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[SBD]

SHARANSKY IN TAIWAN

Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, February 24, 2005

The ripples don’t stop. The stones hurled into the world’s political lake by the people of Ukraine and Iraq keep generating ripples washing up on the borders of ever-more countries benighted by dictatorship. Now they are about to hit the shores of China. This is thanks to a Taiwanese named Frank Hsieh who has read a book by a diminutive bald ex-Soviet dissident named Natan Sharansky.

This is the book – The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror – that President Bush has absorbed and is giving out to his friends. It is destined to become the most influential book of our day. If you haven’t read it yet, you simply must.

Sharansky explains the mechanics of democracy and tyranny that drive the former towards peace and freedom and the latter towards repression and the creation of external enemies. He issues a clarion call for “moral clarity” to distinguish between Free Societies and Fear Societies – an either/or with no society in between. The way to so distinguish is simple – the Town Square Test:

Can a person walk into the town square [of the society in question] and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm?


If yes, that society is free, if not, it isn’t, period. Moral clarity.

Does America (excluding PC university campuses) pass the town square test? Yes. Does Taiwan? Yes. Does China? No. No matter how much economic development China has experienced since Tienanmen in 1989, it remains a Fear Society. And Frank Hsieh knows it.

Late last month, Frank was appointed Premier of the Taiwan Government by President Chen Shui-bian. Prior to that, he was the mayor of Taiwan’s second largest city, Kaohsiung, and remains head of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which advocates Taiwan independence from China. This week, he announced his government would pursue a “one country, one system” policy, denouncing the famous “one country, two systems” hypocrisy pushed by both the Chicoms and the US State Department. The “one system” must be for Frank, not communism but democracy: China must become like Taiwan and not vice versa.

“Promoting unification with present-day China is an impossible and impractical political fantasy,” Hsieh explained to the Taipei Times on February 21. “A more sensible approach would be to help China become a more democratic society. ‘One country, one system’ means everybody is free: Free to have their own opinions, free to hold religious belief, free to elect their political representatives and free to make a decent living in whatever way they choose. If China becomes freer and democratic, it will naturally be less hostile toward Taiwan,” Hsieh said, “and problems between us will start solving themselves.”

The brilliance of this is breathtaking. It means that Taiwan is at last no longer playing defense, but taking the offense against Beijing at its most vulnerable point. Right now, everyone in Taiwan is freaked out over the “Anti-Secession Law” that the National People’s Congress, the Chicoms pretend parliament, is threatening to pass next month. The law will give Beijing the “legal” right to invade Taiwan if the latter declares independence.

Here in Washington, Congressmen like Tom Tancredo are up in arms over the ASL, demanding Congress pass a resolution to diplomatically recognize Taiwan. The Heritage Foundation held a seminar about the ASL this week, and it was packed with hundreds of worried folks. All this froth and panic – then along comes Frank Hsieh with a quick aikido move of four words, and the ASL crisis is OBE (Foggy Bottom-speak for “overtaken by events”).

How can Beijing rant and saber-rattle now when the Taiwan Government says to it gently, “Let’s forget about Taiwan independence. We want re-unification just like you. All that you need to do to reunify China and Taiwan is become democratic like us.”

This message puts Beijing on the defensive. The Chicoms now have to argue why they can’t have more democracy in China just yet. It will be much, much harder for them to ramp up a jingoistic nationalism against the traitorous-to-the-Chinese-people “splittists” of Taiwan. They will have to look elsewhere for an external enemy should a Three No’s (no water, no wives, no banks) economic crisis require one.

Premier Hsieh’s strategy will work, however, only if he is backed up by the Bush White House. Its response to Beijing’s announcement last December 17 regarding a proposed Anti-Secession Law was to have Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japan Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura meet in Washington on February 19 and jointly declare US-Japanese cooperation to defend Taiwan.

This is an excellent start. A Japan-US alliance (predicted in To The Point, see Chicoms and Chaos ) will expand to include South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and India. Yet it is only defensive. As one Congressman explained to me, “Taiwan must understand that we will defend it from attack by China – but we will never retaliate. We’re not going to be landing any Marines on Chinese beaches.”

Frank Hsieh understands this all too well, that you cannot win a football game if all you do is try and prevent the other team from scoring a touchdown. He has given Bush and Condi a springboard to advance their democracy agenda inside China and better protect Taiwan at the same time. It’s a masterstroke of what I call aikido politics. All other martial arts involve blocking your opponent’s energy then counter-striking. Aikido accepts your opponent’s energy and redirects it to his disadvantage.

Premier Hsieh’s “aikido democracy” may make him the savior of Taiwan. Yet as Natan Sharansky says, fear societies require external enemies to stay in power. Deprive them of one enemy, they need to create another. Beijing won’t look too far. Right across their northeast border is a lot of sparsely-inhabited territory that used to be Chinese. Beijing’s eyes gazing hungrily upon Siberia should be making Vladimir Putin very nervous.

Printed from To The Point - http://www.tothepointnews.com

SBD

[PhantomSgt]

CHECK!

Taiwan is putting the Monkey on China's back. Pockets of democratic thinking people exist all over China (mostly large industrial/trade areas). Unfortunately without the capitulation of their massive armed forces to the side of democracy, freedom will not move forward in China. One cannot expect the same situation to arise as with the former Soviet Union move to democracy. The Chinese military is trained better and more disciplined than the military in the former Soviet Union.

I would say it is more likely to see the North Korean armed forces capitulate before the Chinese. The affection for the “Dear Leader” is waning and as the North sees examples of life in South Korea they are becoming quite dissatisfied with their own way of life. Now that the “Dear Leader” has established his family as a dynasty look for more unrest.


_________________
Retired AF E-8

Independent that leans right of center.

[DLI78]

SBD,

Thanks for this. I'm surprised that Hsieh is that smart. He started out as one of the many hoodlums who thought beating up 90-year-olds was the way to advance democracy.

And many in that party are the retards who loudly cheered when Chiang Ching-kuo died and left a Taiwanese in power. Chiang had made their party legal and given them the right to run for office. He had a native Taiwanese as his vice president. But because his father was the one who took over when the Commies captured the mainland, the Taiwanese hated the younger Chiang. Yes, Chiang Kai-Shek (the father) did some nasty things to the Taiwanese at first. And he was a strictly one-party kind of guy. His son was different.

I can never respect Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (now the ruling party). Rather than focusing on practical things to enhance democracy and the economy, too many of them are still loudly demanding independence. That was their only platform when trying to convince voters they deserved a shot at power.

DOH! They already HAVE independence. They have their own economy, money, army, diplomatic relations, and so on. All they have to do is shut up and let the Commies continue to fantasize that one day they will get Taiwan back. China's leaders have consistently said that if Taiwan declares independence the mainland will attack. So shut up already. Let those tired old Commies think what they want.

Taiwan is a great place to live, since they don't care what you do as long as you don't break any laws. Make as much money as you want, just follow the rules. The tax form is ONE PAGE, and the instructions are one page. Anybody could figure out the tax form (in English and Chinese). Great food too.

That said, Hsieh's move WAS brilliant. I would love to have seen the current top Commie's face when he read that one!

(I lived in Taipei, Taiwan from 1986 to 1997.)
_________________
DLI 78
Army Linguist
1978-1986

[streetsweeper95B]

Thanks gentlemen. I just learned something I hadn't known about Tiawan or China for that matter.