The Japanese are using the same exact strategy with the Diaoyu’s

I’m so glad this person didn’t come to any conclusions!

Stop using the “racism” argument. Only min-nan vote rather evenly between the two parties. Hakka, Aboriginal, and waisheng almost all completely vote for the KMT, and historically it hasn’t changed, with Hakka being the best of the worst (70% this past election).

Anyone remember the Hainan Island incident, where the recon plane from the US looking for Chinese missile sites collided with a Chinese fighter jet?

I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from that incident. The Chinese fighter jet crashed because they couldn’t actually try to crash or fire on the recon jet, which would be an act of war. All it could do to get the US to go away is to do fly-bys and scare them away. The Japanese are using the same exact strategy with the Diaoyu’s. They very purposefully coming very close to the boats that enter the zone to scare them, and the particular maneuver they tried to do with the fishing boat was to leave a big wake that would upset the fishing boat. They completely miscalculated and crashed into the boat instead.

Anyways, I’m not going to draw conclusions, but it wasn’t some kind of haphazard crash. It was an attempt to “buzz” the fishing boat that went entirely wrong. And the completely lack of apology until these two days is ridiculous.

However, Japan has been very flat-footed in its response also. They fucking sunk a ship, told Taiwan’s coast guard to go away, and waited an hour before rescuing them. Then they did absolutely nothing conciliatory until yesterday and today, a week after the incident already happened. Retarded.

And why the fuck is ‘ “loss” ‘ in scare quotes? This guy broke the law trying to make a living, but really, he wasn’t doing really harming anyone else. He did the international equivalent of double parking in a fire lane on the high seas. His boat is tiny. He’s poor as fuck. He wasn’t commercial fishing. He wasn’t smuggling. Yes, he’s not a hero. Yes, he’s being used politically, esp. by the Blues, who want to take the limelight off of oh, um… everything. But you honestly don’t have empathy for this guy? Do you know how many people are scrapping by in Taiwan making doing stuff that is marginally legal?

These guys violated Taiwanese law, but would the Taiwanese coast guard have rammed them?

What I blame Ma most about this incident is for not being a leader and even till now, STILL HAS SAID NOTHING about this incident. Can you believe that?

Ma isn’t being ham-fisted. He’s not responding at all, and I believe that’s part of the source of the incompetent way in which everyone else is responding.

I do believe that Taiwanese fishing boats regularly break quotas, but they are regularly taken advantage of by Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, just about everywhere. Japan has been actively reducing Taiwan’s fishing quotas in international organizations, taking full advantage of the fact that Taiwan is very weak internationally and doesn’t even get participation in most organizations.

Anyways, my basic point is–Ma and his administration have enough incompetence and problems that you don’t need to be attacking this boat captain in order to attack Ma. What country can stand by and watch one of its citizens get treated like this?

He was forced to sign a confession in Japanese, was held for several days, was not allowed representation, the Taiwanese coast guard was nearby, but the Japanese somehow told the Taiwanese foreign ministry to recall the boat… the whole thing is so over-the-top that the Taiwanese response really in some ways, while incompetent, I would not say is entirely uncalled for.

This is getting long, but just as another example. In the US, we believe even dirt-bag drug dealers have rights. Even if that was the case here, and as I’ve stated, I don’t necessarily agree that it’s all that clear what he did was all that wrong, the response by the Japanese coast guard was entirely unwarranted and provocative.

In fact the description of the incident is right out of his book.

Michael

Michael

As VIN stated in another post, Why now? Doesn’t the president have more important things to deal with like the economy.

Go watch the news footage on any news or go read the transcript of the session you like…the legislator is asking the Primer if the government is ready for war, and he answered that “the war is always the last resort…” Only an idiot will say NO; we will not go to war with Japan no matter what! Oh wait, I forgot some of you are Chinese challenged. However, I do have to say this is a better opinion piece from Taiwan News, but reading too much other stuffs could still be bad for your health.

1970’s: US signals change in recognition to Beijing (Sovereignty issue)
Now: KMT signs deal with Beijing (Sovereignty Issue)
1970’s: Taiwan’s economy plummets due to oil issues
Now: Taiwan’s economy…

Diaoyutai’s were MADE an issue by the KMT to raise national sentiments and divert attention away from problems in both instances. In the 1970’s the KMT organized and supported the protesters… Today… hmmmm

I’m suggesting that we don’t let the media mold our perspectives and turn us into reactionaries. It’s easy to find evidence to support our worst fears. That’s what sells papers.

I’m not suggesting that President Ma is a moderate whom all liberals should support (because, for example, he’s not as bad as others).

I don’t know for certain what he is, although it’s safe to assume he embraces most of his party’s ideologies. He believes in an entity called the “ROC” — the “true” China.

However, instead of proclaiming Ma guilty before he’s innocent, I will follow my own suggestion and “wait and see” — a phrase that I hear uttered among nearly all of my green and blue Taiwanese friends and associates.

They just dusted off this latest caper with the hopes of selling it again as new.

btw, arty is mimicking the style and phrases of other commenters. kind of funny, except he isn’t doing it on purpose.

Maybe there is no wagging the dog going on, though; maybe Japan on its own formulated this method of announcing to Beijing that cross-strait canoodling will not improve the latter’s claim on the islands.

Other opinions?

Are you suggesting Taiwanese left wingers (liberal use of the term) rush to Ma’s side to buttress him against the hardliners and boost him up to a position of power within his party (and can then start pulling him left) like the first Lee administration.

It is interesting to contrast what is going on now with the first Lee administration and how Lee was able to out maneuver the Hao Po Tsuns and reign in his party from the right. Ma seems to be failing at this right now if that is what he intended to do. Maybe Hao learned a lesson from history and was better prepared?

That is indeed the question, or more to the point, HOW is he involved in this? He certainly seems quiet about this fishing boat affair. His premier says war “is the last option” which may mean “not an option” to some or it could mean “all cards are the table” — to use Bush-speak.

Behind the scenes, Ma needs Japan’s support to counter the KMT hardliners and hardnosed Chinese pols who are trying to run away with government policy. We know Ma and Lee Tenghui are working together, and his MAC chairman comes from Lee’s party. There may be other alliances we don’t hear about.

To give you an idea of what Ma is probably competing with, do a google of the sabre-rattling KMT legislator, Lin Yufang (the PFP wolf in KMT clothing), who clearly is talking as if he is preparing to run for generallissimo in the next election.

He’s the loudest voice calling for the sending of warships to the Senkkakus/Diayoutais.

I am still at a stage where I don’t think Ma is the person we should be worried about — it’s the KMT hardliners who hate Ma and want him diminished that are more worrisome.

An incredible amount of fuel will be saved from this new arrangement and tourism will be boosted and that can’t be all bad, now can it?

That’s foreigners living in Taiwan (some of them for the wrong reasons), and today most Republicans hated Bush but still voted for him 4 and 8 years ago. Taiwanese pro-greens are usually Republicans (according to them is because of the Republican conservative SOCIAL values!?). You think I am pro-blue yet I am a liberal democrat.

Dunno, Cary. But it is certainly a beautiful bug.

Please do some researches on who appointed him, and who created his division (a special division on dealing with Japan). You will be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised. Now, you know how bad Taiwan’s previous administration has screwed up the rule and order of the government. I though Bush has done a good job in the US, I guess Chen made him look like an amateur.

A number of prototypes have been built. Active development is ongoing in South Africa as the PBMR design, and in China whose HTR-10 is the only prototype currently operating.

If this is something PRC engineers can master and develop commercially, it would be a great achievement for mankind.

The exact opposite is true. Deep conservatives in the US, those that are strongly anti-communist, love the idea of a “Free China” or “a democratic example to the Chinese world” and “last bastion of traditional Chinese culture” or “Taiwan preserves Chinese culture better than China” propaganda lines that Chiang Kaishek and the KMT used so effectively. They just eat that stuff right up; they need the symmetry or counterfoil to the authoritarian “communists” and the KMT gives them just that.

Also, American conservatives are, even today, irrationally anti-Japanese, though you’d be hard-pressed to find anti-German conservatives for example. They have way, way much more in common with the KMT. The DPP of course is known for its pro-Japan leanings.

The DPP is very pro-diversity, providing much greater institutional support for the development and survival of Hakka and Aborginal cultures. The DPP outright has a political platform of “priority for marginalized people”, which even the Democrats can’t outright pull off in the US (though the DPP’s actual execution is questionable).

I could go on and on… the similarities between the DPP and the Democrats are quite large.