Sat, May 02, 2009 page8

• Johnny Neihu's Mailbag

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  This just in: We're Balinese

  Dear Johnny,

  According to Mr. Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the 1952 Treaty of Taipei affirmed the transfer of Taiwan's sovereignty from Japan to the Republic of China (ROC).

  “While the 1952 treaty does not specify the legal successor government [of Taiwan], it was clear between the lines,” Ma said.

  “Japan would not have signed the accord with the ROC if it did not intend to concede the territories to the ROC,” he said.

  First, what's between the lines is clear to the eyes of the beholder.

  But few of us would buy a used car on that basis, let alone bargain over the future of an entire nation.

  I am of the opinion that the treaty in fact cedes Taiwan to Bali and as a result we can all go on vacation there, without a visa and also on a domestic-fare basis.

  To those who are inclined to observe that Mr Ma has engaged in Hollywood-style suspension of disbelief, I remind them that the Queen in Alice in Wonderland has said that, with practice, she was able to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

  Like her, let's go on with this fantasy for a while, as it leads us to some marvelous conclusions.

  To stake its claim over Taiwan, the People's Republic of China should now declare that they are, and have always been, the ROC.

  The only reason comrade Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) did not attend all of those Party congresses in Beijing was that he was on vacation (in Bali, I hasten to add).

  In return, the KMT should say that the only reason they were chasing Mao Zedong (毛澤東) across China was to make him their Chairman. That would clear up matters once and for all.

  DR ELIZA
  

  Johnny replies: The way things are going, our president is going to wake up one morning, stumble into the bathroom and discover a treaty in his toilet paper bin that proves Alishan and Sun Moon Lake were ceded to the Chinese tourism bureau.

  Tax provincialism

  Dear Johnny,

  Perhaps this is old news that I missed, but I recently came across the English Web site of the National Tax Administration of Southern Taiwan Province. Yes, province.

  Even if this is old news, perhaps you would care to shed some light on how this egregious misnomer happened to, and continues to, appear on this Web site.

  SCOTT BECK

  Taipei

  Johnny replies: As you can imagine, I don't spend much of my time trawling through Internet resources relating to taxation, and because the ladies at my local tax office are so lovely and patient despite the regularly provocative behavior they must endure, I am loath to say anything negative about the tax bureacracy.

  That, and because I like to keep my meager earnings above suspicion.

  So forgive me, Scott, for not ringing up my local tax branch and giving them a lecture on the Confucian tradition of zhengming (正名).

  But if you want to get technical, bear in mind that the government has, in whole or part, control of two, possibly three, provinces of “China.”

  So what do we do with Kinmen and Matsu if Taiwan is no longer called a province? How about calling those Chinese coast-kissing lumps of rock the Special Autonomous Three Links Zone of the Republic of Taiwan?

  Better still, let's upgrade them to a special municipality. It's all the rage these days, don't you know.
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