Year.

---

Distinguishables: Taiwan, 台灣, China, 中國, Lunar New Year, 農曆新年

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

Taiwanderful's Best Taiwan Blog Awards 2010

Another "election," but without the noise trucks

It's time for the third annual Best Taiwan Blog Awards, put on by David and Fili of Taiwanderful. One of the purposes of these awards is "community building and linking" among Taiwan bloggers.


Click the image above to go to the page where you can directly vote for Taiwan Matters!
Once there, click the plus (+) sign to vote.
拜託！拜託！
You can vote for your favorite Taiwan blogs (Anyone can vote for as many blogs as they'd like -- no registration required!) by clicking the plus sign (+) below the number in the box just below the name of any blogs you like. Follow the link at the beginning of this paragraph to see a list of Taiwan blogs, background info, and links.

Follow this link for more info about the awards. Get to know more Taiwan blogs, and let's all help each other show Taiwan's unique aspects to each other and to the rest of the world!

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Badges: Taiwan, 台灣

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

Taiwan's 2010 municipal election results

TVBS vs. reality (again)

Another election in Taiwan appears to have left the country with the same old political landscape. The winners were:

Taipei City (台北市): Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌, Chinese KMT, incumbent)
New Taipei (新北市): Eric Chu (朱立倫, Chinese KMT, same party as incumbent)
Taichung (大台中): Jason Hu (胡志強, Chinese KMT, incumbent)
Tainan (大台南): William Lai (賴清德, DPP, same party as incumbent)
Kaohsiung (大高雄): Chen Chu (陳菊, DPP, incumbent)

But it's not exactly the "status quo" which even the Taipei Times calls it in a headline on news of the election results.

While the number of DPP vs. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayors remains the same (2:3) as it was before yesterday's election, the vote totals tell a different story.

Who got the most votes?
Adding the ballots for all five municipalities, the DPP got a total of 3,772,373 votes (49.87% -- very nearly an absolute majority) compared to the Chinese KMT's 3,369,052 (44.54%). The combined total of all other candidates' votes was a mere 422,692 (5.59%). While this analysis doesn't change the outcome of the election one bit, it does indicate that the DPP have "gained more than 340,000 votes in the five municipalities" (compared with votes for their candidate in the 2008 presidential election). At the other end of the political spectrum, the Chinese KMT -- in contrast with what the international media wants you to believe -- is failing in policy, governance, and strategy, and has lost more than a million votes in these municipalities.

But what I really want to focus on in this post is certain pre-election surveys and how they are regularly wrong.

Oops! They did it again!
Let's compare the pro-blue (pro-unification/pro-China/pro-Chinese KMT) TVBS' final pre-election surveys for all five electoral areas with the actual results of these elections. If most of their surveys were at least close to the margin of error, they might be trustworthy. But they are not.

In particular, I want to focus on the survey numbers for DPP candidates compared to the actual results.

Municipality/ candidate	TVBS survey results	Actual election results
Kaohsiung Chen Chu (陳菊)	41%	52.8% (+11.8%)
Tainan William Lai (賴清德)	47%	60.41% (+13.41%)
Taichung Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全)	43%	48.88% (+5.88%)
New Taipei Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文)	49%	47.39% (-1.61%)
Taipei City Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)	39%	43.81% (+4.81%)

Only one out of the five surveys above was within its margin of error (3.1 percentage points). And you know something? One out of five equals two out of ten, and two out of ten is good enough for TVBS host Lee Tao (李濤).

Could such inaccuracy be on purpose -- done to fill certain voters with hope, others with despair?

Further reading:
* English version of the Central Election Commission web site

* Hanzi version of the Central Election Commission web site

* Although they only hold a majority of city council seats in Tainan, the DPP made some gains at that level, too: "2010 ELECTIONS: KMT, DPP each claim 130 city councilor seats"

* The China Post says that "Pollsters wrong-footed by unexpected shooting."

* Singapore's Straits Times paints the election results as a sunny day for the Chinese KMT.

* The New York Times fluffs the Chinese KMT by saying that the elections "reaffirm[ed] national support for a party that has made improved relations with the Chinese mainland the center of its political agenda."

* BBC absurdly says that the Chinese KMT were "boosted in mayor elections" and that "Correspondents say the results are seen as an endorsement of the KMT's push for warmer relations with China." Could those "correspondents" be anyone like Cindy Sui and her husband Ralph Jennings?

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Victims of the outcome: Taiwan, 台灣, 2010 municipal elections, 五都選舉, TVBS, BS-TV, Lee Tao, 李濤

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

Freedom of speech in Taiwan being oppressed again

Chinese KMT gov't to the people: "It's our party, and you'd better not mock it!"

The latest example of Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government infringing on free speech (see earlier examples at the bottom of this post) involves a video parodying a campaign ad by incumbent Taichung mayor Jason Hu (胡志強). After mocking a candidate from the ruling party, the creator of the video -- Kuso Cat (AKA 廖小貓) -- was threatened with a lawsuit by Mayor Hu and is being watched by all sorts of government eyes, and the media has been reporting it incessantly as a top story.

Here's the kuso version of the video:

4:00 YouTube video: "台中胡錢豹九週年慶_唬屎狗_廖小貓出品"
Translation: "Taichung Hu Qian-bao's [a play on the name of the 金錢豹 nightclub] 9th Anniversary - Hǔ Shǐ Gǒu [Bluff Shit Dog] - by Kuso Cat"
I don't completely agree with the Taipei Times' characterization that the video "portrayed the young women as working as hostesses at a nightclub in Taichung." An important bit of context that's missing from the related coverage is this this October 29, 2010 news story about police alerting the girls at a Taichung night club of an impending raid. The video of the girls sneaking around fits perfectly. In both the original video and the parody, Jason Hu calls these girls "Everybody's girls!" Although the vehicle for the parody is the video and the girls seen within, its real target is the public figure they're promoting: Jason Hu.

David Reid has a detailed intro to this incident and several related links in a blog post titled "KUSO and freedom of speech in Taiwan."

The sort of attention the government is giving this video (despite prosecutors' denial that there will be an indictment, the kinds of threats implied in the Ministry of Education's letter asking National Taiwan University to "carefully monitor" the political discussions on PTT's "Gossiping" forum) provides yet another example of how things that are critical of Chinese KMT politicians draw swift attention from the law while attacks against politicians from the pro-Taiwan/pro-democracy DPP are ignored. Because Taiwan suffered for decades under the Chinese KMT's martial law and White Terror (which ended not so long ago), and since so many setbacks to Taiwan's democracy have occurred so rapidly since Ma's inauguration in May 2008, it's easy to get the impression that we're very quickly returning to that kind of rule.

Questions to counter the media memes
* Who "portrayed the young women as working as hostesses at a nightclub in Taichung" first? Or should I say Hu "portrayed the young women as working as hostesses at a nightclub in Taichung" first?! (Hu: "Everybody's girls!")

* How could these girls -- who claim to have made this video just "with friends" -- get the chance to sit down with Mayor Hu and record him saying the things he says while their video camera is rolling?

* When businesses like the Golden Jaguar (金錢豹) are still flourishing -- despite promises by Hu that he would clean Taichung up -- doesn't this kind of parody practically write itself?

* Isn't the period of time just before an election the most likely time someone would mock a campaign ad? What kind of person would think there's anything at all "unusual" about the timing of the kuso video's appearance?

* On November 27, 2010, who will the citizens of Taichung elect to be their mayor for the next four years?

Remain alert!

Compare this!
Here's the source video for comparison. Note the multiple double entendres in the original title, including the play on Hu's Mandarin name:

3:14 YouTube video: "Hu's Girl MV-胡志強招募青年志工 "
Translation: "Jason Hu recruits young volunteers"
David Reid's post (linked above) also contains a video of Taiwanese bloggers in support of Kuso Cat.

A small sample of related incidents:
* December 9, 2008: The Chinese KMT "blatantly launched a drive to control the news reporting and programming of Taiwan's Public Television Service Foundation (PTSF), which manages the Taiwan Public Television Service (TPS) on behalf of our nation's citizens." TPS includes Taiwan Public Television, Hakka Television and Indigenous Television, and the China Television Service.

* December 10, 2008: Chinese KMT legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) -- bastard son of Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) -- speaks at Tainan's Chengkung University (成功大學), ROC flags are removed because Chinese students are present, a Taiwanese student protests, Chiang tells the student to "be open-minded" and LIES, saying that there wasn't a flag to begin with. But the removal of at least one flag was already captured on video. A woman on the stage asks the student to "be respectful" -- but what happened to respecting the students of the university who are citizens of Taiwan?

* December 11, 2008: Just four hours after Human Rights Day has ended, 200 or so police round up the Tibetans sitting in Liberty Square (自由廣場) and take them -- some who can't speak Mandarin -- off to the hills of Neihu and Guandu. The police also evict the students from the Wild StrawBerries movement (a group of students protesting the outdated Assembly and Parade Act [集會遊行法]) from the square. Check out some of the police violence that was caught on camera.

* December 17, 2008: The home of Chen Tsung-yi (陳宗逸) -- manager of the recently-demised New Taiwan Weekly (新台灣週刊) -- is searched by agents from the Taipei City branch of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. Chen claims that the agents attempted to intimidate him, and were deceptive about what they were looking for.

* December 19, 2008: The Wild StrawBerries' live broadcast disappears from the Justin.tv web site. A notice says that it was "for violating the Terms of Service." An inquiry I sent to Justin.tv gets me only a form letter reply.

* January 16, 2009: The large teapot-shaped object in Taipei which just over a year ago was renamed the "National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall" (國立台灣民主紀念堂) is retrogressing to its original name of "Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall" (蔣介石紀念堂) to honor the late dictator and mass murderer that the Chinese KMT still worships. Here's a related editorial cartoon ("Out with the new, in with the old. More authoritarianism, less democracy.").

* March 6, 2009: An 18-year-old senior high school student in Chiayi shouts at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), telling him to "step down" (下台). He is taken in and fingerprinted by police. Taiwan Echo has another post on the subject.

* March 29, 2009: Police with video cameras intrude upon a private meeting of bloggers demanding personal information from attendees. The police were unable to explain their presence, and superiors denied having ordered the intrusion. Despite police "apologies" two days later, incidents which indicate a return to the days of White Terror continue to occur all-too-frequently.

These were just a few examples I already had conveniently available. Please submit your own "favorite" examples of the erosion of freedom of speech under the Chinese KMT administration of Ma Ying-jeou in the comments section below. Include links, please.

The natural conclusion
Unless you pay close attention to these kinds of incidents, they will continue to happen, and your freedom of speech will continue to rapidly erode.

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Pixel chillers: Taiwan, 台灣, Kuso Cat, 廖小貓, Jason Hu, 胡志強, Hu's Girl, 唬屎狗, White Terror, 白色恐怖, martial law, 戒嚴

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

Formosa Betrayed, a powerful story

This can't possibly be the same film Ian Bartholemew reviewed Friday

The film Formosa Betrayed, whose screenplay amalgamates the tales of the 1980s murders of Carnegie Mellon University professor Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) and writer Henry Liu (劉宜良, AKA Chiang Nan [江南]), has been discussed publicly for almost four years, and it finally made it to general release at cinemas in Taiwan on Friday, August 6, 2010.

Yet Taipei Times movie critic Ian Bartholemew seems to think it was based upon the George Kerr book of the same name (it was not), that it was about the events surrounding the 228 Massacre (二二八大屠殺) of 1947 (even though that event -- which happened 36 years prior to our story -- is mentioned within, it's not part of the plot of this movie), and that "Retrocession" [sic] is the proper term for the occupation of Taiwan by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (it is not).


Formosa Betrayed movie poster
outside of Taichung's Tiger City
Photo by Tim Maddog
(Click to enlarge)
I had awaited this film's arrival in Taiwan for such a long time, and having seen so many previews, reviews, and interviews, I was a little bit worried that there wouldn't be very much left for me to experience anew when I saw it in a movie theater. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Before I get to anything involving spoilers, let me tell you a few things about the movie in general.

It is what it is
So, what is Formosa Betrayed? The story centers around FBI Agent Jake Kelly (played by James van der Beek) and his search for the two gangsters who murder Taiwanese-American professor Henry Wen. The evidence brings Jake to Taiwan, where he meets waiter/independence activist Ming (明, played by Will Tiao [刁毓能], who also co-wrote and produced the movie) and uncovers more truth than his superiors ever wanted him to. The events take place in 1983, during the White Terror period and four years before the lifting of the Chinese KMT's 38-year-long imposition of martial law on Taiwan.

This is thriller
Beyond the film's historical implications (being the first American film to deal with Taiwan-US relations"), we are propelled through the story by our concern for the protagonists, Jake and Ming, by their struggles against bureaucracies, gangsters, police agencies, and even military officials, and by the hope that they will succeed and survive. It shouldn't matter if you are American, Taiwanese, or neither -- unless you hate one or both of those countries, you'll probably care for both characters, and you will feel their pain as you watch horrific events unfold.

The antagonists are everywhere. Watch the movie and see how almost every time Jake tries to do the right thing, someone delays him, finds his "target" before he does, or tries to bring him great harm. You might not even realize whether some characters are the good guys or the bad guys until near the end of the flick.

Production values
The film -- directed by Adam Kane (Heroes) and photographed by Irek Hartowicz -- has a gritty, desaturated look throughout much of it, creating an atmosphere appropriate to both the period and the content. The first image we see -- Jake's blood-splattered face in very shallow depth of field -- sets the tone for what's to follow.

The score didn't draw much attention to itself, remaining mostly way in the background except in some especially tense scenes. Two or three times during the film, I got quite a jolt from the audio-visual-story combo -- an excellent reason to see the film in a theater.

Other reviewers' complaints about the film being shot in Thailand instead of Taiwan drive me nuts. The reasons for it happening have been explained again and again, and even more detail has come out quite recently about the Chinese KMT's involvement. My wife -- Have I mentioned that she's Taiwanese? -- didn't have any complaints about the locations not looking enough like Taiwan in the eighties, so I have a hard time accepting that particular gripe.

Some of these complainers may merely wish to discredit Formosa Betrayed. Others may have unthinkingly been influenced by such thoughts and are repeating them. Whatever their reasons, it's as if everyone suddenly forgot how to suspend their disbelief for this particular motion picture. (Pssssst! You're actually sitting in a chair in an air-conditioned theater in the year 2010 in a city which may or may not be Taipei!) With the budget limitations, I would guess that telling the story took priority over adding a CGI recreation of Taipei.

So, while it may not be a state-of-the-art spectacle, it does a great job of doing what people go to the movies for: it tells a powerful story.

It ain't what it's not
Formosa Betrayed is not an allegory. It's basically a straight-up dramatization of events related to Taiwan's history -- a story which has needed to be told for a very long time. And Will Tiao, Adam Kane, and the rest of the cast and crew have done a formidable job of it.

What will I learn?
* The Chinese KMT is not protecting Taiwan from Commie bandits, and they never have.
* The United States' cooperation with the Chinese KMT ignores/involves lots and lots of evil.
* Good people standing up for basic human rights get called "gangsters" and "terrorists" by those responsible for mass murder of innocent civilians.
* Taiwan is not China, and despite frequent claims about the matter, Taiwanese are not treated like "brothers" by the Chinese.
* Others' admonitions which are supposedly "for your own good" are often ways for them to hold onto power while keeping you down.

Who should see this film?
Every single Taiwanese should see this film, whether they already know about this history or not. Anyone who has ever supported the Chinese KMT should see this film and open their eyes widely. Americans should see this film to understand what their government has done (and continues to do) to Taiwan.

If you enjoy thrillers, you should see Formosa Betrayed because it's an exciting story which, as Roger Ebert says, is "actually about something."

If you don't like mainstream Hollywood flicks, see it for its independent style.

If you don't fall into any of those categories, make like a Nike ad, and just see it!

Where to see it
I saw it at Tiger City in Taichung. Here's the page where you can find showtimes for all Vieshow Cinemas (威秀影城) in Taiwan. See it soon, as it probably won't be here for long.

Fiction vs. reality (SPOILERS)
Some people have said that the people and events portrayed in Formosa Betrayed are entirely imaginary. Those people are either lying or they're ignorant -- perhaps both. Here is a short list of some people/things in the film and the people/things they correspond to (or not) in real life:

* Wen Ming-hua (溫明華, AKA Henry Wen, the murder victim) = Chen Wen-chen + Henry Liu.
* Guy with camera at student protest = Student spies funded by the Chinese KMT.
* David Wu Da-wei + James Lee Shin-shen (the killers) = Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮) and others.
* Ming's sister, Maysing (美星): "Don't use your phone. They're listening." = Government phone tapping of political opponents/dissidents/competitors -- something which still happens quite frequently.
* The protest in Kaohsiung = The Kaohsiung Incident of 1979. (Note: Just a few months after Formosa Betrayed had completed filming, similar things happened during the protests against visiting Chinese envoy, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin [陳雲林]. including the brutal beating of an FTV [民視] reporter. Also watch Red Caution to see what happened to Taiwan in the first few months Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] was in office as president.)
* The murder of Ming's wife and daughter in their home = The murder of Lin I-hsiung's (Lîm Gī-hiông, 林義雄) family while their home was under 24-hour police surveillance.
* The way Ming's father was killed = The way many people were killed in the 228 Massacre: shot in the head and/or dumped in a river. (Others were buried alive.)
* Professor Wen and Ming being called "gangsters" and "terrorists" = A common tactic used by the gangster-affiliated Chinese KMT.
* 健康 (Health[y] brand cigarettes = The ironically-named Long Life (長壽) brand of cigarettes.
* The movie ≠ The book by George Kerr. Although it's got the same title, and it's about the same country and the same party-state, it's a different story.

Other interesting tidbits (minor SPOILERS)
* Jake is assigned Room 228 (a reference to the 228 Massacre of 1947) in his Taipei hotel.
* When Jake is at the airport leaving Taiwan, a voice is heard on the airport intercom announcing in English "China Airline[s] flight 1947 from Taipei to New York is now boarding…"

Just one thing…
As Michael Turton pointed out previously, that onscreen title at the end… it's wrong, and it should be fixed because it undermines the message the rest of the film tries so hard to get across. It says [highlight mine]:

Currently there are 23 countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent nation.

The United States is not one of them.

The problem is that the countries which have official relations with "Taiwan" recognize Taiwan as the "Republic of China" and its associated claim to represent -- y'know -- China. Because of the "one-China" policies of both the PRC and the ROC, not a single one of those countries recognize Taiwan's independence the way they should -- and that right there is the problem!

A whole spectrum of other reviews
* David Reid's review: "Formosa Betrayed: a quest for truth and justice."
* Jerome F. Keaton's review: "The Film 'Formosa Betrayed' Though Different from 'Cape No. 7' is Important for Taiwan Youth."
* Michael Turton's review: "The Gospel According to Will: Formosa Betrayed."
* Sheri Linden wrote a fair-even-if-not-entirely-postive review in The Hollywood Reporter.
* Despite the number of stars he gave it, Roger Ebert seems to have liked it.
* Ian Bartholemew wrote what could be the most uninformed movie review I've ever read.
* Does Vancouver's Katherine Monk think that watching Formosa Betrayed is as bad as being colonized and placed under nearly four decades of martial law? Her excessively negative review is titled: "Viewers are ones who are betrayed."

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MacGuffins: Taiwan, 台灣, Formosa Betrayed, 被出賣的台灣, movie, 電影, Will Tiao, 刁毓能, White Terror, 白色恐怖, martial law, 戒嚴

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

Taiwan round-up, July 2010; plus Ma Ying-jeou's nonsense

First, a bit of catching up is necessary

A lot has been going on in July -- and I'm not just talking about the extra work that I get during this time of the year. Here are just a few of the more prominent news items I should have been writing about in more detail over the past month:

* Despite not being in possession of the land titles, the Chinese Nationalist Party-led (KMT) Miaoli County government destroyed the rice paddies of several farmers in the Jhunan Township (竹南) borough of Dapu (大埔) and carted off the rich soil, replacing it with junk-filled dirt. Despite knowing that the current Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例) is unfair, the Ministry of the Interior vowed to continue destroying these farmers' lives and property with their right hand until their left hand is good and ready to change the law. As I've said many times, the Chinese KMT doesn't follow the law -- the law follows the Chinese KMT.

* Michael Turton blogged on the protests in Taipei on July 17, 2010 which were related to the above land grabs: "Miaoli County Land Seizure Sparks Farmer Protests"

* In Yunlin County, a fire (explosion?) on July 25, 2010 at Formosa Petrochemical Group's (FPG, 台塑石化) naphtha cracker No. 6 is followed by the appearance of dead ducks, fish, and clams in the vicinity. (Yo, EPA! Is there an alternate explanation for what could have killed all these animals at this particular time?! If so, we'd all like to hear it!) An earlier blaze had occurred at FPG's naphtha cracker No. 1 on July 7, 2010. It took six days after the second conflagration within a month -- plus large protests by Mailiao residents -- before Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) paid a visit to the site and said they would temporarily suspend operations at the plant. (How long do you think it'll be before that promise gets broken?) Oh, and there's the horrific tale of a dead runaway foreign laborer (who had been poisoned by unsafe working conditions) whose body was left outside the plant's perimeter after a much earlier incident in an apparent attempt to… make the original situation even worse? (See this last item discussed on the July 30, 2010 edition of Talking Show [大話新聞].)

* Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) tries to do his own verbal "detour" after saying that already-endangered Taiwanese pink dolphins would "make a detour" (轉彎) to avoid the planned Kuokuang Petrochemical plant scheduled to be built on coastal wetlands near the mouth of the Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) in Dacheng Township (大城), Changhua County.

* Remember that the most important thing about the following story has to do with the people making the accusation: Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), the son of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) who is currently running for a city council seat in Kaohsiung, is accused by Next Weekly (壹週刊) of soliciting a prostitute, despite the lack of any hard evidence. While his car was photographed at the scene of the alleged crime, Chen Chih-chung himself was not. Politically motivated, y'think?

* Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) was placed among "the world's top [10] urban leaders" by Monocle Magazine. Although some people say the title of the piece makes the "honor" facetious, the content -- which appears 100% serious as well as positive -- tells me otherwise.

* You may notice that the four links at the top of the blogroll in the Taiwan Matters sidebar -- the links to Talking Show (大話新聞) videos -- have been crossed out. That's because YouTube suspended all four of those accounts. Fortunately, someone new has dutifully taken over uploading the shows. Take a look at the uploads on user 555victory555's channel.

* After all that stuff President Regional Administrator (cough, cough) Mr. Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told us about the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed with China being purely economic and having nothing to do with unification, the legislature's Organic Laws and Statutes Bureau tells us -- in a report whose release people had complained since at least June 23, 2010 (nearly a week before the ECFA was signed) was being delayed (for over a month now) because it might give a negative impression of the ECFA -- that what Ma said was, uh, not true.

* On July 24, 2010, the U.S. Navy posted a photo taken during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 captioned [highlight mine]: "The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan leads a formation of ships from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, France, Canada, Australia and the U.S." A week later, that photo isn't showing up, but another photo with the same caption can still be viewed.

* Formosa Betrayed (the movie) will be showing in Taiwan in less than one week. With the domestic premier taking place Friday, August 6, 2010, producer/actor Will Tiao (刁毓能) is in town, and he reveals in an interview with the Taipei Times how the Chinese KMT interfered with the filming process. Jerome F. Keating, PhD also has a piece about the film: "Still Not Free of KMT Bias, Taiwan Prepares for the Film, 'Formosa Betrayed.'" In that post, he also links to an image of the famous comic strip by Bo Yang (柏楊) which got the artist nine years in prison.

* … and like I said, much more than I've been able to keep up with in great detail. I've probably missed a few important ones, but those are pretty much off the top of my head. Follow me on Twitter to see what I'm writing about in real time.

No-brainer
Since Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) so frequently spouts nonsense which should get him laughed off the world's stage, I made a little video showing how audiences should react to such things:


2:05 Xtranormal video: "The audience sees through Ma Ying-jeou's nonsense"

Here's the text spoken by Superzero Ma in the video:

Hi, I'm Ma Ying-jeou, president of the Republic of China, here in Taiwan Province. As you can see, no one is pulling my strings. That's because Foxconn made a special long distance remote control for Hu Jintao to use on me! But since I am the president of the Republic of China, I am actually Hu Jintao's leader. And as president of the ROC, I am, therefore, also the president of Mongolia! Let me explain. Back in March 2008, after I made a campaign promise to the people of Taiwan saying "no unification," 7.6 million people there voted for me, making me the democratically-elected leader of the "unified" Republic of China's 1.3 billion people, right? Does that not make perfect sense to you? Okay, how about this? Without using your brain too much, see if you can repeat after me: "We are all part of the non-barbarian Zhonghua minzu family, blah blah blah." "The other side of the Taiwan Strait is our mainland region, blah blah blah." Or how about this? "I love Taiwan!" That one works best in the months before important elections. Do you have a question? I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Thank you for your comment. I must be going.

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Precipitates: Taiwan, 台灣, Dapu, 大埔, Formosa Petrochemical Co., 台塑石化, Wu Den-yih, 吳敦義, Chen Chih-chung, 陳致中, Jason Hu, 胡志強

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