Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung *sigh*

The midnight spike in air pollution, using the app airvisual. This is from the Taichung area. The app usually shows a spike, a small one, between midnight and 2 AM. Why? Because factories in Taichung are quietly dumping pollution into the air in the wee hours to avoid EPA fines. I've come to dread Sunday nights because the factories on the hill below our house frequently dump foul-smelling shit into the air.

The reason I'm writing on this is because I've become quite worried about Lin Chia-lung's performance and prospects in 2018. Rumor has it that the Taichung EPA has relaxed enforcement of pollution rules in a bid to win the support of factory owners. I don't know whether it is true -- the issue is that it is being said.

Lin is billing Taichung as "The Event City" but according to people I talk to the city government is crushing the life out of many of its events. A longtime foreign resident who runs several events told me this will likely be his last year. Under Hu the city handed out venues for free, but the Lin Administration is making event holders pay. My friend explained that not only does he pay, but he expects they will find excuses to keep the deposit as well, meaning that he can't afford to run the event any more. Across the city, he told me, the neighborhood and precinct captains are screaming about the new payments.

City leaders, in concert with TAITRA, are also attempting to merge the Taipei Bike Show and the Taichung Bike Show. All bike shows are in decline right now, but the Taipei Bike Show is apparently on life support, several bike company types I talked to aver. The Taichung Bike Show is one of the world's foremost, an important place where deals are made, but the city wants to move it out of the city center (to which it brings important business) to the pointless exhibition center by the HSR station, which is located far from anything interesting, if it doesn't get merged outright. Either the merger or the move will deeply hurt the Taichung Bike Show, and the move will cost local businesses millions in lost hotel and restaurant business.

I've resisted discussion of the Forward Looking Infrastructure plan for Taichung on this blog, because I kept hoping it would become sane. But nope -- the plan currently is to run a light rail line down the same line as the current rail system to Changhua. With the long climbs up and down stairs, the line will actually slow down commutes. Meanwhile the idea of integrating Nantou city into the Taichung area metro/bus/rail system appears to have died -- they couldn't have spent the money to run trains to Nantou and integrate them into that area's extensive tourism stuff?

Opinion on Lin's performance as a politician differs. I hear complaints that he doesn't kiss babies or show up to give speeches when he should, but other people tell me he is ok on that. He doesn't seem to get the same press that other mayors get, though. I expect that in 2018 he will argue he needs another term to complete his plan (when I suggest this to people the response is always a derisive snort "What plan?") and that voters will punish him but give him another chance, letting him win by a much smaller margin. But he could lose to an energetic and skilled KMT politician -- fortunately those are in short supply in the KMT.

Meanwhile in Taipei the DPP has decided that it can't leave well enough alone. Ko Wen-je, the independent but pro-Green mayor of the city, is coming under fire from DPP politicians for being "weak on China" and similar nonsense. TT says:

Amid increasing tension between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), DPP Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) yesterday criticized the mayor, saying he lacked a firm political stance. Cheng urged the party to nominate its own candidate in the Taipei mayoral election next year.

There are some in the DPP who want to nominate their own candidate for the election -- longtime buffoon and DPPer Pasuya Yao, who is not aborigine in any way but simply adopted an aboriginal first name to be cool, has expressed interest. It would be really stupid to run a DPP politician against Ko, who right now is popular and secure. All that would do is risk handing the city back to the KMT while humiliating the DPP loser and betraying a key ally. Tsai Ing-wen needs to clamp down on this...

As I have written before, the north is in the midst of a demographic transition. High housing prices in Taipei have driven younger people out to Taoyuan and Keelung and New Taipei City where they will largely support the DPP. In the city the bureaucracy is greening from the bottom up, again creating more DPP-leaning voters, while the Deep Blues are dying out. The smart move would be to leave Ko Wen-je in place for four more years with DPP support to let these demographic trends continue, and let light Blues discover that a non-KMT mayor is not the end of the world...
_________________
Daily Links:

• Anthropologist and Taiwan expert Scott Simon's op-ed piece in The Hill Times calls for Canada to support Taiwan people in the UN whenever possible. This op-ed was discussed by local language news here.
• Another excellent Commonwealth piece on the coming decade: hot and coal powered and unhealthy.
• The awesome Chris Horton in NYT on Beijing's increasing reach
• Cole: Beware of Chinese social media
• New Bloom: Diplomat article glorifies killer of dissidents
• Chinese media misrepresents what Singapore PM said about one China policy. Hard to believe...
• Synaptic with an old tobacco barn in Taichung
• Gogoro raises big bucks in its next round of financing
• Solid piece on our higher education problems in Taiwan
• Fisherman kept like slaves in Taiwan.

_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!