Monday, September 19, 2016

Local government heads kowtow in Beijing =UPDATED=

DSC03270
Exploring the old rail line near Tai-an

News Lens on the news of eight city/county government heads heading off to China to offer their heads:
Besides belonging to the same camp — six of the eight city and county government heads belong to the Kuomintang (KMT) and two others are blue-leaning independents — all eight representatives have stated they recognize the “1992 consensus,” which an inflexible Beijing has set as a precondition for cross-Strait exchanges.

Having frozen most (albeit not all) the official communication mechanisms between the central governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Beijing is now accelerating its efforts to bypass the central government in Taipei and rewarding local governments that agree to say what it wants. In return, the heads of those eight municipalities hope to reap the benefits of Chinese tourism and better market access for their produce. In other words, they are agreeing to form a clientelistic relationship with China.
As Cole points out in the article, this is not the first time that China has attempted to form patron-client relationships with local trade associations, aboriginal leaders, and local politicians. These attempts have uniformly failed, because the support for China is based on patronage, and such loyalty as is generated will last as long as the money flows do. Few of these localities have any great political clout. Most Taiwanese don't benefit from the money flows, which will simply travel further down the patronage networks of those same politicians -- which are already KMT. Beijing does not build any new connections here (fortunately). UPDATE: Solidarity has the list of what China has offered.

What can Beijing do? Hualien, Nantou, and Taitung are strong destinations for Chinese group tourists, and I pray they don't add Miaoli to that list -- a few group tours are already going there. But the other places are less attractive. Beijing has already tried preferential purchasing, for fruit, which failed to -- wait for it -- bear fruit. This policy has been tried before, and is another example of how Beijing does not know what it is doing. It has no brilliant plan for Taiwan, because there isn't one. It is simply revisiting old ideas, the way a squirrel checks old hiding places to see if there are any nuts there.

A couple of interesting wrinkles -- this may look like, as Cole notes, Beijing is bypassing the central government. But it is also bypassing the KMT center and dealing directly with politicians representing local Taiwan interests. Perhaps Beijing means to bind them more directly to the KMT, or to itself, setting up independent patronage networks in the event the KMT continues to fade. I doubt they plan so presciently, though.

No tourism numbers out yet. Very interested to see what they are....

REFS: KMT rebuts accusations, tries to handle negative publicity from the Beijing Kowtow. What did the 1992 8 say in Beijing? This site in simplified has it. h/t to @aaronwytze
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8 comments:

an angry taiwanese said...

The 8 mayors' kowtow tour sheds light on several muddy status quarks. Taiwan-wise, those 8 figures are being touted by netizens as 藍八奴, (eight Blue slaves in word or ball-kissing slaves in Taiwanese voice). China-wise, I don't think it's any genius strategy either; more like a funding pitch from some politburo member. USA-wise, the extreme disgust Taiwanese have shown toward that kowtow trip should alarm the State Department's China-centered attitude.

Nevertheless, I doubt any one of those quarks are an adaptive type.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Francis-Xiavier Bonnet's indeed excellent piece: I was quite stimulated to hear a new idea, that China's big grab in the South China Sea - the 9 dash line - was in part based on geostrategic considerations, the fear of a foreign nuclear missile sub lurking undetectably in some underwater formation in the South China Sea, threatening the entire region.

Jaydee

Anonymous said...

Regarding Francis-Xiavier Bonnet's indeed excellent piece: I was quite stimulated to hear a new idea, that China's big grab in the South China Sea - the 9 dash line - was in part based on geostrategic considerations, the fear of a foreign nuclear missile sub lurking undetectably in some underwater formation in the South China Sea, threatening the entire region.

Jaydee

Les said...

Is this really KMT's best shot at pushing 92C and painting itself as Taiwan's only savior? Considering the appalling reputation Chinese tourists have here, how few Taiwanese derive any income from their presence and how annoying their presence is to those not earning anything from tourism, KMT does seem to be reaching a bit too far in linking tourism to Taiwan's economic survival.
It really isn't hard to debunk the underlying precepts here. Publish the real arrival numbers. Acquire data on spending from sources other than surveying the subjects. Acquire data on how many tour companies / hotels etc. are Chinese owned. Acquire data on hidden costs like damage to infrastructure and opportunity costs like the tourism from other countries that is driven away both by the presence of PRC visitors and the perception that Taiwan is set up for them at the expense of others. If the Tsai administration could complete these simple tasks, present this information sensibly and stay on message, this move could really be turned into a weapon with the potential to wipe out any remaining credibility KMT has.

Anonymous said...

From EyeDoc's blog: "1949年,包括時任國民黨國防部參謀次長吳石在內的1500多名中國大陸紅色特工遠赴台灣,之後這個群體犧牲過千...。在過去很長一段歲月裏,這些人中的大部分連名字都沒留下來。"In 1949, about 1,500 secret agents from Red China infiltrated Taiwan, including Wu-Shi who worked under the cover as a vice-chief of the planning staff of KMT DoD. Over 1,000 lost their lives without even leaving their names behind."

http://danshuihistory.blogspot.tw/2015_04_01_archive.html

It makes me wonder how many current KMTers in the .gov/.mil are really PLA agents.

TaiwanJunkie said...

Doesn't look like China is in any position to offer anything substantial. Their economy is slowing down, they got a huge bubble that's about to blow, it is no wonder the 8 points are so nonspecific and meaningless. See this latest from Al Jazerra: https://youtu.be/nGHmk4UeK_w

Now let's look at the 8 points reached, they are meaningless!

#1 is to promote agricultural exhibition. So China is willing to help these counties and cities host a county fair? Are you kidding me? that's laughable!
#2 is to encourage businesses to purchase agricultural products. probably will ask businesses to go to the county fair mentioned in #1.
#3 is basically a tourism fair, much like #1. uh ok...
#4 stated nothing. proactively promoting? strengthening exchange and cooperation? Hey Mike, I am "proactively promoting" your blog by sharing links and "strengthening exchange and cooperation" by posting on your blog. ;-)
#5 says the same thing as #4, but instead of industries now it is cultural.
#6 says the same thing as #5, but says it about the youth.
#7 is the same nonspecific statement, but this time on Kinmen and Matsu.
#8 to me says nothing once again.

les said...

Finally the tourist arrival numbers...

http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/1831565

Anonymous said...

I think it's high time all these stories about illegal Chinese investments in property over on the east coast were properly investigated by the central government. We do not want to have a situation where swathes of land and tourism infrastructure on the east coast is owned by Chinese, inefficient agriculture is subsidized by Chinese purchasing and Chinese tourism is the only tourism. A blue east coast is bad enough. Let's not have a red one, or the country will be split down the middle.