林保華

Will Taiwanese defend themselves?

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2021.8.31

The withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan resulted in the Taliban romping to victory in a blitzkrieg-style campaign, knocking over the Afghan army like skittles. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wasted no time in milking the fall of Kabul for all it was worth.

Taiwan’s KMT-supporting pan-blue media immediately began to sow discord about the Taiwan-US relationship. No matter how many times the pan-blue camp professes to be pro-US, at critical junctures, it always reveals its true colors.

Fighting the traitors’ call to arms

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2021.8.12

At a forum in Shanghai last month, China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) founder Chang An-le (張安樂) once again explained his call for an “uprising before the battle,” saying that he wants to develop an organization to mobilize young Taiwanese and that when China attempts to force unification, he would let his troops take the lead.

Late last month, a video posted on YouTube by retired general Kao An-kuo (高安國), called “Taiwan’s generals,” shows him calling on Taiwanese military officers to overthrow the “fraudulent Democratic Progressive Party regime” and “complete the sacred mission of unification with China.”

Learning from China’s diplomacy

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  210424

April 10 marked the 50th anniversary of the US and China’s “Ping-Pong diplomacy.” Washington and Beijing issued statements to mark the occasion, which betrayed a sense that both sides, like lovers apart, still hold a fondness for their previous relationship. The US should not at all be sentimental, as Ping-Pong diplomacy was a trap — a triumph of deceit and subterfuge for Beijing, and a five-decade strategic disaster for Washington.

It began in 1971 when Beijing extended an invitation to US table tennis players to visit China. It was the first time that the People’s Republic of China had shown goodwill to what it had hitherto castigated as “evil American imperialists.” The visit was a harbinger of a major strategic shift in Chinese foreign policy that would culminate in a visit by then-US president Richard Nixon two years later.

Defend against the CCP or perish

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2021.1.3

Less than 10 days after enjoying a solo concert by Taiwan-born pianist Chen Ruei-bin (陳瑞斌), I was saddened to learn that China’s foremost pianist, Fou Tsong (傅聰), who at the end of the 1950s went into exile in the UK, had succumbed to COVID-19. These extremes of emotion served up by the pandemic — joy and heartache — conjure up memories.

Fou’s father, Fu Lei (傅雷), was a well-known translator of French literature. When I returned to China in 1955, Fu was living in Shanghai and had already achieved distinction. Two years later, at age 19, I was lucky enough to escape the horrors of the Anti-Rightist Movement. Fu was less fortunate and in 1958 was branded a “rightist.”

Trumpism is not going anywhere

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2020.12.2

The result of the US presidential election is not yet official, and US President Donald Trump is pursuing litigation, hoping to take it to the US Supreme Court, but even without a second term for Trump, Trumpism has taken a foothold.

Even the Western leaders first to congratulate US president-elect Joe Biden were anxious to see whether Trumpism would continue into the new administration: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was concerned about Biden’s policy toward Huawei Technologies Co and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga was worried about his attitude toward the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.

Mongolia might be Xi’s next target
Taipei Times 2020.9.25
    By Paul Lin 林保華

Late last month, Beijing introduced changes to school curricula in the

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, requiring certain subjects to be

China’s reaction to US-Taiwan ties

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2020.9.4

The visit of a 90-member delegation led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil is another diplomatic breakthrough for Taiwan. During the third wave of democracy in the second half of the 20th century, the Czech Velvet Revolution and Taiwan’s quiet revolution were reflections of each other.

Taiwanese will always remember former Czech Senate president Jaroslav Kubera, who in January paid with his life for the Senate’s plan to visit Taiwan, according to his family.

Fri, Aug 14, 2020 page8

    Facing the nation’s enemy within
        By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times

    Washington has gradually realized that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seeks to challenge global democratic values and US supremacy. As a result, US officials have set to work to “clean the stables.”

A storm is brewing in the CCP politburo
Taipei Times  2020.7.26
    By Paul Lin 林保華

Most Chinese provinces and especially the Yangtze River basin have been hit by floods, and as a result, grain shortages are likely to occur in the country this year.

Despite this, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who wants to be personally in charge of everything, has disappeared from sight for quite a while.

Taiwan, HK are global concerns
Taipei Times  2020.6.4
    By Paul Lin 林保華

The inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to her second term on May 20 with Vice President William Lai (賴清德) gave Taiwan an unprecedented high-profile platform to showcase a positive image of democracy, disease control and the positive energy it can contribute to the post-COVID-19 global order.

On the next day, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) announced a plan to introduce new national security legislation for Hong Kong. In doing so, the NPC has ruined Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” formula.

China uses US to cover its role in pandemic
Taipei Times  2020.3.29
    By Paul Lin 林保華

I have said before that if the epidemic in China takes a turn for the better while it deteriorates here in Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would see that as proof that its dictatorship is better than democracy and encourage victims to overturn Taiwan’s government.

Unexpectedly, this is already happening, although aimed at the US and other Western democracies rather than Taiwan. China is not only extolling its response to the epidemic, it is also playing down the fact that it caused the pandemic and recasting itself as a benefactor, expecting other countries to be grateful. It even claims that the virus originated in the US.

Xi’s enemies grow bolder as missteps continue
Taipei Times  2020.3.23
    By Paul Lin 林保華

On March 6, China announced through Hong Kong’s Chinese-language Ming Pao that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would visit Wuhan “soon.”

On the same day, US-based Chinese-language IPK Media published an article by Chinese tycoon Ren Zhiqiang (任志強), with the headline: “An official call to arms against Xi: The clown who insists on wearing the emperor’s new clothes.”

Xi Jinping, pestilence and plague of locusts
Taipei Times  2020.3.10
    By Paul Lin 林保華

During the Sino-Japanese war, China’s Henan Province experienced a series of human-made disasters due to mismanagement and lax military discipline in the Nationalist Army in the region. One of these disasters was said to be the regional military commander, Tang En-po (湯恩伯), the others being drought, floods and locusts.

Seventy years after the communists took over, it seems the Chinese Communist Party is experiencing its own series of disasters: the African swine fever, COVID-19, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and an incoming plague of locusts.

Xi and Tedros are asking too much
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2020.2.25

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Feb. 10 tweeted that he had “just been at the airport seeing off members of an advance team for the @WHO-led #2019nCoV international expert mission to #China.”

Reuters reported a day earlier that it had taken nearly two weeks for the director-general to get the Chinese government’s green light regarding the team’s composition, after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing on Jan. 28.

Pro-China parties must be rejected
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2019.12.2

In Hong Kong’s district council elections on Nov. 24, the pro-democracy camp won just more than 81 percent of the seats, dealing the pro-Beijing camp a crushing defeat. The New People’s Party, chaired by Regina Ip (葉劉淑儀), failed to secure a single seat.

Ip, who worked hard to push for national security legislation during her stint as the Hong Kong secretary for security, was severely punished by voters for supporting police violence.

Warding off CCP’s ‘underground’
By Paul Lin 林保華

TaipeiTimes 2019。11.2

Rumors have been spreading online that Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) are long-time members of the “underground” Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Other secret members allegedly include the “three Leungs” — former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), former Hong Kong secretary of justice Elsie Leung (梁愛詩) and former Hong Kong secretary of financial affairs Anthony Leung (梁錦松).

While the rumors cannot be verified, if true, it would mean that the CCP — the world’s largest political party with nearly 100 million members — is on a mission to bring the world under its thumb through its shadowy membership outside of China.

HK’s official reaction crippling a generation
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2019.10.2

The anti-extradition movement is uniting under the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times,” a slogan proposed following the “Umbrella movement” by Edward Leung (梁天琦), who was then a leader of Hong Kong Indigenous (本土民主前線) and is now serving a six-year prison sentence for rioting in connection to the 2016 protests.

When he proposed the slogan, Leung gave some thought to whether it should be “our times” or “our generation,” as ideas diverged between the young generation and the old pan-democracy camp. Because he felt that intergenerational unity was important, he picked “revolution of our times,” which also reflected the Hong Kong spirit.

Election focus is on beating Tsai
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2019.9.22

Late on Sept. 16, the Formosa Alliance announced that it had nominated former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) as its presidential candidate. That was followed by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) announcement that he would not be running for president. This basically settled the confusion over who would run.

An inventory of potential and actual candidates and their backgrounds results in a list of people from across the political spectrum who want to bring down President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), which is quite shocking.

HK police are loyal to China, not the public
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2019.8.27

Since the anti-extradition protests began in Hong Kong in June, the public has focussed its attention on the performance of the Hong Kong police force.

After police shot teargas and rubber bullets at protesters in a bloody incident on June 12, there have been calls for an independent investigation of their abuse of power, but such calls have been opposed by police-related groups and rejected by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥).

Hong Kong police and gangsters
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2019.8.6

The July 21 anti-extradition bill demonstration in Hong Kong showed another kind of “two systems.”

Traditionally, demonstrations start at Victoria Park at 3pm. In the past, protesters would reach Admiralty or Central districts before dispersing by subway, but the July 21 march was ordered by police to end at Luard Road i n Wan Chai.