The story is all too familiar: The wife of a high-ranking politician with a taste for expensive jewelry compromises the reputation and position of her powerful husband through her brazen shopping exploits.
But this particular tale is not news of first lady Wu Shu-jen (
No, the spouse I am referring to lives across the water and is none other than Chinese No. 2 Wen Jiabao's (
Seems leaders in Taiwan and China have more in common than they thought.
An article posted on the Los Angeles Times Web site on Dec. 26 entitled "In Beijing, some bling is unwelcome" told how last month TVBS ran a brief story on how Zhang bought a number of jade artifacts, including a pair of earrings worth US$250,000 from Taiwanese jeweler Yu Chong-da (
Another jeweler familiar with the predilections of the premierlissimo's wife, Chiou Wei-jung (邱惟鍾), told how Mrs Wen also has a taste for emeralds and Taiwanese coral.
Now, I know that those Chinese have a reputation for eating anything, but chowing down on a coral ciabatta is pushing it just a little (and anyway, isn't coral protected? Maybe the National Police Agency should issue a warrant).
But getting back on track.
Zhang obviously developed a liking for pretty rocks during her formative years digging around in the deserts of western China. According to Communist Party legend, the couple met as they worked in remote Gansu Province as part of a geological team during the Cultural Revolution. Zhang apparently won a three-horse race for studmuffin Wen's affections because of her willingness to visit his dorm and wash his smalls.
Zhang, a career geologist and former vice director of China's national gemstone testing center, is obviously now looking for payback and eager to increase her personal collection of green stuff in return for 15 years of washing the brown stuff out of Wen's Y-fronts (I'm talking about Gobi Desert dust, for those of you with your minds in the gutter).
At least now we know why Wen -- famed for his modest lifestyle and "man of the people" image -- often ends up stuck down a mine (brave man) on New Year's Eve eating dumplings with miners: He has to save money to pay for his wife's bling addiction.
Look at pictures of Zhang on the Internet and you can see why she likes to hang pretty trinkets from every convenient orifice. All those years spent under the harsh desert sun have given her face -- how can I put it politely -- a slightly weathered look. In fact she makes Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) honorary lifetime loser Lien Chan's (連戰) very own weather-beaten wife Lien Fang Yu (連方瑀) look like Jolin Tsai (蔡依林).
May I suggest a full-face jade mask be top of the list for Zhang's next shopping excursion?
But here's where the similarities between the two ladies and their stories end because, as we all know, Wu ended up being savaged to the verge of death by the pro-unification press pack, quickly characterized as a money-crazed, world domination-obsessed female version of wheelchair-bound James Bond baddie Ernst Blofeld.
By contrast, news of Zhang's super shopping spree disappeared from the radar as quickly as it had come into range thanks to some pressure in the right places from the long arm of commie central.
According to the Los Angeles Times report, Yu and Chiou quickly published retractions in the Chinese-language press both here and in Hong Kong. However, they insisted that the apologies had nothing to do with "political pressure."
And check this. The report then tells the bizarre tale of how the Taiwanese jewelry association asked TVBS to issue a retraction. Everyone's favorite news-creating station then ran a follow-up report including a "clarification" from the two jewelers in question.
Yes, after you've picked yourself up off the floor, you did hear correctly. TVBS ran a "clarification" on a "factually untrue" broadcast. Let's hope they don't make a habit of it, as there aren't enough hours in the day.
I've been around a long time, but I never realized the Taiwan jewelry association was such an influential organization. Anyone that can force TVBS to admit to telling untruths must have gonads bigger than Taipei's small giant egg (
Meanwhile, back in bandit country, the "Great Firewall of China" sprang into action, with all searches for "Wen's wife" and "jewelry" on China's Yahoo and Google directing Chinese netizens to hastily photoshopped pictures of Zhang donating said earrings to a poor Tibetan market stallholder in the name of ethnic harmony (actually, I made this bit up but it can't be too far from the truth).
But the biggest mystery in all of this is where our pals in the pro-unification print media were on this story. One would have thought they'd have been all over this like a rash. After all, it was the perfect chance to extol the glory of the "motherland" and its economic development and show that the wives of top-ranking communist officials are doing more than the Taiwanese government to help our economy.
It could also have given Prez A-bian (陳水扁) and Prem Wen some common ground on which to kick-start cross-strait negotiations.
Big Red may have been successful in cowing the likes of TVBS and other self-serving organizations, forcing them to renege on their principles in their pursuit of wealth (the growing list includes the US, Russia, France, the UK, every other member of the UN bar our "impoverished" allies, the WHO and the International Organization for Animal Health to name just a few) -- but not I. Not Johnny Neihu.
I will shout it from the rooftops of Neihu Towers until I'm blue in the face (or until an undercover Chinese sniper gets me), because I have no business interests behind the Bamboo Curtain to compromise.
You see, for reasons I can't explain, my fan base in China doesn't seem to be expanding all that fast.
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.
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
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS