This is an essay by my friend Jerome Keating on why China needs Taiwan more than the other way around. Here it is in full:

As Lien Chan and Hu Jintao sat down, pundits were questioning who needs who more? Does the aging Lien who has never won a real election need Hu to salvage his image and even keep in the game? Does Hu need Lien for public relations and to put pressure on Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-bian?

The real question, however, is at a deeper level. Does Taiwan need China or does China need Taiwan? My view? China needs Taiwan, hands down.

Let’s forget about the fact that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) needs Taiwan so its submarines and navy can have immediate blue water access.

Let’s forget about the fact that China needs Taiwan to dominate travel between the East and South China Seas and so isolate Japan and the Koreas from their other Asian neighbors.

Let’s forget about the fact that China needs the cash cow Taiwan with its millions of Taiwanese investment dollars and businesses to help fuel its growing economy.

Let’s forget about the fact that China needs Taiwan because foreign companies don’t trust China’s rule of law and IPR protection and so use Taiwan as a safe place for their R&D investments and access to China markets.

Let’s forget these many pragmatic reasons. The PRC needs Taiwan because of the “D” word.

Yes, the “D” word, democracy! Democracy is not antithetical to those of Chinese heritage. China needs Taiwan to show that democracy can and does work. It needs Taiwan to see that its people can be trusted with the right to vote.

Chinese can live by rule of law.

Chinese don’t have to be treated like children, to be “protected” from themselves by a privileged hierarchical elite.

Chinese don’t need their religion and beliefs controlled. The Falun Gong have never posed a threat to Taiwan’s rule of law.

Chinese don’t need their press muzzled. A free press and access to information and differing points of view have made Taiwan vibrant, not destructive.

Chinese don’t need to be imprisoned if they question or challenge the government and its judgment. Taiwan’s many vocal dissident minorities freely stroll the streets.

Contrary to PRC propaganda, chaos is not the result of the above freedoms.

Taiwan has shown that free people with free elections and a free press can live harmoniously under rule of law even in little matters. When Taiwan imposed a motorcycle helmet law, many foreigners said, “It won’t work, Chinese think the law is for other people.” But it worked. When Taipei imposed a strict separation of garbage and trash, foreigners said, “Chinese won’t go into such detail for the environment.” But they did.

Believe it or not, Taiwanese have and continue to show the way for those of Chinese heritage. The issue is democracy not secession.

So maybe then, after more than a half a century since the People’s Liberation Army “liberated” those on the mainland, it’s time to start trusting the people.

Does China need Taiwan? You bet!

China needs Taiwan to understand its own people and culture.

________________

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D. has lived in Taiwan for 16 years and is co-author of “Island in the Stream, A Quick Case Study of Taiwan’s Complex History” and other books. Additional writings of his can be found at:

http://zen.sandiego.edu:8080/Jerome

This is a sad story, but also one of inspiration, even heroism, on the part of those who supported their fellow Catholics at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Minnesota.

A Roman Catholic priest denied communion to more than 100 parishioners Sunday, saying they could not receive the sacrament because they wore rainbow-colored sashes to church to show support for gay Catholics.

Before offering communion, the Rev. Michael Sklucazek told the congregation at the Cathedral of St. Paul that anyone wearing a sash could come forward for a blessing but would not receive wine and bread.

A group called the Rainbow Sash Alliance has encouraged supporters to wear the multicolored fabric bands since 2001 on each Pentecost Sunday, the day Catholics believe the Holy Spirit came to give power to Christians soon after Jesus ascended to heaven. But Sunday’s service was the first time they had been denied communion at the altar.

Archbishop Harry Flynn told the group earlier this month that they would not receive communion because the sashes had become a protest against church teaching.

Sister Gabriel Herbers said she wore a sash to show sympathy for the gay and lesbian community. Their sexual orientation “is a gift from God just as much as my gift of being a female is,” she said.

Ann McComas-Bussa did not wear a sash, but she and her husband and three children all wore rainbow-colored ribbons and were denied communion. “As a Catholic, I just need to stand in solidarity with those that are being oppressed,” she said.

I won’t bother asking what Jesus would do, as i think it’s pretty obvious.

My heart just isn’t in it lately, sorry. I know I can do better, but I’m having serious concerns about work — I’m doing fine at my job, it’s just that I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing for the rest of my life. I’m looking for alternatives, for other answers, and until I’ve figured things out I may not meet expectations. Sorry about that, but I know it’s a short-term thing. There’s just something terribly unrewarding about being the PR manager for a company that hates PR. Every time I think about going back to Asia, I get such a pang in my heart, such a yearning, I can’t even describe it. I have to face the fact I don’t want to be here, in Arizona, in high tech — I should be teaching somewhere and making a contribution to others, instead of focusing on “spin” and “staying on message” and making things look different than they really are for the sake of appearances. How did I end up here? Is it too late to change? Please give me a day or two to sort things out. Thanks for your patience! And if any of you know of some decent jobs in Asia, let me know!

The famously polite Japanese appear to be embroiled in a crisis as they struggle to control an explosion of rude behavior that could have dire consequences for all.

In every age and in every country older people complain about the rudeness of the young — but rarely is the gulf between the two as great as in contemporary Japan. Exposed to the corrosive crudeness of Western popular culture, young Japanese are abandoning the sometimes stifling codes of politeness for which their country is famous, while older people look on in horror.

Apart from putting on their make-up at stations, young Japanese have adopted such “vices” as swinging umbrellas, eating in public and crossing their legs on the subway. While these are minor sins elsewhere, in Japan they are being taken with the utmost seriousness.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has taken the step of convening a commission of eminent experts known, without a hint of irony, as the Study Group Relating to the Prevention of Behaviour that Causes Discomfort Among Numerous People in Public Places.

Although the commission name sounds like it’s straight out of a Monty Python skit, theirs is a serious purpose indeed. Just look at what they’re up against!

Take the list of offences compiled by the Tokyo authorities, which includes using strong perfume, carrying large bags, kissing, infants, crying, sitting on the floor and, most unexpectedly, using an umbrella to practise golf swings.

Tokyo’s subway stations are decorated with large coloured posters featuring the characters from Sesame Street. “Fold your newspaper!” they implore. “Please don’t take up too much room with your newspaper.”

When it comes to speech, it appears you can’t really be very rude in Japan, for the simple reason that rude language scarcely exists in Japanese:

The worst that one can do in daily speech would be Shine bakayaro!, which means little more than “Drop dead, you idiot!” Such is the dearth of salty invective that angry Japanese turn increasingly to a reliable English expression, pronounced the Japanese way: Fakkyuu.

(Funny, how that phrase has made its way into the universal vocabulary. Which makes me wonder, are the Chinese using it yet as well?) The article’s a good reminder of how, despite mass media and the Internet and globalization of everything, a lot of people are holding onto their cultural traditions, or at least trying to.

What a wild story. No time to blog it — check out the article.

The world’s tallest ferris wheel!

Shanghai plans to build the world’s tallest ferris wheel with a diameter of 170 metres, the state newspaper Shanghai Daily reported Thursday.

The wheel, to be completed by 2008, would best the current record holder, the London Eye, which rises 135 metres above Britain’s capital, the paper said. Adding to its height, the Shanghai wheel would be built atop a 50-metre entertainment complex housing a theatre and other attractions, the paper said. A revolving restaurant will be attached to its support pillars, 130 metres up, it said.

The wheel is the latest mega-project planned for Shanghai, which is already building one of the world’s tallest buildings and the world’s longest suspension bridge.

As I said in an earlier post, I see Shanghai’s dash to build the biggest and longest and tallest and greatest what-have-you to be more a sign of insecurity than progress. And priced at $12 a ride (which lasts 30 minutes), it will surely not be a ferris wheel for the common man. Construction costs are estimated at $314 million.

This quote is a real find:

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

And the answer is….President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54

The man who warned of the growing power of the “military-industrial complex” was awfully smart for a Republican. But then, Republicans back then were different than they are today.

Via Kos.

Update: See the comments. This seems to be a hoax….

This press release is one of the oddest, most repulsive screeds I’ve ever laid eyes on. You’ve got to look it over, and most important, you’ve got to read those quotes from the “experts” toward the end.

I was pointed to this by Pam Spaulding, who goes on to give us some very interesting background information on these “experts.” Yikes.

Why shouldn’t we be concerned about the religious right? Give me one reason.

Only one left.

China has announced the death of one of the members of the Gang of Four who led the Cultural Revolution that convulsed the country in the 1960s and 1970s. Zhang Chunqiao died of cancer last month at the age of 88.

….

During the years of violence and destruction unleashed with Mao’s tacit connivance in the 1960s and 70s, Zhang Chunqiao – a Shanghai propaganda official and ex-journalist – played a key role.

Jailed for life in a show trial in 1981, he was released on medical parole after serving long years in prison. Jiang Qing and fellow gang member Wang Hongwen have long since died.

Zhang Chunqiao’s death leaves a sole survivor – Yao Wenyuan, who was released nearly a decade ago into quiet oblivion.

….

Zhang himself actually died on 21 April, but his death has only just been officially reported. The delay is perhaps a measure of the extreme sensitivity that still surrounds the Cultural Revolution.

Many feel the Communist Party has never allowed the suffering that China’s urban intellectuals and others went through to be properly dealt with. To do so could gravely threaten the party’s legitimacy and re-open the wounds of a group of people whose lives were so badly disrupted that they think of themselves as a lost generation.

Harmony ueber alles. Sweep them under the table, and maybe the lost generation will just go away. The last thing you do is acknowledge the scope of the crime and deal with the victims. (Hmmm, that seems to be what the Chinese are accusing the Japanese of doing re. WWII victims.)

This is a bit of a shocker — except if you’re familiar with how closely Singapore controls media criticism of the government.

A Singapore student has shut down his blog and apologized unreservedly after a government agency threatened to sue for defamation.

Chen Jiahao, a 23-year-old graduate student in the United States, said he closed his personal Web site after ASTAR, a Singapore government agency focusing on science and research, threatened legal action for what it said were untrue accusations.

Chen said Monday he had removed all material from his site and posted an apology April 26 after receiving e-mails from the agency’s chief. But the agency told him last week his first apology was insincere and they wanted another.

On Sunday he posted the new apology on his Caustic Soda blog, saying: “I unreservedly apologise to ASTAR, its chairman Mr Philip Yeo, and its executive officers for the distress and embarrassment caused to them.”

“They sent me an e-mail with these words,” Chen said from the United States, where he studies chemical physics at the University of Illinois.

Yeo said he accepted the apology and considered the matter closed. “We wish him well,” he said.

Paris-based Reporters without Borders said the case highlighted the lack of free expression in Singapore, which is among the 20 lowest-scoring countries in the organization’s worldwide press freedom index.

“Chen criticized some of AStar’s policies but there was nothing defamatory in what he wrote,” said Julien Pain, head of its Internet freedom desk.

I know how they punish and bully newspaper reporters who are “overly critical,” but bloggers?? If you go to the student’s site you’ll probably have the same impression I did — that the government scared the crap out of him.