Anyone tiring of pan-blue obstructionism will be disappointed once again by the actions of the Great Jogger and Great Blue Hope, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
So it comes as a welcome relief that independent Legislator Li Ao (
Waving around bogus US intelligence documents "proving" that President Chen Shui-bian (
In short, Li had become a rabble-rouser, but without the benefit of a rabble willing to take any notice. The situation had become so dire that actor Bacy Tang (
In Beijing, Li was given a hero's welcome -- until he started talking. Li's freewheeling speech started not with icons from the pantheon of Chinese history, but with a US Civil War anecdote involving president Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant. He then warmed up, praising liberal Chinese nationalist Hu Shih (胡適), and skewering officials in attendance with this Hu quote: "The struggle for national liberty is the struggle for individual liberty."
The speech, delivered without notes, covered the problems of liberalism, communism and Mao Zedong (
Pro-independence Taiwanese academics such as Hsu Yung-ming (
Ultimately, Li's pilgrimage to China is noteworthy for two reasons. The first is that even the demands of "Greater China" nationalism and its advocacy cannot restrain Li's ego -- his individuality. The second is that the communist authorities, as they rushed to censor Li's speech, were surely scratching their heads, looking at Li -- their latest would-be unificationist tool -- and asking themselves: "If this is what passes for a friend in Taiwan, then what hope is there?"
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
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