The situ in Myanmar in the last few weeks for example, is like HUGE, but I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT IT till when I got back to Taipei. It really baffles me how successfully they are at keeping ANYTHING they don't want their people to know from them, and how good they are at diverting people's attention from what should be important (in my mind) to obliviously happy subjects like those bloody Friendlies. No wonder they were willing to cut throat for the 2008 Olympics. Don't get me started on how else they have been writing about Taiwanese politics just yet (just you wait). How its pretty self-destructive at the end of the day to keep one's own people from knowing about the world just because they don't want their people to realise the shameful way they've been conducting in international politics. Isn't it nice to back a few more autocratic police state leaderships so China doesn't look so bad? Wake up China, get off your high horse your face needs a good clean whether you still have it or not.
Thank you Nat for sending the link by Avaaz re Burma, here it is again,
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php?cl=21221990While personally I don't think President Hu is going to give a rats arse about what we think, I think the more people know that he ain't giving an arse about what we think the better. But I recon the kids on Facebook are pretty revolutionary too.
Its when I get back to Taipei and witnessed the complete contrast in freedom of the press, political awareness, and the matter of fact expression of public opinion, it hit home to me on exactly how much is at stake should China one day take over this island. It baffles me that the international community, including both Australia and New Zealand chooses to backdown from China and its requests to shun Taiwan where ever it tries to have any sort of international representation and voice. It is so extremely ironic, in the sense that Taiwan can not have normal/basic diplomatic relations with most countries in the world, and therefore unable to make any direct impact on stopping atrocities happening in Myanmar, whether it be sanctions of any kind or requesting action in the UN. Despite not possessing much international leverage, the Taiwanese people are committed towards human rights nevertheless, because we know from our own sad history that its WRONG without it ( http://www.cna.com.tw/eng/cepread.php?id=200710010044 and http://www.dpu.org.tw/En/newsDetail.php?Mode=News&ID=2007&ArticleID=44 ), while ironically, China has more international leverage than any other country in the world at the moment on Burma, they choose to stay in support of the perpetrators http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7015526.stm .
What is wrong with this world? If this is a world that has its eyes open, about Burma as well as simple pure logical justice, then take this: How about China out of the Security Council and Taiwan in the UN - Sign up here.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/support-un-membership-for-taiwan.html
2 comments:
Polution in China, is it as bad as folks say? i've been warned off visiting - my flatemate spent a year there teaching, and reports it's rather awful for an asthmatic.
I think you might have to get over your MSG allergy first and foremost before the asthma becomes a worry. But yep pretty bad esp in the cities, you can't see very far at the Great Wall or at West Lake for example, which is such a shame cos they were gorgeous. No worse than say Tokyo or Jakarta, or Delhi for that matter. People smoke everywhere too, so basically, don't go. (Why am I so narky at the moment?)
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