Wishful thinking?

It was quite a surprise when Yasuo Fukuda 福田康夫 announced his resignation as Japan's Prime Minister on Monday evening. The campaign to replace him is just starting to heat up, and some politicians in Taiwan are paying close attention, as the Kyōdō News' 共同通信社の Max Hirsch reports in an article entitled "Taiwan politicians hope Aso takes reins", from this morning's Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ:

"Taiwanese power brokers seemed upbeat Tuesday on the possibility that Tarō Asō 麻生太郎, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party 自由民主党, would become Japan's next prime minister. But the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry predicted stable relations with Tōkyō 東京 no matter who replaces Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda."

While the foreign ministry is doing what diplomats should do (maintaining tactfulness about the internal political affairs of a neighboring country):

"Other officials here, however, were more vocal on Aso, saying his expected rise would benefit Taiwan-Japan relations, which have, at times, appeared wobbly since Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九, of the ruling Nationalist Party 中国国民党, took office May 20. 'Tarō Asō,' said legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng 王金平, 'staunchly supports Taiwan — if he heads Japan's Cabinet, that should be a boon to Taiwan.' An outspoken conservative, Asō, 67, tends to take a hard line on China and backs Taiwan for its embrace of democracy. The hawk, Wang told reporters, also enjoys strong personal relations with many Taiwanese officials and supports Ma's China-friendly policies. 'I consider Tarō Asō an old friend of more than two decades,' added Wang, also of the Nationalist Party. Colleague legislator Lee Chia-chin similarly predicted 'big benefits' for Taiwan with Asō as prime minister. While meeting with Asō on a visit last month to Tōkyō with Chiang Pin-kun 江丙坤, Taiwan's chief negotiator on China, Lee said he overheard Asō tell Chiang that 'China had much to learn from Taiwan in terms of democratization.' 'We heard Secretary General Asō tell (Chiang Pin-kun) that peace in the Taiwan Strait depends on the "Taiwanization" of China,' Lee said."

Wang (according to his Wikipedia bio is "a southerner, a native Hoklo 台湾語 speaker, and a legislator and person identified with the pro-localization faction of the (KMT)". He appears to belong to (if not lead) a wing of the ruling KMT that favors maintaining strong relations with Japan (as opposed to the more China-centric policies of Ma and his cohorts), and it is interesting that he (and others) are close to someone like Asō, who has made several controversial comments in the past regarding Taiwan and China. For example, in February 2006 he praised the implementation of compulsory education in Taiwan during Japan's colonial rule of the island, saying "our predecessors did a good thing". He upset China in March of the same year by referring to Taiwan as a "law-abiding country". He has also questioned China's ongoing military buildup, calling it a "considerable threat". It is hard to imagine comments such as these finding much favor with the mainlander elements of the Nationalist party (Asō, presumably, would also maintain a hardline stance over the Senkaku Islands 尖閣諸島).

However, before Wang and Lee get excited about Asō becoming Japan's next prime minister, they should remember that a year ago, when Shinzō Abe 安倍晋三 similarly abruptly resigned from the PM post (deja vu?), Asō was also considered the front-runner to move into the official residence in Nagatachō 永田町. In the end, however, he lost the leadership election to Fukuda, and stayed out of the government until two months ago, when he was appointed LDP secretary-general in a cabinet reshuffle meant to shore up Fukuda's flagging popularity (it didn't work, obviously). Several other candidates have also thrown their hats into the ring: State Minister in charge of Economic and Fiscal Policy Kaoru Yosano 与謝野馨; former Defense Minister Yuriko Koike 小池百合子, who, if elected, would become Japan's first female prime minister; and Nobuteru Ishihara 石原伸晃, son of notorious nationalist and current Tōkyō governor Shintarō Ishihara 石原愼太郎. While it can be safely assumed that Japanese policy toward Taiwan would remain constant no matter who becomes the next 総理大臣 later this month, is it a good idea for prominent Taiwanese politicians to be so openly supportive of one candidate in particular?

One other thing for Wang et al to consider is what would happen if the Japanese public's dissatisfaction with the post-Junichirō Koizumi 小泉純一郎 LDP leadership results in an early general election being called, with the possibility of Ichirō Ozawa 小沢一郎 and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan 民主党 taking over the reins of government. Things are starting to get interesting in Japan.

Trailblazing

I went for a walk on the newly-opened No. 10 Trail in the Tak'eng (Dakeng) 大坑 area. The new addition to Taichung's hiking scene is basically a kilometer-long staircase that can wear you down if you're quite happy with using elevators. I combined the walk up the No. 10 with another trail at the top (near the Kuanyin 観音 Temple), before going down the No. 9 Trail, and back to my parked scooter. In all, I was out there for about 2.5 hours. Unfortunately, the sky was mostly overcast, so the only pictures I could get were of bugs.

Like father, like daughter

About one Sunday a month, I spend the day cleaning our apartment from top to bottom. This involves doing a lot of things like moving heavy furniture around in order to clean the floor underneath, doing windows and so on. It's a major task that takes about seven hours to complete (including rest and food breaks), and isn't much fun in the heat and humidity (although the floors dry more quickly in the summer). While working, I like to listen to the music videos I have added to my Favorites folder on my YouTube page (which you can see here). Which is all a rather long-winded way of introducing a short video clip of my daughter dancing to one of these songs, in this case "I Wanna Be Sedated" by the Ramones:

踊っている波ちゃん

She was also bopping along to "Truckin'" by the Grateful Dead, and on a previous occasion really got into "Rock Hard" by Suzi Quatro. So is she going to grow up to be some kind of hippie glam rocker punkette? Should I be worried?

Coming soon to a department store floor near you

I took Amber out for a walk in the hills above Chung-cheng (Jhong-jheng) Park 中正公園 this morning. Actually, I did all the footwork, while my daughter happily sat in the child carrier perched on my back, but we both had a good time. The carrier is designed to bear weights up to 22 kilograms (48.5 pounds). Amber is currently about 12 kilos (26 pounds), so she's going to be spending a lot more time on my back in the months to come:

On the way home, I noticed these banners strung along the circle road that loops around central Fengyuan (Fongyuan) 豊原:

The local Pacific Department Store will be hosting a Tottori Week from September 5-10. For those of you for whom the name means nothing, Tottori 鳥取 is one of Japan's 47 prefectures (in fact, it's the least populous one, with only 620,000 residents). I'm assuming the store will be featuring food products from there (Tottori is apparently known for nashi pears ナシ, nagaimo yams ナガイも, an edible plant called rakkyō ラッキョウ, negi or welsh onion ネギ and watermelon スイカ). There also appears to be some kind of connection to a manga 漫画 artist, according to the banners. I made my first visit to Tottori-ken 鳥取県 back in June, when I stayed a night in the city of Kurayoshi 倉吉, and used it as a base to visit the Nageire-dō 投入堂. I also climbed Mt. Daisen 大山, which sits in Tottori (the prefecture's most famous sightseeing spot is the Tottori Sand Dunes 鳥取砂丘, but I didn't go there). I intend on visiting the department store next weekend to see what Tottori Week is all about.

Fengyuan is a small city in central Taiwan, with a population of 165,000. By local standards, it's a nice enough place to live, with convenient transportation connections (bus, car and train) to places up and down the west coast of the island. The presence of the Pacific Department Store, combined with a street called Miaotung (Miaodong) that is lined with food stands, serves as a magnet for people living in the smaller cities and towns of T'aichung (Taijhong) County 台中県, but most city residents head to nearby T'aichung 台中 city in search of excitement. Basically, not a whole lot goes on in Fengyuan, so Tottori Week is actually something you could almost get excited about, along with the MOS Burger モスバーガー and Carrefour outlets due to open soon.

In other words, T'aipei (Taibei) 台北 it ain't. But Taiwan 台湾 it most certainly is.

Snakes Alive!

I knew something like this would happen. My wife went out for lunch this afternoon with a friend, and took the camera with her. So I knew that when I went to Chung-cheng (Jhong-jheng) Park 正中公園 today to get some much-needed exercise, I was going to see something that would make me wish Pamela hadn't taken the camera with her. Sure enough, while I was walking along one of the trails, I came across a long, brownish-grayish snake stretched across the path. At first, I thought it might have been dead as it didn't move when I approached, but then I saw its head poking around in the brush. I watched it for a few seconds, all the while wishing I were able to record the moment, and post the picture here. Then, not wanting to step over a possibly poisonous creature (I hear conflicting information all the time about which snakes in Taiwan are deadly, and which are not), I stomped my feet a couple of times on the ground, which in turn caused the snake to quickly slither away. It truly was a beautiful beast, but as Pamela later pointed out, had I had the camera with me, the snake would not have been there in the first place. I couldn't argue with logic like that.

Speaking of snakes, the reptilian KMT 中国国民党 features in another Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ article by Max Hirsch of Kyōdō News 共同通信社, "Ties sour but will sweeten: Taiwan speaker":

"Taiwan's relations with Japan have regressed since the Nationalist Party came to power, but they are likely to rebound, parliamentary speaker Wang Jin-pyng 王金平 said in an interview. 'Relations were at their highest because of the government of the Democratic Progressive Party 民主進歩党 . . . and suddenly the (Nationalist Party) came to power and so many problems have emerged — it's like relations relapsed significantly in an instant,' Wang told foreign media after returning from Japan on a fence-mending visit earlier this month. His comments mark the second time a top Taiwanese politician has openly warned of deteriorating relations between Taipei and Tōkyō. Nationalist Party Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung 呉伯雄 said in July 'cracks' had begun to appear in the relationship."

It is pretty rare for any KMT official, particularly one as high up in the party as Wang, to credit the DPP with anything, especially in comparison with his own party's performance. Sending two party heavyweights in consecutive months on fence-mending tours to Japan seems to suggest there might be a schism developing among the ruling Nationalists over how to approach relations with Tōkyō:

"'The purpose,' (Wang) said, 'was to clear up some misunderstandings with Tōkyō.' A longtime backer of Japan, Wang met with some 40 Diet 国会 members and government officials who 'all have the impression President Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 is anti-Japan and pro-China.' Japanese power brokers, Wang said, are also worried over why Ma had stalled in appointing the de facto ambassador to Japan. 'Almost all those whom I had met asked about this problem,' he added...Fueling worries that Ma had neglected Japan was his failure to quickly appoint an envoy after Taipei's last top representative to Tōkyō quit in mid-July. Only last week did the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry announce the appointment of former Ambassador to the Dominican Republic John Feng to the Japan post. The move is seen as underscoring Ma's emphasis on healthy relations with Japan because Feng is a senior diplomat and Nationalist Party heavyweight."

Ma is "anti-Japan" and "pro-China"? Where would anybody get that kind of idea?:

"Asked what had sparked the sudden downturn in bilateral ties, Wang cited a boat collision in disputed waters in the East China Sea 東シナ海. On June 10, a Japan Coast Guard 海上保安庁 vessel chased and rammed a Taiwanese fishing boat near the Senkaku Islands 尖閣諸島, an uninhabited chain of Japan-administered islets also claimed by Taiwan...No serious injuries were reported, but the collision touched off a diplomatic row that led to Ma recalling Taipei's then-envoy to Tōkyō Koh Se-kai 許世楷. And Taiwanese Prime Minister Liu Chao-shiuan 劉兆絃 threatened 'war' to solve sovereignty disputes over the Senkakus."

War. The prime minister, the head of government in Taiwan, threatened to go to war with Japan, apparently unaware that doing so would get the United States involved, thanks to a little piece of paper known simply as the "Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan" 日本国とアメリカ合衆国との間の相互協力及び安全保障条約, which obligates the U.S. to come to the aid of Japan in the event any territory under the jurisdiction of the Japanese government comes under attack. And that includes the Senkakus, which should not be a surprise to Liu as it was the United States that administered the Senkaku Islands between 1945 and 1972, and included them in the reversion of Okinawa 沖縄. And if the Chinese Nationalists thought they could depend on their comrades in China, the response from Beijing was muted during the crisis. Instead, the Chinese carried on with business as usual with Japan, even allowing a port call by a Japanese warship. Which is why people like Wang now feel the need to make visits to Taiwan's former colonial rulers in an attempt to fix the damage caused by some of their fellow KMT members:

"Further hurting the relationship, Wang said, is the widespread perception in Japan that Ma failed to address issues pertaining to Tōkyō soon after taking office. In fact, Ma's May 20 inaugural speech turned heads for its lack of a reference to Tōkyō, even though a government insider told a reporter before the inauguration there would be a significant mention of the U.S.-Japan Defense Alliance in the speech. Supposedly, Ma removed the reference before taking the podium."

Me thinks Wang's got his work cut out for him back home.

Amber does Toyohara (or should that be Hōgen?)

The family spent the afternoon at the Pacific department store in downtown Fengyuan (Fongyuan) 豊原, eating lunch and doing a bit of window shopping. With four hours of free parking at the store, we certainly made good use of the time. Afterwards (but still with time remaining for parking), we walked over to the Fengyuan branch of a well-known Taiwanese bakery. You would think that a store in Taiwan using the characters 小林 as its name would be called "Hsiaolin (Siaolin)", but then you would be wrong. The name is actually "Kobayashi", the Japanese reading of the same characters (and a common surname in Japan). You might think then the company is Japanese in origin, but apparently it started in T'aichung (Taijhong) 台中. Whatever the background, they make some pretty delicious cookies and pastries. We picked up a box of one kind, the name of which escapes me at the moment - it's a soft cake shaped like a hanging bell with custard cream on the inside. Here's a picture of Amber doing her best imitation of an affluent Japanese shopper:

On the way back to the car from Kobayashi, we made a brief stop at the busy Matsu (Mazu) 馬祖 temple downtown. The shrine-style lanterns 灯籠 in the front, and the stone torii 鳥居 in the back lead me to believe the current Taoist temple occupies a site that used to be a Shintō shrine 神社 during the Japanese era, but I haven't found anyone who could corroborate this.

After getting home, Amber and I went up to the rooftop of our apartment building, where we caught the last rays of the setting sun, while bats were flying about on their evening hunt for insects.

Great minds think alike

 

I took Amber out in the child carrier this morning for a sweaty walk in the hills overlooking Chung-cheng (Jhong-jheng) Park. As always, there were a lot of insects out and about, including this red one on a yellow flower.

The Beijing Olympics are continuing, but I still can't be bothered much with what's going on, other than a brief look at the headlines in the morning newspaper. I disagreed from the beginning with the IOC's selection of Beijing (too similar to giving the games to Berlin and Moscow), and the torch relay fiasco only served to reinforce the thuggish image I hold of the Chinese government (it didn't do much either to make me feel reassured about the great Chinese public). I didn't see the opening ceremony due to work, but what I've read about it (the fake fireworks, the fake singer and the fake nationalities) certainly hasn't convinced me that the Olympics have acted as a catalyst to "change" or "open up" China. And I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. Hiroyuki Sugiyama of the Yomiuri Shimbun 読売新聞 is none too pleased in "World felt cheated by ceremony. But lip-synching, CG viewed as par for course in quest for 'perfection'", that appears in today's Daily Yomiuri ザ・デイリー読売:

"Sadly, the Opening Ceremony is only one example of China's disregard for facts and truth. Observers have said the 2008 Summer Games are a political show performed in a 'disguised Beijing.' '[China] should apologize to the world,' a professor at a Beijing university said. Renowned Chinese film director Zhang Yimou 張芸謀, who directed the Opening Ceremony, gave his own work full marks. However, the ceremony was no more than a betrayal of the trust of people around the world who believed what they were seeing was genuine."

It seems Beijing has become one, giant Potemkin village:

"China's hidden agenda is to make the Games appear perfect. Many foreigners visiting Beijing to attend the Olympics are surprised by immaculate green zones and gleaming skyscrapers. However, few have had a chance to witness people evicted from their homes, migrant workers whose wages are being withheld, beggars, activists calling for democracy and people visiting Beijing to appeal to the government about rural hardship. In a park where the government says people can hold demonstrations, protesters are conspicuously absent. The authorities weeded out those people they suspected would harm their 'perfect Olympics' and secreted them far from locations associated with the Games, by forcing them out of the city, placing them in custody, or other means. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge and many other committee members have said the well-crafted event was excellent. However, a Chinese Communist Party 中国共産党 member--citing a Chinese proverb meaning that truth cannot be hidden--said: 'The Olympic torch is designed like a paper roll. You can't wrap fire with paper.'"

Just as in the old days of the "Workers Paradise" that supposedly existed in Stalin's USSR, when it comes to modern China, some Westerners only see what they want to see. The article closes out by stating:

"China's priority vis-a-vis the Olympics is to boost the government's leadership by exhibiting the strength of a superpower, while satisfying a patriotic public. The Opening Ceremony is only a small part of China's political self-aggrandizement. The nation's ostentation is founded on this philosophy. A Beijing citizen said, 'Chinese weren't surprised by lip-synching [at the Olympics] as we are constantly surrounded by phony stuff.'"

Here in Taiwan, it is the 50th anniversary of the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis 金門砲戦, and the Daily Yomiuri has a short story entitled "Jinmen Island bridge to link Taiwan, China":

"Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of China's bombing of Chinmen Island 金門 off the coast of mainland China. Under Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's 馬英九 open policy toward China, the small island has been changing from a military outpost to an experimental field for friendship between China and Taiwan."

Right away, this article gets off to a bad start, because it was the previous independence-minded presidential administration that opened up the so-called "mini three-links" between Chinmen and the Chinese mainland. What the Ma government is doing is:

"...boost(ing) the so-called three (links) --commerce, navigation and communication--that directly connect the island and mainland China. This strategy has enabled Taiwanese and foreigners to directly commute between mainland China and the island on the ferry."

But wait, there's more:

"...construction of a bridge connecting the island and Xiamen is planned. The islanders...consider the bridge a turning point in the island's development. (Chinmen) county will lobby for construction of the bridge to begin next year. In addition to the bridge, plans to build a water pipeline and a harbor tunnel are under discussion. Chinmen's population is about 80,000 and the island is not home to any major industries. The islanders hope to work with China to make Chinmen an international tourist resort...The Ma administration intends to remove a ban on an influx of Chinese capital, and Chinmen County 金門県 hopes to construct tourist facilities using investment from Chinese businesses."

The story concludes by saying:

"Fifty years have passed since Chinmen was bombed by China, heightening fears that a war would break out between China and the United States. The island, which used to be an outpost against a Chinese threat during the Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石 era, is changing to become symbol of reconciliation."

Or of the brave new world the KMT 中国国民党 is building for Taiwan. The thing about Chinmen is that, officially at least, it is part of Fujian Province, and not Taiwan proper. Should that day come when pigs take to the air, and figure skating becomes a popular activity in Hell, (in other words, when China recognizes the existence of Taiwan as an independent state), what would happen to Chinmen (and Matsu 馬祖)? Would the islands remain part of a Republic of Taiwan, or would they be returned to China as part of a negotiated settlement? Back in the real world, the more correct question might be to ask if Chinmen and Matsu are going to be some sort of test case (or dry run) for the KMT's long-range plans for Taiwan. And I think we all know what those are.