I keep thinking I'm in China. But I'm not, not really. But kind of. Taiwan is sort of America, Chinese style. That's not entirely true, of course, or at least too simplistic. But if you take the basic elements and patterns of day-to-day life for most Americans, and put them in a context shaped by Chinese history, culture, language, and sensitivities, you'll get something close to what things are like here in Taiwan.
That duality -- the cultural ambidexterity, the ambivalent loyalty -- plays itself out in the politics on the island as well. There are two main political parties: the KMT (the "blue" party), with its ties back to Chiang Kai-Shek, who set up the Republic of China on the island after he (and two million refugees) left the mainland during the Communist revolution (taking a huge portion of China's artistic treasures with him, that are on display at the wonderful National Palace Museum up in Taipei -- I was told that people from the mainland break into tears when they see the collection); and the DPP (the "green" party), which was formed in the 1980s when the KMT government initiated democratic reforms, and gained power when the DPP candidate was elected president in 2000. The KMT regained control with the election in 2008 of the current administration of President Ma Ying-Jeou as well as a majority in the legislature.
At least one of the differences between the two parties, maybe the most important difference, is their stance towards their relationship with China. While the DPP wants independence from China, the KMT is more Beijing-friendly. And in the context of today's geopolitical circumstances, the massive shift in power taking place on the global stage, and the great uncertainty as to how it is all going to play out as the economy collapses, the question of whether to align primarily with the US or with China may be the most critical question Taiwan (or any country, for that matter) faces.
I suspect most Americans are not very aware of all the smart things China has been doing in recent years to position itself well for the future. The Chinese government has gone around the world establishing trade relationships with numerous countries, in Africa and South America for example, to insure that it will have supplies of key resources down the road. This is on top of the role it already plays as a key player in the southeast Asian economy, and even more importantly, its strategic "mutual-security" alliance with Russia and many Central Asian countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Most recently, recognizing that -- as the largest holder of US debt -- they are seriously at-risk from any significant devaluation of the dollar (which they are smart enough to realize is very likely given the Fed's strategy of pumping billions/trillions of fiat dollars into the economy), China has started using some of its dollar reserves to buy real commodities, stuff you need to be able to eat, or to make things. And just the other day I read that there has been a big increase in the amount of gold being bought by the Chinese people. By building networks, developing mutually-beneficial relationships with other countries, converting relatively useless paper assets into things they need to survive, China has very wisely taken steps that will benefit them in coming years.
America has taken the opposite approach. We have outsourced most of our manufacturing jobs, we have failed to invest in our infrastructure, we have let our education system deteriorate to the point that our kids lag well behind those of other developed countries, and we have pissed lots of other countries off with our arrogant, antagonistic approach to our relationships with them. Most of the "wealth" America has been producing in recent years has come in the form of these various paper assets, the infamous "derivatives," that are now proving to be essentially worthless, and worse yet, generated through systemic fraud and corruption. The "solution" to the problem is to produce huge volumes of more (soon-to-be) worthless paper assets, through a process that essentially transfers billions/trillions of dollars from the already-devastated American middle and working classes into the hands of the banksters that caused the problem. The future for America is almost inevitably a wholesale collapse.
Given these different trajectories, I'm thinking it makes a lot more sense for Taiwan to stay friendly with China and certainly not to look at America as the ideal it wants to emulate. I don't know what that says about the issue of independence, as it doesn't seem like the two decisions would have to go hand in hand, except that the one thing that pisses China off is talk about Taiwan being independent -- they consider it part of China, and want to keep it that way. Yungnane asked me the other day if I would be interested in giving a talk at the Civil Service Academy for a group of Taiwanese public servants, and since he says I could talk about whatever I want to, I'm considering giving a talk on this topic. I'm sure my perspective would surprise them!
The collapse of the American empire becomes more and more evident as time and events unfold. And here I don't just mean the collapse of the domestic economy, and all the internal "system failures" that will result as cities and states face the reality of their insolvency and literally become unable to "pay the bills." (If government employees stop getting paychecks, do you think they're gonna keep working?) No, I'm referring to the glaring fact that America's days as a modern version of an imperialistic power are all but over. (Link to the "Pox Americana" story on the right for a good analysis and discussion of this point. There's also a brief comment by Rep. Ron Paul relevant to the issue.) It remains to be seen how much influence we actually exert on the on-going negotiations (in the midst of continued protests) regarding the transition of the Egyptian government, but this whole process has exposed -- again, with the whole world watching -- the fundamental hypocrisy of our foreign policy, the fact that we talk, talk, talk about freedom and democracy and self-determination, yet when the people stand up en masse demanding freedom and democracy and self-determination, we tell them to slow down, they can't expect too much too quickly, and instead we continue to support the dictator the people want removed and the broader regime he has been in charge of. That hypocrisy, obvious to lots of folks in the Middle East for quite some time now, is undoubtedly an important factor underlying the frustration and anger giving rise to the foment and unrest now threatening to explode throughout that region.
The question confronting the world now is, who gets to be in control, and the battle lines are drawn in two very different contexts. On one hand, you have the high-profile populist uprisings that are challenging entrenched regimes in the Arab world, demanding more political access and an end to the corruption that leaves the masses in poverty. An important part of this story, certainly in the case of Egypt and to some extent influencing the mindset of much of the Arab and Islamic world, is that the regime is widely recognized as a tool of the American-Israeli power structure that has used its military might to maintain control in the region. The challenge to Mubarak is thus a challenge to the Zionist regime, and the American government's response is, ultimately, a choice to support Zionism rather than popular democracy. Finally, maybe, hopefully, the American people are waking up to this fact, and starting to question why we have such unswerving support for Israel, why we have to sacrifice our most cherished ideals in order to maintain this support. I guess Sen. Rand Paul, Ron's son who was elected last year, made a splash recently by suggesting we stop giving such large amounts of foreign aid away, including to Israel, and start spending that money on things we need domestically. At least someone has now publicly challenged the dominant orthodoxy, so we'll see if that meme catches on among the American public.
The other, less visible forum in which the battle against the controllers is being enjoined is the decision by governments facing bankruptcy as to whether or not they are going to bail out the bankster creditors at the expense of their citizens. So far, nearly all countries facing this crisis have done everything they can to protect the banksters (a sure sign that the banksters are the ones really in control), and this decision and its consequences have led to popular uprisings in places like Greece and Spain. The one exception so far has been Iceland, which decided that they were unwilling to sacrifice the people to pay the banksters, and thus defaulted in a way that other countries have not yet done. But now Ireland is confronting this issue, people are out in the streets making noise, and a key political party is suggesting that Ireland's debt be "unilaterally restructured" such that bondholders get a "haircut," i.e., take a loss on some of their securities. If you click on the "No haircuts" link you'll see how the banksters have reacted to this idea!
While these two battles seem very different -- impoverished citizens vs. state security in the first case, government officials vs. high-level bankers in the second -- these are actually two fronts of the same war, and my best guess is that, behind the scenes, the enemy is the same one. I'm not really sure -- in fact I don't really think -- that the notions of the "Zionists" or the "banksters" really identifies who or what is behind the controlling force on the planet. Surely there is some overlap between these two groups, as the far-flung Zionist network surely has access to and control over vast sums of monetary wealth. But in the end, the banking system and the Zionist agenda may both simply be tools or mechanisms that a deeper, darker force is using in an effort to maintain control of the planet and its population. This is the realm of "conspiracy theory," of course, and most people seem to have bought into the mainstream perspective that such theories are unfounded and such theorists are a little nuts. But if one doesn't start off with that bias, and looks instead at the evidence, the idea turns out not to be so far-fetched.
It's easy to point to a number of well-known groups or gatherings of elites -- e.g., the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, the World Economic Forum, the Bohemian Grove -- where power-brokers get together to discuss and, presumably, strategize about how best to pursue their interests. Some think that the Vatican, and key Catholic organizations like Opus Dei and the Jesuits, have their fingers in most of the key decisions made on the planet. A little murkier, you have secret societies like the Freemasons, or the Yale Skull and Bones fraternity, that elites have been affiliated with throughout recent history, raising suspicions that they provide a forum in which nefarious plans can be developed and a hidden network of players through which those plans can be implemented. Even more mysterious are groups like the Illuminati, the Committee of 300, or other "bloodline" organizations that are rumored to be dominated by a small number of elite families (e.g, the infamous Rothschilds) who essentially control the world's political economy. At the most extreme, you have the hypothesis, popularized by David Icke, that an off-world "reptilian" race, maybe affiliated with the "Annunaki," long ago infiltrated humanity and has been manipulating us for their purposes ever since. Not incompatible with any of the above is the possibility that the halls of power around the world are filled with those who might be called Luciferians or Satanists, and who use occult power to pursue their agenda of complete control of humanity.
I don't know which of the above are true and which are just crazy speculation, but I will say that, based on my investigation over the last fifteen years, all of those scenarios have some degree of credibility. One of the reasons I am very excited about living through these times is that I really believe that, before too much longer, like in The Wizard of Oz, the curtain is going to be pulled back and we are going to see just who it is that has been pulling the strings, pushing the buttons, and orchestrating the illusion that has kept the people in fear and under control all these years. The powers that be are struggling to keep the curtain intact, but the power of the people is building and eventually the truth will be revealed. Stay tuned, it's gonna be interesting!
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