Taiwanese awarded visa free travel to the US

Good news for Taiwanese passport holders, they can now visit the US without a visa! On November 1st, Taiwan gained entrance to the United States visa waiver program, a select group of 38 countries that can visit the US without the need for a visa. The other countries are:

-Andorra -Australia -Austria -Belgium -Brunei -Canada -Czech Republic -Denmark -Estonia

-Finland -France -Germany -Greece -Hungary -Iceland -Ireland -Italy -Japan -Latvia -Liechtenstein

-Lithuania -Luxembourg -Malta -Monaco -Netherlands -New Zealand -Norway -Portugal -San Marino

-Singapore -Slovakia -Slovenia -South Korea -Spain -Switzerland -Sweden -United Kingdom and now Taiwan!

Taiwanese are beginning to enjoy more and visa free travel. Just last year, the EU gave them visa free access to the Schengen Area.

This news however, is making Hong Kongers a little upset. Despite years of lobbying and already having extensive visa free travel privileges, Hong Kong passport holders are still being left out of the visa waiver program.

This is in contrast to their mainlander counterparts who can't really go anywhere without visas.

So if you're Taiwanese, now is the perfect time to see the USA! I hope you enjoy your stay.

Here's to 100 Years!

Note: If you are new here, read this then this, first. You can also contact me, KaiWen, here. 

UPDATE: Epic failure on my part. I erroneously posted this on new years last year. Last year was the 99th birthday of the ROC, not the 100th. Also, although the Republic of China was officially founded on New Years Day 1912, but its birthday is celebrated on October 10th, the day of the Wuchang uprising and the beginning of the Xinhai Revolution. Today, October 10th, 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. Our friends at NMA can give us a little history lesson.



Today marks a very special day. Because today marks a great anniversary. Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China. 100 years ago today, Sun Yi Xian and Kuomintang Nationalists overthrew the Qing Empire and established the Chinese Republic. In the face of three bloody wars, Japanese Imperialists and Communist threats, the Republic of China has come out strong; as a new democracy and one of the Asian Tigers. Here's to 100 more years!

The Hong Kong World Financial Center totally stole the idea of launching fireworks from a building. Above is Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world (taller than any in Mainland China), and the worlds first skyscraper fireworks display. Enjoy and Happy New Year (until February)!

Taiwan's D-day

Story Here and Here

Mongol-Chinese dissident Yuan Hongbing has said to encountered secret documents that outline China's plans for Taiwan. Disturbingly, the documents give a deadline for reunification. It was Deng Xiaoping who stated that reunification was a matter of life and death for the Communist party. The documents outlines a deadline of 2012 for reunification, by any means necessary. They were created at a secret meeting in 2008, attended by members of the Politburo and secretariat of the Central Committee, leaders of the main military regions and officials from the United Front Department and Foreign, Public Security and State Security Ministries. The documents outlined the overall unification plan, political and legal plans, and strategies for invasion.

It is said that the Communist Party decided to make the 2012 deadline due to the increased amount of Mainlanders visiting Taiwan. The party fears that having their citizens exposed to uncensored media and other civil liberties that Taiwan has may make them question the party and start demanding more civil liberties. A mass civil uprising in China would cause a revolution unlike anything the world has ever seen. Naturally, the CCP wants to do everything possible to prevent that.

Yuan Hongbing’s newest book is Taiwan Disaster, which was released on Nov. 17 in Taipei, Taiwan. In this book, he discloses confidential findings on how the Chinese communist regime is determined to “unify” with Taiwan by 2012. Yuan maintains that, through its strategy of unifying the market and financial systems of China with those of Taiwan, Beijing is, at the same time, stepping up its own reunification agenda with its neighbor.

Yuan says it appears that the Chinese Nationalist (KMT) dominated government on Taiwan has not only failed to sense the danger, it is using propaganda and its still dominate control of Taiwan media to convince Taiwanese that as long as Taiwan works in concert with the CCP, it will grow its economy at high rates again. Yuan has serious concerns that the KMT dominated government is rolling over previously hard fought democratic advances.

Yuan’s main source for the CCP’s political agenda came from a highly classified document—Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s June 2008 speech given during the expanded meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CCP. This meeting focused on the strategy behind the Taiwan annexation plan. The meeting was so confidential that it was held deep in a cavern in Beijing’s West Mountain—the Central Military Commission’s First Strategic Command Center.

In that classified meeting, Wen Jiabao stated that an agreement must be signed to ensure that the rules of economic integration are followed. “Economic integration is by nature, economic unification. Taiwan benefits from it economically, and we [the CCP] fulfill our political goal by doing it.” It was also revealed that in order to break through the investment barrier erected by the government of Taiwan, a number of Taiwan’s merchants will have to be used as agents. They would be relatively well paid and would manage the CCP’s investments in Taiwan’s banks, insurance companies, and other strategic economic entities. In addition, “To manipulate Taiwan’s stock market so it rises or falls according to our will—that will take a lot of capital investment, but the expenditure is worthwhile, considering what we will gain politically.”

The CCP also plans to erode Taiwan’s politico-economic factions from within Taiwan by corrupting the Kuomintang (KMT) leaders and marginalizing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The economic strategy specifically targets the upper-classes of the Kuomintang (KMT), the sponsors of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and several million Taiwanese merchants.

According to Yuan, the regime has been betting on the KMT leaders for a long time. During the years from 2000-2008 when the KMT was not in control, the Chinese regime methodically began binding the economic dependency of the KMT leaders tightly to the communist regime by inviting them to open businesses in China.

In addition, Yuan explained that the regime has been trying to deepen the rift within the DPP by manipulating the money laundering case of its former leader, President Chen Shui-bian. The suppressing, weakening, and corrupting of the DPP is another integral part of the regime’s strategy to erode the country’s political framework. The book maintains the regime is fomenting social conflict and inspiring hatred toward the DPP. Yuan explains how economic means are to be used to control the sponsors of the DPP and disintegrate its standing in society.

Yuan reported that Jia Qinglin, the Chairman of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, said in the enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau, “For those Taiwanese merchants who support our policies with Taiwan, we must meet their reasonable financial requirements, making them feel that the mainland is a haven for investments. For those merchants who clandestinely go against our policies, we must strengthen our monitoring and control mechanisms, and pursue financial retribution. When necessary, we can ruin them financially and make them lose everything they own.”

If China fails to corrupt the Kuomintang or if the DPP wins in 2012, the documents indicate China is prepared to use military force to meet the deadline. The documents outline three scenarios:

• The DPP wins in 2012, there is no hope for peaceful reunification within the deadline.
• The KMT remains in power, but refuses reunification.
• The KMT agrees to unification, DPP supporters begin a mass civil uprising, prompting military action.

The documents reveal the preoccupation of Deng and other leaders not so much with the separate existence of Taiwan as the Republic of China as the threat it poses as a liberal and democratic alternative.   With the start of direct flights and mass tourism in 2008, tens of thousands of Chinese are visiting Taiwan for the first time. This year the number of Chinese visitors, more than 1.2 million, will overtake those from Japan as the number one source of tourists. These visitors can watch Taiwanese television, read its newspapers and magazines and see a society which has made a peaceful transition from a military dictatorship into a raucous, multi-party democracy. Some wonder why they do not enjoy the rights and freedoms of their Taiwan compatriots. It is this challenge that the Beijing leadership wants to stop. Their anger against Lee Teng-hui, the president who introduced a democratic system, was as much against this system as the fact that his agenda was an independent state.  The military document passed by the meeting calls for the use of all weapons in the PLA's arsenal except nuclear arms and a rapid operation to be concluded in seven-ten days. In the best scenario, a new KMT government in 2012 would not oppose the operation. "Experts believe that, following a KMT victory in 2012, the DPP will organize widespread protests and social disorder – this would provide sufficient reason to invade the island," it said. The attack would involve destruction of all Taiwan's military bases and capability, followed by landing of PLA units by parachute and naval vessels.

TL;DR: China is afraid Taiwan will influence Mainlanders to demand civil rights and question the CCP's rule. China wants reunification as soon as possible (by 2012) to prevent this, even by military action. They plan to make warm economic relations give Taiwan a false sense of security, then infiltrate their government. If all else fails, its war.

Of course there is much skepticism over Yuan's claims. 2012 seems like a very early deadline for such a major event that was planned in 2008. Other analysts say the reunification deadline is in fact much later, like 2020 or 2030.

There is also a huge wildcard that China must consider before attempting such a move.

There is no US legislation that says if America will come to their defense in the event of an invasion. But I do think its very likely they will. With all the economic tension between China and the US lately, an invasion of a peaceful democratic state by China may push American diplomats over the edge. Of course, only President Obama can authorize any military action, and it is very unclear as to how he stands on the Taiwan issue. Even if the US did not help, it is also likely that Japan may step in, as they have close non-diplomatic relations with Taiwan and a Chinese invasion would destroy Sino-Japanese relations. If that happens, Washington will be obligated to come to Japan's aid. When you think about it, such a large scale war my be good for the US economically. During WWII, the manufacturing of weapons and equipment caused the country to leap out of a depression into an economic superpower by the end of the war. But Im going off on a tangent.

Maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe a war with China is the 2012 world changing event everyones been raving about. Welp, all we can do is watch the clock go down.

It's not always about the money.

Stories like this confuse the hell out of my dad and my extended family. Namely because they are typical Chinese and are absolutely obsessed with money. Curiously they seem to think they are able to take it to their grave with them, the money..... and curiously they don't buy anything decent with it either! Only buying to get face from others....

However it's a good thing to see this spreading around more and more in the world people who are a tad more principled than the bankershites we have around us who have no consciences.... though is the conscience obsolete in this day and age? I don't know perhaps it's a debate for another day. Taken from Yahoo.

Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng has brushed aside the matter of nationality getting in the way of a $25 million (£15.8m) contract - though she refused to slam the door on the possibility of adopting Chinese citizenship in the future.


The 21-year-old world number four was approached last month with the enormous five-year contract offer, which also included use of private jets and a luxury villa in Beijing, according to Taiwanese media reports.

But a stipulation of the deal was that Tseng had to change her nationality to Chinese, prompting the golfer's father to say that the deal was rejected straight away.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since 1949 when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island following the Communist victory in a civil war.

Tseng has insisted that the subject of her nationality, and any sponsorship deals it affected, was secondary to her sole aim of improving enough to claim the world number one spot.

"I don't know if I'm qualified to receive so much money, I don't know if I'm that capable," Tseng said when asked about the sponsorship offer.

"I hope in the future my results can be better or I've reached my target of becoming the world's number one. I think it's still not too late to decide when that time comes.

"It doesn't matter which country I'm playing in, I feel that I'm bringing glory to ethnic Chinese across the world and I'm proud to be a Chinese," she added.

Tseng had her first golf lesson with her parents at the age of five and in 2008 became the youngest player to win the LPGA Championship.

Talking about the latest move by the LPGA to add Taiwan to the season next year, Tseng said she saw great potential in Taiwan, Japan and Korea.

"Asian golfers are playing well and I think this gives competition to the United States and it shows that Asian players are very talented and ambitious - we try to win every competition," she said.

Tseng is in Malaysia to compete in next week's Sime Darby LPGA tournament.
Reuters

They Say History Repeats Itself

Most readers of this blog are probably aware of the history of Taiwan and its role in the Chinese civil war. As Chang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Army lost more and more ground to the Communists, they retreated to the island of Taiwan where the government of the ROC rests to this day. Since then, it has been sort of a cold war over the Taiwan strait.

But what if I told you that almost the exact same thing happened 400 years ago? Well it did. In 1661 Zheng Chenggong or “Koxinga” a loyalist to the Ming Dynasty and Arch Commander of the Ming Army, wanted to do whatever necessary to resist the Manchu invaders that would later establish the Qing Dynasty. Even after the Manchu took Beijing, the Ming Emperor retreated to Fuzhou. However, his army was unable to resist the Qing forces, he was captured and executed in 1646. The last member of the Ming Imperial family, Zhu Youlang had fled to the southwest. Koxinga and the remaining Ming troops were cornered in Fujian Province and unable to help Zhu. By 1661, the Ming Emperor sought asylum in Burma. At first the Burmese king gave him refuge, but after numerous threats from the Qing, he was rejected and eventually killed by Qing forces. Meanwhile, Kongxia, seeing defeat as inevitable, evacuated his forces and other Ming loyalists to Formosa (Taiwan). At the time, Taiwan was under control of the Dutch East India Company. Despite being in the face of westerners, Koxinga was quickly able to annex the island as it was nothing more than a trading post with few military personal. After booting the Dutch from the island, he established the Kingdom of Dongning with the goal of reorganizing his forces to eventually recapture the mainland.

Chiang Kai-shek Kongxia died in 1662 of malaria. His son Jing then took over as leader. Jing had attempted several times to launch an assault on Fujian but failed miserably. He entered a depression, indulging in liquor and women until his death. After his death, the generals debated his successor, but eventually Zheng Keshuang took the throne. After losing the island of Penghu to a Qing invasion, Keshuang surrendered Taiwan to Qing rule.

The similarities are startling aren’t they? Koxinga is revered as a hero in Mainland China because he ousted the Dutch “imperialists” and brought the island into Chinese rule. He is also regarded by the Kuomintang as a patriot who went to every last length to protect the Ming throne and repel the invading Qing. They also frequently compare him to Chiang Kai-shek. There is also a shrine dedicated to him in Tainan city.

If history does indeed repeat itself, it is only a matter of time before Taiwan is annexed by the PRC. However, Koxinga did not have the potential backing of a military power (The United States) to act as a significant deterrent. Then again, it is a rule of thumb in Chinese history that eventually a dynasty loses the Mandate of Heaven and comes to an end. And eventually, the Communist dynasty (or as I call it the ‘Mao’ Dynasty) will also come to an end like all those before it.

American institute Taiwan

Dear TCG,

In what ways is the American Institute in Taiwan different than an embassy? (other than the fact it is not an officially an embassy)

KaiWen


Pass! Its another one of those Taiwan questions, Taiwan ain't China! (Ok so I can ask the gf but she buggered off to Hong Kong in 1999). But since I'm making my way to Taiwan in the next couple of weeks. I may go and have a look for you in person. But TCG's gf doesn't even know what it is and she lived in Taipei for 21 years. I think tbh it is like the British council i.e. it is to promote US business interests and culture. Though this is of course a wild guess. Any readers want to ellucidate this? I know I have a few Taiwanese readers on this blog.

Curiously TCG's gf demands that I am in Taipei for some reason..... and I got a strange phone call from her mum and dad the other day.... hold on are firearms legal in Taiwan? TCG does not particularly want to be involved in a shotgun wedding since she's been jokingly kind of pestering me for ages and over time it has become less joke more serious....

China must reform or die?

Link

Considering EVERYTHING which comes out in China is censored heavily, it is a big surprise that these comments came out and the general isn't dead or in a Laogai. Either the CCP is testing the waters or he has gone renegade.... I suspect they are testing the waters.

Either way the CCP looks to be more devious than first imagined.... in something I ghost wrote a few months ago. I wrote a conversation between Beth and Robert. Where they spot the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong (where this is 100% legal and allowed).... Copyright assignment says Nein about posting this conversation as it is no longer mine anymore. I swapped it for some £££ But it went like this. Effectively our democracies have become kleptocracies and broken. We have two party systems where nothing ever changes.

The painting of the government a different colour changes nothing. In the UK I mean how different really is Tory from Labour? While there might be some peripheral differences such as Tories being slightly more liberal (Anti ID cards) and Labour being heavily authoritarian. Effectively the puppet masters pulling the strings are the same. Like in the USSA* (see footnote).... erm I mean USA. the Politicians are controlled by the same big companies and interests.



In that in Taiwan Lee Teng Hui in the 1990s moved Taiwan to a democracy (NK calls itself a democracy too!). Yet Taiwan has pretty much STILL been ruled by the KMT old men as previously. So in effect nothing has changed, bar maybe the political prisoners are released. But the wholesale theft and kleptocracy keeps going on as normal

Henry Ford said something similar to this:

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black"


Interesting times, article is below verbatim.

A Chinese two-star general has warned his conservative Communist Party masters and firebrand People's Liberation Army colleagues that China must either embrace US-style democracy or accept Soviet-style collapse.

As officers of similar rank rattle their sabres against US aircraft carriers in the Yellow and South China seas, General Liu Yazhou says China's rise depends on adopting America's system of government rather than challenging its dominance off China's eastern coast.

''If a system fails to let its citizens breathe freely and release their creativity to the maximum extent, and fails to place those who best represent the system and its people into leadership positions, it is certain to perish,'' writes General Liu Yazhou in Hong Kong's Phoenix magazine, which is widely available on news stands and on the internet throughout China.

The fact of General Liu's article suggests China's political and ideological struggles are more lively than commonly thought, ahead of a rotation of leaders in the Central Military Commission and then the Politburo in 2012.

''The secret of US success is neither Wall Street nor Silicon Valley, but its long-surviving rule of law and the system behind it,'' he says. ''The American system is said to be 'designed by genius and for the operation of the stupid'.

''A bad system makes a good person behave badly while a good system makes a bad person behave well. Democracy is the most urgent thing, without it there can be no sustainable rise.''
General Liu was promoted recently from deputy political commissar of the PLA Air Force to political commissar of the National Defence University. His father was a senior military officer and his father-in-law was Li Xiannian, one of Chinese communism's ''Eight Immortals'' - and a one-time president of China.

While many of China's ''princelings'' have exploited their revolutionary names to amass wealth and power, General Liu has exploited his pedigree to provide protection to push his contrarian and reformist views.

But General Liu's latest writings are extraordinary by any standards. His article urges China to shift its strategic focus from the country's developed coastal areas, including Hong Kong and Taiwan - ''the renminbi belt'' - towards resource-rich Central Asia.

But he argues that China will never have strategic reach by relying on wealth alone. ''A nation that is mindful only of the power of money is a backward and stupid nation,'' he writes. ''What we could believe in is the power of the truth.

''The truth is knowledge and knowledge is power.''

But such national power can only come with political transformation. ''In the coming 10 years, a transformation from power politics to democracy will inevitably take place,'' he says.
General Liu inverts the lesson that Chinese politicians have traditionally drawn from the collapse of the Soviet Union - that it was caused by too much political reform - by arguing that reform arrived too late.

Since 2008 the Communist Party has steadily tightened the political screws to stifle dissent.
Many Chinese are concerned that reforms have been blocked by powerful military, security, corporate and family groups that benefit from the status quo.

General Liu was famously outspoken until he stopped publishing his essays about five years ago.
It is unclear how his latest article appeared and whether he has backing within the system.
Last year Hong Kong's Open magazine published a leaked report of one of General Liu's internal speeches which raised the taboo topic of how some generals refused to lead troops into Tiananmen Square in 1989.

General Liu returned to the subject of Tiananmen in his Phoenix article, saying ''a nationwide riot'' was caused by the incompatibility of traditional power structures with reform.
Link here:

USSA ~ I mean look at the bail outs, there is something fundamentally wrong with the fact that banks fuck it all up and the tax payer bails them out regularly

Bettle nut

Dear TCG

What is a bettle [sic] nut culture?

I've never seen it in China so what is it all about?

Andre

Dear Andre

I am not surprised you have never heard of or seen Betel nuts, as it is a Taiwanese thing and this blog isn't really ask the Taiwanese guy and I dunno. However since my on off gf is from Taipei I might as well have a crack at this.



Essentially a Betel nut is a carcinogenic chewy nut thing which is like wired chewing gum sort of thing a mild stimulant Back in the 1970s or 1980s somebody selling them decided to put the girls selling them into skimpy costumes. A car stops beside the road a guy leans out and a Betel nut beauty steps out in skimpy clothing (in all weathers) and hands them a nut wrapped in its leaves sort of like a small 粽 a few NT$. She bows (TCG is non Han Chinese btw and just to give you a clue can never bow or get on my knees EVER) and the guy usually attempts to cop a feel.

Today they are smarter and give them to you at arms length so you have to reach out at arms length to be able to get them.

This has consequently spread through all tiers of society so you get cigarette sellers, newspaper sellers all sold by skimpily dressed women. Which I reckon is more sucessful than old ladies who used to sell them. Way back when I had to visit a place called Hualien they had old women selling stuff.... but like Seoul really as you get old ladies walking around pushing a cart of Yogurt you don't tend to get that anywhere else.

Consequently it feels strange like you are driving through de wallen in Amsterdam or something but EVERYWHERE. But its not actually sexual at all, they are just costumes and they are just trying to make a living. Compared to farming etc it is high paid and thus you get swathes of pretty girlies doing this by the roadside. Sure sure real working girls exist in Taipei but this is several notches up in terms of face/respectability than being a WG.