When 300,000 Pigs Fly

     In the West, we have an expression: “…when pigs fly.” When we say that such-and-such will happen when pigs fly, we mean it’ll never happen.

     That expression may have to be retired. In Taiwan, pigs are flying—over 300,000 of them.

     It all started about a month ago at a campaign rally for Taiwan presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen. (Interestingly, my spell checker suggests that the name should be “No-win.”) At the time, odds makers gave her as much chance of defeating President Ma Ying-jeou as pigs flying.
     A set of three-year-old triplet girls showed up at a Tsai Ing-wen rally and each of them presented her with a small piggy bank filled with coins as donations to her campaign.  No one seriously thought that these three-year-olds were the actual donors; no doubt the parents had produced both the money and the piggy banks.  Still, everyone thought it was cute—well, not quite everyone.

      The three little pigs gained the attention of the big, bad wolf. The Control Yuan (pronounced ywen, as a single syllable), a government agency whose responsibility—on paper, at least—is to root out government corruption, was shocked—SHOCKED—to discover that three-year-old girls were corrupting the political process. Since the triplet girls were not qualified to vote in Taiwan, these little criminals were not qualified to donate money to political campaigns. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman/presidential candidate Tsai had to return the donation.

     It didn’t escape the public’s attention that the Control Yuan was appointed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidents and approved by the KMT-controlled legislature. The Control Yuan appears to be curiously selective when it comes to spotting corruption.

     In the backlash against the Control Yuan’s highhandedness, a strategist for the Tsai campaign saw an opportunity. In any culture, piggy banks signify small amounts of money—make that, small donations. It would make an ideal symbol to counter the KMT, one of the world’s richest political parties, which is awash with ill-gotten gains and with the support of well-heeled corporate socialists feeding at the trough.

     The Tsai campaign bought a few thousand cheap plastic piggy banks and distributed them to supporters to fill and return to campaign headquarters. The piggy banks went out and came back so quickly that the campaign ordered 100,000 more and declared the next thirty days Little Pigs Month.

     Since the beginning of Little Pigs Month, more than 300,000 piggy banks have flown off the shelves and into the hands of ordinary citizens eager to financially support the Tsai campaign. In a country with twelve million voters, we’re talking about 2.5% of the voters actively engaged in campaign fundraising.

     (If even 1% of ordinary American citizens who call themselves the 99% were actively involved in the political process, we defeat the evil empire and restore the republic.)

     Dorothy and her friends in the Land of Oz were less vexed by the flying monkeys than the Ma campaign was vexed by the flying pigs. Throughout the Little Pigs campaign, a series of big bad wolves huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow it down. The biggest problem for the wolves, though, was that the mud that they slung was not splatter proof.

     First, a KMT mouthpiece and supporter of the Ma Ying-jeou presidential campaign announced that all this use of plastic in the Little Pigs effort was environmentally hazardous. Aside from the absurdity of the remark, the remark caused people to recall the poor farmers who were driven from their land, and the sensitive wetlands that were threatened, so that plastics manufacturers could expand their—what’s the term for it? Oh, yes: “environmentally hazardous” activities.

     Farmers and environmentalists personally had pleaded with President Ma and his buffoonish henchman, Premier Wu Den-yeh, to stop the destruction, which was well within their power. In the end, the farmers lost their land, but the Environmental Protection Agency and the courts stopped the Ma administration’s destruction of a wetland area.

     President Ma also tried to counter the Little Pigs effort by publicly asking average citizens to make small donations for his campaign. Guffaws could be heard all over the country. According to the Taipei Times, the KMT is one of the world’s richest political parties, annually raking in “NT$3.5 billion (US$116.1 million), NT$2.9 billion of which came from stock dividends.”  (link) Under legal and public pressure to divest themselves of billions of dollars in assets that had been stolen during the Martial Law Era, then-KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou sold them and deposited the moneys into the KMT’s account for use and reinvestment.

     On the Northeast Coast, the government confiscated farmland to be developed into luxury hotels. (With favors like that to your credit, who needs small donations from farmers and other Taiwanese?)

     Premier Wu, who is running for vice president under Ma, has repeatedly shown his contempt for average Taiwanese and their struggles. Responding to concerns of Taiwanese given forced, unpaid leave even from healthy businesses, Wu said that the person who invented unpaid leave should receive the Nobel Prize for Economics. When criticized for that remark, he responded that his critics should develop a sense of humor.

     I mention these words of callousness to highlight the temerity of President Ma’s criticism of the Little Pigs campaign: “We store our wealth among the people and create opportunities for people to become more affluent, rather than send out piggy banks to raise money from the people.”  (link) At that remark, loud groans of ridicule have drowned out the raucous guffawing. 

     Lately, Ma has been trying a new gimmick to counter the Little Pigs campaign. He’s giving out good luck amulets to supporters, failing to realize that a candidate shores up voter commitment by getting the potential voter to do something to show that commitment, such as making a small contribution. Ma is doing the opposite. That gimmick calls to mind erstwhile President Gerald Ford’s curious strategy for defeating inflation: handing out lapel buttons with the acrostic WIN (Whip Inflation Now) printed on them.

     The lucky amulet tomfoolery has all but died on the vine, though Ma is trying to keep it on life support. In this morning’s paper, I saw a picture of him hanging a good-luck amulet around a legislative candidate’s neck as if it were the Medal of Honor. The unfortunate candidate looked embarrassed to be seen accepting it but more embarrassed to refuse it.

          A spin-off of the Little Pigs campaign included a limited edition of piggy banks wearing Robin Hood bonnets. The inspiration for this originated with an Associated Press article comparing Tsai Ing-wen to Robin Hood. This image of a champion defending the poor against powerful, rapacious rulers has really torqued Ma Ying-jeou’s jaws.  (link)  

     According to Chen Shih-hsien, known as the “pigsty calligraphist,” Taiwan’s “pig culture” has played an important role in the way the Little Pigs movement has caught on. His comments are worth reading.  (link) 

     The January 14 Taiwan presidential election is still a month away, and pigs are still flying. Since the beginning of the Little Pigs campaign, poll numbers have marginally shifted in Tsai Ing-wen’s favor.

     Politically, culturally, and socially, the Joushuei (pronounced Jo-shway) River, separating Chunghua and Yunlin Counties, is Taiwan’s Mason-Dixon Line. North of that river, situated in the subtropics, a majority of the voters tend to support the KMT. In the tropical south, they tend to support the DPP. Tsai’s strategy had been a southern strategy: Win 60% of the votes in the southern third of the nation, over half in the central counties, and more than 40% in the north.

     Now her campaign is talking about “crossing the Joushuei River.” In politics, a month is a long time. We’ll see if the bookish Tsai Ing-wen can hold onto—or expand—her lead against the formerly charismatic Ma Ying-jeou.

Taiwan's Jezebels and Naboth's Vineyard

     (I had not intended to write another American Action Report article. My purpose for starting the blog, above all, was to provide action-minded individuals with a framework for understanding today’s events—as a framework for action. Many of my articles have titles like “How Such-and-such Really Works.” Feeling that the blog had fulfilled that purpose, I turned my attention to making a living and various unpleasant chores that have nothing to do with my job, though my job expects them.

     (I must now make an exception and break my silence. The lands of hundreds of poor farmers here in Taiwan are subject to legalized theft for the benefit of large, polluting corporations, some of which—or all of which—are major supporters of powerful politicians who are abetting this injustice. The farmers will lose their land in just a few months unless action is taken to turn things around.)

     Many of you have read the Biblical story of Naboth, Ahab, and Jezebel. Naboth was a poor farmer who owned a small vineyard. King Ahab saw the vineyard and wanted it; but, since the land was Naboth’s inheritance from his father, Naboth refused to sell it. King Ahab was distraught over the refusal. Enter Jezebel. Jezebel was King Ahab’s thoroughly evil Phoenician wife, who had already made a name for herself by having the Lord’s prophets killed and encouraging Israel to descend into idolotry. Jezebel contrived to have Naboth condemned in a sham trial, upon which his land was forcibly taken from him, Naboth was killed, and King Ahab took possession as the “legal owner” of the vineyard. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Jezebel and Ahab were diabolically evil or, in more secular terms, criminal psychopaths.

     Now picture this evil being replayed hundreds of times, all at once. From my perspective, that's the moral equivalent of what is happening today, right here in Taiwan.  I'm not saying that the people mentioned in this article are diabolically evil or criminal psychopaths; you'll have to decide that one for yourself.

     Many of us take for granted the constitutional guarantee that no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In Taiwan, however, land can be seized “for the general good.” Politicians and bureaucrats have the power to define “general good.”

     I addressed this issue once before, in the American Action Report article “Formosa Betrayed Again.” (link) For background information, I urge you to give the article a quick read.

     Here are a few highlights:

     In Miaoli County, one of many areas where these travesties are taking place, 24 farm families were officially informed that their land would be taken from them for the construction of a “science park.” No, that’s not an educational facility; science park is a euphemism for a high-polluting factory belonging to a large corporation. The farmers would be paid what the politicians thought the land was worth—the value of an inheritance that had been in their families for centuries was not a consideration, nor was any loss of future earning ability—or land of comparative value (according to the value systems of the Jezebels in question) would be given them.

     The farmers refused to give up their inheritances and, along with them, their sources of livelihood; but Premier Wu Den-yih didn’t see that as a problem. The land was condemned anyway, and the money was made available for the modern-day Naboths to collect if they were inclined to do so. Like Jezebel, Wu later claimed to the news media that the procedure was all perfectly legal.  According to laws made by the Chinese Nationalist Party, that's correct; but what about Natural Law, international standards, or, if you will, civilized norms?

     The farmers took their case to Quasi-president Ma Ying-jeou (Officially, he’s president of a huge empire extending from Taiwan to the Kashmir Valley in India, except when a lower-level Chinese bureaucrat comes to town. On these occasions, all indications of the existence of his government disappear, and he becomes just plain old Mr. Ma, subservient to a Chinese master.) President (or Mr. or whatever) Ma promised that they’d get a response within a week.

     True to Ma’s promise, backhoes soon appeared at the farmers’ fields and ripped them up, only two weeks before the rice harvest would have taken place. In the ensuing publicity backlash, Premier Wu said that he didn’t know that there were farms on the land. (The fact that farm families were living there should have been a clue.) One farmer, having seen all his hopes ripped apart by the backhoes of  these Jezebels, committed suicide.

     Don't be surprised at Wu's lack of brilliance in failing to realize that farm families farm, or that they do their farming on land, or that the lands on which farm families farm are called farms.  There are a lot of things that the gaffe-prone Wu is slow to find out. He didn’t know that the endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin wasn’t a fish, that “fish” can’t quickly recognize water pollution and avoid it as they would a solid object; or that in order to eat rice you must have rice. (That’s right. The guy on whose watch hundreds of rice farmers are losing their lands to major polluters is the same guy who says that Taiwan should become “food independent.” According to him, Taiwanese should eat more rice. What rice does he mean? The rice that was plowed under and no longer exists or the rice that’s laced with toxic chemicals?) These are only a few samplings from Wu’s fountain of idiotic remarks. By comparison, Wu Den-yih makes Ma Ying-jeou look smart.

     Taiwan’s farmland is rapidly disappearing, gobbled up by corporate polluters. Remaining farmland is threatened by toxic chemicals. Cancer is the number one cause of death in Taiwan. Not surprisingly, the highest rates of cancer are reportedly found near the sites of major corporate polluters.

     The Ma administration promised that they would revise the Land Expropriation Act. The pan-blue camp (the ruling elite, their local henchmen, and their lackeys) has held both the presidency and the national legislature for three years, and the law hasn't been changed.  (Remember, though, that Ma Ying-jeou is the guy who once told a group of aborigines, "I see you as human," as he was trying to justify the demolition of their homes.  For a beautification project to go forward, he saw it as necessary to clear away all unsightly homes and aborigines.  Being seen as "human" doesn't necessarily light the spark of humanity.)

     The plight of Taiwan’s farmers (who, no doubt, are also seen as humans) at the hands of these exploiters has drawn the attention of several international human rights groups. These groups include such farming rights advocacy groups as Brazil’s Movemento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (Landless Farmers’ Movement, MST) and India’s Navdanya Foundation.

     It’s too late to save the farms that were ravaged in Miaoli County a few months ago, but it’s not too late to save the farmers who are threatened today.

     For more information, see the Taipei Times article “Rights groups protest against expropriation.” (link)

End Game for Taiwan? Part 1: Taiwan's Painful Path to Freedom

     When delusion crashes headlong into reality, the result is always messy and painful. When people cling to delusion even after sixty years of colliding with painful and messy realities, the result is bizarre.

     The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which ruled over Taiwan from 1945 until 2000, is all but certain to get kicked out of office again in the March 2012 presidential election. Respecting the outcomes of elections is not a KMT virtue. Many observers in Taiwan fear that, President Ma Ying-jeou (pictured at left) will make major moves to betray Taiwan to Taiwan's enemies in Beijing before he is removed from office.

     To better understand this situation and the KMT’s bizarre concept of reality, it’s necessary for me to give a quick review of Taiwan’s 51-year-long (1945-1996), painful path to freedom and limited government.

     At the end of the Second World War, General Douglas MacArthur ordered Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to effect the military occupation of Taiwan, which was then a part of Japan. When Chiang did so, he proclaimed that Taiwan had been returned to China, and his Chinese Nationalist Party dubbed that date a Chinese holiday called “Retrocession Day.”

     That was the beginning of a dangerous delusion that now threatens the existence of Taiwan as a sovereign nation.

     By 1947, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had imposed martial law and the White Terror on the unfortunate people of Taiwan. Over the next 37 years—the longest period of martial law in world history—they would kill 30,000 Taiwanese. The KMT kleptocracy would also drive Taiwan’s vibrant economy into the toilet.

     That same year, Chiang presumed to impose his self-serving “constitution” on all of China, Tibet, East Turkistan, Hong Kong, all of Mongolia (including Outer Mongolia, which is independent of China even to this day), and somehow Taiwan. Chiang’s constitution claimed that the borders of China could not be changed except by constitutional amendment. Since, under international law, Taiwan was not a part of China, a conventional interpretation of that constitution would be that Taiwan could not become part of the Republic of China (ROC) except by constitutional amendment.

     What made Chiang’s constitution especially risible was that it presumed to rule areas that it did not rule and that it forbade Chiang to rule Taiwan, which was the only large land mass that Chiang did, in fact, rule. Thus, under Chiang’s constitution, the ROC did not exist except on the tiny island groupings of Jinmen and Ma-tsu.

     By 1949, the Republic of China was completely driven out of China and replaced by an even worse regime, the badly misnamed People’s Republic of China.

     In September 1951, Japan signed the San Francisco Treaty. As a term of that treaty, Japan gave up all claim to Taiwan without specifying which country, if any, would receive it. When Japan signed a similar treaty with the defunct Republic of China, Chiang’s representative insisted that Japan specifically grant Taiwan to the defunct ROC.

     Citing international law and common sense, the Japanese told Chiang’s henchman that Japan could not give what it no longer had. Ever since then, the KMT has made two risible and contradictory claims.

     One was the claim that the Japanese had really intended to give Taiwan to the ROC; therefore, the ROC had a legal claim to Taiwan. “ROC President” Ma Ying-jeou, who made that astonishing claim, holds a doctorate in jurisprudence from Harvard University.

     The other claim was that, Taiwan was “returned to the ROC” on the day that Chiang arrived.; thus, a treaty wasn’t necessary after all. In case you’re confused by that phrase “returned to China,” I’ll try to explain.

     After China lost the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, the Ch’ing Dynasty gave up Taiwan to Japan “in perpetuity.” In 1912, the Ch’ings abdicated, leaving the ROC in charge of China. Remember that part: Taiwan ceased to be a part of China even before the ROC existed. In spite of the fact that the ROC never ruled all of China and ceased to rule any of it (other than Jinmen and Ma-tzu) after 1949, the KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party) claims that they really do rule China. In this fantasy world, the PRC (which has obviously ruled China since 1949) doesn’t exist, and the ROC really is China.
     In December 1979, the United States government "de-recognized" Taiwan and stopped using tax dollars to prop up the Chiang regime.  Contrary to what one might expect, after the U.S. turned off the money spigot, Taiwan's economic miracle began.

     In 1987, martial law officially ended, but other repressive laws were put in place so that the KMT wouldn’t suffer post-partum depression. Lee Teng-hui, a native Taiwanese, (pictured at left) became vice president. Virtually all positions of power in Taiwan, though, remained in the hands of Chinese.

     In 1988, Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek died, and the unthinkable happened: Taiwan was suddenly under the control of Lee Teng-hui, who hated the KMT but had the wisdom to keep his mouth shut about it until he had gained the presidency.

     Under Lee, the constitution was amended to allow for elections. Lee was elected president in 1996.

     In 2000, another unthinkable event occurred: A three-way split resulted in the election of Chen Shui-bian, a native Taiwanese who was a member of the opposition party. For the first time since 1945, Taiwan’s presidency was no longer in the hands of the Chinese Nationalist Party, though the KMT retained control over the legislature.

     Unlike the United States, where the Democrats and Republicans resemble a sock-puppet show, in which one person’s hands manipulate both puppets, Taiwan really does have a two-party system.
     The pan-blue parties—that is, the KMT, a splinter group called the New Party, and a largely one-man show calling itself the People First Party—seemed to accept that it had shot itself in the foot. It spent the next four years blocking the new president’s efforts, even those that the KMT had championed when it occupied the presidency. Apart from these childish antics, the KMT bided its time until the 2004 election. It vowed not to make the same mistake twice.
     Then yet another unthinkable event occurred: Chen Sui-bian was re-elected by an outright majority.

     Chinese Nationalist Party supporters, who seemed to believe that Taiwan would always be theirs to rule and rob, rioted in the streets.  Some people might say that the rioters were trying to overthrow the government, but Taiwan’s libel laws (written and passed by the KMT) forbid such conclusions as this. For that reason, you won’t hear it from me. I do wonder, though, what KMT supporters were trying to do when they gave the appearance of storming the barricades around the Presidential Office Building.

     It’s hard to avoid the conclusion, though, that the Chinese Nationalist Party has a third-world concept of elections: that elections are only window dressing for self-styled and self-serving rulers who will rule or ruin.  It's getting harder to tell the Chinese Nationalist Party from the Chinese Communist Party.

(To be continued)