Taiwan's "Famous Mouths" - China Needs People Like Them

I have never liked Facebook but somehow, I would click on their ‘Video’ component whenever I have time – principally to watch podcasts and information clips. I especially love to hear comments from several Taiwanese commentators on their takes on geopolitics, China-US relations, Taiwan politics and the various regional conflicts. They have been labelled 名嘴 (míng-zuǐ, literally “famous mouths”. I thought the term was quite inappropriate; they deserve better respect.

Five of them appear most regularly – Guo Zheng-Liang (郭正亮), Cai Zheng-Yuan (蔡正元), Lai Yue-Qian (赖岳谦), Jie Wen-Ji (介文汲) and Lei Qian 雷倩.

Guo graduated from the National Taiwan University and earned a PhD in political science from Yale. He has served in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.

Cai holds a doctorate from Beijing’s Tsinghua. He has also served as a legislator.

 Lai’s PhD is from France’s Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas.

Jieh holds several masters degrees and was a former ambassador to New Zealand.

 

Lei studied at the National Taiwan University before earning a master's degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She has not been very successful in her political pursuits, despite her credentials.

There are also several others like Li Zheng-Jie (栗正杰) and Huang Zhen-Hui (黄征辉), Yuan Ju-Zheng (苑举正), Shuai Hua-Ming (帅化民), etc, some of whom were once high-ranking officers in Taiwan’s Military.

Typically, they appear in a panel setting, with a host introducing – in pretty good depth – the various subjects displayed on a TV screen before inviting each of the panel members to comment. You see several such programmes every day; the issues are therefore very current. One of them is Xīn-Wén Dà-Bái-Huà (新闻大白话), which can be loosely translated as “News Plainly Expressed”.

Of course, the stage is all well-choreographed; the commentators must have been well-prepared for the subjects. But you cannot help but take your hat off for their ability to throw out facts and figures – on history, economy and the trade wars, geopolitics, cross-Straits tensions, the background of the more recent Israeli-Hamas conflict, and even some good knowledge in microelectronic technology and supply chain issues – without notes or help. Yes, they are all scholars, but their spontaneity is incredible.

They represent the type of Chineseness we want to see – analytical, encyclopedic, philosophical, objective, scholarly yet plain-speaking and full of commonsense! They are usually supportive of China’s stances on global and regional issues, very dismissive about the ability of Joe Biden and his key people, and outright contemptuous of Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te.

To the supporters of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, they must have been ‘paid’ by mainland China!

I do not believe they are hard-core Chinese government sympathizers. Guo was in fact a DPP member until quite recently. But I strongly believe they are proud of being Chinese. And they all know Chinese can walk tall if there is a strong China – in brand but not necessarily in a common ideology.  

Mainland Chinese need much help on this front! Save for a very few – CGTN’s Liu Xin is one – most are ill at ease on stage. There is often one “I think”, “You know”, and “What should I say” too many in the deliveries. 70% of the podcasts from mainland China are utterly rubbish, much of which is self-exultation and carry headlines that do not bear any relationship with the matters that are subsequently presented. Many of the claims are blared out without basis. As for those insights that seem more credible, they were largely read from prepared scripts. None is close to what we see from the “famous mouths” from Taiwan!

Many highly acclaimed intellectuals know what China and Xi are doing is good for the world – Jeffrey Sachs, Kishore Mahbubani, just to name a few. But the collective mind of the world is hijacked by the US’s “Military-Industrial-Media-Jewish Money Complex” – a Deep State of which Biden and his team are a pinion in the rolling mill, or is plodding along like a toad that is being slowly boiled. We all know that the CIA is using NED – National Endowment for Democracy – to destablise governments that are doing the right thing in the China-US relationships, and install or finance instead parties that are prepared to do its biddings, such as Korea, Japan, the Philippines. There are talks that Indonesia, which will be holding a presidential election soon, is already being infiltrated. We all know that NED is anything but democratic!

Readers may already be tired of my constant criticism of China’s lack of mass communications skills. I woke up this morning to read that former premier Li Keqiang had died of a heart attack. Strangely, the official media are quite quiet in their coverage of this sad news. Yes, it had often been rumoured that Xi had not been entirely comfortable with Li. But Confucian ethics necessitate that friends and foes alike lay down their grievances during occasions like this. To do otherwise is simply un-Chinese and we should be worried about China!

I do harbour a simpler explanation. The state media people are incapable of acting on their own. They need to be prompted and all such prompts have to cascade down many layers to reach the editors!

The whereabouts of Qin Gang and Li Shangfu is a case in point. The fates of Qin and Li have finally been sealed. They have been relieved of their political as well as their governmental positions. The former is about moral lapses, but the latter, I believe, is much more  serious, likely to involve huge corruption.

When the news about their ‘problem’ first surfaced, China’s official spokespersons cited “health reasons” for their sudden disappearance. Who would believe them? But they did so regardless. But the western media was certainly less accommodating, and Mao Ning was rendered totally incoherent on the rostrum.

Why couldn’t they just say that China expected its leaders, no matter how high they were or how close they were to Xi, to be impeccable in integrity. These two leaders had simply been suspended pending the outcome of full and fair investigations. Such a degree of transparency will help shape the western media’s respect for the country, instead of using it as a source of conspiracy theory to demonise China. Lapses are common amongst politicians all over the world. Even in the squeakily clean Singapore, two of their leaders had also recently been caught with their pants down. The government lost no time in acting. Qing and Li’s dismissals actually demonstrate China’s determination to weed out leaders with personal failings at all costs. That is good for China!

Acknowledgement

Being a semi-illiterate in Chinese, I always have difficulty in fishing out the right Chinese characters and names from Pinyin apps. This time around I was fortunate enough to be able to count on a good friend out of Julian Tan Ay Peng, who also hails from Muar, Johor, to provide the names of all the "famous mouths" mentioned above in both Chinese and pinyin. 

Thank you, Ay Peng.