Given the much-publicized courtship between Taiwan and the Chicoms that has taken place since the regime of “Regional Administrator” Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power, and the fact that Taiwan has been allowed to come down from the US State Department’s naughty step, one would have thought it safe to meet with top-level US officials without mentioning the “B word.”
Apparently not. The moment American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt stepped out of Ma’s pleasure palace the other day, he moved into top gear.
First, as if giving the seal of approval to his teenage daughter’s new beau, he chimed: “We are comfortable with what’s happening [in cross-strait relations] and where it seems to be going.”
But then, in just about the same breath, came the dreaded “B word.”
“The positive review from the risk assessment conducted by the Department of Health and other international organizations prove that it is safe for human consumption, but so far the US has not been informed of a timeline when Taiwan will lift its ban on US beef.”
Aaaaarrrrgh! The beef is back!
Translate this diplospeak into a form of English most citizens of Uncle Sam’s country can understand, and what he meant was: “Hell, you can bend over and let Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and his People’s Liberation Army [PLA] boys ride your sorry asses to Kingdom Come — just so long as you stall him long enough to open your stable doors to US beef.”
What is it with the US and its longing to sell cow meat? I had been hoping that all this beef bullying would come to an end once the Texans were relieved of control of the White House.
It’s getting beyond a joke. It’s coming to the point where a US official can’t talk about Taiwan or to a Taiwanese official without bringing it up.
Picture the scene: White House Press Room, December 2018.
State Department Spokesman: The United States government takes the incursion into Taiwan by Chinese PLA troops via the Beijing-Taipei Railway Line very seriously. [Pauses to take bite out of freshly cooked beefburger] Mmmmm, deeee-licious. See that? That’s 100 percent prime USDA-approved beef. [Puts burger down and wipes mouth with napkin] And following the overwhelming vote in favor of military action by Congress, the US will be dispatching an aircraft carrier battle group to the Taiwan Strait just as soon the administration of Taiwan President Yu Tian (余天) agrees to lift the beef ban.
Why don’t they just change the name of AIT to the Aberdeen Angus Institute in Taiwan and be done with it, for Matsu’s sake?
But back to the Burgy-Ma love in.
While Ray and his bosses may be happy with the horseman of the economic apocalypse, here at home Ma and his government are making the Taiwanese baseball team look like world-beaters. He’s about as popular as a John Tung Foundation speaker at a meeting of the Taipei Cigar Aficionados Club.
Still need convincing? You know something is wrong when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) loses an election in Miaoli, a region usually as blue as KMT honorary dinosaur Lien Chan’s (連戰) blood.
While we’re on the topic of blood and parasites, our present colonial masters and their attitudes toward their subjects have been the subject of much discussion recently since it was discovered that former United Daily News hack-turned-civil servant Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) has apparently been writing nasty things online about us Taiwanese.
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