Confucius Confusion
By Chip Tsao | published Dec 16, 2010
It is time to brush up on our long forgotten Confucian wisdom, as some desperately patriotic Chinese staged an impromptu ceremony in Beijing last week to award a “Confucius Prize of Peace,” cynically designed to eclipse this year’s much-hated Nobel Peace Prize. The Chinese equivalent went to Lien Chan, the eye-boggling, poker-faced “honorary president” of the pro-Beijing Kuomintang, a man selected to dwarf imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Lien, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who favors “reunification,” has been fingered by Beijing after a few obsequious “ice-breaking” trips to the mainland in recent years. He has thus been branded as China’s fifth column in Taiwan. The Confucius Prize of Peace, with the word “peace” defined by the Ministry of Truth, sounds like something of an Orwellian Newspeak. No wonder Lien was bewildered and wouldn’t dare to travel to Beijing to grab his trophy and the eight-inch-thick bundle of RMB$100,000 cash, which were both squeezed into the arms of a mysterious and visibly puzzled five-year-old girl instead (although some suspect that she may be Lien’s illegitimate daughter) in front of the TV news cameras.
The former vice president of Taiwan has reasons to be embarrassed. His luck has been bad. His son was shot in the face by a triad gangster while campaigning for the mayoral elections in Taipei last month. An honor in the mainland, a humiliation in the “free world.” If Stalin praised Winston Churchill as a good guy, the British people would have much to worry about.
Imprisoned for his “Charter 08,” a human rights manifesto inspired by Vaclav Havel, Liu Xiaobo’s aura of international holiness was brought to him by his Beijing jailer. Eleven years is a long enough sentence for the Nobel Committee to be resolute and unanimous in deciding who this year’s peace prize should go to. If only the US$1.5 million cash prize were handed to some trusted Hong Kong friends, like Emily Lau, to invest in a flat on Robinson Road. The longer the Beijing communist regime exists, the more likely Liu will serve his sentence in full, and the more profit he’ll gain. Confucius had foreseen this more than 2,400 years ago: “If you want pretty nurse, you got to be patient.”
As for China, it has struggled hard to rebuild its image as a civilized nation by hosting the Beijing Olympics and opening hundreds of “Confucius Institutes” in the United States and E.U. countries. While Confucius was derided by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, it’s a pity that Beijing’s budding global propaganda campaign had just started to work on the simple-minded West, until its hysteria over the prize shocked the world. Confucius say, “Virginity like bubble. One prick, all gone.”
It is time to brush up on our long forgotten Confucian wisdom, as some desperately patriotic Chinese staged an impromptu ceremony in Beijing last week to award a “Confucius Prize of Peace,” cynically designed to eclipse this year’s much-hated Nobel Peace Prize. The Chinese equivalent went to Lien Chan, the eye-boggling, poker-faced “honorary president” of the pro-Beijing Kuomintang, a man selected to dwarf imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Lien, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who favors “reunification,” has been fingered by Beijing after a few obsequious “ice-breaking” trips to the mainland in recent years. He has thus been branded as China’s fifth column in Taiwan. The Confucius Prize of Peace, with the word “peace” defined by the Ministry of Truth, sounds like something of an Orwellian Newspeak. No wonder Lien was bewildered and wouldn’t dare to travel to Beijing to grab his trophy and the eight-inch-thick bundle of RMB$100,000 cash, which were both squeezed into the arms of a mysterious and visibly puzzled five-year-old girl instead (although some suspect that she may be Lien’s illegitimate daughter) in front of the TV news cameras.
The former vice president of Taiwan has reasons to be embarrassed. His luck has been bad. His son was shot in the face by a triad gangster while campaigning for the mayoral elections in Taipei last month. An honor in the mainland, a humiliation in the “free world.” If Stalin praised Winston Churchill as a good guy, the British people would have much to worry about.
Imprisoned for his “Charter 08,” a human rights manifesto inspired by Vaclav Havel, Liu Xiaobo’s aura of international holiness was brought to him by his Beijing jailer. Eleven years is a long enough sentence for the Nobel Committee to be resolute and unanimous in deciding who this year’s peace prize should go to. If only the US$1.5 million cash prize were handed to some trusted Hong Kong friends, like Emily Lau, to invest in a flat on Robinson Road. The longer the Beijing communist regime exists, the more likely Liu will serve his sentence in full, and the more profit he’ll gain. Confucius had foreseen this more than 2,400 years ago: “If you want pretty nurse, you got to be patient.”
As for China, it has struggled hard to rebuild its image as a civilized nation by hosting the Beijing Olympics and opening hundreds of “Confucius Institutes” in the United States and E.U. countries. While Confucius was derided by Mao during the Cultural Revolution, it’s a pity that Beijing’s budding global propaganda campaign had just started to work on the simple-minded West, until its hysteria over the prize shocked the world. Confucius say, “Virginity like bubble. One prick, all gone.”
Labels: Politically Incorrect, 陶傑
posted by Gemini Saga at 12:00 AM
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