It's official. Wang Jin-pyng, Speaker of the Legislature, KMT heavyweight, possible presidential candidate, is out. He held a presser this morning to say that he would not be picking up a registration form for the KMT presidential primary. Storm media has it in Chinese.
This means that either Chu has to jump in or be forced in, or the KMT is going to go with a third-tier candidate and hope that some combination of Taiwanese businessmen in China, threats and more from Beijing (and as someone pointed out to me on FB today, Beijing can keep the KMT alive as long as it wants via transfers of money), and local faction clout can deliver the victory despite the incredible weaknesses of the remaining possibilities.
Because this has been arranged to give Chu no choice, he can claim he was forced and break his promise to the people of New Taipei City, to whom he promised he wouldn't run.
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Ma is uprooting the exiled provisional government of "Free China" from the mulch that nurtured it. Ma is eager to complete that mission before 2016.
ReplyDeleteBut the native political class as a whole and the officialdom (軍公教) are immersed far too deep into the ROC/Taiwan amalgamation.
I mean, their snouts are so deep into the swill, only a shattering earthquake could disturb them from gorging themselves.
As a follow up to my previous comment;
ReplyDeleteIt is too easy for a cipher like me, far removed from the realities those involved are struggling with, to wax sanguine over the issue of Taiwan.
The transition to a Taiwan administered by the natives for the natives might occur seamlessly, without a hitch before the 2016 elections.
I am keenly attuned to native voices that never make the headlines of the Taiwan-related English language media (this blog included).
Their unrelenting debriefing of the local public opinion do not seem to meet much opposition from the powers that be. One can then assume Ma and those forces conniving quietly to help Taiwan peacefully shed its faux China mantle.
Once left to their own means to take the affairs in their own hands, the local factions of the KMT could display their acumen under Wang’s leadership.
If an all Formosan KMT could evolve into the Formosan version of the Japanese LDP against a DPJ-like DPP, my choice of a contender for the 2016 elections is already made for me.
As regard those elections, though, I would question the wisdom of electing the president of the Taiwan area.
A cabinet system à la Nagata-cho would seem more appropriate. And, instead of an office of the president, a locally selected governor should represent the legitimate Crown of Taiwan.
"...a locally selected governor should represent the legitimate Crown of Taiwan."
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth are you on about? The "Crown of Taiwan"?
So let's say the KMT does draft a candidate, what prevents him from saying, "I'm just going to sit at home and drink coffee and refuse to do any campaigning?" You can't really force someone to be a candidate against their will.
ReplyDelete@Mike Fagan's "What on earth are you on about? The 'Crown of Taiwan'?"
ReplyDeleteResponse:
After the ties linking the British Channel Islands of Jersey & Guernsey to the British Crown, while by-passing Westminter. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey.
As stated by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe is his Apr. 28, 2015 address to a joint meeting of the US-Congress, "what has been done can not be undone"
This was done that can not be undone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Shimonoseki
And this was left half done, that could and should be undone:
At the San Francisco Peace Treaty, PM Shigeru Yoshida's 1947 "made-in-occupied Japan" Japanese government was required to renounce title to Formosa without designating a beneficiary.
And so half-doing, the burden of disposing of Taiwan and, in the process, of irretrievably bungling that territorial disposition in a manner detrimental to the Crown and its Subjects, was lifted from the shoulders of fallible men.
As regards the unsettled issue of Imperial Crown territory, Taiwan, a settlement could be reached between 1947 New-Japan and the US through a rehash of the 1904 Hay-Quesada Treaty recognizing Cuban sovereignty over the Isle of Pines.
Hay-Quesada Treaty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay-Quesada_Treaty)
Isle of Pines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isla_de_la_Juventud