Things are getting too serious around here, dammit, so I thought I’d lighten up and talk about something more accessible.
Is betrayal light enough for you?
I got thinking about the subject when I read of the final collapse of the reputation of a fine artist.
His name is Zhang Yimou (張藝謀). You might have heard of him.
This one-time darling of the international film festival circuit and regular victim of Chinese censorship and other repression (not to mention a stint in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution) is a giant of modern Chinese cinema.
Well, this giant has just fallen down the beanstalk, Jack.
Not only has he upped the ante on his Beijing Olympic extravaganzas by agreeing to direct a fireworks show and military parade for China’s National Day on Oct. 1, the Guardian on March 4 reported that the newly minted Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference member is “currently deliberating between three or four state-sanctioned screenplays” for a film celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic.
Yes, you read that correctly.
What was it that made this man go over the edge and bury himself in the lap of the Chicom propaganda machine? Did the thought of former squeeze Gong Li (鞏俐) marrying a foreign cigarette tycoon before becoming a Singaporean citizen finally go to his head? Or did a premonition of Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) frollicking naked on a beach with whitey trigger a Caligula-like fit of madness?
Nothing like a bit of loin envy to get your nutty nationalism gland secreting, as Mama Neihu would say.
Zhang is shaping up as the Guo Moruo (郭沫若) of the 21st century. Or, to put it more directly, Beijing’s willing artiste bitch.
How are we going to watch this man’s movies now without shedding a tear for his outhouse career trajectory? It’ll be like laughing your ass off watching The Naked Gun — and then O.J. Simpson shows up.
Instant sobriety.
Zhang’s oft-repeated claim that he is not interested in politics is finally, and permanently, discredited. These days he’s cashing in on oppression and spouting sophomoric theories of Chinese fortitude to rationalize suffering of those with far fewer means. Consider all of this carefully, then read some of the interviews that this man has given the Chinese press on his Olympic experience, complete with mockery of “Western” attitudes.
Add it all up, and what we see emerging is one deeply disgusting situation.
Speaking of negative emotions, I’ve been reading the latest issue of Taiwan Review.
Don’t misunderstand me: I kinda like the Government Information Office (GIO) mag. It’s a nice glossy effort with pretty pics and useful stories.
No, I was referring to a review of a new tome by Su Chi (蘇起), secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council.
The reviewer is Robert Green, a former editor with the mag. The book details Su’s adventures in formulating and manipulating Taiwan’s cross-strait policy. It’s called Taiwan’s Relations with Mainland China: A Tail Wagging Two Dogs, where the “tail” is Taiwan and the dogs, in an unfortunate metaphor, are the US and China.
Green’s writing is not crudely unbalanced. His references to former presidents Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) are quite sensible. His writing does not initially tempt one to label him a pan-blue-camp shill.
But there is a problem, and it’s quite a sizable one.
Yep — betrayal.
Let’s pass over the “1992 consensus” hoax that Su bequeathed our political discourse, as well as Green’s apparent belief that the term is an acceptable description of the sentiments of Chinese and Taiwanese negotiators in Hong Kong at the time. Let’s also ignore Green’s failure to comment on China and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) accelerated use of this reification in recent months.
Instead, let’s look at how Green dances around Su’s blithe admission that he, as an influential diplomat, defied his president and worked to sabotage Lee’s “state-to-state” dictum:
“Su recounts his own attempts to pull off the difficult feat of turning the ‘two states’ proclamation back into the one-China policy that still represented orthodox KMT thinking. ‘As a member of the crisis management team and its only contact window to the outside,’ he writes, ‘I had to argue in defense of the Two-States Theory so as to maintain the government’s dignity. Simultaneously, I strove to gradually transform the Two-States Theory back into the familiar OCRI [One China, Respective Interpretations] so that it would be accepted by both sides.’”
Pop quiz, dear reader: What do you call it when a government official deliberately undermines his president’s foreign policy in a manner consistent with the interests of a hostile foreign power?
The answer is a word with legal force.
It’s not a very nice word. In this country, like in the US, you can even be executed if you are found to have committed it.
Lee Teng-hui didn’t use the word to describe Su’s machinations, preferring: “Now there’s a little monkey who wants to manufacture history” (小小一個猴囝仔就想要製造歷史).
Green doesn’t use the word, either. He’s much more polite. Su’s disloyalty is described as “pull[ing] off a difficult feat,” while “orthodox KMT thinking” is implied to overlap nicely with Su’s thinking. Nary a comment on this from Green.
Things are a little different in my beloved country, you see. Here, you can chuckle and quaff a glass of Chivas Regal as you boast of subverting your commander-in-chief because his ideology did not suit your tastes.
In Taiwan, with a record of such disloyalty, you can find yourself elevated from the realm of scumbag legislators to the secretary-general of the National Security Council.
It makes you wonder.
Consider this. If President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had an epiphany and came to regard the Taiwanese polity — instead of the memory of a mummified empire — as his master, what would Su Chi do? Could he be trusted to do his duty and rally around his boss, or would he stick to the KMT stylebook and, once again, betray his president?
How can we be sure that he wouldn’t?
Do you remember US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s memorable “tossing a turd in the punchbowl” quip about irritating Taiwanese officials? Let me use my own scatological simile (or metaphor of merde, if you prefer): Based on this sample of wordsmithery, Robert Green could make a hobo’s asscrack smell like a thousand roses.
What should we think when a person has a review praising a book by a former KMT legislator, GIO boss and now head of the intelligence/security apparatus published in a journal with a documented history of editorial interference from both sides of politics?
What does it mean if a commentator calls the current head of an intelligence apparatus (or his writing) irrepressible, erudite, witty, scrupulous, astute, enjoyable, rigorous and perceptive?
Would Taiwan Review have published Green’s article if he had said Su’s book was a revisionist memoir masking professional misconduct?
Hmm. My foreign readers had better not entertain that question. After all, in the February edition of Taiwan Journal, Green wrote that “Taiwan at times is subjected to scrutiny of its institutions by Westerners that borders on the condescending,” and that in the Chen trial, for example, “there is also a cautionary tale for those who watch the proceedings from a self-appointed position of superiority.”
So, if you’re white and think Taiwan’s judiciary has been acting strangely in the Chen case, then you don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about. Cease appointing yourself, barbarian upstart. Hand over your tribute and return to the tundra.
But, hey, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. In Green’s case, I think we can be confident that this was not a self-appointed book review. Ergo, he has authentic superiority.
There’s an attribution at the end of Green’s piece. It says that he is a regular contributor on Taiwanese matters to The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
I very much hope that Green’s dispatches to London do not resemble his review for the Taiwan Review.
Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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