Jun 24, 2007

"China, tear down this gate!" - a Dan Bloom essay

China, tear down this gate!

by Dan Bloom, in Taiwan
reporter.bloom@gmail.com

Longtime observers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have said, "The China question is open as long as the CCP rules China." And as long as the gate of freedom in China remains closed, as long as this scar of a gate is permitted to stand, it is not the China question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all humankind. Yet, today there is a message of hope inside China, a message of triumph, where slowly people are trying to take matters into their own hands and set up a democratic movement inside the country that can finally replace the CCP. It can happen and it will happen.

Leaders of democratic countries around the world understood the practical importance of liberty -- that just as truth can flourish only when the journalist is given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. China will learn that soon enough.

In fact, even now, in a limited way, the current leaders of China may be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Beijing about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts and
Internet sites are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the CCP? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Chinese system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Chinese communists can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

President Hu Jintao, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for China and Hong Kong and Macao and Taiwan, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate of tyranny, and replace it with a gate of freedom! Mr. Hu, replace this gate! Mr. Hu, let freedom ring!

I understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict the leaders of China today -- and I know that my country will use all its efforts to help overcome these burdens. When freedom finally comes to the Chinese people, they and their leaders will be surprised how
wonderful it feels.

Today represents a moment of hope. We in the West stand ready to cooperate with China to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safe, freer world. The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.

As one looks at China today, from across the sea, one can perhaps catch a glimpse of some words crudely spray-painted upon the gate, perhaps by a young Bejinger: "This gate will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across China, this gate will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The gate cannot withstand freedom.


Jun 21, 2007

Update on China's Poisoning of the Food Supply


As reported
on

US inspection records are showing that imports from China are unfit for human consumption.The US Food and Drug Administration has detained more than one thousand shipments at ports containing tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic cosmetics and counterfeit medicines. Consumer activists and politicians, upset about contaminated food products, are demanding action. With the numerous pet deaths and tainted food, they would like to slow food imports from China, but such a move would be next to impossible. Because of its low costs and wages, China has become virtually the only source for certain food products, including wheat gluten and ascorbic acid, reports this article in “The Washington Post.” Politicians are in no hurry to enact regulations to keep food costs low. Many US firms have factories in China and actively pursue that market, and thus do not want any disruptions in the growing flow of trade. Likewise, China wants to gain a foothold in the US meat market, so US regulations are slowly easing. For now, the US prohibits meat products from China, but some meat products, labeled as vegetables, slip by the inspectors. Also, in 2006, the US hurriedly changed rules, before a visit by the Chinese president, allowing firms to send chickens raised in the US on a round trip to China for processing, then returned for sale in US markets. Increasingly aware about their food, consumers ultimately control the market, and with every purchase can make a choice on saving money or demanding safety. – YaleGlobal

Click on the words below to access the full YaleGlobal article on this topic.

Jun 17, 2007

Isaac Asimov's "All Four Stanzas"

All Four Stanzas
By Isaac Asimov

Introductory Note. Unless you're already well acquainted with our "national anthem," this interesting piece by the late Isaac Asimov will be an eye-opener. It was for me. It's especially appropriate at a time when there is much talk of tossing out this difficult-to-sing and difficult-to-comprehend old song in favor of something that better suits Ray Charles' voice. You'll understand the song much better after you read Mr. Asimov's explanation.--Hardly Waite, Gazette Senior Editor.

I have a weakness--I am crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem.

The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time.

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem--all four stanzas.

This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff."

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas.

Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before--or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack. The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England. The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west. The central prong was to head for the mid-Atlantic states and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D. C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release. The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defence of Fort M'Henry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called "To Anacreon in Heaven" --a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?


"Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort. The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure.

In the third stanza, I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise.

During World War II, when the British were our staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n - rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto--"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears.

And don't let them ever take it away.

--Isaac Asimov, March 1991

For first time, US officials admit that a key document used to claim that Taiwan is a part of China had no legal basis

Key document on Taiwan is non-binding, says FAPA

By Max Hirsch
Staff Reporter
Sunday, June 17, 2007
TAIPEI TIMES

A key document used by Beijing and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to justify their claims that Taiwan is a part of China never had any legal binding power, the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) said, citing a letter from a senior official at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

Founded in 1982 by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong, FAPA is a Washington-based interest group that seeks to build up support in the US for Taiwan independence.

The association said in a statement last week that the 1943 Cairo Declaration, signed by US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Republic of China (ROC) dictator Chiang Kai-shek at the end of WWII, is merely a "communique" and thus non-binding, according to NARA.

Among other provisions, the communique states that Japan shall "return Formosa," or Taiwan, to "the Chinese."

"The document is merely a moment in time," FAPA president CT Lee said in the statement. "[It's] a declaration of intention regarding world affairs among three leaders."

"Although important at the time," Lee added, "it does not have any legal binding power almost 65 years later enabling either the KMT or [China] to derive territorial claims from."

In response to a FAPA letter of inquiry as to the declaration's status, NARA Assistant Archivist for Records Services, Michael Kurtz, wrote in a letter dated June 5 that "the declaration [is] a communique, and does not have treaty series or executive agreement series numbers."

According to FAPA, the document's archival status as a "communique" and neither an official agreement nor a treaty, negates any legal claims based on the declaration by China or the KMT that Taiwan is a part of China.

"This marks the first time the US government has officially gone on record to elaborate the lack of legal binding power of the Cairo Declaration, and thus voids the basis of both the KMT's and Beijing's mythic 'One China Principle' claims," the association said in the statement.

Despite its status in the US National Archives as a communique, however, the declaration is included in a US State Department publication titled, "Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America," Kurtz wrote, without explaining the apparent contradiction.

The KMT has long cited the declaration as the legal basis for ROC's claim on Taiwan; Beijing has also referred to it to augment its claim that Taiwan is a part of China, the statement said.


Jun 13, 2007

The Cost of Freedom

This blog is about freedom, specifically the cost of freedom and why we should never, never, never, never stop paying the cost.

The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance
-Thomas Jefferson