Posted on 03/14/2005 8:21:40 AM PST by concrete is my business
As France tries to pressure the rest of the EU into lifting the arms embargo on China, some readers might remember that Christine Deviers-Joncour -- the erstwhile mistress of former French foreign minister Roland Dumas whose tell-all books played a serious role in clarifying details of the scandal surrounding the kickbacks involved in Taiwan's purchase of Lafayette frigates in the early 1990s -- once wrote a book about herself called The Whore of the Republic.
The former lingerie model's right to this title is now under severe challenge from France's Defense Minster Michele Alliot-Marie, who last week said -- and you should probably reach for your sick bags now -- "France has the strictest, most stringent rules applying to the sale of weapons of the European Union and probably in the world." As the American writer Fran Lebowitz once said: "To the French, lying is simply talking."
In Taiwan we know about French arms sales -- principally how they are manipulated so that everyone in on the deal can pocket huge wads of cash at the taxpayers' expense. According to Dumas himself, the sum involved in the Lafayette case was US$500 million with People First Party Chairman James Soong's then office, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) secretariat general, acting as bagman. What could Alliot-Marie's "strict rules" be? Perhaps she means a strict scale of bribes.
The English poet Coleridge, of Ancient Mariner fame, once said that ""Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder, -- each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed." How well the arms embargo case illustrates this. The desire to sell arms to a tyranny like China is smutty and contemptible indeed. But when those who have influence can persuade the government to do their bidding, the result may quite possibly be terrible -- France conniving at the destruction of a liberal democracy simply to enrich its "merchants of death" and their politician friends.
President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) broached the issue twice on Thursday, and it is a shame that he was not a little stronger in his condemnation of lifting the EU arms ban. The plain truth is that for purely commercial motives, France is prepared to collude with the Chinese dictatorship in the stamping out of Taiwan's liberties. It is an ugly and shameful state of affairs and this ugliness and shame must be brought home with far stronger language than Chen has so far used.
Deeds, as well as words, should also be considered. The arms ban is EU-wide, but the pressure to lift it is almost entirely driven by France, with a little help from the Germans. Taiwan should let it be known that should the ban be lifted it will immediately act against French interests in Taiwan and will subsequently do the same thing with any other EU country that sell weapons to China.
What sort of actions should be taken? The immediate cessation of visa-free privileges and an astronomical raising of visa fees, the closing of cultural institutions, the ending of scholarships for French students, refusal to grant or renew French nationals alien residency, refusal to accept documents authenticated by the French government, the severing of air agreements -- most of these measures are quite feasible and were used against South Korea in the early1990s.
But Taiwan should go further and impose a massive tariff, say 100 percent, on all goods made by French companies; the proceeds, such as they might be, should go to the defense budget. That this violates WTO protocols bothers us as much as the UN bothers US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. That the French might retaliate makes us laugh. Let them double the price they pay for information technology if they want; much of it simply cannot be sourced elsewhere. Taiwan, however, will survive more expensive Louis Vuitton bags.
Is it like "quagmire" and Iraq?
I think journalists should always try to use words that everyone understands.
BAE, Britain's largest weapons manufacturer, is not selling to China, ban or no ban. They said they'd rather sell to the USA.
Regards, Ivan
This is because in Britain, unlike France, the concepts of integrity, loyalty, and freedom have not been lost.
May God preserve the British. In the meantime the Brits can call on a couple of Americans if they need to.
Perfidy is the French national flavor of betrayal and corruption.
A story I heard from an American Marine may be of interest to you - during some sort of war games, British and American Marines were put together to take over an emplacement held by their French counterparts. The Americans and Brits "stormed the ramparts" and found little or no resistance - when they broke into where the French where, they found out why - apparently the Frenchmen were taking a break at the time.
Regards, Ivan
Perfidy does has a French flavour, eh.
It might be a flavour with a Canadian relish.
The guy in the office across the hall from me just received a special invitation to attend a "Buy French Products" party at the French Consulate. I told him that I stopped buying anything French at the beginning of the Iraq war. And also told him to tell the French Ambassador that "I still hate the French still today."
The French have been on a break since Wellington sent them home in 1814.
I've served with the Royal Marines on several occasions and many of our traditionas are derived from them.
The French have certainly had terrible generals since then. I was watching a documentary about World War I last night - the sheer number of times I winced due to statements by French generals was so great I lost count. Marshal Joffre, for example, thought soldiers and bayonets, combined with rapid troop movements, was a sufficient answer to German artillery - and remember, they had the "Big Berthas".
No. It's no wonder France bled to death during that war.
Regards, Ivan
As Rumsfeld said, "Going to war without the French is kinda like going hunting without your accordian..."
If France does sell arms to China, we should retaliate by selling Taiwan anything they want...
Taiwan is one of the few allies we should cherish...(along with England)
I have nothing but sympathy for the Taiwanese - an island nation, free, threatened by a powerful continental power across a narrow strip of water - that has a familiar ring to it.
Regards, Ivan
In short France doesn't matter.
France's military is presently geared to maintaining its colonies, oops, to "peacekeeping missions" in Francophone Africa. Which means they wouldn't be particularly helpful in the wars we presently face. As I recall, when the mad dash through the desert to defeat Iraq's Republican Guard occured in the First Gulf War, the only other country besides America that had the tanks to take part was Britain.
Regards, Ivan
Of course EU shouldn't lift the embargo, but on the other hand US government should at least try to do something with putin's Russia - they sell everything to China, including subs and Su-30's - Russia equivalent of F-15.
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