Heard over the grapevine: it will likely to be Frank Hsieh as the DPP candidate for the new Taichung municipality. It is highly improbable that any DPP candidate can defeat Jason Hu, the popular mayor, especially as new projects such as rail line restructing, the metro, and bike paths along the rivers, are going in as the election approaches, stimulating the local economy and creating more money flows into local patronage networks. The DPP's reasoning is that if they put a big name in Taichung, it will attract resources to the party, while forcing the KMT to divert resources to Taichung that could be used in the key races in Shinbei (the City Formerly Known As Taipei County) and Taipei City. It's good strategy, even if victory is unlikely.
But Frank Hsieh?
The referendum on ECFA that the DPP and TSU are pushing will never be permitted to take place, I've heard from well-placed observers. Nevertheless, note that pan-Green pressure has forced the government to retreat to claims that it never opposed the referendum. Further, by keeping the pressure on, the DPP is forcing ECFA to have fewer destructive concessions. I should note that the DPP is also creating conditions whereby when the Party comes back to power, it can repudiate ECFA by claiming that it is an illegitimate treaty created by a cabal of pro-China loons that has no public support.
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Daily Links:
- Taiwan Matters! on how the ISO helps Beijing.
- Steve Crook: lessons learned from the Deafolympics and World Games
- Taiwan-China flight diverted after bomb threat.
- Last week I pointed out the destructive effects of smuggling from China on the nations it trades with and observed that ECFA will lead to massive increases in such items. This week Science Daily with a piece on a researcher who uses pollen to detect smuggled Chinese honey, routed through third countries, that is destroying the US domestic industry.
- Don't Panic, Go Organic at Foreign Policy -- a mag so much more interesting and readable than Foreign Affairs.
[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!
8 comments:
The ECFA dealing is done despite the song and dance about "negotiations". This month some local beneficiaries of ECFA in organized crime have already commenced several large projects ECFA was designed to promote, signaling they have received an affirmative on ECFA. It appears organized crime and their legal offshoots are the prime backers of ECFA and the prime beneficiaries, as well as the politicians who receive a share of the harvest. (I am sorry I can not elaborate on this).
Much of the plan seems to involve flooding the country's low skilled markets with cheaper Chinese labor. These markets include entertainment, hotels, restaurants and tourism--organized crime dominated industries.
These jobs are primarily occupied by young people who often held the factory jobs in the prior generations.
The KMT elites seem to think all young people live lives of privilege and Chinese labor is needed to fill these positions.
Yes, the people flooding is an old Chinese tactic, and if you look you see it everywhere. Next comes the amnesty. "We should make them residents on the path to citizenship! They are our brothers."
Not to forget the construction labor. Lots of illegal Chinese in construction. Much of Taichung's new city hall is being built by illegal Chinese. You can see them walking the street.
Fun set of pictures.
Frank Hsieh makes sense. In the event that Jason Hu loses, the local networks know that they'll have an equally corrupt mayor to deal with. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The metro? Last I heard, they weren't going to build a metro in Taichung. Wasn't the plan turned down?
Anonymous 9:16 implies gangsters are already benefiting from pre-ECFA "projects" with government nods; however, I don't see how organized crime benefits from any formal and tacit ECFA arrangements under these circumstances, since they are apparently outside the law, hence outside the control of the government.
Rather, aren't gangsters benefiting from "blind-eye" corrupt politicians and access to Chinese who now can enter the country more easily because of so-called tourism and easy air connections across the Straits?
If I read Anon's 'inside' info correctly, then Ma Ying-Jeou is directly implicated in organized crime activity. Can the man who says he wants to clean up government instead be a puppet of gang bosses?
Anon 9:16
The KMT elite are in cahoots with organized crime as they are also KMT colleagues in the LY. Look who the ECFA cheerleader is in Taiwan-- Yen Ching-biao.
Organized crime is often used to fund legal enterprise.
Several projects broke ground over the past month that will benefit from ECFA and are aimed at an influx of Chinese into Taiwan.
Deal is done.
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