Yeh Chu-lan answers the question

Cut to the chase
In yet another idiotic interpellation, Lee son-of-a-former-premier Ching-hua (李慶華) repeated another version of the same stupid question that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) zealots have been asking their DPP opponents for ages. This time, Presidential Office Secretary-General Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) gave him a direct answer. Tuesday's Taipei Times has the details:

KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) asked what National Day the Presidential Office will be celebrating tomorrow after the office refused to put up placards saying "Celebration of the Republic of China's National Day" as it has in the past.

Yeh said the office will celebrate the National Day of the Republic of China, but added that the republic includes only the land inhabited by the 23 million Taiwanese -- and not Outer Mongolia and China as claimed by the former KMT regime.

Why can't others (cough, Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九], cough) be as direct? Yes, the ROC (the current PRC + Tibet + Outer Mongolia) doesn't exist anymore, but some people nevertheless like to celebrate the birthdays of those who left us long ago. And yes, October 10 is the "birthday" of the ROC, but that was a foreign country whose territory had never included Taiwan. (More on that below.)

I'm not 100% pleased with Yeh's answer, but at least she didn't hem and haw and duck and dodge.

Anyway, be prepared for lots of foolishness that will most likely occur during Wednesday mornings activities and will most likely include Lee Ching-hua and the faux "non-partisan" Shih Ming-teh (施明德). (See James Soong [宋楚瑜] in the center of the Taiwan Matters! header for another example of foolishness.)

Abbie... something
An article by author Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰) on the editorial page of Tuesday's Taipei Times helps readers try to make sense of this confusing mess:

The ROC that originally did not include Taiwan collapsed in late 1949 as the result of the communist revolution. Its exile government escaped to Taiwan, a place which didn't even participate in the founding of the country but was now commandeered as ROC territory. It's not very strange that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) said in a meeting in his Yangming Villa on March 13, 1950, that: "Late last year, the Republic of China perished as a result of the degeneration of the Mainland, and today we are the people of a perished nation."

The situation that arises when a country that no longer exists brings its national title, flag, constitution and system to use in a place that wasn't even part of the founding of that state is abnormal, regardless of whether we ar talking about Taiwan or the Republic of China. This is also the reason the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been discussing its "normal country" resolution.

Commenting on the resolution, however, KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that, "I don't think there's anything abnormal about the Republic of China."

But there aren't too many perished states around that have brought their national title, flag, constitution and system to a place that wasn't even part of the state's founding. So if you say there's nothing abnormal about that, then you are probably the one that is a bit abnormal.

That's already a good portion of the original, but I highly recommend reading the whole article.

RELATED LINKS:
* Fellow blogger Michael Turton quotes an overlapping section of the Lee Hsiao-feng article above in a post on The View from Taiwan about the contorted logic in a South China Morning Post article.
* Read the original Mandarin version of Lee Hsiao-feng's article.
* Tuesday's China Post quotes Yeh slightly differently in an article that gives a completely opposite version of what is planned for tomorrow by the redshirts. It also contains something which seems to be simultaneously a lie and a stunning admission:

[P]articipants in the celebration in the Presidential Plaza tomorrow should not carry large backpacks, clubs, knives, megaphones, balloons, zoom lens cameras, umbrellas, or placards, flyers and banners unrelated to the Double Ten celebration.

These items are banned because they were used by the 'Red shirts' who [...] laid siege to the Presidential Plaza on last year's National Day [...]

* Tuesday's Liberty Times has the Mandarin version of what Yeh said, but with a different focus.
* An essay by pro-democracy writer Jerome F. Keating, PhD on how the US' appeasement of China has led to the current situation here was reprinted in Monday's Taipei Times. Go read it.

---

Monikers: Taiwan, 台灣, Republic of China, 中華民國, ROC, Yeh Chu-lan, 葉菊蘭, Lee Ching-hua, 李慶華, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, redshirts, 紅衫軍

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

Indictments for Shih Ming-teh and pals

Will their red shirts be exchanged for striped ones?

Shih Ming-teh (施明德) -- the leader of last year's redshirt mobs (紅衫軍) which claimed to oppose corruption (反貪腐) and not distinguish between blue and green (不分藍綠) -- and 15 of those participating in his failed attempt to "depose" the democratically-elected president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), were indicted yesterday. Saturday's Taipei Times has the details, including this list of Shih's partners in crime:

Among those indicted with Shih were Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春), People First Party Legislator Shen Chih-hwei (沈智慧), former KMT legislator and Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs Director Lee Yong-ping (李永萍), Taipei City Research & Development Evaluation Commission Emile Sheng (盛治仁) and New Party Taipei City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新).

Nine others were named in the indictment: Chien Hsi-chieh, Liu Kun-li (劉坤鱧), Chang Fu-chung (張富忠), Jerry Fan (范可欽), Wang Li-ping (王麗萍), Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾), former New Party legislator Cheng Lung-shui (鄭龍水), former Chinese Unity Promotion Party chairman Lin Cheng-chieh (林正杰), Chinese Culture University professor Yao Li-ming (姚立明) and lawyer John Wei (魏千峰).

If found guilty, the defendants could be sentenced to a maximum of two years imprisonment.

Why this story was on page 3 instead of Saturday's front page is anybody's guess.

The charges are related to the Double Ten "besieging" of the Presidential Office by Shih's mobs, which included the most partisan of partisans that only a fool would believe was neutral. (Cough, Emile Sheng, cough!)

Meanwhile, over NT$20,000,000 that was donated to Shih's "anti-corruption" campaign is still unaccounted for. Things that make ya go "Hmmm."

Others' takes
A-gu (阿牛) at That's Impossible makes a couple of important points:

The Taipei District Prosecutor's Office wrapped up the preliminary investigation yesterday. The Executive is not directly involved. The prosecutor in this case said Shih knew he was acting illegally and had no regrets, an important reason he pressed charges.

Meanwhile, since it was then KMT chairman and Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] who violated all precedent and allowed these people their month long, 24 hour-a-day rally in the first place, some DPP people said Ma owes an apology (to the city? to Shih? I'm not sure). Using rhetoric that you may hear on a playground, Ma's response was that A-bian should say he's sorry since the whole parade was a result of A-bian's (unproven) corruption. Ma added that the KMT had already brought a bill to alter the Assembly and Parade Law, a decision made soon after Ma became chairman.

Ah, yes! What about the already-indicted, Hong Kong-born former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman's involvement? After all, while shedding crocodile tears about the responsibility being unfairly placed on his shoulders, he was out feeding the mobs bread and soymilk paid for with KMT money and even sharing the stage with Shih.

A-gu has even more links, so be sure to click on over to read his full post.

Fellow Taiwan Matters blogger Michael Turton relates by e-mail that he hopes Shih isn't turned into a martyr because of this. I agree with his sentiments 100%, but we all know the pan-blue media will do so anyway. Michael also says he should have a post on the subject up sometime on Sunday. [UPDATE: Michael's post is up.]

Remembering recent history
Here are some real-time posts related to the aforementioned events:

* September 13, 2006: BBC angers all who care about Taiwan
  - I slam the BBC for their biased "reporting" of Shih's mobs.

* September 16, 2006: Non-partisan protesters?
  - Michael Turton photographs some of the "non-partisan" mob meeting at a KMT landmark. Coincidence?

* September 16, 2006: Circling the Presidential Office
  - Friend from Across the Strait gives us his view via the Hong Kong media. On a recent visit to the US, a Hong Kong-born restaurant owner with whom I engaged in political conversation blindly echoed everything the HK media had told her.

* September 16, 2006: Will Chen Resign?
  - Michael Turton rhetorically asks the question from the title and blasts the foreign media's failure to present facts by which the average reader could begin to understand the situation.

* September 27, 2006: The Economist Misses a Chance
  - Michael Turton smacks down The Economist for their deceipt.

* September 27, 2006: Pan-blue hypocrisy just keeps rolling on
  - In that day's Taipei Times, Jerome F. Keating (linked in Michael's post above) takes on the baldfaced lies of Shih's campaign.

* October 9, 2006: On the Eve
  - On the eve of the Double Ten mob activities, Michael continues to inject a healthy dose of facts into the fabrication-filled "discourse" via which the foreign media has been poisoning the public.

* October 12, 2006: Voters of Taipei: recall Ma Ying-jeou
  - I point my middle finger in Ma Ying-jeou's direction for his wishy-washy stance on when the law needs to be enforced and tell him to "take some responsibility."

* October 13, 2006: Requiem for the Red Shirts
  - Feiren recaps the China Times' strategic step back from their earlier provocations (more info in the January 5, 2007 post linked below) in the aftermath of the Double Ten fiasco.

* October 26, 2006: Bloomberg Blue Bias
  - STOP_Ma guest blogs about Bloomberg stenographer James Peng's exaggeration of the number of participants in Shih's mobs and other biases.

* November 2, 2006: Guest Blogging: Jerome Keating on Shih Ming-deh
  - Jerome examines whether Shih is a "Hypocrite, Maudlin, Schizophrenic, or a Pawn in Search of Redemption."

* November 4, 2006: First Family Indictment Extravabonanza!
  - Jason points out Shih's hints for the military to become involved as well as his mendacious claims of "success."

* December 30, 2006: Enemies of Press Freedom
  - Feiren tells of the China Times' smearing of the rational opponents of Shih's mobs.

* January 5, 2007: KMT's China Times Connection
  - Feiren reminds readers of China Times editor/Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) propaganda minister Yang Tu's (楊渡) transparently-veiled call to violence.

Note that most of the posts linked above contain numerous links within. Check a few of them out if you need to refresh your memory.

What would you do?
In light of these indictments, my greatest concern is that this is using the wrong approach. I'm sure there are many other laws that could be more appropriately applied to this case. There was lots of violence involved (including violence against police who didn't assist with their illegal behavior [original version]), public airwaves were used to communicate directives to the mobs, tens of millions of dollars of cash were collected and remain out of sight, and more.

What are your thoughts? Reply in comments, or send us an e-mail via the address listed in the sidebar.

---

Portents of future passed: Taiwan, 台灣, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, redshirts, 紅衫軍, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九

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

Chateau Fire Exposes More of Ma's Corruption

Grass Mountain Chateau

Grass Mountain Chateau (GMC, 草山行館), which was the first Presidential residence after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) escaped to Taiwan in 1949, was burned to the ground in a fire of unknown origin on April 7 of this year. Although some materials found among the debris raises the suspecion of arson, the real cause of fire is still undetermined.

The current political environment in Taiwan is filled with the calls of "de-Chiang-ization" (去蔣化), which is a movement to eradicate the God-like figure of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) that was painted by the authoritarian KMT government over the past 60 plus years. The movement includes renaming of many state-owned organizations, removal of numerous Chiang's status all over Taiwan, etc.

Naturally, elites of the old authoritarian KMT and their successors fought back furiously. Under this intense political spot light, up goes Chiang's first lodge in a blaze. In no time has it sparked a huge intensification of the current political conflict. Especially, pan-blue politicians are wasting no time looking for evidence to blame this fire on the anti-Chiang movement.

They conveniently forgot what the history should have taught them again and again: whatever conspiracy theories they cook up against the pan-greens, it always backfires and hurts them seriously. Rising from the ashes of the conspiracy theory about "burning GMC as part of anti-Chiang movement" is the discovery that Ma, during his term as Taipei Mayor, violated rules and ignored laws via a contract between GMC management contract winner and the Taipei City Government to benefit his Taipei City Government employee.

Grass Mountain Chateau

Map of northern Taiwan showing the location of Grass Mountain Chateau

An article in the Taipei Times describes the Chateau:

The chateau, located in Yangmingshan National Park, was built in 1920 as a vacation home for Japan's Prince Hirohito and later became a summer retreat for dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) after he retreated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to Taiwan in 1949.

Here is another description:

The Taipei City Government took over the administration of the chateau after Chiang died in 1975, registering the building as a monument because of its historical significance. In 2002, it was turned into an arts salon and a museum.

Ma's GMC-related corruption

Remember that Ma Ying-Jeou was elected as Taipei Mayor in 1998.

The Chateau, as a national monument, is protected by law. The local government in whose jurisdiction a national monument resides is responsible for contracting the maintenance and preservation of the national monument to an outside party.

The contract winner of GMC management was the Humanities and Social Sciences of Fo Guang College (佛光人文社會學院). Kung Peng-Cheng (龔鵬程), who represented Fo Guang to sign the contract with Taipei City Government, is a senior consultant employed by Taipei City Government. To state it more clearly, Ma's Taipei City Government gave the contract of managing GMC to his own employee. Legally, this might not be a problem, if no rules were bent.

According to the law, whoever gets the management contract of a national monument should pay monthly management fee to the local government --- in this case, Taipe City.

Taipei City Councilwoman Jian Yu-Yen 台北市議員簡余晏

But the law was completely distorted when it came to Ma's hand. Taipei City Councilwoman Jian Yu-yen (簡余晏) and Councilman Lee Ching-feng (李慶鋒) pointed out on April 16 that, not only did Ma not ask Fo Gong to pay the required monthly management fee, but also his city government even paid a subsidy to benifit Fo Guang. Fo Guang, as the main contractor of the management, subcontracted the management tasks to several downstream parties and took management fees from them. Fo Guang put these management fees into their own pockets without paying them back to the Taipei City Government.

Taipei City Councilman Lee Ching-feng 台北市議員李慶鋒

Therefore, as a result of Ma's corrupted administration, not only did Taipei City Government illegally paid Fo Guang but also provided Fo Guang the location of a national monument for free --- without charging Fo Guang the management fee, the rent, or even the utilities (all were paid by the citizens of Taipei with their tax money) --- for Fo Guang to run a business that earned profits from subcontractors and visitors.

The corruption of Ma's government doesn't stop here. Upon the expiration of the contract, the Taipei City Government allowed Fo Guang to continue receiving all the illegal benefits --- free land, free Chateau, free utilities, illegal subsidies, and all the illegal earnings --- without signing a new contract or even an extension of the old one.

It's hard to believe that the Taipei City Government - under the administration of Ma Ying-Jeou - can't even manage a simple historical monument legally. The entire process is marked by a series of steps revealing corruption. Like many other previous cases, Ma might, as usual, claim that it's all his subordinates' fault so he doesn't need to shoulder any of the responsibility for this.

The Red Army leader Shih Ming-Teh (施明德) wearing an "anti corruption" shirt

I recall that when Ma was accused earlier this year of putting the Mayor's special allowence fund into his private account, Shih Ming-Teh (施明德), the leader of the Red Army that called for President Chen to step down in the name of 'anti-corruption' last October, responded to the media in regard of Ma's campaign for the Presidency next year,

"We came out to protest the corruption of a President. Now you expect people to vote a corrupt politician into the Office? Should Taiwan be called 'State of Corruption'? "

That's the real question that all blue and red supporters need to ask and answer. As the Presidential election comes closer and closer, I am sure that more and more Ma's corrupt activities will be exposed.

-----
Note: Thanks to Tim Maddog for proofreading

Voters of Taipei: recall Ma Ying-jeou

Time for him to take some responsibility

Our pal STOP_Ma (AKA STOP_George), who's been fighting the good fight on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, has created an online petition seeking the resignation of Taipei City mayor and KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou to take responsibility for failing to protect the law-abiding citizens of Taiwan's capital city from the mess brought about by the persistent lawless behavior of Shih Ming-teh's Red-Ant Army. The redshirted mob has been on the streets of Taipei for over a month (in many cases and locations, without the proper permits) screeching that they want to depose Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan's democratically-elected president, despite the fact that Chen hasn't been indicted on even a single charge. Tuesday night, Shih made threatening statements against the prosecutor who's investigating President Chen, saying that he'd better return a result which satisfies him and the redshirts. If he doesn't, Shih says that he and his crazies will surround the Judicial Yuan "in order to uphold an independent judiciary." (That's what he said!) Even if the result is to the liking of the crazies, they'll surround the Executive Yuan (Premier Su Tseng-chang's [蘇貞昌] branch) and the DPP central headquarters -- unless the DPP votes to recall the president.

That's not democracy -- it's mob rule! And if you think that kind of "justice" is anywhere near "independent," then I'm Ma Ying-jeou's grandmother!

Time for Mr. Rule-of-law to stop paying lip service to the law
"Chairman Mao-without-the-O" has previously insisted that the law must be followed (in certain cases only?), yet on Tuesday, when the nation's dignity and the safety of foreign dignitaries was at stake, he decided that the law was "flexib[le]." Wednesday night, Ma said that he's giving the redshirts another three weeks to run amok. [See UPDATE below]

No wonder he failed the bar exam.

See for yourself
Here's some video from Tuesday night's FTV English Edition which STOP_Ma kindly uploaded to YouTube.



10'12" YouTube video: "Resign, Mayor Ma Ying-jeou!"
Click "Play" at lower left to load the video here.
(I suggest hitting "Pause" until the video loads fully.)
Click here to download the latest version of Adobe Flash.
Click here for YouTube help.
Here's another video Michael Turton linked on his blog today which demonstrates the double standards of the redshirts/pan-blues surrounding the recent events. (Some Chinese-language ability required.)



1'36" YouTube video: "Double Standards - 2"
Now, go sign the petition and spread the word!

UPDATE: The report of Ma Ying-jeou giving the redshirts another three weeks may be incorrect. At the time I wrote that, they had originally held permits to hold two more weeks' worth of protests (October 14 - 27) on Ketagalan Boulevard (in front of Taiwan's Presidential Office), but those permits were subsequently revoked; however, redshirt organizer/spokesman Jerry Fan (范可欽) said they "would stay at the current site on the south plaza of Taipei Railway Station and continue protesting between 6pm and 10pm every night," according to the October 14 edition of the Taipei Times.

---

Colors of the rainbow: Taiwan, 台灣, Chen Shui-bian, 陳水扁, A-bian, 阿扁, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, Kuomintang, 中國國民黨, KMT, 國民黨, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, pan-blues, 泛藍, democracy, 民主

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

BBC still not getting Taiwan right

Still making unconvincing excuses

After two posts (on both INDIAC and Taiwan Matters!) about Catherine Gluck's very one-sided BBC article which failed to challenge the lies spoon-fed to her by Shih Ming-teh's crazed anti-democratic campaign in Taipei to "depose" the democratically-elected president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, the BBC still hasn't posted any comments to the original article and is still pretending that they're trying hard to get it right.

I'm still not buying it.

Smoke and mirrors won't do
In response to my e-mail back to the BBC about the still-missing comments, I received another e-mail, this time from Samanthi Dissanayake. At first glance, the e-mail appears to display genuine concern and interest, but it takes only a slightly closer look to see a less attractive side.

Let's do a point-by-point analysis of Dissanayake's letter.

Dear Tim,

Thanks very much for your emails. I'm sorry that you didn't see any comments posted. Actually, when we put a postform on a story it is largely because we want to collect people's views and experiences for a more substantial piece - so it would amount to more than comments posted at the end of an article.

First, I didn't just "not see" any comments. They really weren't there! Next, what was Gluck's 31-paragraph article -- some kind of a "quick take"? It seems to have done "substantial" damage, nonetheless.

Dissanayake continues:

In this situation, we avoid putting comments up on the story immediately, because we want to use some of the best comments and people for a longer-form piece.

Again, she treats Gluck's article on an anti-democratic attempt to depose a democratically-elected president as relatively unimportant. The choice of the word "immediately" also rings hollow. A whole week has passed since Gluck's article -- practically an eternity in the news business -- and Shih's mendacious campaign of hate has been cheered on by Taiwan's pan-blue media for a whole month now. And while Dissanayake might want to save "some of the best comments," I'm confident that there were enough comments submitted to that article that they could have put up 40 or 50 without even touching "the best" ones.

Let's see what else she has to say about things which don't exist.

When we put up a debate that is also on the Have Your Say page, then we do have the ability to post up most of the comments sent in. Perhaps we should have done a debate in this instance.

As I already mentioned, there are exactly zero comments below the original article, and there are only four Asia stories on the "Have Your Say" page. (Continue reading to see about the "debate" part.)

I am very interested in doing some kind of piece on the political situation in Taiwan and this involves exactly the sort of conversations you recommend we have with people outside Taipei.

They just failed miserably at uncovering the truth about what's going on in Taiwan. They failed so badly, it looked like it was on purpose! Why would I trust them to do a better job this time? Does Dissanayake have special knowledge of Taiwan's situation that she can bring? What does she know about Taiwan? Anything that would let her write (or even edit) a serious piece on Taiwan politics? Let's check, shall we?

A Google search for [Samanthi Dissanayake Taiwan] only comes up with five hits, none of which seem to show that she has actually even written anything about Taiwan at all. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but those results are not too promising. Let's try an image search.

A Google image search for [Samanthi Dissanayake] brings up three hits, all related to Hong Kong.

Even using BBC's own search function to look for [Samanthi Dissanayake Taiwan] brings up nothing where she writes about Taiwan. Does the BBC expect to fix the damage done by an unquestioning reporter by replacing her with one who has no experience reporting on Taiwan, or are they doing it on purpose, expecting most people to not notice?

Further searching brought me to a page by someone who received a similar reply from Dissanayake, but the author of that post seems to have bought her story in the long run. I'm certainly more skeptical than that of the reasons for the unbalanced reports.

Getting back to her e-mail to me, she still fails to impress:

I will certainly be getting back to a number of people who emailed the debate to get a sense of their views. We are very eager to represent the variety of opinion there.

Wait! I thought she just said "we should have done a debate." And why is the part about "getting back to" these people still being stated in the future tense? She's already ignored them for an entire week.

Nearing the end of the e-mail, she's still ignoring the obvious:

I was wondering if you would also be willing to talk to me? Are you in Taiwan? What are you doing there?

This was contained in the bottom of her reply in the section which quoted my previous e-mail:
- - -
> >From: Tim Maddog
> >Email address: [myname] [at] hotmail [dot] com
> >Country: Taiwan
[...]
>Tim Maddog, Taiwan
- - -

Notice the extreme lack of attention to detail there. Does it look like she did a bit of skimming? Does she expect me to trust her to do an accurate piece on anything?

In closing, I get this:

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Samanthi
BBC News website

Be careful what you wish for. You might get an earful.

I think I will write back and let her read this post -- and this and this and this and this.

---

Details that need attention: Taiwan, 台灣, Taipei, 台北, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, BBC, 英國廣播公司, Caroline Gluck, 凱若琳葛拉克, Samanthi Dissanayake

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

BBC angers all who care about Taiwan

They sure look like they're doing it on purpose

On Monday afternoon, I blogged (on both INDIAC and Taiwan Matters!) about a very one-sided BBC article which failed to challenge several blatant falsehoods spoon-fed to them by purely partisan participants of Shih Ming-teh's absurd campaign in Taipei to "depose" the democratically-elected president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian. By unquestioningly dishing this poison back to its readers, the BBC has done a terrible disservice to the whole nation of Taiwan.

Let's look once more at one of the biggest spoonfuls:

"We don't want any partisan support. We try to keep this as pure as possible, as a movement of the people," said Emile Sheng, professor of politics at Soochow University, who has joined the protest camp as a media spokesman.

And let's look again and again at a photo from the actual event and see if we can spot any "partisan support" or anybody who looks excessively happy about getting such support lavished upon him:


"We're not partisans,
we just play 'em in our roles
as chairmen of the anti-Chen parties"
Doh! It's PFP chairman James Soong
and KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou
making a Shih Ming-teh sandwich!

Caught red-handed
I was but one among a throng of commenters who submitted our thoughts on the article, but strangely, none of our comments appeared below that post hours and even days later. The scenario grows worse below, but even at this relatively early stage, I knew that something was terribly amiss and that it was time for further action.
I submitted this feedback to the BBC:

I and several others have tried to add comments to the Caroline Gluck piece "Protests against Chen gain ground" [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5323466.stm], yet not a single comment has appeared. I submitted my own comment over 24 hours ago. According to the socialforce.org web site in Taiwan, there are many complaints about the inaccuracy of the article. [http://www.socialforce.org/phpBB/topic_15415.html] Please let me know something, as I strive for accuracy in my own writings.

Tim

Here's the reply I got from the BBC Tuesday night:

Thank you for contacting us about the article. We are sorry that readers' comments were not added at the time the article appeared, as they should have been. Please send any complaints about the article to this address, and they will be forwarded to the relevant editor.

This was far from being satisfactory. I wrote back immediately:

What does this mean?:
- - -
>[...] Please send any complaints about the article to
>this address, and they will be forwarded to the relevant editor.
- - -

Which "this address"? The one I just wrote to? I still don't see any comments below the article I complained about? Is something preventing you from doing so now? Better late than never, but if you don't put any of those comments there, the many already-disappointed readers will only become even more so.

Please forward my comments (quoted below) [above, in this post] to "the relevant editor" at least once, and let's see if you can do something to counter the perception that the BBC is participating in a coordinated media effort to smear the Chen Shui-bian government. You need someone who's outside of Taipei to tell you about the feelings of the average Taiwanese toward Shih Ming-teh. You need to understand the opposition parties' hold on the media in Taiwan and the way it affects the public's perception of events. The pan-blue media is a 24-hour-a-day Chen-smearing machine.

You also really need someone who can read Mandarin to look at this:
http://www.socialforce.org/phpBB/topic_15415.html

That's just a sampling of the people who are closely watching what you're writing.

Attentively,
Tim

They're "sorry that readers' comments were not added at the time the article appeared." Does that mean that they'll do it now? Better think again!

More than 12 hours after receiving that mail, not one comment has yet been published, and it's pretty certain they won't ever be. How can I be sure? The comment submission form has been completely removed from the page. (I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong on this. BBC?) Are you suspicious yet?

Your turn
Give 'em your feedback on both the article [URL] and on their handling of the comments. You know the routine. Keep it polite, but be direct. Present your case in your own words. Don't expect them to change, but for sure, make them aware that you're paying close attention, that you know what they're up to, and that you're not buying the crap for one moment.

---

Feedback loops: Taiwan, 台灣, Taiwan Independence, 台灣獨立, Taidu, 台獨, Taipei, 台北, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, James Soong, 宋楚瑜, BBC, 英國廣播公司, Caroline Gluck, 凱若琳葛拉克

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

BBC gets Taiwan all wrong

Is it on purpose?

A reader of [my personal blog] sent me a link yesterday afternoon to a very one-sided BBC article about Shih Ming-teh's inane protest in Taipei. Writer Caroline Gluck, despite being stationed right there in the capital, got so many things so glaringly wrong, I couldn't help but compose a long comment to the article.

An e-mail to fellow blogger Michael Turton revealed that both he and Jason of Wandering to Tamshui had submitted similar comments there, and all of us had done so independently of each other.

None of our comments has been published. In fact, no comments at all have.

Action, reaction
So Michael blogged it, Jason restated his own submission in comments to Michael's post, and I'm now going to reprint my own comment here [with two typos corrected, some links added so that anyone can verify the facts of the matter, and a bit of formatting]:

What the people quoted in this article say isn't necessarily true, and Ms. Gluck, you leave too many distortions unchallenged.

When Shih says "This whole island is angry," he implies that everyone is angry at President Chen. The fact is that many people in Taiwan are angry at Shih himself, as his own ethics are questionable. Shih's current connection with Chen Yu-hao, who is wanted internationally after fleeing justice with hundreds of millions of NT$ NT$60 billion in debt and who now holds a Chinese passport, goes unmentioned.

When you tell readers about President Chen's "public approval ratings falling to all-time lows," you fail to tell them that the polls which say so were done by opposition newspapers like the United Daily News and the China Times which are known for telling obvious lies in their front page headlines. Also, you could point out that 80 - 90% of the news media in Taiwan is run by opponents of Chen Shui-bian, remnants of the KMT's party-state. Again, this is unfair and unbalanced "coverage" of a complex story.

Emile Sheng is constantly portrayed in the English-language media as a "neutral observer." He's given the space here to deceive readers with quotes like "We don't want any partisan support," but he's been anti-Chen for as long as I can remember. Sheng's employer, Soochow University, is curiously named after a place in China. Shih's movement has exactly the same goals as the unelected authoritarians in China: to use extralegal means get rid of the democratically-elected president of Taiwan. Taiwan, you might remind your readers, is an independent country where Chen's title doesn't need to be put in scare quotes the way it is in Xinhua reports.

You unquestioningly say that the red clothing demonstrates the protesters' "anger at corruption." Did you think to look behind the curtain and see if you could find evidence of China's connection to this event? Lin Cheng-chieh, the chairman of a pro-unification party who recently beat a Chen supporter on live TV, supports the movement, and he's connected to gang leaders in China such as Chang An-le. Why no mention of this?

You say that there will be "no noisy horns," yet you fail to mention how the event is disturbing patients at the nearby Taiwan University Hospital. Again, this favors Shih and fails to present a clear picture of what's really happening.

Why is there no mention of any of this?

As for the title of this article, these so-called sit-ins (in Mandarin, "jìng zuò" or "quiet sit") aren't "gaining ground" they're merely getting noisier.

No wonder Michael said at the end of his post, "I can name two dozen bloggers who could come up with a better piece than that."

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For the records: Taiwan, 台灣, Taiwan Independence, 台灣獨立, Taidu, 台獨, Taipei, 台北, China, 中國, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, BBC, 英國廣播公司, Caroline Gluck, 凱若琳葛拉克

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

Is Sisy Chen a liar, an amateurish thaumaturge, or both?

Let her own words and Occam's razor tell us

Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian is suing Little Bo Peep cosplayer Sisy Chen for allegations she made that the president is planning to use Taiwan's "Air Force One" to flee the country with his valuables during a desperation-reeking drive to oust him by the soulless Shih Ming-teh. He should have sued her immediately after the 2004 election when she lied about an imaginary "nurse" at Chimei Hospital who supposedly told her that the president's shooting the day before the election was "faked."

It's an ugly illusion
In Saturday's Taipei Times, Sisy "explained" her allegations -- some of which are demonstrably false, others which she apparently pulled them directly out of thin air. Here's how that paper relates Sisy's fussing:

"The president hasn't used Air Force One before. The last time he visited Palau, he used China Airlines. It's surely an issue of concern as to why he has chosen Air Force One this time," she said.

She said that she had listed four possible reasons why the president would choose Air Force One, of which transporting his valuables was only one.

"I said that the president may be planning to make surprise transit visits on the excuse of refueling Air Force One, avoiding any possible demonstrations, transporting his valuables and the need of being accompanied by people involved in the alleged embezzlement of state funds," she said.

Or maybe there's a teapot floating in space around the sun that was placed there by Louis Armstrong when he played his trumpet on the moon!*

There's a bunch of BS up her sleeves
The unlimited possiblities include many which are quite the opposite of what Sisy claims, so let's just take a look at the one about "avoiding any possible demonstrations" for the moment, shall we?

First, we already know that demonstrations will be occurring. Second, the plan for these demonstrations was announced on August 12, 2006.

Yet, the July 29, 2006 edition of the Taipei Times tells us that "Taiwan will hold its first ever summit with its six Pacific island allies in Palau in early September" and that " President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will be making his third trip to the Pacific in two years for the Sept. 4 summit." That simple fact makes Sisy's "possibility" an impossibility, which in turn makes her a liar.

Emptiest hat ever
But let's focus in further. Sisy says that the last time the president went to Palau he flew China Airlines and this his choice to fly Air Force One was "an issue of concern." I think Sisy's mental capacity may be "an issue of concern." As I just mentioned, the big difference in this trip is that President Chen will be attending the "first ever summit with [Taiwan's] six Pacific island allies." Could that possibly justify the use of Air Force One?

Sisy tried to downplay her lying by claiming that what she said was merely "reasonable conjecture." That would certainly hinge on a reasonable definition of "reasonable."

Ladies and gentlemen, Sisy Chen is no David Copperfield. All you have to do is pay attention and have the ability to remember back to her last outrageous illusion, and her smoke, mirrors, and Little Bo Peep costume will disappear before your very eyes. Ew!

PS: Sunday morning's papers brought us some contradictory information. The China Post asserts that "the time will be announced soon pending the exact timetable of activities to be adopted by President Chen," while the Taipei Times said that "Taipei police authorities have refused permission for Shih's sit-in to be held around the clock," despite earlier reports in which Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou "hinted that this application was approved because the country's public assembly law does not set any time limit on protest activities." TV reports on Sunday afternoon, however, showed that Shih Ming-teh's minions were still "rehearsing" for his "sit-in," and spokesperson Ho De-fen had told viewers watching TV on Saturday night that the "Nelson Mandela of his own imagination" wants to have showers. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

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Diagnoses: Taiwan, 台灣, Chen Shui-bian, A-bian, 陳水扁, Chen Wen-qian, Sisy Chen, 陳文茜, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德

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

More dirt on Shih Ming-teh

Johnny Neihu returns to good form

In today's Taipei Times, Johnny Neihu digs deep and dishes up some dirt on Shih Ming-teh (施明德) which demonstrates that the stated "moral" reasons for his deep-blue-backed attempt to depose Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) are fake, fake, fake.

Johnny's legwork pays off, and he serves up these juicy academic-style quotes about Shih from the 2002 Academia Sinica oral history collection Special Collection on the Taiyuan Prison Incident (泰源監獄事件專輯) [COVER IMAGE] [MORE INFO], characterizing the speakers as the very people "you would most expect to line up behind [Shih]":

Here's one: former political prisoner Cheng Cheng-cheng (鄭正成):

"To this day, in Shih's eyes, everyone else is a drone and he's the queen bee, and that's the way it's always been. Everyone in prison who ran into Shih maintained a cordial relationship, but they wouldn't confide in him. Everyone knew he had a sweet tongue, he had a way with words, but what was in his heart and what he said were completely different things. ... In jail he once said that Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was an amateur, and that if he could get a hold of power he would out-Hitler Hitler himself." (pages 32-33).

Here's another one: former political prisoner Kao Chin-lang (高金郎):

"Over the course [of preparations for the breakout] Shih Ming-teh intimidated me several times, saying that he had to be the commander because the military rank of the other [prisoners] meant they could only be middle-ranking officers. Only he had the ability to be a general, and his orders were to be obeyed on all matters. If not, he threatened to inform on all of us." (pages 131-132).

The Taiyuan Incident happened in 1970. Shih's behavior, therefore, appears to be the continuation of a decades-long pattern of self-centeredness. Being that Shih's current goal coincides with that of the pan-blues, they are overjoyed by this.

Shih's concept of democracy? "Me, me, me!" Is he "deep green"? No way! Can he be trusted? Not on your fucking life!

Now, if Johnny could only show us exactly where the money for all those "thumbs down" ads is coming from. Could it possibly be the overjoyed pan-blues? Ya think?

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Watchwords: Taiwan, 台灣, Shih Ming-teh, 施明德, Chen Shui-bian, 陳水扁, Johnny Neihu, 強尼內湖

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