Bevin Chu
July 14, 2006
Political scientist Michael Parenti once noted that "The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth."
Parenti noted that the US major media, and much of the minor media, are accomplices in this process. They help reverse the roles of victims and victimizers, warmongers and peacekeepers, reactionaries and reformers.
The following Taipei Times news story is newsworthy for one reason. It confirms the truth of Michael Parenti's observation.
The Taipei Times is of course not a US media organization. It is something much worse. It is a willing tool of US and Japanese neocolonialism and neoimperialism against a peacefully developing post Cold War China.
The Taipei Times' willingness, nay eagerness, to fill such a contemptible role, reflects the Taiwan independence movement's inverted moral premises, in which the roles of victims and victimers, warmongers and peacekeepers, reactionaries and reformers are neatly reversed.
According to the Taiwan independence movement's inverted moral calculus, their own nation, China, deserves to be looked upon with undisguised contempt, for being so impotent as to allow Japan to annex Taiwan in 1895. Japan, the flagrant aggressor, on the other hand, deserves to be looked upon with undisguised admiration, for being so powerful that it could take Taiwan from China at will.
According to the Taiwan independence movement's inverted moral calculus, Chinese, Korean, and Philippine mothers, sisters, and daughters kidnapped by the Japanese Imperial Army and forced into sexual slavery during WWII have unfairly defamed and embarrassed Taiwan's magnanimous colonial benefactor.
According to the Taiwan independence movement's inverted moral calculus, China's painful struggle to prevent the reannexation and recolonization of territory universally acknowledged to be her own, amounts to ominous Chinese expansionism, fortunately held in check by the US and Japan, "the world's champions of freedom and democracy."
Given the Taiwan independence movement's inverted moral calculus, it is not the least bit surprising that the Taipei Times would report on Ma Ying-jeou's visit to Japan the way it has.
Deep Blue pundits such as myself have faulted Ma Ying-jeou on a number of domestic issues, including the way he has dealt with the 2004 election and reunification with the mainland. But when it comes to Japan, Ma Ying-jeou has consistently assumed the role of the little boy who blurted out, "The emperor has no clothes!" The emperor In this case being Japanese emperor and war criminal Hirohito.
The Rape of Nanking was not a "Chinese fabrication." Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda compete to see who will kill one hundred Chinese civilians first, using samurai swords. The Tokyo Daily News headline reads "Astonishing Record in the 100 Man Execution Contest -- Mukai 106 -- 105 Noda -- Two 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings."
During the six week long orgy of destruction known as the Rape of Nanking, the Japanese Imperial Army slaughtered 300,000 unarmed Chinese civilian noncombatants. An estimated 12,000 were mass executed in a single excavation known as the "Ten Thousand Corpse Ditch," a trench measuring 300m long by 5m wide.
If the Taipei Times were a real newspaper, rather than an apologist for US and Japanese neocolonialism and neoimperialism, it would restore, not invert the roles of victims and victimizers, warmongers and peacekeepers, reactionaries and reformers.
If the Taipei Times were a real newspaper, it would have published an editorial reading:
So Japanese Diet members want to grill Ma Ying-jeou?
What monumental presumption. Ma Ying-jeou is the one who ought to be grilling warmongering Japanese Diet members.
So a group of pro-Taiwan independence Japanese parliamentarians demand to know "if the KMT chairman would make Taiwan [sic] anti-Japanese if he becomes the next president?"
What colossal effrontery. Ma Ying-jeou is the one who ought to be demanding to know when, not if, these pro-Taiwan independence Japanese demagogues are going to stop making Japan anti-Chinese?
Published on TaipeiTimes
Ma grilled by Japanese Diet members
HARD QUESTIONS: A group of pro-Taiwan parliamentarians wanted to know if the KMT chairman would make Taiwan anti-Japanese if he becomes the next president
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou was confronted with a series of hard questions in a meeting with scores of Japanese Diet members yesterday.
Facing a volley of questions from Diet members, on issues ranging from concern over Ma's reportedly anti-Japanese views, to his stance on the dispute over the Diaoyutais and Taiwan's long-stalled arms procurement plan, Ma appeared overwhelmed.
Ma's current trip to Japan is his first visit to the country in his capacity as KMT chairman. He had said that he would use the trip to correct the "misunderstandings" that some Japanese politicians have about him.
Saying that Taiwan is a friendly country which understands Japan well, Diet member Yasuhiro Oe, a member of the Democratic Party of Japan and one the nearly 70 parliamentarians from a pro-Taiwan Japanese parliamentary group present at the meeting yesterday, expressed concern over Ma's stands on the Diaoyutais and his rhetoric about the Yasukuni shrine.
Ma took part in a campaign in the early 1970s to defend the disputed Diaoyutais, known as the Senkaku islands in Japanese, and surrounding waters.
Japan declared the islands to be part of its territory in 1895. They were temporarily put under US control after World War II, before being returned to Japanese rule in 1972, together with the Ryukyu island chain.
On Tuesday, Ma criticized Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the shrine, urging him to take a broader look at history.
Oe added that he is worried that Taiwan could become an anti-Japanese country, should the KMT gain power under Ma's leadership in the next presidential election.
Former Japan Defense Agency head Shigeru Ishiba asked "what kind of logic is it" that, despite the intensifying military competition in East Asia, arms procurements are still being blocked in the legislature by the KMT.
In response to both Oe and Ishiba's comments, Ma said that "although both parties have different views, [these different views] will not affect Taiwan-Japan relations."
Ma stressed that the internal disagreements on these issues would not affect relations between Taiwan and Japan, and that it was impossible for two countries to have the same stance on all issues.
Taiwan and Japan should, via contact and negotiations, broaden the views that they both share and shorten the gaps on issues on which they are at odds, Ma said, adding that this is the most effective way to ensure mutual friendship.
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