Chapter XVI, in which Ms. Wang discovers that small nations and large nations do not have parity; advocates extreme methods to rectify situation.
“Small nations and large nations do not have parity, and large nations will never pay attention to the goodwill or pleas of small nations….. The Palestinian struggle for statehood and Cuba's revolutionary movement may all have adopted extreme methods, but if this had not been done, would the U.S. have recognized their existence? Would they hear their voice demanding freedom? I really doubt it.”
So what, exactly, are we advocating here? Suicide bombings? A Munich-style terrorist attack at the Olympics? Have these tactics served the Palestinians well? Has it escaped Michelle's notice that China is cozying up to Venezuela and Cuba? China, at present, is not able to refine the oil pumped from Venezuela, but the governments of both countries are aching to rectify that situation. Has it escaped her notice that Venezuela's close ally, Cuba, is also being courted by China? (Raul Castro visited China in April to firm things up). They are allied with each other because they stand on the opposite side of a gaping values divide from the U.S. and Taiwan. Anti-American Europeans of the sort who vociferously criticized the Iraq War, celebrate the Palestinians and turn a tolerant eye toward Cuba –they're on the side of Taiwan's“national liberation movement,”right? Or was that Jacques Chirac leading the charge to sell arms to China?
Of course, this is an opinion column and doesn't represent the position of the Taipei Times, but it is fair to say that this column could not possibly have been printed in either of the other two English language papers. T-Times editorials vacillate between a (usually) pragmatic, A-bian type of Greenishness and the kind of moonbat anti-Americanism found in this column. It was the latter strand that had the Times editorial board dancing on the rooftops two days after the 9-11 attacks in their“Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind”editorial. There's a part of them that longs for the day when they can join in rallies in Rome and London:“Free the Palestinians! Support Taiwan independence and democracy! Yeah, Castro! Go, Chavez!”It's not going to happen. Those people are a lot more interested in anti- Americanism than they are in promoting democracy. Taiwanese Greens infatuated with this kind of Western bien-pensant thinking are letting themselves in for an endless round of disillusionments. Fact is, Taiwanese don't have the luxury of deluding themselves about which nation in the world it is that stands up for small, democratic nations in nasty neighborhoods.
