- Wild at Heart has the skinny on the anti-nuclear protests taking place across Taiwan on Saturday, March 9.
- The DPP is now mulling absentee voting on the referendum. The KMT is totally for it.
- Excellent letter on the Fourth Nuke Plant and how stupid it is.
- Foreigners seeking to preserve Taiwan's aboriginal languages.
BLOG:
- AsiaEye's Under the Radar News
- A Double Dose of Way Cool: Hear in Taiwan retraces pics from the Tom Jones collection I put up a while back to see what they look like today. And photos of old K-town from US sailors serving here prior to 1979 from Taiwan Airpower.
- Maobitou in Kenting
- J Michael with his series of Zombies in Taiwan.
- Global Voices on Frank Hsieh's aborted microblog on Weibo.
- Letters from Taiwan points out how absurd the claim that China owned the Senkakus in the 15th century is. One of the ways we treat China with an exotic double standard is that we take such nonsense claims seriously on their face.
- Jens reports government still sticking to planned free trade zones, repackaged 1960s policies.
- Perng reappointed central bank governor. By all accounts he's done a bang-up job.
- Taiwan's tedious nuclear saga
- Japan's Defense Minister says pre-emptive attacks legal under Constitution
- The troubled Twin Towers development on the rocks...
- Premier accepts referendum on Fourth Nuclear Plant
- Ang Lee wins Best Director at Oscars.
- Former Veep Siew says Taiwan can say no to Ractopork. What a coincidence it will be when ractopork derails the TIFA talks....
- Lien, China's Xi worship at One China altar. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
- President Chen's term extended.
- Expert: China, US have divergent interests in Taiwan.
- 2012 economic growth rate of 1.26%, a three year low.
- James Holmes: America's pivot and anti-access
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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.
11 comments:
The DPP risk doing themselves some credibility damage in regard to absentee voting. In theory, absentee voting is a good thing and is something that all mature democracies allow. Allowing it in Taiwan should be a no-brainer. According to this article in the Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/03/07/2003556481 they are proposing allowing it only in Taiwan and not to overseas voters. While they would undoubtedly benefit the DPP, it wouldn't be to the benefit of voters, and therein lies the risk to their credibility. The KMT can easily spin that to suggest the DPP only cares about themselves and not the people of Taiwan. Absentee voting needs to be available to all, not just voters within the country. After all, it's relatively easy for someone in Taiwan to return to their hometown to vote (although I personally think it's ridiculous that they don't shift their household registration to where they actually live), but it's much harder and more expensive for voters in other countries to return to Taiwan for elections. An argument could be made that people outside Taiwan have a greater need for absentee voting than those within, and the DPP should be including them in any proposals even if they aren't likely to be DPP supporters. That's if the DPP wants to comment on the issue with any credibility, that is.
Bob
The DPP's response is that the absentee voting outside would simply be an invitation to China to mess with the vote and to punish firms and owners in China that vote pro-Taiwan, since you know as well as I that the vote in China cannot be secure.
I'm not really convinced that KMT spin since no matter what position the DPP picks the KMT will attempt to spin it.
sorry, should say that I am not really convinced KMT spin is all that important, since they will spin anything anyway.
Still not sure what you mean by Delenda Est, since Taiwan is neither Rome nor Carthage...
It'd be unlikely that Beijing would allow Taiwanese to vote from China anyway, but if they did, it would be possible to make it fairly secure. Setting it up with international observers on hand in a polling center for example would safeguard against China meddling. And if China doesn't allow that, then absentee voting wouldn't be allowed in China but would in every other country.
I hope that happy outcome of China blocking absentee voting could occur, since they don't want to set an example for the locals. But if the Chinese were smart they'd permit it but not allow international observers. Such observers would be useless since it would be easy to enforce/tamper. I remember the "international observers" in the early 1990s certifying the elections while all sorts of shenanigans went on, so they are basically just tits on a bull as far as ensuring the safety of the vote. But they'd be great pro-democracy propaganda!
Michael
Still not sure what you mean by Delenda Est, since Taiwan is neither Rome nor Carthage...
March 7, 2013 at 9:07 AM
Just think of it as my little joke.
Michael
Just think of it as my little joke.
What's the punchline?
Isn't it a no-brainer that to exclude "overseas" Taiwanese access to absentee voting means that it's designed to be used by those in China (that's not overseas, right?) who are most likely to vote Blue? I smell a rat.
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_22740766/experts-taiwans-new-visa-free-travel-boon-southern?source=rss
Here's another daily link, about the implications of Taiwan's new visa free travel to the US for southern California, that refers to China and Taiwan as two countries.
"While the two countries are at odds politically, business-to-business relationships are all about making money."
Here is a short but interesting link to an article on Taiwan's newest radar system.
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