At What Cost

Rest in peace, Todd Bachman. Attacked by what I can only say deranged Chinese, and likely brainwashed into believing the CCP propaganda, he and his wife were attacked and Todd eventually fell at the hands of that Chinese who eventually committed suicide. All this on the watch of "thousands" of security forces and military personnel. I guess this just shows who the Chinese really care about- themselves.

My question is, why isn't this making bigger news? It is hardly the frontpage on many of the Olympics sections on news sites, such as the Seattle Times. It's on the side as a sub-article. If this happened anywhere else, I'm sure it would be getting a lot more attention. Is this a cover-up by the Chinese who won't release any details and thus the media has nothing to write off of-- or is this China once again bullying everyone into believing this was a one time deal.

How many more may have to die before we take action? Perhaps the U.S. should do more than just express that their "thoughts and prayers are with the victim and family." At what cost will it take to finally step up. It's not so much that it was an American who died, nor that it was a Chinese who did it- but to let it happen after they were so proud of their security, and then it's nothing more than a sub-article on the frontpage?

In other news, congrats to the first "Chinese Taipei" athlete to medal, Chen Wei-Ling. For those of you who don't know, I'm actually "Chinese Taipei" for the next 15 days, after I'm Taiwanese again. Ridiculous right?

The Highlight of the Olympics Will Be...

When Taiwan wins a medal and the athlete pulls out the official national flag for Taiwan and raises it like You-Chen Liu did here in Seattle less than a year ago. Although it would probably be a lot more dangerous for a Taiwan athlete to do so in a stadium likely filled with many legions of security guards and Chinese who believe that Taiwan is a part of China. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see how China reacts on this "world-stage," and I have no doubt that they already have protocols or plans in place that would quickly bring down the athlete who raises the Taiwan flag.

It is wrong for the IOC to continue to allow China to force Taiwan to accept things at their will; it is wrong for China to force Taiwan to be "Chinese" at their will. While Taiwan is under agreement to "follow the rules" and not use the official national flag, nor the national anthem if they place, so was all parties concerned under agreement to use "Zhonghua Taipei" as the title for Taiwan in the Olympics- and yet that too had to be "re-negotiated" this time around and declared a "diplomatic victory" by Ma.

Michael Turton's resposne to a comment in his blog on the Seattle event puts it into perspective:

Comment:

Michael, the Chinese Taipei team agreed to participate under the team flag (as shown in the WCG site) - shouldn't he honor the agreement and drape himeself in the team flag?

Turton's Response:

Yes, and when blacks went on the bus in the south in the 1960s, they agreed not to sit up front too.

Yes, for the most part agreements should be followed, but when things are clearly wrong- should we just stand down and not protest? Besides that, the IOC/China/Taiwan agreement on the "Chinese Taipei" name had been agreed upon since 1989. Yet, China "protested" this agreement this past month in trying to use something along the lines of "China's Taipei" or "Zhongguo Taipei," instead of the agreed upon name of "Zhonghua Taipei" or "Chinese Taipei."

You-Chen Liu, you are our hero.


That said, with the KMT in power now, it is likely that the KMT would have serious consequences in place for the athletes if they did not adhere to the "Chinese Taipei" that is supposed to be them. Therefore, the chances of this occuring? Slim, but I'm hopeful.

Surprise Surprise

As if we didn't see it coming, China plans on calling the Taiwanese Aboriginals, "minority peoples from Taiwan." To the keen ears and eyes, this is a subtle attempt at throwing the Taiwanese Aboriginals under the scope of ethnic Chinese.

Hearing that the Taiwanese Aboriginals would be performing some things during the opening ceremonies to showcase their culture, I was pretty sure China was going to attempt to label them as a minority Chinese group, from Taiwan. Their claim to being "Taiwanese" is even more so than me and a large majority of those in Taiwan who came to Taiwan either with the KMT or long before that. They are aboriginals of Taiwan, meaning they've been there forever. If there was ever a more formal definition of Taiwanese, that is the aboriginals.

“We are Taiwanese Aborigines, we are citizens of the Republic of China. We are Taiwanese, but we are not Chinese. And we are not Chinese minorities.”

On the eve of the opening ceremonies, China has already managed to "Chinese" the Taiwanese several times. Just a few, CCTV called Taiwan's team Zhongguo Taipei even after Ma declared "diplomatic victory" for getting China to call Taiwan Zhonghua Taipei- an already agreed upon name that is nothing to be victorious about. Then putting Taiwanese close to the Chinese territories (ok, not that bad of an offense), and now the Taiwanese Aborigines are now minority peoples from Taiwan-- implying Chinese minority peoples from Taiwan.

Boy am I glad that someone like the Communist China can tell me that I'm Chinese. Much more to come in the next 16 days!

July DPP Newsletter (English)

Here's the DPP newsletter in English for the month of July:

July DPP Newsletter

By the way, I receive these monthly newsletters as I am on their (the DPP's) foreign mailing list, and you can probably contact them to receive these also by e-mailing foreign@dpp.org.tw.
And these are put out by their international affairs department, which I recently found that you can view them also on their English version of their website, here. Although it seems like the July newsletter is not yet up though. Anyways, so I will probably stop uploading them as they are easily accessible from their website.

Taiwan "Separatists"

This editorial in the China Post by the China Post news staff is a clear reminder that the goal of the KMT is unification of Taiwan with China. There should be no doubts about where they are taking things, and as such, the Taiwanese people must be aware that while Ma promised no unification during his term, the party that he is in is against him. From the first couple months, it's clear that Ma is not in the reigns, rather he has taken a back seat on national/foreign policy to KMT chariman Wu Po-Hsiung.

The view that the DPP supporters, or even all non-KMT/PFP/unificationists are "separatists" is a really far stretch. Taking a step back, if you want to stick the term "separatists" on a group of people, shouldn't the KMT be the ones that should be viewed as separatists-- fleeing to Taiwan in 1949 to set up what was to be a temporary launching pad to retake the mainland. In the end, Chiang Kai-Shek failed to do so and remained on Taiwan, thus separating from the mainland China.

Separating implies that there was some sort of unity beforehand, and yes the KMT were united with the Communists for a while, but then separated. Therefore, if you want to throw the label on someone, shouldn't it be the KMT who are the "separatists?"

And yet the staff at the China Post believe that they (the KMT) are the "good boys" and not separatists, implying a negative connotation of rebellion and a "renegade province." I'm about to confuse myself because they seem to contradict themselves here; the pan-green side are separatists living on Taiwan, but we just concluded that the KMT are the real separatists... the pan-green (I hate to generalize here, but to make my point) side is usually supported by those who came to Taiwan long before 1949, aka bensheng ren (本省人). The KMT are the ones who came in the mass exodus with Chiang Kai-Shek, who separated from the mainland as a group of people, and occupying the land of Taiwan.

It should be clear, but I guess it's not to everyone, that if you want to coin one of the groups of Taiwan as separatists, it should be the KMT, not the pan-green side.

On a side note, the terms bengsheng ren and waisheng ren are useful terms in describing people in Taiwan, but for the better of Taiwan I believe those terms should eventually be dropped. I know in the past that the DPP has used these terms in their push for identifying with people, but the two terms should and would better be replaced by a simple, daiwan lang (台灣人).

Uh, Say That Again?

As a proud supporter of Bush's tax cuts, but not so proud of his easing on China and fading encouragement for Taiwan, I seem to not understand what he meant in his latest interview. As a matter of fact, Bush seemed to have confused everyone but himself about what he actually meant. I guess I can't really comment about anything, but just to say, try again?

President Bush:

“I would say that there’s been a … it’s just been interesting to watch I would say that there’s been a — it’s just been interesting to watch, and interesting to participate with people. I mean, the Taiwan issue was a very touchy issue for a while, causing me to say in the Oval Office — that which is now well-chronicled — that the United States does not support a unilateral declaration of independence. Because I wanted to make sure that our message was clear, but also that the relationship was in a way not our relationship, but other’s relationship with China was in a way that it could evolve peacefully and constructively,”

continued...

“My only point to you is, is that — or the Taiwan-Chinese relationship and that issue. It’s a very sensitive issue for the Chinese government. And people who study this very closely will see that the issue is in a better place. And I made it abundantly clear that there was some red lines for the United States on this issue, that there would be no unilateral declaration of independence, that our policy was still the same. It’s very important for the president to be very consistent,”

Capital Gains Taxes for Taiwan

Currently Taiwan does not have capital gains taxes for things such as stocks and real-estate/land sales. According to this report in Reuters UK, the Taiwan Tax Reform Committee will be doing a study on whether to put back in place the capital gains tax. Although the report says its largely unlikely to be implemented, why would they even consider it then? Especially, as the article states, at a time like this when the market is in a slump. At least Bevan Yeh knows something about capital gains taxes and its effect on the markets.

"It's not likely that the government will impose the capital gains tax while the stock market is still struggling," said Bevan Yeh, fund manager at Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust.

Can't say the same for the Democrats in the United States. Although we already have a good ~30% tax on short-term gains, and 15% on long-term gains, Obama feels the need to strip the tax break given to those "rich" Americans, which apparently Obama considers me as since I'm a college student who is working part-time, but invests in stocks. Maybe the Democrats need to learn from people like Mr. Yeh in Taiwan- raising capital gains tax during a recession and a bear market is only going to send stocks down further. When people start seeing their account values of their stock account continue to slide, they get scared and pull out- that's when we get a crash.