By love or by jackboot
Dear Johnny,
You’re right that Association For Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) is more powerful, and his pompadour more erect, than the pitiful KMT grandees who trailed him around Taiwan on his recent visit, but you may underestimate his influence by bracketing him as a “C-lister.”
Aside from heading ARATS, Chen is one of 10 members of the Central Leading Small Group for Work on Taiwan. The Group is chaired by China’s not-elected “president” Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and run by Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), the corruption-tainted heavyweight who ranks No. 4 in the bandit hierarchy.
Despite its odd title, the Group has a vital function. These are the fellows who oversee Communist Party strategy to envelop and absorb Taiwan by love or by jackboot, and who will green-light the People’s Liberation Army’s plan for a blitzkrieg attack once they conclude that the KMT appeasers in Taipei are too incompetent for further use.
You can be sure that Hu and the rest cleared their diaries for a day on Chen’s return to Berlin, er, Beijing, to meet at their bunker in the Western Hills and hear his report.
The Group will also need to approve the appointments list for posts in the Taiwan Provincial New Military Administration. No wonder Lien Chan (連戰), James Soong (宋楚瑜) and Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) were keen for Chen to return home with fond memories of them.
DON CROPPER
London
Johnny replies: Or maybe it was because these learned gentlemen were angling for a seat alongside Zhang Yimou (張藝謀) on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, though I rather think that by the time the Chicoms land on Taiwan’s coast, this triumvirate will be so old that any local collaborationist posts would be strictly honorary (though this will only add another to the long list of honorary titles belonging to Emeritus Chairman Lien.)
I should say the use of “C-lister” to describe Chen seems to have originated at the Straits Exchange Foundation, or at least one of its officials — of unknown alphabetical rank.
Would “Chen the B-lister” satisfy you, Don?
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