Most of you probably haven't noticed, but Taiwan has no budget for this fiscal year. The pan-Blue alliance, led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), have refused to pass the budget unless the Greens permit the Blues to reconstruct the Central Election Commission (CEC) in favor of the Blues:To secure a majority for passage of the CEC amendment, the pan-blue camp has held the budget hostage since last year, leaving the government without funding at the start of the fiscal year.
The dispute over the CEC bill has led to angry confrontations between lawmakers, many times turning violent, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers blocked voting on the amendment.
The DPP has accused the KMT of trying to thwart its plan to hold a referendum during next year's presidential election on recovering assets stolen by the KMT during the Martial Law era, while the KMT has said the CEC bill is necessary to remove what it describes as "partisan bias" in the election committee.
When the Blues blow the 2008 Presidential election as they have blown the last two in '00 and '04, they hope to get a pro-Blue CEC to overturn the election results. Nor do they much care about passing the budget, since one of the pan-Blue goals is to make Taiwan appear as if it cannot govern itself, thus making annexation by China appear as an act of discipline for a recalcitrant and wayward child.
An interesting feature of this campaign to paralyze governance on the island is that the legislature has failed to pass a large number of major spending bills. The results, according to an economic analysis by UBS, may well be positive for some aspects of the economy:
What about the government? Government investment and infrastructure spending has all but ceased as a result of political differences between the ruling and opposition parties. Political disagreements have blocked many government spending programs in the last few years. This year is no different. The budget is currently on hold due to disagreements over how the Central Election Committee will be staffed. Whereas a few years a go the budget deficit exceeded 6% of GDP it has now shrunk to around 1% of GDP. This drop in the government’s need to finance the fiscal balance has contributed significantly to Taiwan’s low interest rate environment. The upcoming parliamentary election in December and the presidential election in March next year could reverse this pressures and lead to higher interest rates in 2009 if the government becomes unified again. However, that is a ways off.
Public debt has actually fallen, relatively, due to the lack of government spending. That's good, from some perspectives. On the flip side, however, without the steady flow of government projects to drive the construction-industrial state that lies at the heart of Taiwan's central/local government relationship, the economy has floundered. Incomes are stagnant --- the report also notes that working hours have fallen and manufacturing labor costs in Taiwan have actually slid, without the upward pressure on wages -- and all that has happened against the background of falling unemployment.
The KMT strategy is quite clear. (1) Paralyze the government (2) win the legislative election and the Presidency (3) release all those big bills (4) sit back and enjoy sudden bump to the economy (5) sell island to China. It's a cruel strategy that has paid good dividends for them, since many people blame the President and the DPP for stagnant incomes.
Given, however, that much KMT support depends on getting flows of government contracts out to connected individuals at the local level, how long can the KMT continue to serve K-rations to its people in order to inflict political pain on the DPP? Many local governments in Taiwan are suffering from severe cash-flow problems. Local factions are notoriously unreliable and have been known flip from one party to the other based simply on whoever is handing them the most government lucre. The key point of the KMT strategy is having to win the elections. If the Blues blow it again in 2008, and somehow manage to lose a legislature whose make-up was rigged to give them great advantages, severe damage could be done to their local networks.
[Taiwan] [US] [Democracy] [DPP] [KMT]
7 comments:
It's laugh out loud funny that the Chinese KMT thinks they can remedy perceived bias in the Central Election Committee by assigning seats purely on legislative seats.
Let's connect this with the Ma Ying-jeou running for president to "prove his innocence" (well fuck you, your fucking idiotic accounts and receipts are your problem and you can stay the hell out of the news and politics) along with the Chinese KMT REMOVING their own by-law stating that indicted persons can't become Chinese KMT candidates so that Mr. Ma can run for president...
You can imagine how they'd really mess with election rules if they had the chance. Gerrymandering in the U.S. is the same thing. Some DPP legislator threw her shoe when they were boycotting the vote (there is no presidential veto, no filibuster, and only a single house, which means the legislative majority has gross amounts of unchecked power... the DPP has compensated by... throwing shoes and holding protests inside the legislative chamber), but it's not so extreme when you consider that in Texas, when they gerrymandered, the Democrats fled the state to prevent a quorum (but then they sent the state police after them...).
Sigh, Federalists were fucking geniuses. Can we please have some checks and balances? Please?
I used to hope that clearer minds might preval before 2007 and 2008, and that the legislature actually might pass something important before the KMT even had a chance to grab all the reigns.
I no longer hold out such hopes. =/
The DPP has got to make the public aware of what the KMT is doing. I really don't know what the KMT really wants. They say they want reunification but I don't believe they want to be Communist or to be ruled by the Chinese and I can't believe that they are naive enough believe that a 'One China 2 system' would be sustained just look at HK. Are they just creating all this crap out of pure hatred for the DPP? Or maybe they really think they will rule China again one day...well that is never going to happen. In the meantime their mission is to be a cancer in Taiwan society. They need to be chemo'd.
Jeanne
Your analysis of the KMT strategy is very compelling but I wonder about part 5, "sell island to China". Parts 1-4 make a lot of sense in the context of the localization strategy of the KMT over many decades, and it looks like from what you're saying they want to go back to business as usuall before all this democracy nonsense got in the way. But the localization of the KMT also involved its Taiwanization, especially under Chiang Ching-kuo, and so I wonder if the ultimate sell-out is the goal, at least among the KMT's rank-and-file. I don't want to sound like I'm defending the KMT, because I would never do such a thing, but point 5) obviously comes from the DPP playbook, so I wonder if there isn't some nuance there.
The rank and file don't want the ultimate sellout -- they are 80% Taiwanese! But I think the Deep Blue mainlanders can't conceive of any other future.
Michael
We also will have no budget for the US this year because the likelyhood of a veto (thank god they took out line item veto). It is part of democracy. When the President decided not to talk to the house, you get dead lock. Of course, any great president will try to work out a deal instead of just calling names and threaten veto (I am talking about Bush here). Today on NPR I heard a very good quote, "The absolute troop withdraw deadline is already set, it is called 2008 election."
Sorry, what I meant is, Ma Ying-jeou removing his OWN by-law so that he could run for president (that he resigned first is of no consequence since the acting chairman is his proxy).
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