1.3 Billion Chinese People Is My Divinity

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in his Christmas address, this holiday season is a time to "reflect on our faith". Perhaps Mr. Harper sensed from my blog that I had been bothered by the question of faith lately. What he did not know, though, was that I had experienced an epiphany before his address. I did not want to disclosed it mostly because I did not think I was prepared for a career in politics.

Don't get me wrong. I still consider myself an atheist in the traditional religious sense. I am a facts-and-logic guy. My belief is similar to that of Albert Einstein: "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." That's why Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's quote of Immanuel Kant in his interview with European media in September resonated deeply with me: "Two things fill me with constantly increasing admiration and awe, the longer and more earnestly I reflect on them: the starry heavens without and the moral law within."

Mr. Harper probably thought that an atheist like me could never find an explanation for the divine intervention mentioned in my previous blogs. Wrong. After some soul-searching, I did find my new faith with an epiphany using facts and logic. And my epiphany was that the divinity I had been searching for is the 1.3 billion Chinese people.

My search for the divinity started, probably without my being conscious about it, when I noticed that I had made repeated mistakes on Sino-U.S. nuclear relations. When I first read General Zhu's nuclear remarks in summer 2005, I thought he was crazy. Even after learning about Bush administration's nuclear misinterpretation of my blog in mid-March, I still dismissed the misinterpretation as nonsense because I did not think there is a nuclear balance between China and U.S. Although my lack of knowledge on nuclear weaponry issue was a factor in making those mistakes, I had to admit how obsolete my knowledge of China was. Building and maintaining a nuclear balance with the sole superpower of the world requires substantial financial, human and technological assets. That there is a nuclear balance between China and U.S. itself is a testament to the tremendous strength China has gained over the past decades. Although China is still a developing country, as long as everyone of China's 1.3 billion people pulls together, great feats can be accomplished.

My search for the divinity continued while composing my recent blogs. Consciously, I focused on the following question: What is it in those two writings that made the Bush administration see nuclear deterrence? To find the answer, I tried to look through my own writings from the point of view of the Bush administration. Then I realized that, although I did not regard myself as the next generation of Chinese leadership, Bush administration likely thought otherwise. As such, they did not just see my writings. They saw behind my writings an increasingly confident and resolute country with 1.3 billion industrious, modest and open-minded people who pull together for the common goal of achieving the peaceful renaissance of the whole Chinese nation.

Thus came my epiphany: It is the intervention of the 1.3 billion Chinese people behind my writings that made the Bush administration repeatedly see nuclear deterrence when I did not even mean it. The 1.3 billion Chinese people is my divinity.

(This epiphany makes great sense - if I accept my role as a future Chinese leader. As in business where the customers are treated as gods, in politics politicians should treat the people they serve as their divinity. The question for me is whether I am ready to be the next generation of Chinese leadership. The answer clearly is no. I am too inexperienced and I need time to recuperate from my ordeal. So I am gingerly putting forward a compromise here: How about considering me for the 6 ^th generation of Chinese leadership? )

 

 

A Clear Question and A Clear Answer

Q: Why didn't you realize the nuclear misinterpretation of your blog Summer Hibernation right after Bush administration's release of the media nuclear bomb, especially since you regarded the release as prompted by your blog?

A: That's a valid question and I wish somebody had raised that question earlier. Although I have not answered the question specifically, I nevertheless furnished quite an extensive collection of relevant information in my previous blogs. So please bear with me if there is too much repetition in this summary.

As I wrote in my March 14 blog, when I first read the news report on General Zhu's nuclear comments in mid-July, my thought was: "Oh, this is one of those weird news and this guy must be crazy." I thought about voicing my opinion but I could not find an appropriate platform.

General Zhu's comments "made sense" to me after I saw the Globe cartoon on August 22, 2005. My understanding then was that General Zhu was allowed by the Chinese government to make those "crazy" comments so that I could criticize him to gain goodwill from the Americans. (Of course, I now know, or knew back in late April or early May, that his comments were not so crazy and there was in fact a purpose in his comments, e.g., to deter a potential U.S. armed interference in Taiwan so that China could strive for an eventual peaceful unification of the whole country.) Other realizations included:

(1)“李扬”的文章(至少是那些在我回温哥华之后能看到的)可能是中国政府写给我看的；(2)朱成虎核战言论的出台至少在时机上是为我提供批判材料，使我有机会博得美国人的好感；(3)布什政府早就知道前面两点(美加两地很多媒体人士至少到几个月以后的加拿大大选时也都知道了)，这幅漫画是对我的沉默的一个攻击；(4)如果布什政府在“挺”黎彦修的话，中国政府可能希望我能回国效力。

But I did not feel good with those realizations:

But I did not feel good. My mood was reflected in the first entry on my new blog Chinese, eh? �C As a Canadian immigrant, I felt I was in a dilemma and that there was not much I could or would do. Indeed, I thought what Chinese and US governments did to each other was quite "pathetic". And I certainly did not want to be any part of it.

Indeed, with respect to my task of criticizing Zhu for his nuclear comments to gain goodwill from the Americans, my feeling was like having a fly in my stomach. And I lamented about the apparent complication of my situation:

�从个人的角度来说，我觉得我似乎陷于了一个更深的困境。本来在我为张东岳讨还公道的过程中，我的中国背景就已经成了马田政府和某些媒体人士的攻击目标(比如说，硬将我跟美加合作的导弹防御计划扯上关系)；现在好了，中国政府很可能确实在“挺”我了。试想一下，我是中国人，当然是希望中国好的；我在加拿大住了十多年，也早就喜欢上了这个国家；而我的最大愿望是能有一天去美国为WarrenBuffett工作，我不希望跟美国的关系搞僵。作为一个移民，我是衷心希望中美加三国都保持良好的关系，这样我的日子也好过一些。�

As I said many times before, I had always thought myself as a Canadian immigrant trying to right a wrong. Fighting justice for Cecilia Zhang, and to a lesser extent, trying to get my life back, was my primary objective.

To accomplish my objective, I needed to get on the news. At that time, I had pretty much given up my hope of being reported by Canadian media after more than a year of fruitless protesting and fasting, mostly in Ottawa. My opportunity, as I saw it, lay in the grassroots organizations and in the U.S. media. That's why, after some much-needed rest, I started writing letters and emails in mid-August 2005, including letters to the relevant parties in the Min Chen trial.

For the U.S. media, my rationale in persuading them to report on my story was my suspicion that the Bush administration was part of the conspiracy to cover up the truth about Cecilia Zhang murder. Frankly, I did not feel I had a strong enough set of circumstantial evidence about Bush administration's involvement in the cover-up until I sensed that Bush administration tried to parachute Matthew Li into Beijing in late July.

The first time I contacted U.S. media about my story was on August 20 and it was done through email. Because of the connection to David Letterman's show - a U.S. show - in the Globe cartoon two days later, I regarded the cartoon as a push-back and bullying effort by the Bush administration to stop me from seeking justice for Cecilia and, as I said in my second report, to demonize me. (Canadian elites joined in the orchestrated effort. For example, Margaret Wente essentially said in her August 23 column that "you American journalists would be very dumb if you report his story".) To be fair, I thought that this bullying effort through the publication of the cartoon had a little rationale in it because of my silence on General Zhu's nuclear comments. Of course, I did not realize Zhu's comments had a connection to my situation until I saw the cartoon.

As I said before, I started a separate blog to deal with the issue of General Zhu's comments as soon as I got the messages in the cartoon because I wanted to separate it from my main and single issue of seeking justice for Cecilia Zhang. However, because of my self-consciousness, I did not criticize Zhu right away.

It was almost the end of August and I felt I needed to "activate" my main blog. That's why I wrote the blog Summer Hibernation. (For the complete come-about of the blog, please refer to my March 29 blog to avoid repetition. -- I just wanted to add that I had made fun of myself about my sleep problem before. Please check on that yourself, please.)

I was exhausted both physically and mentally after coming back from Ottawa in mid-June 2005. (Did I mention before that I believed that I was harassed by Ottawa Public Health?) So I took a lot of rest for the following two months.

Some pundits were extremely critical of my failure to bring down the Martin government. Naturally, I did a lot of thinking. My conclusion was that in order to defeat the Liberals, the Left and the Right needed to be united. (Another no-brainer.) �C I had indeed written to both parties in the fall to offer similar advice.

My habit was to try to maintain some continuity in my blog if there was a big time gap. For example, see this one, and this one. And humor was my way to inform the world that although I was down, I was not out.

When I tried to "activate" my blog last summer, the first word came into my mind was "hibernate", not only because I had opportunity to use a newer version of MS Windows program after I came back (Did I mention that I only had an old laptop with one gigebyte hard drive when I was in Ottawa?), but also because I had some opportunity to catch up with some sleep. Then I realized it was summer time. Therefore, a blog entry came about that served as a sorta political principle for the next few months.

Because of the timing of the media nuclear bomb, it caught me eye right away. Similar to the Globe cartoon, which I thought was prompted by my email to U.S. media organizations, the media nuke appeared to be another bullying and demonizing effort by the Bush administration based on the little rationale of my silence on Zhu's comments. Of course, I assumed - correctly, I might add - that the Bush administration knew the real meaning of my blog was political, i.e., to unite the left and the right to defeat the Martin Liberals. Since that was what I meant, I naturally thought along that line. And the media nuke made enormous sense. The message was that the U.S. took its interest in Canadian politics seriously as I was perceived to be doing Chinese government's bidding. (That was not my motive, as I said before. My motive was to help defeat the Martin Liberals in order to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang.) -- I still remember a news report around that time describing the scene where the then new U.S. ambassador David Wilkins met a certain newspaper board. The ambassador had his shoes off - presumably under the table - but his whole upper body "was all business". Although nobody mentioned my name during his tour of media organizations, I believed that everybody knew the ambassador was urging the media take a hard line against me. -- In other words, the media nuke was - to use a catch phrase of the time - part of a "phony war" and a warning to me that there might be serious consequence if I continued my participation in Canadian politics. As I wrote in Part 2 of my Canadian Election 2006 series (posted April 15):

Of course, I was aware that both United States and Chinese governments had fought at the background of my story in the summer, but I was not too concerned about it. Even for their throwing nuclear bombs at each other over my head �C figuratively speaking - I had always thought, despite my initial surprise, that it was just a "phony war", to use a catch phrase of the time.

That's why I did not examine my own blog to find it as the possible source of the false interpretation. (I still think that the release of the media nuke was an over-reaction by the Bush administration.)

Finally, I would like to stress a couple of points about my erroneous thinking at the time:

1. I thought General Zhu was crazy. Because of my silence on his comments, I thought the Bush administration used this rare opportunity to demonize me repeatedly as nuke-crazy because most of the other names I had been called did not make much sense.
2. I had no concepts of various forms of nuclear balance or mutually assured destruction (MAD). I though General Zhu represented the belligerent element of Chinese military. I thought Chinese government wanted to embed in my explosive story the theatre in which I would play the good guy - as suggested by Li Yang in his July 20 article - and Zhu played the bad guy who threatened U.S. with nuclear bombs. That's why I said "I certainly did not want to be any part of it". -- I am fundamentally opposed to using violence to resolve conflict. That's why one of the points I made on February 27 was that: "My approach to dealing with conflict was laid out in this blog entry a long time ago and consistent with Cecilia Zhang's wishes."
3. I thought that Chinese government's plan was that if I criticized Zhu and Zhu was subsequently reined in, it would demonstrate that I would be a future Chinese leader whom the U.S. could count on to develop friendly relationships with so that Bush administration would not have to feel too sorry about Chinese government's rejection of their choice of Matthew Li.

Update 20061230:

My current understanding about Zhu's comments vis-a-vis my previous thinking:

1. My initial impression that General Zhu represented the belligerent elements of Chinese military came from reading the prevailing commentaries at the time. I dismissed the less popular commentaries, such as the one I mentioned in my blog Rein Zhu In, which justified Zhu’s comments. Looking back, I can see that the first type of commentaries was mostly driven by ideology, while the second based on rational - if a bit technical - analysis. Both types of commentaries - mostly written in Chinese, I might add - originated from outside of China as General Zhu’s remarks were not reported by the official Chinese media. My wrong impression about Zhu therefore illustrates that ideology-driven reporting in western media - a problem I mentioned before - including those written in Chinese, can and does have an influence on unsuspecting or skimpy readers.
   
2. While Chinese government did suggest, through Li Yang’s article, that I seize the opportunity to criticize General Zhu to gain goodwill from the Americans, I now believe that the real purpose of General Zhu’s comments was to deter a potential U.S. armed interference in Taiwan so that China could strive for an eventual peaceful unification of the whole country. General Zhu was the Dean of the Institute of Defense at China's National Defense University and a widely-recognized, reputable and credible military expert, as Dr. Bruce Blair, Director of World Security Institute in Washington, D.C., said about him:“朱将军对军事战略理论见解深刻，也是对新军事革命（RMA)非常博学的专家". Zhu was therefore the right person to deliver the deterrence message in the form of a “personal opinion”. -- If the Chinese leadership themselves had spoken out the truth about Sino-U.S. nuclear relationships, it would not have been conducive to maintaining the overall good Sino-U.S. relationships, which they attach great importance to, as can be seen from reading Li Yang’s articles.
   
3. Friends and foes alike have criticized me for being immature, too nice, lack of political judgment etc. Those are all fair criticisms confirming my own verdict about myself. My previous amateurish thinking about General Zhu’s comments was just an example of my political inexperience. That’s why I say I am not ready to be a politician.
   
   

What I Knew, When I Knew Them

As I wrote in a previous blog, my memo to President Bush on February 27 illustrated my total unawareness of the misinterpretation of my blog Summer Hibernation at the time. What's also worth noting in the memo is the forcefulness of the language used as it puts in stark contrast with the hesitancy in my more recent writings on the same subject.

The subject is, depressingly for me, the nuclear issue. The hesitancy of my more recent writings on the subject is a reflection of my self-consciousness in trying to explain the unexplainable part of the controversy. I often say that self-consciousness is my greatest enemy. But the effect of this particular one on me is much severer than that of the one I experienced in August 2005 when I came to the understanding that General Zhu made his nuclear comments so that I could criticize him to gain goodwill from the Americans. As I wrote in March:

Of course, now that a fly had gotten into my stomach, I needed to get it out. – I had to say something about General Zhu's comment. Actually, that was the initial objective when I started a separate blog because I wanted to separate it from my main (and single) issue about Cecilia Zhang. In other words, despite the perception that General Zhu's comment was connected to my situation, I attempted to disassociate myself from it. Talk about tough life!

By then, more than a month had passed since Zhu made his comments. Bashing him right after I started the new blog would seem – well, wired – for me. I guess I had become too self-conscious. It would have been much easier for me to criticize Zhu without knowing the circumstance surrounding his comments. Instead, I felt particularly awkward as if I was taking on a heavy task.

For me, the nuclear issue, which was entirely forced upon me, was disposed of once I had completed the "heavy task" of sharply chastising General Zhu for his comments on August 30, 2005. Indeed, I did not even think about the issue for a long time afterwards, until I sensed or realized various controversies. These controversies were the results of giving nuclear misinterpretations to my writings when in fact there were none. Because nobody told me directly what the controversies were, I had to figure them out myself. For similar reason, what I understood as the controversy might be different from what others understood as the controversy at various times.

Perhaps I should summarize what I knew and when I knew about various nuclear misinterpretations.

Although I wrote my blog Summer Hibernation before I used the quote "All reactionaries are paper tigers" in my second report, I sensed possible misinterpretations with respect to the quote first. This was because, soon after I published my second report on January 17, I noticed quite a few newspaper editorials and articles on Canadian election used the word reactionary or its variants. Initially, I thought the problem with the quote was that "reactionaries" and "paper tigers" are derogatory. That's why I tried to play it down a little bit with a sense of humor on my January 24 blog. Then I read on February 12 an article by a well-known Chinese dissident and learned that nuclear bombs were referred to as paper tigers at one time. However, I thought that, simply because nuclear bombs were referred to as paper tigers, my use of the quote somehow implied I was a nuclear terrorist - as suggested in Donald Rumsfeld's speech on February 17 - was so ridiculous that it did not even merit much disproof. -- A certain "crying wolf" effect was at work in my mind. Just take a look at all those names I had been called along my journey. None of them made much sense to me. Why should I give much thought to this particular one?

For my blog Summer Hibernation, it was after I had read Jim Travers' March 14 column that I realized the nuclear misinterpretation. I was quite upset at this realization that my motive was cast in doubt. That's why I spent a lot of time in April writing about Canadian Election 2006 ( part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8) to demonstrate the blog's meaning was political, not nuclear.

My initial reaction to the misinterpretation of this blog was that it did not make sense as I did not think there was a nuclear balance between U.S. and China. However, unlike the situation with respect to what I understood as the controversy surrounding the quote in February, I did start to pay attention to nuclear weaponry issues in April because Bush administration's misinterpretation of my blog implied that I was approval of General Zhu's comments, which suggested that an all-out nuclear war between U.S. and China would result in mutually assured destruction. It was probably around late April or early May that I realized that Bush administration's implied conclusion on Sino-U.S. nuclear relations was right and my amateurish analysis was wrong. I hesitated to correct the record because I became conscious about how my correcting the record might be perceived.

Next came the emotional aftermath of Cecilia Zhang "trial" on May 9. Fighting for justice for Cecilia Zhang was my primary goal. I was indeed quite consumed by the aftermath of Cecilia Zhang "trial" as can be seen from my blogs posted during this period of time. As such, nuclear issue naturally faded away from my mind in the following couple of months.

As I explained in a previous blog, nuclear issue came up to my mind again when I wrote my open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in late July:

When I wrote my open letter to Stephen Harper, I felt I had to deal with the nuclear controversy because (1) Harper government had been towing the line of the Bush administration in tagging me a nuclear terrorist when they clearly knew that my original blog Summer Hibernation was meant to provide a political principle/strategy - to him, no less - for the coming federal election; and (2) Dr. Jiang's nuclear physics background might have contributed to his death.

Looking back, I can see that it was because I had put my pen on paper - literally speaking - and given some serious thoughts on all the possible controversies that I realized the underlying connection - aided by Bush administration's media nuclear bomb - between the misinterpretation of my blog Summer Hibernation and the misinterpretation of my use of the quote. As I wrote in my October 3 blog:

Later [during the writing of my open letter], when I tried to follow the line of Bush administration's thinking in terms of interpreting the "controversial" quote…, I became even more shocked. Bush administration must have thought the quote was my response to their media nuclear bomb because it was attributed to Mao Zedong, who was the leader of China at the time. Of course, … it did not cross my mind when I wrote the report that the Bomb was referred to as "paper tiger" by Mao.

And I realized that this connection between these two misinterpretations must be the real controversy. No word could describe how shocked I was at this realization. (Another reason why it took me so long to figure out the connection was, of course, that in my mind, the blog and the quote had no connection whatsoever. - I can't stress enough that the connection was based on two misinterpretations of my separate writings. - I would like to add that, with my depression, rarely do I find myself in a mood to write. To be frank, most of the times I do not even want to think about my story.)

Since I had paid some attention to the issue of nuclear weaponry back in April, I gained some understanding of it. My increased understanding included, as I wrote in my October 3 blog, the realization that there was certain logic and purpose in General Zhu's comments. His major purpose was to deter a possible U.S. armed interference in Taiwan so that China could strive for an eventual peaceful unification of the whole country.

Because Bush administration had misinterpretated my writings as an approval of General Zhu's comments, they must have taken my writings as deterrence too. And this perceived deterrence might have been a contributing factor in stopping a potential military conflict across the Taiwan Straits, as I discussed in this November 24 blog.

Of course, as I demonstrated again and again, I had no idea of the misinterpretations of my blog or the quote at the time of my writings, let along the deterrence effect they had on Bush administration. Obviously, that there was a connection between these two misinterpretations was merely a coincidence. However, considering the magnitude of the underlying issues - war and peace, nuclear weaponry, the unity of China, etc, I thought during the writing of my open letter that the deterrence effect of my writings in August 2005 and in February 2006 - as perceived by the Bush administration and totally unknown to me at the time - particularly those effect reinforced by the underlying connection between those two misinterpretations, had to be a divine intervention. At the mean time, I was amazed at how lucky I was that everything turned out to be fine on a lethal subject that I had been totally ignorant of, and specifically, that the end result was the avoidance of a potential war. -- This initial reaction of mine was reflected in a summary paragraph in my open letter to Stephen Harper. (Insomuch as the Harper government thought that there was a problem in my writing, I regarded the problem as the creation of Bush administration through its release of the media nuclear bomb, which brought out the misinterpretation of my blog, which, in turn, brought out the misinterpretation's deterrence effect onto Bush administration themselves.)

Besides, you should know the problem with my blog was in the over-reaction by the Bush administration, which was beyond my control. To paraphrase a legal jargon, it was an act of a Buddha. (And a merciful one, too, because my previous "technical analysis" of Sino-America nuclear imbalance could be wrong.)

After realizing the real controversy during the writing of the open letter, I knew I would have to offer an explanation. As I saw it, I needed to convince people that (1) neither of my writings had anything to do with nuclear issue; and (2) more importantly, I wasn't aware of any of the misinterpretations for a long time. I was fairly confident that I was able to do those. However, I was also conscious of the difficulty in explaining the connection between those two misinterpretations because, well, it's really unexplainable.

The effect of my self-consciousness on me was reflected in my first installment of the explanation posted on August 20, in which I explained that the quote was one of my pet phrases, used in the specific context and had nothing to do with nuclear bomb. The title was negative: "I don't know how to write about this". So was the first sentence: "As they say, self-consciousness is a man's greatest enemy." The last sentence also had a sense of hesitancy too: "I hope I have dealt with all possible controversies resulted from this quote." Technically, yes. But in my mind, I was still worried about how I was going to explain the connection between the misinterpretation of this quote and the misinterpretation of the previous blog.

My second installment of the explanation, whose title was derived from the fact that I had lost my usual sense of humor in my writing ever since I realized the nuclear misinterpretation of my blog in mid-March, was not finished until early October because of my financial and health problems. Mr. Thomas Friedman's "clear question" helped to speed up my writing, though. This blog demonstrated that it was impossible for me to provide the logical connection between those two misinterpretations.

In between, I read an interview of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao by several European media organizations, in which Premier Wen quoted a German philosopher in the interview:

有两种东西，我对它们的思考越是深沉和持久，它们在我心灵中唤起的惊奇和敬畏就会日新月异，不断增长，这就是我头上的星空与心中的道德定律。

Reading this quote, I felt that Premier Wen was criticizing me for the language I used in my summary explanation. Although I was just paraphrasing a legal jargon, the religious connotation was there. That's why I toned down my language a little bit in my more recent blog:

I saw some pundit later talk (sic) about "divine intervention". But I wouldn't go that far.

I still think religion should be left out of the discussion of earthly matters.

Canada, a fixer’s paradise

The Guardian editorial on Stephane Dion is an oxymoronic observation of Canadian politics: The deliberately obtuse is also the deliciously astute.

This is because calling the Liberal Leadership Convention a fixer's fiesta is an invitation to call Canada a fixer's paradise. And the fixer is, of course, RCMP, who has an iconic image, an untouchable status in Canada, aided by its adept political skills and a license to eavesdrop freely.

Oh, Canada certainly hasn't let the world down with its many achievements in fixing.

1. Although I was not aware the full explosiveness of my file during Election 2004, by preemptively creating all sorts of problems for me, the RCMP guaranteed the Martin Liberals would steal the election.
2. With the delivery to the opposition MPs of the income trust investigation letter, the fixer artfully fixed Canadian Election 2006 for the Harper Conservatives. (I did not realize it then, but this installment of my blog on Election 2006 certainly has raised the issue.)
3. When the fixer can fix general elections, fixing everything else must be a cakewalk, especially with the ingratiating political and intellectual elites on its side. For example, we all know now that Cecilia Zhang trial was fixed on May 3 before the show even started.
4. Of course, with the latest Dion win of the Liberal leadership, the fixer pretty much fixed Canada. That's why we saw the fixer-in-chief decided to step down right after the "fixer's fiesta".

As for my trial confirmation hearing today? The Judge appeared to have made up his mind already to proceed with my trial as planned in one month, despite my repeated plea for an adjournment on medical ground.

1. Of all the cases on the list this morning, mine was the only one the Crown needed review before proceeding. Of course, I did not think there was any new evidence coming in. Did the Crown need the break to check with the fixer for the latest political development? -- I would suggest that the Judge and the Crown have better coordination next time so that I would not be the only one raising hand when the Judge asked if there was anyone who hadn't been called.
2. The very first words the Judge said during my hearing were that my case was old and needed to proceed as planned. -- He probably sensed I was going to ask for an adjournment because I had mentioned before the break that having me wait till the afternoon would be a hardship for me with my back pain.
3. The Crown rested as soon as she told the Judge that based on the new Information, the case would proceed summarily in the Provincial Court. -- Originally, I had chosen a judge and jury trial in the Supreme Court, which would be harder to fix.
4. As soon as I mentioned UBC LSLAP, the Judge cut me off and suggested that he knew the problem with UBC LSLAP was of a program-wide nature. -- I had to gently mention that my personal experience was different. -- Did the Judge read my blog?
5. I told the Judge that because of my back pain, I could only sit or stand for about half an hour at a time. Therefore, I did not think that I could withstand a two-day trial on January 11 and 12 as planned. I asked for an adjournment. The Judge would not budge.
6. When the Judge mentioned a doctor's note, I show the Crown and the Judge a BC Income Assistance form completed by my doctor in early October. Since my doctor had given me 6 to 9 months' time to rest, I suggested a three month adjournment. I also mentioned I had an ambulance receipt, but the Judge would not even look at it. He still maintained that my trial needed to proceed as originally planned.
7. When I told the Judge that I needed to either lay down or take a walk after a prolonged sitting or standing, the Judge said he would make necessary arrangement so that I could lay down on the visitor's bench during the trial. He would not grant an adjournment.
8. As for my problem in retaining a counsel, the Judge suggested I should be able to afford $10 for a half hour initial consultation with a lawyer through Lawyer Referral Service. But the trial needed to go ahead as planned.
9. When I said that the Judge appeared to have made up his mind before I even had a chance to present my argument, the Judge became flustered and countered by trying to mix up the timeline of our dialogues.
10. It was then the Crown came to the rescue. She mentioned that she had a letter from my Bail Officer raising the issue of my mental health. I argued that it was the Crown who raised the mental health issue first and that the Crown's reasoning at my bail hearing was ridiculous. The Crown became silent. The Judge commented that I am either exceptionally intelligent or mentally sick.
11. In the end, no adjournment for me. The Judge stressed that a warrant would be issued for my arrest if I did not show up for the trial.
12. Somewhere in the dialogue, the Judge also mentioned that I should perhaps be grateful for the Crown's decision to proceed only with one of the charges with a possible 18 month jail sentence.

I guess I am looking forward to the fix.


Update 5.5 hours later: A bit of sarcasm should be read into the above post, of course.

How Dion won?

Stephane Dion won the Liberal leadership race for the simple reason that he is the only front runner from the previous Liberal government.

That's why we heard his campaign chair, Mr. Mark Marissen, divulging in his post-mortem analysis on CBC Radio last Monday that Mr. Dion was seen as the candidate who would most likely defend the " Liberal brand".

That's why we saw newspapers like The Globe endorsing him before the convention, even though they worried about his chance in the next election.

That's why we saw pundits like Rex Murphy attacking the other front runners on November 25: "This is the great oxymoron of the Liberal leadership. Vote for us: We weren't there."

That's why we saw, via CBC Newsworld, a Dion supporter at the "fixer's fiesta " saying that Mr. Dion would lead " with dignity." Wink. Wink.

What I don't get was what Mr. Dion said at the convention: "Yes, the world needs more Canada. But Canada won't let the world down."

Just how would Mr. Dion do that?

 

 

It’s “OPRAH VS CANADA”

Why didn't Mr. Harper return my calls?

I used to be puzzled by the seemingly conflicting signals his government sent my way. Now it's clear that his strategy is to pit me against Canada, even if I bend over backwards for Canada.

Such is Harper's politics of polarization, for which he surely earned his title "Steve".

 

What the omission of Zhu’s comments reminds me

In my previous blog, I repeated that the reason I left out General Zhu's nuclear comments in my second report was to avoid a "phony war" between U.S. and China during Canadian general election, which would necessarily take Canadian voters' attention away from the real issues pertinent to them. I knew that General Zhu's remarks and Bush administration's media nuclear bomb were related. In fact, I knew these two events were connected through me.

I wasn't intentionally trying to hide anything. But the attacks from American and British pundits left me precisely with that bad feeling. It looked like that my omission of General Zhu's nuclear comments had instead drawn people's attention to them.

At the mean time, President Chirac's speech on nuclear issue on January 19 caught my eye the next day on Norman's Spectator. The following was his digest on January 20, the same days when my report was attacked by pundits at both The Guardian and The Washington Post:

--Let's hope this is not translated into Hebrew

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as those who would envision using . . . weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear submarine base in Brittany. "This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind."

Chirac: Nuclear Response to Terrorism Is Possible

At that time, my understanding of General Zhu's comments was that Zhu was allowed to make those comments so that I could criticize him to gain goodwill from the Americans, and that Bush administration knew about this intention of Chinese government.

Reading President Chirac's speech, I was worried that he might be talking about Chinese government with respect to General Zhu's nuclear comments, because my omission of Zhu's comments in my report had just drew attention to them. And if President Chirac was warning the Chinese, it was natural for me to assume that he obtained his information from the Bush administration. (I read a column by David Ignatius of Washington Post on February 1. The column described how closely the national security advisers of these two presidents worked together.)

That's why one of the points I made on February 27 - the first opportunity I was able to do so - was in the form of memo to President Bush :

Memo to Mr. Bush: The Chinese leadership had no ill-intent against your great country and with all due respect, I think you knew it.

That's also why I felt it was imperative that I "put everything on the table so that there will be no international misunderstandings, intentional or otherwise" (posted on April 15), especially with the heightened tension across Taiwan Straits.

I would like to stress that I have immense respect for President Chirac, whose profound knowledge of Chinese culture and history impresses me greatly. However, I did not, and still do not, know for sure whether President Chirac's speech on January 19 was indeed prompted by my second report. So I would like to beg for President Chirac's forgiveness if I misinterpreted his speech. On the other hand, I feel that, irregardless of whether President Chirac's speech was prompted by my report, going over these events at least helps to illustrate two points: (1) that, prior to mid-March, I had absolutely no idea that my own blog Summer Hibernation could have a nuclear interpretation, let along have been the potential source of controversy; and (2) that it was out of concern for world peace and stability that I risked complicating my own legal situation on February 27 to start putting everything I knew on the table.

 

Tamra Keepness

I hinted about her case only slightly in this blog more than two years ago.

The only reason I have not mentioned her name publicly was because I assess the "conditional probability" to be too low (around 10 percent) that her disappearance was also a foul-play involving federal government. The amount of circumstantial evidence I have in her case is not as plenty as in the Cecilia Zhang case, or even in the Dr. Guobing Jiang case.

However, I believe, similar to the situation in these two cases, our political and intellectual elites know more about her case than I do. But they won't talk. Apparently, they have a different idea about what kind of Canada they want to build from the rest of us.

 

I called PMO 4 times so far

1. May 21, 2006
2. June 22, 2006
3. August 31, 2006
4. November 2, 2006

I wrote about the first two in my previous blog. I will write the last two when I have the time and energy.

 

 

Another reason for my sloppier research

While the main reason for my sloppier research is my health problems, another important reason is that I am weary of doing research online.

I have been weary of using Internet for a long time. I believe that I wrote about it in my first report. Please check on that yourself, please.

After I embarked on my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I encountered many incidents where my online activities appeared to have been monitored. I wrote very few of them. For example, a cartoonist at Globe and Mail appeared to be stealing my blog idea in early 2005.

A recent example was, sadly, probably related to Dr. Guobing Jiang's death on July 21.

As I wrote in my open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, it was on May 18 when I realized that RCMP/CSIS was the culprit of Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder:

"On May 18, an Armstrong, BC police spokesman defended the force's decision on CBC Radio of not issuing an Amber Alert in the Carmen Kados abduction case. (This girl was later found alive, fortunately.) He said that there are strict conditions for issuing Amber Alert, including description of suspect or suspect's vehicle."

After realizing Harper's desire to protect RCMP's image, I consciously made the decision to moderate my actions. I went to Ottawa on that weekend. I was going to hand over my file to PMO and trust Mr. Harper would do what's right for Canada. However, I was ignored by PMO.

Still, I continued to be modest in my actions. That's one of the reasons why, when I wrote my analyses of Min Chen trial, I purposely postponed drawing my conclusion about RCMP/CSIS's role in the crime so as to give PMO ample opportunity to provide leadership in my file.

My first analysis on Min Chen's motive was posted on June 3, almost one month after the trial. I did not post my second analysis, What happened at Min Chen "trial", until July 13, some additional 40 days later. In between, I called PMO on June 22 and was again ignored.

After my second analysis, some pundits noticed that I left out some key comments by Chen's lawyer John Lee from a source article I used. ("Stripped-pants cover backsides", as they say.) These comments were more related to the question of Who Killed Cecilia, which was going to be the title of my next and final analysis of the trial. Actually, I wrote an introduction of it before I realized the Dr. Jiang's death was also related to me and I had to deal with this new and shocking development.

Here is the first section from my draft:

Who killed Cecilia?

Introduction

In my previous analysis of Min Chen "trial", I left out the single most egregious comment by John Lee because it is more related to the following key question: Who Killed Cecilia Zhang?

Despite his role as Chen's defence lawyer, John Lee was unequivocal that Chen killed Cecilia Zhang. And he provided a seemingly "solid" logic -- to people who are new to Canadian justice system anyways - for his assertion, quote unquote:

�栗钧解释说，既然检控方有能力以超越合理的怀疑标准认定陈敏在张东岳失踪时非法进入了那个房子，他便与张东岳失踪脱不了关系。既然陈敏与张东岳失踪有关、张东岳又死了，陈敏又不能对她的死做出他没有责任的合理解释，他就必须要对张东岳的死负责。因为，没人相信九岁的小女孩在半夜自己跑到离家四十多公里的地方去自杀。所以，如果案件进行庭审，即便陈敏不作证，陪审团也会定他一级谋杀；如果陈敏作证、陪审团不相信他，还是会定他一级谋杀。�

I have no doubt, too, that the prosecution could prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Min Chen did enter Zhang house illegally at the time of Cecilia's disappearance. But isn't it true that the onus was not on Chen to explain why he did not kill Cecilia Zhang, but on the prosecution to prove, again beyond a reasonable doubt, that Chen did commit the manslaughter or the murder, whether it be first-degree, second-degree? Isn't it true that there are many more possibilities on how Cecilia died, beyond the two Lee mentioned, i.e., that (1) Chen killed Cecilia and (2) Cecilia killed herself? And if the onus was on the prosecution, how could Lee be so sure that a jury would convict Chen of first-degree murder, irregardless of whether Chen choose to testify or not?

But the more serious question is this: Was this how the defence team actually advised Chen? In other words, did the defence team tell Chen that he needed to convince a jury that he did not kill Cecilia Zhang? If that's the case, I can see for someone who was relatively new to Canada, how Lee's advice could have a devastating effect on his own convictions.

I should point out that there is no evidence whatsoever linking Chen to Cecilia's death, as admitted by the prosecution. I should also point out that, when the prosecution said that it "does not completely accept the version of events surrounding the death of Cecilia Zhang as admitted to or asserted by the Defendant" in the masterly crafted ASOF, it also left the door open about the possibility that Chen did not in fact kill Cecilia Zhang.

Next in my analysis, I was going to write about my main conclusion that RCMP/CSIS was the culprit of Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder. My strongest circumstantial evidence was that Toronto Police issued an Amber Alert after Cecilia was abducted when it clearly should not. Just to make sure I remembered correctly what the Armstrong, BC police officer said on CBC Radio, I went on the Internet and did some research on Amber Alert in the first half of the week of July 17-21. My research on Amber Alert might have alerted RCMP/CSIS and triggered the death of Dr. Jiang in Toronto on July 21. (For other circumstantial evidence related to Dr. Jiang's case, please see my open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. - I would put the "conditional probability" to be around 40 percent that Dr. Jiang's death was a foul-play involving RCMP/CSIS, if my allegation that RCMP/CSIS killed Cecilia Zhang turns out to be true.)

That's why I have since become even wearier about doing research online.

Update 20070104:

Naturally, other circumstantial evidence implicating RCMP/CSIS's role in Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder can be found in my open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Let me begin with a technical note

One of the reasons that writing becomes more and more difficult for me is because more and more subject matters enter my story. Since my goal is to provide as much as information as possible, the more I am able to write, the better. So I will start with a technical note and let my mind be the theme and take us wherever it wants to go.

As you probably noticed - or, did you? - that there is a stats counter at the bottom of each of my blogs. According to the stats, rarely do I have visitors.

So, it would appear to me that you read my blogs through some other means. I don't know how.

This unknown bothers me sometimes. One of the reasons is that, when I am on a certain subject, I don't know how much previous related information I should repeat in my new blog entry. For one thing, with my depression I am extremely unwilling to write. For another, with my recent physical problem, I can't sit up for very long at a time. (Those are the major reasons for my sloppier research lately.) Besides, I find it tedious to have to keep repeating myself.

For example, in my previous blog, I mentioned the three Guardian articles on January 20 as examples of propaganda tying me to either terrorism or separatism. Besides the editorial, the other two were:

Jonathan Steele: The textbook whitewash of our brutish empire is a lie.

Simon Jenkins: Of course the Chinese didn't discover America. But then nor did Columbus.

Actually, another columnist on this side of the Atlantic wrote about lies on the same day. Michael Kinsley's column on Washington Post was Why Lawyers Are Liars.

As I saw it, these columnists were attacking my second report published just three days before. Have I responded to these attacks? Yes, I did in the spring. So I just assumed, when I wrote my previous blog, that you knew that I had responded to them already.

As I wrote in Canadian Election 2006 (7): My decision of "limited participation" posted on April 15, "the major reason that I had left out Chinese government in my writings until February 27 was that I did not want to unnecessarily complicate my legal situation, considering that (1) I have been without a lawyer since the end of November [2005] and (2) I had a hostile media trying to put me down at every opportunity."

Another thing I omitted in my second report was the connection between General Zhu's nuclear comments and Bush administration's media nuclear bomb " lest it ignited a 'phony war' between U.S. and China during the election". But I did mention Zhu's comments in a separate blog within a very short time span of publishing my second report.

It is inevitable that you don't always get the complete information in my writings. The most obvious cause is, as I said before, I can not write fast enough to catch up with the development of my story. When I do withhold information on rare occasions such as above (I can't think of any other situations where I deliberately withheld information), it is done with a valid cause and not intended to mislead. And I don't lie. Every word I put on my web sites is true to the best of my knowledge at the time of writing. In fact, to maintain the integrity and authenticity of my writings, I refrain myself from much editing even when I find minor errors in them after posting. Whenever possible, I use email to post to my blogs so that I always have an original copy.

As always, I am open to serious interviews. Give me a clear question, I will give you a clear answer. Maybe even more. (But frankly, I do not have much hope on journalists' calling me, especially from those in Canadian media. My sad finding is that most of them are neither pro-liberal, nor pro-conservative. They are simply pro-bigotry. Sorry to be blunt.)