Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung *sigh*

The midnight spike in air pollution, using the app airvisual. This is from the Taichung area. The app usually shows a spike, a small one, between midnight and 2 AM. Why? Because factories in Taichung are quietly dumping pollution into the air in the wee hours to avoid EPA fines. I've come to dread Sunday nights because the factories on the hill below our house frequently dump foul-smelling shit into the air.

The reason I'm writing on this is because I've become quite worried about Lin Chia-lung's performance and prospects in 2018. Rumor has it that the Taichung EPA has relaxed enforcement of pollution rules in a bid to win the support of factory owners. I don't know whether it is true -- the issue is that it is being said.

Lin is billing Taichung as "The Event City" but according to people I talk to the city government is crushing the life out of many of its events. A longtime foreign resident who runs several events told me this will likely be his last year. Under Hu the city handed out venues for free, but the Lin Administration is making event holders pay. My friend explained that not only does he pay, but he expects they will find excuses to keep the deposit as well, meaning that he can't afford to run the event any more. Across the city, he told me, the neighborhood and precinct captains are screaming about the new payments.

City leaders, in concert with TAITRA, are also attempting to merge the Taipei Bike Show and the Taichung Bike Show. All bike shows are in decline right now, but the Taipei Bike Show is apparently on life support, several bike company types I talked to aver. The Taichung Bike Show is one of the world's foremost, an important place where deals are made, but the city wants to move it out of the city center (to which it brings important business) to the pointless exhibition center by the HSR station, which is located far from anything interesting, if it doesn't get merged outright. Either the merger or the move will deeply hurt the Taichung Bike Show, and the move will cost local businesses millions in lost hotel and restaurant business.

I've resisted discussion of the Forward Looking Infrastructure plan for Taichung on this blog, because I kept hoping it would become sane. But nope -- the plan currently is to run a light rail line down the same line as the current rail system to Changhua. With the long climbs up and down stairs, the line will actually slow down commutes. Meanwhile the idea of integrating Nantou city into the Taichung area metro/bus/rail system appears to have died -- they couldn't have spent the money to run trains to Nantou and integrate them into that area's extensive tourism stuff?

Opinion on Lin's performance as a politician differs. I hear complaints that he doesn't kiss babies or show up to give speeches when he should, but other people tell me he is ok on that. He doesn't seem to get the same press that other mayors get, though. I expect that in 2018 he will argue he needs another term to complete his plan (when I suggest this to people the response is always a derisive snort "What plan?") and that voters will punish him but give him another chance, letting him win by a much smaller margin. But he could lose to an energetic and skilled KMT politician -- fortunately those are in short supply in the KMT.

Meanwhile in Taipei the DPP has decided that it can't leave well enough alone. Ko Wen-je, the independent but pro-Green mayor of the city, is coming under fire from DPP politicians for being "weak on China" and similar nonsense. TT says:

Amid increasing tension between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), DPP Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) yesterday criticized the mayor, saying he lacked a firm political stance. Cheng urged the party to nominate its own candidate in the Taipei mayoral election next year.

There are some in the DPP who want to nominate their own candidate for the election -- longtime buffoon and DPPer Pasuya Yao, who is not aborigine in any way but simply adopted an aboriginal first name to be cool, has expressed interest. It would be really stupid to run a DPP politician against Ko, who right now is popular and secure. All that would do is risk handing the city back to the KMT while humiliating the DPP loser and betraying a key ally. Tsai Ing-wen needs to clamp down on this...

As I have written before, the north is in the midst of a demographic transition. High housing prices in Taipei have driven younger people out to Taoyuan and Keelung and New Taipei City where they will largely support the DPP. In the city the bureaucracy is greening from the bottom up, again creating more DPP-leaning voters, while the Deep Blues are dying out. The smart move would be to leave Ko Wen-je in place for four more years with DPP support to let these demographic trends continue, and let light Blues discover that a non-KMT mayor is not the end of the world...
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Daily Links:

• Anthropologist and Taiwan expert Scott Simon's op-ed piece in The Hill Times calls for Canada to support Taiwan people in the UN whenever possible. This op-ed was discussed by local language news here.
• Another excellent Commonwealth piece on the coming decade: hot and coal powered and unhealthy.
• The awesome Chris Horton in NYT on Beijing's increasing reach
• Cole: Beware of Chinese social media
• New Bloom: Diplomat article glorifies killer of dissidents
• Chinese media misrepresents what Singapore PM said about one China policy. Hard to believe...
• Synaptic with an old tobacco barn in Taichung
• Gogoro raises big bucks in its next round of financing
• Solid piece on our higher education problems in Taiwan
• Fisherman kept like slaves in Taiwan.

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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!

New Train Station Blues

In Taichung the new elevated train lines with the new train stations were just completed.

The Taichung station is the particular subject of complaints. The new station has only one escalator in each section going up and down -- in the morning these are packed, slowing everyone down. In the old Taichung station the tracks were at street level, and it was possible to run to make a train. Now you have to climb stairs. People are reporting they have to leave much earlier in the morning, and navigation in the new station is difficult.

The new stations are also demonstrating the usual stupidity that marks Taiwan design. They are hideous concrete blocks for starters. Each one is identical, meaning that you actually have to look to see which station you are at, you can't just glance out the window (wooden fence by track? It must be Fengyuan. Curved railings? That's Taiyuan). The government didn't even bother to have them painted differently or create any other markers of uniqueness, such as public art or vendors. It appears to regard vendors with social class-jaundiced eyes. Further, the stations are gigantic, designed on an inhuman scale, far larger than is needed, so obviously Japanese-style construction-state giveaways, metaphors for the public debt in every way... and all that open space, giant roofs -- and no solar panels.

I photo'd the outside of the Tanzih station above. I've used this station for 14 years. The old station was quick, efficient, and human-sized. The new station is a four story hike up stairs. It's ginormous. The ostensible reason for the "improvement" was to elevate the tracks to create space and reduce accidents. Design fail. As you can see, the parking area for scooters is across a four lane street. This street leads to Chunghwa Telecom and the Post Office on the other side, meaning that it will be busy when the road is finished.

Note on the right side of the picture the vast area under the tracks, out of the rain and sun. Ideal for scooter parking, or vendors, or bicycle parking (because of the industrial district nearby the station is flooded with bikes from the workers, naturally despite this being a known need, there is no special provision for them), or some other human need. Instead, it has black and white rocks of stupefying uselessness -- for the sake of black and white rocks uselessly occupying useful space, human beings will have to cross the street and get hit by cars. "Stupid" doesn't even begin to describe how stupid that is.

Ominous rumblings. The new tracks have been the subject of noise complaints even though they have soundproofing. The public is also blaming Taichung mayor Lin Jia-lung for the difficulties people are having getting around in the new station....
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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!

Guguan with a twist

Fisherman cluster in front of a water gate above Dongshih on the river.

There are two rides I do just for the workout, the 125 km run down to the Chiayi HSR station, and the 115 km climb and return to Guguan. Today I wanted to do it to test my healing leg (verdict: leg is good). The Guguan ride is pretty enough, but the traffic makes it painful. Today we found an alternative that saves much pain. Click READ MORE for the story...

Ko Wen-je VS the Construction-Industrial State: Ko wins one

Beachcombing in Hsinchu.

Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je is rocking the construction-industrial state. The Taipei Times reports...

The Taipei Dome and Farglory’s contract had become a source of controversy in recent days as Ko and his administrative team began looking at several major projects either underway or in the proposal stage.

Prior to last night’s meeting, Ko had said the Dome contract would have to be revised to increase the penalties for failing to meet deadlines. He also said discrepancies between the initial contract terms during the bidding process and the firm’s final contract needed to be discussed.

“Farglory has already gone past the deadline for completing the project, in violation of the contract,” Ko said earlier yesterday, adding that the original contract’s penalty clauses “do not have any real impact,” because they only allow the city government to fine the firm a total of NT$3 million (US$95,300) for violations.

Hacking on the previous administration, Ko pointed out that Control Yuan asked that 39 articles in the contract be revised, but the previous KMT administration had not done so. Former KMT Mayor Hau had used the infamous you-do-not-understand attack to defend himself from Ko's exposure of his administration's apparent embrace of big companies...

Countering criticism leveled at several projects undertaken during his administration, former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday accused Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and his team of using “defamatory” tactics to hide their “ignorance” of municipal issues.

Hau also defended himself by saying that everything had been done according to the law and passed the ethics commission. Such reviews in Taiwan are typically prima facie. KMT Chair Eric Chu has asked Hau to take over the National Policy Foundation, the KMT's internal think tank. Hau is a princeling, like Chu, another clue that "reform" under Chu is going to be limited to revamping and further locking down the Party's relationships with the local factions so they don't bolt. ADDED: Yam ripped him in an editorial solidarity.tw captured.

So far, this is my favorite Ko moment:

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said he has ordered all Taipei City Government departments to draft a complete list of all municipal property, after discovering that the controversial bus lane on Zhongxiao W Road includes a bus stop that is not listed as belonging to the city.

Ko also said he'd can the Taipei police chief if pro-PRC "protesters" in front of Taipei 101 continued their violent assaults on people; the chief subsequently retired, along with a fire department official. Ko is making everyone else administrating a county/city look bad. Commonwealth interviewed him in December shortly after his election victory.

BTW, some of you may recall that the Tax Bureau was pursuing Ko's family in a totally non-political case. Yesterday it dinged his parents for $31,200 NT. This is a symbolic figure -- once it was committed to the apparent harassment, it had to fine them, but if it had been a large amount, that would have called further attention to the fact that Ko's family was being pursued in a totally non-political case.

Mayor Lin Jia-long of Taichung killed the Taiwan Tower project in Taichung when its budget nearly doubled. Should that be read as a genuine commitment to curbing the construction-industrial state? Or just a one-off designed to make Lin look like he is doing a Ko Wen-je in Taichung, using a bad project with no great construction-industrial state support? For me the jury is still out on Lin. Another major project Lin has criticized, the BRT, saw an inevitable accident today.

Up and Coming for the KMT: As the TT reports, during the run up to the KMT Chairmanship election Chu hinted that he'd end the Party's assault on one of its most loyal servants, Legislative Speaker and longtime heavyweight Wang Jin-pyng (MaWangMess, MaWangMess). A group of legislators has proposed that the KMT withdraw its appeal of the court ruling that permitted Wang Jin-pyng to retain his position in the Party and in the legislature. Chu has delayed a response, but if he drops the appeal, it will be another declaration of Chu breaking with President and former KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (like his elimination of Ma's Zhongshan Council and return of power to the Central Standing Committee), who has been doing his Saruman-in-Orthanc imitation since the crushing defeat of the KMT in November. In fact the China Post report has Chu specifically saying he "respects Ma's authority", showing that Chu also views this issue as one that puts himself and Ma in conflict. The Ma-Wang mess really harmed the KMT's relations with its legislators. Surely Chu must sense the urgent need to fix that, and will drop the appeal. If not, then we know something about him and his relations with the KMT.
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Daily Links:

• Gerrit van der Wees of FAPA on US-Taiwan relations, other issues (video)
• Watch out! local monkeys harbor Herpes B.
• WantWant: Eric Chu must staunch KMT hemorrhage.

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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!

Taichung election, Sunday Linkfest, and Comments

Updated map of Taipei metro with opening of new Songshan Line. Note that the lines are now numbered. This was done "for the foreigners". Nobody asked us if we wanted that, it is totally unnecessary. h/t to David Reid. 

Practically giddy I am: Frozen Garlic actually mentioned me in a post the other day:

It seems like this will be a lost year for Frozen Garlic. I have lots of things that I would like to write about, but I just don’t seem to be able to find any free blocks of time when I have the energy to write. I don’t know how other bloggers find the time and energy to write regularly while still balancing full-time jobs, family, and other considerations. Let’s just say that I’m no Michael Turton.

Actually, I just decided to give up sleep. My productivity has risen sharply, and the little purple elves that dance around the edges of my vision are very entertaining.

The post is, in the best Frozen Garlic fashion, a great analysis of the Taichung election (and don't miss the excellent comments), really informed. First Froze discusses the decision to implement the BRT, a bus line with a dedicated lane after the city had been promised a metro system. The BRT is really a sensible plan and lots of us sensible observers who are pro-Green nevertheless thought it a great idea. Nobody wanted to see a repeat of the crater in the budget that is the Kaohsiung metro. Informed observers tell me that Hu's policy people really are wonks and that they saw the BRT as a way to determine where the popular lines are, after which they may think about an MRT, but above all, they would avoid the Kaohsiung MRT fail. Froze observes....

Traffic is one of the most important responsibilities of local government, and failing to effectively deal with traffic could significantly damage a mayor’s reputation. However, the BRT case is not simply a matter of traffic. There a broader narrative that Taichung has been stagnating under Jason Hu for the past 13 years. The 2010 election was critical in crystallizing this argument. At the beginning of 2010, Hu was widely thought to be a wonderful mayor. By the end of the campaign, the DPP had effectively demolished that reputation, and Hu squeaked into a third term by a razor-thin margin. The DPP’s attacks were most effective in the realm of pubic security, where several high-profile violent incidents and a renewed focus on crime in Taichung created the impression that Hu was either uninterested in fighting organized crime or outright collaborating with them. In 2001, Jason Hu came to Taichung as a KMT superstar, a widely liked former Foreign Minister with presidential aspirations and untainted by the dirtiness of local, factional politics. By 2010, he was transformed into just another KMT politician, deeply embedded in local faction networks, sullied by contact with organized crime, surviving by spreading around city money to politically useful projects rather than on public policy merit. Why did the Taichung City government need to scrimp on the transportation system when Kaohsiung did not? It might be because Hu has been spending money on other projects designed to keep the local factions happy. Unfortunately, he hasn’t finished enough of these or convinced normal voters that they are that important. For example, the newly opened Taichung Opera House took far longer than planned, entailed large cost overruns, and DPP figures suggest that it still isn’t completely ready but Hu is opening it before the election anyway.

Hu had two problems, really -- his plan for the city was grandiose and requires lots of time and money, and the local KMT's longtime connections to local organized crime. A wise friend noted that Hu wanted another term in part so all his plans would come to fruition under his own aegis, because you know Lin Jia-lung will ruthlessly claim credit for them if he wins (and recent polls show Lin ahead by less than five).

The crazy thing is that Lin's campaign amounts to either doubling down on Hu's wackier policies (did you know the city government gives massive subsidies for false teeth, which Lin says he'll double?) or simply running on CHANGE. Because CHANGE is good. His campaign amounts to saying "Hu has been in there too long, it's someone else's turn", a sort of upscaled appeal to the Taiwanese cultural preference for outcome fairness in social situations. Several times I've run into people who know I am pro-Green and who have asked in despair if I can give them a reason to vote for Lin, since he hasn't given them one himself.

Sound trucks everywhere, the candidates are saturating the neighborhoods. We're also getting lots of pamphlets and materials from pan-Green candidates in our isolated neighborhood....

Enough for this post, I have two more I want to get done today. On to the links....

• Taiwan in Cycles: The Sun Moon Lake bike trail is a trail for non-cyclists. It is boring, stupid, and dangerous.
• Taiwan in Cycles: the Takata Hill Climb. Awesome. Great pics as always.
• Frozen Garlic looks at the island's powerful political families. Froze contends 

  There is a difference in the nature of KMT and DPP family politicians. The percentage of incumbent KMT candidates with family ties is roughly twice as high as for incumbent DPP candidates. However, the DPP has a much higher percentage of legacy candidates among newcomers. Over a quarter of DPP newcomers have family ties. For some reason, the DPP has embraced family politics in this election cycle.

  This shows how the KMT is actually run for the benefit of a few powerful families. While Froze's observations that the list he provides from the 翻轉選舉運動 lacks "balance" are basically correct -- "non-partisan" pan-Green stuff often discredits itself because it is so obviously pro-Green -- it might have been good had he note the other major difference between the DPP and KMT family politicians: few, if any of the DPP politicians come from families that made their mark and their family fortunes serving the murderous authoritarian state.  
• ETRC group looks at elections. Here is third post in the series.
• GOOD STUFF: Longtime Taiwan scholar Don Rogers on how Ma still runs an imperial presidency despite being deeply unpopular.
• Taiwan Insider's link collection.
• Julia F on US-Taiwan relations after the midterm elections.
• Bleach used to 'cure' bean sprouts. Bleach is sometimes used by vendors in night markets to spiffy up their fruit. *sigh* And another huge company admits using animal feed oil for human consumption in 2012.
• Critique of U-bike. This is my experience as well. The government added the program to Taipei, essentially adding thousands of vehicles to the streets without adding the requisite physical and regulatory infrastructure.
• Touring Taiwan by bike for a month. Great pics
• Scotch whisky makers scoring big in Taiwan
• Police shut down gay website for obscenity. Meanwhile porn sites for straights are going full blast.
• SecState Kerry meets former Veep Vincent Siew, then calls for "market reforms" so that it can join the TPP, which is a giveaway to US multinationals in the guise of a trade agreement. I could have told you, Vincent, the world was always meant for one as dutiful as you. 
• Min of Education moves capital to Nanjing. LOL.
• Kerry Brown argues for an Aussie relationship with China that is independent of Washington's
• ECONOMIC FANTASIES: SCMP: Sends around another piece on the fantasy of Taiwan makers in China returning to Taiwan to set up businesses. Businesses come and go, with its selective emphasis on businesses returning, both the Chen and Ma Administrations hoped to create the impression that more are coming than going. Nope. A more interesting piece might be done on the foreigners who have left China because they constantly get ripped off to come here and open businesses because Taiwanese are more honest and trustworthy than Chinese.
• ECONOMIC FANTASIES: Ketagalan: Korea-China deal sends shockwaves throughout Taiwan. Well, through the big government subsidized companies and the media who serve them. In the best shock doctrine style, some big firms immediately demanded that the minimum wage be lowered so they can make even more money off government-regulation wage suppression on one side and government direct and tax subsidies on the other. Wage earners get it coming and going, since they pay the subsidies. You can see what the actual political function of the OMG KOREA! discourse is: to drive acceptance of wage discipline, subsidy farming, and tax avoidance by big firms. It has nothing to do with the reality of Korea-Taiwan competition... there's other good stuff there, don't miss it. 

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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!

Just to get the flavor of central Taiwan; Courtney Donovan Smith's Roundup of our news

Kenting, four years ago.

BREAKING: Fuxing Air plane crashed in Penghu. Reports still in, but apparently of the 54 on board, 6 were sent to the hospital. 48 didn't make it.

+++++++

Courtney Donovan Smith of ICRT posted to Facebook:

My report this morning on ICRT was a laundry list of nepotism, corruption and criminal behaviour by politicians...and I only cover Taichung, Changhua and Nantou.

Son of Nantou County Assembly Speaker arrested
The son of the Nantou County’s legislative speaker has been arrested along with 8 subordinates. The 39-year-old reportedly had been running a violent racket targeting wealthy businesspeople and more frequently their rich offspring. Using his father’s name he would offer invitations, the kind you can’t refuse, for these princelings to gamble at his underground casino. The casino was rigged so the victims would always lose, which would lead to beatings, violent extortion from the rich parent--or frequently both--if the victim couldn’t pay. His father, KMT lawmaker and speaker of the Nantou County Assembly He Sheng-feng (何勝豐) distanced himself from his son, saying they were not frequently in contact. The lawmaker himself, who is currently out on bail on charges of shooting a man who was beating him up in a KTV, is suspected of also having run a violent extortion and gambling racket in the past.

Sticking with Nantou, Lee Chao-ching’s wife ends political speculation
Impeached Nantou County Commissioner Lee Chao-ching’s wife has ended speculation she would run in a legislative by-election, and launched her first campaign billboard in her run for county commissioner. The ad, prominently and somewhat oddly features the slogan ‘a new choice’. When her campaign was announced, her husband--currently out on bail pending corruption charges-- openly made clear she was running on his behalf, announcing his wife was going to carry out plans he conceived while he had had time to rest in jail. Failing to register in time to run in the KMT primary, she is running as an independent. In other similar news, the daughter of impeached lawmaker Yen Ching-piao, jailed previously on gun and corruption charges, is running for Taichung city council. Her brother is the current legislator for the area, having won his father’s seat. Like her father, she is running as an independent. She says her father has only given her one piece of advice: to lose 30 kg.

As if that weren’t enough
The cousin of the Changhua County Commissioner and a lawyer friend of his were sentenced to 1 year 8 months and 2 years respectively. The cousin was approached by the brother of the county commissioner in 2010 to use his name to purchase a property in Taipei. The cousin instead introduced him to a friend of his, a lawyer. Using money borrowed from the family and govt contractors, the property was purchased. The brother ran into a series of difficulties, including corruption allegations and receiving a nine-year sentence for stealing campaign funds from the 2012 Ma Ying-jeou presidential run. The lawyer then refused to return the property, keeping it for himself. By refusing to return it, he and the cousin received sentences for breach of trust. The county commissioner himself was not involved in the case.

Pan-green trouble in Changhua
Refusing to bow to ever-increasing pressure from the DPP and TSU, including a visit from Tsai Ying-wen and losing her TSU party membership, ex-TSU lawmaker Huang Wen-ling (黃文玲) has reiterated her determination to see the race for Changhua County Commissioner through to the end. Though running as an independent, she is expected to take away votes from the DPP, and a recent opinion poll had her support and the DPP’s Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) support combined roughly even with that of the KMT’s Lin Cang-min (林滄敏). However, the pan-blues may have trouble of their own, with the camp of KMT primary loser Ke Cheng-fang (柯呈枋) refusing to rule out running in the race as an independent. Ke vehemently accused Lin of cheating in the primary.

Taichung transportation milestones
Last week saw the trial launch of Taichung’s iBike bicycle rental system. Though initially only 3 stations with 100 bikes, it is expected to hit 60 stations and over 1500 bikes within 2 years. It was also announced that Taichung’s iBike system will be mutually compatible with Changhua’s Youbike system. In related news the Bus Rapid Transit Blue Line is scheduled to begin semi-normal operations at completed stations starting this Sunday at noon. How many stations will be complete by Sunday is uncertain, but construction does appear to be accelerating. The bulk of the buses running along Taiwan Blvd are scheduled to be effectively turned into shuttle buses to the BRT, freeing up the slow lanes.

Bamboo Union shooting
A top Bamboo Union leader, by some reports the head of the triad in New Taipei City, was gunned down at close range on Monday. The so-called temple-master was attending a banquet at a temple in Changhua’s Erlin Township when he was shot seven times at close range, killing him instantly. The baseball-capped shooter then escaped in a waiting car. Police suspect the assassins followed the gangster’s car from the north, possibly for the entire trip.

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Daily Links:

• Another sumptuous visual treat from Neil Wade: Matsu and its islands.
• J Michael Cole on the fringe-led drive to freeze the independence clause in the DPP's party charter: totally unnecessary. At The Diplomat.
• How China snuffed out the Uyghur language internet. Too often Taiwan looks at Hong Kong. But there are other models for how China could handle an annexed Taiwan. 
• Timothy Rich on Taiwan's Status Quo at Thinking Taiwan.
• Ben on the Rise of the Formosan Black Bear as a symbol of Taiwan

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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!

Polls and Propaganda

Tiny, but effective.

The latest TISR poll on Ma, cross-strait affairs, etc, is out. Taipei Times summed it up:

Asked whether the relationship between Taiwan and China is “state-to-state,” 59.7 percent gave a positive response, up from 56.2 percent in a similar survey conducted by TISR in April last year, with 25 percent saying “no” and 15.3 percent declining to answer.

The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, also found that 61 percent of those polled did not agree that Taiwan and “mainland China” belong to “one China,” while 26.8 percent agreed and 12.2 percent did not respond.

....

The strongest “one China” supporters in Taiwan appeared to be those who identified themselves as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporters, the survey found, as 52.3 percent of them agreed that both sides belong to “one China,” 52.7 percent supported an alliance or unification, and 53.6 percent said they would accept a country with a new name.

That means better than 40% of KMT supporters don't support the Party's core mission. The poll also found that satisfaction for Ma was at 15.7%. The poll did not ask about the services pact, probably deliberately. This poll is basically consistent with the others that find a low level of support for his Administration and for Taiwan becoming part of China, as well as "compromises" like "One Country, Two Systems." Beijing's heavy hand in Hong Kong is having an effect on Taiwan. It seems that Ma's rule has actually made the nation more pro-independence. Imagine that.

Gearing up for the election in November, the KMT was on an all-out propaganda offensive for its precarious position in Taichung, where there is likely to be a hard fought battle in November, at least according to everyone I have talked to so far. The "Taiwan Competitiveness Forum" picked our Taichung as the most competitive city in Taiwan, and endorsed KMT Mayor Hu, according to a Taipei Times report. One said Taichung could become a "countryside city" if Hu is not re-elected. LOL. No doubt our awesome competitiveness is the reason so many gangsters have chosen our fair city as their base. Note that that very issue of TT hosted another article rating the city/county leaders from a local political magazine. For some reason Hu's awesomeness was less visible to that crowd, which ranked him four stars out of five. Can't please everybody, I guess.....
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Daily Links:

• Ketagalan Media on HoChie Tsai, the Taiwanese-American activist.
• Japanese Taiwan settler recruitment film from the 1930s: Youtube. What a strange collection of images of Japanese power.
• 300 year old Spanish Church in Taiwan found on Hoping Island
• The stooopid, it buuurrrnnnns. AntiWar.com writing on China. Only there can you deplore the use of the international court to resolve a dispute.
• Behind paywall: Time.com on the China threat to Taiwan
• FPIF on Taiwan's Sunflower movement: what does it mean for the TPP? From longtime journalist in Taiwan. 

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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!

Matsu, Goddess of Annexation

A religious procession in Tawu, Taitung.

Taichung city's tourist bureau is out to build the world's largest statue of Matsu, a sea goddess much reverenced in Taiwan and China. Taipei Times says:

Among the NT$1.2 billion (US$39.8 million) to be spent building the proposed Daan Matsu cultural park in Greater Taichung, around NT$600 million of the funds will go toward constructing a nearly 70m tall statue of Matsu, including the foundation and a path of reverence for the sea goddess. Greater Taichung’s Tourism and Travel Bureau Director General Chang Da-chun says, “This will definitely be the tallest Matsu statue in Southeast Asia.” There are already many official and private tour groups from China making queries, Chang says, adding that he is confident that, along with Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, “It will create a huge tourist attraction.”

The Taichung city government has long complained that those busloads of Chinese tourist dollars leave Taichung port and head directly to Sun Moon Lake in Nantou without dropping a cent in the city. Determined to change that, the city government proposed a few years ago to build a penguin exhibit in the city, to which tourist flows would be diverted, presumably because everyone knows you go to Taiwan to see the native penguins. That idea was greeted with general derision, but this one is more interesting.

Interesting because Matsu worship has long been an important vector of pro-China, pro-annexation propaganda and activities on both sides of the Strait. Remember when the emerald Matsu statue landed at Taichung harbor, there to be received by Taichung Mayor Jason Hu and the head of the Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, pro-annexation politician/businessman/but not gangster, no siree Yen Ching-piao? Several years ago BBC noted this connection between Matsu and China's drive to annex Taiwan, in the context of visits by Chinese religious representatives to the famous Matsu procession:

But for China, sending its temple representatives here to join in the celebrations is not without its political motivations.

The Chinese government has placed great emphasis on reviving Mazu in China – seeing it as an important way to underscore its insistence that Taiwanese people and culture came from China – and that Taiwan is a part of China.

Beijing hopes to reunify with the island one day and has not renounced the use of force to do so.

"They’re doing this to show both sides believe in Mazu and have a similar heritage," said Tsai Ming-hsien, a volunteer Mazu celebrations organiser who has had many dealings with Chinese temple officials.

In 2009 Yen Ching-piao's right hand man Cheng Ming-kun, whose formal position is deputy Chair of the Jenn Lann Matsu Temple in Dajia, the center of Taiwan's Matsu worship, was in China discussing with Beijing how to use Matsu to help China annex Taiwan. In May of 2009 a boat carrying Cheng Ming-kun and a load of Mazu pilgrims was the first passenger ferry to cross the strait. Of course Ma Ying-jeou appointed Yen Ching-piao, who says he is not a gangster at all but merely a misunderstood businessman, his "local spokesman" for ECFA.

It may seem like a silly religious stunt, but building a giant Matsu statue in Taichung where it will face China across the Strait, is a stunt with serious pro-annexation political overtones.
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Weekend in the hills: the Miaoli 54-1 and Dongchi Road

On the 54-1 above the tombs.

Two days of excellent sunny weather. I decided to see what the Miaoli 54-1 is like and have a long-anticipated meet up with Scott E. Click on READ MORE as always...

Using Taichung as a Biking Base: Routes and commentary

One of the reasons I've come to enjoy living in Taichung is the great weather and the magnificent biking opportunities. An hour will put you in the mountains, with fantastic views and experiences. So here is a guide to some of my favorite routes and roads accessible from Taichung, almost everything here can be done as a day trip from Taichung. For other perspectives and other routes, see the awesome Drew Kerslake at Taiwan in Cycles.

Note that none of the routes here include routes in Ta-ken, the ones that are popular with foreigners and locals. There are exceptions, but a good rule of the thumb is that any road that is popular with locals is inferior and should be avoided. The local riders -- and many foreign riders -- spend their days crashing up the 136 (the testosterone on that road is so thick that nearby chicken farmers swear their birds are 15% heavier than birds raised elsewhere), or on the small roads of Ta-ken, or up the not particularly interesting road past Zhongzheng Park in Fengyuan. Of course much of this is for training, but being old and fat and having time on my hands, I prefer rides that offer good experiences. And you can train on beautiful hills as well as boring ones...

Long post, click on READ MORE and fetch some coffee while it loads. Might want to load up Google Maps too.

In Taichung it's.... Jason!

Dashan Farm in Changhua.

Jason of Taichung announces that he will run again (FocusTaiwan):

If elected, Hu, of the ruling Kuomintang, will have been the longest-serving mayor of Taichung for 17 years over four terms, including a period before Taichung City was merged with neighboring Taichung County into a municipality in late 2010.

Well. I'm taking this as good news. Most of the stuff I wrote about for the last election, which Hu barely won, still applies. Taichung is consistently considered the worst administrated of the island's major cities in public polls, and the locals must surely be looking at Tainan, Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Yilan, and wondering why they can't have that too. Moreover, in addition to the problem with local factions that Hu spurred last time, it seems there are some major splits in the local KMT. One of the island's most prominent gangsters local faction politicians owns one of the island's most prominent entertainment facilities in the city, as well as a local private school chain. Gangsters owning schools is a common set up -- schools are good ways to launder money, being a business with large transactions in cash. This faction politician's wife ran in the last legislative election and lost, thankfully. But he put up some new infrastructure, and can't get the city to give it approval. It sits, unopened, and unusable. He must have pissed somebody off, because prominent gangsters with close connections to the ruling party always get what they want. This might indicate problems within Hu's election machine that could be costly.

Meanwhile Hu's opponent will probably be Lin Jia-lung, the youthful, energetic, hardworking, highly-rated, and squeaky-clean-imaged DPP legislator who has been building up a brand here in Taichung for about a decade. I'm cautiously optimistic that Hu can be had, but then everything depends on the campaign.
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Daily Links:

• Don't Miss: Michal Thim and Jonathan Sullivan rock the National Interest with Year of the Lame Horse
• LeGendre's famous map of 1870 and the cartographer who drew it.
• China-Ukraine nuke pact claim turns out to be crappy translation. D'oh.
• Asian trade in doldrums as China disappoints
• US suddenly unfunds radar system that Taiwan bought.

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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!

Ten Reasons Why Taichung is the Best City

Processing pork.

I saw Ten Reasons Why Taipei is the Best City on Facebook. It lists ten reasons why Taipei is the best city: safety, shopping, food, 7-11s, the people, expenses, the sights, the events, transportation, and culture. To which I reply: Harumph! Taichung is clearly the better city.

1. The people. People in Taipei aren't friendly, people in Taipei are cold -- compared to people in the rest of Taiwan. That includes Taichung, though in fairness, Tainan and Kaohsiung are even better. If you think people in Taipei are friendly, you need to get out of Taipei more often.

2. The weather. Yeah, you'll like Taipei, if you like rain, gray skies, and life-sucking humidity that makes summers unbearable and winter an agony of bone-chilling cold. Living in Taipei and feeling like riding your bike? Better get on the train to somewhere else... meanwhile here in the California of Taiwan, AKA Taichung, one day of blue skies follows another, with the rain falling politely in the mountains to keep our water supplies brimming over. Oh yeah, how's that water rationing treatin' you, Taipei? On Sundays our cyclists are out in force and the routes are endless, with beautiful Nantou and Miaoli right next door, and our cycling routes aren't flooded with packs of supercharged motorcycles because -- let's face it -- no one in Taichung can afford such an expensive toy anyway.

3. The food. The food scene in Taichung is... is... well, let's move on to the next one, shall we?

4. Taichung works, Taipei plunders. Taichung produces marketable goods for export. Our streets and alleys are stuffed with factories making machine tools, sporting goods, and other useful stuff. Taipei produces non-tradeables, like regulations and mind-destroying TV shows. Meanwhile we in Taichung create the tax base that Taipei ruthlessly plunders to support the lifestyle so many praise. The rest of Taiwan is underdeveloped to keep Taipei lookin' good. We protest! Taichung is a working class town with a cocky, anarchic attitude, something like Taipei used to be before "modernization" created an expensive, overly regulated city full of branded stores selling a faux, imported lifestyle ordinary people can't afford.

5. The traffic and parking. In Taipei you need to hire a native guide just to understand the weird array of one-way streets, while in Taichung, we don't even have traffic regulations. In Taipei the law is enforced, creating trouble for everyone. In Taichung we say "Law? What law?" and gaily run red lights and park wherever we want. Ever tried to park your car in Taipei? 'Nuff said!

6. The buildings. Sure, we don't have a hideous phallic symbol that looks like a stack of gigantic Chinese takeout boxes occupying expensive land in our swankiest district. What does Taipei 101 really symbolize? Income inequality: as income inequality rises, so does the height of the buildings. Look around Taichung and what do you see? Low buildings, a symbol of equality and of productive people who work for a living. So what if, as my Taipei friend puts it, the towns around here look like Cambodian truck stops. They're affordable. In Taichung rents remain cheap and the price of homes within the reach of the inhabitants ($10,000 a month for my 150 ping house w/backyard. Eat your hearts out, Taipei'ns). Meanwhile ordinary Taipei residents have to buy homes in... Taoyuan. And how about that cost of living? In Taichung you can raise a family of four on a salary that in Taipei forces you to live at home with your pushy controlling parents as an overworked, undersexed singleton, just to save a little money.

7. Culture. In Taipei you have the Lantern Festival, a faux Chinese festival used by corporations for advertising. In Taichung we have one of the largest religious processions in the world, a faux religious event run by gangsters. Much cooler. Taipei is the corporate capital of Taiwan, Taichung is the gangster capital. I ask you, which is cooler? In Taipei the KMT mayors have ruthlessly destroyed many of the city's authentic cultural sites, while in Taichung, we don't have this problem. Because we don't have any authentic cultural sites.

8. Getting away. Taipei is a little bubble of Not Taiwan completely different from everywhere else in Taiwan, a bubble whose walls often prove to be surprisingly strong. You work and work and work, and one day you wake up and realize it's been months since you've been out of the city, and Taiwan itself remains a land unknown to you. We don't have this problem in Taichung. It's really, really easy to leave Taichung.

9. Events. Yeah, you have some events. You've got Color Runs and He110 Ki@@y runs (no city that hosts a He110 Ki@@y event can ever claim to be the cultural capital of anything). Yawn. We have the world famous Jazz Festival and one of Earth's leading bike shows, Taichung Bike Week. And we have... wait, I'm thinkin'...

10. We're in the real Taiwan. Taichung is the real Taiwan, where people work in factories, drive second-hand scooters, and sit in front of 7-11 drinking beer and chatting. Where the elementary school populations are measured in hundreds. Where the split between Blue and Green is 50-50 and our election campaigns are thus true contests and not pointless rituals of KMT dominance. Where gangsters run their wives for elected positions and gravel digging is a major industry. Where the hands down most awesome KTV in Taiwan, the Golden Jaguar, holds sway. Where herds of pachinko parlors and love hotels dot the landscape, a veritable Serengeti of vice. We're Taiwan, while Taipei... "it's Chinatown."

Why does Taichung kick Taipei's butt? Leave your reasons in the comments below...
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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!

Mansion

Wednesday was a fitting day. My close friend Andrew Kerslake of Taiwan in Cycles had his first ride after recovering from a long period of problems, and what could be better than a flat ride through some local history? Drew took me over to a mansion from the 1930s built for a local landlord (his post from a while back with historical data). The building is now a minor historical site and is in a state of complete ruin. He said you used to be able to go upstairs but it is sealed off now. The site is surrounded by ugly modern cookie cutter buildings, sadly.

Location of mansion on southwest side of Taichung city, not far from the HSR station (Google link).

The courtyard looking towards the gate.

The veranda.

Vintage wallpaper?

The house is old enough that trees have sprouted in one of the outer rooms.

Mud bricks were used to construct it. They were faced with....

...a mixture of rice husks.

Guests once greeted in the finest style.

Perhaps they stayed in a room like this

Strolled about the veranda.

Read the latest calendars...

...and newspapers.

Drew studies a window.

Old wooden ceilings on the second floor.

We rode off to another set of old buildings in southwest Taichung, where I've visited before.

The settlement here dates from the 18th century though the houses are probably younger. It's near where Liming Road and Huanzhong Road intersect. You'll see a large temple to the west, turn onto the alley near there.

There are plenty of older buildings.

And some pretty nice old Sanheyuan houses.

You never know what treasures are out there waiting for you...

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Old House on the way

I set out to put in some kilometers on the bike yesterday. Intending to ride down to the coast, I hopped on the 140, and then, as so often is the case, I had a never-been-on-this-road moment, and turned down the oddly named Chung-Miao 47 (this intersection). This turned out to be a pleasant, gentle downward sloping ride all the way to Yuanli through rice fields and old farmhouses. At one point I passed this old house and said to myself "Hmm, original wood! Have to have a look!"

I turned into the driveway, where a man in his forties was eating breakfast. I asked if I could see the house and he waved me in with no questions, as if foreigners on bikes rode up every day to see his old house. Though old san he yuan houses like this are extremely common in Taiwan, I still enjoy looking at them.

The circle on the gate suggests it once held a rising sun, painted over when the KMT came in. This in turn places the house sometime in the 1930s or before.

The wood was original, apparently.

Porcelain tiles decorate many such older roofs.

All the roads in this stretch of the plain between Houli and Yuanli are enjoyable. Hope to see you on a bike soon!

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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!

A couple of Lin Jia-lung Posters

The DPP's Lin Jia-lung asks voters to support him in the DPP's phone poll primary for the Taichung mayoral election. The top poster proclaims "The Hope of Taichung". We sure could use some hope down here.
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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!

And now for a lighter moment: Greater Taichung Named Intelligent Community of 2013

Digging for the fuel of Taiwan's domestic political economy: gravel.

After a long day of riding in the hills of eastern Miaoli -- the bike gods gave us lovely weekend weather this week -- I cracked open the Taipei Times to find this tale: Greater Taichung Named Intelligent Community of 2013. As a longtime Taichung resident, at first I thought someone had spiked my wine with something stronger, but then gradually I realized I wasn't hallucinating. The article said...

It said Taichung, boasting a sound infrastructure, represented a good combination of technology and cultural development.

“The rise of Taichung over the past decade has been a well-planned, unwavering act of collaborative team-building under the vision of Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強),” ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla said in a statement.

I thought of other articles:

Taichung's convenient geographic location and the business-friendly environment has made the central city a favored location for organized criminal gangs to set up operational bases....

...and of course, the May 2013 poll which named Tainan as the best city in which to live, whereas the Intelligent Communityof 2013 came in 17th. I thought the last part of the award announcement was especially sweet....

The ICF said a relatively low jobless rate of 4.4 percent and annual economic output of US$30 billion are part of Taichung’s success.

“This city understands that a great place to live is not one that only dominates world export markets in areas such as precision manufacturing, machinery and silicon wafer production, but goes to the next level and becomes a great cultural center,” Zacharilla said.

Liao said some judges had told her that they were impressed by Taichung’s ability to integrate technology and culture, which made technological advancement not just an impersonal development, but a driver for a higher living standard.

There's so much you can say about this. For example, the city's annexation of Taichung County in December of 2010 meant that it annexed all the SMEs that form the base of the precision manufacturing in the "city" -- companies whose development had zero, zip, nada to do with Mayor Hu (hey, what's unemployment in all those mountain communities of "Greater Taichung" again?). Speaking of unemployment rate, look up the stats -- Taiwan's overall unemployment rate is about 4.2%, which means that Taichung is actually marginally underperforming (look at the unemployment data for 2012, when the city was likely applying). Well-planned? I don't want to discuss that, it would make me urk up dinner. But a "great cultural center"? If anyone told me that this city was a great cultural center, I'd get him out of the sun, which was obviously affecting his brain. Remember when Mayor Hu destroyed the city's authentic and awesome music scene by shuttering 300 bars and restaurants which had been improperly registered (...for years under his benign rule). Here's a piece I wrote a couple of years ago on the politics of the city, and how Hu's performance had negatively affected KMT presidential election chances in the area....

It's odd because Taoyuan County was one of the seven finalists, and if you had to pick a place in Taiwan with a roaring economy, plenty of authentic culture, and lots of newly-built infrastructure, Taoyuan beats Taichung hands down. For culture there's nothing in Taichung to compare with Daxi or Taoyuan's historical pond system....

REF: here is the actual announcement, whose disconnect from reality approaches a kind of lyricism.
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Big By-election in Taichung Area...not really

A K-town street.

UPDATE: Low turnout leads to close victory for KMT by a mere 1200 votes after Yen Sr. won by 39,000 the last time. Much better than I expected the DPP to do. But it also goes to show how Taiwanese bitch about political corruption, and then, when given the clear choice....

By-election in Taichung District 2 looks to be an easy KMT win though the DPP is pushing hard for votes..... the Taipei Times reports:

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) appears to be hoping that a conflict between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Yen Kuan-hen (顏寬恆) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could help it win tomorrow’s legislative by-election in Greater Taichung’s second electoral district.

Wait...what is the conflict the DPP hopes to exploit?

“Ma, who is the KMT’s chairman, has not campaigned for Yen, and Yen has not used the KMT’s logo during his campaign, nor has he emphasized that he represents the KMT,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said at a campaign stop in Greater Taichung.

...and the situation?

The DPP has promoted the by-election as a vote of no confidence in Ma’s governance in an apparent effort to neutralize the Yen family’s strong political presence in the electoral district, a traditional KMT stronghold which includes the districts of Shalu (沙鹿), Longjing (龍井), Wurih (烏日), Dadu (大肚), Wufeng (霧峰) and part of Dali (大里).

The Yen family is the family that runs the big Matsu procession that terminates at the Dajia temple (Check out this informative post from two years ago). Its patriarch Yen Ching-piao himself is a former KMTer who parted ways with the KMT because he was... umm.... too colorful. In reality he's independent of the KMT in the sense that the Byelorussian SSR was independent of the USSR, as I noted before. Yen Sr. is reliably pro-KMT and pan-Blue and Yen Jr. is running as a KMT politician. Yen is probably the most representative local politician in Taiwan, making a fortune from gravel operations, running a powerful political patronage empire, with tight links to the ruling party, and also cultivating links to China through religious and business links. I've noted on several occasions that one of the most important beneficiaries of the burgeoning cross-strait relationship is cross-strait organized crime. Actually I don't even know why I wrote that last sentence. It has nothing to do with the rest of the paragraph. Did I mention that Ma hilariously appointed Yen Sr. the Administration's ECFA spokesman?

But anyway, the Yen family comprises one of the most powerful political patronage networks on the island. They are solidly behind the son. The dearth of Ma and other senior figures is probably not indicative of any split, but rather is more likely a wish to avoid calling undue attention to the KMT's deep and abiding involvement with...colorful local figures (like Ma's secretary planning major gangster funerals here or the massive wedding of Yen Ching-piao's son attended by KMT bigshots here/here), or even more likely, the Yen family's lock on Taichung 2 is so strong that bringing out the big guns isn't necessary. As Frozen Garlic noted a while back:

There are two interesting stories.  Most of the attention will be on the contest to fill the empty Taichung 2 seat, so let’s start with that one.  The Taichung 2 district boundaries were drawn specifically for Yen Ching-piao.  His best town, Shalu, was put into Taichung 2 with the rest of his base instead of Taichung 1.  This created a bit of a population imbalance as well as a political imbalance, since the blue camp is quite a bit stronger in Taichung 2 than Taichung 1 and Shalu, where the KMT is particularly strong, exacerbates the difference.[1]  In fact, Taichung 2 is easily the blue camp’s strongest district in the old Taichung County.

I don't give the DPP much of a shot here to win. I think they can best hope to play the better-than-expected card when it's all over.
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Daily Links:

• Movies of life in Taiwan from the 1950s
• China Post commentary argues that KMT is headed for dismal showing in next local elections and so no one wants to challenge Ma for Chairmanship.
• Genetic studies show powerful evidence that Polynesian explorers brought the sweet potato from South America back to Polynesia. Thor Heyerdahl lives!
• Taiwan and China National Palace Museums to do exchange?
• Chinese tourist quotas to be raised. "On the evening of January 22, the Tourism Bureau announced that the quota on Mainland tour groups would be increased from 4,000 to 5,000 per day, while the quota on Mainland individual tourists would be increased from 1,000 to 2,000 per day."

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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.

in Taichung, even the dogs....

In Taichung, even the dogs dress like betel nut girls...
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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.

Taichung 46

Gorgeous day yesterday, so I headed for the Taichung 46, a magnificent little loop south and east of Dongshih, right off the 8. Accessible, lovely, and a great workout, I highly recommend this road (map link for map above). Click on READ MORE to see more.

Investment Pact Protects Who?

AP writes on the investment pact signed Thursday...

The pact, which took two years to negotiate, offers investors from the two sides formal channels for dispute arbitration, while falling short of a Taiwanese demand that arbitration take place under international oversight. It is the 17th economic agreement between the sides since China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou took office in Taipei in May 2008.

......

....But with this year's growth rate predicted to come in at less than 2 percent, broader tariff cutting and other trade promotion measures appear to have fallen short of Ma's promise that closer China ties would energize the Taiwan economy. The trade-reliant island is suffering from sagging demand for its trademark high-tech exports.

Chinese investment in Taiwan amounts to only about $300 million, far short of the more than $120 billion Taiwanese have invested in the mainland over the past 30 years. While the new pact could spur more Chinese investment in Taiwan, some restrictions aimed at preventing China's economic domination of the island remain in place.

Taiwan's opposition claims the new pact, like many of its predecessors, is helping to clear the way for increased Chinese economic influence on Taiwan, and setting the stage for an eventual Chinese political takeover of the island. That has been the ultimate goal of Beijing's Taiwan policy since the two sides split amid civil war in 1949.

........

But opponents point to Taiwan's continuing poor economic performance — its predicted 2012 GDP growth rate would make it one of Asia's most conspicuous economic laggards — as proof that Ma's highly vaunted China connection has failed to deliver the goods, and say the island needs greater balance in its trade ties.

No kidding.... not just the 2012 growth rate, but the economy hasn't gotten much help at all from China, certainly not like the golden days of CSB's latter years. With his usual mediocre luck, Ma seems to have both missed the best years of the China boom while getting hit by the Euro-American slump. Thus Taiwan's trade with China, Europe, and the US is all falling year on year, while with ASEAN Taiwan runs a trade surplus and trade volume is rising. Remember when Ma claimed we had to have ECFA in order to save our economy? We have ECFA, and growth is running 3-5% below what it was in the latter years of the CSB administration. This investment pact is years too late.

Another issue the paper raises is investment from China to Taiwan. It's easy to look at that only in the context of China-Taiwan relations and blame, as the AP report does, investment restrictions. But I pointed out a couple of years ago when ECFA was still being "debated" that restricting FDI in its trade partners is a longterm policy of Beijing's:

The trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) figures are not encouraging either. Since 2004, tariffs between the two sides have been coming down, and Asean's trade deficit with China has widened. From 2000 to 2008, China-Asean trade grew sixfold to US$198 billion (S$280 billion). But Asean's trade deficit also widened five times to US$21.6 billion. Asean's cumulative FDI in China was US$52 billion in 2008. By comparison, China's FDI in Asean was just US$2.8 billion.

Total Chinese FDI in ASEAN is now over $10 billion. The FDI situation is complex because "Chinese" FDI can be many things:

China’s share may be higher than official home and host country data show as the example of Vietnam illustrates. As large amounts of Vietnamese FDI inflows originate from Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands, Frost (2005) suspects significant further amounts of Chinese capital to be routed to Vietnam via these and other offshore financial centres. On the other hand, there are also reasons to assume that China’s share is overestimated in some host countries. During the field research in Cambodia and Vietnam we found that a number of companies that were identified and registered as mainland Chinese were in fact owned by a parent company from Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan. In some cases, these parent companies were established in mainland China and later moved to Hong Kong for reasons like taxes, logistics, or proximity to clients. In other cases, however, companies originated from Hong Kong or Taiwan and were incorrectly registered as mainland Chinese.

Recall also that in the glory days of the early 2000s when massive foreign investment in China was being touted, much of that "foreign" investment was Chinese money recycled through global offshore financial centers and reinvested as "foreign" investment in order take advantage of FDI investment benefits.

What about Korea? Well...(Asiaone):

South Korean statistics showed China's investment in its neighbor was US$3 billion last year, and was mainly in the tourism and entertainment industries. South Korean investment in China reached US$36 billion (S$45 billion) in 2011.

China has invested a lot more in South Korea, yet the same lopsided investment pattern shows up -- S Korea invests twelve times more in China than China does in South Korea. (Actually, if anything could motivate Taiwan to sell itself to China via FDI, it's the knowledge that China sends more FDI to Korea....ZOIKS! The Koreans are kicking our ass!)

So, looking at the overall Chinese investment situation in Taiwan and China's investments in other nearby small economies, it is hardly surprising investment in Taiwan is so low. After all, it's not like we have a booming economy here, with growth probably going to come in under 1% this year and inflation on the march, and it's not like China sends large allotments of funds overseas to nearby economies.

Two other points need to made. First, FDI in Taiwan must satisfy Beijing's political goals. This places an additional constraint on such FDI. Second, FDI in Taiwan, which ostensibly helps Taiwan's economy, actually conflicts with Beijing's longterm goal of hollowing out the island's economy and stealing its technology. Given the current economic growth in China and the cross-strait political situation, why should China want to invest in Taiwan unless furthers its political and technological goals?

This discussion of Chinese investment also hits on another issue: the housing boom here. Everyone talks about China's ghost cities and massive real estate boom. We're having an under-the-radar boom here in Taiwan -- it doesn't get any play in the global media, but here in Taichung building after building, estate after estate, new hotels, all going up in the best cargo cult style. Yet something like 40% of residences in Taichung are unoccupied and will probably never find buyers/renters. Think Chinese money will step in to prop up this bubble? LOL.

Finally, ETRC points out the obvious: Eighteen agreements in four years, what's next? What's next is obvious: the (open) political talks.
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Daily Links:

• Chinese "activists" land on Senkakus, provoke Japan. China says it will send warships to protect future expansionist "activists." What's the next step in this minuet? Washington sending a quiet warning to Beijing that it still recognizes and will act on the US-Japan security treaty?
• Tsai cleared up Yu Chang allegations. Remember that smear, just in time for the election?
• Excellent observations on the Hong Kongization of Taiwan

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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.