The Wolf Connection, Again

What a small world. Every road seems to lead to the big bad wolf ...

... including the paper trail from Fan Lan-chin, the raving mainlander advocate of Taiwanese genocide. Michael Turton has Fan's background here, here, here, and here.

An article on the China Times website, titled "My Good Friend Kuo Kuan-Ying," written by one of Fan's many apologists, caught my eye. The salient part:

我跟他其實在一九八五年就應該互相認識了。

In fact, I think I have known him [Fan] since 1985.

那時我在紐約的一家僑報工作，負責採訪江南案及隨後的竹聯幫大審案，因而和涉案被關押受審的「竹聯」大老張安樂（白狼）熟悉。

At that time I was working for an overseas Chinese newspaper in New York, covering the Henry Liu case and the big Bamboo Union trial that followed. Because of this I very well knew the Bamboo Union big brother Chang An-le (White Wolf), who was being detained and put on trial in connection with the case.

有次庭審之後，我因為有疑問就掛電話進紐約大都會看守所請教「白狼」。結果他說，「咦，你沒見到郭冠英啊，他今天也在庭上呀，他很清楚整個過程」。我才知道原來「白狼」已經跟郭冠英提過我，也要郭冠英跟我聯繫。

At one point, after a court hearing, I had some questions and called the New York metropolitan detention center to ask White Wolf some questions. He said, “What? You don’t know Kuo Kuan-ying? He was at the hearing today. He knows the entire process very well.” Only then did I find out White Wolf had already mentioned my name to Kuo, and he wanted Kuo to contact me.

Kuo was already working in the KMT government’s diplomatic corps at the time.

After his involvement in the Henry Liu case, White Wolf was in deep fear of a possible KMT assassination of people involved in the Henry Liu murder, which happened on US soil and is widely believed to have been ordered by KMT government intelligence.

So, the relationship between the Wolf and his Fan dates a long way back. Today, the website of the China Unification Promotion Party, set up by Wolf on the mainland but officially operates in Taiwan through proxies, carries an impressive body of Fan’s literature under one of Fan’s many pseudonyms, 郭才子. (By the way, this name means “Talented Kuo,” like the Talented Mr Ripley. Stellar example of modesty, even in the choice of pseudonym.)

I took a quick glance through Fan’s corpus. Here are some of the more eye-catching headlines:

There Absolutely Was No 228

Viva Chiang Kai-shek

Why Japan Has Taiwan in Its Pocket

Island of Nutcases (1) (2)

Lin Cheng-chieh Should Be President (Ah!!! The Cobra again.)

Drop Dead! UN Entry Referendum (1) (2) (3)

The Fight for Television

The pro-KMT China Times has reported that the education committee of the KMT-dominated legislature yesterday passed new budget regulations for the Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS), an umbrella group that runs several TV stations including the Public Television Service (PTS), Hakka TV, and Taiwan Indigenous Television Service (TITV).

The TBS is supposed to be Taiwan’s answer to the BBC, a non-partisan platform primarily funded by the government but governed by independent board of directors.

But the new requirements say all production budgets for TBS stations must be reviewed and approved by the legislature. This allows whichever party dominates the legislature to scuttle any program that it finds annoying.

Why is the KMT doing this? Because the current boards of directors at the TBS stations were appointed under the DPP administration. Their positions enjoy legal protection until the end of their terms. The PTS board, for example, is scheduled to step down by the end of 2010. The KMT obviously can’t wait until then to silence its critics in the PTS. Never mind that the DPP appointments were approved by a committee formed by the KMT-dominated legislature, which to some extent shows that the DPP appointments were not entirely partisan.

Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih has proposed an amendment to the PTS organic law to add six more people to the PTS board. This will effectively dilute and neutralize the influence of the Greens in the TV station.

The KMT already “froze” half of the NT$900 million budget for PTS in November last year. The station is now facing a serious cash crunch. The PTS chairman tried to meet with the KMT’s Lin to talk him into unfreezing the frozen half. According to the China Times report, Lin told him, “You guys are all Greens. You don’t need to explain. This is what I feel.”

Lin Yi-shih, by the way, is the same legislator known for his brazen exploitation of the custody battle over Taiwanese-Brazilian orphan Iruan Ergui Wu for his electoral benefit.

Related link: The original report in Chinese is here (link may work for only a few days).