The media have had a field day with the post-divorce mud-slinging that occurred online between Taiwanese-American singer-songwriter Wang Leehom (王力宏) and his ex-wife, Lee Jing-lei (李靚蕾).
Wang on Monday last week posted an apology on Facebook, saying that he would take a break from the entertainment industry to make up for lost time with his parents and children.
He said that he would transfer to Lee the deeds of her residence, as well as share the responsibility of providing for their children’s education and future expenses.
Lee showed her goodwill by not taking legal action, after Wang and his father accused her of “trapping Wang into a marriage with her pregnancy,” thereby putting a temporary end to the saga.
POLITICAL INCIDENT
Such melodramatic scandals are typically only fit for a little gossip over tea, but this divorce saga has been turned into a political incident.
Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡錫進), going back on his usual stance of “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,” proclaimed that Wang is not Chinese, but a “Taiwanese-American.”
“The scandal should have been strictly Taiwan’s business. However, even the referendum that took place today was rumored to be overshadowed by it. I expect it is going to cause further uproar in Taiwan and the US,” Hu wrote on Sina Weibo on Dec. 18, the day Taiwanese voted on four national referendums.
Apparently, Hu was willing to advocate for Taiwanese independence if it meant that China could sever all ties with the tainted celebrity.
JAPAN BID
In a Facebook post the next evening, Wang deliberately called Lee by her Japanese name, Nishiharu Michiko, in the hope of stirring up anti-Japanese sentiment among his Chinese fanbase.
However, the act backfired, drawing a landslide of criticism of Wang from Internet users in China.
The most preposterous thing was that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) pinned the blame for the four failed referendums on Wang.
This only proves to Taiwanese that certain people in China form a confederacy of dunces who get cocky when things are in their favor, but start being smart-asses who play dirty political tricks when things go wrong — and end up shooting themselves in the foot.
In stark contrast, Taiwanese-Japanese Lee has been laying bare the truth behind the hypocritical images and lies made up by Wang and his father in a series of exposes.
The evidence Lee has provided in her posts was apparently the result of years of meticulous accumulation, rendering each piece a fatal blow to the enemy.
SHOGUN
This move is not unlike the 17th-century shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, who is famous for uniting Japan in the Sengoku period by biding his time to make the perfect strike when the odds were against him.
It is no wonder that Internet users were staying up late for the latest follow-up in this David-versus-Goliath battle between Lee and Wang.
Although this reality show has for the time being come to an end, besides finally getting to know “all the things we never knew” about Wang, to borrow a line from one of his own songs, the public has learned a lesson: Only by imitating Lee’s forbearance and tolerance, like Ieyasu, can we deliver the fatal blow when the time is ripe.
John Yu is a civil servant.
Translated by Rita Wang
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
Heavy rains over the past week have overwhelmed southern and central Taiwan, with flooding, landslides, road closures, damage to property and the evacuations of thousands of people. Schools and offices were closed in some areas due to the deluge throughout the week. The heavy downpours brought by the southwest monsoon are a second blow to a region still recovering from last month’s Typhoon Danas. Strong winds and significant rain from the storm inflicted more than NT$2.6 billion (US$86.6 million) in agricultural losses, and damaged more than 23,000 roofs and a record high of nearly 2,500 utility poles, causing power outages. As
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming