I was going to write a column about the Martial Law era this week to mark the 20th anniversary of its formal conclusion.
But after watching President Chen Shui-bian (
Then after the inevitable overdose deaths of several addicts who had been let out of jail this week as part of Amnesty Lite to celebrate the grand occasion, I became so repulsed by all the pan-green-camp browbeating and one-upmanship and pan-blue-camp revisionism and whitewashing that I thought, fuck this charade, I'll bash the Chicoms instead.
'Cos you know that they're up for it.
My friends, it's been a fantastic week for Chicom baiters. There was news from Reuters on Sunday in which parents declared other families' kids a health hazard if they were the opposite sex of their little meimei or didi on the dance floor. The mortal threat? Holding hands during a waltz, because it might awaken the demons inside and distract them from their brilliant academic/commercial career.
Ever mindful of the damage that puppy lust has caused throughout Chinese history, the education ministry has decided to ensure that the children only dance in sizable groups. We can only hope that Chinese kids do not, like pink flamingoes, get the urge to hump each other when gathered in sufficiently large numbers.
If such party-pooping were taken to its logical conclusion, these little Golden Emperors and Empresses would end up on an oddly traditional life route: Earning shitloads of money to spend partly on themselves and mostly on their hectoring parents. In the meantime these children of Deng Xiaoping (
Now there's a solution to every one of China's problems.
Then there was the serious stuff.
Widespread slavery -- including of the mentally ill -- was uncovered in kiln operations and token punishments issued (only one execution? Yep, token punishments).
On Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warning China that "breakneck economic growth was wreaking severe damage on the environment and ... that Beijing's efforts to date to curb pollution had been insufficient" and moreover that energy was significantly under-priced.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that Beijing had asked the World Bank to suppress elements of a report that said around 460,000 Chinese die prematurely every year because of polluted air and water. The rationale for suppressing the data? Preventing unrest. But on Tuesday, Reuters reported that the deputy of China's environmental authority flat-out dismissed the credibility of the report, even disputing a link between environmental health and human mortality.
On Monday, Xinhua reported that scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences had discovered the wetlands of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau had contracted because of global warming, drying up even further the volume of water flowing down the Yangtze and the Yellow River.
Again on Monday, China's quarantine and inspection agency reacted to a series of troubling reports on Chinese food and drug exports by blaming the international media and commercial rivals of Chinese companies for exaggerating what they claimed to be the true state of affairs.
On Thursday, AFP mentioned Chinese state media reports that a "town [in Shandong Province] that has won more than 30 awards for its clean environment over the past decade has become a heavily polluted cesspool with abnormally high cancer rates." The report had a funny and sad climax: "A spokesman for the town's Communist Party committee dismissed the pollution concerns. `Industrialisation has been fast, so increased pollution is to be expected. What's the big deal?'"
This is a country that is facing calamitous problems and horrible choices, and apparently with mostly venal buffoons at the helm. And the spectacular, bullish parts of the Chinese economy aren't just threatened by environmental degradation; they're built on environmental degradation.
An economic house built on sand on a beach with an oil slick.
But never fear, all you short-term financiers, market raiders, speculators and companies who only see things in terms of annual reports. There will still be plenty of life in this baby before you'll need to bail out in search of countries that have free, clean water fountains.
Now that economic power in China has decentralized to a great extent, the center is struggling to implement measures that are in the national interest but decidedly not in the interest of local political-judicial enforcers. The broad mass of localities rules -- as long as they have economic punch. This was comically depicted last month by the misadventures of New York Times business reporter David Barboza, who was briefly held against his will by a factory that had local police in their pockets.
With this degree of brazenness on show, it makes little difference what the center says if the locals have other ideas. Or, as Barboza puts it, what can be done given "the dysfunctional relationship the Chinese government has with industry"? The consequences for environmental protection are chilling, notwithstanding all of this warming that's going on.
So, it comes as a big relief to those concerned about China's future to know that WHO Director-General Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍, also known in Zhongnanhai as "our man in the WHO") can take time out from her very busy day to defend China, with backing vocals from her section heads.
On this occasion Chan reminded us that the WHO receives reports of food contamination from all around the world.
"I have to say that food safety is a big problem for both developed and developing countries," the China Daily quoted her as saying on Thursday.
Look, Margaret, I don't mean to doubt your integrity, but food safety is a much, much bigger problem for developing countries, of which China is one.
But ol' Margaret does get points for making China look better by pointing out bad shit elsewhere just at the right time.
Go, girl. You're the Dragon!
Jorgen Schlundt, director of the WHO's Department of Food Safety and Frenzied Sinofellatio, also rushed to the defense of the Central Kingdom:
"`We are not expressing any concern especially about China.
`China has realized some time ago the need for updating its food safety system. It takes a long time to update a system, not only for China. After the BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy] crisis, it took the UK a long time.'"
Yes, punters, you heard it straight. China's food problems -- and the growing environmental and quality control issues that underlie them -- can be compared to a bout of mad cow disease.
The week finished with a curious story of a China Beijing TV Station (BTV) reporter who allegedly faked an expose on the manufacture of dumplings using cardboard. The reporter, Zi Beijia (
Now, my patient readers who aren't Chinese scholars might be intrigued to learn that "Zi" is an extremely unusual surname and literally means "to slander" or "to defame." So maybe things aren't looking so rosy for the fellow over this report. Hell, Chinese citizens have been shot for less.
But how can we be sure that this guy faked the story? We can't. Even CNN, with admirable sobriety, suggested as much on Thursday and again yesterday.
And I smelled something rank when an All-China Journalists Association report on the matter on Thursday stated that "firmly maintaining a Marxist news perspective is critical, firmly maintaining the correct guidance of public opinion is critical, firmly maintaining truth in news is critical and firmly maintaining news professionalism and morality is critical."
Yesterday, the hammer fell on more officials, with Chinese Communist Party committees in each of the affected organizations girding for action. All over one supposedly fake TV report.
Hey, if these crooks can take out Lin Biao (
In Edge of Darkness, a British television drama from the 1980s, a police officer has visions of his environmental activist daughter, Emma Craven, as he tracks down the nuclear industry corporate thugs that killed her. In one of the visions, she presents her father with a little black flower, a symbol of deliverance or apocalypse (depending on your world view). The flower, she says, will protect the Earth from the ravages of humans by warming the polar icecaps and destroying civilization.
Since the program was made, it has become clear that humans will need no help from black flowers to get that job done.
I have no idea if China has produced its own Emma Craven. But if so, and if this woman has tried to present Beijing with a little black flower as a warning and as a plea, then I am quite confident that she's rotting in the Gulag -- if she hasn't already been executed.
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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