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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Media Quick Hits

I'm off camping in Gukeng, the center of Taiwan's coffee production. Coffee-themed kitsch on a galactic scale.... Meantime lots of commentary out there on the Taiwan election. First is this disturbing editorial from Taiwan News on the human rights situation and the KMT. The money quote:

However, many actions and statements of KMT legislators since Ma's victory Saturday have already sent chills down the spines of Taiwan citizens concerned with protecting our hard-won human rights.

The most disturbing example is the call issued by KMT lawmakers for the minister of national defense to "swear allegiance" to the president-elect even before Ma is inaugurated May 20.

We applaud the decision by Defense Ministry's Tsai Ming-hsien, Taiwan's first truly civilian defense minister, to reject the demand for such an oath which are only common in personal dictatorships or one-party authoritarian states.

The demands for a declaration of personal allegiance to Ma Ying-jeou were not raised by Ma himself, but, apparently without any sense of historical irony or shame, by KMT Legislator Chiang Hsiao-yen, the illegitimate grandson of the late KMT dictator Chiang Kai-shek, and other right-wing KMT lawmakers.

Don't worry! The KMT has changed. It's not the old KMT, you know. They wear much better suits now....

Also on tap is neocon John Bolton speaking sense on Taiwan in the LATimes. Damn! I hate when neocons say things I like:

For the United States, the clearest way of expressing that support is to give full diplomatic recognition to the state that already exists and that the Taiwanese overwhelmingly wish to preserve. Maintaining ambiguous, informal ties to Taiwan is confusing and potentially dangerous; it obscures Beijing's understanding of just how committed the United States is to Taiwan's defense and self-determination.

Recognition would bring stability and certainty, thus actually lowering the risks that Beijing will misinterpret the U.S. position and threaten or actually commence military action to regain Taiwan. Extending diplomatic recognition would no more prejudice the U.S.' "one China" policy (itself an exercise in confusion and ambiguity) or the ultimate issue of reunification than did U.S. recognition of the two Germanys during the Cold War.

The Japan Times gives some Japan-centered thoughts on the election (hat tip to Sponge Bear):

The biggest concern now is Beijing's understanding of Taiwanese politics. It has wooed KMT leaders for several years and they have reciprocated. But if Beijing expects the new president to sharply alter course, then it is sure to be disappointed. Mr. Ma has said that "before we can talk about peace, we need to remove the threat," a reference to the 1,000 missiles reportedly arrayed against Taiwan. Mr. Ma has also promised to increase defense spending to about 3 percent of GDP. That does not sound like a man ready for unification. Fortunately, with the Olympics on the horizon, China will have little appetite for tension.

Mr. Ma also reportedly wants to elevate relations with Japan. Japan overtook the U.S. in 2006 as Taiwan's second-largest trading partner: Two-way trade nearly reached $63 billion, and 2.3 million tourists were exchanged. While the KMT has traditionally been cool on relations with Tokyo, Mr. Ma is said to want to launch negotiations on a free-trade agreement. Those talks will be tricky: China is sure to take offense at any deal that appears to prevent reunification.

Mr. Ma has his work cut out for him. But the scale of his victory should provide a solid foundation for his administration. Taiwan's voters appear to understand his priorities and appear ready to back a pragmatic agenda. Most significantly, the alternation of power — from KMT to DPP and back to KMT — is powerful reassurance about the state of democracy in Taiwan.

Much of the logic in these centrist pieces is quite strange. While they all struggle to show that Ma isn't going to be Beijing's lapdog and paint rosy pictures of possible conflicts between Ma and Beijing -- think what the mere existence of such a discourse implies about what the reality is -- they all gloss over the fact that in order to accomplish his economic programs, Ma absolutely needs Beijing.

UPDATE: Businessweek has the latest in the string of articles that have been appearing since late December on the changes in China that are pushing firms to relocate abroad. Most readers are familiar with the effects of the rising yuan and the new labor laws, but I had not known that at the same time China had canceled rebates on materials used in export processing:

The rise of the yuan may be the biggest single factor driving companies to relocate. But other government policies are contributing to the crisis. Last year, Beijing decided to cut or cancel tax rebates on more than 2,000 items used to make exported goods. The impact has been huge. "The end of rebates has raised the cost of manufacturing many goods by 14% to 17% at the factory level," says Harley Seyedin, president of the Guangzhou-based American Chamber of Commerce in South China.

What happens is this: in many developing countries switching to an export orientation, tax rebates on stuff used to make exports is a very common policy, found in Taiwan during its heyday as well. Let's imagine I import steel to make toys for export. When I import the steel, I have to pay an import tax or customs duty. However, if I use that steel to make toys which I export, the government refunds me the import tax I paid on the steel. That way the cost of importing the steel isn't included in the cost of the product, holding production costs down. This also means that if I use the steel to make something sold domestically, its cost will be higher (all other things being equal) since there is no rebate on the steel, meaning that local consumers pay more than foreign consumers. The higher costs thus hold consumption down at home, increasing savings.

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Factoids of the day: A friend passed along J Michael Cole's observation that while Ma is always "Harvard-educated," Hsieh was never "Kyoto-educated." Future would-be presidents, take note!

Here's something I didn't notice until last night. While the government announced that it had opened more than 6,000 cases of vote buying during the legislative elections, how many did you hear of during the Presidential election?

14 comments:

  1. So let's put together some of the puzzle pieces:

    First there's the well-timed Tibetan uprising just before the Taiwan election, and the wonderfully harmonious criticism and warnings directed at China by most of the world's major governments;

    We have Sarko of France calling for at least a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics if China doesn't start talking to the Dalai Lama;

    Next we have the well-timed confession of the "accidental" delivery of nuclear warhead fuses (which were sent 18 months ago), and which the Taiwan military SWEARS they didn't touch, and the subsequent apology-with-fingers- crossed-behind-the-back to China by the US;

    Then we have John "I hate the UN" Bolton call for the US to establish full diplomatic relations with Taiwan;

    And finally, but perhaps, intially, we have the just-released revelation that there are more than 1400 ballistic missles pointed at Taiwan (read Richard Halloran in toda's Taipei Times, or many other mentions on the net)rather than the 1000 or so mentioned just today by the Japanese press.

    I'd say the chickens are coming home to roost!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ma has spoken very convincingly over the last few days about exactly what he has in mind in terms of future negotiations and the '92 consensus. You should really find someone to translate it for you. I translated a few passages on Forumosa.

    On export rebates, again, this was early last year. There was much speculation early last year that a sudden burst in exports from China reflected an attempt to take advantage of the rebates before they expired.

    You missed the third item of the perfect storm: higher corporate tax rates for foreign ventures.

    Frankly, these were all necessary changes. And equally frankly, the Chinese economy will continue to be competitive. There's enough pie to to be shared with other developing nations out there; let Vietnam, Indonesia, whoever get their share.

    China has their eye on bigger prizes out there: Ford, GM, Boeing...

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  3. .
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    Vote buying? I can confirm at least one instance in Keelung. Guess which party.

    I can also confirm that the election officials at the voting rooms at three locations in Keelung DID NOT tell the voters to pick up their referendum ballots at the adjacent table.

    In fact, one official argued that my father-in-law could not vote for the referendum without this certain special piece of paper. My father-in-law protested that mistruth and the official then backed down.

    This was the same mistruth that former president Lee gave when he told the public that he didn't vote for the referendum because he didn't have that paper.

    The referendum process was a sham. For the second election in a row, international observers concluded that the two-ballot system implemented for the referendum eliminated anonymity and was inherently undemocratic. The KMT used the system for their own undemocratic purposes, but this rarely gets discussed.
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  4. "have already sent chills down the spines of Taiwan citizens concerned with protecting our hard-won human rights."

    Can anyone tell me why this "hard-won human rights" shibboleth time and again passes unchallenged? Not to deny the very real, admirable, and in some cases mortal sacrifices not a few brave Taiwanese made, but after 2/28 were there ever again ENOUGH folks here who truly stood up for human rights, economic rights, themselves, whatever in this vein? Most Taiwanese did not engage in the struggle, and democracy came courtesy of (a) CCK being influenced by U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings and Reagan's pulling the plug on Marcos, and (b) Lee Tung-hui's efforts once in power. Most of the public had shit-all to do with it, and what you yourself don't work to get will be neither highly valued nor understood enough in its essence so that you know when it's being taken away from you.

    Nothing hard-won about it; the time has not yet arrived when it can truthfully be said that Taiwanese have earned their democracy

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  5. In all fairness, Kyoto isn't exactly in the same league as Harvard. I'm sure if Xie had been educated in Oxford or Princeton, the media would have noted it in the same way.

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  6. Clearly, you hate the KMT dominance of Taiwan life. Yet, without a transition from the past, how can the island proceed? If the DDP or any other group who claim to represent the island can govern, let them stand up. We may hate the violent method the KMT used to achieve control at the end of the WWII engagements but what else is there?

    If Taiwan does indeed have a national identity then let them proclaim it.

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  7. If it wasn't for CKS and the KMT
    the Chicoms would have been on
    Taiwan back in the 1950s.

    ReplyDelete
  8. While Kyoto University may not be Harvard, it is in the same league of elite international universities, having produced several Nobel prize winners. It is also worth keeping in mind that the main qualification for admission to the SJD program at Harvard for students from Taiwan during the 1970s was good connection within the KMT.

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  9. "they all gloss over the fact that in order to accomplish his economic programs, Ma absolutely needs Beijing.
    "

    So did the DPP, and it is with no small amount of awareness of this elementary fact , that the DPP's isolationist policies were partly a reason for them being voted out of power.

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  10. I notice how it didn't take long for the subject of giving CKS his memorial hall back to crop up.

    I remember Ma's reaction at the initial renaming. Along the lines of 'Why can't the DPP just concentrate on the economy and stop stirring up ethnic tension'. The DPP should be looking to throw this argument back at him.

    It is going to be very hard for many in the KMT to allow this perceived victory to stand.
    If this happens, it could represent something the DPP could gather behind.

    The greens have been truly awful at getting their message out. Surely even they could not mess up informing the world's media about how one of Ma 'the peacemaker' Ying-jeou's first acts of business is to haul down signs with the words liberty and democracy and then replace them with the name of a ruthless dictator.

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  11. So did the DPP, and it is with no small amount of awareness of this elementary fact , that the DPP's isolationist policies were partly a reason for them being voted out of power.

    Out here in the real world, it was the DPP that legalized investment in China, not the KMT. The DPP was the opposite of "isolationist"; it wanted FTAs with major trading nations, it wanted a diversified export base, and it wanted diversified manufacturing. The DPP program was not dependent on China -- Ma's is.

    Michael

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  12. The DPP was the opposite of "isolationist"; it wanted FTAs with major trading nations, it wanted a diversified export base, and it wanted diversified manufacturing. The DPP program was not dependent on China -- Ma's is.

    the DPP program was dependant on fairy dust and magic beans, hence the dismal failure. The DPP had a bungled shot at their pie in the sky 'vision' for Taiwan, but the Taiwanese people have rejected the confused and ineffective DPP in favor of the pragmatism and progress that Ma and the KMT offer. Let's see if Ma can deliver what the people of Taiwan are asking him for...

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  13. Additionally, don't forget that the DPP was "isolated" quite often due to the lack of cooperation from China. "Isolationism" has never been DPP policy.

    If Ma is able to make any headway, it will be less because of his brilliant policies than because the government across the strait favours him and is looking to give him relative success to help him along.

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  14. Vin - that was an excellent post.

    ReplyDelete

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