Freedom from sabotage
Dear Johnny,
Someone has sabotaged your viewer counter. When I first saw your article “Hogwash + whitewash = whiteout” (Feb. 21, page 8) and saw that I was the first reader, I couldn’t and wouldn’t believe it, so I opened three different browsers and went back to the column. Yup, zero views.
Now, if you get paid by the number of views your column gets, your paycheck is going to be a big fat NT$0. I am a US-based fan and look for your latest column all the time. I worry your boss is going to get pressure from the “Ma Mob” to silence “The Neihoo Dragon” — and one of the last democratic voices in Taiwan will disappear.
But even Taiwan may disappear if the editorial writer at the China Post who wrote the editorial “Freedom, the natural enemy of Taiwan’s independence” (Feb. 20) has his or her way.
I would only ask: Freedom to be a communist? Freedom to not be Taiwanese? These are not good choices as far as I can see.
Johnny ... you’ve got a lot of work to do.
D. BUTLER
Johnny replies: Look, D, I have as much computer literacy as a skink and even less interest. What I can tell you is that I am not paid by page views, but if I were I would ensure that the words “teen sex” appeared in all of the titles.
Do you doubt this wisdom? Look up my archive.
As for the unholy United Front that threatens us all, you’re right: I have a lot of work to do. Starting with finding a skink willing to teach me about computers.
Stupidification
Dear Johnny,
On the Taipei Times story “Environmentalist aims to fight desert’s expansion” (March 18, page 4), I would like to know more about Wender Yang (楊文德), this bold “Taiwanese” who cares so much for China’s deserts. Doesn’t China care about Xinjiang or are the Chicoms so intelligent that they have to find a Taiwanese to work on their deserts?
His actions somehow remind me of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation and its venerable master Cheng Yen (證嚴). When there is a disaster in China, the omnipresent blue-dressed benevolents of Tzu Chi always ask for money and make big donations to China!
They seem to overlook the Taiwan-China rivalry and forget that China spends so much money developing weapons and military plans to use them against Taiwan.
Okay, Buddhism’s message is love — but surely not stupidity.
I would suggest to Mr Yang and the Tzu Chi Foundation that they look after Taiwan’s ecological emergencies, poverty and other social problems. What about you, Johnny?
STEVE TSO
France
Johnny replies: Actually, I’m going to take a conciliatory stance on this one. Growing deserts are nobody’s friend, Steve, especially if they belong to a country next door.
And I think you’re being hard on the Tzu Chi people. Most of the recipients of their labors are victims of the state as well as the forces of nature.
Notable germanclature
Dear Johnny,
Excellent piece, mein Herr (“Abbreviated development, ROC on!”, March 7, page 8).
CECA, ECFA ... whatever. Excrement by any other name stinks just the same.
FREIHERR VON BELCHENPHART
Mount Vernon, Washington
Johnny replies: Silly me ... I thought this loyal reader was using a trick name until I came across Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg, the German economics and technology minister.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not