林保華

Avoid China’s ‘united front’ tactics
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2018.2.2

Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy politician and Democratic Party founder Martin Lee (李柱銘) on Jan. 10 published an article headlined “Have I already become part of China’s united front strategy?” in the Hong Kong edition of the Apple Daily.

In the article, Lee reflects on an incident in 1986 at a meeting of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee during which, as a committee member, he said he fell into a “united front” trap laid by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Property rights could become Xi’s next target
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2018.1.22

Not long ago, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) political theory periodical Qiushi (求是, “Seeking Truth”) published an article by Zhou Xincheng (周新城) — a professor in the School of Marxism Studies at Renmin University of China, my old school, which has been called the second party school — marking the 170th anniversary of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto.

The article criticized property rights as advocated by US economist Steven Cheung (張五常) and Chinese economist Wu Jinglian (吳敬璉), quoting the economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and stating that “the elimination of private property is an objectively necessary social developmental trend.”

The DPP must not become ‘leftards’
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2018.1.13

In the past few years, the word “leftard” (左膠) has emerged in Hong Kong. While “left” refers to the political left, “leftard” refers to a rigid person dogmatically stuck in their ways.

Left-leaning concepts of fairness and justice are common goals for people to pursue, and they appeal to the passionate and pure younger generation. Unfortunately, such people are malleable and easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians.

A gradual push could support independence
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 20180108

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) revealed China’s innermost fear in his New Year message, saying that “we will never tolerate separatist actions leading to de jure Taiwanese independence, nor will we sit idly by as gradual Taiwanese independence erodes the foundation of peaceful unification.”

De jure independence is the ultimate goal and gradual independence is how it is achieved.

Preparing for a second Korean War
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2018.1.4

The year 2017 is over, and the issue that will concern everyone the most this year, apart from the economy, is whether there will be a large-scale war.

In his article “Five Places World War III Could Start in 2018” published in The National Interest on Dec. 15, military and defense security expert Robert Farley of the University of Kentucky listed Taiwan second, right after North Korea, out of five places where World War III could break out.

Seeing past China’s ‘rogue-like’ behavior
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipai Times 2017.12.22

During his visit to Japan over the past weekend, former White House senior adviser Steve Bannon said that the US and its East Asian allies must unify to constrain China’s “frightening, audacious and global ambitions.”

The statement implies that Bannon has seen through China’s innate rogue status. Western so-called “China experts” with their belief that propriety, justice, honesty and honor are part of Chinese culture have been manipulated into assisting China’s rogue behavior.

Chinese media are the CCP’s mouthpiece
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2017.12.2

The US Congress’ bipartisan US-China Economic and Security Review Commission issued a report on Nov. 15 recommending that all Chinese state-run media employees be required to register as “foreign agents.”

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the report “totally discriminatory” and “divorced from reality.” However, the facts speak for themselves.

CCP openly organizing overseas
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2017.11.28

According to a report in the news section of the Web site of China’s Dalian University of Technology, seven Chinese state-sponsored visiting academics at the University of California, Davis founded a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) branch, which held its inaugural meeting on Nov. 4.

The branch called on its members to encourage their Chinese colleagues and neighbors to “resist the corrosive effects of negative foreign thinking,” and to try to recruit more party members.

Overseas Chinese a useful pool of talent
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.11.18

The issue of an aging population and talent shortage and its implication on national security has again become a hotly debated topic. The problem is exacerbated by Chinese attempts to lure young Taiwanese talent.

“It takes 10 years to grow a tree, but 100 years to nurture a generation,” a Chinese saying goes.

Trump’s ‘Indo-Pacific tactic’ as a way forward
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2017.11.12

US President Donald Trump arrived in China on Wednesday. This is the leg of his Asia trip that has attracted the most attention.

As White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro, a “China expert” who is anti-Beijing, was forced to be absent from the trip and Trump has not built a strong team to deal with China affairs, the rest of the world had been worried about how his visit would go.

Great Father Xi and feudal thinking
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2017.10.31

The second stanza of the Chinese-language version of The Internationale, the anthem of international communism, contains the following four lines:

“There has never been any savior of the world,

The ROC represents a ‘hybrid’ stage
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.10.15

Celebrating Taiwan’s Double Ten National Day is the best way to counter China’s assertion that “Taiwan is not a country and will never be a country.” Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation, which is why it does not need to invite representatives from Beijing to preside over a “regional” national day celebration.

However, Taiwan’s National Day celebrations are far from perfect, just like the national flag and the national anthem.

Banding together against the CCP
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.10.2

The boycott by National Taiwan University students of the “Sing! China: Shanghai-Taipei Music Festival” organized by the Taipei and Shanghai municipal governments is like a smaller version of the 2014 Sunflower movement. That movement started as a protest against China’s economic “united front” tactics and infiltration; the boycott of the Sing! China event protested China’s cultural “united front” tactics and infiltration.

There are also some noteworthy differences. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) to some degree owes his 2014 electoral success to the Sunflower movement, but now Ko is welcoming the Chinese “united front” tactics.

CCP, KMT colluding to impede Taiwan
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2017.9.22

Sulu Sou (蘇嘉豪) was elected to one of the few directly elected seats of the Macau legislature. Record voter turnout demonstrated that young Macanese want change.

Neither attacks over Sou’s relationship to the Hong Kong independence movement nor the rhetoric of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) when it entered Macau to help clean up after Typhoon Hato — “the PLA loves the people, and the people have the PLA” — succeeded in blocking the election of Sou or other non-establishment candidates.

Kim’s tests help Xi hide problems in his nation
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.9.07

Prior to North Korea’s underground nuclear bomb test on Sunday, Pyongyang on Tuesday last week fired a ballistic missile over Japan’s Hokkaido island, which flew 2,700km before breaking up over the Pacific Ocean.

If Pyongyang had instead fired the missile over Kyushu island, it would have touched down about 500km from the US territory of Guam.

Window of opportunity for invasion is opening
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.8.3

On July 18, Peter Enav, a former Associated Press reporter in Taiwan,

published an article on the Taiwan Sentinel Web site, arguing that China

China still hoodwinking the West
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipai Times  2017.7.30

When US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had their summit meeting in April, the two main issues were North Korea’s nuclear weapons and US-China trade.

The Chinese side pledged itself to a “100-day plan” for trade talks that would boost US exports and reduce the US’ trade deficit with China. Now that 100 days have passed, not only has no solution been found to the North Korean problem, but trade between China and North Korea actually increased over the first half of this year, which means that China has relaxed its sanctions on Pyongyang.

HK is a money laundering machine
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.7.10

According to Chinese media reports, last year a total of nearly 1 trillion yuan (US$146.78 billion) mysteriously disappeared from China after it was remitted into Hong Kong without first being converted into yuan deposits, and instead directly converted into US dollars and Hong Kong dollars. What is the truth behind these transfers?

The international financial crisis of 2008 hit Chinese exports badly. In the second half of that year, the value of China’s exports dropped sharply and then-Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) launched a 4 trillion yuan emergency plan, consisting of 10 measures to expand domestic demand.

Beijing’s definition of ‘Chinese’ is dangerous
By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times  2017.6.24

The way Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been going about setting up a system of tributaries to the Chinese empire — in addition to military matters and economic expansion — is to include 60 million “Chinese descendants” abroad within the “Chinese” scope, thus making them “a part of China.”

Ever since Xi took office, the issue of a “Chinese descendant card” has been discussed constantly and has sparked many disputes.

No love lost between China, Russia
By Paul Lin 林保華
2017.6.20

With the severing of official ties with Panama, Taiwan has lost an important diplomatic ally. While Taiwan may be diplomatically isolated, China is probably the only nation that is hostile toward it.

China has more than 100 diplomatic allies, many of which dislike it, and there is strong anti-Chinese sentiment. Even Russia — which China looks to like a big brother — constantly opposes China.