So Henry Lee (
The banalities first: Lee says that the police should go after underground arms factories because they might, by studying different methods of tooling and the marks they produce on these illegal products, be able to locate the source of the gun, which might lead them eventually to the shooter.
Somehow we didn't need a "world-famous forensic scientist" to tell us this; any 12-year-old fan of TV's CSI could have done as well.
The good doctor goes on to say that the Taiwanese police should have better preserved the crime scene. He apparently doesn't make any suggestion as to how they might have done this, which is a shame because we would like to know. After all, the crime happened during an election procession and was not immediately even detected. The president thought he had been hit by bits of an exploding firecracker, which in Taiwan is pretty much one of the hazards of the job. By the time the crime had actually been discovered, the motorcade had moved from the spot where it occurred and so had the crowd which had come to see Chen Shui-bian (
When Lee was in Taiwan at the beginning of April, this newspaper took him to task over his remarks to the effect that the shooting was not an assassination attempt against Chen because an assassin would have used a different weapon and aimed at a more vulnerable part of the body, such as the head. At the time we called this utter rubbish. And yet Lee is still peddling the same nonsense. In New York on Saturday he said -- according to The Associated Press -- "this was not a political assassination because [an assassin] would have used a more powerful weapon" than a homemade handgun.
We are appalled that someone brought in to clarify the circumstances surrounding the shooting can so muddy the waters. We are shocked that this "world-famous forensic scientist" seems to lack the most elementary forensic skills about his own logic and grammar.
An assassination is, according to the dictionary, the sudden or secretive killing of a politically prominent person. So what Lee seems to be saying is that the shooting was not intended to kill Chen. And the pan-blues think they are justified in claiming that it was a stunt to win the election. What we think Lee means is that it was not a professional assassination attempt, ie, Chen was not the victim of a professional hit man (and let us add here that we also worked this out for ourselves by the evening of the day of the shooting).
Which interpretation of Lee is the right one? We hope to be able to find out, because a lot hangs by this -- and not only in regard to the shooting. Lee appears to be equivocating, putting what he knows in such a way as to deliberately not clear up the mystery. Given his well-known pan-blue affiliations, this does no favors for the good doctor's credibility. If we are to believe in Lee he needs to stop using weasel words and tell us exactly what he means.
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on April 9 said that the first group of Indian workers could arrive as early as this year as part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and the India Taipei Association. Signed in February 2024, the MOU stipulates that Taipei would decide the number of migrant workers and which industries would employ them, while New Delhi would manage recruitment and training. Employment would be governed by the laws of both countries. Months after its signing, the two sides agreed that 1,000 migrant workers from India would
On March 31, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released declassified diplomatic records from 1995 that drew wide domestic media attention. One revelation stood out: North Korea had once raised the possibility of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In a meeting with visiting Chinese officials in May 1995, as then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) prepared for a visit to South Korea, North Korean officials objected to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul and raised Taiwan directly. According to the newly released records, North Korean officials asked why Pyongyang should refrain from developing relations with Taiwan while China and South Korea were expanding high-level
Japan’s imminent easing of arms export rules has sparked strong interest from Warsaw to Manila, Reuters reporting found, as US President Donald Trump wavers on security commitments to allies, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons supplies. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party approved the changes this week as she tries to invigorate the pacifist country’s military industrial base. Her government would formally adopt the new rules as soon as this month, three Japanese government officials told Reuters. Despite largely isolating itself from global arms markets since World War II, Japan spends enough on its own
When 17,000 troops from the US, the Philippines, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and New Zealand spread across the Philippine archipelago for the Balikatan military exercise, running from tomorrow through May 8, the official language would be about interoperability, readiness and regional peace. However, the strategic subtext is becoming harder to ignore: The exercises are increasingly about the military geography around Taiwan. Balikatan has always carried political weight. This year, however, the exercise looks different in ways that matter not only to Manila and Washington, but also to Taipei. What began in 2023 as a shift toward a more serious deterrence posture
RSS