New Taipei City is the biggest municipality in Taiwan, so if Chu gives up his mayoralty and runs for Prez, lots of voters are going to punish him.
If he doesn't run, and instead runs someone less popular, like Wang Jin-pyng, Hau Lung-bin, or (please please please) Wu Den-yi, the KMT will likely lose. If the party loses, it is traditional -- the Chairman must resign (as Chairman Ma Ying-jeou actually did after the crushing November defeat). Not resigning, especially if the KMT takes a beating in the legislature, may be difficult to pull off. Since Chu has handed off the day-to-day running of the KMT to Hau Lung-bin, the former Taipei mayor, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Hau will emerge as the frontrunner for the most powerful position in the KMT if Chu resigns. As Chair Hau can do grievous harm to Chu's chances in 2020 if Hau wants a shot at the presidency himself. Note that Hau is running the selection committee for KMT legislative candidates, meaning that many people picked will owe Hau a favor.
Surely Chu has considered this...
UPDATE: My man Ben observes to me:
If Chu doesn't run and KMT lose then Chu won't be to blame no? If Chu runs and loses then has to resign then Hau for 2020A loss either way will likely result in a Chu resignation, IMHO. Others comments?
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Daily Links:
- LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT
- Water prices in Taipei to rise after 21 years. Finally. TVBS polled consumers on water prices.
- LED lit indoor, pesticide-free farms come to Taiwan
- This blog has some old pics of Jingguashih Copper mine and discussion of its history in English (scroll down).
- NZ exports to Taiwan rise.
- Weirdness. Selling on Steam now: A Japanese anime game in which the characters wind up in the 2-28 massacre.
- Taiwan Air Blog on stats for US bombing of Formosa in WWII
- Drew on the Tour de Tai-yawn and Drug Cheats
- China pushing US toward more arms sales
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The funny thing about Chu being more popular than Wang is that popularity comes entirely from getting KMT-voter support Wang doesn't.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Jin-Gua-Shi link, very interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhile no precise records exists, the ninety years of operation in Jin-Gua-Shi resulted in...about 120 tons of pure gold and 250 tons of pure silver and 250,000 tons of copper.
Jin-Gua-Shi earned worldwide reknown for producing the Enargite (Cu3 A5 S4), an extremely rare mineral. Even rarer was the Famatinite (Cu3 Sb S4), a mineral that could not be found anywhere in the world except Jin-Gua-Shi, although another mineral, found in greater abundance, the Lusonite (Cu3A5S4), was worth more money. These facts were known by only a handful of mineral specialists.