The View from Taiwan

Happy New Year!

2012-01-24T17:22:00.001+08:00

Whoa. Way too much food today.... Happy new year, ya'll!!

And if you still need food, here's an Android app with locations for over 200 night markets...

See you in three weeks!
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Randomicity

2012-01-22T10:44:00.001+08:00

Here's the real story of New Year! The cleaning.... I'm taking his month off from blogging. But I am still biking, so enjoy some pics from various rides lately. I'm also still writing, had a letter in the Taipei Times the other day.

Can't find yourself? It's because you don't have the "life password" contained in this pamphlet I saw at the temple in Yuanlin yesterday.

One of the pleasures of being a teacher is meeting up with old students. I went down to Yuanlin to see if there were any interesting old relics -- alas, the only old relic was myself -- but I did have lunch with Natasha, who hasn't seemed to have aged a single day while I piled on the years.

Flowers are always in bloom in Taiwan.

At the Thai place that Natasha took me to, the Thai lounge singers regaled us with "Blue Bayou."

The eatery outside the temple in Yuanlin near the train station.

Communicating with the gods at the Matsu temple in Yuanlin.

For burning.

For a small town, Yuanlin feels big and crowded.

Natasha took me up to Baiguo Mountain to one of the temples there.

Hangin' at the temple.

In an alcove offerings appease the god.

Last week Drew took me on a nifty little climb right outside Taichung that is popular with local bikers, Beikeng Rd. It runs past the golf course off of Taiyuan Rd just before you get to Taiping town.

The views were excellent, and if you ever wanted to know what you were breathing....

Farm and orchard country.

Chris Bolster came along for the ride. The grade is easy and the road surface is in good condition. Drew's sturdy ride report with many photos is here.

It's New Year's at the market. That means unspeakables soaking in the morning cold.

The morning market near my house is an absolute madhouse as New Year approaches.

With all the trash the recyclers are picking up a treasure trove.

With the extra business vendors were mobilizing young female labor from friends and family to help out. Here I ran into one of my Chang Gung students lending at hand to a local vegetable vendor. Hello Rosa!

In addition to the vendors who had fixed spots, some people pushed little carts full of goodies.

The tofu vendor scores.

True to Taiwan's just-in-time manfuacturing tradition, delivery people were dropping off new goods as fast as the customers could take them.

At home my wife prepared a small table for the kitchen god. Can't wait to eat those Vietnamese spring rolls!
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

On Break

2012-01-14T19:45:00.000+08:00

Thanks, all!

A hard fought election, a disappointing outcome. I'm taking a few weeks off from posting, being totally burnt out and urgently needing to focus on other aspects of my life. Biking pics will continue to go up, though, they are not stressful!

See you when the semester starts again in Feb.

Michael
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Election Day

2012-01-14T15:00:00.002+08:00

Lee Teng-hui speaks at the rally, courtesy of reader Michael Gruber.

To watch the vote count on the net, Sanli is here.

In a few hours we'll know, but for now enjoy some links. Lee Tenghui came out yesterday to speak at the big rally. It was an emotional moment, nicely scripted and choreographed:

“I don’t have much time left. Please support Tsai. Make her the first woman president in Taiwan who will make this country a model of democracy. Now, I put Taiwan’s destiny in your hands,” he said.

Lee is one of the great figures in the growth of 20th century democracy, in a very different way on par with people like Havel and Mandela. If Taiwan's democracy actually does change China, he will have left a towering legacy.

Meanwhile former AIT head Douglas Paal, known for unabashed anti-DPP views during his tenure and now here to perform a dog and pony show for the KMT, found AIT distancing itself from him:

AIT Director William Stanton called off a meeting with Douglas Paal yesterday morning, a source said, which was later confirmed by the Prospect Foundation, an institution affiliated with the KMT that invited Paal to visit Taiwan

Thanks, AIT. Although some aspects of Paal's analysis are dead on, his wholly uninformed and partisan viewpoint is revealed in comments like:

Paal also criticized the “Taiwan consensus” proposed by Tsai, saying the idea was “a way of saying [that Tsai has] no desire to reach cross-strait agreements.”

But enough of Paal. The Nelson Report passed this around:

Note: no details to add on the Taiwan election except that results are expected shortly after breakfast tomorrow (Saturday, DC time) and to report that serious analysts are predicting a very strong chance that challenger Tsai Ing-wen will regain the presidency for the DPP from KMT incumbent Ma Ying-jeou. Stay tuned. Sunday morning (9 am DC time) your Editor will be on CCTV-Beijing, assigned topic the Obama defense "Asia Pivot"...we'll see. Monday is a Federal Holiday so no Report that day.

Wonder who these serious experts are who think Tsai will win. Ballots and Bullets hosts the usual excellent stuff. Stephane Corcuff on identifying consensus in the Blue-Green continuum, Lee Teng-hui's last hurrah, and Jon Sullivan's great piece on Mikael Mattlin's book Taiwan's Politicized Society, which argues that Taiwan's democracy is still a veneer, because the KMT has never permitted full consolidation.

Also see longtime Taiwan scholar Richard Kagan on the election. Frozen Garlic's best flags of the year! And see his Quick Thoughts, lots of good observations. BBC's China media monitoring reports that Beijing has ordered a blackout on news and commentary on Taiwan's election. How the CCP must hate Taiwan.

Finally, a CS Monitor piece cites me on why the election is more sedate on the whole (except for the last week!).

Check Google search, Taiwan's election is right there!

No predictions here. It's going to be close. Good luck to all.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Links for the Election Eve

2012-01-13T20:17:00.001+08:00

Glad this one will be over soon and I can go back to posting biking photos....

BBC says Beijing "is suspicious of" Tsai. Notice that while newspapers regularly report that Beijing is suspicious of Tsai -- a formulation found across the media -- no newspaper ever reports on how Tsai feels about Beijing. Wouldn't it be great if newspapers upheld democratic values of fairness and fidelity to reality?
Although/Since it is illegal to release information about polls, the KMT has a rundown of self-serving party estimate information from all the parties here. No polls here, no sirree! Although, I'm sure the Agency Against Corruption will want to know what the DPP was doing releasing such data.
DPP rips the Douglas Paal dog and pony show for the KMT.
The usual yadda yadda on how the election could result in changes in the economy.
Taiwan dollar at two month high, global investors expect Ma victory.
>stunned< Reuters actually covers the legislative election. Good job, guys.
China uses new tactic to influence the election: silence.
Taiwanese flock home for election: WSJ
The Australian: China looms large.
AP: Ma loved in Beijing and DC, not so much at home. AP has done a good job this election, especially compared to BBC, NYTimes, AFP, and several other news orgs I could name.
CNN sources Taiwan election stuff from a former Beijing correspondent with predictable results.
Video from WaPo on how Taiwan voters are choosing course of relations with China.
Not a bad piece at all on what the election means from a City U of HKK academic in BBC.
Dem and Progressive Failure on Taiwan is mirrored by Taiwan continuing to be an issue for Republicans.
AFP channeling Xinhua as usual, don't bother reading, only included for completeness and opportunity to hack on AFP.

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

WHACK! Hitting the Links in the Afternoon

2012-01-13T16:15:00.002+08:00

Weather tomorrow predicted to be 16-21C with rain. That's tolerable weather for Taipei citizens, who after all are used to a troglodyte existence with no sunlight for months at a time. It's amazing to me that any vegetation is alive in this city. Hence don't expect the weather to affect the vote up here.

Ketty Chen comments on Al Jazz about the election.
NYTimes channels IPS story on how the vote will determine the fate of nuclear power. The IPS story is much better.
NYTimes says 70-80% of Taiwanese in China backing Ma.
Douglas Paal, former AIT head, private citizen expert in dog and pony shows, arrives to let everyone know he supports the KMT.
TSU says it must garner 5% of the vote or die. We can only pray.
Vote buying, dirty tricks: DPP complains.
AP: Candidates make final push
Anyone looked at the bond and currency markets? They don't see any issue with a Tsai win.
Tsai might win. Fortunately Beijing and Washington need not feel horror at the prospect of a moderate economics PHD representing the pro-democracy party winning a legal and free election in a US-allied state.
SPECIAL HAHA: Su Chi, longtime KMTer, close Ma associate, in NYTimes extolling the virtues of Taiwan democracy for changing China. Among KMTers it is an article of faith that the democratic state built over KMT objections can change China. If the KMT had never encountered the Taiwanese, they would never be a political party in a democratic state.

Morning Linkfest

2012-01-13T08:16:00.002+08:00

I'll be posting links periodically throughout the day...... first an announcement from Ballots and Bullets:

Jon Sullivan, who has been running the Taiwan 2012 blog at the University of Nottingham, will be live blogging on Election Day. If you are in Taiwan on Saturday and have any observations, insights etc. that you would like to share, please mail Jon (email address on the blog at http://nottspolitics.org/category/taiwan-2012/).

There's a big list of the latest from his blog below. Wonderful stuff.

The Think Tank the National Bureau of Asian Research has a bunch of papers about the election online, all from the usual suspects.

Taiwan's Future: Narrowing Straits by Robert G. Sutter
Defining a Healthy Balance Across the Taiwan Strait by Robert G. Sutter, Jianwei Wang, J. Bruce Jacobs, Alan M. Wachman, Ji You and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
Rising Rationalists: The Next Generation of Leadership in Taiwan by Shelley Rigger

Ballots and Bullets, lots of great stuff here.

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Links Nom Nom Lin Nom Nom Nom Li...

2012-01-12T16:08:00.001+08:00

More links! DPP rally at Shr Jeng 2 Road and Henan Rd.....

Cong. Ed Royce: The policy of 'managed ties' with Taiwan is wrong and election is good time to change it
Bloomberg News: Taiwan Inc. backs Ma Ying-jeou. Big business supporting the President who is backed by Wall Street and Beijing? There's a shock.
Great piece by Ralph Jennings in the CSMonitor: Taiwan's top election issue is wealth gap. Compare to the US, where in the Republican primary the top issue appears to be Other People's Genitals followed by Which Non-White Nation Shall We Bomb Next?
Taiwan's Gamble: Asia News Network, good stuff on identity, election.
Paul Mozur in WSJ: an alternative explanation of why Taiwan's election is so close.
Angry Red Bird for President Tsai!
AP on the election rallies
Election bookmaking ring busted in Chiayi, but sadly, no info on who the bookies favored.
Haha. Fooled by Campaign Poster Foto. They all try to look younger in the pics.
CNA on Taiwan businessmen heading home to vote in election.
China pans Taiwan's new fast attack boats.
VIDEO: Ben Goren's excellent take on the election: "It's about..." now in video form!
Douglas Paal in town for another election day Dog and Pony show. Just like 2008!

NOT ELECTION: Fighting for the future on Orchid Island
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Longtime Blue on why he's supporting Tsai

2012-01-12T14:19:00.000+08:00

SY, the longtime commenter here, left this useful translation in the comments of the post below. It is worthy of its own post. Enjoy.

+++++++++++++

Nan-fang-suo (pen name of Mr. Wang Hsing-ching 王杏慶, born in China in 1946) is a veteran political columnist. His stand for a "unification" of Taiwan with China is well known. Under the rule of the Chiang family (before 1988), he was a mild proponent for the democratization of Taiwan. After the formation of DPP, he started to drift away from the opposition due to his opposition of Taiwan's independence.

In 2008, he actively supported Ma Ying-jeou's bid for the presidency. Ma has publicly named him one of his two "big brother - mentors". Due to his long-term media contact and connections with the Ma "inner circle", he knows very well how the inner and outer circles of Ma (and King Pu-tsung) operate.

Today (Jan 12, 2012), the Journalist published an article of him in which he declares his support for Tsai as next president. The article was already circulated yesterday (Jan 11, 2012) on the net.

I find his note on the so-called "1992 consensus" very telling. He wrote that "...it is very unethical [or "immoral"] and wrong for Ma to use [the so-called] "1992 consensus" to threaten the Taiwanese people."

I thought the article is an interesting read. So, I did a quick (and probably "dirty", i.e. not proof-read and spell-checked) translation below. Texts in square quotes are mine.

Note that Nan-fang-suo's writing style commonly applies ambiguously structured sentences and not well defined phrases [easily done/coined by freely combining Chinese characters]. It makes the translation difficult. At times, I "best-guessed" to give a level of precision to what he wrote in order to properly rephrase the text in English. Overall, I've tried to be true to what he meant to say as much as I could.

Why I support Tsai, instead of Ma, in this election
Nan-fang-suo (Wang Hsingching)

For a long time, my political conviction has always been one of a pro-blue reformist.

But, after four years of KMT rule [in Taiwan], my disappointment [in KMT] has been growing by the day; therefore, I am supporting Tsai [Ing-wen] in this election, instead of Ma [Ying-Jeou]. Before doing so, I have gone through a process of conversion that might be of referential use to other intellectuals in Taiwan.

I am convinced that four more years of Ma's presidency won't beget a more stable relationship between the two sides [of Taiwan Strait]; rather, it will only drag the Taiwan society into a much worse shape.

Four years ago, the Taiwanese voters granted Ma the presidency by a landslide margin of 16.9% percentage points. With such a mandate and having the control of more than three quarters of the parliamentary seats, he would absolutely have been able to bring about a new era by carrying out political reform and economic development, had he had a solid political conviction and the personality [of a true leader].

This is especially true at this particular time of the 21st century when the whole world understands the importance of transformation. Taiwan would have been set to going through a great enterprise of transformation [, had Ma been up to the job.]

A leader without core values

The problem lies in the fact that Ma is a plain power-player type of politician who does not have real care about the society and does not have any interest in broadening his views and perspectives. He only enjoys engaging in petty political power trickery by taking advantage of the loopholes within the existing political power structure. He lacks the ability to own a political conviction which is of core importance to a political leader. Thus, we are witnessing the trapping of a leader [in a block hole] without core value.

Without a core value, he consequently cannot discern political matters by his own measures. In the past four years, from his so-called "laissez-faire presidency" in his early presidency, to the absolutely impotent response to the Morakot Typhoon disaster, to the policy failure regarding the Kuokuang Petrochemical development project, to nominating a controversial judge for Grand Judge candidacy, to his flip-flop in Farmer's annuity pay by greatly topping it up after vehemently opposing any increase, his lack of a core value and his weather-vane personality were fully on display. The accusation of him governing by reading newspapers is not at all unjust. I've written to criticize his habit of taking "public perception" to heart. Without one's own perception and conscientious guidance and with the sole focus on how the mass media opine, how can one lead the country properly?

In recent years, I haven't agreed with many key policies [of Ma]

Take "1992 consensus" as example: Everyone knows that, by it, Beijing means something totally different from what the Ma administration claims. Therefore, it is very unethical [or "immoral"] and wrong for Ma to use [the so-called] "1992 consensus" to threaten the Taiwanese people. The Ma government applies a trick well. It is using Chinese Communists to threaten the Taiwanese and using Taiwan Independence to threaten Beijing; somewhere in-between he finds his pork chops.

As far as I know, Beijing has become aware of it. If Tsai Ing-wen wins the election, will Beijing really do anything to Taiwan? I would say that Beijing will get a headache for a while but won't do anything particular. Beijing is in fact prepared to deal with a DPP government, in order to win the heart of the Taiwanese people anew. That Ma administration uses Beijing to threaten the Taiwanese is an attempt to create a currently non-existent hatred between Beijing and the Taiwanese. I don't buy [the threat], neither do the Taiwanese.

Take ECFA as [another] example: I have been opposing it from the start. Some politicians [in the Ma government] and [KMT] legislators were unleashed to bark and scorn at me for that. I don't oppose any trading and economic relationship between the two sides [of Taiwan Strait], but [in the process,] Taiwan needs to have its own economic policy. South Korea, for instance, trades with Mainland [China] at US$220 billions [a year]. Had South Korea been more willing, the commerce could easily go up to US$500 billions [a year]. But, South Korea understands the importance of having its own [economic] strategy. After assuming the presidency, Lee Myung-bak undertook to upgrade South Korean industry; Samsung, Hyundai and Kia have become world class enterprises.

In contract, the Ma administration, which commenced about at the same time as Lee's, totally is incapable of any initiative in this regard. Taiwan has become too dependent on the market of Mainland [China], Taiwan's industry continues to hollow, employment conditions and opportunities deteriorate acceleratedly. The economic performance of the Ma government indeed pre-requires the loss of the
Taiwanese people's interest.

Taiwan needs economic transformation. As the Nobel laureate [in economic science] Douglass North pointed out, a transformation requires a very strong intentionality, which includes an integration of knowledge and a drive to achieve. In this regard, the Ma government has done nothing, zero. If it were to be given four more years [of governing mandate], the current situation will only continue to worsen.

Two years ago, Prof. Charles HC Kao [a pro-blue professor/businessman] wrote an article titled "Impotence is worse than corruption", it appears to have been a foresight when read today; very suiting to [the name of the magazine] "Global View" [, "Foresight" in Chinese, he publishes].

The Ma government was founded on the case against Chen Shui-bian. As soon as Ma assumed the office, he should have left Chen's case behind and moved forward. It's just that the Chen case is such a convenient [political] ATM that Ma thinks of it whenever a political crisis arises. The keynote of the Ma campaign in this election is still the Chen case. They even use the Chen case to project and shoot in all directions randomly.

The head of a country should concern himself with the [inspiration of a] vision of the country and the people. The current Ma campaign team has only the Chen case to play with, other than using Beijing to threaten the Taiwanese people. The leader [of the country] is in fact a "fear-monger" [in Chinese, it is written; thus read, as "pimp of fear"]. How can people agree [with it]?

The fear-monger lives on twisting facts.

The Western political scientists have recently identified a phenomenon. It is that elected officials, assisted by mass media, have converged to a personality which is to do nothing of foresight, to avoid troubles, to shy away from seeking accomplishment and to act to please the public. Comes election, they immediately assume the role of fear-mongers.

John Dean, who served as White House counsel [under Nixon] and played a key role in [breaking] the Watergate scandal [with his testimony], published a book "Conservatives Without Conscience" two years ago. Dean is a conservative but he insists on the Conscience of Conservatives and was an important critic of [George W.] Bush. Bush often plays fear-monger, especially when campaigning for election; spreading the fear of the Arabs. Dean thinks that fear-mongers aim at twisting facts to create fear for their own gains; in so doing, they twist the direction where the country is going. This was what he most disliked about the Bush administration.

In sum, Taiwan as a country needs a transformation and yet has not been given the chance. Four years have been wasted. The state of sitting in the mud needs to be stopped. Election is the time when a change can be initiated.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Tuesday Links

2012-01-10T22:04:00.001+08:00

All over Taiwan, little processions like this are whipping up the vote....

Only a few more days... today's links:

Joe Hung, who used to write opinions and stuff for the China Post, on the negative turn of the election. He's very reliable, in the way that Pravda was very reliable.
US neutral but closely watching. If they are truly neutral, why watch close? I mean, all outcomes are identical, right?
Philipines, China, South China Sea
SCMP on Taichung, a key battleground in the election. Weirdly for SCMP, it's not pro-KMT. Thanks, guys. Some good information in there including on the factional clash that has turned off so many KMT voters.
Frozen Garlic with the theory of consociality in response to Tsai's noises about a coalition government. The conventional wisdom says Tsai is making an offer to sweeten the pot for Soong so he will stay in the race.
Ben Goren nails the Ma vs Tsai comparison
Frozen Garlic blogs on this election's more subdued street decorations. I don't think it is going to affect turnout.
WSJ says Tsai victory could hurt markets -- remember what happened when Ma was elected -- market started going down the day after he was inaugurated.
Cain Nunns in the Global Post with another article on how the election has spurred activism.
China's GDP growth to slow to 8.3%. In a way it will be good if Tsai wins but Ma is president during this period of slowing growth.
VOA on the pro-independence opposition gains in the election.
WantChinaTimes on Soong: Swan Soong? More like, the Soong remains the same.
Shih Ming-teh still batting for the KMT. Disgusting.
COA confirms presence of avian flu in Changhua. Because of all the smuggling of animals from China and elsewhere, keeping out disease is difficult.
The history of that fort in Danshui, you know, the red hair fort.
Rob Schneider hearts Taiwan. Way cool! Do you think he reads my blog?

CLSA + "Gallup Taiwan" = Nonsense

2012-01-10T13:27:00.004+08:00

There is some apparent disinformation making the rounds. It consists of poll information that purports to come from CLSA consulting and contains poll data allegedly from "Gallup" in Taiwan. The mailing states that the operator of "Gallup" in Taiwan is pro-Green.

Once again, let me make this clear. There is no Gallup Marketing, Gallup polling, etc in Taiwan that is connected to USA Gallup. The company that styles itself Gallup in English is not connected to the US firm. Gallup USA severed connections with that company in 2002. Everything by Gallup in Taiwan from after 2003 is purely from a private concern that has nothing to do with Gallup USA. I have myself personally confirmed that the recent CLSA/Gallup poll information has nothing to do with Gallup USA by email with officials of Gallup USA (also some links in Chinese I found with others who have done that)

The operator of the poll, Dr Ting, is currently a Deputy Mayor of Taipei, whose Administration is KMT, and close friend and advisor of Deep Blue mayor Hau. To put it mildly, it is highly unlikely that he is pro-DPP.

This could well be a bit of disinformation designed to trap the unwary into posting a "pro-Green" poll on the public internet in violation of election rules, enabling the Blues to attack the Greens for illegal activity, attempting to influence the election, corruption, the sun rising in the west, lions whelping in the streets, and Chen Shui-bian being Arioch, eater of souls. You know the drill.

Do not circulate this information. Do not repost it. Delete and forget. Now is the time for dirty tricks. Be vigilant!
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

差一點點，沒你不行

2012-01-10T09:38:00.001+08:00

"We're still a little short, without you we won't make it" -- a DPP ad appealing to people to get out and vote for it, since they are still a few votes short. It ends by exhorting people to go home and vote.

The DPP's performance in the election so far has been amazing. Let's not forget -- Ma is backed by the upper echelons of the bureaucracy, the educational system (especially at the local level), the military, and the police, as well as local factions, most local media, Big Business, Beijing, and Washington, along with local organized crime, Wall Street and international finance. The KMT is probably still the richest political party in the world, and commands vast resources to reward and punish. It is a testimony to the appeal of Tsai Ing-wen and to the incompetence of the KMT that despite all those advantages, the DPP can still win this election.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Election Links

2012-01-09T22:09:00.002+08:00

Partying at the BBQ place in town.

No time for full links today.... some election stuff:

The redoubtable Jenny Hsu in WSJ on the Super Sunday rallies:

While political analysts largely agreed that a Tsai triumph this Saturday could cause a temporary freeze in cross-strait talks and a dip in trade, many say that Beijing, despite its stern rhetoric, is likely to take a softer approach to the island’s elections this time as part of an effort to win Taiwanese hearts and minds.

TIME on the election:

There's a more crucial, cosmic element to Taiwan. It is worth defending, if not as a territory, then as an idea: that freedom is compatible with the Chinese world. Taiwan could do a better job strengthening rule of law and fighting corruption. But in many stellar ways, it is the un-China: a vigorous democracy; an alternative fount of Chinese language and culture; an arena of fiercely competitive (and partisan) media; a crucible of creativity (tech, film, food); a haven of environmental consciousness (you'll find recycling bins on remote hilltops). Heck, even the people are nicer -- literally a civil society. China has muscle; Taiwan has soul. It's the true people's republic.

Dennis Engbarth at IPS on how the election will determine the fate of the nuke plants:

Speaking to Taiwan’s six major industrial and commercial federations in late November, the DPP chairwoman said that 'nuclear power is not a clean and inexpensive source of electricity but actually is the most expensive source of power when front-end and back-end and externalised costs, such as dealing with radioactive waste, are considered.'

From AP, China uses trade to influence the election:

The latest polls show Ma and Tsai running nearly neck and neck, and Ma's Nationalist Party losing seats in the legislature but retaining control. Beijing wants to help Ma but realizes that the bombast of the past would alienate the centrist voters he needs to win. So unlike in earlier elections, it is saying little and hoping its economic favors will do the trick instead.

Paul M and Jenny H again in the WSJ:

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's policy of economic opening to China has frustrated a key constituency: struggling middle- and low-income workers, who could cost him elections this week. That outcome would alarm Beijing and heighten uncertainty in an area that has long been a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations.

Bloomberg reports:

“What it comes down to is we think Ma isn’t firm enough and he is led by the nose by China,” C.P. Chen, 76, a retiree, said at Tsai’s rally. “Tsai cares about what the people think and we want someone who will listen to us.”

VOA on the "latest opinion polls":

Latest opinion polls in Taiwan show that President Ma Ying-jeou has lost a once comfortable lead over opposition candidate Tsai Ing-wen from the Democratic Progressive Party ahead of presidential elections scheduled for January 14.

Tsai says she wants a coalition government. Hint: we tried that in the first Chen Administration. Didn't work.

AFP, as usual, can't get anything right. Ma gets surprise boost:

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s re-election chances got a boost Monday when he unexpectedly was endorsed by a close friend of an independent candidate widely seen as diverting votes away from him.

Fu Kun-chi, an influential official in east Taiwan’s Hualien county, said that despite his admiration for the independent, James Soong, he believed Ma was the best choice for the island’s voters.

Fu is a longtime KMTer who left the KMT to run as an independent for the County Chief seat when he didn't get the nomination as the party candidate thanks to some corruption thing or other. It won't have much effect since Hualien is already overwhelmingly pro-KMT and doesn't have many voters to begin with.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Foreign Policy Follies

2012-01-09T10:15:00.002+08:00

Hello, Mr Caterpillar!

Well, I've been using Kindle for over a month now. Let me put it this way: if you want my Kindle, you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. The whole family has one -- so far only one problem: bathroom stays have lengthened considerably.....

Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in Foreign Policy, managing to concentrate an amazing variety of error and Beijing-flavored misunderstanding in just a small space:

Since 1972, the United States has formally accepted the mainland's "one China" formula while maintaining that neither side shall alter the status quo by force.¹Beijing, however, reserves the right to use force, which allows Washington to justify its continued arms sales to Taiwan. In recent years, Taiwan and China have been improving their relationship.² America's decline, however, would increase Taiwan's vulnerability, leaving decision-makers in Taipei more susceptible to direct Chinese pressure and the sheer attraction of an economically successful China. That, at the least, could speed up the timetable for cross-strait reunification, but on unequal terms favoring the mainland.³

1 - US policy is that Taiwan's status is undetermined. As the CRS writes:

The United States has its own position on Taiwan’s status. Not recognizing the PRC’s claim over Taiwan nor Taiwan as a sovereign state, U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as unsettled.

In the 1972 Communique the US acknowledges but does not recognize China's claim to Taiwan. How could someone who once had a major influence over US policy be so ignorant of what that policy is? On the other hand, why am I not surprised?

2 - The CCP and the KMT, not China and Taiwan, have been improving their relationship, using Taiwan as a bargaining chip.

3 - Who on earth could imagine that China would ever annex Taiwan on terms unfavorable to itself? All forms of annexation are inherently favorable to China since it has no valid claim to Taiwan! Nor is "reunification" taking place, since Taiwan has never been part of any Chinese emperor's domain. It is sad that Brzenzski adopts the language and attitude of Beijing throughout this little paragraph.

Speaking of our expansionist counterparts from across the Strait, The Times of India reports that China is once again playing visa games with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh:

India has put "on hold" the visit of a 30-strong military delegation to China next week after Beijing refused to issue a visa to one member, a colonel-rank IAF officer who hails from Arunachal Pradesh.

This comes at a time of cooling tensions, too. China says Arunachal Pradesh is part of China because it contains many ethnic Tibetans, who are "Chinese" because China has annexed Tibet, so all Tibetans are "Chinese." It calls Arunachal Pradesh "South Tibet" and has done other things, such as attempting to block international loans for development in the region, to enforce its completely bogus claim.

The implications of this are scary. How many more years until China starts playing similar visa games with other areas on its radar, like Okinawa? It also shows how one acquisition, Tibet, has lead inexorably to a new claim.

LOVE THE FRAMING: Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

The Philippines protested a new “intrusion” by China in waters it claims to be Philippine territory, a move that threatens to revive tensions over areas of the South China Sea that may contain energy reserves.

LOL. The cause of tension isn't China's increasing aggressiveness, but protests of that aggressiveness.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

The US-Taiwan Business Council & U.S.-Taiwan Relations - 2011: President's Report

2012-01-08T15:22:00.001+08:00

The US-Taiwan Business Council and U.S.-Taiwan Relations: 2011 President's Report is out and all there down below. It's quite useful and balanced. An excerpt:

Despite his significant achievements in cross-Strait relations, and some of the economic benefits that have accrued from those achievements, President Ma has been struggling to maintain a truly meaningful lead over his DPP rival. His leadership and decision-making style – coupled with his chronically tenuous relationship with the party old guard and the political machine they often represent or are associated with – has hurt party cohesion. Key senior Kuomintang (KMT) leaders, such as former Party Chairman Wu Po-hsiung, have even openly admitted that President Ma could use more skill and refinement in his “inter-personal relations”.

In addition, lack of progress on important reforms, lingering public uneasiness with the ultimate objective of his China policy, and an apparently cooling economy have all contributed to Ma’s inability to better capitalize on his incumbent advantage. Taiwan’s economy slowed into the third quarter, with quarterly GDP growth at only 3.37% and with the latest revised yearly GDP growth at 4.38% – down noticeably from the 5.52% originally projected during the summer. The slowdown has been mainly due to an export market dampened by the weakening global economy, currency appreciation, and significantly reduced capital investments in the manufacturing sector.

To see the whole thing, click READ MORE:

President’s Report:
The US-Taiwan Business Council and U.S.-Taiwan Relations - 2011

January 5, 2012

The Taiwan Political Environment

In the lead-up to the January 14, 2012 presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan, the campaigning has been intense and rhetoric-prone. However, at least by Taiwan standards it has been a relatively less emotionally-heated and even slightly more rational campaigning season than during most previous presidential races.

The opposition candidate, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, has so far run a somewhat restrained and disciplined campaign. She has tried to focus on specific issues, and her agenda is centered on improving Taiwan’s social equality and on achieving a more balanced distribution of wealth. For example, in her so-called “10-Year Agenda” released on August 17, 2011 Tsai calls for a pricing system for property sales, suggesting creating a credible and transparent real estate transaction database that would form the basis for rationalization of Taiwan’s real property taxation. The ultimate objective is to tax real property owners based on the actual price of the most recent transaction at current market valuation. This is intended to help redress the uneven wealth distribution problem in Taiwan, which has been fueled in large part by land and property speculation by large, wealthy conglomerates.

In fact, the same exact themes and policy recommendations were also subsequently included in incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou’s “Golden Decade” re-election platform. Clearly, both candidates are well aware of the very strong public demand for more progressive taxation as a means to check the widening wealth gap. In 2010, government statistics claimed that the disposable income gap between the richest 20% and the poorest 20% of Taiwan’s population narrowed slightly – to 6.19 times from 6.34 times in 2009. However, this narrowing was predominantly due to the massive public spending initiatives and welfare subsidy programs implemented by the Ma Administration, which also greatly increased Taiwan’s public debt. The gain was also modest relative to the 10.88% GDP growth Taiwan recorded in 2010.

Despite his significant achievements in cross-Strait relations, and some of the economic benefits that have accrued from those achievements, President Ma has been struggling to maintain a truly meaningful lead over his DPP rival. His leadership and decision-making style – coupled with his chronically tenuous relationship with the party old guard and the political machine they often represent or are associated with – has hurt party cohesion. Key senior Kuomintang (KMT) leaders, such as former Party Chairman Wu Po-hsiung, have even openly admitted that President Ma could use more skill and refinement in his “inter-personal relations”.

In addition, lack of progress on important reforms, lingering public uneasiness with the ultimate objective of his China policy, and an apparently cooling economy have all contributed to Ma’s inability to better capitalize on his incumbent advantage. Taiwan’s economy slowed into the third quarter, with quarterly GDP growth at only 3.37% and with the latest revised yearly GDP growth at 4.38% – down noticeably from the 5.52% originally projected during the summer. The slowdown has been mainly due to an export market dampened by the weakening global economy, currency appreciation, and significantly reduced capital investments in the manufacturing sector.

The presidential contest has also become even more complex following the announcement by Soong Chu-yu (James Soong), former Taiwan Provincial Governor and head of the People First Party (PFP), that he will also take part in the presidential race. Soong is a former KMT heavyweight. Despite his steady fall from grace over the last few years, he still manages to attract support from a segment of the middle-of-the-road voters (including a not insignificant number of Pan-Blue constituents). While many perceive Soong’s announcement as little more than a “spoiling action” aimed at extracting political concessions from the Ma-led KMT – which has tried very hard to deny Soong and his followers any tangible resources or support during the past 3 years – Soong still represents an unwelcome challenge to Ma’s re-election bid. In a prospective three-way race, Ma’s lead would narrow to around 5%, even according to the most favorable of public opinion surveys.

That difference is actually in line with the DPP’s own internal estimate of the gap (3-5%) that Tsai will have to overcome if she is to have a chance of winning the presidency. The core challenges facing Tsai are twofold. First, she must effectively integrate the highly factionalized DPP party power structure, mainly through aggressive alliance-building with the heads of the various fiefdoms within the DPP. Secondly, she must offer a combined policy agenda that satisfies not only the Pan-Green’s traditional core constituencies (i.e. pro-independence, pro-social welfare, pro-plebiscite/referendum, anti-nuclear power, etc.) but that can also somehow appeal to more mainstream, middle-of-the road voters. To do so, she must also distinguish herself from the incumbent Ma Administration. The latter task has proven more difficult than it sounds, since the fundamental policy position differences between the two political parties were fine to begin with. In addition, President Ma also appears willing to readily adopt policy proposals advocated by the opposition, especially as it relates to the domestic agenda.

According to a survey published by Global Views in mid-September (a survey that also turned out to be its last on the presidential election, see below), the difference in support between Ma and Tsai was not more than 1%, a fact that held both in a two-way race (KMT vs. DPP) and in a three-way race (KMT vs. DPP vs. James Soong). In fact, the study suggested that the DPP candidate could actually carry the election in a three-way contest by a very slight (0.2%) margin. Of course, the decisive factor remains the voters who self-identify as not yet having made up their minds – this group numbers between 22.5% of voters in a two-way race, and 18.2% of voters in a three-way race. However, it may be useful to remember that the ruling KMT has been losing significant ground among such undecided (and typically middle-of-the-road) constituencies over the last several local and municipality elections.

The issues surrounding the Global Views Public Opinion Survey Center, Taiwan’s most prestigious and trusted polling service, makes for an interesting footnote to the survey numbers. The Center has announced that it will no longer conduct political polls due to a change in corporate policy, instead focusing on other social and business fields. In addition, the director of the center resigned – hinting in interviews that Global Views’ prediction of a possible Tsai Ing-wen victory in January 2012 (by a margin of 4-6%) might have led to outside pressure on the company to stop conducting surveys of voter support for political candidates. He also noted that, based on his team’s extensive tracking and study of approval rating polls since the 2008 elections, overall support for the ruling KMT has fallen to below 50%. This is a long-term trend that could spell trouble for the KMT in the years to come, even if it does not in January.

Cross-Strait Relations

After repeated delays, the seventh semi-annual Straits Exchange Foundation/Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (SEF/ARATS) meeting was finally held in October in Tianjin, China, to little fanfare. The highlight of the talks was reaching a bilateral nuclear power safety cooperation agreement. The two sides also reached some common understandings in terms of enhancing cross-Strait industrial cooperation and in preparation for the much-anticipated investment protection agreement. No definitive accords were reached on the latter, however. The issue of sovereignty has clearly been a sticking point in the investment protection agreement talks, especially concerning the type of arbitration mechanisms that would be used to settle disputes. The two sides were unable to find common ground to agree on a “gray area” that would be mutually acceptable and would fall within the framework of World Trade Organization (WTO) principles.

Furthermore, under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed last year, Taipei still needs to negotiate with Beijing the tariff reductions on some 4,000 products. The two also have to come to an agreement on access to the China market for Taiwan’s machine tools and service industries. There were no meaningful breakthroughs in these areas during the most recent SEF/ARATS talks, and experts expect future negotiations to be challenging as well. Despite the obvious importance of these particular initiatives to Taiwan, however, the Ma Administration decided to suspend the investment protection agreement talks and allowed the SEF/ARATS meeting to proceed with very few real deliverables on the table. Apparently, Ma was concerned that any further delays to the SEF/ARATS meeting might signal problems in cross-Strait relations and could trigger undesirable political consequences as the 2012 elections approach.

The primary focus of the presidential campaign season will be on domestic issues such as the economy, jobs, wealth distribution, and education. Nevertheless, events have shown that cross-Strait policy initiatives could still have a major political impact on the presidential race. President Ma Ying-jeou recently echoed an initiative first suggested by King Pu-tsung, Ma's campaign manager and closest confidant, in early September – positing that Taiwan would consider a “peace agreement” with China. The statement by Ma on a cross-Strait peace agreement immediately caused a surge of strong reactions from the DPP and from opposition candidate Tsai. More importantly, the mere suggestion that Taiwan might engage in formal political talks with Beijing if Ma wins reelection seems to have alarmed and galvanized core Pan-Green constituents – including some more moderate voters, who may have felt compelled to “circle the wagons” and rally around the DPP candidate on this matter.

President Ma may have felt that it would be safe to test the waters on this sensitive subject matter with the Taiwan populace. Doing so could potentially have served as a goodwill gesture towards China, or – if the voters proved less than enthusiastic – it could still serve as a hint for Beijing to ease off its pressure on Taipei to initiate political dialogue. Indeed, a public opinion poll in July indicated that 50.5% of the Taiwan populace already believed that President Ma would sign a peace accord with Beijing during his second term, if he was re-elected. Nevertheless, while most Taiwan voters agree on the desirability of cross-Strait peace, they are not sure that a peace treaty with China is a high-priority issue in this election, nor if such a treaty would even necessarily guarantee the kind of peace they want.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to President Ma's “peace agreement” statement was powerful enough that it forced him to clarify and water down his concept by adding a series of preconditions. However, some of the suggested preconditions themselves would have been ill-advised politically, the most notable being Ma proposing a referendum/plebiscite to authorize such a pact. This precondition not only failed to impress Beijing, but it also caused a few raised eyebrows in Washington – which has previously opposed cross-Strait related referendums/plebiscites, particularly when held as part of any general/national election. President Ma ended up backpedaling, finally admitting that chances are slim that a peace agreement would even take place within the next four years. The aggressive damage control efforts undertaken to reduce the impact of the backlash suggest the degree to which Ma’s campaign team believes the initiative to have backfired.

Some polls, including one by the National Chengchih University, even suggested that Ma’s peace agreement proposal – coupled with the announcement of James Soong’s candidacy – might have reversed the lead that President Ma had enjoyed over Ms. Tsai during the previous 4 months. According to its reports, the DPP candidate actually holds a small (less than 1%) lead over the incumbent President Ma (in a 3-way race), with the two candidates each credited with a 48%-49% probability of being elected President in 2012.

U.S. Relations

The past 3 months in US-Taiwan bilateral relations have been the most dynamic and positive during the Obama Administration. We have seen an Assistant Secretary of Commerce visit Taiwan, and Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman is slated to visit the week of December 12. The latter represents the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan since Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater visited in 2000. The congressional notification of the F-16 “retrofit” program on September 21 was also a major positive development.

The visit of Deputy Secretary Poneman prior to the Taiwan elections is an especially important commitment for the U.S. to make. The Council supports visits to Taiwan by senior U.S. officials, which helps to support U.S. business interests in the market and ensures that we have direct communication between senior level officials in the two governments.

The Administration’s overall approach seems to have changed over the past 4 months, with an improved view of support for the bilateral relationship. While it is not clear exactly why the Administration has taken these positive steps now, it is likely that they are responding to the democratic process generally – and more specifically the possibility that Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) can win in the January 14 presidential election. In the latter scenario, an un-engaged U.S. would have left Taiwan badly exposed to China should the citizens of Taiwan choose a new President.

Trade Policy

The bilateral U.S.-Taiwan trade relationship has been on hold since 2007, primarily over varying issues pertaining to beef imports. This situation has had a significant impact on overall US-Taiwan ties, as well as on the Council’s ability to serve its membership base.

Taiwan is in the midst of an increasingly important and expansive trade liberalization effort that now includes Singapore, India, Japan, the Philippines, and New Zealand. When I visited Taiwan last month, I came away believing that Australia too was keen to expand its bilateral trade relationship with Taiwan through negotiated liberalization. This ongoing effort is an increasingly significant and positive deliverable from President Ma’s cross-Strait economic policy, which has reduced tensions with China while making Taiwan a more attractive partner in regional and global trade. If President Ma is re-elected, it is likely that Taiwan will sign several additional and significant FTA-like agreements with regional traders.

The increasing traction that Taiwan is gaining on such deals in the region is changing the attitude of Taiwan’s trade negotiators and political leadership. It has tempered their emphasis on the U.S. trade relationship, and has reduced their urgency when it comes to re-engaging with the U.S. by providing concessions on primarily agricultural products (beef, pork, and rice). The U.S. government presently seems to believe that trade negotiations are likely to resume between the January 14, 2012 elections and the May 20 presidential inauguration, but I believe this view to be overly optimistic. I do not expect Taiwan to place itself in a position to overcome the latest issues on beef until the summer of 2012 at the earliest.

With the reduced importance of the U.S. market, the slippage in bilateral business ties is beginning to accelerate as Taiwan’s trade liberalization agenda focuses on other markets. Over the past 10 years, the reflexive position of the U.S. has been to treat Taiwan differently from other major trading partners (e.g. the 3-4 year freeze on IPR), and this strategy is finally coming home to roost. The implications are huge, as it will place the United States in a marginalized trade position, which will not only negatively impact our negotiating leverage but will also result in U.S. exporters underperforming in this top-10 market.

Taiwan’s desire to become a part of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) potentially offers U.S. negotiators renewed leverage, because U.S. support for Taiwan’s inclusion is essential. That said, however, the politics of Taiwan in Washington, D.C. – and the tenuous and highly politicized support for free trade in the Obama administration (e.g. union opposition) – makes the overall prospects for TPP questionable.

Defense Policy

When it comes to bilateral defense issues, a slow start to 2011 ramped up rapidly in the spring and summer as Congress led a charge to inject more vitality into American defense support for Taiwan. In particular, Taiwan’s airpower needs remained unaddressed in the early parts of the year – we have now had consecutive U.S. administrations balking at Taiwan’s request for replacement F-16s for fear it will damage U.S.-China ties. In addition, Taiwan’s 145 in-fleet F-16 A/Bs require significant overhaul as they pass the half way mark in their usefulness.

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate took on leading roles on this issue, sending letters to President Obama advocating the sale of no less than 66 F-16s – letters that were signed by 181 Representatives and 47 Senators, respectively. This effort was led by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), by House Foreign Relations Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and by House Taiwan caucus co-chairs Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Representative Shelley Berkley (D-NV), and Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA).

The leadership provided by Congress increased pressure on the Obama Administration to act. To press the Administration on the sale of replacement F-16s to Taiwan, Senator Cornyn placed a hold on the nomination of William J. Burns as Deputy Secretary of State. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton engaged with Senator Cornyn on how to resolve the issue, and she committed to answering both of the outstanding F-16 issues by October 1, 2011.

On September 21, 2011 the Obama Administration notified to Congress an F-16 upgrade or “retrofit” program valued at no-more than $5.3 billion. The projected cost value allows for significant improvements on Taiwan’s F-16 fleet, if Taiwan negotiates all the options on offer. However, Mrs. Clinton also committed to answering the question of whether or not Taiwan’s Letter of Request for replacement F-16s would be accepted. This matter was not addressed in September – indeed, the Administration’s position remains unchanged, with the matter “still under review”.

During an October 2011 swing through Asia, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted that the United States had given China a “heads up” prior to the September 21 arms package. This suggests that China’s unusually muted response was due to U.S. consideration of China’s position on the issue. It appears that China figured prominently in the decision-making process regarding whether to provide Taiwan with additional replacement F-16s, as well as in the manner in which the September 21 congressional notifications were handled.

In 1982, during negotiations for the Third Joint Communique with China, the Reagan Administration agreed to 6 points guiding its relationship with Taiwan. The six points are:

1. The United States would not set a date for termination of arms sales to Taiwan.
2. The United States would not alter the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act.
3. The United States would not consult with China in advance before making decisions about U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
4. The United States would not mediate between Taiwan and China.
5. The United States would not alter its position about the sovereignty of Taiwan which was, that the question was one to be decided peacefully by the Chinese themselves, and would not pressure Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China.
6. The United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

While all of the above points should remain standard policy in any U.S. deliberation regarding its commitment to North East Asian security, it is point 3 that stands out. The increasingly overt manner in which Chinese considerations of American security interests in the Taiwan Strait are calibrated endangers the status quo. The more able they are to influence the process, the harder China will push.

In October, in response to the continued non-consideration of additional F-16s, Senators Cornyn and Menendez also submitted the Taiwan Airpower Modernization Act (TAMA) to Congress. The legislation received a 48-48 vote (with 4 Republican Senators absent), but the Senators continue to look for opportunities to have the legislation discussed and voted on. A similar bill has been proposed in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Kay Granger (R-TX).

2012

It is encouraging to see the Obama Administration start to execute on a Taiwan policy these past few months. The fall of 2011 has seen more US-Taiwan activity than the prior 32 months combined. It is very much the Council’s hope that the Obama Administration will continue to assert American interests with Taiwan in 2012 and that there are additional priorities for continuing to move forward.

Council priorities for the New Year will include:

- Arguing for a full resumption of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), without preconditions and with an agenda that identifies significant areas of liberalization. The Council does not support the continued prioritization of parochial agricultural issues at the expense of more significant bilateral trade sectors.
- Continuing to argue for the acceptance of the Letter of Request for no fewer than 66 F-16C/Ds to replace Taiwan’s ancient fleet of F-5s and its retiring Mirage 2000-5s.
- Continuing to advocate for resuming U.S. cabinet level visits to Taiwan.
- Advocating for Taiwan’s inclusion in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).
- Continuing to advocate for moving ahead with the April 2001 U.S. commitment to assist Taiwan in procuring diesel-electric submarines.

The US-Taiwan Business Council remains committed to promoting the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. We thank our entire membership, colleagues, and friends for their support in 2011, and wish you every happiness and success in 2012.

Sincerely yours,

Rupert J. Hammond-Chambers
President
US-Taiwan Business Council

********************
US-Taiwan Business Council
1700 North Moore Street
Arlington, Virginia 22209
Phone: (703) 465-2930
Fax: (703) 465-2937
council@us-taiwan.org

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Just a note on Soong and Chen

2012-01-08T15:15:00.001+08:00

A PFP candidate's poster in Fengyuan in Greater Taichung

I've been riding the bike on short jaunts lately, around the area, due to overload of work, rain, and cold. One thing I've noticed is that the Soong campaign does not appear to be stinting or going into draw down -- I've seen new posters and sound trucks all over the northern section of the Taichung area and southern Miaoli. While this is only a tiny sample of the island, it appears to me to indicate that Soong is going to stay in to the bitter end, and not drop out and ask people to vote for Ma. If he can get his vote total up to the 6-10% that some polls show, he might enable the Tsai campaign to win despite the ugly negative turn in the campaign.

Go Soong!

Chen Shui-bian came out for the funeral of his mother in law this week. Fortunately, he engendered no controversies. Good news, that.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

More violations of political neutrality? =UPDATED=

2012-01-08T12:04:00.003+08:00

Word coming down the grapevine is that NEXT media's cable TV channel launch will be delayed. Since Next broke the story of the security agencies apparently collecting information on DPP candidate Tsai for use by the Ma campaign, the National Communications Commission has begun throwing up obstacles to completion of the launch of the new station, say Next insiders.[UPDATE: I've heard that the NCC points out that the license was granted in the summer so any problems that Next is encountering are between Next and its cable operators.]

The Miaoli county prosecutors office made a move that sure looks like it was aimed at impairing a DPP legislative candidate's election prospects: it indicted him for defamation....

The Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office’s decision on Thursday to indict political commentator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) and Ho Po-wen (何博文), a DPP legislative candidate, on charges of public defamation just days before the elections was unacceptable, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said yesterday.

Just days before the election. The defamation case dates from June of 2010, the two men in question had already issued public apologies, and suddenly, 18 months later, right before the election, the prosecutors issue an indictment for defamation.

This case highlights how criminalizing mere public insult has an underlying authoritarian application....
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Daily Links:

Andrew Jacobs with an NYTimes video on the piggies.
China calls US "troublemaker." Just like they did with the Chen Administration.
Little Trouble in Big China as Taiwanese expression of contempt for China (too often not held in check by Taiwanese) leads to a confrontation over China's claim to Taiwan.
Taiwan reports its first case of H5N2 avian flu, in Changhua.
My Kafkaesque Life on the Best Taiwan blog contest.

Brookings Monster Seminar on Election on Jan 17

2012-01-07T21:33:00.002+08:00

Zoca Pizza (location). Easily the best pizza in Taipei; the crust is pure heaven.

Brookings is hosting a big seminar on Jan 17 to discuss the elections. Both pro-Ma and pro-Tsai speakers and discussants. Although most of the names will be familiar at least, with the next president known, they might have something new to say. Click on READ MORE for the info....

http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/0117_taiwan_elections.aspx

A CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AND CENTER FOR NORTHEAST ASIAN POLICY STUDIES EVENT

Taiwan’s Presidential and Legislative Elections: Implications for Taiwan, the United States, and Cross-Strait Relations

Event Summary

On January 17, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings (CNAPS) and the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies will host a seminar analyzing the results of Taiwan’s January 14 presidential and legislative elections. The outcomes of the elections remain uncertain, and the results will have impact not only on the daily lives of Taiwan’s people, but also on relations with China and the United States.

The discussion will feature speakers from across Taiwan’s political spectrum, as well as experts from the United States, China, and the United Kingdom. Panelists will analyze the results of the election, identify pressing policy issues for the winning presidential candidate, and explore how the results may affect cross-Strait relations and the United States.

After each panel, speakers will take audience questions.
Participants

9:00 AM -- Introduction
Richard C. Bush III
Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies

Bonnie Glaser
Senior Fellow, Freeman Chair in China Studies and Senior Associate, Pacific Forum
Center for Strategic and International Studies

9:15 AM -- Panel 1: Analysis of the Presidential and Legislative Elections
Moderator: Edward McCord

Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Director, Taiwan Education and Research Program
The George Washington University

Antonio Chiang
Columnist
Apple Daily

Dafydd Fell
Senior Lecturer in Taiwan Studies and Deputy Director, Centre of Taiwan Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Chu Yun-han
Distinguished Research Fellow, Institute of Political Science
Academia Sinica

10:45 AM -- Panel 2: Lessons from the Past, and Policy Issues for the New Administration

Moderator: Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
Professor of History, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
David Wei-Feng Huang

Associate Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies
Academia Sinica
Douglas Paal

Vice President for Studies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Kao Su-Po
Executive Director, The 21st Century Foundation
Associate Professor of Law, Shih Hsin University

12:15 PM -- Keynote Address: The Taiwan Election and What It Means

Richard C. Bush III
Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies

1:45 PM -- Panel 3: Implications for the United States and Cross-Strait Relations

Moderator: Cynthia Watson
Professor of Strategy
National War College

Bonnie Glaser
Senior Fellow, Freeman Chair in China Studies and Senior Associate, Pacific Forum
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Alexander Chieh-Cheng Huang
Assistant Professor
Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies

Lai I-chung
Executive Committee Member
Taiwan Thinktank

Chu Shulong
Professor, Institute of International Strategy and Development
Tsinghua University

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Chinese tourists want to experience election atmosphere

2012-01-06T18:28:00.001+08:00

WantChinaTimes reports....

Seventy-eight flights from China to Taiwan have been added Jan. 13, the day before Taiwan's presidential election. The figure amounts to almost half of the additional 174 flights during the first traveling peak for Chinese tourists, which is expected to occur between Jan. 9 and Jan. 13, reported the Want Daily, the Chinese-language sister newspaper of Want China Times.

The Chinese definitely can learn from the experience of Taiwan. News like this shows why the CCP is absolutely terrified by Taiwan's democracy and how potent this soft power is.
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Daily Links:

A very positive, but sometimes unintentionally humorous article about Tsai from Reuters. It reads like the writer hasn't spent much time here -- on an island full of skilled freelancers, why do papers continue to source reports from such individuals? The same writer also produced one on Ma Ying-jeou.
Paul Mozur in the WSJ with a really good piece on Taiwan, temples, and politics. From The Chung, no less. Not often in the mainstream media do we see a piece noting the role of temples.
Ma camp says its margin of victory will be about 500,000 votes. I guess publishing of poll results is ok provided they don't talk about percentages... as Soong said: “That is obviously playing games with the law."
NYTimes interview with Tsai Ing-wen: here and Ma Ying-jeou here.
Americans must stand up for Taiwan's democracy.
Mongabay with a great article on saving the Alangyi Trail
Huge local news here: two Taiwanese students killed in Japan. This looks like one of those possessive male crimes, man killing a woman who had turned him down. Very sad.

Donnelly and Armstrong: Awesome

2012-01-06T17:31:00.001+08:00

CSMonitor hosted a wonderful opinion piece from two longtime Taiwan analysts and observers, Fulton Armstrong and Neal Donnelly. Please read the whole thing, but here's a highlight....

In politics, the Taiwanese feel that, in addition to building a democratic culture, they have worked hard to coexist with the Chinese among them and across the Taiwan Strait. Except in isolated incidents in the aftermath of the “2-28 Massacre” in 1947, in which thousands of Taiwanese died, the mainlanders have never been attacked or even harassed. The Taiwanese have voted for mainlanders, including President Ma, when they campaigned on pro-Taiwan platforms.

This is the pattern for Taiwanese – humiliation to which they respond with patience. In a remote hamlet of eastern Taiwan in 1968 with no inns, a Taiwanese family offered an American cyclist a bed for the night, but the police said the foreigner had to leave – until a mainlander next door volunteered to take him in. The Taiwanese family was deeply embarrassed, but they gracefully gave way to the mainlanders.

Taiwanese children punished for speaking their native tongues in school have over time accepted Chinese as the official national language. When the deadly SARS virus spread to Taiwan from China in 2003, and China blocked Taiwan’s participation in international meetings about it, the humiliation was profound. But Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian channeled all energy into overcoming the crisis.

The cultural symbols of the Taiwanese remain the yam and the water buffalo – not the Chinese dragon or Japanese rising sun. The people of Taiwan are not out to make the world in their image, but simply ask the world to let them be themselves in peace and freedom.

The incident referred to is a story of Neal Donnelly's. In 1968 he biked the east coast (imagine that). One night he stopped at a hamlet and asked for a place to stay. Of course a local Taiwanese family offered to take him in. Unrestricted access to the local Taiwanese couldn't be permitted by the mainlander security state running Taiwan, so the police came over and made him leave -- though he was permitted to stay at the house of a mainlander who volunteered to take him in, since that was politically acceptable. Hopefully Neal will be able to run down his pics of that trip so I can post them here on the blog...
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

NYTimes: Ripe badness turning purplish-black in the harsh light of the facts

2012-01-05T14:22:00.012+08:00

I'll start this post with my customary thanks: thanks, media, for writing mediocre, erroneous, shallow stuff. Thanks for regurgitating the political propaganda of authoritarian parties. Thanks for adopting the Establishment's shibboleths as analytical stances. These ugly habits means that we bloggers will always have an audience hungry to know what is actually going on. Thanks, guys.

Today my gratitude specifically goes out to the NYTimes writing on the election, whose organization, apparently, has de-installed Google from its office machines.

Lots of things caught my eye, starting with this:

Even in some of Ms. Tsai’s party’s traditional bases of support, like the largely ethnic Taiwanese population of southern Pingtung County where she was born, are tilting toward the Nationalists. Since 2008, mainland officials, encouraged by Mr. Ma’s new trade policies, have been offering princely sums for every last mango, banana and orchid the Pingtung farmers grow.

Well, we have had a few well publicized trade missions, but the underlying numbers are quite different from what the NYTimes implies. The US, Japan, and Netherlands take ~ 40%, 30% and 5% of Taiwan's orchid exports, respectively (source). Orchids are interesting because the most cursory search of the internet will immediately turn up John Adams' article from the Global Post on orchids (Taiwan is the world's leading producer). The actual relationship between China and Taiwan in the orchid market is a good example of how the new closeness to China harms the island in the long run while enriching its firms in the short run.

Taiwan firms have also played a key role in the birth of mainland China's mass-produced flower business. Beginning in the early 1990s, Taiwan firms moved across the Strait, especially to the area around Kunming, in southwest Yunnan Province, which has an ideal climate for horticulture.

Taiwan firms typically produce for the Chinese domestic market, and serve as middlemen between Chinese growers and foreign breeders.

Tai-Ling serves the China market from a branch in Shanghai that employs 70 to 80 Chinese workers. Production costs are half what they are in Taiwan, but managing director Liu says Taiwanese workers are far better — one of them can do the job of two typical Chinese workers, he says, erasing the mainland's cost advantage. And Japan remains his most important market by far, he says, because Chinese still don't have regular buying patterns.

Wait...what? Taiwan tech gradually transferred to China and the local market serviced by local production, while exports from China-based Taiwan firms compete with Taiwan-based exports in traditional markets? That's probably too complex for the NYTimes, and doesn't fit the prevailing establishment narrative about the greatness of ECFA (there's another good backgrounder here). The NYTimes could have used this as a teachable moment so its audience could get a better handle on why Tsai and Ma are running neck and neck in the election.....

As I said, pieces like this show how Taiwanese firms are transferring know-how to China -- this flow is so important that China has established agricultural industrial districts whose express purpose is to poach ag tech from Taiwan:

The mainland Chinese authorities have reportedly established 25 "Taiwan Farmers Pioneer Parks", whose sole purpose it is to steal Taiwanese agricultural know-how. Despite Taiwan's farming industry constituting only 1.5% of gross domestic product, or US$11.8 billion, the cross-strait transfer of farming secrets is considered a threat to the 540,000 Taiwanese employed in the sector.

But never mind that, the NYTimes says everything is simple and peachy-keen and so it is. Orchid exports to China are of course rising, but this is because the orchids and more importantly, the technology for producing them, travels along supplier-distributor networks from Taiwan to China whose establishment and growth long predates ECFA.

Speaking of ag, what about those bananas? For that I just searched my blog:

Sources said six agricultural items from the early harvest list failed to reach NT$1 million in export value and the total shipment was less than 4 tonnes, with squid not being sold at all.

Less than 1 tonne of lemons and less than 2 tonnes of both honeydew melons and dragon fruit were sold, they said.

The export value and volume of oranges and bananas were only 50 and 20 percent respectively, compared with last year, sources said.

What, exports of bananas falling off? Say it ain't so!

Finally, for mangoes, Google will soon reveal that Japan is Taiwan's biggest mango export market and that mangos sell in Japan for several times more than the "princely sum" China puts out... but there's no need for me to tell you. You have Google on your computer.

So what about that awesome agricultural gain from ECFA that's causing all those Pingtung farmers to think Blue? I took a look at the numbers a few months ago:

Ok, in the 18 ag product categories, there was a total gain of US$95.7 million. Now hold still, because a couple of paragraphs later come some numbers.
In the 18 categories, the sale of live groupers surged by a whopping 192 percent year-on-year to an export value of US$79.66 million, she said. Chang attributed the increase mainly to the ECFA “early harvest” tariff concession program and the opening of 15 Chinese seaports for direct shipping links.
So... maybe I am reading this wrong, but of the $95.7 million increase, $79.66 million is groupers. 83% of the increase is from one product! Add the number given by the spokesperson for tea exports, $7.37 million, and 90% of the gain is from just two products. We're not succeeding in agricultural products, just in raising fish. Subtract that $79.66 million and the agricultural deficit sucks -- which shows how important definitions of what counts as agriculture are -- most people when they hear the word "agriculture" don't think of fish.

Oh yeah, there is no awesome gain even using the COA's own numbers. Are the Pingtung farmers turning blue? Well, perhaps, but its more likely to be from holding their breath waiting for the profits from China to arrive (latest ag figures show no mighty gains or losses).

Always a problem, but never mentioned in neoliberal discourse: agricultural smuggling from China has skyrocketed, meaning that Taiwan's exports are duly counted by the government, but imports from China are duly undercounted. Hence trade gains are overstated.

C'mon folks, all this stuff is on the blog and net and readily accessible. Argh. If I were to speculate, I would bet money that the head of the association Jacob quotes on the bottom of the first page is merely spreading some pro-Ma propaganda. Making sure that associations are headed by pro-Blue types is one of the most important ways the KMT retains control of local institutions and local messaging.

Let's look at some of the other stuff, which I think reproduces so many of the problems we've been seeing in the international media over the years.... first there are the "striking similarities"....

On paper and in person, the two bear striking similarities. Educated abroad — Mr. Ma at Harvard and New York University, and Ms. Tsai at Cornell and the London School of Economics — they spent their early careers in academia. Both are reluctant campaigners, wonkish rather than telegenic. Each promises generous social spending and a city’s worth of low-cost housing.

"...they spent their early careers in academia." Once again, that amazing invention, Google, takes you to another incredible invention, Wiki, whose entry on Ma will rapidly inform you that Ma's early career was spent in politics and government, first in the President's office under the second of the Chiangs, then to the RDEC, then the MAC, and then the post of Justice Minister. Academia was where Ma fled to from politics after Lee removed him from that last post. I'll leave finding Tsai's Wiki page an exercise for the reader, who, unlike the NYTimes, probably has access to Google.

There's another way this equivalency is false, and that is its significant omission: Ma was a scion of the KMT security state, and studied at Harvard in one of those programs aimed at cultivating up and coming talent from security states allied to the US. As I predicted months ago, no foreign publication from a democratic state is ever going to put Ma in the proper context of his long opposition to democracy and support for authoritarianism. Sad. There is no equivalency between Ma and Tsai, except the most superficial one of a foreign education. Trust the NYTimes to reach for that one.

Even Ma's alleged wonkishness is no more than a veneer of brains and the ability to stay on message. The actual policy wonk is Tsai, who spent many years toiling behind the scenes in policymaking positions.

I hope the next media report drops this stereotypical approach to Ma and Tsai and instead shows how completely different they are.

The NYTimes observes in another reach for (false) "balance":

The race has been dominated by parochial concerns and mudslinging. Last week, Ms. Tsai and her surrogates accused the president of using the intelligence authorities to monitor her campaign illegally. The Ma camp has been raising questions about Ms. Tsai’s role in a state-financed biotech company that yielded her handsome profits. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

ROFL. There's so much awesome badness I could spend the whole blog post unpacking it. Quickly...

Of course the issues are parochial from the NYTimes' perspective, it's an election held in another country!
The negative campaigning is only a feature of the last couple of weeks.
The accusation that the government is spying on Tsai was not made initially by the Tsai camp but by NEXT media which is hardly a surrogate of the Tsai campaign. For shame. Whereas the attacks on Tsai come from a government minister and appear to be a violation of neutrality.
The "handsome profits" claim is total KMT propaganda over which the DPP is now suing and from which its original proponents have all quietly backed away. Disgusting that the NYTimes has chosen to give it the imprimatur of a paper of record. Tsai's "investment" was $220 million of which she was paid $10 million for the use of her money for pitiful annualized gains of ~3.5% (here's the pro-KMT China Post on it). But I guess the NYTimes didn't dare look that one up in Google -- might break a fingernail typing or something. Although I suppose to that when you come from the anemic economy whose screwed-up Establishment the NYTimes cheerleads for, 3.5% a year probably does seem like handsome returns.
No mention of the government getting busted engaging in what looks like forgery in attempt to rewrite the history.

Rather than go for a "balance" the NYTimes could have simply printed the truth, which is much more interesting. Imagine:

The election has been dominated by key local concerns. Until a few weeks ago, when the KMT accused Tsai Ing-wen of illegally profiting from an investment in a government-funded biotech firm, the campaign had been going to the DPP, which had run a tight ball-control campaign with few mistakes, while the Ma camp stumbled from one error to another. The Ma camp's poor showing in the campaign, combined with locally important issues such as income stagnation, rising housing prices, and the widespread perception that Ma is too close to China, explain why Tsai has managed to pull even with Ma in the election.

If you read the article carefully, it does state that the two candidates are neck and neck but does not appear to clearly explain how they got that way.

Interestingly the article headed in that direction at the beginning with its excellent opening emphasizing that Ma faces many of the concerns faced elsewhere in the world, but the quickly turned to the bog-standard outside view that Taiwanese spend their days thinking about the cross-strait relationship.The NYTimes presents a quote from Nathan Batto of the excellent blog Frozen Garlic....

Nathan Batto, a political scientist at the Academia Sinica, a research institute in Taipei, said that the underlying issue for many voters was whether Taiwan could remain autonomous.

“The single question that frames all elections here is who we are and what do we want to be,” he said. “Should Taiwan get closer to China or keep its distance?”

Outsiders look at Taiwan and see only the cross-strait relationship; that is the framing the NYTimes is using (not Batto). But for locals the cross-strait relationship is a thing that they do every day and the "negative" side of which is already settled in their minds: we are not part of China and we don't want to be part of China. The "positive" identity: What is Taiwanese/Taiwan/ROC and how are they related, is still being worked out, and I feel it is likely that at some point the Taiwanese will become a sort of Not-China in the way Canada is a kind of Not-America. In any case it is precisely because Ma violated the negative consensus by moving Taiwan too close to China that he got in trouble.

In Taiwanese minds how China should be handled is simple: no political closeness, plenty of economic interaction -- that is what the locals want, and that is why Ma repeatedly has shushed talk of political negotiations. In other words, for outsiders, Taiwanese identity is seen in the shadow of cross-strait relations, for locals, it is the other way around......

Thus, the question is probably more like "how should our closeness to China be managed so that we don't get swallowed". To the extent that voters are voting on China, that is what they are voting on. But mostly they are voting on a host of far more urgent local concerns, ranging from nuclear power to land prices to incomes to farm subsidies to local identities.

There's so much more I could say (are the businessmen in China as pro-Ma as the NYTimes thinks? What data is that based on?)(the DPP didn't irritate China; China chooses to be irritated). But I have to stop now. My fingernails are all chipped from too much accessing of Google....

PS: Yup. As of Sunday the 8th, The NYTimes does not appear to have taken a single letter on this piece.

REF: Longer article on orchids.
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Daily Links:

Ballots and Bullets with another excellent hosting, this one by J Michael on the non-impact of all the scandals and accusations. The scandals are par for the course for a major election, which reduces their impact on voters.
ETRC runs down the problems for poor Beijing, all jittery over the possibility of a DPP victory.
Taiwan to move to number 3 exporter of machinery.
Taiwan dollar on the rise.

The future of Ma

2012-01-05T12:19:00.001+08:00

A friend sent my this asking rhetorically why anyone votes KMT.

The majority of locals detest President Ma. KMT party elites refused to support him during his first Chairmanship run, instead supporting current legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng. Many voters picking him support him out of the quasi-religious social identity that makes one KMT, or because they imagine that he is good for business. One almost feels sorry for him, he's so widely disliked.

So it's fun to think about what kind of effect losing the upcoming election will have on his political future. What will post-Presidential life be like for the man? Leave a comment.....
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Spying Story has Legs!

2012-01-04T19:14:00.002+08:00

Ballots and Bullets, which is offering some really excellent pieces on the election, serves up Bo Tedards' piece on the Spying Scandal that lays out everything quite clearly....

Moreover, the history of these agencies, especially the MJIB (known during the Martial Law era as the Garrison Command) makes such activities seem plausible. Wiretapping has always been widespread in Taiwan, and as recently as Chen Shui-bian’s term in office, the KMT accused him of carrying out quite similar election-related operations. Amid such accusations, a law to prohibit misuse of the intelligence agencies was enacted for the first time in 2005. Ma made a very specific point of including in his inauguration speech in 2008 that under his Administration, illegal wiretapping would not be tolerated, showing that he understood this to be a current issue.

This story is reverberating across the international media, so Tedards' piece is timely. AP had a story the other day; today it was the Guardian, whose article is worth accessing because of the pricelessly loony picture of Ma Ying-jeou they used. BBC also wrote a good piece on it. I've often argued that BBC's pro-China stance is a problem of the editors and not of the correspondents in the field, and their take is good evidence. The article ends with:

The two intelligence agencies have not explained why they allegedly gathered information about potential votes Ms Tsai could get from her supporters, says the BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei.

Improving ties
The president has denied receiving any information about Ms Tsai. His campaign spokesman has said that the allegations were without evidence and irresponsible.

The jostle between the two candidates is being closely watched by the US and China.

Our correspondent says that Taiwan's relations with China could take a turn for the better or the worse depending on who is elected.

Note the subheading there -- "improving ties." Nothing in the text discusses "improving ties". The correspondent didn't mention it. Somewhere an editor inserted that reflexively, because the article mentioned Ma Ying-jeou, who is reflexively associated with "improving ties." This error neatly captures BBC's reflexive support for the pro-China side. Note that the reporter, Cindy Sui, ends the piece on spying allegations by affirming the claim that the agents were collecting data on voting patterns.

The last paragraph is wrong, of course -- China relations will take a turn for the better or worse depending on what China does. They could well take a turn for the worse if Ma is elected and China decides it wants to annex Taiwan NOW. D'oh.
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Daily Links:

KMT is continuing to push the Yuchang case and is now attempting to paint Tsai as another Chen. I'm lovin' it.
Ben argues that "boring" is the wrong word for this election.
Frozen Garlic blogs on Su, Lu and the 1997-8 election campaign in Taipei County.
Matt Gibson interviews the wonderful Steve Crook about his guidebook and travel writing.
USTDC, a great blog which I really enjoy, thanks one and all for the Best Blog Award.

Poll Hilarity from AFP =UPDATED=

2012-01-03T21:26:00.006+08:00

I don't understand why AFP, the French press group, bothers to station people out here when they can just source their news from Xinhua with exactly the same effect and at much lower cost. Today AFP ran a piece on the polls....

Forty-four percent of 2,011 people interviewed by the United Daily News said they would vote for Ma...

A TVBS news channel poll showed similar results, as Ma maintained a lead of eight percentage points with 45 percent over...

However, Ma and Tsai were much closer in a survey issued by the Taipei-based China Times...

Yes, that's right. AFP ran a piece on the polls from this election, used only polls from pro-Ma newspapers, and didn't mention to its readers (the poor things) that the polls it was using were from papers supporting Ma.

But there is more....

Taiwan polls issued close to presidential elections have a history of predicting the outcomes relatively accurately.

In 2008, opinion polls indicated that Ma enjoyed up to a 20-point advance over DPP candidate Frank Hsieh, and he went on to win the election by almost 17 percentage points.

In 2008, late Feb polling for the Mar 22th election had the KMT up by 28% (UDN) and 26% (China Times), not "up to 20%". In the China Times March 10 poll, the numbers were an identical 26% (UDN had Ma with a 30% lead according to this). They did predict the winner correctly, but underestimated the DPP numbers by 17-18% (and Ma's by about 10%). They way overestimated the victory margin. I suppose you could call that relative accuracy.....

It is quite true that in '04 a number of polls, including the last China Times polls, had the two sides much closer. It is difficult to quickly round up poll data from the 2000 election. Niou and Paolino note:

According to a telephone survey conducted by the China Times on January 20, 24% of the respondents were inclined to vote for the independent candidate James Soong, 23% for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian, and only 19% for Lien if the election were held then.

In 2000 the publicly reported polls were so bad, especially the KMT polls which claimed that Lien had a huge lead over Soong but was neck and neck with Chen, that many KMT voters were misled into thinking that Lien was leading and voted for him even though he had no chance of winning.

This experience may explain the kind of polling that is being reported in the local media for the current election. Apparently many netizens are reporting being called by pollsters who proceed to ask only about Ma and Tsai, and do not mention Soong at all. If these reports are true, by reducing Soong's chances to win, perhaps certain pollers may be hoping that voters will vote strategically for Ma.

ADDED: There is a round-up of current polls here:

To summarize the results, all standard polls show Ma in the lead, with a range of margins ranging from 8 points (United Daily News, TVBS) to 0.7 points (Taiwan ThinkTank). The respective blue and green biases of those three sources seem to show through clearly. The DPP also released its internal polls, which are historically quite accurate, but of course they don’t release the parts they don’t want people to see. With a different methodology consisting of combining polls from over 60 legislative districts, they announced that they expect Tsai to win by 1 point, on a turnout of 78-80% (for more details of the DPP’s methodology, see this report in the Taipei Times.) Finally, the much-talked about xFuture/NCCU Exchange of Future Events has Tsai in the lead by 7.2% (Tsai 49.8, Ma 42.6, Soong 10.7) and this trend has been consistent since mid-December. Exchange of Future Events claims accuracy of 95% two months ahead of 2008 presidential elections and 97.6% on the eve of the election day.

The "International Committee for Fair Elections in Taiwan" which operates the website consists largely of pro-Green individuals.

UPDATED: Businessweek (Bloomberg) did the same thing.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Tuesday Night Flights

2012-01-03T17:46:00.001+08:00

News from all over....

The Atlantic reports that US Vice President Joe Biden is going to be in charge of China during 2012, which will feature leadership transitions in China, in Taiwan (hopefully) and in the US with election and second term of President Obama. Biden is not known to be a friend of Taiwan; with new leadership in Beijing, the Obama Administration is likely to begin with another round of concessions on permanent issues for temporary gains. The article says:

The view of some of the administration's China-handlers is that management of US-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges that the administration's approach needs to be both broad and managed with "a deep and senior bench." The evolution of many functional offices at the Department of State and Treasury tasked with various line items in the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue has helped stabilize many aspects of the relationship and has helped to benchmark meeting to meeting progress on core concerns.

The US-China relationship will be very interesting during Obama's second term....

WSJ blogs on the sudden re-appearance of Chen Shui-bian as it is likely he will attend the funeral of his wife's mother next week. Chen Shui-bian will receive permission to attend, will only be given three hours out of prison, will spend only a half-hour at the services, and must wear shackles and leg irons and be attended by guards at all times. Most of that is according to the law. There doesn't seem to be anything very political about the KMT's decision, in fact they seem to be loosely following the law -- the smart move for them would be to grant special clemency, let him speak to the press, and generally cause a ruckus that would harm the DPP four days before the election. But they hate him too much.

It's way cool that Korea is now a cultural exporter, with K-pop making it big all over the world. Unfortunately competition with Korea is a sore point for the locals. Case in point....

In 2010, Taiwanese TV stations aired 162 Korean dramas or an average of 13 dramas per month. They broadcast as many as 120 Korean dramas in last year`s first half, yet Korean dramas have faced a flurry of negative sentiments there. In September 2011, Wu Denyih, Taiwan`s administration chief, said, “Taiwanese TV programs are outdated and boring, and are filled with Korean dramas,” criticizing the excessive airing of Korean shows. Recently, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission requested that Taiwanese broadcasters refrain from airing Korean dramas. As an example, one TV station was advised to air programs other than Korean dramas for at least one hour between 6 p.m. to midnight per day.

The weirdness of Taiwanese avidly watching Korean soaps despite the sensitivity of Taiwanese about things Korean has yet to be fully plumbed in the media or academia, AFAIK. The Taiwan National Communications Commission (NCC) recently ordered Gala TV to reduce its broadcasting of Korean soaps. Interestingly, this does not seem to have become an election issue for either party.

The Asian manufacturing picture is clouding, says WSJ. Manufacturing data have contracted for the fifth straight month in Korea and the seventh straight month in Taiwan (but the rate of decline is slowing). WSJ writes:

In Taiwan, HSBC's PMI remained well below 50 in December, though at 47.1 it did beat November's 43.7. Some 70% of Taiwan's gross domestic product comes from exporting electronic components, technology products and petrochemicals, leaving the small island particularly exposed to a global slowdown.

The effect of this steady slowdown on the Jan 14 elections may be muted because it has been so steady; people are adjusting to it as the new normality. Local makers like bike industry firms are waiting to see what will happen after Chinese New Year, as Europe implodes and America dithers, amid fears that the China market is looking like the bubble there might finally go ka-boom.

Portnoy has a great collection of Netizen's questions for the President over at Ballots and Bullets. Consider:

The ECFA that Government signed with China is designed to reduce the bilateral trade restrictions, however, the biggest barrier between Taiwan and China is nothing but Internet and information. It is well known, China’s Golden Shield is the most complex system for filtering and control of Internet speech. The gradual implementation of the Web site registration and users’ real-name system, among other measures, are turning the Internet in China into an Intranet. Many websites from Taiwan are blocked in China, and many Chinese websites in are extremely slow in Taiwan, which is extremely inconvenient for netizens to communicate on both sides. If you are elected, will you prioritize this issue, and how will you negotiate with China?

Finally, Taihan has an excellent post on Taiwan's short-term energy security prospects. This is a comprehensive review and no excerpt can do justice to it. Go thou and read!
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Daily Links:

WaPo hosts a video offering interviews with Ma and Tsai and coverage of the election. It's the usual line from Ma. He is always on message.
Last DPP poll has Tsai up by a point. So they say. The KMT says its polls show their guy will win.
AP actually reported on allegations that Ma is using the security forces to spy on Tsai Ing-wen. .
Drew says Ma distances himself from the 1 Bike 1 promotion which looked like a thinly disguised campaign rally.
Ang Lee drives US effects firm investment here in Taiwan.

Happy New Years! 13 days to go...

2012-01-01T21:25:00.008+08:00

Love the Powershot S95s color accent function... it produces such interesting shots.

Remember when Ma promised to establish a Ministry of Ocean Affairs? -- no doubt the public's disappointment with that failure is behind is low satisfaction ratings.

The mother of former President Chen's wife has passed away. Chen is petitioning to be let out Jan 10, four days before the election. Hopefully the KMT will block this move. Hopefully someone from the DPP will take him aside and explain how he can negatively affect the elections if he opens his mouth. Hopefully some bright boy will solve all the problems by advising the family to move the funeral back five days....

Announce plans to privatize the Grand Hotel right before the election? Totally not political, says the ruling party. The opposition candidate accusing the ruling party of smears? The opposition candidate accused of benefiting from insider knowledge in a business deal? The president visiting the Spratlys with a month to go in the election denying that the visit had anything to do with the election? Those are all from 2008.... Yes, it's deja vu all over again here in 2012. And of course, like 2008, the US favoring Ma Ying-jeou (AP):

Washington has been lavishing attention on Taiwan, stepping up official visits and saying it will likely allow visa-free travel to the U.S. The moves are raising suspicions that America is trying to influence a tight presidential election here in January.

President Ma Ying-jeou has seized on Washington's favors, touting them as reasons voters should re-elect him. The Taipei Times, which supports his main opponent, Tsai Ing-wen, said in an editorial: "Foolhardy or malicious, inadvertent or by design, the U.S. has taken sides in next month's elections."

The reporter cites two longtime scholars and analysts of things Taiwan, June Teufel Dreyer and Arthur Waldron. It also contains the usual tiresome pro-Beijing slant:

By contrast, Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party supports formal independence from China, as opposed to the de facto independence Taiwan has now. Her predecessor as party leader, Chen Shui-bian, frequently angered Beijing — and gave America fits — when he was president from 2000-2008. Though Tsai has backed away from his brinksmanship with China, she has never publicly renounced independence.

"....she has never publicly renounced independence." Readers can understand how completely biased this is if you imagine some universe where in the mid-1980s AP writes of Vaclev Havel: "Though Havel has not angered Moscow and its Czech puppet rulers as much as his fellow travelers, he has never publicly renounced his support of democracy." Resistance to Soviet expansion? Huge approval for that. Resistance to Chinese expansion? Not so much, thank you. There's just no need at all for the last sentence of that paragraph..... AP could have put Tsai in context and neatly explained part of her appeal: "Like an increasing majority of Taiwanese, Tsai supports eventual independence for Taiwan." Or injected balance: "Tsai is known to support eventual independence for Taiwan, just as Ma has publicly stated on many occasions that he supports eventual unification." Or....

It must be said that the western media coverage this time around is not nearly as ugly as it was last time.

The Ma government made some interesting moves recently to shore up its election hopes. One was to announce that males born after 1994 will need to serve only four months of military service. This was immediately criticized as pandering to voters, which no doubt it was. Every government does this, the DPP did it in 2008. No doubt whoever wins will do it again in 2016.

Locally roads seem to be undergoing repairs all over the nation, and a section of the new expressway in eastern Taichung was opened on the 31st. The money taps are opening....

My man Drew remarked yesterday that now that Ma has stopped trying to win, he's doing much better. Let's hope this descent into the negative maelstrom two weeks before the election won't hurt the DPP too much.

Oh yeah, Happy 2012, everyone!
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Daily Links:

Droll article on Nobody Keen to Answer the Big Taiwan Question down in Oz.
Frozen Garlic with excellent post on Taitung county legislative politics.
China pressures Chinese magazine on Taiwan election jaunt.
Crowd-funded investigative journalism to begin in Taiwan

Legislative Election musings

2011-12-31T09:39:00.002+08:00

The form it is alleged that the National Security Bureau used to record information about DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen and her activities and supporters. My own view and that of many others is that despite the sickness of using the NSB as a political tool, Tsai needs to get off the mudslinging and back on message about income, economic growth, and social justice that has served her well so far.

The kinds of choices that face local voters, as well as the corruption of politics in Taiwan, are neatly encapsulated in the choices my wife faces in the election for legislative candidates in our area. There are a half dozen candidates. Two of them are brothers from the Tung family that owns the huge hospital out near Taichung Harbor (one of the best in the country). The whole family is pro-KMT and one of the Tungs is running as a KMT candidate. Another Tung is running as the DPP candidate but appears to have recently swapped parties, though he claims he alone among his clutch of pro-KMT brothers has always been pro-Green. Another candidate, who was quite good and whom my wife likes, is now running as an independent but in recent years has been associated with the TSU although before he was DPP.

If you support the DPP, who do you vote for? Voting for the Tung feels like a vote for the KMT even if he wears DPP clothing. Voting for the good pan-Green/TSU candidate feels like the right move but may hurt the DPP because it needs people in the legislature. In may all be moot because the major KMT candidate, a woman, is extremely successful and has powerful patronage connections to many local infrastructure projects and all the schools in the area.

One thing one hears steadily is how deep contempt of Ma is among KMT supporters. One lifelong pan-Blue supporter I know well told me he detests Ma but is voting for him out of fear that the mainlanders will be kicked out of Taiwan if the DPP wins out. Tsai needs to find a way to reach out and reassure those people....
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Dec Election Poster Photos

2011-12-31T09:14:00.000+08:00

Another month closer to the election, another set of pics. Here KMT Pres and Veep Candidates Ma and Wu cover a poster in Guishan in Taoyuan county. Click on the READ MORE below to see 'em all.

A woman hands out campaign literature for the "Taiwanism" party at a train station....

The Taiwanism Party. "The Only Choice for Total Change" it says across the top. I judge them to be either some kind of Communist party, or else one of those fake pro-Taiwan parties that The Other Party has established to split the Taiwanese vote.

Concurrent with Tsai's excellent Piggies campaign, posters with piggies on them began to appear. This one is in Fengyuan. "Justice progresses when the little piggies set off" it says.

"Switching to a new one is the only way there will be a future" says the slogan.

Campaign workers take a break in a rural area in Taichung.

In Jhuolan in Miaoli, the candidates look down on the city center.

PFP candidate James Soong and The Candidate With The Really Big Tie, in Dongshih.

Dueling politicians in Taichung city. The righthand candidate's signs emphasize the different projects for which she says she has been responsible for getting funding; this one implies she was responsible for a project to put high voltage electric cables underground.

KMT candidates in Jhuolan, Miaoli. The sign emphasizes "constructing Miaoli", basically an announcement that the candidate is a key money source for local patronage networks.

DPP candidates in Fengyuan. "I understand, I'll do it" proclaims the legislative candidate's sign.

KMT candidates in Taichung city.

The same legislative candidate, saying he got the cash for a big river renewal project.

Here is the same woman, this time the sign says she got big bucks for the Intercontinental baseball stadium.

KMT candidate in my area.

TSU headquarters in Fengyuan city.

This KMT candidate wants the metro to come to Taoyuan and calls for completion of the big infrastructure projects in the area.

This DPP candidate's sign accuses the local KMT legislative candidate and President Ma of using public money to support their re-election. "Please clearly explain!"

Candidates decorate an intersection in Tanzi outside Taichung city.

"Without party colors, life will be even more beautiful" this candidate advertises. She appears to be an independent candidate, without Green/Blue color, in other words. Such ads appeal to the Taiwanese yearning for a way out of the Blue-Green divide.

A DPP ad on a hillside outside Taichung city.

Here she is again, this time saying she got money from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to put in equipment/infrastructure for mothers who are traffic volunteers around all the schools in Taichung's north district.

Sound truck for the DPP.

Candidates outside the fishing port in Taichung.

KMT candidates by the fishing port.

She says she sincerely listens and sincerely performs.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

BREAKING: NEXT magazine says Ma Administration using security forces to spy on Tsai

2011-12-29T08:43:00.000+08:00

This is huge: Next Magazine says Ma Administration is using the security forces to spy on Tsai, naming 28 agents (Taipei Times report):

According to the Next Magazine report, Weng Shih-tsan (翁詩燦), director of the NSC’s Secretariat, attended an intelligence meeting organized by the Investigation Bureau last week and took away information related to the presidential election, before submitting the information to Ma via Hu.

The magazine’s report named 28 senior agents at the bureau, who it said were given the task of monitoring Tsai and submitting weekly reports on the times, locations and the attendees at Tsai’s campaign events.

The magazine said agents also made evaluations on the influence of local politicians or businesspeople who met with Tsai — KMT members and non-partisan representatives in particular — and predicted how many votes were at stake if they offered their support to Tsai.

It also cited an unidentified high-ranking official at the National Security Bureau (NSB) as saying that the NSC and Hu had ignored the intelligence system’s chain of command.

In response to the report, the NSC said that while it did send Weng to the meeting, he did not take any information away and no information had been submitted to Hu and Ma.

Anyone who has followed the KMT's use of the security agencies throughout the nation's history will not be surprised at this report....
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Integrate with Large Power Next Door, Feel more Localized

2011-12-29T07:30:00.000+08:00

You know the story. A small island state is integrated to the Big Ugly Neighbor next door. The media is shocked to learn what everyone knows intuitively -- despite economic integration, the locals feel that their local identity is strengthened. No, I'm not talking about Taiwan, but Hong Kong... (via SCMP):

Despite increasing economic integration, locals are viewing themselves more strongly as Hongkongers rather than Chinese citizens than at any time in the past decade, a survey has found.

The poll asked 1,016 city residents to rank the strength of their feelings as "Hong Kong citizens" on a scale from zero to 10, and found an average rating of 8.23 points, a 10-year high.

Asked the same question about their identity as "Chinese citizens", the average rating was 7.01 points, a 12-year low. The poll was conducted from December 12-20.

The University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme has conducted such surveys from time to time since the 1997 handover.

Dr Robert Chung Ting-yiu, the programme's director, said: "This [trend] is contrary to the [direction of] China's economic development in recent years, so it must be due to factors beyond economic development." But he stopped short of speculating about the reasons behind the fluctuations in these figures.

The pollsters combined all the survey results into an identity index on a scale from zero to 100. City residents' strongest feelings of identity are as "Hong Kong citizens", at 79.1 points, followed by "members of the Chinese race" at 72.5 points.

Then came "Asians", at 72.1 points; "Chinese citizens", at 67.9 points; "global citizens", at 67 points; and finally "citizens of the People's Republic of China", at 61.1 points.

"The feeling of being `citizens of the PRC' was the weakest among all identities tested," Chung said.

It's not "despite", it's "because". Economic integration with big colonialist powers next door never makes locals feel like part of the Power but usually has the exact opposite effect: it reinforces local identities. Ask the Taiwanese, the Canadians, or the Baltic states.....
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Futures Market Biases and other Election Errata

2011-12-27T21:03:00.006+08:00

Belly dancing and other imported forms of dance, including flamenco and Bollywood, are hugely popular in Taiwan. Here is a performance in Fengyuan the other day. If your wife is looking for something to do in the evenings, belly dancing is a great way to socialize and slim down. Most local community colleges offer some form of dance class.

The topic of poll divergence, which I have often lamented on this blog, led the Taipei Times today. The paper noted that the NCCU futures market has Tsai up enormously:

The exchange’s closing “prices” on Sunday showed that Tsai received 50.4 percent of the vote compared with Ma’s 43 percent and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) 7.7 percent.

Almost two in three “buyers,” or 65.6 percent, said that Tsai would win the election, while 30.8 percent predicted a victory for Ma, who had been leading Tsai before Soong entered the race on Nov. 4.

....whereas a Taiwan Thinktank poll had Tsai down by less than 1% to Ma Ying-jeou -- the Taiwan Thinktank being a pro-DPP institution. In passing, the most recent China Times (pro-KMT) poll has Ma up by five.

I've been complaining about the irrational exuberance of the prediction market, whose pro-Tsai numbers I've long considered are too high, and sure enough, Nathan over at Frozen Garlic came out with a great post this week on its predictions for the legislative election that shows in this election it is fundamentally biased (if you are following the election, you need to be reading that blog). He says:

I’m on record as not being a big fan of the futures market here in Taiwan, but rather than explain why I think it is flawed from a theoretical perspective, I’m just going to bury them with their own numbers. Welcome to fantasyland.

Frozen Garlic has long argued that the Xfutures market is flawed because, among other things, people aren't committing real money (which is what he means by the first sentence there) and thus risk nothing with their choices. Here he has the numbers....

You may have noticed that there are a lot of DPP districts. According to the xfuture market, the DPP will win 52 of the 73 districts. The KMT wins only 20, and the New Party wins the other one. The DPP is predicted to win 5 of 6 in Taoyuan, 9 of 12 in New Taipiei City, and 4 of 8 in Taipei City. Just for reference, they did not win 18 of those 26 seats four years ago; they won a mere two. You know that phrase the DPP loves to repeat about how the KMT can’t cross the Zhuoshui River? The prediction market takes it literally. The DPP wins everything south of the river, and that even includes Penghu and Taitung. There are crazy predictions up and down this list. The DPP is supposed to win Jilong City by a comfortable 6.7%. If that happens, I’ll eat my pink Tsai Ing-wen flag. Maybe the most incredible result is one that gets the winner right. In Taoyuan 6, the KMT is predicted to win by a mere 1%. That could happen, but only if you change the “1%” to “30%.”

These numbers are fantasies. The DPP will likely perform better this time around, but not to the tune of 50 seats -- it might reach 40 with the wind at its back. Nathan has shown that the prediction market has a pro-DPP bias. Hence, its numbers are no more trustworthy than any other public poll from media supporting either party, at least for this election.

If you have trouble using the text graphic FG offers, there's a map of the districts here. Just sweep your eyes over it... even if you give the DPP everything south of Taichung/Nantou, that's only 26 districts. Assuming a split in Taichung, the DPP would have to pick up ten more districts in what has historically been Blue territory. 3 or 4 maybe, but ten? I think the DPP will be lucky to get more than 35 single member districts (remember there are an additional 34 at-large seats). Still the dumbest move ever, reducing the number of legislative districts.....

Another remark in the Taipei Times article also struck me:

Former DPP legislator Kuo Cheng-liang (郭正亮) said it was ironic that Tsai’s support rates were higher when she was attacked than when the DPP retaliated with an attack on Ma’s integrity in a bank merger case, which showed that negative campaigning might very well “have the opposite of its desired effect.”

Last week I pointed out that going negative on the Fubon merger case would likely hurt Tsai.... sure enough, Tsai's lead in the prediction market has fallen, as has the value of her shares, which are now at 65, though they were pushing 70 last week. Interestingly, this trend has not appeared in the pro-KMT polls. But I suspect that if Tsai loses this campaign by a whisker, the decision to stage a frontal attack on Ma, rather than let one of her supporting media such as the Liberty Times handle it, will have been a key factor.

Fortunately for the DPP, the KMT is continuing its attack with the Yu Chang case (love to know what their internal polls are telling them). This may help wash the effect of the DPP's negative turn. The government is planning a big nationwide biking activity for Dec 31 that looks a lot like a KMT campaign rally....
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Taipei Times Editorial says America IS taking sides

2011-12-27T07:53:00.002+08:00

A Taipei Times editorial argues that the US timed the announcement of the possibility of a visa waiver for Taiwan to support the KMT in the election. The editorial also points out that the KMT in its usual despicable manner, failed to tell the public that the initiative for the program began with the DPP:

What was left unmentioned was the fact that it was the DPP that got the ball rolling on the visa-waiver program, with former envoy to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and his staff at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington doing the groundwork in 2007. A few more years were required before Taiwan could meet all the requirements for the nomination and admittedly some of the necessary adjustments were made under the Ma administration. However, in the end, the nomination is as much a victory for the DPP as it is for the KMT — in fact, it represents a victory for all Taiwanese.

However, by failing to take the necessary precautions against the inevitable politicization of the announcement, Washington has played into the KMT’s hands, or possibly cooperated with it.

In its press conference on Thursday, the AIT said an agreement on tightening immigration controls against felons and terrorists was the final step before the US could put Taiwan on the list. That agreement, we were told, had been signed the previous day.

Maybe the timing is just a coincidence — and coincidences do happen — but it is very convenient for the KMT that all this happened when it did. The US government could have waited until after the Jan. 14 election to make the announcement, a postponement that in no way would have hurt the KMT or helped the DPP.

One really wonders why, within 24 hours of Taipei signing the document on terrorists and felons, the AIT would rush into making the announcement on the visa-waiver program, especially as Taiwan’s adhesion to the program remains contingent on months of careful evaluation by the US Department of Homeland Security. There simply was no justification for making the announcement at such a highly charged juncture in the presidential election.

Despite the nomination being the result of hard work by both the DPP and KMT administrations, the timing of the announcement now allows the Ma camp to silence some of its detractors, who had accused it of failing to secure anything of substance from the US over the past three-and-a-half years, despite relations between the two allies allegedly being their “closest” in years.

Not anymore, and the KMT has appropriated this success as if the DPP had nothing to do with it. Fool-hardy or malicious, inadvertent or by design, the US has taken sides in next month’s elections.

AIT officials had to know what they were doing when they made the announcement in the middle of a hotly -contested election. On the other hand, perhaps they were afraid if they waited until after the election they'd be accused of helping the DPP. Or if they waited a week, of being accused of timing the announcement even more closely to the end of the election to help the KMT. Or they knew the KMT would make the announcement and wanted to pre-empt an even more partisan announcement on the KMT part. The AIT announcement did note that AIT did not favor either party.

What it really shows is how pathetic the Ma Administration is -- the best it can do to show its good relationship with the US is lay claim to a program initiated by the DPP.

If the best AIT can do to influence the election is announce a visa waiver program early, then the US hand in the election isn't very useful to the KMT. At the moment.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Daily Links, Monday, Dec 26, 2011

2011-12-26T22:52:00.003+08:00

Send this cold weather back to Siberia! But while we're waiting for it to leave, here's a few things to keep you warm....

ELECTION:

Incredibly, the KMT is still pushing the Yu Chang case. Minister Liu of the CEPD is still out there saying Tsai Ing-wen has more questions to answer.
Apple Daily election poll has Ma up by eight points over Tsai. Even the TVBS poll only has Ma up by six.
Frozen Garlic on the mini-revolt within the KMT in Xizhi district in Taipei. Lee Ching-hwa in this tale is not just any politician, he is the son of powerful mainlander insider Lee Huan.
Letters from Taiwan on Ma's latest gaffe: even the dogs complain about me....
Frozen Garlic demonstrates looking at the legislature numbers what I have long wondered: the futures market could well be just plain wrong in this election. If the DPP wins the Keelung legislative seat, I'll take a portion of that hat. I thought a couple of weeks ago that the numbers for Tsai were too high; FG's look at the legislature shows the market is too pro-DPP.
China won't be flinging missiles at us, assures Far Eastern Sweet Potato.
Parris Chang criticizes Ma in Washington Times, TECRO responds.

BLOGS:

Photoblog: This is what I think
Todd with some absolutely superb pictures of caterpillars.
No wonder the daughter cuts herself.
Hiking on Yangmingshan
Taiwan beer: a history.
2012 economic forecast: 3.3-3.7% growth. And other econ stuff from ETRC
US snuffs Taiwan's indigenous spacelaunch program, out of military fears? Naw, they just feared another low-cost launch competitor.
Taiwanophile Fili lists the best blogs by category.
Global Voices on how the land expropriation law revisions still don't address farmer's woes.
Alive and Kicking goes blacksmithing in Taitung

MEDIA:

East Asia Forum: US, China await Taiwan Election with Apprehension. Washington and Beijing face the nightmare of a pro-democracy, pro-Taiwan party getting elected to the Presidency.
Frank Ching looks at how the Chinese take pride in the Taiwan elections. No, Frank, the idea that Taiwan democracy could influence China did not start with Chiang Ching-kuo, who ran a centralized security state and fought the emergence of democracy his whole adult life.
The US just gave Indonesia F-16s, and now Philippines wants them.
I have to admit that for years before I started this blog I dismissed right-wing claims that there is a whole tribe of commentators on the left that is basically shilling for Beijing. Yet since I've started this blog again and again I run into these people, still wearing their Cold War lenses. Like this piece, from the normally nuanced Peter Lee, who claims -- no seriously -- that the US is being all provocative in Asia, and talks about the South China Sea without ever mentioning that the problem is that China claims the whole damn thing. Again and again I see constructions like this from analysts with clear Leftish sympathies. Recently I had an email exchange with some leftist nutcase who dismissed me with a single word when I pointed out China's behavior in Tibet: "fantasies". No wonder these people have no time for Taiwan....
This great run-down of Taiwan's WHO lobbying shows how the "success" of Ma's WHA observer decision significantly downgraded Taiwan's status.
Delegation of Taiwanese banks to visit Thailand to help hard-hit Taiwan businesses there.
Amis protest gov't land practices in Hualien, biggest protest in 20 years.
The Patriot missiles found on ship in Finland and bound for Shanghai were actually a German sale to South Korea.
Labor costs continuing to impact Taiwanese firms in China
Land subsidence stops trains in Kaohsiung
Avg temps in Taiwan hit 15 year low

Is America sticking a hand in the election?

2011-12-25T20:50:00.005+08:00

The Taipei Times ran a piece today on a post at Ballots and Bullets on the Taiwan election in which CSIS analyst Bonnie Glaser argues that the US has a clear preference for Ma Ying-jeou. CSIS offers sturdy center-right Establishment analysis, and she is almost certainly correct; many high-level officials within the Obama Administration prefer Ma but could work with Tsai, as she puts it. The money paragraph:

Obama administration officials’ preference for a Ma victory is also a consequence of their hope to avoid introducing additional contentious issues to the increasingly complicated US-China agenda. Bilateral tensions have run high in recent years over a long list of issues, including North Korea, South China Sea, China’s military modernization, and China’s currency valuation and trade practices. US arms sales to Taiwan in January 2010 and September 2011 infuriated the Chinese and soured US-China relations as well, but the impact was relatively confined and short lived compared to the likely Chinese reaction to the return of the DPP to power. Past experience demonstrates that when Chinese fears of Taiwan independence spike, other issues are crowded out in US-Chinese consultations, making compromises and solving problems even more difficult than usual.

She goes to argue that "in the absence of policy steps by Taiwan that damage American interest in the maintenance of cross-Strait peace and stability" relations will go well. The basic problem here is that Taiwan is not in control of stability in the Taiwan Strait, China is. It is China that determines the level of tension between Taipei and Beijing, which -- as I have noted a million times before -- is a policy choice whose purpose is to affect US policy in its favor. No matter what "policy choices" Taiwan makes, China can simply react negatively in an attempt bring down US pressure on Tsai -- it is a key policy goal of Beijing to transfer tensions between Beijing and Washington to the US-Taiwan relationship. Hopefully American policymakers will learn to recognize this dysfunctional political response and act accordingly.

Two other aspects of US policy are highlighted in Glaser's piece. The first that the US-China relation is in the tank and that this has nothing to do with what Taiwan has done. US-China relations have deteriorated despite having Ma in power and will continue to decline, so it is hard to see why the US is so sold on him.

The second is one I have also alluded to, the way Taiwan is treated in isolation from other East Asia issues. Analysts writing about it invariably ignore Japan and the South China Sea. This means that the Administration is essentially pursuing the contradictory policies of telling Taiwan to shush while quietly moving to shore up allies elsewhere in Asia, most recently with the addition of a paltry couple thousand marines to Australia and the announcement that the US is considering basing ships in Singapore.... remember this pic? (I just updated it).

That, in a nutshell, is where this counterproductive, shortsighted treatment of a possibly critical ally is taking us. Ask yourself, in the coming conflicts with China, does the US want a friendly government headed by a pro-western president, or a pro-China government headed by a pro-China ideologue who views himself as a True Chinese^©? I submit the answer is obvious -- if you don't live within the Beltway.

I should add that Glaser also puts her finger on an important psychological strategic function of the Taiwan issue: "when Chinese fears of Taiwan independence spike, other issues are crowded out in US-Chinese consultations" -- Taiwan fixates Chinese minds.

In a separate article the Taipei Times also reported that several US Congressmen are writing letters to the Administration warning it not to take sides in the upcoming election.

There is a growing chorus of protest against perceived efforts by members of US President Barack Obama’s administration to interfere in Taiwanese elections by boosting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election on Jan. 14.

Glaser's piece was in response to one of the recent policy moves -- sending a minor cabinet official to visit and announcing the possibility of a visa waiver for Taiwan. The announcement of the visa waiver was seized upon by the KMT as tantamount to the US certificate of approval for Ma Ying-jeou, who has been trumpeting himself as the US choice.

The visa waiver campaign -- that idea originated with the pro-Taiwan side, of course.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Pollution: It's here, it's worsening

2011-12-23T21:10:00.001+08:00

A friend of mine passed these four stories to me, outraged. The EPA is obviously doing a terrible job; indeed, it frequently sides with developers against the environment (for example). What can be done about these stories? She wrote:

"The following news stories, all recent, are extremely worrisome. You can buy organic fruit and vegetables or grow your own to avoid some of the exposure to toxins, but you cannot avoid breathing. How is it in anyone's best interest to encourage highly polluting and energy-intensive industries on a small island? Taiwan's power generation from coal-fired plants and nuclear power plants is killing us."

The translations are hers; the issues, everyone's.

++++++++++

Doctors rally after pollution survey - The China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2011/12/23/326751/Doctors-rally.htm
TAIPEI, Taiwan --Taiwan's air quality ranked an abysmal 35 out of 38 countries surveyed by the World Health Organization (WHO), with Taipei at number 551 out of the 565 cities profiled, boasting an air quality on par with “smoker's paradise” Lebanon.

++++++++++

Taiwan uses too much pesticide, 5.5 times higher than that in the U.S. Pesticide residues are also too high. There are 541 types of approved pesticides in Taiwan. For every hectare of farmland Taiwan uses an average of 11 kilograms of pesticide. The average in the U.S. is 2 kilograms. These figures were published in a report from Taiwan's Control Yuan yesterday.
http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/1/2/13/n46958.htm
台灣使用農藥過量高出美國5。5倍蔬菜水果農藥殘留過多
台灣監察院昨天公布的「農藥濫用影響國人健康及生態環境」報告中指出，台灣核准使用的農藥有541种，台灣單位耕地面積農藥使用量為每公頃十一公斤，而美國為二公斤，台灣比美國高出五．五倍。台灣農民使用農藥已明顯過量，對生態環境造成了嚴重衝擊。

++++++++++

Full report on the Orchid Island nuclear waste radiation issue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8-mCqMRHgw

++++++++++

And this report from Taiwan's Environmental Information Center on the growing nuclear waste issue just at the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
http://e-info.org.tw/node/72556
環保署今（21）日召開「核能一廠用過核燃料中期貯存計畫第二次變更內容對照表專案小組審查會議」，北海岸在地居民與環保團體於會前召開記者會，反對核能一廠繼續興建乾式貯存設施，並呼籲將使用年限的問題納入本次變更內容的討論。
The EPA today (Dec. 21) organized a task force meeting to review a second set of changes to the spent nuclear fuel medium-term storage plan for the first No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. At a press conferences held immediately before the review meeting, north coast residents living near the nuclear power plant and environmental groups voiced their opposition to the continued dry storage facility of the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant and called for the issue of setting a deadline for the spent nuclear storage to be included for discussion in this review meeting.
核一廠用過核燃料中期貯存計畫在2008年8月27日的環評會議中決議，開發單位應依承諾將用過核燃料於設施使用40年後移出，且貯存設施不得轉作最終處置場所。但環團表示，去（2010）年12月，原能會放射性物料管理局長邱賜聰直言核一廠乾式貯存場使用年限屆滿後不排除再繼續使用，而今年11月28日的核廢料政策環評中的資料更證實了邱賜聰的說法；既然當初環評條件的承諾已經無法得到保證，環評的效力令人質疑，而這一次的變更內容對照表中對使用年限的問題卻依舊隻字不提。
The plan for medium-term storage of spent nuclear fuel from the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant was decided upon at the August 27, 2008 environmental impact assessment (EIA) meeting, the terms of which stipulates the removal of the spent fuel from the facility after 40 years of use and that the facility not become the long-term storage site. Environmental groups pointed out, however, that in December of last year (2010), the Radioactive Materials Management Bureau Chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, Chiu Hsi-tsung, directly said that he does not rule out the continued use of the facility after the 40-year period, which was confirmed at last month's November 28th nuclear waste policy EIA meeting. If the conditions stipulated in the first EIA cannot be guaranteed, the effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment process will come under doubt. Moreover, the current EIA review meeting does not even include an agenda item for discussing the time limit issue.
環團質疑，最早，政府告訴北海岸居民，40年後核電廠就會走；後來，核一廠乾式貯存環評會議，環評結論告訴北海岸居民，40年後核廢料就會走；現在，核電廠還沒走、核廢料又會逾期擺放。政府「只求現在過關，不管未來問題」的態度，讓北海岸居民要等幾個40年？
Environmental groups point out that from the start the government told the north coast residents that the nuclear power plant would be gone after 40 years. Later, the EIA concluding report on the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant Dry Storage Facility for the spent fuel told the residents that the nuclear waste would be gone after 40 years. And now, the nuclear power plant is not gone and the nuclear waste will continue to be stored on-site past the deadline for removing it. The government's attitude of "just getting things approved without any regard for the future problems" - is this to say that the north coast residents have to wait perhaps several more 40-year periods?
北海岸居民則擔心，核一廠乾式貯存未完工，原能會官員就坦誠將逾期使用，而在政府對核廢料最終去處毫無頭緒的狀況看，很可能直接就讓「中」期貯存變成最「終」處置。
The north coast residents now worry that the dry storage facility for the No. 1 nuclear power plant waste has not been completed and that the AEC has already admitted that it will continue to be used for storage past the deadline. Also, as the government does not appear to have solution to the final storage site problem, they are also worried that the medium-term storage site will become the final storage site for the spent nuclear fuel.

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To this list she sent, I'd like to add another, the Alangyi Trail, pristine coast to be destroyed for a highway.

The Alangyi Trail, a 12km hiking trail along the Pacific coastline between Taitung County’s Nantian Village (南田) and Pingtung County’s Syuhai Village (旭海), is being threatened by the planned construction of Provincial Highway No. 26. A section of the planned highway would run alongside the trail.

Taiwan's construction-industrial state has metastasized into a giant tumor that is slowly killing its host by polluting land, water, and sky. The question is, when will the people of Taiwan say, enough!
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Events: Formosa Foundation Ambassador Program and South China Sea Workshop

2011-12-23T08:40:00.001+08:00

The Formosa Foundation is taking applications for its annual Ambassador Program. "Up to 30 college/graduate students and young professionals will be selected from theUnited States and Taiwan to participate in this highly competitive “congressional boot camp.” Academia Sinica has a workshop Jan 12-13 on the South China Sea. See more info by clicking READ MORE below....

APPLY TODAY!
2012 Ambassador Program
The Formosa Foundation is accepting applications for the 2012 Ambassador Program from now through March 15, 2012. The 2012 Program will take place in Washington, D.C. from June 18 through 29. Up to 30 college/graduate students and young professionals will be selected from theUnited States and Taiwan to participate in this highly competitive “congressional boot camp.”

Application forms are now available. The U.S. applicants please complete the 2012 U.S. Application Form; Applicants who are currently in Taiwan and/or are Taiwanese national please use the 2012 TW Form.

The Ambassador Program, in its 10th year, has over 250 future leaders graduate and held over a thousand meetings with individual members of Congress and their staff. With each passing year the program has grown stronger, attracting not only some of the foremost authorities on Taiwan and Asia-Pacific issues from across America, but also garnering the attention of powerful lawmakers as well. The Ambassador Program teaches skills to help change the hearts and minds of our elected leaders and policymakers in Washington on the most critical issues concerning Taiwan. Formosa Foundation ambassadors have received praises as being Capitol Hill's most articulate and effective advocates for the U.S.-Taiwan bilateral relations.

Detailed program description and previous program reports are available on our website.

Sincerely,

Formosa Foundation
www.formosafoundation.orgLike us on facebook
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Tel: 213.625.1991

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There is a two-day workshop on the South China Sea Jan 12-13th at the Academia Sinica. Registration info is here.

1
Workshop on the South China Sea Dispute:
Political and Security Implications for the Region’s Future
Date: Thu.-Fri., January 12-13, 2012
Venue: Room 2319, Institute of Ethnology Building, Academia Sinica, Taipei
Organizers: Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies of Academia Sinica (Taipei) and
East-West Center (Honolulu)
Draft Agenda
DAY 1, JAN. 12 (Thu.)
08:30-09:00 Registration
Opening & Keynote Speech
09:00-09:40 Moderator: Cheng-Yi Lin, Executive Officer, CAPAS, RCHSS,
Academia Sinica
Speaker: Yann-Huei Song, Research Fellow, Institute of European
and American Studies, Academia Sinica
Session I: Geography, Law, and the SCS Dispute
09:40-10:20 Moderator: Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Institute of Sociology,
Academia Sinica
Presenter: Clive Schofield, Australian National Centre for Ocean
Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of Wollongong
Topic: Untangling a Complex Web: Understanding the Competing
Maritime Claims in the South China Sea
Discussant: Kuan-Hsiung Wang, Graduate Institute of Political
Science, National Taiwan Normal University
10:20-10:40 coffee break
Session II: China and the SCS
10:40-12:00 Moderator: Tse-Kang Leng, Institute of Political Science, Academia
Sinica
Presenter: Li Mingjiang, Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
Nanyang Technological University
Topic: China Debates South China Sea Policy: Implications for
Future Developments of the Dispute
Discussant: Alexander Chieh-Cheng Huang, Graduate Institute of
International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University
Presenter: Richard Hu, Dept. of Politics and Public Administration,
University of Hong Kong
2
Topic: China's Rising Power and Its Policy on the South China Sea
Disputes
Discussant: Fu-Kuo Liu, Institute of International Relations, National
Chengchi University
12:00-13:00 lunch break
Session III: Japan, the US and the SCS
13:00-14:20 Moderator: Ping-Yin Kuan, International Master’s Program in
Asia-Pacific Studies, National Chengchi University
Presenter: Denny Roy, East-West Center
Topic: US Interests and Policy in the South China Sea
Discussant: Wen-Cheng Lin, College of Social Sciences, National
Sun Yat-sen University
Presenter: Yoichiro Sato, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
Topic: The SCS Dispute from the Perspective of Japan
Discussant: Shawn S.F. Kao, Dept. of Political Science, Tunghai
University
14:20-14:40 coffee break
Session IV: Regional Overview
14:40-16:00 Moderator: Nien-Tsu Alfred Hu, The Center for Marine Policy
Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University
Presenter: Carl Thayer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force
Academy
Topic: The South China Disputes and Their Impact on the Security
Environment of Southeast Asia: What Lies Ahead?
Discussant: Hsin-Chih Chen, Dept. of Political Science, National
Cheng Kung University
Presenter: Ian Storey, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore
Topic: The Southeast Asian Subregional Response to the Problem of
China's Expansive SCS Claim
Discussant: Arthur Ding, Institute of International Relations,
National Chengchi University
DAY 2, JAN. 13 (Fri)
08:30-09:00 Registration
Session V: National Perspectives
9:00-10:20 Moderator: Jaushieh Joseph Wu, Institute of International Relations,
3
National Chengchi University
Presenter: Cheng-Yi Lin, CAPAS, Academia Sinica and Anne
Hsiu-An Hsiao, Institute of International Relations, National
Chengchi University
Topic: Taiwan’s SCS Policy, 1999-2011
Discussant: Denny Roy, East-West Center
Presenter: Hoang Anh Tuan, Institute for Foreign Policy and
Strategic Studies, The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Vietnam
Topic: The SCS Dispute from the Perspective of Vietnam
Discussant: Tuan-Yao Cheng, Institute of International Relations,
National Chengchi University
10:20-10:40 coffee break
Session VI: National Perspectives (continued)
10:40-12:00 Moderator: Wen-Chin Chang, Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies,
Academia Sinica
Presenter: Elina Noor, Institute of Strategic and International Studies
(ISIS ) Malaysia
Topic: The South China Sea: Options for Malaysia
Discussant: Alice Ba, Dept. of Political Science & International
Relations, University of Delaware
Presenter: Aileen Baviera, Asian Center, University of the
Philippines
Topic: Philippine Security and the South China Sea Disputes
Discussant: Ian Storey, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
Singapore
12:00-13:00 lunch break
Session VII: China, the US, and the Region’s Future
13:00-14:20 Moderator: Chung-Young Chang, Dept. of Public Affairs, Fo-Guang
University
Presenter: Alice Ba, Dept. of Political Science & International
Relations, University of Delaware
Topic: The SCS Dispute and the Likely Future Relationship between
China and Southeast Asia
Discussant: Richard Hu, Dept. of Politics and Public Administration,
University of Hong Kong
4
Presenter: Yann-Huei Song, Institute of European and American
Studies, Academia Sinica
Topic: The South China Sea Issue in U.S.-ASEAN Relations: 2009 –
2011
Discussant: Carl Thayer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
The University of New South Wales at the Australian Defense Force
Academy
Session VIII: Wrap-up
14:20-15:00 Group discussion of editorial issues and guidelines for revising the
chapters
15:00- Adjourn

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Forgery or Fark-up: DPP points out further alterations in documents

2011-12-22T11:32:00.002+08:00

When we last looked, the documents submitted by the KMT Administration for public view had certainly been altered -- a date in Chinese had been added to them. Today the Taipei Times reported that the DPP had turned up further evidence of significant alterations:

DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told a press conference yesterday that Liu and the KMT were suspected of not only altering the date on the document, but also erasing the marking tag of “Attachment No. 3” to cover up the fact that it was one of six attachments to that document.

The document originally carried a stamp saying it was Attachment No. 3, the third of six (TT image here). That had been whited out before the copy was made.

Let's point that out again -- a copy was made (image) and then submitted for public view. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a copy was made to cover the alterations, which are less obvious in a copy. Covering alterations? That implies forgery.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Ma Administration takes steps to goose the stock market ahead of the election

2011-12-22T10:55:00.002+08:00

The Ma government took two steps aimed at pushing up Taiwan's fading stock market ahead of the election this week. First, as AP notes in WaPo, the government is allowing Chinese banks to purchase pieces of Taiwan banks.

The commission says individual Chinese banks will be allowed to take stakes of up to 5 percent in Taiwanese banks. It capped total Chinese ownership, including by institutional investors, at 10 percent.

Investment by Chinese banks can give Taiwanese lenders access to China’s lending market and bolster their earnings.

Cross-strait financial investments like these are one of the most important goals of Beijing/Ma's economic integration program and the big financial houses backing the Ma administration. This may push the market up.

A second move was announced as well...Taiwan shares jumped as the government announced the commitment of funding from the national stabilization fund to shore up the stock market:

"The announcement of the National Stabilization Fund's possible intervention in the local stock market has successfully bolstered market sentiment, as investors hailed the long-awaited show of strong government support," MasterLink Securities analyst Tom Tang said. Vice Premier Sean Chen said Tuesday that in the wake of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which could lead to instability in the region, the NT$500 billion (US$16.4 billion) National Stabilization Fund would enter the stock market.

Kim's death provides a convenient excuse for buying votes on a galactic scale by using public money to subsidize wealthy investors while appearing to spark the market for Taiwan's tens of thousands of small players. Let's not forget that a major institutional investor in the market is the KMT itself, through its large Party-owned investment company. But there's no conflict of interest there....not that any of the major international media will ever report that, either...

The stock market has an outsized influence on the way Taiwanese view their own economic performance, which is probably another reason people panic or cheer depending on what its doing. Recall that in 2008 Ma benefited from what appeared to be a coordinated effort by foreign analysts to pump the Taiwan market in the run-up to the election. It promptly began sliding the day he swore in, and hasn't recovered since.

Polaris cut Taiwan's growth prediction next year to below 4%, a move that I suspect heralds further downgrades of Taiwan's economic performance next year. If Tsai wins, she is going to inherit a formidable economic mess exacerbated by whatever damage the KMT can do in the four months between the election and the transfer of power, and by the intransigence of Taiwan's nigh-on useless legislature.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

A few links

2011-12-21T00:30:00.008+08:00

Taichung city from atop Dongyang Rd outside of Fengyuan. Weather has been just brilliant this week, but cold front to hit Thursday night.....

No time to blog today. Enjoy a few links...

ELECTION:

Pai ping-ping, the entertainer, claims electing a female would cause a calamity, just as in Thailand.
DPP steps up attack on Fubon merger.
DPP lays out strategy -- says 5% is the biggest win they can expect. That's about what I think is possible if they win.

BLOGS:

Ding, Ding Kim Jong-il is dead. In case you can't remember, the same histrionics took place when The Peanut finally died. People cried in the streets, and the government made everyone spend a month in mourning.
Giant bikes promotes bike touring even though it has no touring bike in its line of bikes, says Drew.

MEDIA:

Krugman worried China might break.
US to station naval ships in Singapore to face Chinese aggression in the South China Sea
Save the Alangyi Trail, says world environmental group
People, you can't do things like this. Your butt will be kicked, as actually happened. As you would if some arrogant foreigner did that to you!
US chamber of commerce sends job after job to China, is repaid by....hacker attack.

You'd think at the National Immigration Office (website) they'd have somebody who could handle the English, or perhaps they'd know a foreigner or three....

ONLINE RESOURCES:

Steve Crook's new app: Taiwan for Culture Vultures
Fill out the Taiwan gov't survey on the Taiwan government entry point
Kim Jong-il Looking at Things

DPP Campaign suddenly turns brainless, exits high road

2011-12-20T09:57:00.002+08:00

"None. My CHOAM Company directorship will bear the closest scrutiny." And he thought: Let him bring a false accusation against me and have it exposed. I shall stand there, Promethean, saying: "Behold me, I am wronged." Then let him bring any other accusation against me, even a true one. The Great Houses will not believe a second attack from an accuser once proved wrong ."

This is just [expletive] stupid..... the DPP has apparently decided to retaliate against the KMT for its brainless assault on Tsai using the Yu Chang/TaiMed case with an equally brainless attack of its own, a bank merger case from years ago. From the Taipei Times:

One day after DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) questioned Ma about the donation during the presidential debate on Saturday, the DPP made public court testimony by Fubon Financial chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) from a hearing in August 2009 during the second-round of financial reforms case against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

............

In a move seen as retaliation against the KMT’s attack on Tsai Ing-wen over Yu Chang, the DPP cited a document on the merger of Fubon Bank and TaipeiBank in 2002, classified as top secret, to challenge the KMT after the party questioned Tsai Ing-wen for classifying a document on government investment in Yu Chang as top secret when she was vice premier in 2007.

Wonderful move, guys. The DPP's tightly run ball control campaign, with only minor errors, had been paying off in steady gains over Ma. Meanwhile the KMT had been running the most inept campaign imaginable, with Ma admitting meeting a major underworld gambling figure in Chiayi, Ma proposing a "peace accord", the Yu Chang accusation screw up... one could go on all day listing things. Now the DPP is doing the same thing.

The Yu Chang case is 4 years old. The Fubon case is even older!
The Yu Chang case was already explored for ammunition against Tsai three years ago. The Fubon case was also explored for ammunition before.
Like it or not, the KMT is now married to the Yu Chang narrative which it is now trying to play down (Ma said the other day “I’ve spoken to my running mate, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), on the issue and we agree that this is not an election-related issue, but one that concerns the moral standards of government administrators,” Ma said.). The DPP is now stuck with this Fubon story.
The attack on Tsai helped Tsai. Complete the equation now: the attack on Ma helped ____.

Last week the DPP was taking the high road. Independent voters and voters who flatter themselves that they are merit-based, policy driven, technocratic choosers (light Blues, in other words), could be comfortable that Tsai wasn't displaying this sort of one-party-is-just-like-the-other negativity. The DPP was in fact showing that when you don't behave like the KMT you can grow your support.

Great move, DPP brain trust.

Prediction: this is going to inspire the insipid Ma, who has been lackluster to date, create a small rally-round-the-flag effect, and on the whole backfire on the DPP.

Just needlessly stupid.

UPDATE: Good comments below. In particular this one says it may work out right:

That was under a situation that Ma was like the God in the eyes of many supporters. In that case, any scrutiny was wiped away quickly to keep the surface shining.
But now, Ma no longer has that status. He is crippling down, and many insiders will keep coming out to tell the truth. For example, now we know that to get that merging approved, it requires an OK from 9 gov departments/divisions. Ma managed to get all 9 stamps in just several hours. This info has never surfaced before .
In comparison, in the Yu Chang case, Premier Wu criticized Tsai that there must be something wrong in Yu Chang project 'cos it was approved super fast, in as short as 10 days.
Like Tsai said in a couple of occasions, Ma has never really been scrutinized.

American Citizens for Taiwan: Action Alert

2011-12-20T09:15:00.001+08:00

American Citizens for Taiwan Action Alert! Tell Congress to Support Democracy in Taiwan -- click on READ MORE below....

ACT's latest Action Alert is out! Please add your voice (see below). Make sure you also sign up for our main email list here http://eepurl.com/f9Izn.

http://americancitizensfortaiwan.org/articles/2011taiwanelectiondefense/

ACT ACTION ALERT: Tell Members of Congress to Send a Clear Message to Uphold Democracy in Taiwan

A very important event impacting America’s security and economy will be held on January 14th, 2012. The outcome may affect not only America’s security and freedom of navigation in Asia, but thousands of American jobs. The event: Taiwan’s Presidential and Legislative elections.

Take Action Now, click here to tell Members of Congress to publicly state that the people of Taiwan have a right to vote for the candidate of their choice without fear or coercion.

The Taiwanese people’s path to democracy has been an arduous struggle against foreign occupation and martial-law dictatorship. Now some forces both inside and outside Taiwan desire to subvert this Taiwanese election to gain control. Control of Taiwan’s key location where they can crimp commercial shipping and Navy ship movement by America and our democratic allies. Control of Taiwan’s significant economy where imports supporting American jobs will be reduced. Control of Taiwan’s government where democracy can be curtailed.

With voter turnout at over 75% in the last Presidential election, Taiwanese know the importance of democracy. Help keep it that way. We applaud Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), who all publicly stressed the significance of Taiwan’s democracy and the importance free elections and free speech. (link)

Right now, the best response is to let Members of Congress know your opinion that each Member of Congress must make a public statement supporting free and fair elections in Taiwan.

TAKE ACTION:
Click here to tell them now. (You will be taken to the Grasshop tool where we have written a suggested text for the letter to Members of Congress; you may make changes if you wish.)Once you have signed the letter to Members of Congress, tell your friends about taking action on this important issue.

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe Pics

2011-12-18T23:40:00.003+08:00

The Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe has lots of old Taiwan pics on Facebook.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Forgery or Fark-up: TaiMed backfire on KMT continues

2011-12-18T23:22:00.005+08:00

My Powershot S95 finally came back after three weeks in the shop. Happiness again. Yesterday was a lovely day here in central Taiwan....

The prediction market is shedding some the irrational exuberance that overwhelmed it last week as DPP Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen's predicted share of the vote, while above 50%, is falling gently back. The value of her stock to win peaked at 69 a few days ago and is currently at 67 and change, while a Ma victory is selling for 28. Bottom line: if the election were held tomorrow, Ma would probably lose. But there is still plenty of time for Ma to pull this one out.... Taiwan's bookies have the election as a dead heat.

The reason for the spike in the value of Tsai stock is the ongoing farcical TaiMed case, in which the KMT is still attempting to accuse DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen of excessive profits and conflict of interest. Unfortunately KMT elites and local legislators don't see eye to eye on the exploitation of the "scandal".... the pro-Tsai Taipei Times reports:

Several polls conducted by different media outlets showed support for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) slipped after the KMT attacked Tsai over the case.[MT: They did? Can't think of a single one.]

Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), the KMT’s vice presidential candidate, said yesterday that “it is not necessary to focus too strenuously on this case.”

“We have learned from media polls that support for Ma has increased by two percentage points. Although he did not lose points, he did not score much,” Wu said.

He said the party suffered a setback “because of [Liu’s] small mistake.”

“The [Yu Chang] case should stop here. Now that the documents [related to investments made by state funds in Yu Chang] have been declassified ... people can judge for themselves,” he said. “It’s not necessary to use it as a campaign issue.”

“[In the Yu Chang case,] people will believe what they want to believe. The KMT should focus on its political achievements rather than on a single issue,” he said.

Wu indicated that there was a consensus within the party to drop the Yu Chang case.

However, KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) yesterday said: “I do not think it’s right to bury at sea what is right and what is wrong in the Yu Chang case just because of a mistake about the date.”

Wu appears to be attempting to back off -- "it is not necessary to focus too strenuously on this case." Note the bind here -- if they really believed Tsai was corrupt and could prove it, they'd be continuing to peddle this line of garbage instead of developing a consensus to drop the case. But now all they can do is search for a way to move the discussion past this issue. It even came up in the debate. Silly.

The special prosecutors investigation actually offers a way out -- it could quickly give Tsai a clean bill of health, which would enable the KMT to drop the case and save some face. Except that will never happen. But now, like every other DPP heavyweight, there is an investigation hanging over Tsai's head -- anyone remember the 36,000 missing documents? In that case, just like this one, charges relating to events that had taken place years ago were invented. But there's no formula here, just move along, folks....

Speaking of those special prosecutors, each time they get trundled out for a case, they make Chen Shui-bian's claims that his prosecution was political more credible. Way to go, guys.

Tsai did well in the debate -- no fumbling, was overwhelming winner in (not credible) online poll. The important point was that she didn't sink herself. The DPP's ball control campaign is doing quite well. It's boring, but successful.
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Daily Links:

Video: Wilson Center Discussion involving Dafydd Fell and other scholars and analysts on the 2012 election.
Brzezinski can't even get US policy right, and clearly does not understand what is going on out here -- he advocates selling out Taiwan to China. That probably has nothing to do with the fact that his son is a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, which does a rousing business in China.
OzSoapbox reviews his Surly Long Haul Trucker
Reuters on the Tsai-Ma-Soong debate. If only the media would stop pretending that tension between Taiwan and China has no cause.
Manthorpe's much better report in the Vancouver Sun.
Taiwan receives two upgraded early warning aircraft.
Taiwan's top negotiator with China urges Taiwan businessmen in China to vote for Ma.
Manila takes dim view of Taiwan's activities in the Spratlys. Taiwan's foreign policy, driven by the idea that the ROC is China, is peeving nearby nations which Taiwan needs.

They're Rogering Our Women! Why I have no respect for Apple Daily

2011-12-18T12:21:00.003+08:00

"I want foreigners' big hot dog!" Crap like this is why I have no respect for Apple. The final screen is outrageous. YFFM will likely be commenting on this so I will restrain myself. ADDED: Here is YFFM's excellent post.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Forgery or Fark-Up: Chen Lan-po speaks out on TaidMed and Tsai Ing-wen

2011-12-16T17:49:00.000+08:00

The Taipei Times has the news today, but yesterday the DPP was circulating this video of TaiMed co-founder Chen Lan-po, speaking in Chinese from his post at Harvard University, commenting on the KMT smear of DPP Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen and her involvement in TaiMed.

A group of scientists and corporate leaders — including current Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) and Yulon Group chief executive officer Kenneth Yen (嚴凱泰) — attended a dinner meeting at Tsai Ing-wen’s residence in July 2007, he said.

“Tsai [Ing-wen] declined Wong’s offer to be Yu Chang’s chairman, a fact which Yen — a confidant of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — could confirm,” Tsai Huang-liang said, adding that it also showed Tsai Ing-wen had no intention of heading the company as late as July 2007.

The DPP yesterday afternoon also showed a teleconference between Chen Lan-bo (陳良博), a professor at Harvard University who was one of the founders of Yu Chang, and its spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) recorded on Tuesday, in which Chen endorsed Tsai Ing-wen’s innocence.

Chen Lan-bo said the CEPD had fabricated the document and added that the founding group of Yu Chang never considered Tsai Ing-wen as a candidate for the chairmanship before June 2007.

“If it had not been for the initial investment from Tsai’s family, I don’t think Taiwan Global BioFund (上智生技創投) and President International Development Corp (統一國際開發) would have followed suit,” he said.

The forgery and the KMT’s attack was “unfair, conscienceless and heartbreaking” and a devastating blow to Taiwan’s biotech industry, he added, saying “Taiwanese people are neither stupid nor cowardly. They should be angry [at the smear campaign].”

If you can understand Chinese it is well worth listening to. About the 7:00 point Chen is so incensed tears of anger flow.

Too late now -- the KMT is in too deep. Now all they can do is play out the string.

Meanwhile the special prosecutors pledged neutrality. Who can believe them now?
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

China Post: It might really be a smear

2011-12-16T07:00:00.041+08:00

The pro-KMT China Post has come out with a stunning editorial on the Case of the Wrongly Dated Document:

The main opposition Democratic Progressive Party may be justified to claim that there is a smear campaign behind the TaiMed allegations against its chairwoman and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen.

The timing of the case and a blunder by the country's top economics official in an attempt to prove Tsai corrupt have all fueled the speculations and allegations that the ruling Kuomintang is running a smear campaign to dampen the DPP hopeful's chances of winning the presidency.

New insights that hurt the KMT keep popping up. The Post notes.....

It is also dubious why Liu had been bent on finding one document from what she called “two full boxes” of files to prove that Tsai was at fault. Why didn't she try to prove that Tsai was clean?

.......

But the prosecutors' actions have again underscored the point we have raised: Why did they not take the action in 2008, but choose to do it now and so swiftly?

The Post even criticizes the government's use of the special prosecutors office! You know you're in deep poo-poo when even your tame house paper criticizes you for wrongdoing.

Underneath all this is the KMT recourse to the formula it used against Chen Shui-bian, which worked, because Chen was actually in violation of the law for, at minimum, tax evasion, but has failed since then. This formula is the whipping up of a fake scandal, followed by a media circus and trial by media, then the application of special prosecutors. The KMT is trying to win this battle with the tactics of the last war....

Meanwhile over in Washington DC at Brookings yesterday Richard Bush, the longtime US government Taiwan analyst, says that if Tsai won the election, any anxieties the US has about her could be calmed. The US unfortunately is still focused on getting Tsai to change her behavior, rather than addressing the root of the problem, Beijing's behavior. But reading between the lines, I get the feeling that US observers are beginning to think that Ma will lose.
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Daily Links:

China missiles facing Taiwan to reach 1,800 next year.
Wa Gui, a staple local food.
Commonwealth: Taiwan overdosing on health care.
Taiwanese makers in China ship via Taiwan to avoid anti-dumping duties.
Hahaha. China piously promises not to interfere in the elections.
Taiwan giving up on US submarines, will find other sources.

DiPoll

2011-12-15T22:53:00.002+08:00

China Times Poll, Wed, Dec 14:

1. If you were to vote tomorrow, which of the three following tickets would you support?
KMT Ma-Wu ticket 41.3%
DPP Tsai-Su ticket 36.8%
PFP Soong-Lin ticket 8.4%
Undecided 13.5%

China Times Poll, Thursday, Dec 15:

1. If you were to vote tomorrow, which of the three following tickets would you support?
KMT Ma-Wu ticket 40.0%
DPP Tsai-Su ticket 39.0%
PFP Soong-Lin ticket 8.0%

The China Times poll has had Ma up by six or so since I can remember. If it is within shouting distance of being correct, the smear of Tsai as stealing government money has backfired badly on the KMT.

Been chatting with people quite a bit. My unscientific poll says that most people think Tsai is going to win.

The United Daily News poll from the 14th has Ma up by ~7. The last Apple Daily poll from the 10th has Ma up by more than 7 with 29.6% undecided. I'd love to understand how Apple generates these numbers.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Forgery or Fark Up: the smoking gun?

2011-12-15T09:27:00.006+08:00

The page of the document originally from August, 2007, mislabeled March 31, 2007, presented by CEPD Minister Liu this week and used in the botched smear of Tsai Ing-wen. Note that this document is a low quality copy. The text giving the date appears to have been placed on top of the copy of the document, right across the line of the original box. For comparison, an unaltered copy of the original is shown below.

Minister Liu of the CEPD says that the date was added simply to clarify the original date of this presentation and was not intended to be a forgery. Note that the March 31 date on this document places Tsai at this meeting when she was still the premier, meaning that this would indeed be a serious violation. No other date would have had this effect. The date was not picked by coincidence.

The original document is entirely in English. Only the date is in Chinese.

The date appears to have been placed over a copy on clear tape and then transferred to the text by making another copy. Notice how the line of the text box with the title goes through the date. Why would anyone who innocently wanted to assign a date to the document go to all that bother? A mere sticker, common in any large office, placed anywhere on the page would have the same effect and further, show that the date was placed on it later, making it pure error and not botched forgery. There would then have been no need to make a second copy to transfer the date to the document and give the appearance that it had been original to the text.

In other words, this looks quite a lot like a hasty and incompetent forgery. Minister Liu maintains that it is merely an innocent mistake.

It could have been typed directly onto the copy.... but why in that spot?

UPDATED: Didn't see the Taipei Times this morning, which also has the pics. In addition to condemning the use of special prosecutors, which appeared to be purely political (indeed, sometimes it seems the special in special prosecutors refers only to their use in political cases against the DPP), the DPP also pointed to what it said was also an indicator of forgery:

While Liu apologized on Tuesday evening for “confusing the dates” of the document, her refusal to say the document had been fabricated was the reason behind the DPP’s decision to file the lawsuit, Chen said at a press conference.

Liu’s mistake was more than carelessly misstating the date, Chen said, as the document appeared to have been fabricated before Monday because Liu repeatedly said in the press conference that “the March 31 document” was important in determining Tsai’s role in the case.

At the press conference on Tuesday evening in which she ostensibly apologized, Liu said there were what she called “more questionable points” concerning the Yu Chang case, Chen added.

This case is huge -- with the Veep candidate's wife, Tsai Ling-yi, claiming that Tsai Ing-wen downloaded US$36 million to her personal accounts -- the legal issues could go on for years. The TT reported "Tsai Ling-yi said last night she “could have cited incorrect information.”"

UPDATE 2: The DPP announces another alteration -- "Attachment No 3" was whited out of the original document before a copy was made.

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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Forgery or Fark Up? Updating a wild one

2011-12-14T23:08:00.002+08:00

Yesterday was an amazing day as the monumental screw up with the dates on a document that the KMT was using to smear Tsai Ing-wen totally backfired on the KMT. The Taipei Times had a thorough report....

At the Monday press conference, Liu and the KMT displayed a document that they said was distributed by the TaiMed Group (TMG), the predecessor of Yu Chang, at an investor conference on March 31, 2007, and said the presentation document listed Tsai as one of the four principal leaders of the start-up.

.........

At the morning press conference, Chen said Liu and the KMT might have committed forgery and may have violated Article 90 of the election act, which stipulates that anyone who spreads a rumor or false statement for the purpose of getting a candidate elected or impeding a person’s election chances could be sentenced to a fixed term of imprisonment of up to five years.

The document shown by Liu on Monday was actually a TaiMed Group presentation from Aug. 19, 2007, less than two weeks before the founding of Yu Chang on Sept. 5, Chen said, adding that Tsai’s name had been listed because she was a chairman-to-be after stepping down as vice premier in May.

As the TT notes, it was a day of press conferences followed by an evening of talk show madness. Liu said it was a minor mistake. One of those simple mistakes that accidentally turned a perfectly innocent set of moves into a nefarious plot by DPP Presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen to use government money to assure herself of big profits in private industry.

People First Party (PFP) legislators, of the party of Presidential candidate James Soong, were accusing the KMT of having a "black hand", a higher up running the plot using subordinates, such as poor Minister Liu. It's good to have another party in the Presidential elections to hack on the KMT.

The TT writes up the comments of one Yu Chang/TaiMed official defending Tsai here.

The pro-KMT English paper, the China Post, observed:

To date, Liu has not provided any details or explanations as to the incorrect date stamped on the CEPD's TaiMed investment briefing that was provided to the Legislative Yuan.

The public has a short attention span, and the case has now become a conflicting flow of names, dates, people, and funds.

The case took an ominous turn today as Taiwan News reported via UDN that special prosecutors were now on the case:

The Chinese-language United Evening News reported Wednesday that special investigators visited the NDF management offices late on Tuesday to browse and read all documents related to the Yu Chang case and two other related files. Since the cases were complicated, the investigators took materials back with them, the paper said.

The DPP has also filed suit against Minister Liu, three KMT lawmakers, and the wife of VP candidate Wu Den-yih, the last for making some particularly ugly and totally unfounded comments:

Apart from Liu, the DPP was suing Tsai Ling-yi, the wife of Ma’s running mate Premier Wu, because she claimed at a rally in Penghu on December 11 that the opposition candidate moved millions from Yu Chang into her own accounts.

KMT attack dog legislator Chiu Yi, who has made similar claims, is targeted in the suit.

As a friend of mine remarked yesterday, the KMT is still running against Chen Shui-bian, who is now old news, and has become old news because the KMT has silenced him in prison, instead of letting him out on appeal where he could cause all sorts of mischief and hurt the DPP's chances. In this case they are simply updating the target to Tsai Ing-wen, but it is essentially the same accusation that was made against Chen: pocketing government money (and one that Chen was found innocent of). The next step is making extravagant claims, creating a media circus, and hoping the stink can't be washed off.

This is a standard tactic that the KMT has used against DPP politicians since the Ma Administration took office (for a review, a post on a few cases here). Accuse them of malfeasance, then they are found innocent, but the stink lingers. Once again too we have a repeat of special prosecutors poking into party and individual accounts as an election looms -- as I've noted several times before, this gives every appearance of being intended as a fishing expedition to gain information about DPP finances and to see who is funding whom.

Meanwhile, though the KMT is attempting to extent the duration of this smear, the strangely dated document and the fact of a public apology should ensure it has a short, unhappy life. Good riddance, I say.
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Daily Links:

Highest ranking US official in a decade visits Taiwan. No real news except the fact of the visit, which I hope is a harbinger of higher-ranking officials to come.
Speaking of harbingers, Chinese fisherman stab Korean coast guardsmen who seize their vessels.
Party like its 1996: Taiwan National Policy foundation advisor claims US military officials fear China will test ICBM during elections, as a warning to the people of Taiwan to tell them who not to vote for. Everyone on the island already knows that Ma Ying-jeou prays five times a day in the direction of Beijing, and the CCP knows missile tests won't be necessary.
Speaking of giving credence to non-peer reviewed claims by scholars with unsupported, unprofessional, ideological axes to grind pimping long-ago refuted and dismissed claims, a pro-KMT 2-28 denier held a press conference in Washington attended by a couple dozen to announce that he had refuted the mainstream view on 2-28 and emphasize what a tiny, insignificant event 2-28 was, how hardly anyone died in it. The "scholar" who spoke has been on this Holocaust denial kick for years, as I noted in 2007 when he said it was all Japan's fault.
China offers Taiwan incentives if the nation votes for Ma: ".... could include setting up representative offices for the non-government bodies which handle talks, simplifying entry procedures for Taiwanese visiting China, or importing Taiwanese rice into China...." sound tasty, don't they?
My man Drew adds a new member to his team: world please welcome Kit.

Smear swells: KMT goes after Tsai on TaiMed =UPDATED X3= with bonus KMT Oops

2011-12-13T18:28:00.015+08:00

Lots of updates and additions here -- thanks everyone for the pointers!

Lots of stuff out there today as the KMT TaiMed smear against DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen revved into higher gear this week. It will be interesting to see how far the foreign media buys into this. Can't wait to see the "balanced" articles.....

The Taipei Times published a chronology of key events in the case....

2007
● Jan. 27: Taiwanese scientists hold a meeting in San Francisco and visit Genentech to float the idea of a flagship biotech project with the company

.....

● May 18: Tsai resigns as chairperson of Yu Chang and TMG after being elected DPP chairperson.
2009
● March 27: Tsai sells all her shares in TMG to Ruentex Group (潤泰集團).

Yeah..... at the top it says "compiled by staff" but at the bottom they give the source: Democratic Progressive Party. That probably explains why all the key details are missing -- the chronology doesn't tell you how much she invested, when she invested, what funding flows she had approval over, how much she made, and other stuff about Tsai Ing-wen's investment. It's a big dollop of nada. Heck, it doesn't even contain information in Tsai's favor, like her announcement on Sept 15, 2007, that she would divest once the project was fully funded. *sigh*

Probably not a good idea to get a "Chronology of key events" from the political party they relate to, eh?

The media would be really helpful if it would stop playing he said, she said, and instead carefully followed the money flows. But neither the Taipei Times or the China Post have any helpful information on that score. I'd be tempted to argue that the lack of information on money flows from the KMT suggests that they are favorable to Tsai's arguments, but since the DPP "Chronology of key Events" doesn't appear to have any money information either (at least in the TT version), one could just as well argue that they don't support Tsai. Yet the KMT's claims are completely lacking in numbers -- KMTers keep claiming that Tsai made massive profits, but provide no numbers to support these claims. Surely it would be easy to demonstrate that Tsai made massive profits simply by showing the numbers. The lack of numbers from the KMT side is a strong signal that their case is nonsense.

Longtime knowledgeable and reliable commenter on my blog SY provided the following information:

6. Once the negotiation went through and the business got substantially going, other private capitalists became willing to participate. When Ms. Tsai had achieved her goal (to kick start the venture), she pulled herself out of the project. She was not salarized for her work as CEO. She got her initial investment (NT$220 million) back with NT$10 million (US$333K) as interest payment (which worked out to be about 3.5% annualized; a pretty humble earning, given the fact that the company was doing well and has been since.)

I see no reason to doubt SY but I'd like to see corroboration of this in the media. ADDED: Found it in a China Post article from a couple of days ago:

Tsai's family owned 20 percent stake in Yu Chang, but Tsai sold her stake after assuming the DPP leadership in 2008 after raking in profits of over NT$10 million, but lawmakers of the ruling Kuomintang claimed that Tsai received NT$100 million in profits.

This is essentially the same information as SY gave. No evidence is given to support the KMTer claims of $100 million in profits. The China Post information in fact refutes these claims -- though they do so with the slanted "raking in profits." Nice try, guys.

TaiMed Biologics financials are online here. TaiMed's home page. You'd think there would be news articles there about Tsai Ing-wen's tenure as Chairman, but again, nada.

The Taipei Times has a more detailed write-up which shows the weaknesses in the KMT case. In the previous post I noted that three years ago, when Tsai was running for Chair of the DPP, the China Times tried to attack her using this case, but had nothing. The TT report shows that the KMT still has nada:

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) questioned whether Tsai had known she would become chairperson at Yu Chang before she approved the documents, since the second document proved that the idea of the company already existed.

The fund’s data show that TaiMed held a conference for potential investors on March 31, 2007, and the conference’s report listed Tsai as one of the company’s four key principals.

KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said Tsai might have broken the “revolving door” clause on officials and private sector work, since a key principal would generally become a company executive or be closely connect to its operation.

In other words, the KMT has zero direct evidence that Tsai directed funds to the firm because she planned to be Chairperson one day. Meaning their case is the usual innuendo.

FORGERY OR FARK-UP? But even worse... today CEPD head Christina Liu admitted that the March 1 date was incorrect, it should have been August....

On Monday, the CEPD released official documents about investments by its National Development Fund in Yu Chang Biologics Company. The papers purported to show that Tsai was already prominently involved in the Yu Chang project when she was still vice premier in March 2007.

The Kuomintang accused Tsai of violating conflict-of-interest laws by giving the go-ahead for government investment when allegedly already knowing she would take over as chairwoman of the company.

The date was wrong and should have been August 2007, when Tsai had already left government service, Liu admitted Tuesday afternoon after the DPP threatened to sue her for forgery.

Bet this sinks this smear....Liu had to apologize. One suspects she will be stepping down soon.

It always amazes me that convicted felon-legislator Chiu Yi is the attack dog on these things, which are invariably shown to be false, and yet the public and media still accord him credibility.

The DPP refutations are also in a Taipei Times report and are pretty damning to the KMT's case, if true. Once the true story -- always more complex than the smears -- is out, it will be clear to the public that Tsai risked her own family's money to do something of benefit for the whole nation -- give it a leg up in the biotech business. That is probably why Tsai continued to climb today in the prediction market. The weakness and sliminess of this negative politicking is not going to play well with the public.

FUN: Scientists and other public figures' rebuttals of Chiu Yi's claims (Comic in Chinese)

REFS: 2007 Taipei Times article on the project. No one seems to find it strange that Tsai would be the Chairman, and Ho Mei-yueh does not need to refute charges of conflict of interest. D'oh. A Sept 2007 article on TaiMed from the IRPMA.

UPDATE 3: TVBS poll dated Dec 10 has Tsai and Ma neck and neck at 39% each. Prediction market had Tsai on the rise again today.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Daily Links, Monday, Dec 12, 2012

2011-12-12T13:03:00.001+08:00

Gaomei Wetlands outside Taichung city, always a pleasant experience.

I'd like to show you the CNA story on the piggy bank event in Taipei on Saturday, but a friend of mine pointed out to me: What did the Central News Agency say about the DPP's Saturday event when tens of thousands showed up to donate piggy banks to the Tsai Ing-wen campaign? (Focus Taiwan, CNA Taiwan political headlines). They reported on Soong promise to visit China if elected, which will never happen, and on Ma's promise to subsidize taxi drivers.... but on a major, signature campaign event in the capital?

Nothing.

If this is not merely slowness in getting the story out, then I expect we will see the CNA becoming more open in its plugging of Ma as election day nears.

Your sturdy blogger is in a double funk, with winter and SAD nigh and his camera in the shop for repairs for the third week. Must medicate with alcohol..... meanwhile what's out there on the blogs?

ELECTION (blogs and media):

President Ma promises subsidy of $30,000 for taxi drivers who want to replace their old cabs. Tsai meanwhile promises to establish a religious affairs department.
PFP claims that its phone call firm was pressured to drop the Soong campaign.
Police to crackdown on election gambling.
Frozen Garlic on who owns the corruption issue and on the Yu Chang scandal smear. The timing of the release, FG argues, was to give it time to sink in. I suspect that in fact it is backfiring by showing the KMT's desperation.
John Tkacik points out that AIT has great things to say about Tsai. Not so much about Ma.
Jakarta Post, Oman paper, on the piggies, election
Taiwan Thinktank has Ma and Tsai in dead heat.

BLOGS:

Craig on textures in photography. A couple of nice pics there too.
KMT councillor in Taoyuan has calendar made, shows PRC rules China after 1949. Oops.
How the KMT is using biking to get out the vote.
ERTC Group on Taiwan's first BOP deficit as foreign investors took money out of stocks and bonds
Drew rounds up travel posts.
Steve Crook with a new tourist book on K-town.
AsiaEye with under the radar news.
US-Taiwan Defense Command is looking for the US father of a woman born in 1967.
Flashmob vid at Taipei Train station is internet hit.
James walks with the monkeys in Wufeng
A foreigner with no mandarin visits Tainan.
Lao Ren Cha with a long meditation on childlessness. My advice now is always: don't have'em. There are more than enough H. sapiens on earth, and with the constant failure of climate talks to produce real progress, it is likely that after 2040 or so life on earth will become....difficult.

MEDIA:

Rutgers senior wages campaign for Taiwan independence. Go Jenny Wang!
The Diplomat interviews the ROC Ambassador to the US.
Holmes and Yoshihara again on Chinese sea power
The Diplomat: if China's property bubble bursts.
New bridge opens between Pingtung and K-town. Much needed! With bike lane too!
Peter Lee at Asia Times reviews the story about tunnels and nukes in China.
China responds to Obama's "Pacific President" drive.
Taiwan exports to China fall slightly, though not as much as exports to US, Japan, and Europe.
China Post on the gender imbalance in Taiwan
Taiwan universities too homogenized.
IBM to set up internet of things research center in Taiwan. The internet of things is the next big wave.
China's dam building frenzy

EVENTS:

The documentary Hand in Hand, about the Taiwan democracy movement, with English subtitles. See their blog for times and dates. Taipei Times review.
See sidebar for more events -- Taiwanderful's blog award voting is now open!

Example #101598: Tensions are First Causes, without Cause themselves

2011-12-11T22:22:00.001+08:00

In an otherwise excellent article in WaPo on how Beijing is really bummed that the pro-Taiwan side appears to be doing well in our local elections, Keith Richburg scribes:

During Ma’s term, relations across the volatile Taiwan Strait have been, as he put it in an interview, “the most stable of anytime in 60 years.” But the prospect that he might lose to a candidate of the independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party has raised fears among some analysts in China of renewed tension, which might once again draw in the United States. This last happened in 1996, when China fired missiles near Taiwan and the Clinton administration sent additional naval ships to the region as a show of U.S. determination not to allow China to intimidate Taiwan.

Tension, as I have pointed out one million times, is a policy choice of Beijing. We saw that clearly in the decision to upgrade Taiwan's extant F-16s rather than sell the nation new ones, when China chose to restrain its usual tension-boosting. I wrote:

It is hard to think of a clearer illustration that tensions are (1) caused by Beijing and (2) totally under Beijing's control and (3) a calculated policy response and not some putative visceral reaction, aimed at US support for Taiwan and US analysts and observers. I suppose, though, it is too much to hope that the media will cease writing as if tensions occur without agents causing them, or that Taiwan is the cause of tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Why is it impossible in the media to actually name the source of tensions in the China-Taiwan-US triangle?
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Taichung to get Green Tower as Japanese architect wins design award

2011-12-11T21:23:00.001+08:00

Above is an artist's conception of the new Taiwan Tower, which is part of "a larger urban plan" for Taichung. An article on it describes the $US220 million project:

The winning Sou Fujimoto concept features a tower that in essence is a "21st Century Oasis." The structural design is inspired by the Taiwanese Banyan tree and incorporates a roof-top garden that seems to float 300 meters above the ground. The tower will create a symbolic landmark for Taichung City, with the garden being visible from within a vast radius.

The structure will adopt several green architecture initiatives by implementing a forest roof; rainwater harvesting; solar hot water panels; wind turbines; photovoltaic cells; a ground source heat pump; a desiccant air-handling unit and natural ventilation. Sou Fujimoto also hopes that these green strategies will be a significant contribution to acquiring the LEED Gold certification.

The superstructure of the tower will feature a series of steel columns, spiral beams and roof beams. The perimeter columns and intermediate columns will be positioned in various directions so that they can resist strong lateral winds and earthquakes.

The city council has yet to approve this.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Piggies Rule

2011-12-11T21:16:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was piggy day in Taipei (friend's video on FB). The DPP said 70,000 piggy banks were delivered to party HQ around the nation:

Thousands of supporters returned piggy banks yesterday, with the DPP’s headquarters in Pingtung County receiving about 1,200 piggy banks within two hours of opening its doors at 10 am.

The DPP’s regional campaign headquarters in Greater Taichung also saw a huge response, with supporters bringing in piggy banks weighing 70kg on a shoulder-pole. In Chiayi County, a supporter showed up with three live piglets, which immediately became the focus of many photographs.

In Taipei the DPP also said 50,000 people showed up to drop off piggy banks. Friends who were there said it certainly seemed like there were that many.

Meanwhile, despite the smear over a biotech investment (see post below this one) the DPP continues to gain momentum. Earlier today the NCCU prediction market was displaying irrational exuberance, with Tsai predicted to beat Ma by 9 points, and shares of Tsai selling for nearly $20 more than shares of Ma in the predicted winner market.

German press agency DPA turned in a surprisingly sympathetic article, despite a couple of errors. AP (in WaPo) reports that Tsai and Ma are now running neck and neck. It will be interesting to watch how the international media scores the last few intense weeks of this election. Don't forget there's a legislative election going on -- most everyone seems to, yet the legislature is in its way more important than the presidency.

The debate between the vice presidential candidates also seemed to go well for DPP Veep candidate Su. The key thing is that Su did not make any glaring errors. The DPP's game this time around seems to be a solid mistake-free ball control game. It makes for a bland election, but one I am very happy with.
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Daily Links:

China Post with a surprisingly good editorial on Chiu Yi and the ridiculous striptease allegation.
Drew with a fantastic post on biking and KMT propaganda.
Christian Science Monitor has a nice piece on Ma's proposal for a peace accord, which hurt his campaign badly. In it is mentioned Lai Shin-yuan, the TSU politician that Ma made head of the MAC. Remember when she was first appointed the international media crowed that she was a pro-independence politician?
But for Taiwan to actually sign an accord, which was first suggested in 2008, it would require more public support at home and more trust in Beijing than exist today, says Lai Shin-yuan, the Taiwanese government's top policymaker in relations with China.

“The opposition intentionally exaggerated this issue,” she charges. “They don’t have a China policy, so they’re always stirring things up, always making accusations ahead of the election, saying we’re going to sell out Taiwan or unify or whatever.”
Looks like Lai learned to parrot the KMT line pretty fast, though as I noted in the post, she probably never was very green.
JustRecently on the prediction market and polls here.

KMT Smear Campaign Moves Into High Gear? =UPDATED X 2=

2011-12-09T22:21:00.010+08:00

Today's biggest news was the KMT accusation that Tsai had broken the law and profited illicitly from her position as Vice Premier years ago.....

Tsai became chairwoman of Yu Chang Biologics Company in 2007, months after she left the position of vice premier in the DPP administration. Critics alleged she broke the revolving-door clause barring government officials from holding top positions at companies within three years of their resignation if they had had dealings with it during the five years up to their leaving government.

Tsai said she had actually helped the government make NT$1 billion (US$33 million) within three years. Neither she nor her relatives had invested in the company and made any huge profits, she told a news conference in Tainan Friday.

Her part in the Yu Chang launch had been investigated already, so the recent spate of accusations was just the ruling Kuomintang trying to damage her reputation one month ahead of the presidential election, she said.

The Taipei Times has a very detailed discussion of what happened. Tsai approved funds for a biotech firm which, after stepping down from the Premiership, she became Chairman of. The DPP explained that actually Tsai didn't violate the clause in the law, and rejected accusations by the KMT that Tsai had made gazillions from the firm. Apparently things couldn't have been too bad, because the KMT Administration of President Ma also invested in the firm, and the government made a good return on its investment to boot.

This is, I am told, an accusation that the KMT has tried before in elections Tsai was involved with. In other words, it was DOA when it was made a couple of years ago. There is a second accusation with this one which may also pop up one of these days. Lookin' forward to it....

Thing is, Tsai became Chair of TaiMed in 2007. Four years ago. Her move into the post was open and public. At the time the government was hoping to encourage the biotech industry. Here's a 2009 Taiwan Panorama piece:

Then, in July 2007, the Legislative Yuan passed the Act for the Development of Biotech and New Pharmaceuticals Industry. Genentech announced that it was acquiring Tanox and its patents, including that to TNX-355, the following month. The outlook for the domestic biotech and new pharmaceuticals industries looked bright, and there were constant rumors that Genentech was planning a joint venture with a Taiwanese firm.

On the evening of September 12, 2007, the National Development Fund announced that it was taking a 40% stake in TaiMed Biologics, a company that would be formed the following day. TaiMed named former vice premier Tsai Ing-wen its first chair and TNX-355, acquired from Genentech for US$100 million, its first product. Ho, Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey, and Patrick Yang, Genentech's Taiwanese executive vice president, were all instrumental to the deal that got development of TNX-355 going again.

See any hint of shenanigans there? Wait a sec.... Check out this Commonwealth magazine piece, which celebrates the close coordination of the biotech industry and government as new regulatory frameworks were coming into existence to permit expansion of the industry in Taiwan and remove barriers to cooperation. Tsai herself "played a critical role" in getting the regulatory and legal framework changed. The laws allowing business-government exchanges were loosened, for both scientists and other forms of personnel. A month later Commonwealth notes:

Lastly, they brought onboard expert negotiator Tsai Ying-wen as chairperson of the board.

Though she had no previous experience in the biotech industry, Ho says that Tsai possesses a special ability when it comes to the power of persuasion.

The team sent Tsai to the United States for a two-week “crash course” in August. With Chen Lan-bo acting as host, Tsai paid visits to important biotech businesses, educational institutes and Wall Street as well. After meeting with Tsai at that time, Chen relates, a few of his Wall Street friends who had been unwilling to help out in the past all pledged to spare no effort in assisting Taiwan.

Tsai's talents as a communicator and harmonizer were applied to great effect during the final stage of talks with Genentech. Chen says that for many things, “she takes a deeper view than the American lawyers and is able to make the details even clearer than the American biotech companies.”

Participating scientists maintain that the integrity and impartiality for which Tsai is renowned are a requirement for doing business in the biotech sector. “I think this is a business to stay for the long term, and integrity is a very important quality for a successful business in the long term,” says Ho, adding, “Short term, I think you could skip on the integrity... and then forget your vision. That's possible. But we are not doing this.”

Commonwealth specifically lauds Tsai for her integrity and impartiality which it says she is renowned for!

Finally, in 2008 when Tsai was running for DPP Chair, the China Times attempted to make an issue of Tsai having a conflict of interest since she had become Chair of the DPP while being Chair of TaiMed. This attempt died stillborn. More importantly, the China Times didn't make any concrete accusation that Tsai had any conflict of interest in her position as premier or of violations of the Civil Service Act, because there were none that could be made! If Tsai had really done anything identifiably wrong, she'd have been enthusiastically roasted by the KMT and its toadies as another example of "Chen Administration corruption." But the reality is quite the opposite: everyone seemed quite happy that TaiMed had secured the services of the talented Tsai Ing-wen.

In other words, this has every appearance of being a smear, pure and simple.

Oh yeah, the "Ho" in the article above, who is the firm's scientific founder? That is David Ho, one of the world's top scientists, who invented the drug cocktail approach for halting AIDS (more on it in this 2009 article). According to all sides, he was one of the scientists who brought her into the firm.

Fortunately, the KMT offered us some comic relief on the mudslinging front: the revelation that nine years ago the wife of DPP VP candidate Su Jia-chyuan had attended a party where there were strippers when he was the Pingtung County Chief and she an official in the land office. O the horror! Su promptly apologized for the sake of public morality as irony meters all over Taiwan exploded, given the longstanding involvement of A Certain Political Party with organized crime and prostitution (and political killings, martial law, etc). Not to mention that plenty of politicians from all parties have visited houses of ill fame..... given how modern it makes his wife look, this accusation will no doubt help Su.

Only a few weeks left, and it appears that Tsai has the edge on Ma. The nastiness is only beginning.....

UPDATED: Taiwan Echo observes in the comments:

Tsai in her press conference said that she didn't gain unusual/out-of-ordinary profits from her investment.

When reporting that, NowNews twisted it into that: "I didn't gain profit from that investment."

It then used by the KMT to accuse her of lying.

My article (in chinese) on how Tsai's word is twisted:

今日新聞篡改蔡英文談話內容誤導讀者
http://blackrain.skycity.cc/2011/12/10/10670.html

NowNews, previously "behaves" like non-partisan, reveals that it hardly is. The journalist who twisted Tsai's word is no one else but NowNew's News Center Director as well as Deputy Editor.

That simple twist helps to lock the blue extremists in a mentality of hatred against Tsai.

UPDATE II: Lots of great comments. SY notes:

My understanding of the matter is as follows:

1. At the time, much was discussed about how to secure more technologies for Taiwan to face the Standort competition from other Asian nations. Bio tech was identified as one of the desirables.

2. The Taiwanese law makers set the rule that the government could only contribute to less than 40% of the total venture capital.

3. At the time, bio tech was seen (still is seen) as high risk and only profitable over long term if at all successful. Most Taiwanese venture capitalists were not willing to participate. Therefore, there was not enough private venture capital to get the project going.

4. The key scientists, via the help of the Nobel laureate Yuan Tseh Lee and others, persuaded Ms. Tsai to get involved. She contributed NT$220 millions to get the total private capital contribution to the reuqired 60% of all to get the proejct started. She was also asked to act as the CEO with the primary task to negotiate with Genetech due to her international negotiation experiences (key word: GATT/WTO.)

5. At the time, both Japan and South Korea were competing to gain access to the technology. Therefore, the project file was classified.

6. Once the negotiation went through and the business got substantially going, other private capitalists became willing to participate. When Ms. Tsai had achieved her goal (to kick start the venture), she pulled herself out of the project. She was not salarized for her work as CEO. She got her initial investment (NT$220 million) back with NT$10 million (US$333K) as interest payment (which worked out to be about 3.5% annualized; a pretty humble earning, given the fact that the company was doing well and has been since.)

To my eyes, the Yu Chang project is a huge asset, not a liability, to Ms. Tsai. I'd mark it clearly in my resume. Ms. Tsai is too humble to brag.

Read all the comments, some good perspectives. I suspect Taiwan Echo is right -- once word gets around, this will hurt the Ma campaign in the end.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Friday Odds and Ends

2011-12-09T21:56:00.001+08:00

What was the best article you read on Taiwan and its international relations this year? A friend wants to know....

A few days ago I linked to a poll from CLSA using "Gallup Marketing Services Corp". There is no Gallup organization in Taiwan, and I confirmed with the counsel for Gallup that this poll is not by Gallup USA, but apparently from a local illegally using the Gallup name. This is a constant headache for the US firm.

Got this in my email:

Please distribute this wonderful opportunity to potential applicants you may know. Any graduate or undergraduate student with U.S. citizenship may apply for this full-immersion Mandarin and cultural program in Taiwan for July and August, 2012. (Familiarity with Mandarin language and Chinese/Taiwanese culture is not required.)

Check out www.taiwanusalliance.com, and feel free to send inquiries (taiwanusalliance@gmail.com).

I know nothing about this organization, so can't vouch.

On the Presidential Ballot, DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen is number 1, President Ma is number 2, and what's-his-name is number 3.

A Taipei Times article notes the DPP's goal to squeeze every vote out of the South in order to offset the KMT's massive margin in the North. The central area is a battleground, but only in the sense that the numbers should be close.

UPDATE: SY left a marvelous comment below:

The so-called "Taiwan Gallup Market Research" was founded and is being run by a KMT old-timer Timothy Ting (丁庭宇), who is currently alsojobbing as a Taipei City Deputy Mayor.

This illegal behavior has been going on for many years. "Taiwan Gallup" (often, "Taiwan" is dropped in their self-identification within Taiwan) generally has been acting like a TVBS in the polling sphere.

Another instance is the so-called "ROC Red Cross", which is not at all affiliated with International Red Cross. The so-called "ROC Red Corss" is run by KMTers and is a place where KMT politicians often seek political "refuge" after leaving a post often due to political troubles, such as

1. Hau Lung-pin (after leaving his post in the then DDP government; the linked piece is a TVBS propaganda for him),

2. Wang Ching-feng (immediately after being sacked from the post of minister of justice in 2010)

3. the wife of Ma Ying-jeou (after resigning from her HSBC post, an act necessitated by Ma's inauguration three weeks earlier.)

And many more.

Basically, it acts as a career buffer for KMTers. The director (since 2000) Chen Chang-wen, a KMT lawyer closely associated with Ma Ying-jeou, is famous for inventing the so-called "Reservoir Thesis", which argues that Ma's private bank account is associated with his Taipei city treasury account like two linked reservoirs; thus, he argued (successfully) that Ma was "innocent" in being confused about how the money flew between the two accounts.

Its Wkipedia entry contains a section narrating it meeting the conditions to be recognized except for "Taiwan not being a signatory power to the Geneva Conventions" (yes, here, they use "Taiwan"; "ROC" is momentarily forgotten.) This is a very KMT way of admitting that they are not part of IRC and have no communication with IRC.

The most alarming aspect regarding "ROC Red Cross" is its uses, non-uses (retention) and reassigned uses of donation as well as its dubious administration cost. Bascially, when you donate money you don't know where, how much and when your money goes. They may retain it for a few years and give out some of it for a cause not of your designation and not within the timeframe of your desire, at their own discretion. See this web page (scroll down to read the text) for a glimpse.

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Daily Links:

Dork from China attempts to raft over to Taiwan to view elections, is stopped by Coast Guard, deported back home, says Taiwan democracy is "horrible." (NYT) ROFL.
HTC banned from the US? An outside possibility.
Haha. The China Confucius Peace Prize goes to Vladimir Putin, following its award to Lien Chan the previous year.
Frozen Garlic looks at a local Taipei legislative race.
Battle of Fisherman's Wharf with Part 4 of his series on the Yoizuki Hell Ship.
Taichung set to spend US$200 million on a tower in the city.

Radiation Hazard: The Tao People of Orchid Island Speak Out

2011-12-09T10:13:00.003+08:00

來自蘭嶼的族人的呼喊請大家幫忙轉貼讓更多人知道

A Call from the Indigenous People of Orchid Island (Taiwan)

達悟民族，即將滅族──核廢外洩聲明稿

The Tao People face imminent extinction

Statement on radiation leaking from the Orchid Island nuclear waste site

遨遊太平洋黑潮的飛魚再次迴遊進入蘭嶼島上的美麗港灣, 領頭的黑色翅飛魚傳說，這蘭嶼島上的和善主人去了那裏? 穿著盛裝衣服的丁字褲族群為何不來迎接我們?
The flying fish, following their tour of the Kuroshio Current in the Pacific Ocean, return once again to the beautiful bay of Orchid Island (Lanyu). The black-finned flying fish leads the way, looking for the kind hosts of Orchid Island. The fish ask, "Why aren't the people who proudly wear their loincloths here to greet us?"

於是，我們在想是什麼讓他們消失呢? 有人說了答案，是核廢輻射鈷60與銫137毒素.
What could have made them disappear? Some people say that it was because they were poisoned by cesium-137 and cobalt-60 radioactive isotopes in their environment.

這個在飛魚族群字語不曾出現的名詞竟是達悟族滅絶的原因.
These radioactive isotopes, which had never before existed in the language of the flying fish, are the cause of the disappearance of the Tao people.

三十幾年來，達悟族人與核廢輻射共處的時間，讓太平洋黑潮帶上的綠寶石，淹没在核廢輻射外洩的死亡帶上.
For 30 years the Tao people have lived with radioactive exposure from nuclear waste stored on their island, allowing this green gem of an island lying next to the Kuroshio Current of the Pacific Ocean to die by drowning in the radioactive material leaking from the nuclear waste.

當輻射核種浸染水源，在種殖芋頭、地瓜的土壤上擴散生根，讓達悟人的皮膚潰爛，身體內部神經異常，骨髓血脈長滿病瘤.可是我們嘶喊的聲音無人聽見.
The spread of radioactive isotopes, poisoning the water and the soil where the taro and sweet potatoes grow, has caused the Tao people to experience rotting skin, nervous system abnormalities and diseases and cancers of the blood and bone marrow.

我們呼喊誰可以救救我們! 救救我們美麗的小島!
We are calling out to anyone who can help us. Please save us and our beautiful island!

為此，我們向任何有良知的人呼籲，求你們幫幫我們，救救我們.
We send out a plea to all people of conscience to help us, to save us.

附記：若您願意請將此聲明傳給馬英九、蔡英文、宋楚瑜先生女士，我們需要急迫的援救。
Note: We hope you are willing to send this message to President Ma Ying-jeou and presidential candidates Tsai Ying-wen and Sung Chu-yu of Taiwan. We are in desperate need of your help.

蘭嶼反核自救聯盟
Orchid Island (Lanyu) Anti-Nuclear Self-Preservation Alliance
(Please share widely to help us get our message out and let more people know about this situation.)

REF: Taipei Times report. Video in Chinese. ICE report with chronology and history. Older but still useful backgrounder
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Antipolls

2011-12-06T20:12:00.002+08:00

Various polls collected by Now News. All the pro-KMT polls show a big lead for Ma and growing. The pro-DPP Liberty Times poll has Tsai ahead. Apple Daily, widely regarded as in-between the two camps, has Ma up by the biggest lead. In the prediction market as of this moment, for who will win, Tsai is ~$51.00, Ma ~$36.00, in the prediction of the victory margin, Tsai is up by 7 over Ma.

I think I need a Beerlao to handle all this conflicting data.

ADDED: As my friend Ben Goren observed: "We essentially won't know shit until election night and the shooting the day before."
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

New Aboriginal Draft Law Slammed

2011-12-06T09:43:00.004+08:00

There is nothing like ticking off a supportive minority constituency right before a tightly-contested election. The Taipei Times reports:

The statement said the Aboriginal autonomous act proposed by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration was a backward bill that violated the Constitution and the current global trend of respecting Aborigines’ rights.

Representatives from the coalition called on legislators to boycott the bill and also urged Aborigines not to vote for Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the election Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections.

Describing the bill as an “empty shell,” National Dong Hwa University College of Indigenous Studies director Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒) said the bill did not grant Aborigines their own land.

This being so, Shih asked how Aborigines could establish their autonomous regions.

He said the bill stipulated that Aborigines could establish offices and councils in their respective tribes, but it did not abolish current administrative districts. This means that any executive decisions made by tribal regions would have to negotiate with township and county governments, which means they would be likely to go nowhere.

Amis representative Konon Panay (古孟巴奈) said the central government did not define and grant Aboriginal lands, but it has been depriving Aborigines of their lands in the name of development.

The Eastern Development Act (東部發展條例) was approved in June by the legislature and aims to develop land in Hualien and Taitung counties, allowing big developers to destroy land traditionally owned by Aborigines and threatening to ruin the lives of Amis Aborigines, Panay said.

I pointed to some of problems resulting from the new act and in general, development on the east coast here. This should also be connected back to the long term "shock doctrine" use of the Morakot disaster as a way to lever mountain peoples off their lands so they can be "developed" without the inconvenience of Other People's Ownership. If you ride your bike around the lower altitudes of mountain areas of Taiwan, you will run across cookie cutter style homes, like this one in Majia Township in Pingtung at about 400m, into which local aborigines are being moved from the mountains.

That too is part of the historical drive of the various colonial governments of Taiwan to move the aborigines out of their mountain homes and take over those resources.

Aborigines are a key KMT constituency. Of course, so are the big businesses that support the KMT, so it is not difficult to see why this law is going through just prior to the election. Recall that even if Ma loses, there will be a four month interregnum before Tsai takes over. Although I don't subscribe to any of the wilder theories one hears floating around about what will happen, it is fairly obvious it will be giveaway time for government assets. With this new law just in time for that.... ADDED: Drew responds and elaborates.

The THRAC sent out a letter on the law this week

Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada calls on ROC Executive Yuan to withdraw draft Indigenous Autonomy Act

December 5, 2011

On December 5 the Indigenous People’s Action Coalition (台灣原住民族真實自治聯盟) held a press conference at the Legislative Yuan to protest against the Executive Yuan’s draft Indigenous Autonomy Act (原住民自治法草案). They decried it as “false self government” because it offers neither fiscal power nor land rights, and would be subject to the existing township/district governments.

THRAC supports the position of the Indigenous People’s Action Coalition, and makes the following statement:

(1) We support the right of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples to Self Government

Indigenous self-government is a basic right of Taiwan Indigenous Peoples, and a hope for which they have struggled over many years. Indigenous self-government not only implies managing their own affairs, it also is beneficial to the development of self-identity, continuation of traditional culture, and possession and protection of natural resources in their traditional territories.

(2) The law should uphold the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

In that Declaration it states: Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions”.

The Executive Yuan draft Indigenous Autonomy Act offers an extremely low level of self governing authority, within which Indigenous people have no power to use and manage the resources on their land, and so seriously violates the spirit of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

3. The draft Indigenous Autonomy Act should be withdrawn and rewritten

The current draft essentially strips Indigenous peoples of their right to self government, and lacks the fundamental elements of real self-government. As a draft “without land, without fiscal authority, without real power” it should be withdrawn and rewritten, so as to give Indigenous people real autonomy.

Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada
President Michael Stainton and the Executive Committee
Toronto, Canada, December 5, 2011
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Way Cool: Total Eclipse of the Moon this Saturday

2011-12-06T08:06:00.001+08:00

In addition to a cold front, TT says Taiwan is going to be treated to a total eclipse of the moon in which the entire process can be observed:

Cheng Chen-fong (鄭振豐), a specialist at the bureau’s Astronomical Observatory, said this time was different because people would actually witness the complete process of the total lunar eclipse, which would last six hours. The last time such a phenomenon was observed in Taiwan was on July 16, 2000, he said, adding that it would not occur again until Jan. 31, 2018.

The bureau said the moon would start moving into the earth’s penumbra at 7:31pm.

First contact, which occurs when the earth’s penumbra makes contact with the outer limb of the moon, would result in a missing corner on the right side of the moon. The phenomenon would occur at 8:45pm.

Because of the forecast of rain for the north and for the mountainous regions, the plains of the center and south will have the best change to see the eclipse.
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[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! Delenda est, baby.

Daily Links, Dec 5, 2011

2011-12-05T17:08:00.003+08:00

An absolutely stunning day in the mountains of Miaoli on Saturday. Here's the view from atop 130 at about 800 meters.

A wonderful weekend full of riding and politics. What's out there on the blogs?

BLOGS:

Drew with two good posts, first on our ride/coming out party for Chris, his first long ride on a bike. Looking forward to many more! The second post is on Chris' bike as an excellent bike for Taiwan.
Oz announces McDee's Taiwan is finally selling quarter-pounders.
Jason C on Ma's muddling of identity. It will only last for the next six weeks anyway, then we are back to Ma the Chinese again.
Global Voices on the Chinese net response to the presidential debates in Taiwan.
Echo Looks at the Futures market with graphs and everything.
Taiwan Airpower with another excellent post on the old Eiko Airdrome in Tainan. Great stuff man, keep it coming!
AsiaEye's under the radar news for this week.
Nathan at Frozen Garlic writes on how ridiculous the persimmon fiasco is. When your campaign's biggest problem is a calendar misprint, you're doing fine, really.
Oz on the hilarious case of Soong's Veep candidate claiming the KMT beams EM into his house to make him irritable at night. If it is truly the case that beamed EM waves will make you irritable, they must be hitting my house 24/7.
J Michael on the election observers denied funding.
Frozen Fate with a great description of his east coast ride, with pics.
Lief hosts photos from a Yenshui fireworks festival junkie.
Robin Winkler of Winkler Partners lists some of the things his firm is doing to make Winkler Partners a green firm. You should try them at your business....

Out at Gaomei Wetlands on Sunday, another lovely day with great company. Don't miss Drew's write-up with great pics.

MEDIA:

Interview with budding biographer of Su Beng Felicia Lin on ORIENTED.COM
Micro-bloggers in China praise Taiwan presidential debates. The pro-Beijing WantChinaTimes in Taiwan, with same story.
Jens on the Japanese troop increase for Yoniguni Island.
Influential KMT politician, former NSC head, and close Ma associate Su Chi joins the Straits Exchange Foundation.
An Indian view of the dead heat election.
What the change in US East Asian Policy means.
Growth prospects for 2012 not encouraging. Brokerage houses also cut growth predictions.
The KMT claims a CLSA poll has Ma in the lead by 4 and rising. The article claims the CLSA commissioned a Gallup marketing services poll in Taiwan. Didn't Gallup shut down their operations here a while ago? Are they now back in the market? What gives? Taiwan is not on their list of global offices.
US lawmakers call on Beijing and Washington not to interfere in the elections.
AP with a very balanced report on the debate.
Solving Taiwan's cloud computing riddle.
Manila Bulletin calls for bringing Taiwan into global organizations to combat global warming.
Various pro-Taiwan groups and individuals are forming a group to watch the election and the four month interregnum
Taiwan to set up a new representative office in India. Yeah!
Believe it or not, the will-o-wisp F-16 sale is still making news in the US as pressure for it in Congress lingers on.
Rick Perry says if he were elected, Taiwan would be his first international stop.
The Economist on Pigs and Persimmons and campaigning in Taiwan. The Economist discovers that elections in Taiwan are about domestic issues -- the impression that they aren't is purely a problem of the foreign media -- in this article the foreign media is like a dog that has found its own tail. Domestic issues were prominent in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections.
Hahahahahahahahaahaha: TRCB News on hard drive price rises: "It is too early in the reporting process for the mainstream media to catch on to the impact of the flooding in Taiwan." THAILAND not Taiwan.

Farms around Pinglin Road in Miaoli on Saturday.

VIDEOS:

Pro-Green San Li has fun pointing to the empty seats and yawning faces at a Ma Ying-jeou event, versus the charged up atmosphere at Tsai Ing-wen rallies.
Vimeo hosts this old video from the early 1960s explaining Free China. The history is hilariously bad, but the scenery is great.
Sunday's presidential election debate, on video. The Consensus appears to be that Tsai did not "lose", which was all she needed to do, but even better, she looked good, while Ma looked awful as only Ma can when he is unscripted or overscripted. Soong apparently did very well but since he is going to lose.....
Ben collects all kinds of campaign vids here.
Event vids for the Ensuring Free and Fair Elections: Taiwan 2012 Event (TT write up): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwQpwpIuRro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ZZe-WRXw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkzXlzV-jOc

The View from Taiwan

Happy New Year!

Randomicity

On Break

Election Day

Links for the Election Eve

WHACK! Hitting the Links in the Afternoon

Morning Linkfest

Links Nom Nom Lin Nom Nom Nom Li...

Longtime Blue on why he's supporting Tsai

More links.....

Tuesday Links

CLSA + "Gallup Taiwan" = Nonsense

差一點點，沒你不行

Election Links

Foreign Policy Follies

The US-Taiwan Business Council & U.S.-Taiwan Relations - 2011: President's Report

Just a note on Soong and Chen

More violations of political neutrality? =UPDATED=

Brookings Monster Seminar on Election on Jan 17

Chinese tourists want to experience election atmosphere

Donnelly and Armstrong: Awesome

NYTimes: Ripe badness turning purplish-black in the harsh light of the facts

The future of Ma

Spying Story has Legs!

Poll Hilarity from AFP =UPDATED=

Tuesday Night Flights

Happy New Years! 13 days to go...

Legislative Election musings

Dec Election Poster Photos

BREAKING: NEXT magazine says Ma Administration using security forces to spy on Tsai

Integrate with Large Power Next Door, Feel more Localized

Futures Market Biases and other Election Errata

Taipei Times Editorial says America IS taking sides

Daily Links, Monday, Dec 26, 2011

Is America sticking a hand in the election?

Pollution: It's here, it's worsening

Events: Formosa Foundation Ambassador Program and South China Sea Workshop

Forgery or Fark-up: DPP points out further alterations in documents

Ma Administration takes steps to goose the stock market ahead of the election

A few links

DPP Campaign suddenly turns brainless, exits high road

American Citizens for Taiwan: Action Alert

Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe Pics

Forgery or Fark-up: TaiMed backfire on KMT continues

They're Rogering Our Women! Why I have no respect for Apple Daily

Forgery or Fark-Up: Chen Lan-po speaks out on TaidMed and Tsai Ing-wen

China Post: It might really be a smear

DiPoll

Forgery or Fark Up: the smoking gun?

Forgery or Fark Up? Updating a wild one

Smear swells: KMT goes after Tsai on TaiMed =UPDATED X3= with bonus KMT Oops

Daily Links, Monday, Dec 12, 2012

Example #101598: Tensions are First Causes, without Cause themselves

Taichung to get Green Tower as Japanese architect wins design award

Piggies Rule

KMT Smear Campaign Moves Into High Gear? =UPDATED X 2=

Friday Odds and Ends

Radiation Hazard: The Tao People of Orchid Island Speak Out

Antipolls

New Aboriginal Draft Law Slammed

Way Cool: Total Eclipse of the Moon this Saturday

Daily Links, Dec 5, 2011