TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Taiwanese essayist Bo Yang, who infuriated both
Nationalist and Communist authorities with his tart critiques, has died of
lung disease in Taipei. He was 88.

Bo had been receiving treatment for pneumonia at the city's Cardinal Tien
Hospital since February and died on Tuesday [April 22, 2008], the hospital
said.

Originally known as Kuo Yi-tong, Bo was born in Henan [China] in eastern
China in 1920. He fled to Taiwan in 1949 when Ma Zedong's Communists
defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists in the Chinese civil war.

He found work as a columnist for the Independence Evening Post, a small
liberal newspaper, but quickly ran foul of the one-party Nationalist
dictatorship of the day after he blasted Chiang's government for corruption
and abuse of power.

He served nine years in prison on charges of being a communist spy -- a
government catchall for dealing with troublemakers during the martial law
period that only ended in 1987.

Bo's provocative writing also led him to be attacked by the Chinese
Communists.

China briefly banned his 1985 book "The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of
Chinese Culture" and several other essay collections, claiming they insulted
the Chinese people.

In many of his essays, Bo told Chinese that their culture -- a source of
pride for centuries -- has many shortcomings. He criticized the Chinese as
selfish, unconcerned about other people's rights and being too willing to
tolerate the abuse of power.

AP