All the news lately has been about Beijing’s anti-…
All the news lately has been about Beijing’s anti-secession law. Even the bwg emailed me about it a few days ago.
Originally nobody thought much of it, as it was just China’s same old sabre-rattling, now in a new-and-handy codified form. So they’re giving themselves permission to attack Taiwan is it declares independence, huh? Well, we can’t have them doing things without their own permission, can we?
So the world pretty much shrugged as the National People’s Congress went about the slow, ponderous processes of doing whatever it does when it comes up with a new bill. The stock market here, normally a pretty good indicator of what the average Taiwanese is currently panicking about, has remained steady, and most people ignored it.
The current administration, however, has been showering the press with stories of outrage and defiance for the last month or so. Every day I read what is basically the same story, that China is unilaterally changing the status quo, that this is an unparalleled threat, the world is shouting for Beijing to renounce the law, etc. A huge, ten-route “million person” march is being planned for March 26th, and the DPP and TSU have ordered hundreds of thousands of their members as well as hundreds of civic groups to participate.
All of this righteous fervor pouring out of government media has made me a bit uneasy, actually. I recall the outpouring of stories concerning what a great guy Frank Hsieh was before he was (surprise!) named premier. Ditto for Su Chen-chang. This massive media push for global indignation on a scale out of proportion with the reality of the situation makes me wonder if these guys are creating a climate under which they would theoretically be justified in doing something, well, something rather rash.
My co-workers all pooh-pooh the idea (see, Dean, I used ‘pooh-pooh’ in a sentence!), and say I’m paranoid. This is probably true, since I can get rather paranoid about such things. In any case, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.
I was listening to the news the other day when they started talking about the wild lily student protests at CKS Hall 15 years ago. Man, I can’t believe it’s been 15 years already. I think I still have pictures and a headband from that around somewhere.
Speaking of past and present, I noticed a poster at the Jingmei MRT station which featured my current neighborhood, but many years ago, before the building I live in, as well as many others surrounding it, were built. So I took a picture of the poster, took my digital camera down to where it was taken, and took another. Here they are together, for comparison.
Oh, and I finally updated my Poapad page, btw. Presenting my new digs, the Lofty Sky Palace!
