KMT = China's Tool? Say It Ain't So

Could it actually be possible for the KMT to fool half of the people in Taiwan into believing that they are actually for a Taiwan who's future is determined by the people of Taiwan? You may say that they still believe in the KMT and the words they say. I say, how long will it take for them to realize that they've been tricked?

A "top Chinese official" has stated that they will attempt to control the president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-Jeou, through their CCP-KMT love party connection. The intentions of China have never been clearer, and yet on the other side, the intentions of the leader of Taiwan have never been more vague and direction-less than ever before. While China continues its military buildup along the strait and throws candy at Taiwan to distract Taiwan from seeing that they secretly will take back all the candy that they gave in the end, Ma Ying-Jeou hasn't even begun to take the steering wheel to determine a direction for Taiwan.

Ma's three No's policies of: 1) No unification, 2) No independence, and 3) no use of force.

The first of which reads in full, "no negotiations for unification during my presidential term[s]."

Perhaps Ma isn't negotiating any sort of deals for unification. But as we've seen in the first 3 months of his term, it is not Ma who is in control, it is the KMT and Wu Poh-Hsiung who are making the calls right now. It really is sad to see a president who really has no control over his country, let alone his own party.

Thank You China For What Was Already Ours

Today's piece in the China Post about China's "goodwill," by having one of their news services use the name Zhonghua Taibei instead of Zhongguo Taibei, is just another example of how low Ma is taking Taiwan.

The usage of Zhonghua Taibei has been agreed upon by the concerned parties since 1989. Also, note that the agreed upon name for Taiwan is for the internationally sanctioned activities/games. It does not require local media to do so. So in a way, yes, this is China's "goodwill" as they are not required to use Zhonghua Taibei, but taking a step back-- they should be using it anyways as it is the official title for Taiwan in international games. For them to have been using Zhongguo Taibei is just their own ploy to keep their billions of minions believing the propaganda that Taiwan "is and will always be a part of China."

An interesting note is that since there is also the agreed upon flag to use for Taiwan in international games (the "Chinese Taipei flag"), not all media in the past has displayed that flag during their coverage of games. According to wikipedia (which is not the best of all sources, I agree):

The flag, however, is not recognized on some media references. In 1992, during the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, CBS used the flag of the Republic of China with the official "TPE" code. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, the Australian Baseball Federation Web site used a waving National Flag of the ROC to refer to the island country. Many news networks and web sites also prefer to use the National Flag of the Republic of China rather than the designated Chinese Taipei flag.

The reach of China has extended too far. For anyone to consider this as "goodwill" is out of their minds.

"633" Update

Ma Ying-Jeou, a step in the right direction!

- 6% GDP Growth Annually
- 3% Unemployment rate by 2012
- $30,000 Per Capita Income by 2012

Latest figures on unemployment rate in Taiwan indicate that it has risen to 3.95%. But he's only been in office for 2 or so months, so there's still another 3 years and 10 months to get it down to 3%. Also, don't forget that Goldman Sachs is forecasting GDP Growths for 08 and 09 below 6%, at 4.5% and 4.8% respectively. Things don't look to well for the "633" pledges. As far as Per Capita GDP, currently Taiwan is at or around $16,800. Nearly doubling by 2012 is going to be tough as well.

EVA Air: Sorry To Ruin Your Hopes And Dreams

Glancing over the Taiwan related news for the past few days on China Post, I clicked on "EVA Air suspends hiring their newly recruited flight attendants."

My question is, is being a flight attendant/stewardess really that glamorous and "well-paid?" I met an ex-stewardess last time I was in Taiwan and from the conversation it didn't seem like she thought much of her time being a China Airlines flight attendant. She now works in a store selling womens clothes, and I know working in a store selling clothes does not pay that well. So, either EVA Air pays a lot more than China Airlines, or the news staff at China Post have no idea what they are talking about.

It sort of seems like this article was done in a sarcastic way, but it appeared as a regular news article in the Taiwan > Business section online. Weird.

From the article:

As for the 35 recruits, they can't imagine that their dreams of becoming enviable, well-paid stewardesses are finally dashed after three months of hard efforts in ploughing through various tests.

Administration Lifts Cap on China Investments

In another non-surprising move, Taiwan is opening up more of itself to China. Looking at this from a purely market view, allowing more capital to flow into China benefits China first, not so much Taiwan. I find it hard to believe that practically no one is cautioning Taiwan on relying so much on China for an economic boost.

China is a bubble that has been years in the making, and with the Olympics finally here in less than a month, the chances of that bubble popping greatly increases after the Olympics. So what a perfect time for Taiwan to get invested in China, right at the top, right before the downfall.

Taiwan was late to the China game. While we still may see some upside in China investments, I'm afraid Taiwan is going to get "caught with its pants down" as many like to put it. It just doesn't make sense. Capital outflow will not help the TAIEX get any ground.

Tired of Commenting on Digg; What A Large % Of The U.S. Think (Most Likely)

So I just spent the last 25-30 minutes or so reading and responding to comments on this article (on Digg.com) about the U.S. arms freeze to Taiwan.

I just decided to give up because there's way too many people on there that just are not familiar with the situation. Here's a sample of a lot of the misinformed comments I saw on Taiwan/China/U.S:

Article Buried. If you've heard lately Mainland China and Taiwan have opened up direct flights between each country.

Submitter doesn't understand the improved relations that the two countries share in recent times. Stop these Sino mongering and smear campaigns. It's despicable.

The improved relations is a farce that the western media is setting up. While Taiwan has made many concessions in getting those direct flights, China continues their military build-up against Taiwan, as well as continuing their word games with Taiwan's Olympic name, "Zhonghua Taipei."

Um, Taiwan is China's territory now. Is somebody trying to make the case that the United States should not honor the sovereignty of China? Why is it that Americans hold a double-standard for the world? We get angry at people defending their country by attacking an occupying army from a foreign country (think Iraq), and we get mad at another country for asking us not to sell arms to states that rightfully belong to them. WTF?

No real comment here, except to spend just 5 minutes, or even 3 minutes, googling the history of Taiwan. China has never had any sort of legitimate claim to Taiwan, especially the PRC, which made up their claim to Taiwan after WWII.

What conquest of what neighbors? Tibet has been part of China for hundreds of years and why would China give a shit about a little piece of crap island like Taiwan? And do you have any sort of "proof" that China is trying to take over other countries?

If China didn't "give a shit" about a "piece of crap island like Taiwan," then why does China propagandize the "shit" out of the "renegade province Taiwan." Oh, and lets just ignore the fact that the whole complication of Taiwan-U.S. relations is the fact that China wants Taiwan at all costs, "by force if necessary."

Aren't China and Taiwan playing nice with each other these days?

Same as above.

So what if the US don't sell weapons to Taiwan, even with our weapons Taiwan doesn't have the sort of military to fend off whatever that China has before any help arrives. Besides Taiwan is one of the four Asian Tigers, meaning areas with the strongest economical growth and technology development. China is trying to get Taiwan back in one piece, on the political stage rather than brute military force, which will definitely draw international attention and perhaps World War III.

I'm afraid this person doesn't understand China and the people of Chinese enough. China is still a very imperialistic country and the people have an extreme nationalism about "China," especially the Han Chinese. As a result, they would rather kill everyone on Taiwan (which many mainlanders consider "dogs" even though they call Taiwanese "brothers" in the same sentence) than let Taiwan become independent-- of which they have no legitimate claim to Taiwan.

China has our nuts in a sling and we all know it.

Pretty much the only truth I saw in the comments section.

Maybe If Keep Saying "China," We Can Inherit Their Economic Growth

At election time, the constant refrain and mantra in Taiwan was, "Our economy is so bad, we need a change."

Excellent editorial piece by Jerome Keating, on Taiwan and Presdient Ma after just under 2 months into his presidency : http://zen.sandiego.edu:8080/Jerome/1215568227/index_html

In short, Ma, the KMT, and the largely pro-KMT media in Taiwan led the people in Taiwan to believe that what they need to be concerned about is the economy. Sure, that's a reasonable issue to be concerned about- something I'm concerned about here. During the election campaign, Ma blamed the "bad economy" of Taiwan as a result of Chen Shui-bian. That "bad economy" was actually quite good last year at over 5% GDP growth. And now that Ma is in his second month and the economy of Taiwan is even worse than before. And as Keating so elegantly puts it:

"Before the election, even though the world economy was bad and Taiwan's economy was fair it was not a global problem; it was Chen's fault. After the election when Taiwan suddenly discovered that the world economy had been bad all along and when Taiwan's economy became worse, this was not Ma's fault, it was a global problem. Logic? No, but that also is not a strong point of many of Taiwan voters."

So what used to be called a bad economy two months ago is now an economy where the "fundamentals are sound."

The problem in not admitting that there is a problem (with the economy) is that without admitting that there is a problem, you can't solve the problem. See the problem now?

This should be a simple reminder that one man cannot "change" everything and solve all the nations problems. Say Obama?