It's all the rage now for music super-groups (and some not so super) to sign up for private performances for vast amounts of money. But because Taiwan doesn't have any super-groups, we have to make do with the idea of catching Jay Chou (
But as always with Taiwan, women lead the way. If you believe the insinuations of Next Magazine (and you have every reason not to), Z-list starlet and part-time dopehead Suzanne Hsiao Shu-shen (
Assuming there's any truth to the report, it must be tough work. Not the traveling from shithole to shithole and dodging China's great wall of humorless police, paramilitary police and soldiers. No, I mean insufferable conversation.
Before proceeding to seven minutes of perfunctory lust, you just know that every one of her partners would say something like: "Hey baby, you Taiwanese compatriots are quite cute, but of course the most beautiful girls in China come from my province. Now take off that Les Enphants boob tube and get down on all fours."
Unlike her well-funded alleged clients, I think the media should climb off her back. If it's all true, at the very least she's making a tremendous effort to restore respectability to Taiwan's shrinking trade balance with the Chicoms.
But that's the economic side. There's another side to Taiwan's international lovemaking that has the potential to benefit this hemmed-in nation. Some might call it "espionage." I call it "keeping your friends close and your benefactors closer."
Last week saw top US State Department official Donald Keyser sentenced to a year and a day in jail for illegal removal of classified documents, lying to investigators and submitting a misleading customs declaration. But the real story -- and the angle that prosecutors followed up to try to nail him for espionage -- was his undeclared relationship and movements with an intelligence officer attached to Taiwan's de facto consulate in New York.
A Taiwanese Mata Hari? Really?
Keyser's downfall was Isabelle Cheng Nien-tzu (
Anyway, the Chinese-language media have gone to some lengths to depict Cheng as a slut -- dating back to her high school days. Which high school? Where else but Taipei First Girls' High School, where the cream of this great nation make their start. Isn't it funny how women with apparently more than a passing interest in sexual activity are depicted as especially dissolute if they have an IQ above 50?
Anyway, did Keyser compromise the US' national security? Technically, yes, though prosecutors seemed unaware that passing on secrets to Taiwanese intelligence agencies is like whispering the secret recipe for the Colonel's finger-lickin' chicken to a mangy dog munching on a leftover dinner box in a trash heap.
But you can't be too sure. Given that pan-blue-camp ruffians and die-hard ultra-leftists have the freedom to sap the nation's morale by doing deals with Chicom miscreants and trashing Taiwan for all to hear, you'd assume that some in our intelligence agencies have quiet hotlines to Zhongnanhai, while the rest couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.
In this vein, The Associated Press reported this showstopping summation of Keyser's supposed guilt: "Keyser `exposed himself to compromise and blackmail by hostile intelligence services,' prosecutor David Laufman said during the hearing. `We may never know why Donald Keyser committed the acts which bring him here today.'"
"Hostile intelligence services"? Funny, I thought there was a law in place naming Taiwan as a place worthy of US military protection (memo to David Laufman: try Googling "Taiwan Relations Act"). And if Keyser's possible motivations remain a mystery to Mr Laufman, I can only guess the good prosecutor has never received a blow job from someone half his age.
And what of Isabelle Cheng? Her crime wasn't her breakneck passenger-seat calisthenics. There's every reason to believe that she was leaning forward and thinking of herself rather than Taiwan, because evidence to the contrary wasn't strong enough to present to the court. Keyser, after all, was not sentenced for spying.
But if Cheng was channeling restricted data to Taipei, hers was an admirable and humane technique by Republic of China standards. Have a flick through former security agent Ku Cheng-wen's (
No, dear reader, other than committing and being an accessory to infidelity, Cheng's only sin is this: Her cover was, er, blown. So, may I suggest to the National Security Bureau that Cheng adapt Vice President Annette Lu's (
Forget bribing nations with aid that gets diverted to the inner circle of the leader of the hour. Forget all that Democratic Pacific Union codswallop. None of it works.
"Soft, warm and wet power" is the only thing that will get potential allies to come to our side.
Instead of the National Security Bureau teaching a Praetorian Guard of Solomon Islander thugs how to protect their thuggish prime minister, I suggest Cheng supervise workshops on winning the peace in that sorry land through other forms of "international exchange" -- courtesy of a enthusiastic team of young Taiwanese men and women.
Ladies and gentlemen, peace in our time.
This way, as Keyser broods in his prison cell and reflects on an honorable career that included saving the lives of Chinese dissidents, he might be comforted by the knowledge that his dalliance with Cheng had a higher purpose.
Speaking of China, arming ourselves with universal love like a modern-day, pheromone-dripping Mo Tzu (
Now don't get me wrong. I detest contrived metaphors as much as the next underpaid columnist. But really, isn't there something off-puttingly penile about China's inferiority-complex-driven obsession with missiles? Is it because their nationalism isn't big enough to arouse the rest of the world, so they have to resort to flashing on radar screens? Or did this particular projectile just fire prematurely? My money's on the latter because China's diplomats were caught with their pants around their ankles.
If Taiwan's symphony of universal love is ignored by a tone-deaf, sensually barren world and we are left to Beijing's devices, then I'm not so worried about these butch armaments. Sure, they could kill a few thousand people and destroy some butt-ugly buildings, but they're not enough to win a war. Taiwan has been ravished by so many invaders over the centuries that I doubt China going ballistic all over again would be the decisive act.
The crux is this: When love fails, will our young people feel hate and murderous anger at the killing of their families, friends and compatriots, or will they look at the bodies on the streets and in their homes, then sigh, shrug their shoulders and switch on the TV to watch celebrity idiot Hu Gua (
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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