Thin cloud cool to mild, a bit rain/sun: Up 8:20, 8-9 China's "Gold Powder(?)", 9-10 "Winter Sonata"#13concert, Lung concerned about insurance coverage, emails reply [W]M.'s details of Chinese military threats ending with real worry about American loss of liberty, my answer under "China Has Made It!? #10000[Tsai 05.4.27=3 #1] Yes, A..., M... gets it just as it is. Mr. Lien Chan really should know far better. Or he actually knows, but cannot help but playing into the "communist" Chinese game of "Talk, talk, attack, attack. Attack, attack, talk, talk" long history of the original Chiang's KMT of China crumbling wholescale swiftly. But, what a grand and irresistably enticing show given to him in China, guranteeing to be played into their trap!
>
The old Go players are good at that. I wonder if he's out providing
the Taiwan government an exit strategy, like promising to forment a coup
in the event that they really try to become an independant state? The
promise costs him nothing and in the event that it looks like the
mainlanders are going to invade, a coup on the one side and a government
in exile on the other, might be the only solution that they have.
Somehow, I don't see the old Go players allowing the "One Country, Two
Systems" model to continue if they have to go to all of the trouble to
present a credible threat to the Taiwanese in order to keep em in the
fold. Then again, maybe sophistry raised to the level of self delusion
isn't limited to the United States and Canadian governments. I hate to
see the old KMT headed for it's final crash like that though. Then
again, how many times in Chinese history has a victorious politician or
General managed to win by turning an opponent's vanity against himself?
Hubris always invites Nemisis and this situation is no different than
any other in this regard.
> This time, it seems not to be a beginning of live and let live for a far better future act. Rather, starting from the enactment of the "Anti-secessionist law" then these invitations of the chairmen of the 2 major oppositon parties of Taiwan to China with full "glory", tactiful production of confusion and manipulation of a gigantic strategy. The whole game is in their hands, secretly and securely. The game has just started, with, it seems, the full support of the USA at the sides. Who could be against peace any way!
>
Yup. One of the things that I'm seeing is an attempt to erode unity
on the islands themselves. If there is a lack of a common purpose in
defending Taiwan, the Mainlanders hand is strengthened because the
political steps necessary to put an effective defense in motion will be
delayed until it's too late. The Old Go Players understand the Inverse
Square Law all too well. And they have a better understanding of human
psychology than most. And it shows.
And the guys in Washington suffer the condition of their reach all
too often exceeding their grasp. Nothing is ever simple about China and
there are always subtle nuances that aren't going to be appearant unless
you grew up speaking Chinese, and even then it's got to be the right
Chinese. The guys who run the Mainland for the most part speak and think
in Mandarin as a first language. Most of the people over here who speak
Chinese, speak Cantonese, which has, outside of the common written
ideographs, a different syntax and structure and a whole bunch of
different premises. That's what makes it so hard even when you have
printed literature, to divine the intentions of the persons who wrote
it. Take that condition that the Go Players and other Legalists seek-
serenity. In English, it's an absence of stress-- a feeling of security.
In Mandarin in particular, it's nothing of the sort. Nearest translation
I can get, (and it doesn't precisely translate into English on any but
the most superficial level) is " order and harmony under heaven". And
when you break that one down, you've got a whole different meaning,
especially when you put it in the context of people who have
internalized the old Chinese Legalist philosophy, as the Old Go Players
have. And since they grew up with it, they're not going to question it's
premises anymore than fish question water. And for about the same
reasons, I might add. To the Old Go Players, Order and Harmony under
Heaven pretty much translates out to a centralized authoritarian state
with tributary states in a subordinate role to it. Hegemonism in it's
classical form, which has been the policy since the Ch'in Emperor.
Ideology is a rationalisation for that state of affairs, and it doesn't
matter if it's pseudo Confuscianism of the post Ch'in Dynasties or the
Communism that Mao's restoration of the Ch'in regime created, in the
end, it's all Legalism.
If it were up to me, (and unfortunately it's not-- pragmatists need
not apply) I'd approach China on a transactional basis. When you've got
two completely different ways of thinking at a confrontation point, you
need a common denominator and a transactional basis for relations would
make more sense. Forget morality, ethics, ideology or any of the rest of
that largely self referential stuff. Proceed on the basis of, "I want
this, and I'll trade you that" or "I'll cede this if you'll reciprocate
with that", and then just operate the whole thing as an armed trade. The
Chinese, even under Communism, are a mercantile people. And it's easier
to use a transactional model to resolve contradictions than it is to try
and resolve ideological, historical and cultural mismatch by the idiotic
sophistries that come out of Washington and the various special interest
groups and think tanks that mostly make a complete mess of our foreign
and national security policy anyway. Reduce things to self interest and
a lot of appearant contradictions get resolved fast.
> Now some are even talking
> about this whole show as initiated by the US, or at least not in opposition at all. Taiwan in corner now, or anything could be done now? It's a the biggest and loud show all over China. They are in an unreserved and open happiness now.
>
If we're involved in this, the Old Go Players in Beijing are rolling
on the floor laughing at us. It amounts to an offer to stab our allies
in the back and commit suicide in the bargain. How could one not laugh
at an offer to impale one's self on one's own sword? Small wonder that
Jiang Jemin and Hu Jintao have absolutely no respect for us. If the
tables were turned, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing myself to death
too.
As for me, it's as embarassing as watching Jerry Lewis movies. When
I look at Washington or the dissident parties in Taiwan, the question I
always ask is, "what ever are those grown men doing?" And when it occurs
to me that for the most part they don't know either, that's when I start
to get the shakes, because that is a frightening thing indeed. ""
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