Sat, Apr 01, 2006 page8

• Johnny Neihu's NewsWatch: What a racket from Robert Ross

  If there's one thing more annoying than inept and noisy tourism campaigns for Taiwan, it's an article in a peer-review journal on Taiwanese security that redefines "drivel" (the sex lives of aging politicians come a close second).

  • By Johnny Neihu 強尼內湖
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  I was taking a nap while returning to Taiwan the other day via China Airlines, when I was awakened by an awful squeal:

  "Eeeeeeee..."

  Puzzled, I opened my eyes and looked about, trying to find the source of the irritating drone.

  "Eeeeeeee..."

  Just as I was beginning to panic, wondering whether this heralded some disastrous mechanical failure, the sound changed, and I finally worked out what was happening:

  "Eeeeee... LA! Foo-or... MOSA! Taiwan will touch ... Taiwan will... tou-uch... yooo... ooour ... HEART! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee... LA! Foo-or...MOSA!"

  Heavens. I had never heard anything so disturbing in my life as that grating, syncopated jingle. "Ilha Formosa," the melodic Portuguese phrase for "beautiful island," had been twisted from elegiac evocation into demonic invocation. My head was reeling, and hyperventilating, I began clawing at the seat in front of me in a desperate effort to escape the excruciating racket.

  I was making a scene, and I didn't care. Japanese tourists eyed me with suspicion, and the flight attendant came over to ask me if I would like a pillow. If I had been on a US flight, no doubt an air marshal would have shot me. But all I could do was moan the words of William Blake, which came tumbling into my head: "O who hath caused this? Who can answer at the throne of God?"

  Taiwan's Tourism Bureau had done this! It had betrayed us! Chinese agents, intent on destroying Taiwan's reputation, had infiltrated it and assumed control. All was lost ... no one would ever want come to Taiwan after hearing that song.

  And that was before the video started.

  I had to calm myself or be driven to madness. I flipped open a copy of the US bimonthly Foreign Affairs that I had found at an airport bookstore.

  There, in the March/April edition, my eye caught an article titled "Taiwan's fading independence movement." I began to read, expecting insight and cutting analysis in this, "America's most influential publication on international affairs and foreign policy," as it humbly describes itself.

  I should have known better. But as Captain Frederick Marryat tells us, "The fruit is turned to ashes in his mouth at the fancied moment of enjoyment -- warning succeeds warning -- disappointment is followed up by disappointment; every gray hair in his head may be considered as a sad memento of dear-bought, yet useless experience."

  It isn't that I wholly disagree with Boston College Professor Robert Ross' basic assertion that the "independence" movement in Taiwan has lost a large amount of political currency. But his conclusions are one-dimensional, and his grasp of Taiwanese history appalling. Never send a China expert to do a man's -- er, Taiwan expert's -- work.

  Still, hurling insults at Professor Bob -- fun though it may be -- doesn't prove that he got it wrong. But quoting him will.

  "Taiwan's independence movement gained momentum in 1995 when Washington allowed Taiwan's then president, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), to visit the United States ... By suddenly allowing Lee to visit, Washington seemed to Beijing to be encouraging independence."

  And:

  "China reacted by deploying short-range missiles across the strait from Taiwan and accelerating its purchase of Russian submarines and advanced aircraft."

  "China reacted" to Lee's visit by deploying missiles in 1995? As if innocent China was forced to deploy hundreds of ballistic missiles, capable of killing tens of thousands of Taiwanese, to defend itself from the depredations of that evil Taiwanese independence mastermind. I can hear the voice of Taiwan-born action master John Liu (劉忠良) in a 1970s kung fu flick: "I do not wish to fight you, but you leave me no choice."

  Fine. Except China was deploying missiles targeting Taiwan as early as 1993, two years before Lee went to the US.

  As John Liu might tell an opponent who has fallen to his righteous martial fury: "I have been practicing, and have learned my lessons well."

  "Despite the widespread belief that Taiwan has an identity separate from China's, voters have consistently backed the so-called mainlander parties."

  I don't want to nitpick, but how does this explain the more than 10 percentage-point swing in favor of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2004 (when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) received about 50 percent of the vote) compared to 2000 (when he received about 39 percent of the vote)? It doesn't. You can't look at two polls -- the legislative election in 2004 and the local government election last year -- and think you've uncovered a broad trend.

  "The demise of Taiwan's independence movement has removed the only conceivable source of war between the United States and China."

  Won't China's efforts to become a regional military power conflict with the US' role as the regional guarantor of security? Should a conflict occur over North Korea, won't it have any impact on US-China relations? Will the US and Japan's close security relationship never be a problem, seeing as Tokyo and Beijing get along so well? Trade conflicts, nationalist ambitions, competition for energy resources, irreconcilable political ideologies -- do we not need to worry about these?

  Let me end with what I view as Ross' most egregious, almost unforgivable, sin:

  "Once freed from the immediate threat of war, Taiwan will be able to focus on promoting economic development and consolidating its still-young democracy."

  As my mother might put it, "Robert S. Ross! I'm disappointed in you!"

  Consolidating Taiwan's democracy. This is what the whole issue is about. The fundamental threat posed by China to Taiwan is to its democratic system, regardless of how one describes "independence."

  China wants control of Taiwan, and China is not a democracy. Does it need to be spelled out any more clearly than this?

  I haven't heard anything so misguided since the Chinese city of Changsha offered a statue of Mao Zedong (毛澤東) to Tibet. How insensitive that was. I was so offended that I'm considering asking Japan to offer a statue of Emperor Hirohito to Nanjing.

  But while I'm on the topic of insensitivity, I'm really beginning to worry about what they're teaching kids these days.

  In the legislature on Monday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) waved about a copy of a school textbook he found particularly offensive. The book apparently championed pre-marital sex between teens, and said abortion pills could easily resolve any unwanted pregnancies. It also asked "students to draw a picture of their ideal position for having sex," according to a gem of a story picked up by Deutsche Presse Agentur on March 27.

  Lee, while berating Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) (a DPP member) for allowing such things into schools, said: "Minister Tu, can we ask you to draw a picture of your ideal position for having sex?"

  Although I thank Lee and Tu for the entertainment that their ongoing feud provides, I humbly and sincerely beg that neither of them ever again publicly ask the other to share details of his sex life.

  What they do in private is not my concern. It's the Apple Daily's.

  Heard or read something particularly objectionable about Taiwan? Johnny wants to know: dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com is the place to reach me, with "Dear Johnny" in the subject line.
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