Thursday, November 20, 2008

Backtalk: The Myth of Checks and Balances

Backtalk: The Myth of Checks and Balances
Bevin Chu
November 20, 2008

Special Posting for Mr. Christopher DiFranco's Social Studies Class at Georgetown Middle/High School in Georgetown, Massachusetts.

Georgetown Middle/High School, Georgetown, Massachusetts

See: The Myth of Checks and Balances
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/02/myth-of-checks-and-balances.html

Additional Closely Related Articles:

See: The Non-Aggression Axiom
http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-08-03_011_the_non_aggression_axiom.mp3

See: Economic Selections, not Democratic Elections
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/03/economic-selections-not-democratic.html

See: Frogs and Fraud, a Fable
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2006/08/frogs-and-fraud-fable.html

See: How Democracy Really Works
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-democracy-really-works.html

See: The Founding Fathers' Next Step
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2006/09/founding-fathers-next-step.html

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Tibet: True or False?

Tibet: True or False?
by Mila Marcos and Michel Collon
July 1, 2008



Tibet is an Integral Part of China


"Historic Tibet": the megalomanical "Greater Tibet" territorial claims of Tibetan independence ultranationalists

The China Desk: Below is a highly informative Q&A Session on Tibet. FYI.

URL:
http://www.michelcollon.info/articles.php?dateaccess=2008-06-26%2014:54:30&log=articles

IMPRIMER MAINTENANT !
TIBET : true or false?
Test how the media informed you
Mila Marcos and Michel Collon

The goal of these media tests is neither to shock nor create a scandal. All beliefs deserve respect. The goal is to allow each of us to determine for ourselves a decisive question: is what I believe based on reliable information? Or did someone try to manipulate public opinion on these big questions?
What makes a good judge? Someone who listens attentively to the contending parties, leaves her prejudices outside, makes up her own mind, and checks the reliability of each document, of each witness. Wouldn't a media reader or viewer find it helpful to follow this same method?


1. "BEFORE THE CHINESE INVASION, THE TIBETAN PEOPLE LIVED IN HARMONY WITH THEIR NOBILITY IN A SOCIAL ORDER INSPIRED BY RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS."

FALSE. Religious doctrines imposed the superior position of the rich noble and the inferior position of the impoverished peasant, the low-ranking monk, the slave and all women, presenting this ranking as the inevitable outcome of karmic virtues and vices of successive former lives.

This religious ideology justified a feudal class order: serfs worked without pay for life on the grounds of the lord or the monastery, unable to move without permission. All life events--marriage, death, birth, a religious festival, to own an animal, to plant a tree, to dance, or to enter or leave prison--were pretexts for heavy taxes. Debts passed from father to son and to grandson. Those who failed to pay were reduced to slavery.

Fugitives and thieves were tracked by a small professional army. Favorite punishments: tearing out the tongue or the eye, slicing the tendon at the knee, etc. There tortures were not ended until 1959, at the time of democratic reforms decided in Beijing.


2. “IN 1951, CHINA INVADED TIBET.”

FALSE. The term “invasion” assumes that there are two countries. However, since the 13th century, the Mongols had annexed Tibet to China. As of the 17th century, it was one of the eighteen provinces of the Chinese Empire. And each new Dalai Lama received his “seal” of office from the Chinese Emperor.

At the end of the 19th century, the British Empire invaded Tibet and installed its trade representatives there. The thirteenth Dalai Lama took advantage of this to assert Tibet's independence. No Chinese party nor any country in the world took this request seriously. As of 1949, the U.S. State Department still declared Tibet and Taiwan integral parts of China.

This all changed when, led by Mao Zedong, China became socialist. The same U.S. State Department then wrote: “Tibet has become strategically and ideologically important. Since the independence of Tibet can aid the fight against Communism, it is of our interest to recognize it as independent rather than regarding it as belonging to China.” But, it added: “The situation would change if a government in exile is created. In this case, it is in our interest to support it without recognizing Tibet's independence. To recognize the independence of Tibet, yes or no, is not the true question. It is about our attitude towards China.”


3. “AS SOON AS SOCIALIST CHINA TOOK OVER THE DIRECTION IN 1951, THE DALAI-LAMA AND THE TIBETAN NOBILITY LOST ALL THEIR POLITICAL POWER IN TIBET."

FALSE. In 1951, Beijing and the local government of Tibet signed an accord on the peaceful liberation of Tibet. The Dalai Lama wrote a poem about the glory of President Mao Zedong and telegraphed him: “The local government, the lamas and the lay population of Tibet unanimously support the accord of 17 articles." It is within this framework that the Peoples Liberation Army entered Tibet.

The agreement foresaw the continuation of serfdom in Tibet under the authority of the Dalai Lama. The monasteries, the Dalai Lama and the officials would keep their possessions: 70 percent of the land. Beijing would control military questions and international relations. The local Tibetan government, composed of lamas and lords, negotiated and accepted the agreement. The Dalai Lama took the post of vice-president of the Parliament of all China, which he accepted without problems.


4. ”IN 1959, 83.000 DIED IN THE BATTLE OF LHASA.”

FALSE. To understand the sequence of events: while in Tibet, eastern feudalism continued, in the neighboring provinces where minorities Tibetans coexist with of Han, Hui, Yi, Naxi, Qiang, Mongols…, land reform got underway at the beginning of the 1950s. The lands of the great landowners were confiscated and redistributed to the poor peasants. With few conflicts, as the socialist State pays an income to the ex-owners. Resistance came from Tibetan lamas and nobility in these areas. They refuse to give up their privileges.

In 1956, they launched an armed rebellion starting from the monastery of Litang in Sichuan province. After skirmishes with the Red Army, a part of the Tibetan elite of Sichuan flees to Tibet and spreads rumors of “red terror.” From the beginning, the CIA financed and supported the uprising. Armed militia were trained in Colorado, parachuted into Tibet, and supplied with weapons by air. The bloody events of this period were indeed a struggle of the privileged classes, organized by the CIA.

In 1959, the rumor that,“The Chinese will kidnap the Dalai Lama,” sparked a large demonstration in Lhasa. In reality, the CIA had already organized the Dalai Lama's flight towards India. The demonstrators lynched some Tibetan officials, and the Red Army crushed the riot. How many deaths in Lhasa? Three thousand according to testimonies collected by the political economist Henry Bradsher (pro-independence). Sixty-five thousand, claimed the Dalai Lama in 1959. Then, it will pass to eighty-seven thousand. However, at that time Lhasa only had a maximum of forty thousand inhabitants. It is true that after the riot, ten thousand Tibetans were sent to spend eight months doing forced labor to build the first hydro-electric power station in Ngchen. But the unsubstantiated figures continued to circulate. In 1984, the Tibetan government in exile used the figure of « 432.000 Tibetains dead during the battles with the Red Army between 1949 and 1979 » !


5. “INDIA INITIALLY REFUSED TO GRANT THE DALAI-LAMA POLITICAL ASYLUM."

TRUE. Starting in 1949, the United States tried to convince the Dalai Lama to go into exile, with the assistance of his two brothers (recruited by the CIA in 1951) and of the German adviser Heinrich Harrer (former SS). It would take ten years before he agreed to take refuge in India with the layer of privileged dignitaries who will make up the exiled Tibetan community.

But neighboring India hardly wanted to grant him asylum. President Eisenhower then proposed to introduce 400 Indian engineers to U.S. nuclear technology. The Indian leader Nehru accepted this deal. In 1974, first Indian A-bomb was given the cynical nickname of “smiling Buddha”.


6. “THE CHINESE OCCUPATION CAUSED THE VIOLENT DEATH OF 1.2 MILLION TIBETANS."

FALSE. Two major facts contradict this figure, which the Western world has accepted without proof for thirty years.

1. The Tibetan population pyramid in 1953 was estimated as at maximum 2.5 million inhabitants in Tibet and in neighboring provinces. If 1.2 million Tibetans had been killed between 1951 and the beginning of the 70s, most of Tibet would have been depopulated. And there would be a great imbalance between men and women. But demographers note no such anomaly and the population doubled to almost six million Tibetans in China today.

2. The only person who had access to the files of the Tibetan government in exile was Patrick French, when he directed Free Tibet in London. Documents in hand, French concluded that the evidence of the “ Tibetan genocide” had been falsified. The battles of 1959 had been counted several times and the figures of deaths added in the margins afterwards. He denounced this falsification, but the figure continued to circulate in the world…


7. “RELIGIOUS PRACTICE WAS PROHIBITED DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION.”

TRUE. Between 1966 and 1976, all religious practices were prohibited not only in Tibet, but in all China. The monasteries were closed, the monks had to return to their families of origin and devote themselves to productive work, primarily farming. It is not true that all the temples and monasteries were "razed to the ground." But the Red Guards, young Tibetan intellectuals who followed the general movement in China, destroyed many objects of worship.

When that turned chaotic, the army stepped in and restored social and economic order. The Chinese government publicly admitted the errors of this period and financed the restoration of all Tibet's religious patrimony. The monasteries were repopulated. Two thousand lamaseries were restored and are functioning in China.


8. “THE DALAI-LAMA IS A SORT OF POPE OF WORLD BUDDHISM.”

FALSE. The Dalai Lama represents neither Zen Buddhism (Japan), nor Southeast Asian Buddhism, nor Chinese Buddhism. In fact, Tibetan Buddhism represents less than 2 percent of the world's Buddhists. In Tibet itself, there are four separate Buddhist sects, the Dalai Lama belonging to one of them, the gelugpa (yellow bonnets).

When he visited London in 1992, the largest British Buddhist organization accused him of being a “pitiless dictator” and an “oppressor of religious freedom.” This “Pope” seems to have few religious disciples, but many political followers…


9. “THE DALAI LAMA CLAIMS A QUARTER OF CHINA'S TERRITORY.”

TRUE. Although he had recently said he would be satisfied with a kind of autonomy, in his books, he claims a “Grand Tibet,” double the size of that where the Dalai Lamas exerted local political power in the past. This territory would incorporate the whole province of Qinghai and the parts of the provinces Gansu, Yunnan and Sichuan, in which one finds Tibetan minorities among other nationalities.

By what methods? By driving out the non-Tibetan populations? Practicing ethnic cleansing? Yes. The Dalai Lama declared textually in the U.S. Congress in 1987: “7.5 million settlers must leave.” It is not a question of settlers, because the populations of these areas have been mixed for centuries. In any case, this expansionist project would carry out what all the colonial powers have sought to do for 150 years: to dismember China.


10. “DONATION FROM CHARITABLE AND HUMANITARIAN NGO'S FINANCE THE TIBETAN MOVEMENT.”

FALSE. The Tibetan movement indeed receives such gifts, but its principal financier is the government of the United States. Between 1959 and 1972, the CIA poured $1.7 million into the “Tibetan government in exile” and $180,000 dollars per annum for the Dalai Lama. This he denied for a long time, but ended up acknowledging it.

From then on and still today, the payments were more discreet, through cover organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy, Tibet Fund, State Department's Democracy Bureau… Another important sponsor: George Soros through Albert Einstein Institute, directed until recently by ex-colonel Robert Helvey of the U.S. secret services.


11. “THE SUPPORT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DALAI LAMA IS JUSTIFIED BY STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES."

TRUE. Ruling U.S. circles see China as their principal enemy. Now China is certainly an essential economic partner, but also, in the long term, a principal factor resisting U.S. world domination. The USA predict that China will catch them up as a world power about 2030. They must then absolutely prevent Asians from creating a Common Market tied to China that would evade U.S. control.

These people dream that they can break up China as they did the USSR. Their goal is to control the economic wealth, the labor power and the largest market of the world. To weaken China, the U.S. has a two-track strategy. On the one hand, to encircle China with military bases. In addition, to encourage separatist movements and all kinds of opposition. They begin with media demonization campaigns. That's why they invest greatly in the question of Tibet.


12. “THE DALAI LAMA PUBLICLY DEFENDED THE FORMER FASCIST DICTATOR OF CHILE AUGUSTO PINOCHET.”

TRUE. British police arrested Pinochet in England, based on an international warrant for crimes against humanity issued by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón. In this occasion, the Dalai Lama actively recommended the British government to release him and stop him from being tried. Pinochet also was a long-term employee of the CIA.

The Dalai Lama is indeed a pawn of the United States. In 2007, George Bush presented the Dalai Lama a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by the U.S. Congress. His holiness praised Bush for his efforts in the whole world on behalf of freedom, democracy and human rights. He called the United States “a champion of democracy and freedom.”


13. “REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS GIVES DISINTERESED SUPPORT TO THE DALAI LAMA."

FALSE. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) presents itself as a defender of freedom for journalists, and many of its small contributors believe they are supporting an independent and objective organization. But the funds for helping oppressed journalists amounts to only 7 percent of the total budget. The remainder goes to political campaigns.

Behind these campaigns is dirty money. Actually, the boss at RSF, Robert Ménard, uses a double standard when he defends human rights. He criticizes Venezuela and Cuba by distorting facts? Why? He received financings from the Cuban counterrevolutionaries in Miami. He criticizes China for his policy in Tibet? Why? He received 100.000 dollars from the anti-communists of Taiwan. On the other hand, he is more than timid towards the United States, which killed the greatest number of journalists these last few years. Why? He is financed by the CIA through the NED as we already mentioned.

Similarly, Ménard forced RSF to cease criticizing the French media. Why? He is supported financially by the largest French media and some large multinationals. Moreover, the NMPP (owned partially by Lagardere) distribute his albums free. You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Ménard had to admit in 2001: “How, for example,could we organize a debate on the concentration of the press and then ask Havas or Hachette to sponsor it?”

Despite all these suspect financial arrangements, the majority of the mass media continue to relay Ménard's words massively. On the other hand, UNESCO ceased supporting him, explaining that, “RSF had shown on several occasions an absence of ethics by treating certain countries with very little objectivity.”


14. “CHINA IS COMMITTING CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN TIBET.”

FALSE. Actually, Tibet for a long time has been an autonomous area. Since the 1980s, the culture and the religion of Tibet are practiced freely, children are bilingual, institutes studying Tibet have been opened, lamas, including young children, fill the monasteries. In the streets, believers happily spin their prayer wheels. The language Tibetan is spoken and written by many more people than before the revolution. There are a hundred literary magazines in Tibet. Even Foreign Office magazine, close to the U.S. State Department, acknowledged that 60 to 70 percent of the civil servants are from the Tibetan ethnic group and that bilingualism is common.

In addition, Tibetan culture also experienced new growth in the remainder of China, especially in the fields of language, literature, studies of the everyday life and traditional architecture. China published major collections of books, newspapers and magazines in the Tibetan language. Many publishing houses exist not only in Tibet but also in Beijing. “Cultural genocide” is a political propaganda myth.


15. “THE CONFRONTATIONS OF MARCH 14, 2008 IN LHASA OCCURRED BECAUSE THE POLICE FORCE AND THE CHINESE ARMY VIOLENTLY REPRESSED A PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION."

FALSE. All the Western witnesses present on the spot, including journalist James Miles (The Economist) and many tourists attest to it: the violence was started by young Tibetans who the lamas encouraged to commit destructive acts.

These were criminal acts programmed in a racist manner. Several groups, all armed in the same manner (Molotov cocktails, stones, steel bars, and butcher's knives), all operating in the same way, were spread around Lhasa, and sowed panic by attacking Han (Chinese) and Hui (Moslems). Civilians were burned alive, others beaten to death or cut up. Nineteen died and more than three hundred were wounded. Schools, hospitals and hotels were attacked. Many older Tibetans aided the victims and saved lives.

When these racist violences were exposed, the partisans of the Dalaï-Lama claimed that it was all the work of Chinese soldiers disguised as monks, circulating an alleged “satellite” photograph that was supposed to prove it. We showed that this photograph was a coarse forgery.

The police force and the Chinese army initially remained extremely passive before intervening in force to put an end to the riots. How many became victims there at this time? The Western media spread the figure (“hundreds”) advanced by the partisans of the Dalai Lama.
Some of those the Tibetan government in exile declared “dead” are quite alive today in Tibet. Others were called “Dupont, Charleroi” without being more precise. Other names raised do not exist. The argument goes on.

Translated from French by John Catalinotto

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Taipei Reaffirms Sovereignty over Diaoyutai, Finally!

Taipei Reaffirms Sovereignty over Diaoyutai, Finally!
Bevin Chu
June 14, 2008


Diaoyutai belongs to China, Map of Diaoyutai printed on Taiwan


Diaoyutai belongs to China, Map of Diaoyutai printed on the Chinese Mainland

The ROC government in Taipei has reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands, finally.

It's about time.

For the past 20 years, Taipei has allowed Japan to get away with behaving as if the Diaoyutai Islands (in Hanyu Pinying), or "Tiaoyutai Islands" (in Wade-Giles), and the territorial waters surrounding it, belonged to Japan.

For eight years, Chen Shui-bian has never made a peep when Japanese warships drove Taiwan Chinese fishing boats from Chinese territorial waters.

During his 12 years in office, Chen's predecessor Lee Teng-hui was even worse. Lee openly and explicitly declared that Diaoyutai belonged to Japan!

Now however, three weeks into Ma Ying-jeou's term, a incident that during Lee Teng-hui's term or Chen Shui-bian's term would have been swept under the rug, has brought the issue of China's sovereignty over Diaoyutai into the spotlight.

Now, finally, we have an opportunity to get at the truth.

See China Desk articles on Diaoyutai: http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/04/japanese-historians-view-of-diaoyutai_09.html
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2006/12/millions-for-defense-but-not-one-cent.html
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2005/07/diaoyutai-and-pan-green-self-delusion.html

See also: http://blog.yam.com/dili/article/5442557


Executive Director Huang Hsi-lin 黃錫麟 of the Diaoyutai Islands Action Coalition 保釣行動聯盟 thanks the ROC Coast Guard 海巡隊 for its escort mission - The 12 members of the Diaoyu Islands Action Coalition made a successful circumnavigation of the Diaoytai Islands on June 16th. They returned safely to Ruifang Sheng Ao Harbor in Taipei County 北縣瑞芳深澳漁港

Taipei reaffirms sovereignty over Tiaoyutai Islands

Friday, June 13, 2008
The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Tiaoyutai Islands for the first time in at least ten years yesterday, two full days after a 270-ton sports fishing boat sank in a collision with a Japanese maritime defense frigate over their waters.

President Ma Ying-jeou, once a Tiaoyutai warrior, had a statement issued by his spokesman Wang Yu-chi reaffirming the eight islets, some 120 miles northeast of Keelung, are part of the territory of the Republic of China.

No official statement on the Tiaoyutais has been made over the past ten years, and it seems that Taipei has tacitly given up sovereignty over the small archipelago, which the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands.

China, along with Taiwan and Japan, claims sovereignty over the islets under whose waters lie vast natural gas and oil reserves waiting to be tapped.

"We have never changed our determination to insist on protecting our sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais," the Office of the President said in the statement. "Nor will we change."

The islets are designated as Daxi li (ward) of Touzheng Township in the county of Yilan, the statement declared.

"This stand is fully understood by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," the statement went on, adding: "It (the foreign ministry) will comply."

On the other hand, the statement said, "We will lodge a strong protest with the Japanese government for its patrol vessel hitting and sinking our fishing boat and detaining its skipper."

"We also demand Japan release the skipper at once and pay compensation," the Office of the President said. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is negotiating with the Japanese side on the basis of the above-mentioned principle," it added.

Moreover, the statement said, "We also demand that the National Coast Guard Administration strengthen its organization and equipment at once to enhance its function of safeguarding our sovereignty and fishing rights."

As an aside, Wang Yu-chi said in releasing the statement there never is a change in President Ma's strong determination to safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty over the Tiaoyutais, which is spelled Diaoyutais in pinyin. China uses that name.

"He was a hot-blooded youth," Wang said of President Ma when he spearheaded the campaign to protect the Tiaoyutais in the early 1970s.

At that time, Ma said he would risk going to war with Japan to safeguard the eight islets.

"President Ma is a hot-blooded middle-ager now," Wang said.When the dispute over the sovereignty broke out while he was mayor of Taipei, Ma criticized President Chen Shui-bian for not standing up against Japan.

Wang explained Ma did not respond immediately to the incident, in which none were wounded, because as head of state, he had better let his Cabinet take care of it.

The fact, however, is that the public reacted too strongly for the president and his foreign minister to appear like pushovers.

There were 13 sports fishermen along with a three-man crew aboard the fishing boat Lien Ho. They were all thrown overboard in the collision Tuesday morning, but were rescued by the Japanese patrol ship Koshiki.

They were all taken to Ishigaki jima, one of the southernmost isles of the Ryukyus. The 13 deep-sea anglers were released later and came back to Keelung aboard a NCGA cutter Wednesday. Two crew members flew back to Taipei from Okinawa yesterday morning.

Chou Hsi-wei, magistrate of Taipei, accompanied Mrs. Ho Hung-yi, wife of the Lien Ho skipper, in meeting with Premier Liu Chao-schiuan, who promised whatever possible government help to get her husband back as soon as possible.

Liu said he instructed the foreign ministry to demand that Japan release the skipper, make compensation, and apologize for the incident.

"Should there be no goodwill response," Premier Liu threatened, "we do not rule out possibilities of resorting to other means."

He did not elaborate.

The magistrate of Taiwan's most populous county, which has jurisdiction over Juifang, the home port of the Lien Ho, went to the Taipei office of the Interchange Association, Japan's de facto embassy, to lodge a protest.

There was a crowd before the Japanese office protesting against "the arrogant bullying" of the Lien Ho crew and sports anglers.

Lawmakers of both the ruling and opposition parties unanimously condemned the foreign ministry for buckling under Japanese pressure.

Democratic Progressive Party legislators demanded that Francisco Ou step down as foreign minister to take responsibility.

"Where's the hot-blooded youth called Ma Ying-jeou now?" asked Yeh Yi-tsin, DPP legislative caucus deputy whip.

Kuomintang lawmaker Lin Yu-fang demanded that Chen Chao-min, minister of national defense, be prepared for war.

His colleague, Chang Suo-wen, charged the foreign ministry with ordering the NCGA cutters to stay away from "the Japanese territorial waters," precluding their timely assistance to the Lien Ho.

Another Kuomintang legislator, Liao Chen-ching, insisted that the Legislative Yuan adopt a resolution condemning the "Japanese bullying action."

"We should all go to the Taipei office of the Interchange Association to protest," Chang urged.

Phoebe Yeh, spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, denied any such order was issued. But she admitted the cutters were told to stay 12 nautical miles away from the Tiaoyutais.

Tsai Ming-yao, a foreign ministry Japanese affairs coordinator, said he was to blame for telling the cutters to stay away.

"My judgment was a wrong one," Tsai said. "I am responsible."

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance

1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance
Bevin Chu
May 28, 2008


One of Zheng He's Treasure Ships next to Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria

Retired Royal Navy submarine commander Gavin Menzies is the author of the controversial book "1421: The Year China Discovered America."

Menzies has now written another, equally controversial book, entitled "1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance."

Mainstream Western academics and intellectuals have purportedly "debunked" Menzies' claims, known as the "1421 Hypothesis."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1421_hypothesis

I however, am intrigued by Menzies' claims, and eager to see and hear more.

Whether Menzies' claims are true will hopefully become clear over time.

What dismays me about Menzies' self-styled "debunkers" is not their intellectual disagreement, but their emotional outrage.

Menzies asks some tough questions, such as:

"How do you discover a place for which you already have a map?"

and

"Why were the straits named after Magellan when Magellan had seen them on a chart before he set sail?"

Leave aside for the moment whether Menzies' answers to these questions are correct. Turn instead to why Menzies' "debunkers" are so affronted that such questions would even be asked.

Leave aside for a moment history, and turn to psychology.

Read their "rebuttals." Read between the lines. Note the hysterical tone of some of their responses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies

Why are these mainstream Western academics and intellectuals so offended by the idea that a Chinese navigator, rather than an Italian navigator, first discovered America, or that a Chinese navigator, rather than a Portuguese navigator, first circumnavigated the globe?


Chinese Navigator Zheng He


Italian Navigator Christopher Columbus


Portuguese Navigator Ferdinand Magellan

Has a sacred cow been gored? Has an article of faith been questioned? Has their comfortable Eurocentric world view been shaken to its very foundations?

In the cult science fiction film The Planet of the Apes (1968, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, written by Pierre Boulle, Michael Wilson, and Rod Serling) we humans got a sense of what it would be like if apes were to replace us at the top of the food chain. We humans were aghast as we watched apes rule the planet.

I get the feeling that Menzies' "debunkers" feel the same way about the suggestion that Chinese navigator Zheng He discovered America and circumnavigated the world.

These mainstream Western academics and intellectuals seem unwilling to admit into their consciousness the very thought of a world in which Westerners are not the driving force behind every major event in history.

These mainstream Western academics and intellectuals seem unwilling to countenance the very idea of a world stage on which Westerners are not the leading men and leading ladies, and non-Westerners are not the bit players.

Whether Menzies' claims will ever be substantiated is one thing.

But the shrilly defensive reaction from Western "Defenders of Civilization as We Know It" is something else altogether.

Methinks they doth protest too much.

The size of Zheng He's ships may have been exaggerated. I don't know.

But suppose they were? Zheng He's ships could have been far smaller than Menzies postulates, and still sailed to America, or even circumnavigated the globe.

After all, Columbus and Magellan managed to perform these feats using far smaller ships. Why couldn't Zheng He have performed them, only earlier?

Ming dynasty maritime technology was more than capable of accomplishing these feats. Whether Chinese navigators bothered to carry them out is a separate matter.


An excerpt from '1434'

Greetings!

We are delighted to enclose below an excerpt from Gavin's new book, 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance.

One thing that greatly puzzled me when writing 1421 was the lack of curiosity among many professional historians.

After all, Christopher Columbus supposedly discovered America in 1492. Yet 18 years before he set sail, Columbus had a map of the Americas, which he later acknowledged in his logs. Indeed, even before his first voyage, Columbus signed a contract with the King and Queen of Spain that appointed him Viceroy of the Americas. His fellow ship's captain, Pinzon, who sailed with him in 1492 had too seen a map of the Americas -- in the Pope's library.

How do you discover a place for which you already have a map?

The same question could be asked of Magellan. The straits that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific bear the great Portuguese explorer's name. When Magellan reached those straits, he had run out of food and his sailors were reduced to eating rats. Worse, they were convinced they were lost.

Esteban Gomez led a mutiny, seizing the San Antonio with the intent to lead part of the expedition back to Spain. Magellan quashed the mutiny by claiming he was not at all lost. A member of the crew wrote , "We all believed that [the Strait] was a cul-de-sac; but the Captain knew that he had to navigate through a very well concealed strait, having seen it in a chart preserved in the treasury of the King of Portugal, and made by Martin of Bohemia, a man of great parts."

Why were the straits named after Magellan when Magellan had seen them on a chart before he set sail? Once again, it doesn't make sense.

The paradox might be explained had there been no maps of the straits or of the Pacific - if, as some believe, Magellan was bluffing about having seen a chart. But there were maps. Waldseemueller published his map of the Americas and the Pacific in 1507, thirteen years before Magellan set sail. In 1515, four years before Magellan sailed, Schoener published a map showing the straits Magellan is said to have
"discovered."

The great European explorers were brave and determined men. But they discovered nothing. Magellan was not the first to circumnavigate the globe nor was Columbus the first to discover the Americas So why, we may ask, do historians persist in propagating this fantasy? Why is the "Times History of Exploration," which details the discoveries of European explorers, still taught in schools? Why are the young so insistently misled?

After 1421 was published, we set up our website, www.1421.tv, which has since received millions of visitors. Additionally we have received hundreds of thousands of emails from readers of 1421, many bringing new evidence to our attention. Of the criticism we've also received, the most frequent complaint has concerned my failure to describe the Chinese fleets' visits to Europe when the Renaissance was just getting underway.

Two years ago, a Chinese Canadian scholar, Tai Peng Wang, discovered Chinese and Italian records showing beyond a doubt that Chinese delegations had reached Italy during the reigns of Zhu Di (1403 - 1425) and the Xuande Emperor (1426 - 1435). Naturally, this was of the greatest interest to me and the 1421 team.

Shortly after Tai Peng Wang's 2005 discovery, Marcella and I set off with friends for Spain. For a decade, we've enjoyed holidays with this same group of friends, travelling to seemingly inaccessible places - crossing the Andes, Himalayas and Hindu Kush, voyaging down the Amazon, journeying to the glaciers of Patagonia and to the High Altiplano of Bolivia. In 2005 we walked the Via de la Plata from Seville, from which the Conquistadores sailed to the New World, north to their homeland of Extremadura. Along the way, we visited the towns in which the Conquistadores were born and grew up. One of these was Toledo, painted with such bravura by El Greco. Of particular interest to me were the mediaeval pumps by which this fortified mountain town drew its water from the river far below.

On a lovely autumn day, we walked uphill to the great cathedral that dominates Toledo and the surrounding countryside. We dumped our bags in a small hotel built into the cathedral walls and set off to explore. In a neighbouring Moorish palace there was an exhibition dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci and his Madrid codices, focusing on Leonardo's pumps, aqueducts, locks and canals -- all highly relevant to Toledo.

The exhibit contained this note: "Leonardo embarked upon a thorough analysis of waterways. The encounter with Francesco di Giorgio in Pavia in 1490 was a decisive moment in Leonardo's training, a turning point. Leonardo planned to write a treatise on water."

This note puzzled me. I had been taught that Leonardo had designed the first European canals and locks, that he was the first to illustrate pumps and fountains. So what relevant training had he received from di Giorgio, a name completely unknown to me?

My research revealed that Leonardo had owned a copy of di Giorgio's treatise on civil and military machines. In the treatise, di Giorgio had illustrated and described a range of astonishing machines, many of which Leonardo subsequently reproduced in three-dimensional drawings. The illustrations were not limited to canals, locks and pumps; they included parachutes, submersibles tanks and machine guns as well as hundreds of other machines with civil and military applications.

This was quite a shock. It seemed Leonardo was more illustrator than inventor and that the greater genius may have resided in di Giorgio. Was di Giorgio the original inventor of these fantastic machines? Or did he, in turn, copy them from another?

I learned that di Giorgio had inherited notebooks and treatises from another Italian, Mario di Jacopo ditto Taccola (called Taccola "the jackdaw"). Taccola was a clerk of public works living in Siena. Having never seen the sea or fought a battle, he nevertheless managed to draw a wide variety of nautical machines - paddle wheeled boats, frogmen and machines for lifting wrecks together with a range of gunpowder weapons, even an advanced method of making gunpowder. It seems Taccola was responsible for nearly every technical illustration that di Giorgio and Leonardo had later improved upon.

So, once again, we confront our familiar puzzle: How did a clerk in a remote Italian hill town, a man who had never travelled abroad nor obtained a university education, come to produce technical illustrations of such amazing machines?

This book attempts to answer that and a few related riddles. In doing so, we stumble upon the map of the Americas that Taccola's contemporary, Paolo Toscanelli, sent to both Christopher Columbus and the King of Portugal, in whose library Magellan encountered it.

Like '1421', this book is a collective endeavour that never would have been written without the help of thousands of people across the world. I do not claim definitive answers to every riddle. This is a work in progress. Indeed, I hope the reader will join us in the search for answers and share them with us - as so many did in response to '1421.'

However, before we meet the Chinese squadron upon its arrival in Venice and then Florence, a bit of background is necessary on the aims of the Xuande Emperor for whom Grand Eunuch Zheng He served as ambassador to Europe. A Xuande imperial order dated 29th June 1430 stated:

"The New Reign of Xuan De has commenced and everything shall begin anew. But distant lands beyond the seas have not yet been informed. I send Eunuchs Zheng He and Wang Zing Hong with this imperial order to instruct these countries to follow the way of heaven with reverence and to watch over their people so that all might enjoy the good fortune of lasting peace."

The first three chapters of this book describe the two years of preparations in China and Indonesia to fulfil that order, which required launching and provisioning the greatest fleet the world had ever seen for a voyage across the world. Chapter 4 explains how the Chinese calculated longitude without clocks and latitude without sextants -prerequisites for drawing accurate maps of new lands. Chapters 5 and 6 describe how the fleet left the Malabar Coast of India, sailed to the canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea, then down the Nile into the Mediterranean. Some have argued that no Chinese records exist to suggest Zheng He's fleets ever left the Indian Ocean. Chapters 5 and 6 document the many records in China, Egypt, Dalmatia, Venice, Florence and the Papacy describing the fleets' voyage.

In Chapter 21, I discuss the immense transfer of knowledge that took place in 1434 between China and Europe. This knowledge originated with a people who, over a thousand years, had created an advanced civilisation in Asia; it was given to Europe just as she was emerging from a millennium of stagnation following the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Renaissance has traditionally been portrayed as a rebirth of the classical civilisations of Greece and Rome. It seems to me the time has come to reappraise this Eurocentric view of history. While the ideals of Greece and Rome played an important role in the Renaissance, I submit that the transfer of Chinese intellectual capital to Europe was the spark that set the Renaissance ablaze.

When you have read the book, please tell us whether you agree.

Gavin Menzies
New York
17th July 2007

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Sharon Stone Calls China Earthquake Karma

Sharon Stone Calls China Earthquake Karma
Bevin Chu
May 26, 2008


Heart of Stone? The China Desk likes Sharon Stone, and certainly hopes not

Sharon Stone Calls China Earthquake Karma
Hollyscoop.com
May 26, 2008


http://www.hollyscoop.com/sharon-stone/sharon-stone-calls-china-earthquake-karma_16155.aspx

Sharon Stone made a not so smart statement while on the red carpet in Cannes. She was asked if she had heard about the disaster that hit China recently, and her answer was:

"Of course I have. Well you know at first I thought I'm not happy with the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans….and I've been concerned with should we have the Olympics because they're not being nice to the Dalai Lama who's a good friend of mine. And then all this earthquake and stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that Karma, when you're not nice and the bad things happen to you?'"

Well that's one way of looking at things, Sharon. Although, we don't think most people agree with that way of thinking. She tried redeeming her comment afterwards but you can't take what you said back.



The China Desk responds: Sichuan Province is just to the east of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Many Tibetan-Chinese live in western Sichuan, in what Tibetan independence advocates claim is "part of Greater Tibet."

With the number of dead approaching 100,000, a not insignificant number of quake victims were Tibetan-Chinese. If the May 12 Wenchuan Earthquake was "karmic payback" against "Chinese," which Ms. Stone erroneously equates with "Han-Chinese," how does Ms. Stone explain all the dead and injured Tibetan-Chinese?

Applying Ms. Stone's logic, should we conclude that Tibetan-Chinese who died in the earthquake were victims of "karmic payback" for the egregious sins of the Tibetan independence movement?

Some Tibetan-Chinese don't admit to being Chinese. Instead, they demand a Tibetan variant of South Africa's former system of Apartheid. They demand political independence from a polyglot, multi-ethnic China, on the basis of their "Tibetan" ethnic identity.

Not only do they demand political independence, they demand that other regions of China to which Tibetan-Chinese have migrated be incorporated into their "Greater Tibet."

In case you think I'm kidding, take a gander at the "Greater Tibet"
territorial claims made by Tibetan independence ultranationalists below.


"Historic Tibet": the megalomanical "Greater Tibet" territorial claims of Tibetan independence ultranationalists

According to Tibetan independence advocates, anywhere ethnic Tibetans live ought to be part of "Greater Tibet."

"Lebensraum" anybody?

I guess Oberscharfuhrer Heinrich Harrer of the SS really did a thorough job of inculcating his young charge Tenzing Gyatso with Nazi concepts of race and territoriality after all.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Harrer and his young disciple:

Heinrich Harrer's Nazi past was unknown until a 1997 article [appeared] in the German magazine Stern. Harrer became a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA, or "Brownshirts") in October 1933, when the Nazi Party (NSDAP) was illegal in Austria. He held the rank of Oberscharführer (Sergeant). In March 1938, Austria was annexed by the German regime, as a part of Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany"). Harrer joined the Schutzstaffel (SS, or "Blackshirts") that same year and was photographed with Adolf Hitler.

Harrer became a friend of the young Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, who had summoned him to the Potala Palace after having seen him repeatedly in the streets below the palace through his telescope. Harrer taught the Dalai Lama (who was eleven years old when they met) much about the outside world and effectively served as his tutor. The Dalai Lama has often credited Harrer's later writings about Tibet as having helped focus international attention on the plight of the Tibetan people after Communist Chinese control.


-- Wikipedia

Okay, I'll cop to it. Sharon Stone is one of my favorite actresses, and to paraphrase Jimmy Carter, I have lusted after her in my heart.

Ms. Stone is both beautiful and intelligent. But the Myth of Shangri-la and Tibetan Independence Political Correctness have her so brainwashed, she is no longer capable of thinking for herself.

Isn't it time Western camp followers of "The Dalai Lama" (shades of "The Donald") ran some long overdue reality checks on their borrowed "spiritual faith?"

A friend in the San Franciso Bay Area had this to say:

The epicenter of the 8.0 Ms Sichuan earthquake was in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, where the ethnic Tibetan population is 53.72%. Videos and criticisms of her comments quickly spread across the web.

I also checked the distribution of ethnic minorities maps in National Geographic magazine's special edition on China and my own book, and confirmed that the area is indeed inhabited by Tibetans. So my response to Sharon Stone is, if God intended this as karma against the Hans, then:

1. God would have put the earthquake somewhere else, somewhere inhabited primarily by Hans, like Shanghai, Beijing, or the Dongbei;

Or, even better,

2. God would have struck down only Hans and Qian minorities, and left all Tibetans standing.

I think China should publish the number of ethnic Tibetans killed. It would be something like 10,000 or more, and show some of the casualties (I saw a Tibetan village on TV, and many of the buildings featured had the distinctive Tibetan designs and Burgundy red color paint of the Tibetans) in Tibetan clothes clutching prayer beads, just to silence the low IQ Sharon Stone, even though they say she has high IQ in reality.

Again, I am acting only as a neutral but scientific person, not because I am pro-CCP OK? I am pro-truth and common sense.


Epicenter of Sichuan Earthquake. The Tibet Autonomous Region borders on Sichuan. Tibetan-Chinese in Sichuan and the Tibet Autonomous Region figured significantly among the dead and injured (Note the ubiquity of Taiwan independence influences? Whoever made this map made Taiwan slightly darker than the Chinese mainland. Because it wasn't quite as dark as Russia, Korea, Vietnam and other neighboring nations, even I didn't catch it! Fortunately a fellow reunificationist noticed it and brought it to my attention.)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Backtalk: What Do You Want From Us?

Backtalk: What Do You Want From Us?
May 18, 2008


This advertisement for soap uses the theme of the White Man's Burden, encouraging white people to teach cleanliness to members of other races
-- Wikipedia

Almost on cue, almost as if to prove the very point made in the widely circulated article, "What Do You Want From Us?" a number of Bearers of the White Man's Burden have condescended to set the poor, benighted Chinese people straight on the World As It Really Is.

One of them posted a long-winded "rebuttal" to my article here:
http://www.onlyredheadintaiwan.com/2008/05/responding-to-chinese-poem-on-worlds.html


The Only Redhead in Taiwan [sic!] yet another predictable "China is bad" blog by yet another expat Taiwan independence fellow traveler

You read that right. He really did name his blog "The Only Redhead in Taiwan."

Try not to laugh too hard. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.

But I really can't blame you. These 21st century versions of pith helmeted 19th century Bearers of the White Man's Burden really are full of themselves, aren't they?

Note how he chose to define himself in relation to the public on Taiwan? Remember, he chose to define himself in this manner, not me.

He seems utterly oblivious of his own colossal presumption. He actually believes his narcissistic view of himself as some sort of sharp-eyed, worldly wise, infinitely patient observer of the human folly swirling around him.

For these Bearers of the White Man's Burden, everything is about them. They are the leading men in the human drama unfolding on this planet. They are the Masters of the Universe. They are the final arbiters of Eternal Verity.

The "little brown brothers" are quaint extras, local colour, to be lifted up out of backwardness by these White Knights in Shining Armor.

See:
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2000/08/white-knight-third-world-damsel-in.html

I considered taking some time out to rebut his "rebuttal" line by line, point by point. As readers of the China Desk know, I've done that with Taipei Times editorials often in the past. But that would have been a few hours taken away from learning a new aria or show tune.

Would it be worthwhile?

Not really.

Besides, readers are smart enough to make up their own minds, not on debating skill, but on objective merits.

Read "What Do You Want From Us?" Watch the video versions of "What Do You Want from Us?" posted at YouTube.

Then read the "rebuttal" by the aforementioned Bearer of the White Man's Burden, whereby he magnanimously removes the blinders from our eyes.

Ask yourself if he didn't unwittingly demonstrate precisely the point he was attempting to deny, that he and his ilk are determined to "make China wrong" and that he and his ilk "just don't get it?"

Upton Sinclair once quipped that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Permit me to paraphrase Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his self-image depends upon his not understanding it."

Saturday, May 03, 2008

What Do You Want From Us?


Völker Europas, wahrt eure heiligsten Güter! 
(Peoples of Europe, guard your most sacred possessions!)
Hermann Knackfuß, 1895
Commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II, and made a gift to Tsar Nicholas II

The Archangel Michael, patron saint of the Germans, surrounded by Valkyrie-like women representing the peoples of Europe, points to a floating Buddha approaching from the East amidst dark storm clouds. From right to left: Marianne (France), Germania, Russia, Austria, Italia, Britannia.

"Because the European does not know his own unconscious, he does not understand the East and projects it into everything he fears and despises in himself."
-- Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

What Do You Want From Us?  
Bevin Chu
May 3, 2008

"What Do You Want From Us?" is a thought-provoking piece that has been widely circulated on the Internet. The author has apparently chosen to remain anonymous.
It has also been made into video versions. Here are some of them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rApn09pRZCk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW5AA1xWIck&feature=related
I have posted my own, slighted edited version of it below.

The original version has also been posted here for comparison.


Sun Yat-sen, Father of Modern China, revered both on the mainland and on Taiwan. Original brush painting by Sun reads: 天下為公 (Tian Xia Wei Gong), loosely translated as "The Universal Brotherhood of Man," the traditional Chinese view of the world

What Do You Want From Us?
Revised Version by Bevin Chu

When we were the Sick Man of Asia, you called us the Yellow Peril.
When we are billed the Next Superpower, you call us the China Threat.

When we closed our doors, you demanded we open them so you could import your drugs.
When we embrace free trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and demanded your share of the booty.
When we try to put the pieces back together, you scream "Free Tibet! Invasion!"

When we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communists.
When we embrace capitalism, you hate us for being capitalists.

When our population reached one billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we were abusing human rights.

When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you money, you blame us for your national debt.

When we build our industries, you call us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.

When we buy oil, you call it genocide.
When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.

When we were in chaos, you demanded the rule of law.
When we uphold law and order, you call it violating human rights.

When we were silent, you said you wanted us to enjoy free speech.
When we are silent no more, you call us brainwashed xenophobes.

Why do you hate us so much, we asked.
No, you answered, we don't hate you.

Well, we don't hate you either. But do you understand us?
Of course we do, you said, we have AFP, BBC, and CNN

What do you want from us? Really?
Think hard before you answer, because you only get so many chances.

Enough is enough. Enough hypocrisy is enough.
We want the Brotherhood of Man and Peace on Earth.
This Big Blue Marble is big enough for all of us.

What Do You Want From Us? [Traditional Chinese]

你們要我們怎麼著?

我們被稱為“東亞病夫”時,說我們危險。
我們要做下一個超級大國了,說我們威脅

我們閉關時,你們偷運毒品來打開市場。
我們擁抱自由貿易了,你們怪我們搶走了你們的飯碗。

我們四分五裂時,你們大兵開進要你們公平的份額。
我們把打碎的碎片拼到一起時,你們高叫“自由西藏”!“那是入侵”。

所以我們嘗試了共產主義,你們恨我們是共黨。
所以我們擁抱了資本主義,你們恨我們是資本家。

然后我們有了10億人,你們說我們在毀滅這個星球。
然后我們就限制我們的數量,你們說這是踐踏人權。

我們窮的時候,你們認為我們是狗,
我們貸款給你們時,你們又怪我們讓你們欠了債。

我們建立我們的工業時,你們說我們污染。
我們把貨物賣給你們時,你們責怪我們讓全球變暖,
我們買石油時,你們說那是剝削和種族滅絕。

我們陷入混亂時,你們要我們法治。
我們維護法律和秩序反對暴力時,你們說那是侵犯人權。

我們沉默時,你們說你們要我們有言論自由。
我們不再沉默了,你們說我們被洗腦了。

你們為什麼這麼恨我們?我們問。“不”,你們回答,“我們不恨你們。”
我們也不恨你們。但是,你們理解我們嗎?“當然理解,”你們說,“我們有CNN, BBC和CBC。”

但是怎麼搞的,我們仍然覺得,你們西方人不喜歡我們。
你們到底要我們怎麼著?

我的朋友,你們真的到底要我們怎麼著?


Big Blue Marble, Western Hemisphere


Big Blue Marble, Eastern Hemisphere

What Do You Want From Us?
Original Version by Anonymous

When we were the Sick Man of Asia, We were called The Yellow Peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are called The Threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to open markets.
When we embrace Free Trade, You blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, You marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet you screamed, It Was an Invasion!
When tried Communism, you hated us for being Communist.
When we embrace Capitalism, you hate us for being Capitalist.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debts.
When we build our industries, you call us Polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.
When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human rights.
When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.
When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed-xenophobics.
Why do you hate us so much, we asked.
No, you answered, we don't hate you.
We don't hate you either, But, do you understand us?
Of course we do, you said,We have AFP, CNN and BBC's...
What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer... Because you only get so many chances.
Enough is Enough, Enough Hypocrisy for This One World.
We want One World, One Dream, and Peace on Earth.
This Big Blue Earth is Big Enough for all of Us.

Friday, May 02, 2008

The Epoch Times' Old Stance on China Not Unexpected

The Epoch Times' Old Stance on China Not Unexpected
by Bevin Chu
May 2, 2008

The Epoch Times, the US Central Intelligence Agency's unofficial mouthpiece, is parroting the Tibetan independence movement party line. This is not surprising at all.

The Epoch Times is the post Cold War equivalent of the Cold War era People's Daily. Rebutting the Epoch Times would be like shooting fish in a barrel, and I have better use of my time.

Enough said.

Backtalk: China's Claims to Tibet have Greater Validity than US Claims to California

Backtalk: China's Claims to Tibet have Greater Validity than US Claims to California
May 1, 2008

Hello Mr. Chu:

I read your thought-provoking "China's Claims to Tibet have Greater Validity than US Claims to California." Below are some linked articles that critique the Western media coverage of the Tibetan riots/Olympics protests and expose the geopolitical designs that are being pushed by the USA and its allies.

These articles are really an eye-opener and contradict much of what the Mainstream 'free press' depicts. The GlobalResearch.ca and German-Foreign-Policy-com pieces are especially insightful.

In fact, the Western media's coverage was so disingenous that some Chinese students started a website to counter them:
http://www.anti-cnn.com

Regards,
D. Paik

Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8625

China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8673

Western Media Fabrications regarding the Tibet Riots
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8697

Operations Against China
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56147

The Olympic Torch Relay Campaign
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56145
http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/thread-481-1-1.html

The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/160163
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=586331

Tibet: Will the USA Launch a New Secret War “Under the Roof of the World”?
http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1289

Chinese Tibet and European political performances
http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1320

Trouble in Tibet
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fline/fl2507/stories/20080411250713100.htm

Behind the anti-China Olympics campaign
http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/viewthread.php?tid=50&extra=page%3D1

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

China's Claims to Tibet have Greater Validity than US Claims to California

China's Claims to Tibet have Greater Validity than US Claims to California
by Bevin Chu
April 25, 2008

Above is a news article entitled "Plebiscite Coming on Mexico’s Claim to California?" by Sacramento Union columnist Liam Weston.

Weston notes with indignation and alarm that 58 percent of Mexicans surveyed in a national poll believe the Southwestern United States rightly belongs to Mexico.

Weston concludes that "Our
government has not considered the longer-term consequences of immigration policies that no longer require assimilation as the cost of U.S. citizenship or residency."

But Mexican migration to the southwest in recent decades is not the reason Mexicans believe the southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Mexicans believe the southwest rightly belongs to Mexico because the US extorted it from Mexico at gunpoint in 1848.

In 1844, President James K. Polk... wanted to lay claim to California, New Mexico, and land near the disputed southern border of Texas. Mexico, however, was not so eager to let go of these territories... Determined to acquire the land, he sent American troops to Texas... to provoke the Mexicans into war. When the Mexicans fired on American troops in April 25, 1846, Polk had the excuse he needed. [Some] Americans simply thought it was wrong to use war to take land from Mexico. Among those was Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant... he would later call the war "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."
-- PBS Online, People & Events: The Mexican American War, 1846-1848

Many Hollywood stars live in California, in what Mexicans consider northern Mexico. Quite a few of these stars are self-righteously demanding that China accede to the demands of Tibetan nationalists for a "Greater Tibet."

These Hollywood stars neither know nor care that Mexican claims to California have far greater validity than Tibetan nationalists' claim to a "Greater Tibet." Or conversely, that China's claims to Tibet have far greater validity than US claims to California.

These Hollywood stars, who hold deeds to high-priced real estate in Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood, and Malibu, will probably say that "Too much time has passed. What's done is done. California is now irrevocably a part of the United States. You can't turn the clock back."

But the United States annexed California in 1848, a mere 160 years ago. If the passage of 160 years must be accepted because "Too much time has passed. What's done is done," then Tibet, which became part of China 737 years ago, is even more "irrevocably a part of China."

If "You can't turn the clock back" because "Too much time has passed, and what's done is done," then why are these Hollywood stars attempting to turn the clock back for the Tibetan region of China, but not for the California region of the US?


CIA World Factbook correctly acknowledges that Tibet is an integral part of China

In fact, China's vastly more compelling claim to Tibet doesn't end there. As noted above, the US acquired California by invading Mexico and extorting California from Mexico at gunpoint.

China did not acquire Tibet by invading Tibet and annexing Tibet. Tibet became part of China when the Mongol Empire, with Tibetan collusion, invaded and conquered Song dynasty China during the 13th century.

Once the Mongolians completed their conquest of "Han China," they used Tibetans to control the Hans. The Mongolians established a three-tiered hierarchy. The top tier was the conquering Mongolians, the middle tier was their Tibetan allies, and the bottom tier was the conquered Hans.

Far from being innocent victims, Tibetans were accomplices in the Mongolian conquest and subjugation of China -- as China was defined in the Song dynasty.

Many Dalai Lama acolytes don't even know that the honorific title "Dalai," as in "Dalai Lama," is not even a Tibetan word. It is a Mongolian word. It was first conferred upon leaders of Tibet's lamaist theocracy by the ruling Mongolians during the Yuan dynasty. It was later conferred upon Tibet's theocrats by the ruling Hans during China's Ming dynasty, and the ruling Manchus during China's Qing dynasty.

That's right. The Dalai Lama has traditionally derived his authority from China.

When the Mongolian-dominated Yuan dynasty collapsed, the Han-dominated Ming dynasty inherited the realm of the Yuan dynasty, including sovereignty over Mongolia and Tibet.

The bottom line? China's claims to Tibet are, if anything, far more compelling than US claims to California.

Either the US owns California, or it doesn't. If the US owns California, then China owns Tibet. If the US feels it has a strong case for the ownership of California, then China has an infinitely stronger case for the ownership of Tibet.

Below you will find the text of the aforementioned news article.

NEWS: SPECIAL FEATURE
letters from Abroad

Plebiscite Coming on Mexico’s Claim to California?
By LIAM WESTON
Sacramento Union Columnist
April 18, 2008


Depicted in this image released last week by the Mexican advertising firm of Teran/TBWA is an advertisement created for Swedish Absolut Vodka that ran in Mexico showing a map of the border of Mexico and the United States where it stood before the Mexican-American War of 1848. The Absolut Vodka company apologized for the ad campaign amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers. (AP Photo/Teran/TBWA)

Around the world, the United States has supported enclaves of people seeking self- determination. We have provided support to people looking to secede in the Jammu/ Kashmir region of India, East Timor of Indonesia, Bosnia and even a province of Spain in the 1970s—just to name a few.

The United States supports resolutions within the United Nations calling on sovereign countries to hold a “plebiscite” – a type of referendum – to allow areas of their country to decide whether they can become independent or secede and join a neighboring country. While many Americans do not know the position our country has taken, it is well remembered by the nations whose territories we advocated should be reduced to accommodate an ethnic minority’s ambition for secession.

Spaniards remember the forced separation of their Province of Western Sahara from Spain in 1975 as if it happened yesterday. India is still fighting United Nations resolutions supported by the United States calling for a plebiscite in the Jammu/ Kashmir region. Even our closest allies like Israel have been told to shed territories they gained in war and cede control because an ethnic minority does not support their national government.

Separation Anxiety

While these situations are certainly complex and not all similar, they do represent a general trend of American foreign policy practiced by our State Department.

A recent Absolut Vodka advertisement in Mexico that showed the American southwest as part of Mexico calling it “absolut Mexico” caused quite an uproar in the U.S. press. It surprised me that so many people are learning for the first time that our nation’s sovereignty is in question.

For years, the “re-conquista” movement in California and across the southwest has been gaining momentum. However, the vodka advertisements appear to be the first nationwide reaction to the radical view. What has been propelling them forward is the direct involvement by the Mexican government in our internal affairs. If current trends continue, a call for a plebiscite over Southern California is not out of the question.

I say this because some members of the California State Legislature already represent districts in Los Angeles County where so few constituents are U.S. citizens that voter turnout is sparse. This hasn’t gone unnoticed in Mexico.

Mexico claims the right to interfere in our internal politics as more of its citizens move across the border and establish residency. When Vicente Fox was the President of Mexico, he regularly referred to the “120 million” Mexicans he represented. At the time, Mexico’s population was only 100 million but he explained he also represented 20 million Mexican living inside the United States.

In 1998, the Mexican Congress passed a law allowing Mexicans nationals to retain their citizenship even after pledging allegiance to the United States when becoming U.S. citizens. The law, called Mexican Nationality Law, even allows immigrants who already became naturalized U.S. citizens before 1998 to become legal Mexican citizens retroactively.

Two years ago, the Mexican Congress passed an absentee voting law to accommodate these many new citizens of their country. Now, Mexican citizens living permanently inside the United States may participate regularly in Mexico’s national elections. There have also been initiatives inside the Mexican Congress to add seats for representatives from districts in areas like California. Imagine a Mexican legislator telling a U.S. Congressman that he received more votes in the district and is therefore the democratically elected representative of, say, Los Angeles?

Claiming California

It took the Absolut Vodka advertisement for our national media to even discuss this issue. Many Americans were shocked to learn that 58 percent of Mexicans surveyed in a national poll believed the Southwestern United States rightly belongs to Mexico. Our government has not considered the longer-term consequences of immigration policies that no longer require assimilation as the cost of U.S. citizenship or residency. Mexico, on the other hand, has considered the consequences carefully and is taking action.

Most of the ingredients the U.S. State Department considers necessary before calling for a plebiscite are already here: A large population of unassimilated foreign nationals and another government pretending to be their voice. The ingredient still missing is civil unrest or severe economic conditions that aggravate the delicate political situation.

It is not my intention to be an alarmist since I do not know if it will take ten years or 50 years before the inevitable California plebiscite is demanded by Mexico. However, the irreparable harm being done to our claim of national sovereignty through uncontrolled immigration is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Jaw Shao-kang: Why should you vote for the New Party?

趙少康:為什麼要投給新黨?
新黨晚會
台北大安公園
2008年1月5日
19:00 -- 22:00

YouTube Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HL_lKb4ink

Jaw Shao-kang: Why should you vote for the New Party?
New Party Political Rally
Taipei Daan Park
January 5, 2008
19:00 -- 22:00

Friday, January 04, 2008

Prevent Election Fraud on Taiwan 全民防作票

全民防作票 Prevent Election Fraud on Taiwan
Bevin Chu

January 4, 2008



The 319 Shooting Incident - A Wag the Dog "Assassination Attempt" staged by Chen Shui-bian as a superficially plausible pretext for massive election fraud

Frank Hsieh and the Democratic Progressive Party are set to lose big in the upcoming January 12, 2008 Republic of China Legislative Elections, and the March 22, 2008 Presidential Election.

Not that very lame duck "President" Chen Shui-bian gives a damn. Chen only gives a damn about the looming debacle to the extent that it affects him.

Republic of China kleptocrat Chen Shui-bian has committed so many crimes during his eight years in the Presidential Palace, he is terrified he will end up like former Republic of Korean kleptocrats Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo.

As a result, he is desperately seeking ways to either:

1. remain in office indefinitely by provoking an incident within the island that would justify declaring martial law and naming himself "President for Life"

2. extort a promise of political asylum from the US by threatening to precipitate a military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait with Beijing

3. rig the election so that DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh "wins" and becomes president, then pardons Chen as a quid pro quo

In the event Chen chooses the third option, he will attempt to commit massive election fraud, even more extreme than the election fraud he committed in 2004, when he did away with roughly a million Lien Chan ballots, then declared himself the winner.

To understand how Chen will probably go about committing election fraud, and therefore how to prevent it, see the following instructional film, created by a small group of dedicated Pan Blue comrades.

全民防作票 Prevent Election Fraud on Taiwan 1 of 3 [in Mandarin]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw8l9UnWWsQ

全民防作票 Prevent Election Fraud on Taiwan 2 of 3 [in Mandarin]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dB5O88rml4

全民防作票 Prevent Election Fraud on Taiwan 3 of 3 [in Mandarin]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw8l9UnWWsQ