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Thursday, August 31, 2006

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More on the live-television beating

Taipei Times has an interesting editorial about the beating that took place on a political talk show on live TV, which Jason discussed and linked to below. It is by Cao Changqing, a freelance journalist based in the US (translated into English by Daniel Cheng):

This shocking and outrageous event, broadcast repeatedly on TV over the past few days, clearly points to two fundamental factors behind conflict in Taiwan.

The problem facing Taiwan is not a problem of ethnicity, but rather of identity. And the behavior of those who do not identify with Taiwan is outrageously arrogant.

Chin [Heng-wei], a Mainlander, sees Taiwan as his country and he has expressed his love for the nation by writing prolifically and attending numerous debates.

Lin [Cheng-chieh], on the other hand, does business in Shanghai, and according to a report by the China Press, a New York-based, pro-Beijing Chinese-language newspaper, loves China so much that he has "visited almost every province in the mother country."

Clearly, Lin does not call Taiwan home.

And while no one is going to force Lin to identify with Taiwan, no one is stopping him from moving to a country he does identify with, either.

Yet he is so arrogant about his beliefs that he not only assaulted someone on live TV over a difference of opinion, but also threatened to repeat the attack if Chin did not change his ways.

It is understandable that many people who live in Taiwan identify strongly with China either because they spent their youth there or because of the manner in which they have been educated.

If they are unable to love Taiwan as much as other Mainlanders such as Chin, Taiwan's representative to Germany Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), the Taiwan Solidarity Union's Taipei mayoral candidate Clara Chou (周玉簆) or political commentator Huang Kuang-chin (黃光芹), then this is their choice.

However, it is likely that any normal person who chooses to live in a country with which they do not identify will be unhappy.

Taiwan has been a refuge for many Chinese who have fallen foul of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), helping them to avoid being killed or imprisoned for 20 years -- like Lin's own father.

As a result, although it is not where they were born, many Mainlanders have come to love Taiwan.

Lin and others of his ilk who refuse to identify with Taiwan but still choose to live here are irrational.

The fact that a person like this has the gumption to assault another who expresses an opinion different to his own is unacceptable.

This self-important and overbearing attitude is the result of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) "master" mentality, the pan-blue camp's slim legislative majority and its ability to use the judiciary to its advantage.

It is also a result of the pan-blue camp having a powerful cheer squad in the form of sympathetic media outlets and, of course, the CCP.

3 Comments:

At 11:45 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is it possible that maybe he struck out not out of arrogance, but because he was feeling very frustrated and diu lian that he could not keep up with the other guy's verbal assault? Also, my husband has said the other guy has been physically beaten by opponents before, so maybe he thought he had nothing to lose and cred to gain by pounding him. After he beat the guy, his breathless explanation that 'he kept cutting me off!' sounded like a baby whining. I like how the other guy handled himself though.

 
At 7:27 AM, Blogger Taiwan Echo said...

The videos that are popularly circulated around the net (like the one posted by jason in his blog) is actually modified. Right at the time Lin Cheng-Chie launched his first burst of attack, he also shouted:

"Fuck your mother's cunt! Fuck your mom"
(肏你媽的B!幹您娘!)

This was removed by whomever circulated that video. In some version you can hear a "beep" sound right at that moment.

The uncensored version can be seen here:

http://www.taiwanyes.net/film/200608/060824BossTalk1.wmv

at the very last minute.

 
At 12:21 AM, Blogger Tim Maddog said...

Echo, sorry for the delay in approving your comment. Thanks very much for this link.

For the benefit of others, the entire video at the above link is 14'21" and is a 10.6 MB download. The language mentioned in Echo's comment comes just 10 seconds before the end. On the versions of the video I've seen, the audio was muted very briefly at that point, which I thought was the result of the microphones being jostled about.

Watching that entire video (with the appropriate language skills) will make it even clearer how wrong Lin is -- there was no way for him to counter Chin's logic or facts.

Tim Maddog

 

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