Our supine legislature kowtows =UPDATED=

Taiwan News hits the mark again:

With 74 of 113 seats compared to the DPP's 33 slots, the KMT holds an overwhelming majority and need have no fear that passage of the ECFA would not be endangered from article by article review or discussion.

Surely one objective is to short-circuit the real possibility that an extended article by article review of the vaguely worded ECFA would reveal to our citizens just how much the pact has compromised "the people's interests" and denigrated "Taiwan's dignity."

Second, Ma may intend to block the setting of a precedent for detailed legislative review and pave the way for "efficient" ratification of future agreements between the KMT and the PRC's ruling Chinese Communist Party, perhaps including a "peace agreement" that will be functionally an unification pact, without interference from opposition legislators or civil society.

The acquiescence of the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan in being excluded from pre-negotiation authorization or post-signing review essentially gives Ma and the KMT government a blank check to carry out any and all negotiations with the PRC without any legislative check and balance.

The intention is to entirely exclude Taiwan's parliament and Taiwan's citizens from any role in future KMT-CCP talks, in a similar manner to how the fates of Hong Kong and Macau were "resolved" in the 1980s and 1990s.

The KMT-controlled legislature voted Thursday to send the bill directly to the legislature without a Committee review, meaning that there will be no line-by-line review of the bill. The DPP then withdrew from the legislature in protest after one of those patented brawls. KMT Speaker Wang was particularly ironic:

The DPP caucus later challenged Wang’s announcement, with DPP Secretary-General Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) saying the speaker had failed to call for a vote even though the DPP caucus voiced opposition to the KMT caucus’ motion.

Wang stood by his decision when asked for comment yesterday.

“As the speaker standing on the podium, I did not hear anyone express his or her opposition [to the motion]. [In fact], I could not hear anything at all because of the chaos in front of me,” Wang said. “If I had heard something, I would have dealt with [the opposition] in accordance with legislative procedures.”

The feckless legislature, combined with suppression of referendum attempts, means that there is now no real democratic oversight of the ECFA agreement. The long struggle by the KMT to prevent democratic oversight, as Taiwan News suggests, implies that the KMT is creating a precedent for future China treaties. Note also that the KMT had ECFA signed by the quasi-governmental SEF-ARATS mechanism, avoided the WTO mechanism that had overwhelming support in polls. In other words, any kind of supervising of this agreement by any outside mechanism was obviated.

Even the minimal oversight of Taiwan government's bureaucracy was ignored. Two years ago, when the international media was "shocked" that a "pro-independence" politician was picked to head up the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), I wrote:

Folks, that is not a signal that the new President is going to take a middle ground in China policy. Instead it is a signal that MAC will not be an important player in cross-strait contacts.

As we saw a few posts below, MAC's main role is now putting out polls that show that Taiwan's electorate supports ECFA.

All the politicking last week to prevent legislative review by defining ECFA as a treaty and not an agreement. All the remarks from Speaker Wang that the legislative review was possible and that the legislature had reviewed other economic agreements before. All the noise and fuss, signifying nothing.

Moments like this show that the election of 2004, in which the DPP failed to gain a majority in the legislature even though it was the largest party, because of faulty political strategy, was a watershed that is not often identified in discussions of turning points in the island's history. A similar event in the 1990s, when the switch of two aboriginal legislator votes on the second ballot prevented the DPP's Shih Ming-te from becoming Speaker was also important, as was the disastrous "reform" that reduced the number of seats in the legislature. The KMT's re-absorption of its errant members from the PFP was also key. Now we are reaping the whirlwind from the public's zombie-like neglect of party politics at the local level. Poll after poll shows the public is completely unsatisfied with Taiwan's worthless legislature, but voters keep taking the cash and sending the same people back. That has to stop.

Analysis from the US a few months ago wrote as though it was really believed that Wang would engage in oversight of ECFA. I wondered what Wang's actual game was the other day. Now we know.

Theatre.

As Michael Fahey remarked in SCMP last week, Taiwan is a society that prizes consensus. It will be interesting to see how this long struggle by the KMT to prevent social consensus on ECFA is reflected in the polls in 2010, 2011 (legislature) and 2012 (president).
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Cohen and Chen: those DPP obstructionists

China Reform Monitor summarizes:

During May’s U.S. – China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, senior U.S. officials were told by Chinese counterparts that Beijing would not brook any interference in the South China Sea, which, they said, was now among China's core national sovereignty interests, on a par with Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang. To underscore this position, China subsequently conducted naval exercises around the Spratly Islands – disputed with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. In response, at this month’s Asian Security Summit in Singapore U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the South China Sea was an area of growing concern for the U.S.: “We do not take sides on any competing sovereignty claims, but we oppose the use of force and actions that hinder freedom of navigation.” Gates also said a peaceful and non-coerced resolution to the Taiwan issue was “an abiding national interest,” and vital for the security of Asia. A new forum for defense ministers from ASEAN, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. will meet for the first time in Hanoi in October to address these outstanding issues, Australia’s Canberra Times reports.

It's important to keep in mind the rising tone of China's expansionism -- the South China Sea islands, which no Chinese emperor ever owned or claimed -- are now a core interest of China.

China's hardline stance on expansionism failed to appear in an SCMP piece today on a related issue. Jerome Cohen had another one of those swing-and-a-miss pieces in SCMP that, but for its recapitulation of KMT talking points and refusal to mention the real issues behind ECFA, might have been good. Yea verily, he wrote long ago: (Ties that blind) "Improved cross-strait relations appear to have come at a cost to some civil liberties in Taiwan" but all that goes out the window when discussing economics. Today he and YJ Chen, discussing the role of the legislature, scribed:

Amid the arguments about the appropriate legislative review process, it is easy to lose sight of the Ma Ying-jeou administration's real accomplishment in dealing with Beijing. During the past two years, despite the mainland government's desire to avoid either acknowledging the legitimacy of the Republic of China on Taiwan or weakening Beijing's claim to sovereignty over the island, the SEF has concluded a series of important agreements with Arats without agreeing to Beijing's "one China" principle. And the latest agreement allows for institutional development in cross-strait relations by providing, for the first time, for establishing trade offices, monitoring agreement implementation, settling relevant disputes, terminating the agreement and organising a facilitating bilateral joint committee.

Look how carefully Cohen reframes and softens Beijing's declared aim that ECFA is the first step in the annexation of Taiwan. Down the memory hole goes that aim! Cohen then goes on to say that Ma's accomplishment is to get ECFA signed without agreeing to Beijing's "one China" principle, though in fact China is treating ECFA as a domestic matter. And no one knows what the KMT acknowledged privately.

Once China's position that ECFA is the first step in annexation is removed, you can then go on to claim that the DPP is being irrational. Which is exactly what Cohen and Chen go on to do. If you forthrightly state that ECFA is the first step in annexation, you cannot then go to paint the DPP as obstructionist and unreasonable.

Cohen, an old mentor of Ma's, and Chen then criticize the Ma Administration for

From the outset of its cross-strait negotiations, the executive branch has sought to minimise the legislature's role. The Ma administration did not submit any of its first dozen agreements with Beijing for substantive legislative review since it claimed no legislative amendments were needed to implement these agreements. Because the ECFA's implementation requires amendments of related legislation, the executive branch had to submit it for review. Yet it has been striving to limit the review's scope to prevent the legislature from modifying the agreement and to avoid delaying its start, scheduled for January 1.

The clash between the legislature and executive in Taiwan is old. Before Ma was elected I wondered in these pages whether Ma would face the same trouble Chen did, since it seems to be structural and related to the ROC's chronically weak presidency. Note that Cohen wrote in another piece last year:

2009: Without party control, Mr. Ma had a hard time pushing through his agenda. Not long after Mr. Ma’s inauguration, the legislature rejected the president’s appointments to both the Control Yuan, responsible for investigations of government, and the Examination Yuan, in charge of civil service recruitment. Concern about legislative approval also reportedly discouraged Mr. Ma from appointing certain experts to the Council of Grand Justices, Taiwan’s important constitutional court. More recently, the legislature refused to approve nearly half of the 50 “priority” bills proposed by the administration and adopted only four of the nine bills identified by Ma as “must” legislation for the just-concluded legislative session.

Cohen & Chen then go on to review the "is it animal, vegetable, or mineral?" problem of what ECFA is. President Ma, who gives every appearance of not wanting legislative review -- it is easy to see why! -- argued first that it was a treaty, which meant that the legislature could only give a straight yes/no vote on the agreement as a whole. Then it became a quasi-treaty, or the functional equivalent of a treaty. Meanwhile the legislature, which points to several precedents in which international economic agreements have been reviewed line by line, argues that ECFA should be reviewed by the legislature piece by piece. Good on 'em!

In the next section Cohen and Chen argue that the legislature should have the power to review and amend ECFA. Kudos to them for being on the side of right! But then they character:

Yet, in view of the current partisan political climate, the concern that a clause-by-clause review might substantially delay the trade pact's approval should not be overlooked. If the DPP acts reasonably and constructively in the review, rather than engage in the obstructionist tactics that the KMT fears, it will gain public support.

Hahahaha. Poor put upon KMT! Fearing those obstructionist tactics of the dastardly DPP! Cohen and Chen simply subscribe to the old "if you agree, you're rational, and if you don't, you're obstructing." Democracy is nice, provided it doesn't interfere in "rational goals."

C &C also err in another way in that last sentence, which is simply a KMT talking point, not serious analysis.

If the DPP acts reasonably and constructively in the review, rather than engage in the obstructionist tactics that the KMT fears, it will gain public support.

Remember that back in July of 2009 they wrote:

If the DPP continues its ostrich-like stance toward these historic talks, it risks losing much of its existing popular support.

As commentor Feiren noted in a comment on that post on my blog, Cohen and Chen had, in simply repeating China Post talking points, badly misunderstood the mood in Taiwan. The reality is the opposite -- by opposing ECFA, the DPP gained public support. The DPP would go on to hand the KMT defeats in the next few elections, satisfaction with Ma, already falling, would plummet into the 20s and remain there, and the public would never evince majority support for ECFA in any serious poll. The "obstructionist tactics" -- you know, like talking to the public, running in elections, critiquing policy, having debates, calling for referendums, writing commentaries and making speeches -- appear to be quite popular with the public. That is evidenced by the simple fact of the last few elections here, and by the current situation in which two areas in the north, often thought to be KMT strongholds, are now in play in the mayoral elections come November. That could change, but right now the KMT is unpopular at the national level. US commentators need to face the fact that ECFA is not popular, despite what occasional erroneous reports in the international media claim.

The hack on the DPP is totally unnecessary; it adds nothing to the piece.

Anyone who wants to gauge the national mood need merely look at the 104 Job Bank survey on ECFA. 104 Job Bank is Taiwan's leading internet job ad site. The Taipei Times report said:

The survey, which polled 2,292 Taiwanese workers on June 28 and June 29, found that 31.9 percent of respondents believed that the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) would likely lead to higher unemployment, while 15.8 percent feared that the agreement would make it harder for people to find jobs.

Max Fang (方光瑋), the online manpower agency’s public relations manager, said that less than 40 percent of the workers surveyed were upbeat about the trade pact, with only 13.5 percent saying the job market would benefit from it.

These figures underline those found in other polls.

Cohen and Chen have been awesome voices calling for change in China. On Taiwan, when dealing with judicial matters, they have also been powerful voices. I deeply honor and support this service to the people of Taiwan. But when it comes to economics, suddenly Beijing's aims are blurred, KMT talking points are repeated, and the situation on the ground is ignored. Why?
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Daily Links:

• Noam Chomsky to lecture here, August 9th.
• Tim Colbatch of The Age has a very iffy piece on ECFA.
  
• Freedom House releases report critical of Taiwan, dropping our civil liberties score.
• Taiwan News editorial on what the DPP should do in cross-strait policy
• Lon Cho-shui has been on a tear lately. Here he is arguing that the numbers for the early harvest do not add up.
  

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A developer in Banciao goes to town on Taipei 101.

I know everyone is heartily sick of ECFA, but that agreement is like your unemployed brother-in-law: here to stay. Today's offering is the pas de deux that involves Legislative Speaker Wang of the KMT and the Executive Branch over the status of ECFA. The Taipei Times issued a long one on it, well worth reading in its entirety. Some choice quotes:

The government yesterday defined the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed with China as a quasi-treaty and said the legislature could ratify or reject it as a package, but could not amend its contents article by article.

PING:
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who had previously said the ECFA was “more like a treaty,” was at odds with Legislative Speaker Wang Jyn-ping (王金平)...

PONG:
.....who said the ECFA was an agreement and not a quasi-treaty...

PING:
....yesterday modified [Premier Wu]'s stance on the matter, saying the ECFA was “not a kind of treaty,” but that its “contents, appearance and the nature of the ECFA makes it look similar to a treaty.”

SLAM!:
Despite saying the ECFA was not a treaty, Wu said the legislature can only vote to ratify or reject the ECFA and not review it article by article.

RETURN:
At a separate setting yesterday, Wang said it would be “very difficult” for the ECFA to clear the legislative floor.

The legislature is expected to call a provisional session on Monday at the earliest to screen and finalize the format in which the ECFA will be reviewed.

Wang said that even though the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) holds a majority in the legislature, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could still resort to procedural strategy to block the agreement from being put to a vote.

“Even if the KMT owns a majority of seats, it cannot get whatever it wants all the time,” Wang said.

According to recent reports, if ECFA is a treaty, then the legislature must accept or reject it as a package. If it is an agreement, then the legislature can review it line by line. Naturally the Ma Administration wants it to be a treaty.

Note the hasty backtracking -- to sign a "treaty" with China is to recognize it, which the KMT government cannot do. Thus Ma first said ECFA was a treaty, bascially following his usual line of sovereignty is whatever I say it is whenever I say it, then the government coined a whole new status of "quasi-treaty" to define ECFA. Hey --whatever is necessary to prevent the legislature from stopping ECFA.

This twisting to prevent legislative review is part of a larger KMT program of keeping ECFA away from democratic oversight, which also includes swatting down referendums. The interesting thing is why Ma feels he needs to avoid the oversight of a legislature his party ostensibly controls. ECFA steps on quite a few local toes and Ma of course is probably as unpopular in his own party as he is in the nation at large.

Even more interesting is the position of Wang. What kind of game is he playing? Is he trying to get the DPP to run interference for him to stop ECFA while piously claiming he has no control over the opposition party in the legislature? Is he warning Ma that this is possible and Ma better cough up some quid pro quo? Is he just trying to create the appearance that the legislature will do its job? Or just tweaking Ma out of old political rivalry?

Speaker Wang is/was a bitter rival of Ma, and lost a KMT chairmanship vote to the President in an election in which Wang had the support of Party elites while the Deep Blue rank and file all voted for Ma. In 2008 Wang was making noises about substantive legislative review of ECFA.
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Daily Links

• Dan Blumenthal calls for weapons sales and says ECFA won't solve everything.
• Japan views ECFA with alarm, cautious appreciation of possibilities. Another Japanese take.
  
• Alan Romberg at Hoover reviews recent events around ECFA.
• Latest issue of Taiwan What's Up is out.
• Reuters with scenarios about Taiwan's future.
  
• Speakers against the death penalty in Hsinchu and Taichung on Saturday
  
• Pray it is only oil that BP has released.
• The Senate tells the unemployed to eat cake. But there's always another $30 billion for the endless lost war in Afghanistan. Yes, Obama is Philip III of Spain, running a massive deficit with the world, engaging in pointless crusades abroad, neglecting domestic development, and buying needed goods from his opponents:

Spain imported vast amounts of goods yet exported little. Her balance of trade deficit was large and had to be made good by the bringing in of more bullion. The fact that bullion imports were shrinking greatly hampered Spain. The fall in silver imports lead to the government minting copper coinage called vellon. 1599 to 1620 saw two decades of vellon production. This had a two-fold effect. First, it increased inflation. Secondly, it created a crisis in confidence. Such short-term remedies failed to work and mostly made matters worse. An economy survives on confidence. By debasing her economy, Spain was signalling to other nations that her economy was in trouble. No-one valued the new coinage. Ironically, the copper to produce the vellon came from protestant Sweden, was purchased in Amsterdam and paid for with silver.

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"Elections" are a problem for Taiwan

In Patterns of Force, Kirk and Spock beam down to a planet to find a Federation historian named John Gill, who apparently turned the place into a Nazi state (compete with I vant to make you talk hot Aryan chick). Kirk and Spock interrogate Gill, drugged and used as a figurehead:

Kirk: “Gill! Gill! Why did you abandon your mission? Why did you interfere with this culture?”
Gill: “Planet . . . fragmented . . . divided. Took lesson from Earth history.”
Kirk: “But why Nazi Germany? You studied history; you know what the Nazis were.”
Gill: “Most efficient State Earth ever knew.”
Spock: “Quite true, Captain. A tiny country, beaten, bankrupt, defeated, rose in a few years to stand only one step away from global domination.”

Kirk should have smacked Spock right down, as this is total nonsense: Nazi Germany was an illegitimate, bureaucratized, inefficient, inept nightmare, as numerous books on its economy and war conduct have chronicled. But for some reason one hears from time to time of the "efficiency" of authoritarianism, especially in the encomiums for Chinese growth. There's plenty of appeal to this idea in the discourse surrounding democracy in Taiwan, particularly in the Blue papers.

Lately there has been a spate of stories on the problem of "elections" in several newspapers that appeals to this feeling that somehow, democracy is inefficient. The China Times claimed the other day that Elections Hijack Taiwan. Commenting on resigning health minister Yaung's claim that elections have hijacked public policy in Taiwan:

For a long time, politicians from the Kuomintang and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have been reluctant to unveil public policies before elections in order to avoid displeasing voters.

But the passive attitude of politicians in doing nothing to please voters does not necessarily work, as evidenced by the results of the 2008 legislative and presidential elections when the then ruling DPP suffered consecutive losses.

In the run-up to the elections, it froze domestic gasoline prices out of election considerations to spare consumers from skyrocketing crude oil prices, but it also cost the state-run petroleum giant CPC Corp., Taiwan tens of billions of dollars.

In Yaung's view, Taiwan is a mature society in which the majority of the people are rational enough to cope with hikes in oil prices and insurance premiums.

If the politicians are right that the government should not move to carry out policies that could upset voters before elections, then the country will not be able to move forward.

The Apple Times similarly argued:

Although the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) has an absolute majority in the Legislature, many of President Ma Ying-jeou's campaign promises have failed to materialize. The reason behind this is that politicians and policies have all been held hostage by elections.

The latest example is a draft amendment to the Civil Service Performance Evaluation Act, which would require that government employees be dismissed if they get a "C" rating for three consecutive years. The bill drew a strong backlash from civil servants, who threatened to oust the KMT in the next elections.

As expected, Ma was frightened and decided to meet with Examination Yuan President Kuan Chung and Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng next week to try to sort out the differences. While we are not surprised that Ma would backtrack on his policy, we feel sad and helpless.

Who is the target audience of this show? It is the sitting duck taxpayers like you and me. Allowing elections to hold politicians hostage and extort them is the greatest misfortune of Taiwan's democracy.

There is a common claim in Taiwan that the island has become more disorderly since the advent of democracy -- it is practically a given that when you hear someone make that claim, they are Blue.

The problem lies in the construction that the cause is "elections." The problem in Taiwan is not the politician's need to get elected, but a public that has been coddled for decades by absurdly low water prices, absurdly high interest rates on savings for the bureaucracy (and other breaks such as low interest loans for homes for teachers), subsidized gasoline and electricity prices, low NHI fees... these are merely highly sophisticated versions of vote buying whose budgetary pigeons are now coming home to roost. The real problem is the political mentality that says it is ok to pay for tomorrow what we buy today, that lacks the political will to explain to the public what is needed, and treats the public like spoiled kindergartners to be bribed with candy and pretty pictures. This island so needs a progressive, pro-active legislature that takes for granted the political maturity of its public. Kudos to Minister Yaung for leading the way.
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KMT Wins in Da-an

The KMT won in the by-election in Da-an district in Taipei. The pro-Green Taipei Times notes:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) breathed a sigh of relief after its candidate, Chiang Nai-shin (蔣乃辛), defeated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) in the legislative by-election for Taipei's Da-an District (大安) yesterday.

Chiang received 46,065 votes (49 percent) over Chou's 36,465 (39 percent), winning by less than 10,000 votes in a district that is traditionally a KMT stronghold.

In the legislative election last year, the KMT captured 66 percent of the vote for the seat to the DPP's 32 percent.

Independent candidate Yao Li-ming (姚立明), who has the backing of the New Party, failed to split the pan-blue vote and garnered only 9,868 ballots.

The Green Party's Calvin Wen (溫炳原) captured 1,058 votes. Independent candidates Liu Yih-jiun (劉義均), Chao Yan-ching (趙衍慶) and Chen Yuan-chi (陳源奇) received 645 votes, 46 votes and 39 votes respectively.

Voter turnout was a low 39.12 percent.

Coupled with the defeat in the Miaoli by-election a few weeks ago, the KMT appears to have been given a warning by the voters, said many observers in both the Taipei Times report, and the China Post. Both elections were characterized by low turnout, so it is hard to get a sense of where the electorate lies. Still, in solidly KMT Da-an district, the DPP did well. Another China Post article on the DPP response noted:

[DPP Chairman] Tsai said she was very glad to see the rise in the ratio of votes captured in the by-election, which she attributed partly to Chou as the best candidate of the party and partly to concerted efforts by all the party members.

This is the first time for the KMT's vote-capturing rate to fall under 50 percent, indicating that the KMT's dominance isn't unshakable on one hand, and the DPP's efforts to seek reforms have been recognized by the public on the other hand.

Tsai said she's sure that the DPP will stand up in the short time to live up to people's expectations, adding that her party will work harder to solicit more supporters in the year-end elections of county magistrates and city mayors.

For his part, Chou said that the election result is quite an encouraging development to the DPP, indicating that the DPP can still tap into the KMT's political stronghold in the Daan District as long as it works harder and harder.

Chou said excitedly that three vote-casting stations in the only borough headed by a DPP member all witnessed his votes outnumbered his rival Chiang Nai-hsin of the Kuomintang. “This has never happened before,” Chou stressed.

The KMT's control of local-level governments was made use of in this election, as local government employees were allegedly busted campaigning for the KMT while in uniform, as maddog reported (with video!).

The legislature meanwhile was busy passing "a general amnesty for corrupt KMT officials" as the China Post reported, with the headline saying that the sunshine law was aimed at Chen Shui-bian, whose trial started this week, though the text did not mention the ex-president. Said the pro-KMT paper of new language added to the bill that targeted officials and their families and forced them to account for their possessions and cash holdings:

“Both paragraphs which will be added to the act as amended won't be retroactive,” [Justice Minister] Wang told the judicial committee meeting.

The remarks hit the hornet nest.

Lawmaker Tsai huang-liang, DPP legislative caucus deputy whip, fired a broadside at Wang for “getting at the opposition party” and “shielding the Kuomintang.”

“Those who need to be required to explain are former Kuomintang officials,” Tsai said. By making the law non-retroactive, he added, none of them could be prosecuted.

Tsai asked Wang why Lien Chan, a former vice president and premier, couldn't be required to explain how he has come into a vast fortune, most of which probably was doubtfully acquired by his father, who was a minister of the interior.

“I don't know,” Wang replied. “I am sorry.”

Lee Chun-yi, another DPP legislative caucus deputy whip, charged that all those Kuomintang government officials who have unlawfully acquired assets in the past are now let to go scot-free.

“It's a general amnesty for those corrupt Kuomintang officials,” Lee pointed out. “The people can't accept the amendment,” he added.

The whole point of the charade, the DPP charged, was to make it look like the KMT-controlled legislature was actually doing something -- just in time for the by-election taking place in Da-an District.

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Sunday Odds and Ends

One of the more frustrating phenomena for those who want to create any kind of positive change in Taiwan is the public's habit of re-electing our legislature despite its constant complaints about how bad the government is. Its approval ratings are consistently low -- 28% in Feb according to this TVBS poll (recall that TVBS is blatantly pro-KMT). (Interestingly, support for Chen Shui-bian is at 23% in this TVBS poll, while Ma is as low as 28% approval in some polls). The public seems to feel that so long as the legislator comes to help them out with traffic accidents and shows up for their weddings and funerals, then their legislator's performance in office is of no consequence.

In Miaoli "independent" candidate Kang Shih-ju beat the wife of convicted vote-buyer Lee E-tin in the local by-election, The Taipei Times writes:

Kang, chief of Zhunan Township (竹南), gave up his KMT membership to run in the by-election. He declared victory yesterday after winning 41,688 votes to Chen’s 40,099 votes.

Lee’s election to the legislature was annulled in December after he was found guilty of vote-buying.

After yesterday’s results were in, Kang said at his campaign headquarters that the public had voted for an end to corruption. He vowed to combat corruption and work for the interests of Miaoli residents.

“The result of the by-election show that voters in Miaoli County renounce corruption and support me for my integrity and long-term efforts to develop Miaoli County,” Kang said.

Chen, accompanied by Lee, conceded defeat shortly afterward at her campaign headquarters. Chen and Lee blamed her defeat on the low turnout rate. They said they would not seek a recount.

Kang failed to win the KMT’s nomination for the legislative election last year and left the party after it again passed him over for the by-election, choosing Chen instead.

Lee had been convicted of vote buying using temples back in December...

The court verdict said Lee made 16 visits to temples in Yuanli and Jhunan — two of the eight townships in one of Miaoli County’s two electoral districts — between June and October last year.

During that time he made donations and solicited support via his campaign aides for his election bid. Because Lee had not been previously known to make donations to temples and had only done so during the election campaign, the court ruled they were designed to improperly influence voter behavior.

I didn't hear that any of the temples were busted for participating in the vote buying scheme. Shouldn't some temple association leaders be behind bars? Kang is a good example of the way former KMTers simply turn "independent" if not permitted to run by the party electoral processes, something the KMT relaxed its exclusion clause for criminal behavior to prevent.

Observe that despite the corruption, and the attempt to game the system by Lee running his wife for the office, a common practice of corrupt local politicians (example), they only lost the election by a whisker. As I wrote three years ago:

Yet, in fair elections, the public consistently returns corrupt politicians to office. Stop me before I kill again! seems to be the message voters are sending.

The good news about Kang's victory is that he has promised to caucus with the DPP, and received DPP support in the election.

Some interesting, and in its way, portentous, news from the US where Taiwan Caucus Co-Chair and ardent Taiwan supporter Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican, has decided to step down from that position.

Rohrabacher said in the interview that his resignation was primarily the result of a growing gap in goals between him and Taiwan’s government.

Rohrabacher said that he firmly believed in opposing autocracy, but if Taiwanese voters via a democratic election have chosen to cooperate with China, then his participation was inconsequential.

The Liberty Times report is here.

Echo Taiwan points to an interesting report from the Chunghua Institute of Economic Research (CIER), not a notably pan-Green organization, that says of the proposal to build a bridge between China and Kinmen:

Earlier this month, CIER announces the evaluation report. It says that there might be economic benefits, but due to the fact that Xiamen is a much more developed area than Kinmen is, a bridge will speed up the outflow of Kinmen resources and eventually bring deterioration to Kinmen in the long run.

Therefore the evaluation report suggests that Ma government to postpone such a plan (中經院報告 建議金廈大橋緩建, Liberty Times, Mar 3rd, 2009)

According the the above news piece, the evaluation is entirely based on the economy interests. Neither the safety of Kinmen against possible invasion nor the national security of Taiwan is evaluated.

What? The same logic applies to Taiwan -- closer links with China simply mean that more resources will flow outward from Taiwan to China. As we have seen.....

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Big Brother Lurches Forward

The Taipei Times reported on a proposed law that permits elected officials to search private records of individuals without informing them:

The amendment seeks to add a clause that allows elected representatives to gather personal information for investigation without the knowledge of the person concerned.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) expressed strong opposition to the proposed amendment.

“This is a Chiu Yi [邱毅] clause,” he said, suggesting that the clause was especially written for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator so he could legally look into personal data and records of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

“I’ve heard that the Ministry of Justice and Judicial Yuan all support [the amendment]. The DPP opposes this,” Gao said.

Several other members of the DPP also opposed the proposal, saying that the clause would seriously damage an individual’s right to privacy.

Defending his proposal, KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said that elected representatives have the right and responsibility to protect citizens from corruption.

“I strongly believe that [elected representatives] should not be required to inform the individual who is being investigated, because if I’m in the middle of trying to expose corruption, and I’m required to inform [the person] first, then I would have no corruption to expose,” he said.

“However, if I make a mistake in accusing [someone] of corruption, I would be held legally responsible,” he said.

You can see how a law that permits "elected representatives" to look into private records presents almost limitless possibilities for abuse. Like, for example, your neighbors who want to nose into the private life of the weird foreigner next door can ask their lin/li zhang to check for them, assuming the law means any elected official.

We already have an investigative arm with full authority, prosecutors and police. We don't need legislators collecting private information they can use in campaigns or in blackmail, or to buy votes or gain leverage over voters. The Taipei Times has an editorial on Hsieh and the law.

Echo Taiwan points to a Liberty Times story about a high school student who shouted at Ma to step down, and was immediately detained by the police. How many times did people shout that at Chen Shui-bian?

According to the Liberty Times (嗆「馬英九下台」高三生遭逮捕), the student was interrogated in the police station, which scared the student's mother to death. She asked the police for leniency. The police didn't release the student until some document was signed (confession of a crime?) and the student got finger-printed.

The police office at HSR Chiayi Station claims that the reason they "brought" the student in is to "persuade him to focus on study in order to be a good student". They also claim that they conducted "personal information investigation" for the safety of president.

It looks like an isolated case of police overzealousness. Someone needs to speak to the cops, though.

The government said yesterday that for certain civil service positions related to China -- not all positions -- applicants would be tested on the PRC constitution. A few hours later it reversed that position.

_______________________
[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!

Diane Lee finally is removed

The Central Election Commission (CEC) voted to annul KMT legislator Diane Lee's elections for the last 14 years as she is a dual citizenship holder and thus, cannot hold legislative office in Taiwan. The case had dragged on since before the Presidential election in 2008, with the US State department saying a couple of times that Lee is a US citizen, and DPP politicians exposing her US tax returns, social security number, and other citizenship-related documents. Despite the overwhelming case against her, Lee has consistently refused to admit she did anything wrong. The Kuomintang News Network reports:

The dispute over former Kuomintang legislator Diane Lee’s dual ROC-US citizenship has lasted nearly one year. The Central Election Commission (CEC) decided last week to annul all of Lee’s wins in previous elections, including the 7th Taipei City Council and the 4th, 5th, and 6th Legislative Yuan. The CEC annulled all relevant election certificates she had received from 1994 to 2005, the period Lee was identified to have held dual nationality and concurrently served in public office. The ruling was made as eight CEC members voted for it while three opposed.

As regards repayment of her income as “illegal gains,” the CEC said that the issue should be forwarded to the Taipei City Council and Legislative Yuan, respectively, for further discussion as they had been responsible for her salaries.

In response, Lee issued a statement yesterday, saying that the CEC was only an administrative agency and, hence, did not have the authority to annul her previous election victories. Lee vowed that she would appeal the CEC’s ruling in accordance with the law. Likewise, Diane Lee’s lawyer, Lee Yung-ran, said that the ruling was unlawful because an electoral action was legitimate only after a judicial ruling was made. The lawyer claimed that the CEC shouldn’t have arbitrarily annulled Lee’s wins in previous elections and that Diane Lee would seek an administrative remedy within the legal 30-day period after she received an official notification from the CEC.

Lee (李慶安) is the daughter of KMT monster heavyweight Lee Huan. Her brother Lee Ching-hua is also a legislator, and co-founded the New Party back in 1993. Both would leave the KMT to join the PFP when James Soong founded that in 2001 after an unsuccessful run for the Presidency in 2000, breaking ranks to support Soong just days before the election, when it seemed highly probable he would win. The Lees rejoined the KMT when the PFP quietly disappeared a couple of years ago.

A quick comparison might be illuminating. Under the law Lee must return the $3 millon she made over the last 14 years in salary for her various posts. The CEC declined to enforce that, saying it was up to the legislature and the Taipei City Council, two bodies currently under the control of the KMT, to order the money returned. Since the Chen family must return its monies to Taiwan....

The SIU had provided the Chen Chih-chung couple with information of an official bank account designated by the Prosecutor General’s Office, but to date no funds were remitted into the account. If the Chen Chih-chung couple hope to have their plea bargaining petition approved, they have to provide assistance to the prosecutors to arrange a wire transfer to the Prosecutor General’s account of the NT$ 240 million and the US$ 10 million which Yuan-Ta Securities had remitted to their Swiss bank accounts. If they did so, the SIU would consider commencing the plea bargaining procedure with the Chen couple based on their cooperative attitude and behavior.

...it would seem right to ask that Lee return her salary. It will be an interesting test of the system. Lee, the privileged scion of a powerful family, was once a possibility for Taipei mayor. The Taipei Times has a good backgrounder on her and her sibs here.

[Taiwan]

Robin Winkler To Run for Diane Lee's Vacated Seat

Max Hisrch of Kyodo has the report:

An American-born lawyer who gave up his U.S. passport and gained Taiwanese citizenship has become what he said is the first white to run for the island's parliament, vying for a seat that until last month belonged to a Taiwanese who resigned over allegations she holds U.S. citizenship.

Robin Winkler's candidacy, announced this week, for the legislative seat of a key district in capital Taipei is the latest ironic twist to the island's rough-and-tumble politics.

But Winkler's bid to represent Da-an District, where residents lean toward conservative Chinese values, also highlights Taiwan's shifting identity politics in the era of globalization, as a flood of immigrants and an ethnic divide figure prominently in the island's political narrative.

And in many ways, Winkler, 54, is the opposite of the ex-lawmaker he seeks to replace: Diane Lee, formerly of the ruling Nationalist Party (KMT). Lee, 50, last month quit her seat amid a storm of controversy over whether she holds U.S. citizenship and thus broke a law prohibiting dual citizenship for lawmakers.

..............

By contrast, Winkler, to all appearances, is a foreigner. In 2003, however, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a naturalized Taiwanese, partly to avoid deportation for his legal practice and activism, he said. Fluent in Mandarin, he runs Winkler Partners, a Taipei-based law firm he founded in 1993, and the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the environment.

''We're going to run a very international campaign,'' Winkler told Kyodo News by phone Wednesday, referring to his bid to become the island's first naturalized citizen to hold a parliamentary seat. ''Ours will be a platform of global values.''

Winkler seeks the nomination of the Green Party, a global political party advocating environmental conservation and non-violence. The party's Taiwan chapter, he said, will likely choose its nominee this week, with that candidate running against candidates from the KMT and DPP. Winkler said he would focus on environmental issues and social justice in his campaign.

...........

Winkler's bid comes amid a small but growing shift in demographics, as the island transitions to what its National Immigration Agency calls an ''immigrant country.''

Winkler, driven and intelligent, will make a fine addition to the legislature. Don't know how useful he'll be in its fistfights, though....

[Taiwan]

Tuesday Odds and Ends

How about that smoking ban? Draconian, and citizens can turn each other in for a few extra bucks! I'd like to thank the government for saving us from indoor smoke, the last health threat since illegal trash burning, factory toxic emissions, oversized automotive engines, and coal-fired electric plants have all been eliminated here.

Speaking of the environment, the EPA is insisting that people take seriously its proposed rule that scooters turn off their engines at stop lights, then start them up again when the light turns green. This brilliant idea is actually up for expert review, despite overwhelming objections to it.

Fun fun fun as once again, our longtime anti-democracy President Ma Ying-jeou and mass murdering authoritarian Chinese President Hu Jintao are linked to a Nobel Peace Prize. The idea is parodic, but Taiwan News points to the hollowness at the core of the claim to cross-strait "peace" in the making:

Where a genuinely cross-strait peace process would end could be an open question, but any process that would have legitimacy in today's democratic Taiwan must begin with recognition that the majority of the Taiwan people still want peace with assent and without coercion, with democracy and without repression and with creativity and without preconditions or predetermined conclusions.

Indeed, any "peace" arranged by the KMT and CCP behind the backs of the 23 million Taiwan people will not "end hostilities" but is likely to trigger considerable domestic unrest within Taiwan and could even pave the way for genuine and drawn-out conflict throughout East Asia in the future.

Such a "peace" will not be "honorable" and Hu and Ma will be no more deserving of Nobel Peace Prizes than would have been Hitler or Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier, whom as leaders of "democratic" nations, reached agreement with the "rising" Germany's dictator over the heads of the democratic Czechoslovakian government and its president Eduard Benes to expedite annexation disguised as "peace with honor."

In our view, if Hu truly wishes to be known as a "peacemaker," he should first dismantle the 1,400 missiles and other offensive weaponry deployed across from Taiwan, revoke the belligerent Anti-Secession Law, cease opposing Taiwan's membership in all international organizations and drop the "one China principle" as the precondition to talks.

For his part, Ma should consult with opposition parties and civil society representatives to formulate a domestic consensus strategy for formal talks with the PRC, affirm that the result of any talks must be ratified by national citizen referendum in Taiwan and reaffirm his opposition to the coercive Anti-Secession Law, cease the illegal KMT-CCP "dialogue" and halt unilateral "deregulation" measures that would lock Taiwan into the PRC economy and hollow out the Taiwan people's right of free choice.

Submission is not "peace." When they gave away the Czechs to Hitler in '39, they engendered there broken treaties, burning cities, and 50 million dead -- all the result of "peace with honor" -- and China has territorial claims on all the nations around it, some relatively legit, some completely fanciful. But today's fancies are tomorrow's headlines....

On Jan 9 last week, FAPA sent this around:

"...during the first week of the new 111th Congress, long-time Taiwan supporter Rep. John Linder (R-GA) introduced a resolution urging the Administration to establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Similar resolutions were introduced in 2005 and 2007 by then Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who has since retired from Congress. Additionally, the resolution calls for end to the U.S. One China Policy and Taiwan's full membership in international organizations.

Ah, we can dream. But as a dream it makes a nice antidote to the unreality that has pervaded the Bush Administration's self-congratulatory horse manure on the Loch Ness Monster Bigfoot Status Quo.

Two legislative moves: first, the Taipei Times headline said today that our legislature stirred from its lethargy long enough to pass a bill legalizing gambling in the offshore islands.

The amendment stipulated that local governments must hold a referendum before building casinos.

The referendums would only need to win support from more than half of the voters participating in the referendum.

The bill stipulated that casinos be located within international resorts that include an international hotel, tourism facilities, international conference halls and shopping malls.

It also called for the government to create a US$900 million fund for island development (read: spraying concrete across precious natural resources while supplying central government funds to local patronage networks). The usual suspects protested, including the Catholic Church, busy protesting against other people's gambling while operating Bingo halls. Gambling in the Penghu is just more of the Cargo Cult dream that uncountable hordes of Chinese are simply standing there in Fukien in long lines from the coast, holding wads of cash just waiting to invest here and "save Taiwan." The legislature also approved the free trade zone at the airport. The new law allows foreign labor but prohibits Chinese labor, something that many feared it might permit. Aborigines, staunch supporters of the KMT, took it on the chin, of course. UPDATE: Penghu, longtime KMT country, has already scheduled a referendum for mid-year.

Two links you should be looking at. First, the redoubtable and always excellent Brian Kennedy has a long piece in this month's AmCham Topics mag on the prosecutors. It appears to be a direct response to the recent letters that scholars have published condemning the apparent politicization of the prosecutors here. It is useful and informative, but does not directly grapple with the issue of politicization of the prosecutorial function in a substantive way. For example, anyone remember the press conference called by eight prosecutors to claim that they would follow the Chen case to the end, as good as a promise to prosecute Chen Shui-bian no matter what the evidence? UPDATE: Speaking of politicizing the prosecutors -- this is unbelievable -- for the 63rd annual law day, the prosecutors' office staged a skit that looks an awful lot like it was slyly aimed at Chen Shui-bian, with prosecutors playing the parts. My man Taiwan Echo has a description and vids on his blog. Words fail me. UPDATE 2: News report is here (Chinese) UPDATE 3: Taipei Times article.

Also, in case you haven't heard of it, the Reed Institute at the U of Oregon has a fantastic collection of 19th C Taiwan imagery and writing.

Finally, the Taipei Times had a piece on the revival here of Democrats Abroad. If you are not yet a member, sign up for the Taiwan Group at Dems Abroad and come to the organizational meeting on Jan 17 at Larry's Pizza (2 pm). Only registered members at Dems Abroad will be allowed to vote in the organizational elections. We have a fantastic slate of candidates for supervisory positions, although I may be biased, since I am one of them. Once you register at the website and log-in, you can get info on all the candidates.

[Taiwan]

The Flow of Crap: Day 3: BBC's Alternate Universe (UPDATE 1)

I've decided to have one post like this each day, where we put the latest media fun, updated as the day goes on.

Today maddog alerted me to this report from BBC's alternate universe. That's the universe where, two years later, you can still read on their Taiwan timeline that Chen Shui-bian devolved his powers onto the premier, even though that isn't constitutionally possible -- it was just political theatre, forgotten the next day (and the premier has been changed, to boot!). I'll be updating my old deconstruction of that wildly pro-PRC and completely out of touch timeline later.

But back to today's fun! BBC piously avers:

Taiwan's finance minister has resigned after a mass brawl between rival MPs, nine days before the island's hotly disputed presidential election.

Ho Chih-chin had accompanied members of the opposition KMT party to the campaign headquarters of the ruling DPP to investigate corruption claims.

The KMT alleged the DPP paid no rent on the Taipei building - which they deny.

A fight broke out between the rival groups as they tried to leave, and MPs from both sides were arrested.

The DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) is trailing behind the KMT (Kuomintang) in opinion polls ahead of the 22 March elections.

Note the description: "a mass brawl between rival MPs" in which legislators from both sides were arrested. There was no mass brawl between rival MPs. Four KMT legislators entered the Hsieh campaign HQ making the usual unsubstantiated accusations, and a scuffle between them and DPP supporters erupted, later expanded to include the police. The Finance Minister did resign, but the Taipei Times story on the resignation contains no mention of any arrests. Nor does the article on the apology from the KMT for the behavior of the four legislators. Nor does the report of the incident from the previous day. One could reasonably expect the China Post would be all over reports of DPP legislators being arrested, but their accounts here and here also contain no mention of mass brawls between legislators or arrests of anyone, much less legislators from both sides.

Bottom line: this is one completely erroneous article. Once again: no mass brawl between rival MPs, no arrests of MPs. What really pisses me off is that this horseshit is going to appear all over the world as another example of those immature Taiwanese MPs -- a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous, and cruel. Shit.

BBC owes the people of Taiwan an apology. Please contact BBC and let them know (contact form).

UPDATE: The Foreigner has a kickass review of the actual invasion of DPP HQ.

+++++++++++++++

Eric passed me this slanted piece from Mark O Neill in Asia Sentinel. You can sense how bad it is going to be from the opening paragraph:

Although Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou is cruising toward a comfortable victory in the March 22 Taiwan presidential election that would give his party control of both the executive and Parliament, his supporters fear that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party will stage a last-minute stunt to swing public opinion and steal a victory, as it did in 2004 after an assassination attempt that many believe was staged.

So far the only manufactured incident we've had was the invasion of Hsieh HQ by 4 KMT legislators. The belief that Chen arranged the March 19 incident is laughable, and a good journalist would at least have indicated that no evidence supports this belief, and that it is an article of faith only among KMT followers. The reality is, as comments below the piece point out, that Chen had already pulled even with Lien, and ahead in some credible polls, ten days prior to the election.

The piece also regurgitates KMT claims on the economy, mentions the Chen Corruption bogey without giving any clue that Ma is encumbered by similar baggage, quotes words from a KMT politician and Hu Jin-tao without any balancing information from the DPP, and generally tracks the KMT talking point tape loop. No need to check it out; it is merely ordinarily bad, not a milestone like the Wong piece in the NY Times the other day. I'm only loading it up here for completeness.

[Taiwan]

Miscellany

Meteors
This weekend, Dec 13-4, we're getting a huge storm.

According to McBeath, the Geminids are predicted to reach peak activity on Dec. 14 at 16:45 GMT. That means those places from central Asia eastwards across the Pacific Ocean to Alaska are in the best position to catch the very crest of the shower, when the rates conceivably could exceed 120 per hour.

"But," he adds, "maximum rates persist at only marginally reduced levels for some 6 to 10 hours around the biggest ones, so other places (such as North America) should enjoy some fine Geminid activity as well.

Legislature
Two great posts over at A-gu's site. A summary of the effects of the new districting plan from the China Times -- if you read one post this month, this should be it -- A-gu's own thoughts, plus this prediction. A-gu has done great work on the legislative election.

Name Changes
Names of villages in southern Taiwan will revert to their old aboriginal names.

Fifty years after it was renamed, local councilors in Sanmin Township (三民), in Kaohsiung County, unanimously voted on Monday for a new Aboriginal name for the township, effective January 1.

"The seven-member township council has ... unanimously agreed to change the township name to Namasiya Township (那瑪夏)," Mayor Husong Istanda said in a telephone interview.

[Taiwan]

Legislature Brawls are Staged

Ralph Jennings reported yesterday what many have long suspected: that the brawls in the legislature are staged so that politicians can get maximum publicity:

But the brawling and histrionics in parliament that have put Taiwan politics on the world map for the past 20 years are staged acts, legislators and political observers say.

They are planned in advance to generate media attention and garner favor with voters who like to see their representatives fight as hard as they can on tough issues.

Lawmakers even call up allies to ask that they wear sports shoes ahead of the choreographed clashes. They have been known to meet up afterwards for drinks.

"It's really a media event, staged for media coverage," said Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Joanna Lei. "They have a strategy session, like a war plan."

The latest brawl erupted on May 8 when at least 40 lawmakers blocked the speaker from his podium to head off a vote on reconfiguring the Central Election Commission.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when minority parties had no procedural way to change governing bodies controlled then by the KMT, regular fights exposed inefficiency, crookedness and authoritarianism, said Shelley Rigger, an East Asian politics expert at Davidson College in the United States.

Today, despite full democracy, the fight strategy remains.

"It's true that politicians use (brawls) to excite their core supporters at home, but it's unclear how effective that is," Rigger said. "We do know, though, that it hurts the legitimacy of the democratic system as a whole. Mostly it's a delaying tactic."

Actually, democracy made it worse. The previous complicated system of legislative elections encouraged politicians to engage in publicity stunts since only a few votes might get them into the legislature. The recent slashing of legislative seats to 113 winner-take-all seats means that over time this behavior might be reduced. Although there are still those at-large seats that both parties must appoint.

[Taiwan] [media]

Are you globalized enough to be President?

Fortunately for Taiwan, the legislature has its priorities straight:

The question came amid a proposal by the Nationalists opposition party that Taiwan's Election Law be revised to require presidential candidates to possess at least a high school-level of English fluency.

"If you don't even have a high-school student's English capability," the People First Party's Chung Shao-he asked Su, "how will you handle Taiwan's international relations?"

While English is widely spoken among Taiwan's business and political elite, many of the island's senior leaders have _ or have had _ only the remotest knowledge of it.

The Taiwan News went on to remind readers that Chiang Kai-shek barely spoke the language. Among the DPP candidates, Annette Lu has a Harvard degree and speaks excellent English, but the others range from poor to nonexistent.

The PFP's comments toward Premier Su about his lack of English attainment thus represent another of the usual KMT attacks on the DPP as a bunch of unsophisticated hicks fresh off the farm, but here is an excellent example of the way knowledge of English functions as a proxy for globalization in Taiwan society. Told to "internationalize" an organization, system, process, or text, Taiwanese invariably respond by adding English. When students are asked why they are learning English, they invariably answer "because it is the international language." Warrant enough! In Taiwan culture, "being international" means knowing English. It does not mean knowing international quality management practices, understanding civic culture, enjoying foreign foods, traveling frequently, or being familiar with other histories and societies.

In fact, I have often privately speculated whether one function of this totemic aspect of English education may be to prevent assimilation of other international norms. Taiwanese may talk as if they want English to access the outside world, but in the way they act, English is not so much a conduit to permit the welcome inflow of ideas, but an interface that lets users take what they want from the global environment while limiting the effect of that environment on themselves and their local culture. In other words, the purpose of mastering English is to hold globalization at arms length. Taiwanese businesses accomplish this by using students like those out of the English program at my university to interface with the world, leaving the bosses free to learn as much or as little English as they like, and to continue the practices of local management and business culture as they always have.

[Taiwan] [English]

Redrawing the legislature

An critically important event took place this week, with the major parties agreeing on the redistricting plan that is necessary to carry out the legislative elections slated for later this year. The pro-Green Taipei Times reported:

Electoral boundaries within four disputed cities and counties (Taipei and Taichung cities and Miaoli and Changhua counties) will be structured according to the original draft, while two other draws favored amendments presented by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (Taipei County) and the Democratic Progressive Party (Taoyuan County).

Boundaries within two other counties -- Kaohsiung County and Pingtung County -- will be altered based on cross-party interests.

"We deliberated on the redistribution but couldn't reach a compromise. Drawing lots was an acceptable way to resolve the dispute," Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said after a four-hour meeting with Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday.

After their meeting, the legislature referred the compromise proposal to the CEC, which was required by law to promulgate the change by yesterday.

The next legislative elections, to be held in December, will mark a significant change in the nation's political landscape, with the number of seats reduced to 113 from 225.

The controversial "single-vote, multiple-member district" will be replaced by the "two-vote, single-member district" system, in which 73 electorates will be represented by one candidate each, with another 34 seats allotted to parties based on the proportion of votes received.

The other six seats are reserved for Aboriginal legislators, who formerly had eight reserved seats.

To recap, in 2005 the Constitution was altered, with the support of both major parties, to reduce the number of seats in the legislature. This is widely expected to gut the representation of the smaller parties in the legislature. With the number of seats falling to less than half, the pressure on the major parties to preserve seats for powerful legislators was immense. Fortunately the negotiations were carried out by KMT Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng and the DPP Premier, Su Tseng-chang, both of whom have a reputation for pragmatism. Wang is the powerful rival to the KMT's anointed presidential favorite, current party Chairman Ma Ying-jeou.

The redistricting issue had been a major latent constitutional crisis. During the fall of 2006 the PFP and certain elements in the KMT were talking about recalling the Premier and bringing down the government. Since the President can dissolve the legislature if the Premier is brought down, Taiwan would have had to hold new legislative elections -- but the districts had not been approved by the legislature. Hence, a severe constitutional crisis would have resulted. This has apparently been averted.

The Taipei Times complained about one of my favorite topics, the international media, whose Sauron-style eye fixes on Taiwan only when something related to China occurs....

The changes to the legislature and electoral districts will have a profound effect on the political system. No one, not even the major political parties, is able to predict what kind of legislature the December elections will bring to power.

First, half of all sitting legislators will lose their jobs, as the legislative seats will be slashed from 225 to 113. Next, many popular and prominent figures will be left on the street, because politicians must now compete with each other for first place, rather than being guaranteed a seat by earning a high number of votes. In addition, small political parties face a fight for their survival.

Why will any of this matter outside of Taiwan? Given the changes, it is possible that a party could win a legislative super-majority, enabling it to do all kinds of things, such as write a new constitution.

Or declare independence. Even the international media would notice that.

It's too early to say how the redistricting will favor the individual parties, except that it doesn't favor the little ones. The pro-KMT China Post reported the other day:

Meanwhile, faced with more competitive elections with greatly reduced seats, DPP Legislator Chen Chin-jun said the DPP has to work with the TSU, saying that if the TSU fields its own candidate in each constituency, it will impact the "pan-green camp."

KMT Legislator John Chiang estimated that the new scheme will be favorable to the major parties and that the KMT, which currently controls 90 seats in the 219-seat legislature, will garner two-thirds of the seats.

PFP Legislator Cheng Chin-Ling said her party and the KMT will have to meet next week at the latest to talk about fielding candidates, as the two parties will be soliciting support from the same voters.

In related development, Taoyuan County Magistrate Chu Li-lun said he regretted the result of the draw.

Chu said the initial redistricting scheme sent by the county to the CEC was based on Chungli and Taoyuan cities having the largest township-level cities in one constituency each, while the final version has cut more than 10 boroughs each from the two cities and has given them to other constituencies.

But Hsu Chung-wen, director of the DPP's Taoyuan branch, was elated, saying that the new scheme will finally break the KMT's traditional hold on the two cities and that the DPP will be able to win half of the six seats in Taoyuan County.

Premier Su warned that it is too soon to tell, but it is worth noting that prior to the spate of scandals last year, the DPP was the single largest party in the legislature, although the Blues retained an overall advantage. The Post noted in another article:

Ten out of the 15 cities and counties -- Yilan, Hsinchu, Hualien, Taitung, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu counties as well as Hsinchu, Keelung, Chiayi cities will have only one seat, while Tainan city and Kaohsiung, Yunlin, Chiayi, Nantou counties each will have two constituencies with one seat in each of them.

Outside of the generally pro-KMT north, the redistricting plan appears to diminish KMT clout in certain areas. Yilan has long been a DPP stronghold, but Taitung, Hualien, Kinmen, and Matsu all tend to vote Blue. Compared to those, the southern areas of Kaohsiung, Yunlin, Chiayi, and Nantou did well, with two seats each. But by comparison with the north, the south appears to fare poorly -- there are a total of 12 legislators from Taipei county and 8 from Taipei. The aborigines tend to support the KMT as well, for historical reasons.

The 34 at-large seats will be apportioned to the parties based on their performance in the election -- if they win 75% of the seats, they will win 75% of the at-large seats. These seats will likely go to party insiders -- current legislative Speaker and KMT stalwart Wang Jin-pyng holds an at-large seat, appointed by party elites. Chairman Ma Ying-jeou has recently attempted to undercut the influence of KMT elites, who do not like him, by making the at-large seats democratically elected. The whole idea strikes me as wrongheaded -- the additional 34 seats should be used for more geographic representation, rather than awarded to the parties. They simply reinforce the impression that Taiwan's politics are all about politicians.

[Taiwan] [Taipei] [PFP] [KMT] [Ma Ying-jeou] [Democracy] [DPP] [corruption]