Crying foul
Dear Johnny,
I’m afraid Taiwan’s fall into the Dragon’s Mouth of Communist China is going faster than water being flushed. US President George W. Bush has the bragging rights of kicking former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) long before President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took his turn.
Mr Bush and his fellow Republicans decided it was in the long-term interest of their pocketbooks to dump the goal of democracy in the Asia-Pacific. This meant that Taiwan had to go. Not completely, of course — there was still some military equipment they could sell. Also, they needed the threat of intervention to get the best trading terms they could. You gotta remember, it’s not that Bush and friends disliked Taiwan, but money is money.
As for Chen, I don’t know if his sin of using an expense account for unanswerable answers is a bigger sin than Mr Ma’s unanswerable answers, but politics is politics. I do think the Democratic Progressive Party ought to cry foul though: The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leader got to walk the streets free like a human being while they found him “not guilty.” Of course, the KMT has no history of democracy.
I cried foul and wrote a letter to Bush at the White House, but as expected I got the standard reply: “Thank you, but the White House cannot respond to every message.” I’m sure Mr Ma does the same thing.
I wish the Taiwanese people a lot of luck with the KMT and its rush to communism. I just hope that the next time I take my wife back to visit her family there aren’t armed soldiers on every other street.DALE BUTLER
Johnny replies: With a bit of luck — bittersweet luck — the soldiers you see will be those of the Neihu Freedom Force, posted to protect civilians and essential infrastructure (7-Elevens, KTVs, food malls) from official molestation.
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