Taiwan Spitting in the face of Change

On Friday, TSMC announced plans to invest US$12 billion to build

 the 5 nanometer fab, saying that construction is scheduled to start next year.

          One hand washes the other but in this time of changing priorities, Taiwan is spitting in the face of changing priorities and distancing itself from China, its cultural cohort in everything but capitalism and exploitation. First it was FOXCONN making a deal to undercut American unions with a factory in Wisconsin, now it is TSMC ready to have union free workers exploited on American soil in Arizona.  In both cases, the workforce in Taiwan gets the short end of the deal with migrant silicon valley workers from India exploited even further and keeping Taiwanese workers underpaid and overworked. This is the reward the US gives Taiwan for distancing itself from China while the real gift of independence for Taiwan has been taken off the table by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Tsai Ying-Wen. How does the clandestine US presence in Taiwan  and English dependency work to make Taiwan America's eyes on China, blind to its own self-determination?  

          Formosan Association for Public affairs (FAPA), located in the US to lobby congressmen and senators to support Taiwan-related Bills posted this: The Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act was signed into law by President Trump last week. The remaining Taiwan-related bills in the Congress include Senate's Taiwan Assurance Act (S.878), Senate's WHO bill (S.249), House's Taiwan Envoy Act (H.R.5535), House's Employment Fairness for Taiwan Act of 2020 (H.R.6014), and Taiwan Symbols of Sovereignty Act (S.3310 & H.R.6287).” They also want support to force China Airlines to change its name to reflect its Taiwan home base so they can skirt prejudice against “real” Chinese. Taiwan’s Minister for Transportation and Communications, Lin Chia-lung, said his ministry has an “open mind” to changing the carrier’s name, but notes that “because [the carrier] is a listed company, [we] need to respect the shareholders’ and public’s opinions”. Will they wear “We are NOT Japanese” type buttons as the Chinese did in the U.S. during internment of Japanese citizens during WW II? Asians of all nations are victims of vicious racist attacks in the U.S. And the DPP through FAPA sees the US as Taiwan’s friend?  

          Taiwan’s government is clearly betting on the wrong horse to the detriment of its working class. In passive-aggressive manor, Taiwan’s DPP threw insult at the WHO for not recognizing being left out; Taiwan is part of China and should defer to her; indeed, they mimicked her response without acknowledgment. By doing as well or better than China and Hong Kong in controlling the outbreak, Taiwan has a “we’ll show them” combative attitude.

          Some supporters of Tsai Ying-Wen’s campaign to smear the WHO for not dealing with Taiwan separately from China allegedly insulted the WHO personally and sent death threats. The WHO leader fought back. Taiwan led the way in suspicion and deriding China’s response to the outbreak in the beginning mentioning “Wuhan” a thousand times a day in the media “white-man” washing of the true nature of a pandemic; it belongs to all nations unprepared to care for their common people, not China alone, though it served Taiwanese well the precautions taken, but now the DPP is riding Trump’s racist coattails, against its social cohort.

          The UN agency has come under continued fire from Trump, who mirrors Tsai Ying-Wen’s accusation that the WHO is “very China-centric” and has ended funding.

          Speaking on Wednesday, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the WHO's work and called for an end to the politicization of COVID-19.

          The disease first emerged last December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has just ended an 11-week lock-down. An advisor to the WHO chief earlier said their close work with China had been "absolutely essential" in understanding the disease in its early stages.

         Trump's attacks on the WHO come in the context of criticism of his own administration's handling of the pandemic, especially early problems with US testing.

The WHO approved a corona-virus test in January - but the US decided against using it, developing its own test instead. However, in February, when the testing kits were dispatched, some of them did not work properly, and led to inconclusive results.

Public health experts say the delay enabled the virus to spread further within the US.

          Dr Tedros said he had been at the receiving end of racist comments for the past two to three months. "Giving me names, black or negro," he said. "I'm proud of being black, or proud of being Negro." He then said he had received death threats, adding: "I don't give a damn." The WHO chief said the abuse had originated from Taiwan, "and the foreign ministry didn't disassociate" itself from it.

          "For years, we have been excluded from international organizations, and we know better than anyone else what it feels like to be discriminated against and isolated," Reuters news agency quoted her as saying. "If Director-General Tedros could withstand pressure from China and come to Taiwan to see Taiwan's efforts to fight Covid-19 for himself, he would be able to see that the Taiwanese people are the true victims of unfair treatment."

          Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said the comments were "irresponsible" and the accusations "imaginary". The ministry said it was seeking an apology for "slander", AFP news agency reported.

          FAPA (Formosan Association of Public Affairs) is the Taiwanese-American lobby group that funnels millions of dollars to senators and congressmen to influence their stance towards Taiwan province’s de facto separation from the People's Republic of China. They originally were mostly middle-aged independence advocates with a smattering of easy-chair socialists but now they are elderly, with no new generation, and have given up their ideals to see Taiwan as a 51st State and Taiwan ties to the US stronger than with its cultural cohort 129 miles across the Strait. Instead of acknowledging the influence from China establishing policy that mirrored its quick and effective reaction to the virus outbreak in late January, FAPA and the ruling DPP want to ride Trump's coattails in blaming China for America's problem of unpreparedness and aiding the CIA in further distancing reunification, not for Taiwanese benefit alone. Too bad that the KMT used a populist approach supporting a clown that rivaled Trump for the presidency, and lost momentum of a populace reeling from a 20 year failing economy and underpaid work force; indeed losing workers to China that paid higher wages. Taiwan has become Asia's Florida; 1 out of 4 citizens over 65 and legally holding duel US passports. The lies the DPP is spreading (65,000 people died from COVID-19 in China, for example) and supporting the renaming of China Airlines (how about China Petroleum, China University Hospital, etc.) because it has given Taiwan a bad name is ludicrous.

          Using the WHO's refusal to address Taiwan's demand for consideration, embarrassing themselves at news conferences, and taking Trump's tract of blaming China, calling the WHO China's proxy, will not work as the proof is in the pudding; at least 20,000 confirmed US deaths (out of a quarter billion) to China's lock-downed Hubei Provence's 3,000 (saving the more than billion people outside Wuhan) is a figure that over a hundred nations in the WHO recognize as reality. Taiwan is riding the wrong horse into the future and I fear it will come to no good. How long can the American bubble in Taiwan last when the bubble-blowers in the White House and Senate is running out of soap. I don't fly China Airlines because the food sucks, the seats are tight, the cost is high, and the equipment is old, nor do I fly Air China with its poor handling and bureaucratic transfers. Changing the name of either airline will make no difference to me or most savvy travelers. 

           FAPA's renewed demand that China Airlines be renamed because 'China was giving it a bad name.' That bad name is the fault of racist Euro-Americans like Trump blaming instead of congratulating China for its fast and effective response to the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. I wouldn't fly China Airlines or Air China if they were both renamed Trans Love Airways; both airlines suck. This red herring is FAPA's only recourse to admitting it's lobbying from a sinking ship.

          The lie the US and Taiwan are spreading about the WHO not telling the world of the danger. I wrote in an article Jan. 20: “Yesterday, the World Health Organization said the virus represents a risk outside of China as the United States reported its first case of person-to-person transmission.” They did indeed tell the US and the world to be prepared.

          The hilarity of Taiwan's DPP rejection of China while pandering to the US and feigning independence is too much. Tsai Ying-Wen has given up the fight for Taiwan independence

          Meanwhile, the English media in Taiwan is controlled by the US, the defense is supported and backed by the US, English is taught from primary school up, most government officials and ruling class hold US passports, US citizens have special visa privileges here, the Taiwan dollar exchange is according to the US. Most NGO's are from the US, the church is beholden to the US, street signs and weapon instructions, propaganda in line with US, MSN, Facebook and Google given free access to private date, Lockheed-Martin research tied to US CIA, shall I continue? Okay. The US helped rescue CKS and turned a blind eye to the 228 Massacre, US fast food chains, clothing, music, and culture of US origin... Taiwan is OWNED by the US CIA, surveillance, and it's not symbiotic; they will and have jerked Taiwan around for 70 years playing both sides KMT and DPP; every Taiwan president has secret briefings with the US before taking office (except maybe Lee Tung-Huai who told the US they weren't his father) and now most COVID-19 cases are FROM THE US, NOT CHINA as they let their guard down to US-European repatriation. American youth are here in droves paraprofessionals using Taiwan as a way-station to touring the world. You're not denying that Taiwan is a vassal of the U.S. more than any other land? Its Chinese cohort is stymied.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

10 Reasons Taiwan Does Not Suffer From COVID-19

Add Taiwan to the Statue's Middle Finger

I am a New York ESL teacher but, after living in Taiwan for fourteen years, stating in 1979, including the last seven, being fluent in Mandarin, and having been married to two Taiwanese women totaling thirty-eight years, I understand the Taiwanese people better than most foreigners do, indeed, sometimes more than the Taiwanese themselves. Despite what the Taiwan government tells the world media, I know the real reason why only 429 people are infected and only 6 have died from COVID-19 in four months since becoming alerted to it in January 2020. Here are the 10 reasons why our precautionary measures have limited the ill-effect the virus has had on us in Taiwan :

Reason #1

Number one is that the vice president in Taiwan is the man who led the fight against SARS in Taiwan in 2003. At that time, China covered up the epidemic not knowing what it was. Taipei City suffered the first outbreak of 137 infections and 26 deaths. This alarmed the ruling class affected directly more than others outside the capital. In all, there were 664 cases reported. With memories of the virus that caused the death of so many, vice-president, Chen Chien-jen, who was formerly an epidemiologist and VP of Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top research institution, went into action again. Because he knew what to do to safeguard the public, and because he brought his distrust of China to the COVID-19 epidemic, Taiwan's response was successful.  Partial to the west through his Christian background and anti-China unification, his motivation was sealed. 

Reason #2

Secondly, Taiwanese people are highly distrustful of each other. It is thought that the other person will do you harm and there is significant subliminal distancing that occurs between people here and much inconsideration for others. Rarely will drivers yield to others or let pedestrians cross the street. In the same way, having a stranger babysit or dog sit, even someone who they may know from school or the neighborhood, is almost unheard of in Taiwan because people are afraid this stranger will steal something in the house. As a result, people took the threat from others seriously and followed directives. People wash their hands and wear surgical masks, not to prevent their disease from being caught by others, but because they are sure others are giving the disease to them.

Reason #3

Number three the Chinese custom of saving face - not embarrassing others in public - is a major reason why Taiwan did not suffer. The saving face occurred when Taiwan government was made aware of a campaign in China to limits the number of cases, the tracing of people and places. Not to be outdone and lose face, these methods of containment was also used in Taiwan, without crediting China for the heads-up. The thought that more people would suffer in Taiwan then in China was unthinkable. It would have meant the loss of face of Taiwan to the world. For this reason, the WHO support of China’s handling the outbreak was condemned as China-friendly by Taiwan and gave the signal for Trump to blame the WHO to de-fund it. When Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed racist threats made to him on the internet, Taiwan government lost face and attacked the WHO more, telling people it couldn't be relied upon to help them. They doubled their effort. 

Reason #4

The fourth reason is Taiwan’s location. Even though Taiwan is only 129 miles from the Chinese coast, and 600 miles from Wuhan, it may as well be on the other side of the earth. Taiwan is an isolated island in Asia. Extreme scrutiny was exercised  of international flights between Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Other nations, thinking Taiwan part of China, distanced themselves for us. It enabled the campaign to work containing the epidemic by having every visitor from China and Asia examined for fever and tested for presence of the virus. There were a limited number of visitors, especially from China, coming to Taiwan in the months after the realization of the epidemic danger. Exchange students were stopped. Tour groups were not permitted to enter or leave. Groups and cruise ships that had entered before the danger were quarantined and tested. As an island, Taiwan benefited from total isolation of the Strait between it and China and control of its borders both air and sea. Even  fisherman had to report any contacts that they had with sailors from China. Tour group were given close scrutiny and the outbreak was contained, until visitors infected in Europe and the USA were let in and precautions were tightened to the west, too. 

Reason #5

The fifth reason that Taiwan did not suffer from the epidemic is because it came on the cusp of the anti-China demonstrations in Hong Kong. Taiwan fear-mongering that intensified anti-China sentiment disguised as ‘pro-democracy’ was utilized  to inflate every stereotype and misconception about China to the people of Taiwan through the island-wide media and CNN, ICRT, the only English language radio station, and MSN  internet and social media. In this way. any contradictory facts about the corona-virus favorable to China were down-played and the illusion of Taiwan unilateral attack of the virus was promoted. The distrust perpetuated by  President Tsai Ying-Wen  of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was a major factor in controlling information about the virus including the spreading of rumors (For example, claiming 60,000 fatalities in China) and distrusting Chinese research Added to the Hong Kong distrust of Chinese promoted for presidential election, the COVID-19 attack was a way of extending the distrust created between Taiwan and China.

Reason #6

Number 6 is that the Taiwanese, like their Chinese cohort, are, as the famous saying goes, controlled by three material factors in life: saving face, wealth, and the fear of dying, though the revolution has made China less susceptible to private corruption and more capable of standing up to business interests. This fear of dying enabled the coordinated ubiquitous control of the epidemic at the earliest stage possible. Taiwan didn't have thirty-eight years of world-record martial law for nothing. The sacred cow, free universal healthcare, enabled everybody who needed and wanted to be checked for the virus to do so free of charge, without losing any money. The tents set up outside hospitals immediately gave free testing to anybody who suspected they were infected. There was no price gouging and the hoarders selling on the internet them were caught and punished. The face was saved by blaming China and the United Nations World Health Organization and not making a big deal about the United States blaming the same scapegoats; that would make Tsai Ying-Wen's government lose face if people knew she was on the same side as Donald Trump as well as conservatives in both US parties. Not many are dying here from the virus because no hospital wants the stigma; I must be tested for fever every time I go in for a check-up and I must have on a mask. The navy commanders that didn't report an ship with infected sailors had to bend over and apologize profusely, get demoted, but not face trial, certainly not be fired like the whistle-blowing US commander was, 

Reason #7

The seventh reason is the common use of surgical masks in Taiwan society. Everybody in Taiwan is used to wearing facial masks. The habit stems from the SARS epidemic of 2003. In addition to the precaution of wearing masks against disease, people wear masks regularly because of the high pollution level in the air. Taiwanese have been wearing masks in a society where half the people get around on motorcycles and scooters. Many motorcycle and scooter riders have been wearing for many years. There are a number of mask producing factories in Taiwan. In addition, there is outsourcing of mass production from mainland Chinese entrepreneurs that fill Taiwan with enough masks of every shape and size for everyone who wants to wear one, and they are inexpensive. Every drugstore, every convenience store, every supermarket has a shelf with a number of masks that one can select. It has been part of Taiwan culture to wear masks long before the COVID-19 virus made it necessary to avoid contact from spittle of infected carriers. We also have swabs, testers, and everything else needed for doctors and nurses to control the virus.

Reason #8

The eighth reason is decidedly racist. Taiwanese, even those with family in China, think their Chinese brethren eat dirty unhealthy food and the USA white people eat clean food (Oy-vay, how they love Jews who are kosher. Taiwanese think we are  brilliant and rich; there are dozens of books here about how great we are.) Taiwanese people, are mostly immigrants and descendants of Chinese. (The indigenous people mostly vote for re-unification KMT candidates but that's another story.)  Though a majority of people emigrated from China at some point, people thought the virus was theirs since it had not affect people outside of Asia the first few months; certainly the media repeated Wuhan a million times a day. It must be a disease that Chinese are susceptible to it while white people are not.  The irony is that though there were only six deaths + 100 cases from China the first few months, hundreds of cases of COVID-19 were allowed into Taiwan on flights from Europe and America because the authorities left the back door open thinking that's there would not be any epidemic in those parts of the world. Now it's closed, too. There is an inferiority complex that exists in Taiwan after seventy years of Western influence by the United States, most Taiwanese believe that white people are healthier than the strange foods admired Chinese cohorts. Well, not any more with most deaths and infections not from Asia. 

Reason #9

The ninth reason is that the team investigating and coordinating the virus reaction is non-partisan. Politics has not gotten in the way of science in Taiwan. There has been an occasional demagogue that disregards the national edict and tells their local people the wrong information, as politicians in France and England and Italy and the United States have done. But in Taiwan it is confronted with the truth immediately and the island-wide media is able to contradict any illogical politically motivated subterfuge.

Reason #10

The tenth reason is the homogeneous society in Taiwan. There is no racial mistrust, separate treatments for rich and poor, or other divisive factors such as one's religious beliefs or superstitions; only a sexist attitude towards women, thanks to Confucian  influence.  Most people here are of the same cultural cohort and there is little division because of the color of one's skin. Religion is not a factor in discrimination as it is in the US where many Judaeo-Christians think G-d will prevent them from getting sick and masks are unnecessary. It has jeopardized the safety measures there but not in Taiwan.  Where white supremacy and prejudice prevail, where rich get treatment and poor don't, it has torpedoed the united front necessary to confront the pandemic; not in Taiwan.

In short, Taiwan, with a history of mistrust of China, from both political parties, and socialist based system heralded by thirty-eight years of martial law dictatorship, has the unified cultural and spiritual togetherness that makes it easy for a top-down society to implement precautionary measures without distrust on the basis of sex, religion, age, culture, or racial background. In conclusion, we can thank the People's Republic of China, directly and indirectly, for our excellent response and containment of the pandemic in Taiwan.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Not China's fault; Blame Your Own Government

          Selma, my Zionist, red-blooded American-Jew relative, sent an e-mail from a site called “Today’s Israel Connection” with a teaser: “Brigitte Gabriel admits what no one else will about China”; a well-dressed middle aged woman complaining about American-used products (including military [though she is too ignorant to realize the war stuff is made in Taiwan, Provence of China]). I wrote back, not to educate Selma, because she is not capable of learning anymore, but for a blog piece I have written to be equally ignored. 

          The British East India Company fed China opium in the 19th century and the western colonial powers carved up China into little fiefdoms. After China pulled back from the Cultural Revolution, it being too much too soon in development towards communism, the U.S. and the capitalist west obliged their market reforms by letting companies outsource operations there to avoid environmental, workplace safety, and low overhead, meanwhile, charging Americans the same price items cost when made stateside. Materialism is capitalism's opium, selling stuff people don't really need, polluting the planet and enriching the stock holders on Wall Street.

           China's plan, and it was done successfully, was to gradually learn the best business practices, discard the worst, and raise the living standard of all its people, especially in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) along its coast, and gradually move production inland lifting most of Chinese people out of poverty. The government never lost control of business and centrally planned many initiatives. Temporary minority share of foreign leases of property was the deal. Along the way, they developed their own technology that surpassed the west's, and an infrastructure that is recognized around the world, making the US look like a third world nation; unbelievably, the US has no high speed rail and its electric grid looks like a street in Mumbai with wires everywhere, susceptible to the weather and blackouts.

           It is not a matter of bringing industry home to the US; the industry is wasteful and harmful to American workers, the health standards have been decimated by Reps and Dems alike, unions have been attacked by both in Washington, too. What the US needs is a Green initiative, such as Europe and China have been investing for in the 21st century, reducing carbon emissions from coal usage and developing a better world. The US and the west failed where China succeeded and has had a taste of its own medicine destroying the livelihood of Americans; just like the shabby response to COVID-19. Outsourced for cheap labor and mismanaged response to a human virus? It is not China's fault; blame your own government in bed with corporations with its own greedy leaders, not unlike the brutal colonizers that tried to steal China from its own people. The US corporate government has stolen America from its own workers.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Sympathy for an Anti-China American Worker

          I shared a news report I got on Facebook by George Yeo on April 21, from "Mothership" entitled “COVID-19 putting China in position of political advantage. They may just emerge as a big winner while the rest of the world struggles to contain the outbreak.” In this article, which first appeared on Brunswick on Apr. 16, George Yeo,  a Brunswick Geopolitical Principal and former Singapore Cabinet member for Health (1994–97), Trade and Industry (1999–2004) and Foreign Affairs (2004–11) and a non-executive Advisor to "Mothership". In it, he says “The Chinese authorities made 'serious mistakes' in their initial response to COVID-19 between Dec. 2019 and Jan. 2020. However, the Chinese central government took the right call on the most critical decision -- locking down Wuhan, which saved the country and bought the world a few weeks. It was unfortunately not put to good use. China's uniquely centralized system has allowed it to bring down the number of new cases, while the rest of the world now struggles with the fallout. This has placed China in a position of political advantage and to emerge as a winner from the crisis, provided it does not overplay its hand.”

          A few stateside friends commented on my shared post, one positively, one not so; he said he didn’t think  communism was good, to which I replied “But it saved a billion people in China and has lessened their dependence on other nations commercial needs. Poverty is greatly reduced, and wages in coastal cities are higher than Taiwan." I asked if he didn't wish the US could have helped its people the way China has.”  He replied “No. Don't forget about China's communism. It is a huge blemish on whatever accomplishment fulfilled” to which I replied “Communism is good. It is good for a central government to care for the needs of all its people.”

          That was when I got comments from a recent Facebook friend, Neil, who, while not a man freed from US propaganda, is otherwise progressive in liking my pro-worker shares. He chimed in with two irrelevant articles condemning China, first from Amnesty International July 9, 2018, entitled “Third Anniversary of the lawyers crackdown in China: Where are the human rights lawyers, and saying “It’s already been three years since China launched a crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists across the country. Starting on 9 July 2015, nearly 250 targeted individuals were questioned or detained by state security agents.” Another, a two month old report from The Guardian entitled “Doctor who blew whistle over coronavirus has died, hospital says. Early reports of death of Li Wen-Liang were retracted, only for doctor to succumb to disease later in day.” Neil’s point, though irrelevant to my initial, was that China did not care for its own people’s freedom of speech or health.

          I pointed out that statements like this: "This is just the kind of arbitrary and unreasonable behavior you get in a system where there are no limits on power and the authorities can simply do whatever they please" show the prejudiced slant on China's system from AI. Surely you can't have the multitude of divergent opinion in a one party state. Do you want to see the chaos that has caused 50k deaths from COVID-19, 20k from the common flu, opioid addiction, white supremacists with a privileged ruling class for a society of s billion people?!? There are ways to influence local level policy in China but the chaos of corrupt government capitalism, or the advocacy of such, is not how to safeguard the progress China has made. When Amnesty international investigates the corrupt foundation of Taiwan and other capitalist police states there will be a blue moon. It is a "pro-democracy" NGO, anti-China and any nation on the road to socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, or communism. That this doctor's family has condemned how his unfortunate death has been used in Taiwan and other anti-China states. He is a hero to the Chinese people, and to me, not a toy to manipulate in Western media. He didn’t care what I said

          I wondered if, as a US citizen, perhaps he had not suffered enough through neo-liberal politics and pointed out the absence of social medicine and education in the US and other ruling class dominated stated, the 99% under class. He not only didn’t care what he said but he went off on a defensive tangent saying my comment on AI, “though different your references (those, fabulously ignorant) perfectly mirrors that of the right wing Israeli government and its sycophants: a shared, irrational hatred...I could say a lot a more... (E.g., local Chinese officials take their orders from Communist Central and are blamed whenever those are mistaken or objected to by the public...well documented) He not only called my references “fabulously ignorant” but compared my criticism of AI accusations of China to Israel’s! 

          “Not suffered enough?” he asked rhetorically as if insulted.  “Oh my...I was a militant union steel worker. I have lived in a barrio for 28 years. I am (was) a simple tradesman. My S.S. does not cover my rent. I stand in food lines. My Medicaid will soon be threatened. I am an advanced cancer patient on chemotherapy...” for which I do have sympathy

          But then he calls me a hypocrite for posting an Earth Day cartoon by Robert Crumb. “You post a comic by Crumb which waters "decentralization". Do you really believe that? You refuse to speak to political oppression in China...I might infer a middle class socialist fake with "self-esteem issues"...Or the simple inability to be honest. Don't reply...I am not interested.” Okay. This guy wants to fight so I put on my gloves.

          “You silly human being,” I wrote jokingly. “Are you unable to deal with an opinion different from your own? I strongly suggest that you double your efforts to clean up your own backyard before you start working on others backyards who you have never visited. What you refuse to understand is what is necessarily right in one system of government is not necessarily right in another. Robert crumb is completely right in saying that decentralization would improve the lives of people in the United States because the central government in the United States is not interested in the welfare of the common people. In China, on the other hand, the central government is obliged to care for the 1 billion people under its auspices if not for the sake of deferring any insurrection then for the altruistic Chinese concept of social development which has existed in their society for over five thousand years. You can't take one idea and say that it's true for every government.

          “Having some states lock down and some not lock down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.” I saw this cute meme supporting my viewpoint and IM’d him hoping to draw the conversation away from public posting. “That’s why,” I said, “You need to be decentralized until there's a reason to come together under one umbrella. It takes a civil war for that to happen. Are you willing to participate or do you just want to criticize other people's points of view? China already had it civil war the good guys won. America had the civil war and everything was the same after as it was before. They need another one don't you think so?”

          He hadn’t read it until three hours later, after changing his mind about me not replying to him because he was not interested. “Well, I will contradict myself and reply...I refuse to deal with a person whose opinion is founded on ignorant illusions (the last, a simplistic view about Chinese history based on the dubious Marxian theory of the "Asiatic mode of production"...which he borrowed from bourgeois observers) or bad faith mendacity....But most of all, one who ignores the repression of free speech (which Marx, if challenged, would have not ignored...) Done...” he short shifted me again. But I wasn’t finished, whether he looked, as I now see he did, or didn’t.

          “You’re confusing free expression of thoughts with something else, I said. “Can you count how many times the West has tried to subvert China? Have you heard of the CIA in Tibet? Have you heard of the non-government organizations representing America tearing apart Hong Kong? Have you heard about the last Western colony on Chinese soil called Taiwan? Have you heard about the Northwest Chinese education of Muslim called concentration camps by Western media? And by the way have you heard of a little virus called COVID-19 that the West claims was manufactured or originated in a city called Wuhan? How many times do you want the West to sabotage the revolution in China?”

          I had hit on Hong Kong subterfuge from Western NGO’s and that got Neil agitated enough to send another biased article from ESSF with the Democracy Now take on the "attack on democracy"  referring to the chaos that resulted from the Hong Kong government’s attempt to fix a loophole preventing them from prosecuting a murderer from Taiwan by extraditing him to China, an article on impractical altruism typical of anarchists “Not Dogma: A Left Case for Hong Kong Self-Determination from  April 3 2020, by LI Promise, another ignorant take on the clueless Hong Kong upper class bourgeois.That I had seen before.

          “Our principles of left internationalism and anti-discrimination aim toward the ever-increasing capacity of ordinary people to collectively think for themselves and democratically determine their own lives with others. The left must struggle alongside the masses in the collective struggle for self-determination, not to reify national borders or set up layers of exclusion, but to witness a basic reality of democratic thinking that would stimulate and guide our internationalist commitments for a more equitable society for all.” Isn’t that altruism for you?”

          I replied and reminded him I live in Taiwan and have been to Hong Kong enough to know how arrogant most people there are towards working class Chinese, African and Islamic day laborers.

          I will not unfriend Neil though he insulted me a few times; I have sympathy for a working man, on chemotherapy no less, but he shouldn’t leave this earth afraid of China gaining dominance over neo-liberal capitalism; he should be proud that our side won.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

The Truth about Tibet in the PRC

     I finally watched the 1997 Hollywood production of "Seven Years in Tibet", starring Sean Penn, after starting the paperback autobiography of Heinrich Harrer a few weeks before. I was up to page forty-six and he was about to enter Tibet. The movie is quite different from the British 1956 Great Pan paperback edition of the book I found in a Pittsburgh used book store. I also happened to find and start reading A Tibetan Revolutionary, a book I got last year at an Eslite clearance here in Taichung. It is the autobiography of Bapa Phüntso Wangye, a Tibetan man who lived in the same time period. I trust his point of view more than the movie version's with its anti-China propaganda. I also trust Harrer that the rest of his autobiography will be as fair as the beginning and a lot more truthful than the Hollywood film.

     It is interesting juxtaposing the story of the Tibetan Revolutionary, Phünwang (he is named Phuntsok Wangyal in Wikipedia, the form given in the Dalai Lama's autobiography Freedom in Exile) with the story of the stranded Austrian from Seven Years in Tibet, (1943-1950) Heinrich Harrer, with his degenerated autobiography in the Brad Pitt Hollywood version. It is also bizarre the points-of-view from the introduction in the 1956 paperback from which I read and the introductions of the reissued editions. The 1956 edition had yet to see the Chinese Communist clampdown or flight of the Dalai Lama in 1959. Instead it glories in the British Victorian colonialism Younghusband the Brit that opened Tibet to English interference in 1903 and took it over in 1911 to add it to India, Nepal, and nations subdued by imperialism.

     The Harrer expedition of 1942 after his escape from a British POW camp (he was from a Nazi nation) in India has him enter Lhasa from the southwest while Phünwang enters from the east near the Chinese border in 1950, Harrier from 1943 to 1950. I wonder if they might have passed one another in the streets. In the 1950’s, Phünwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan in the Chinese Communist Party and may have been one of the three unidentified vilified Communist Party delegates sent to meet the Dalai Lama in 1950. Harrer may have seen him then.  Harrier was an athlete and adventurer that grabbed the chance to stay in Lhasa while Phünwang was a Tibetan nationalist fighting to overthrow the KMT and British designs on Tibet. Harrier made short shrift of the arbitrary cruelty and backward superstition that came with the package of Buddhist oligarchy while Phünwang fought to liberate Tibetans from their religious and hierarchical stronghold.

      In the Pitt film, the KMT official is a hapless old man, a Yoda figure, but Phünwang knew Liu Wen-Hui and the KMT (its called the GMD [guomindang] in his book) as oppressors along with the local Derge royal family and Buddhist establishment in Lhasa using Dalai Lama's power for their intentions. China had its hands filled fighting against the KMT, British subterfuge, and the Dalai Lama's complicity; he fell lock, stock, and barrel over western culture (at least the Pitt movie got that right) and agreed with the CIA to help him escape, like the U.S. helped Chiang Kai-Shek out of China, but not to fight their way back; they have  been used ever since as a wedge against China. Phünwang could tell the difference in the sound of the British supplied weapons used against the nationalists and their own supplied by the Chinese KMT; I have to read that over again to get clear who is who in the struggle for Tibet. Who is right? I have my opinions. I think China was right to defend Tibet and demand back and protect Hong Kong and Macao from the British and Portuguese, and will be right in getting back Taiwan in the least violent way. Unfortunately, as we have seen in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Philippines, and Taiwan, the U.S. and U.K. are making a peaceful transition to indigenous rule almost impossible. 

          I ordered Freedom in Exile. Now that I’m getting Harrer and Phünwang’s point of view on the occurrences in Tibet after WW II, I should read what “His Holiness” had to say. 

          A few years ago I lost one friend over a difference of opinion about Tibet and I don’t regret it. He picked a fight with me over a joke I made and kept writing I was denying the Chinese “1.5 million murdered” in Tibet. I responded that he should pay attention to what he could do in his community and he lashed out red baiting me into defending China compared to U.S. and European aggression. Today's historical status is proof China was right to secure Tibet and Xinjiang before western powers could meddle there; the living standard there has gone up and poverty nearly eradicated. The absurdity of Western governments defending religious rights in China but vilifying and annihilating them elsewhere. The absurdity of condemning China for giving Han people bonuses for relocating to Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang when gentrification has made many U.S. and European cities unaffordable for the middle class; I want my Brooklyn back! 

 Freedom in Exile; The Autobiography of The Dalai Lama arrived in the mail. To show you where his head is at, one of his earliest childhood memories he wrote about was a destitute Chinese couple begging at his home with a dead baby in their arms; how his gracious mother gave them alms, and then more when they told her they would be eating their baby. My question is why did his mother have sixteen children, more than half passing away in childhood, living in destitution as they did? I will be making mental notes of the defenses he gives and comparing them with Phünwang and Harrer’s accounts of life in contemporary Tibet. 

     The innuendos against China are prevalent in the Dalai Lama's autobiography. On page 31, he writes of a monk that helped him figure out how to use an old movie projector, "...like many Chinese, he had a very bad temper." On page 28 he attributes the exaggeration of ten million tons of tea imports (admitting than no one drinks more tea than the British but Tibetans) "an attempt to prove Tibet's economic dependence on China." On page 10 he is proud of Tibetan's past empire writing vainly how "it included much Chinese territory", and that "Tibetan forces actually captured the Chinese capital where they extracted promises of tribute and other concessions." No doubt, his contempt for China will pepper his entire account. 

I haven't found this prejudice against China so far in Harrer's adventure. Phünwang's motivation for bringing Chinese communism to Tibet is at odds with the gist of the Hollywood movie of Harrer's account. Phünwang is Tibetan, too, and condemns the Kuomintang administration there keeping the theoretical oligarchy in place impoverishing  its people and keeping them backwards. Harrer's account of Tibetan life and cruel justice concurs with Phünwang's. The Dalai Lama admits it as such.  
   I finished reading Seven Years in Tibet. It's quaint how Harrer condones feudalism while admitting the unhygienic backwardness and cruelty of the theocracy. He calls the Red Army invaders, not liberators, but admits the fear the Tibetans have of them in 1950 stems from the carnage inflicted on them in 1910 after the Qing was overthrown and the KMT took over; the Red Army soldiers were disciplined. Harrer left Tibet in 1952 on the same route as the Dalai Lama near the Indian border. He doesn't say why he "had to leave" but it was probably because he would have been considered a spy for encouraging the impressionable nineteen-year-old god-king to look westward. He didn't support communism which makes me think that the Austrian national and his German companion might have supported or tolerated the Nazis; he did participate on Nazi teams in the Olympics. He never mentions his political leanings in the book but found no problem schmoozing with the ruling class in Lhasa. His naive acceptance of social inequality with no more than a 'tisk-tisk’ may stem from his jock mentality. But it is the Dalai Lama himself that is smitten by the modern world; who could blame any child that is cloistered in archaic isolation from playing with toys the 13th Dalai Lama dabbled with? 

     Past god-kings were manipulated by the National Guard; this Dalai Lama was manipulated by the CIA. As early as 1948 his ministers was looking for British or U.S. support when the KMT were dislodged from Tibet and China and fled to Taiwan. Up to 1954, when, with Phünwang translating, he met Mao Tsetung, he was accepting the communist ideals and incorporating them. Even Mao told him to go slow to not ignite the ire of his conservative theocrats. 

          The Freedom in Exile autobiography was published in 1990. A Tibetan Revolutionary was published in 2004 but the interviews began in 2003. There are editors’ notes in ATR that refer to passages in FIE. There are recollections of Phünwang and Heinrich Harrer in FIE, recollections of the Dalai Lama but none of Harrer in ATR. Seven Years in Tibet concludes in March 1951 overlapping time, Harrer arriving in Jan. 15, 1946 and Phünwang in late 1947 to Aug. 15, 1949 were both in Lhasa and had interactions with the Dalai Lama. Phünwang’s interviewers must have asked him about those passages relating to him in addition to all his interactions. Some references specifically dispute what the Dalai Lama said, some concur. 

      I burned through fifty pages of A Tibetan Revolutionary at the riverside yesterday afternoon. Such a good man and communist like Phünwang was the victim of Han chauvinism, despite support from Mao, Chow En-Lai, and others at the top, commanders of the Northwest PLA were prejudiced and overzealous to implement land reforms in eastern Tibet and set him up to get him out of the way, accused him of being a Tibetan separatist. Because of the Dalai Lama's brother's contacting the CIA starting in 1956 and the CIA meddling and weakly empowering independence Karmapa, an aspect that Phünwang doesn't allude to in his autobiography. It is probably a paranoid reaction since so many of Phünwang’s compatriots were recruited to destabilize the PRC in any way, without helping independence, like they still do in Taiwan,  in the name of stopping Chinese progress that would hinder their world domination, calling them communist dominoes in Asia, to keep imperialist capitalist influence here. The documentary I saw, “The Shadow Circus; The CIA in Tibet”, about the secret CIA project up to 1974, was the real domino ruining China’s goal of  eradicating feudalism and the good relationship Phünwang helped establish between the Dalai Lama in Tibet and the PRC, causing the Dalai Lama to flee unnecessarily and killing thousands of guerrillas and local people, destroying temples where they probably took shelter to weed them out, and bombing building in collateral damage; you have to blame the CIA more than PRC paranoia. 

If that wasn't enough to convince me that meddling from the U.S. CIA precipitated a hurried response by the PLA into Tibet, I then checked on-line for other books about the hidden story and found this:

"Into Tibet, by Thomas Laird, is the incredible story of a 1949 -- 1950 American undercover expedition led by America's first atomic agent, Douglas S. Mackiernan -- a covert attempt to arm the Tibetans and to recognize Tibet's independence in the months before China invaded. It recounts a harrowing and unprecedented two-thousand-mile trek on foot and camel across China and the deserts of inner Asia. For the first time, Thomas Laird reveals how Mackiernan helped established a covert intelligence pipeline from China to India; how he gathered atomic intelligence for the United States; how his partner Frank Bessac urged the Tibetan government to request covert U.S. military aid and then carried the signed request out of Lhasa; and, finally, how Dean Rusk and the CIA responded. Laird reveals how the clash between the State Department and the CIA, as well us unguided actions by field agents, hastened the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Commenting on American motivations during this operation for the first time, the Dalai Lama says bluntly, "The courage was not there." U.S. government actions were ultimately a kiss of death for Tibet and Mackiernan -- the first CIA agent ever killed during a covert operation. A gripping narrative of survival, courage, and intrigue among the nomads, princes, and warring armies of inner Asia, Into Tibet rewrites the accepted history behind the Chinese invasion of Tibet."

If not for the initial error of `"Han chauvinism" against better judgement, it is clear to see why the PRC went on its radical course through the failed Great Leap Forward to catch up to western militarism and industry, and then the Cultural Revolution to block western subterfuge. It's a wonder the PRC is as strong as it is now with all it has had to bear, and still with destabilizing propaganda about Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Meanwhile the Dalai Lama, continues to remain in exile, for no good reason, denying Tibetans their religious leadership. Phünwang’s autobiography has shed so much light on what really happened in Tibet to sour the grapes, cause discord, and set back progress. Phünwang’s story is a tragedy. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

Copyright © 2020 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved 

Tsai Ying-Wen Brings Taiwan to the Crossroad

          The ticket of Tsai and her running mate, former premier William Lai (賴清德), won 8,170,231 votes, or 57.13 percent of the 19,311,105 registered voters, with the Han-Chang ticket garnering 5,522,119 votes (38.61 percent) and the Soong-Yu ticket receiving 608,590 votes (4.26 percent). The only winners in this Taiwan election are U.S. hegemony and driftwood expats using Taiwan as a way station.

For me, with an Alien Resident Card as the spouse of a Taiwanese woman, things couldn’t be better. With a low cost of living (2/3 less than living in NYC) and Universal health care, I can save my money for travel abroad to see my children and the world, but I didn’t plan it that way. Taiwan is great place to live, despite the air pollution and inconsiderate citizenry. I choose not to schmooze with privileged expats on the Westside and have no problem in the backwater called Taichung; I wouldn’t want to live in Taipei again. But the nature I increasingly want to enjoy is slipping away; the Han River bike trail will parallel a mess of highway overpasses as Taichung urbanizes in the blink of an eye in this capitalist hellhole.

I would have liked to live in an independent Taiwan not dominated by clandestine U.S. intelligence and militarism hedging in China. China had  better back off a Hong Kong style one nation-two systems solution to Taiwan, the last vestiges of western colonialism; it didn’t work in H.K. and Tsai Ying-Wen’s DPP is having no part of it, only using it to push China further away, claiming China is Taiwan adversary when in fact the U.S. is.

Time is on China’s side as the U.S. continues its slide and the Chinese economy and standard of living continue to surpass Taiwan’s and even the U.S. Until then, I will accept the underhanded benefits of others low wages and inexpensive services in Taiwan even as I applaud every worker’s gain. Young workers don’t organize themselves unless it’s a campaign to scare them with anti-China, anti-communist propaganda; they are left in the dark. There is no anti U.S. propaganda to be found here; AIT has made sure of that, dominating social English media. Tsai-Ying-Wen’s acceptance speech was bilingual; Mandarin and English (not Taiwanese as it should have been) as it plays into the hands of its real class oppressors: capitalism.

A distant third place finisher, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) said it best in his concession speech. “The nation will face a major change in the global political situation this year,” Soong said.“If cross-strait relations remain unstable and Taiwan takes the wrong side in dealings with Japan, the US and China, all these factors will affect Taiwan,” he said. He also went on to defend the “18%ers”, privileged Chinese interlopers in the 1947 retreat from China that the DPP rightfully suppressed along with the KMT’s “ill-gotten gains.” “This government should stop pitting one party against another, stop destroying the civil service by offering lucrative jobs only to those who agree with it and stop using drastic measures to carry out social reforms,” he added. Taiwan is at a crossroad. The times are changing. To stay the same is impossible. 

The Monday after the election and all the exploited fools are returning to work on their noisy polluting scooters and cars. They’ll work overtime without compensation and then thank the boss next week when they get a yearly bonus at his whim. Whatever bonuses they get will not make up for their low wages and dangerous overwork all year round. The bonuses are used to enslave the working stiffs; they give overtime and don’t take sick days because they’re afraid of losing it. They start no unions to fight for collective higher compensation and benefits; can’t even if they wanted to if their workplace has less than thirty-two employees. Yet these fools are worried about Chinese communism ruining their lives. Let them fuck themselves, suffer in their ignorance, and give consumers like me more than we pay for in this corrupted capitalist hellhole. 

      I see well past my predicted re-election of Tsai Ying-Wen to the chaos that will ensue as Chinese NGO’s give Taiwan a taste of the same medicine U.S. NGO’s gave Hong Kong. But the outcome must be different. It’s only natural that Hong Kong remain a part of China and Taiwan be cajoled into their cohort. The poison of colonialist exploitation and racism will dissipate with the final stages of capitalist imperialism. China need only bide its time. A leader will come along one day in Taiwan who will be worthy of election with the same epiphany that Moon Jae-in and the people of South Korea had that the United States is no one’s ally and cares not for the common man; only the vested interests of its ruling class and corporate interests.

The Gullible Believers in Taiwan's Democracy

           She had her face on TV speaking in English at some U.S. event clearly saying Taiwan supports the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and, by the way, Taiwan is a place with its own government; not the Chinese one. Tsai Ying-wen's DPP is not going to lose the chance to curry favor with the U.S., co-opt the youth of Taiwan again, and win an election to keep Taiwan nation-less.  
     "Taiwan stands behind Hong Kong Pro-democracy protesters," says the new banner on Foreigners in Taiwan's Facebook page with anti-China propaganda posted below. Pretty soon, we will see demonstrations materialize rallying Taiwan's youthful voters, in lieu of and adhered to a domestic Sunflower Movement, to be manipulated, for the mainstream media DPP to propagate. Let the 28% of immigrants come from Hong Kong, the one's that didn't leave for the U.S. with their stash before the turn of the century, the stragglers; the new exodus of those who can leave. China is coming to Hong Kong, sooner than expected thanks to the opportunity presented them. 

Killing the chicken to scare the monkeys is how the DPP
 with U.S. controls support for independence or reunification  

       The Trojan Horse of China - Hong Kong - is now being used to create more distance between China and Taiwan as Taiwan's DPP begins using the chaos to deflect reunification, win the presidential election later this year, and preserve the U.S. overlord; try to encircle China to stunt its growth and deter its ability to defend itself from capitalist imperialism. A parade in Taipei was organized for Sunday, Sept. 29 by DPP sources to show support for the Hong Kong anti-China chaos. Not as many people showed up as they hoped in part because of the rainy wind of a passing typhoon but also because it was not a realistic cause; it was manufactured as was the Sunflower Movement to rally opposition to reunification. In some mostly disused pedestrian underpasses in Taichung and Taipei, 'democracy walls' have propped up and students caught in the whirlwind adding notes and posters showing solidarity with the demonstrators in Hong Kong in another over-the-top effort for the DPP to widen the gap in the upcoming presidential election, this besides the truth that most young adults see the chaos in Hong Kong as a threat to their peaceful Taiwan existence. How much public support exists is a case of the tail wagging the dog. 

     Passing through the pedestrian underpass of Taiwan Blvd. heading to sushi lunch, I was confronted by ball to wall Post-its and flyers some college students were led to display supporting the ‘pro-democracy’ demonstrations and riots in Hong Kong. These gullible impressionable youth aren’t educated to know the democracy they cherish in Taiwan is a sham; that Taiwan is under the thumb of United States against their best interests of independence or reunification with their cultural cohort. The rift is being widened and they are fodder. What a disgusting walk through the underground so over-the-top with clandestine subterfuge on their lives with no full-time jobs awaiting them after graduation; only further exploitation by small businesses in the wake of the great economic miracle up in smoke. What fools they are. How they will be tossed like leaves in the wind by a Taiwan ruling class only out to preserve its power base, at any cost to its real freedom from imperialism.

Lai Ching-Da really supports independence
but has folded back into the DPP

      With Taiwan independence off the table, we have to avoid talking about Hong Kong. I cannot make comments when we watch the propaganda about it on TV without her getting upset, perhaps that I am taking it seriously and getting upset by it. She knows the truth better than I do but she is under the sway of the most “Deep Green” independence supporters, like Lai Ching-Da and the 103 year-old socialist that had given her support before he passed away, that have fallen behind Tsai Ying-Wen’s laissez-faire semi-colonial U.S. occupation.

    The 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China wasn't broadcast in Taiwan. China has done everything they can to keep their communist mission alive, no matter how it detoured; capitalism is what happens to revolutions while they're busy making other plans. Fellow expat carpetbaggers and corrupt politicians, you are the fascist turned neoliberal Republic of China that lost the civil war against the people on the mainland; you are an obstruction to workers' progress. Your circus clowns and peanut gallery make me laugh. Each candidate gets 30 Taiwan Dollars ($1.00 U.S.) per vote after the election, win or lose. It is a good business with meaningless promises, vague references, and a lot of hoopla. The TV news is full of faces and spin doctors. The primary consisted of phone calls made to land lines, of which young people have few, and a flash poll to decide. Actually the decision is made within each party and any primary is a show.  

This demigod from Kaohsiung using his mayoral victory to run for president
 would be a puppet of the KMT the way The Republican Party used Trump. 

           My Taiwanese wife talks about Taiwan while watching the news on TV and I counter what she says. She laughs and says the mayor from Kaohsiung said he graduated from Beijing University and  criticizes ‘deep green’ independence leaders that say Tsai Ying-Wen didn’t graduate from a reputable school in the U.S.; they do not like her, either, because she abandoned hope.

      Let the U.S. have its way dictating their policy to Taiwan; we live here and benefit from their stability, anyway. When young people are scared I know just why. I say the U.S. is trying to destabilize Hong Kong for the purpose of scaring young voters in Taiwan  to help Tsai Ying-Wen and keep it this way.  I live here and have to go along with it, that’s all she wrote. I watched some October 1 parade from Beijing instead of “Dead File” on TV. She watched some Double Ten coverage between innings of a playoff baseball I left on. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved