On Oct. 8, in Shantou, China, Lai Fu-chu (賴福助), a visiting fisherman from Ilan, was beaten to death in broad daylight while Chinese policemen looked on.
The murderers were 20 or so local thugs, and the truck driver with whose truck Lai's car had collided. The slaying scene, as far as one can gather from the news report, mirrors eerily a chilling rampage, occasionally aired on the PBS channel, in which 20 or so chimpanzees gang up on a helpless chimp and beat him to death.
Putting the two incidents side by side, one can't but be alarmed by the savage nature displayed.
Anthropologists tell us that humans differ from chimps because humans have developed ethics and have knowledge of their consequences. This does not bear up with what happened to Lai. It was purely savage and utterly lawless.
This tragic event has several implications. First, China is still a lawless nation. Second, the brazen behavior psychologically correlates with the general attitude upheld by the Chinese leadership. Readers probably still remember vividly, not so long ago, the TV footage of the contemptuous look shown by the former foreign minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星), as he insolently debased the legitimacy of the Taiwanese leadership.
This impudence has been bolstered by the pan-blues' servile visits to China recently.
These sycophants have verbally reiterated one after another to the Chinese leadership -- ? and worst of all to the Chinese public -- that the Taiwanese government is a faux leadership, as Li Ao (李敖) has done also lately at Fudan University.
Now, if a supposedly erudite man, albeit overtly narcissistic, and a legislator to boot, is willing to thumb his nose at the Taiwanese people, who have elected the current leadership, and declare its mandate devoid of legitimacy, what can't the Chinese do to Taiwanese visitors or business-people. Yes, servility induces impudence, and impudence warrants violence.
Third, the prided code of ethics as developed by the Chinese is a sham in its current milieu. The Taiwanese who still take a great fancy to Chinese culture may do well to bear in mind that the Confucian code of ethics has no bearing whatsoever on its current political or legal or cultural habitat.
If people like Li Ao still want to chant about the glory of Chinese culture, perceptive folks should know that he chants from his memory of things past.
When Li Ao said that "there is no need to smash Taiwan to pieces" since the Taiwanese independence movement is only a "pretend act," who was he kidding? He was basically asking a hungry tiger not to eat the rabbit, since the rabbit was only pretending to run away.
This cajoling, ironically, had not been well received by the thugs in Shantou who claimed the life of a Taiwanese visitor by smashing him to pieces.
Yang Chunhui
United States
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:
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
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 —
RSS