Former President Ma Indicted

Stopping traffic for a procession

President Ma was indicted yesterday on charges of leaking state secrets (SCMP):

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office alleges Ma violated the Communication Security and Surveillance Act and the Personal Information Protection Act. The former president could face up to three years in jail on the charges. “Ma chose an improper way to deal with what he believed were political flaws and responsibilities involving cabinet members,” prosecutors office spokesman Chang Chieh-hsin said.

The Special Investigation Division (SID) was tapping the legislative phone system. I wrote at the time:

Readers may recall that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng had been publicly accused by the President of influence peddling by calling the Minister of Justice and having him tell the prosecutors not to appeal a not guilty verdict against Ker. The DPP politicians also said that the SID had been monitoring the prosecutor in the Ker case, which the SID admitted. They admitted that they monitored her 12 year old daughter, accidentally, since she was using her mom's phone (SCMP). They then switched to the husband's phone which Lin Hsiu-tao was using, musical phones being a common feature of busy families.

It is striking that no transcript of the alleged phone calls telling the prosecutor to lay off Ker has been produced by the SID, since it has leaked transcripts of Wang Jin-pyng's phone calls. Indeed, the lack of such leaks suggests that no such transcripts exist. This tends to support Wang's claims that he was just comforting Ker and hadn't done anything.

Allegedly Ker Chien-ming, the DPP whip, called Wang Jin-pyng, then the KMT speaker, and asked him to lobby the prosecutor and the Minister of Justice in a case involving Ker. Transcripts of Wang's words with Ker were leaked, but no transcript of Wang talking to either of the other two was leaked. Wang insisted that he had done nothing illegal, and no evidence was produced that he had.

This information was given to Ma by SID Chief Huang Shih-ming. The DPP had long been claiming that the SID, which began its career prosecuting Chen Shui-bian, was a political tool designed to be used by the President against his perceived political enemies, and in that moment, their claims were totally vindicated. Huang would later be indicted and convicted over that leak. That does not bode well for Ma.

But then President Ma Ying-jeou, who saw Wang as a rival and underling, and who had beaten Wang in a previous KMT Chairmanship election, completely lost it. He was apparently primarily angry at Wang because Wang would not shove that awful, unpopular services pact with China through the legislature. Wang, the unofficial leader of the Taiwanese KMT, knew that his people in the legislature would never vote for it.

Ma went public with the accusations that Wang had engaged in influence-peddling, saying that he had shamed Taiwan's democracy. He also attempted to have Wang kicked out of the party and removed as speaker. This lead to the situation described in the letter from THRAC, which really did threaten Taiwan's democracy:

By reporting to the president and then releasing the transcript at a press conference — without laying any charges — the SID grossly violated laws requiring nondisclosure of its investigations and has confirmed suspicions that it is a political tool of the KMT. There are also questions about the legality and propriety of the wiretap.

....

These actions constituted (to use his words) “improper influence at the highest level,” abuse of the office of president and violation of the separation of powers fundamental to a democracy. Ma then acted in his capacity as KMT chairman to have Wang’s party membership suspended and remove him as a legislator-at-large.

This confusion of Ma’s two roles as president and party chairman looks like a return to the old party-state practices of the KMT.

Third, contempt of the legislature. By using an internal KMT party process to remove its speaker, Ma has seriously violated the rights of the legislature. The speaker of the legislature is elected by its members. The legislature oversees the president. Now Ma has used his power as party chairman to become the overseer of the legislature. This has serious implications for KMT proportional vote legislators who must worry about a party chairman who can remove them so easily.

The KMT also had the Ministry of Foreign Affairs describe Wang as a "former speaker" on its website. Wrong.

The crisis devastated the KMT, and even caused the NT to fall in value. It also left Ma's reputation in tatters (fallout described in this post here and here). Ma and Wang went to court over Ma kicking Wang out of the KMT, and was beaten twice -- Eric Chu later dropped the suit to preserve KMT unity.

And it was, by all accounts, totally illegal for Ma to make that information public to attack Wang. Which is how we got to this indictment this week in the "September Strife". Taipei Times reported:

The Taipei District Prosectutors’ Office completed its investigation into the 2013 wiretapping case and alleged that Ma had abused his authority by divulging classified information, as well as breaching the separation of political and judicial powers, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Chang Chieh-chin (張介欽) said.

Chang said Ma has been charged with offenses related to public officials divulging state secrets that are unrelated to national defense, thereby contravening the Criminal Code; public officials divulging classified information obtained in the course of communications surveillance by the authorities, thereby contravening the Communication Security and Surveillance Act (通訊監察保護法); and unauthorized use of private information outside of a public official’s duties, thereby contravening the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法).

“The defendant called on then-prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) to visit the president’s official residence on Aug. 31, 2013, to report on the findings of the wiretapping. This breached the law on the use of personal information obtained under surveillance and the divulging of classified information,” he said. “The defendant instructed Huang, top aide Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) and then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) on Sept. 4, 2013, in talks where classified information relating to the wiretapping case was discussed. This constitutes offenses of inciting others to divulge information obtained during telecommunications surveillance and violations of personal privacy.”

The prosecutor in this case is the same one who went after Ma before for his downloading of government funds into his private accounts. Ma did not dispute that he had done so, but his defense was that the special funds were intended for that purpose. He was found not guilty, of course.

Ma maintains he is innocent. He is facing a rain of lawsuits now that his presidential immunity ended, with Ker Chien-ming's lawsuit against him in its final stages after three years.

I consider it very unlikely he will ever do time. If he gets sentenced, it will be the kind of sentence that can be commuted to a fine.

But it is good to see the system working. All three former democratically elected presidents have been indicted, but the attacks on Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui were politically motivated. This long running case -- remember, before you claim this is some kind of pan-Green revenge on Ma, that SID Chief Huang was convicted during the Ma Administration -- represents the actual functioning of rule of law as a check on anti-democratic action by the chief executive.

Good!
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Chu in Ma 2.0 Mode

The top image is the actual logo of the KMT Presidential campaign: "One Taiwan: Taiwan is power!" As the bottom image shows, the logo is already getting extensively parodied. The older generation may consider such things unseemly or even dangerous -- it's hard to get out of the mindset of living in a security state when you've incorporated it into your social identity -- but the younger generation pounces on easy meat like this with gleeful abandon. They weren't socialized during the security state era.

Not only is the logo strange, but it sounds awful in Taiwanese. An acquaintance announced on FB:

Taiwanese wordplay! The new KMT presidential slogan is "One Taiwan". Or in Taiwanese, "Ùan Tâi-ûan", which means "Blame (怨) Taiwan".

UPDATE: could also be read as "hate Taiwan," see comments.

As the pro-KMT China Post reported, the new KMT logo was immediately called out for its resemblance to the DPP's logo:

Chu also unveiled his campaign logo in a separate post: a tie-dyed "ONE" in his slogan "ONE Taiwan," but local media began to speculate that is had been plagiarized, saying it bears a resemblance to the logo of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) campaign.

Tsai's uses a green circle as her campaign logo, its colors varying according to the issue at hand.

KMT Culture and Communications Committee Chairman Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) told the local news media that Chu's logo showed a "varied but united" Taiwan through its rainbow coloring.

The rainbow color also recalls the LGBT movement for full civil rights. Tsai has already come out in favor of gay marriage, but for both parties and many prominent politicians, commitment to gay rights is not so much a move out of some human-centered moral or social commitment but a signal that one is modern. That is not true of Tsai herself, in my view: here she is on video saying she supports marriage equality.

More serious than the meaning of Logos is the irruption of the Wang-Chu rivalry into the KMT presidential campaign. KMT Chairman and Presidential candidate Eric Chu needs Ma's support and also needs to cut down any rivals, a common practice in authoritarian systems. Wang Jin-pyng, speaker of the legislature and unofficial leader of the Taiwanese KMTers, is a potential rival. Hence, the three new proposed changes to the KMT rulz* are aimed at lopping off Wang's power, as Frozen Garlic noted in an excellent post:

The first proposal, efficiency, is vague and practically meaningless. The second and third, however, can easily be interpreted as direct attacks on Wang’s power as speaker. What people in Taiwan seem to have in mind when they call for the speaker to be neutral is that he or she should not participate in party caucus activities. The speaker would not be the one trying to pass the majority party’s agenda. Instead, he or she would be more of a neutral referee.

.... In the Ma Ying-jeou vision of hollowing out Wang’s power, the KMT would like to make Wang the irrelevant speaker, while the real power migrates to the majority party leader – who can be chosen by the party chair. (Of course, this all still assumes the KMT will be running the legislature in the future, which seems rather optimistic at this point.)

The third idea is to increase the transparency of party negotiations, something that has widespread appeal. Nevertheless, the current system of party negotiations is closely associated with Wang Jin-pyng. He became speaker in 1999, and the current system was put into place in 1999 and 2000. Wang likes the current system of back-room, closed-door negotiations because it fits his style perfectly. He gets along with almost everyone and is ideologically flexible, so he is fantastic at negotiating. Without the media to mess things up, he has much more space to encourage different sides to make opaque trades. Most importantly, the speaker always chairs the negotiation meetings, so Wang is always in position to guide or even control the bargaining. Transparency would mess all this up, so Chu’s proposed reform would be a major blow to Wang’s power.

Wang has been skipping KMT events, which has led to much press speculation about his position and the feud with Chu. Solidarity translated some of this media frenzy. Indeed, today Chu denied the party had internal problems. A sample with Solidarity's notes....

Speaking of who will be on the Party List, legislators who are at-large and need not be elected, Chu said:

Regarding the order of names on the party list, Chu said he can’t personally direct the chess pieces as everything must follow party procedures. He emphasized that Wang is the KMT’s legislative leader and will be treated with the greatest respect, and the name order will be reached by consensus.

Remember, when the KMT piously cites the rulz for saying it can't help someone, it means someone is getting screwed. More:

A source said Wang is upset for three reasons: (1) He believes statements by Huang Fu-hsing (retired veterans) chapter head Dai Po-teh 戴伯特 represents the views of party central [S.tw: much more on that below; btw Chu appointed Dai]; (2) Chu didn’t accede to Wang’s demand for a public declaration he’d be No. 1 on the party list; (3) Chu is demanding Wang lead the way for legislative reform, and there have been rumors party central will attach conditions to party-list nominations, leading Wang to worry “his feet will be bound.”

The situation with the clash between the veterans, who are the KMT's return-to-China base, and the Party center, reflects the struggle going on within the KMT now for two decades: is the KMT a Chinese colonial political organization in which benefits and power flow only to people with the right ethnicity, or a party run by Chinese elites in concert with local Taiwanese? The "red" (more KMT than the KMT) faction believes that the Taiwanese must inevitably localize, Taiwanize, and destroy the "real" KMT if they get power in the KMT, and because at the sick heart of the KMT is a colonial state run on ethnic chauvinism. Hence the veterans object to Wang because he is Taiwanese...

Dai had stated at the central committee meeting that the KMT is a party with an organization and system and should not create new party-list rules for the sake of “one person.” Elsewhere that day, he stated that the grassroots strongly oppose changing the rules and doing so would absolutely have an effect on the presidential and legislative elections [S.tw: the Huang Fu-hsing can tell military veterans to stay home and not vote KMT]. He recommended that Wang Jin-pyng “voluntarily” take a party-list position of No. 10 or lower [S.tw: where he’d have a much higher chance of losing his seat].

"Not create rules for the sake of one person." Remember when Ma Ying-jeou was indicted and the KMT quickly changed the rules so that an indicted person could run for President? Ma was strongly supported by the veterans. Note that Dai -- whom Chu appointed -- threatened the KMT that the veterans would stay home if they didn't get their way. Solidarity notes that within the KMT the military networks are at war with each other over the nominations as well.

The KMT won't do well, though it does seem to be getting a legislative boost from the Chu nomination of 8-16% in this poll, Solidarity tweeted. But there are fewer seats for the KMT, withal. Why? One reason was the idiotic reform that reduced the number of seats, which the two major parties agreed to in order to shut out the smaller parties. Now the seats simply are not out there -- had the KMT not agreed and preserved the old strange proportional system, it would gain a certain portion of seats in the south, where there are military communities and longstanding faction networks.

The legislative reform hurt the faction networks by reducing their ability to gain seats, and thus, hurt their relations with the KMT and their relevance locally. Add to that the fact that the DPP is in control of municipal positions across Taiwan now, and the KMT factions are facing long-term starvation. Chu himself observed that he couldn't step down from New Taipei City mayor position because over 100 people would lose their jobs. What will happen to the factions when they don't have seats and their only alternative to starvation is the DPP?

In any case, all this is internal debate just another way of asking: what is the position of Taiwanese in the KMT colonial system? Spartans or helots? In fact, the answer to the position of the Taiwanese is "helots":

A friend of Wang says that Ma uses “this gang” who “wants to hold the grassroots hostage,” doesn’t know right from wrong, doesn’t know how to introspect, and goes on hurting people. To these people, it seems Taiwanese can only be the slaves of a few powerful people in the KMT. This clique wants only power, and there is no true democracy in the KMT, Wang’s friend said.

As I've noted before, Wang must have heard many remarks about the inferiority of Taiwanese to the "real Chinese" during his tenure in the KMT. How much more of this can he take? A longtime observer speculates that Wang will move after the election. I can't bring myself to believe it. Letters from Taiwan with much speculation on Wang's future.

In addition to coming out as "Taiwanese" -- a Ma specialty was gritting his teeth and saying he was Taiwanese -- and suppressing Wang Jin-pyng -- another Ma goal, Chu also came out this week with a proposal that the government institute a program of tourism to Taiping Island in the Spratlys. From Solidarity with his laconic reminder:

Chu said it wouldn’t take much to develop the island, and with its beautiful scenery and basic infrastructure a weekly flight could be established to allow people to travel there for tourism and see their country’s territory. (S.tw: Reminder: The island is 46 hectares / 110 acres in size.)

It's pretty obvious that Chu is going to follow the Ma Administration policy of using the South China Sea, the Senkakus, and other issues as irritants to keep relations with surrounding states roiled. US policymakers should ask themselves whether this is the person they want in power in Taipei: does the US really want a pro-China government in Taipei during the coming decade of increasing confrontation with China?

*Warning: may contain rules-like substance. Use with caution. 
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Daily Links:

• US helicopter fleet in Taiwan is rusting away.
• Brian at New Bloom with good analysis of the LGBT politics
• Taiwan takes almost half of Vietnam overseas workers
• Chu is attacking Tsai using Chen Shui-bian. Tsai is responding with Ma Ying-jeou. Note the struggle in this one is over the fisheries and irrigation co-ops, important resources for local factions in their need to distribute wealth to retain power. Chu's criticisms of the Chen Administration's move is designed to appeal to these local and rural faction networks. I discuss them and Chen's move in detail in this long post.

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Whither, Wang. =UPDATED=

Agnes from Malaysia speeds past an old building in Ershui.

The China Times (via KMT media organ translation) reports that the KMT will not change the Party List Rulz [WARNING: MAY CONTAIN RULES-LIKE SUBSTANCE] to keep current Speaker Wang Jin-pyng on the list of legislators who get seats if the KMT does well in the election...

The KMT is starting its nomination process for its at-large legislators on the party list. Some are wondering whether the KMT would revise its party rules to accommodate Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who has been elected on the KMT’s party list as an at-large legislator for three consecutive terms in 2004, 2008, and 2012 but cannot be re-nominated again for a fourth term according to existing party rules. According to an informed source, the KMT party central was inclined to maintain rather than amend its current party rules. However, the same source stated that if any member of the Central Standing Committee (CSC) had a different opinion and introduced a motion to amend the party rules, the CSC would handle the motion according to the rules of procedure and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) would announce the final outcome of the deliberations.

...since Wang's power base is in Kaohsiung, a DPP stronghold, and he hasn't announced a run there, it seems unlikely he will enter the race at this late date and probably wouldn't win if he did. But if doesn't get on the Party List he's finished, unless KMT Presidential Candidate Hung Hsiu-chu makes him her Veep candidate, that's highly unlikely. Recall that the Taiwanese factional wing of the KMT looks to Wang for leadership. What will he do when he's out in the cold? Wang is a lifelong broker, not a leader, and my suspicion is that he will make a few mild remarks and then do nothing. But all the Taiwanese who've been slogging in the trenches for a political party whose leaders despise them may revise their opinions accordingly. UPDATE: Solidarity catches piece on Wang warning his downfall will only hurt KMT.

Note that in local institutional culture, when something is handled "according to the rules of procedure" it is code meaning someone is getting screwed. In this case, that will be Wang. Remember President Ma Ying-jeou is running the show, and he hates Wang.

Since President Ma is running the KMT, and much of the day to day affairs are in the hands of another mainlander princeling, Hau Lung-bin, son of bitter-ender Hau Pei-tsun, I suspect the party list is going to be full of ideologues like Ma and Hung. It wouldn't surprise me if they propose a full slate of mainlander princelings and the like, with perhaps a token Taiwanese.

Chu is out as presidential candidate, gravely wounded by Ma in the struggle within the KMT for the Party's soul. He doesn't want to be President. Wang will be finished. Hung is a loser. PFP leader and KMT turncoat James Soong is basically a fish wrapped in a newspaper: won't be hearing from him again. Who does this leave for 2020? I am thinking that Ma is clearing the way for Hau Lung-bin to lead and maintain elite mainlander ascendancy over the KMT.

Another issue: If Wang is out, that could have grave implications for legislative cooperation with the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen, currently the likely next President. Wang was wont to work with the DPP, one of the reasons that Ma went after him so obsessively two years ago. With the diehards in ascendancy in the KMT and with no Wang to smooth things over, the KMT could become (hard to imagine this) even more uncooperative and obstructionist. This is yet another reason why Tsai MUST have a legislative majority. But a new threat is emerging...

The President, Vice President, Candidate Hung, and KMT Chairman Eric Chu displayed some remarkable solidarity this week in showing up at the opening of a club for Taiwan businessmen (Taishang) in China. Wang was a no-show. Solidarity translated a piece showing how important the Taishang are for the KMT and how they are not donating to Hung, instead sending their money directly to legislative candidates:

Given the KMT’s poor prospects this year, however, Taishang election enthusiasm has waned, and donation patterns have changed. In past elections, at least 70% of Taishang political donations went to presidential candidates, with the rest trickling to legislative candidates. But this year many consider the presidential race a lost cause and have decided not to throw good money after bad, instead directing their funding to legislative races.

During their discussions about mobilization, some Taishang have recommended that taking reference from their nine-in-one election strategy, Taishang associations should assign the responsibility for certain districts to specified associations and leaders, rather than donating money to the KMT and letting the party distribute it. This will further deprive the KMT presidential campaign of funds.

Still worse for the Hung campaign has been the constant rumors the KMT will change its presidential candidate. On top of that, Taishang have been in a holding pattern as they’ve waited for Beijing to tell them what to do with respect to this election, and by telling Taishang to support whom they please Beijing has communicated that it will not offer aid to the Hung campaign via the Taishang.

I pointed out a couple of months ago that the election followed soon after by New Year will force the Taiwanese in China to make difficult choices:

As for the Taishang, the businessmen in China, some 200,000 would like to come home to vote, according to an association head. Yet, the Taishang are a typical expat population in many ways, spending their time in the new country, educating their kids there, and generally cutting ties with home. As time passes, these propensities grow. As Hung's prospects sink, the Taishang who are supposed to be super-KMT may well rethink spending the time, money, and hassle to come home to vote. Recall that the election is scheduled for Jan 16th, but the Lunar New Year is Feb 8. This means that many businessmen will face the unpalatable choice of coming home and then flying back immediately to be with their businesses during the critical lead up to New Year, then returning a couple of weeks later to do New Year, or staying away from the business for almost a month. And all that to vote for a candidate who likely isn't going to win.

Yet, they might come, to help save the legislature. As I've noted several times, Hung isn't going to help the KMT anywhere outside of the north. She could cost them the legislature.

TT appended today:

In related news, Chinese Cross-Strait Taiwan Businesses Suggestion and Research president Chang Han-wen (張漢文) said that while projections of the number of Taiwanese businesspeople who plan to return home from China for the Jan. 16 elections are small, “it could improve to about 300,000 if the plane ticket problem is solved.”

“The Lunar New Year is 24 days after January 16. Since many people might find it difficult to purchase [two tickets in such a short period of time], we are now negotiating with airline companies [to offer discounts],” he said.

Good news: the number wanting to return home to vote is "small". Money they will send, but they won't come themselves to vote. Good news...
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KMTitanic 15: waiting for the July 19th absolution

Riding north from Tainan today, I took the 163 to the HSR station in Chiayi. There was no direct connection between the 163 and the 37 to the HSR station, so I took a lonely gravel and dirt access road a couple of kilometers through the fields of sugar cane that ran parallel to the HSR line. As so often in Taiwan, I ran across a little historical treasure: the old rails from the Japanese-era sugar lines still exist all over the south, uncared for and unacknowledged.

Fifteen-hundred people went into the sea, when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby... and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included. Six... out of fifteen-hundred. Afterward, the seven-hundred people in the boats had nothing to do but wait... wait to die... wait to live... wait for an absolution... that would never come.

Well, only a few more days til Judgment Day, July 19th, when Skynet annihilates the KMT. Both current KMT Chairman Eric Chu and President Ma Ying-jeou, honorary chairman, have stated that there is no way current candidate Hung Hsiu-chu will not be confirmed as the party's nominee. So expect the carnage from this week, which saw five legislators expelled from the KMT, to continue....

Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), who withdrew from the KMT before it officially expelled him on Wednesday, along with four other party members, yesterday said that there are always signs before a political party falls apart

....J Michael Cole says he hopes more KMT members will speak their minds like the Expelled Five. It sure is fun to hear their views...

Curiouser and curiouser: Wang Jin-pyng, KMT heavyweight, Speaker of the Legislature, and Taiwanese faction politician from way back, blocked the southern KMT factions from circulating a petition demanding that the party withdraw Hung's nomination at the July 19th Congress.

The KMT's National Party Congress, scheduled for July 19, is going to confirm the nomination of Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-Chu (洪秀柱) as the KMT's official candidate for the 2016 Presidential Election. However, a signature drive for an open letter, trying to block Hung Hsiu-chu from running in the race, was initiated among the grassroots in Kaohsiung. According to an informed source, Legislative Speaker Wang Jyn-ping (王金平) had asked the pro-Wang faction not to join the drive, stressing "Right now what is most important for the KMT is solidarity."

According to the open letter, Hung's "One China, One Interpretation" campaign plank advocating precipitous reunification with the Mainland would seriously harm the KMT. The letter pointed out that confronting the possibility that we could be defeated handily in both the 2016 Presidential and legislative elections, the KMT party central and the party as a whole should face the reality rather than engaging in self-deception. It went on further to state, "to win is more important than to just run," so running with no hope of winning would undermine the party's future.

One of the expelled legislators criticized KMT Chairman Eric, saying that he had left the party in a pathetic state. Chu's decisions have been so uniformly bad there is a secret fantasy circulating among many of my friends that Chu is a pro-Green out to wreck the KMT. Wang Jin-pyng's decision to support Hung's nomination -- he has to know she cannot win -- has the same flavor. It looks like Wang wants her to be confirmed so she can undermine the KMT. Hung is so awful that Chu came out the other day saying that he thinks the KMT will win only 45 seats in the legislature.

UDN pointed out in an editorial that Hung has no experienced campaign manager. KMT Sec-Gen Lee Si-chuan is currently running the Hung show, but he can't juggle his KMT duties and her campaign.

The rhythm of Hung Hsiu-chu campaign looked chaotic following her breakthrough in the polls, mainly because it lacked a command and control center. As a result, it lacked the capacity of agenda setting. Hung Hsiu-chu must seek as soon as possible a “command and control center” that can integrate various campaign resources and plan campaign strategies and approaches. She must recruit someone with extensive campaign experience, as well as communication and coordination skills. That someone must communicate not just with the KMT party central, but also with the Ma administration team, with KMT legislators, and even grassroots figures. Only then can the Hung campaign get back on track in the shortest possible time and resume battle stations.

Wang Jin-pyng has said a couple of times he won't join the Hung campaign, again this week. Hung's campaign is going to be run by Deep Blue insiders completely out of touch with Taiwan outside the swank Taipei districts where they all live. Should be entertaining.

Hung's lack of campaign skills was blindingly evident this week in a fiasco involving a trip south, which Hung canceled because of "security fears":

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presumptive presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) visit to a Kaohsiung night market was canceled over concerns expressed by Kaohsiung police for her safety, the contender’s team said early yesterday, before saying later that no change was made to the agenda after Kaohsiung police denied the allegation.

For Hung to publicly state that "security" was the issue is a blunder. You obviously blame time, coordination with local administration, or something similar. You don't admit publicly that you fear for your life in the south -- I suspect that is Hung's contempt for Taiwanese at work, that reflexive revulsion at being down there among all those "low-class" Taiwanese with "market names" especially in that most Taiwanese of places, a night market. Lots of locals are going to interpret it that way. If you want to know how mainlanders in Hung's generation think, review the story of Koo Kuan-ying... can't wait for more of this to come out during the campaign.

July 19 probably won't bring changes in Hung's status. The KMT is likely to confirm her. Instead, it might raise the issue of Eric Chu's status. Hung has already said that the party's presidential nominee should be Chairman of the Party, a position that a purist and ideologue like her must dream of.  Wouldn't be surprising if she takes a shot at the Chairmanship at the Congress, most likely with some of her supporters putting it to a vote. Recall that Frozen Garlic pointed out that the delegates to the KMT party congress appear to be mostly Deep Blues who are Hung's most ardent supporters. There are two grass roots power bases struggling in the KMT -- the Taiwanese faction politicians who can clearly see that the KMT is headed for the iceberg, and the Deep Blue true believer rank and file who think of themselves as Chinese and see the KMT as having gone astray and needing to return to its Return to Zion roots.

The Party is still struggling to get Hung's weird China policy under control. The KMT news organ reported that the Party platform had been revised to include Hung's views:

In addition, revisions of the party platform were completed during yesterday’s CSC meeting. The revisions incorporated views from President Ma Ying-jeou, Chairman Eric Chu and KMT presumptive Presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). The revisions clearly incorporated into the party platform the “1992 Consensus,” “one China, different interpretations,” “maintaining the status quo of no unification, no independence, no use of force under the framework of the Republic of China Constitution.” The revisions will be referred to the National Party Congress, scheduled to be held on July 19, for deliberation and confirmation.

...except that when you read the description, it doesn't include Hung at all...

The KMT's long-term problems haven't gone away. If anything, they are getting worse. Miaoli county is an absolute disaster for Taiwan and for the party. The Taipei Times observes:

Former Miaoli County commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) is a case in point. He clearly knew the county’s treasury was running low, but he was fond of grandiose projects and used the funds of various government foundations to organize fireworks displays and international concerts and to construct buildings that are underused. As a result, his successor is complaining that the county government cannot pay staff salaries.

Despite Liu’s absurd record, the county council passed the government budget almost untouched year after year, while Liu was given a five-star rating in media polls. He was the role model for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) local rule, and was praised by the Cabinet on several occasions. Miaoli County Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌) used to be a KMT legislator representing the county, but he never questioned local-government finances. In other words, while many people might have found the situation odd, everyone played along and in the end the bottom fell out. This is a structural problem, and while it is necessary to pursue Liu’s possible legal liabilities, he is not the only one under suspicion of wrongdoing.

The KMT-run central government and other KMT local elected officials were all complicit. What could they have been thinking? Liu is obviously unsuited for promotion to higher levels, meaning that they permitted one of their local stars to run amok, ruining his own career, and damaging KMT prospects in one of their few remaining holdings. Where can the KMT cultivate new names with local power bases?

Last week the KMT announced that Hau Lung-bin, former Taipei mayor and KMT heavyweight, is running for a legislative position in Keelung. This lead to protests within the KMT, and now the party will hold a primary there to choose the legislative candidate. But it shows, once again, the contempt that the mainlander core of the party holds for its local Taiwanese faction politician base. This colonial mentality must change if the KMT wants to exist for the long-term in an increasingly Taiwan-focused society.

Also waiting on July 19th: James Soong, People First Party (PFP) leader and likely presidential candidate if Hung is nominated by the KMT. Fighting for legislative seats, the PFP is going to steal some votes from the KMT this time... but don't imagine that the PFP is going to cooperate with the DPP. That was tried before....

Recent sightings of the good ship KMTitanic: 
Hung: I can't say the ROC exists -- Judgment Day: July 19 --  KMTitanic 14: Heading for the July 19th iceberg -- KMTitanic 13: Hung over an Abyss -- The Latest from Hung -- KMTitanic 12: Hung can see the Statue of Liberty -- The KMT rules -- It's Hung -- The rational party is Hung -- The Comic Genius of Hung Hsiu-chu -- Eric "Hamlet" Chu suffers the insolence of office -- KMTitanic 11: The Captain is no longer aboard -- Hung? Really? -- Comedy and ethnicity in The Rational Party -- KMTitanic 10: the ship is foundering -- Wang out -- Chu goes there? -- Rounding up the KMT again -- KMTitanic 8: Chu = monkey wrench -- KMTitanic 7: Existential Crisis --  KMT Shorts -- Chu Notes -- KMTitanic 5: Struggling for the Northern Lifeboats -- Chu Political Theatre -- KMTitanic 4 -- KMTitanic 3 -- KMTitanic 2 -- KMTitanic 1 -- Chu's Revolutionary Reforms?
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Daily Links:

• Brookings with an excellent analysis of the housing mess in Taiwan
• Water park disaster claims a sixth life.
• Rep. Randy Forbes argues that US needs closer relationship with Taiwan
• Good piece from NYTimes on the 2-28 killings.
• Kaohsiung is overrun with... iguanas. The stupid habit of releasing exotic pets into the wild has severe consequences for local ecologies.
• Glaser and Vitello with lame piece in National Interest once again raising the "ZOMG THE DPP IS BEING ELECTED! IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!" zombie claim.
• CIER cuts economic forecast to 3% growth.
• AmCham on growth of boating 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!

Judgment Day: July 19th.

Could the KMT disappear into the distance?

Wow. New Zeitgeist: The Journalist's lead article on wed is about the KMT splitting. Wednesday night's talk show on Next TV was 2 hours of on the possibility of the KMT splitting. Radio Taiwan International also did one.   It's all over the media. The rumors, stories, and news of the KMT implosion are flying about -- one can hardly keep up. Some highlights... UPDATE: Taiwan Take, the Coming Collapse of the KMT, part 2.

 From the KMT news organ:

Hung Hsiu-Chu (洪秀柱), Deputy Legislative Speaker and KMT Presidential candidate in-waiting, has drawn some criticism over her “One China, One Interpretation” and cross-Strait peace agreement campaign planks. Yesterday, after visiting former KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), Hung said Lien noted that a cross-Strait peace agreement was one of the “Five Visions” proposed in the 2005 Lien-Hu meeting. Lien said, “For the good of Taiwan, these visions must be carried out.”

Yesterday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also expressed his support for Hung. He pointed out that “One China, One Interpretation” and “One China, Different Interpretations” both emphasized the “commonalities” as in “seeking commonalities while shelving differences.”As for Hung’s insistence on “One China,” Ma continued, “it is almost identical to my advocacy that ‘One China’ is the ROC.” “One China, One Interpretation” is the same as the KMT’s cross-Strait policy, added Ma.

Yes, that's right, Hung sought to dispel concerns about her strange cross-strait policy by gaining the support of two-time presidential loser Lien Chan. President Ma, a hardliner and ideologue who is still powerful within the KMT even though he has done severe damage to the Party, publicly said this week that there was "no possibility" that Hung would be forced to give up the nomination. On Twitter Ben Goren of Letters from Taiwan opined that Hung was Ma's catspaw to carry out the cross-strait policies that he dare not.

It's already July and Hung still hasn't assured us she is Taiwanese. Even Ma unbent enough to do that.

How long can Hung stay the candidate with this gathering storm of opposition and laughter? Frozen Garlic remarked that KMTers are living in a bubble universe. Got a little taste of that bubble yesterday, when the author of that bad East Asia Forum piece responded to my comments on his piece.

Hung is indeed a lightweight in the KMT. While other heavyweights chose not to run and waited to be drafted, Hung at least had the courage to throw her hat into the ring. Those who felt she is not the ideal candidate should either run of persuade their preferred choice to run in the primary. They assumed Hung is not going to cross the threshold and waited for the draft to happen. When the draft did not happen, they tried to justify their stance against her by leaving or threatening to leave the party. So far, only one former legislator has done so.

Bubble world at work: According to this writer, Hung is not an existential threat to the party who is making people consider leaving, it's just sour grapes by losers. Bubble world at work 2: Look at last sentence -- when those words were written, at least two had already left, one of whom had established her own party, and the KMT legislator in Changhua said "I am not running for re-election" despite having won huge the last time. The Taipei Times identified her as the 7th legislator who has declined to run.

The fact is that the KMT is facing devastation, because the flip side of this support for Hung is contempt for the Taiwanese who make the party go, and their informal leader, Speaker Wang Jin-pyng. The Taiwanese local factions are now fleeing the party, just as many of us thought they might months ago when we first identified the KMT's potential for implosion.

The Taipei Times noted in a piece on the resurrection of James Soong's political career and his emergence as a possible presidential candidate:

The PFP held a press conference in Taipei to announce its five legislative candidates for the Jan. 16 elections. Three of the candidates are former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, including Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), who just withdrew from the KMT earlier this week.

The KMT candidate in Tainan (District 4) has also declined to run. Solidarity translates an article from the pro-KMT UDN on the situation in Changhua:

Changhua County was always blue until the November 29 elections, when it all turned green. It is a bellwether for the next presidential election. The KMT had drafted its incumbents—Wang Hui-mei 王惠美, Lin Tsang-min 林滄敏 and Cheng Ru-fen 鄭汝芬—to contest 3 of Changhua’s 4 legislative districts, and it felt optimistic about each. But Cheng has now refused her nomination, and the party is still struggling to find a candidate for the fourth district. It had drafted Chang Chin-kun 張錦昆, chief of Yuanlin Township, but he has told the party he’s not interested and recommended former Legislator Hsiao Ching-tien 蕭景田. Hsiao, in turn, has stated several times he’ll go wherever Wang does. The KMT elites’ attitude toward Wang, and Hung’s statement that “if Wang wants to continue being Speaker, the only way to do that now is to run for Legislature in a district” made Hsiao unable to see or hear anymore because he was extremely disappointed.

Of course, note that Soong a key qualification of Soong's for a pan-Blue presidential run is that he is a mainlander and member of the ruling elite. But now his party is increasingly being seen as the place to which Taiwanese legislators in the KMT will bolt. Soong, who came within 3% of being President in 2000, briefly ruled a huge PFP, and then vanished into obscurity, is now being promoted in the media, back from political death as a possible savior. I suppose if one is going to be savior, one has to rise again...

A Soong-Wang ticket would be formidable and tough for Tsai to beat. The factions won't fight for the KMT in this election if Hung is the KMT's choice, but they will fight for a ticket with Wang. An advantage for Wang is that if he becomes the PFP vice presidential candidate, he can get a seat in the legislature as a party list legislator (not elected, the parties get extra seats based on their showing in the election). KMT Chairman (for how much longer?) Eric Chu has already indicated that he won't be given an extra term as a party list legislator. Solidarity commented:

Plenty of pundits are floating Wang as a PFP presidential, vice presidential, or speaker candidate, but it’s not that simple. As soon as Wang became a PFP candidate, the KMT would eject him from the party; to avoid that dignity he would have left already. But once he’s out of the party, he’s out of the Legislature as well: party-list members, unlike district representatives, serve at the discretion of their parties. That’s why Ma tried so hard to make the KMT to force Wang out earlier.

However, a viable Soong run assumes that he pulls enough legislators out of the KMT to make a run of it with an enlarged PFP.

July 19th, the Party Congress. Judgment Day. Will Skynet go with Hung?
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Daily Links

• EATS 2016 call for papers
• Thinking Taiwan's Taiwan Insider
• Rare gunfight, in Taoyuan over the affections of a tea shop clerk.
• Taiwan's mixed race children finally find their place
• KMT uses park disaster to attack DPP, DPP refutes
• Commonwealth profiles one of the new breed of social activists in Taiwan
• Tsai shoots ad with local Vietnamese wives, emphasizes that they are Taiwanese
• A CPI piece on the election. 
• After years of shilling for the KMT and for the corporate-industrial state here in Taiwan that created our unsafe environment , and for calling for slashing regulations, plundering the US environment, and killing Americans at home (never mind Forbes' insane position on global warming), suddenly Forbes hosts an article complaining about Taiwan's safety. Thanks Forbes, you played your small part in fostering the mess here. And as a special bonus, out of thousands of images that could have been used, Forbes chose one with half-naked breasts. Vile from beginning to end.

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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!

KMT forces Chu's hand

On Longxi Road in Taitung

Disaster looms... (KMT news organ)

There are three days left to pick up registration forms for those who want to run in the KMT Presidential primary, according to the Taipei-based China Times, May 14, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has been keeping a low profile. According to an informed source, strong opposition from Wang’s family and obstruction from President Ma’s subordinates have caused Wang to hesitate to throw his hat into the ring. According to the same source, Wang also wanted to avoid causing a rift in the KMT before the 2016 Presidential Election, so it was highly unlikely that Wang would pick up a registration form for the KMT primary.

The KMT has yet to come up with a standard bearer for the 2016 Presidential election. According to the KMT party central’s internal regulations, if Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) or Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良), who have already picked up registration forms, did not receive enough qualified endorsements or the minimum 30% support rating in the primary opinion polls, the KMT’s Central Standing Committee would likely directly draft a candidate in June, with the approval of the National Party Congress scheduled for July 19. KMT Chairman Eric Chu, Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), and Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) are thought to be the most likely draftees.

At the moment -- savor this thought -- the most credible candidate the KMT has is Hung Hsiu-chu, the Deputy Legislative Speaker (name recognition test: quick, name your own country's deputy legislative speaker), who has been burnishing her rightist credentials. An SETV poll from April 21, Solidarity reminded us on Twitter today, has Tsai crush her 60-11, while UDN has Tsai over Hung 60-12. She's bug on windscreen bad. There's no way the KMT goes with her.

Nope, with Wang out, because as many have already noted the party would split between the local factions and the KMT core -- nothing more dramatically shows Wang's importance as the tongs by which the KMT handled the local factions -- that leaves only one option.

Eric Chu must come out. It's looking to us chatting about this that the Party core is pushing Wang out to ensure that Chu has to run. Because if anyone else runs, it will be a blowout, and the KMT can't afford a blowout -- the factions are already going to take it personally that Wang wasn't supported by the mainlander core after all he's done -- I suspect that's why the KMT has been putting it about that Wang's family doesn't want him to run, to reduce some of that damage. Moreover, some of them have already started to leave, signaling that more must be thinking about it. A blowout loss would mean that the legislature might be lost as well, which would send many faction politicians out to make deals with the DPP. Meanwhile Chu would have to resign as Chair, and his shot at the 2020 nomination would be damaged. Chu may have to run merely to preserve his position for the 2020 election. On the other hand, maybe he won't resign no matter what. Who knows?

And there's Hau, waiting in the wings if Chu falters.

The nomination process closes this weekend, according to the -- haha, I don't know why I am even using this word in connection with the KMT -- rules (Solidarity explains them here).

More bad news for Chu came out this week with the new TISR poll on his visit to China (link). Just as everyone said, it'd didn't play in Peoria.

• Who benefited? 41.2% said China, 15.7% said Taiwan. 

All this reminds me -- Wang is aging. Who is going to handle the party's relationships with its factions after Wang is gone?

[MISREAD POLL DATA REMOVED. Argh]
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Daily Links:

• Over 100 illegal Chinese offices found in Taiwan. That's when Ma is president. Imagine what is going to happen when the KMT loses the election and he's in office for months with no KMT future...
• The Coming Collapse of the KMT
• Draft tax on property sales passed
• In WSJ both CCP and KMT reps respond in letters to Jon Sullivan's piece in WSJ. Michal Thim pointed this classic out to me:  

  Over the past seven years, the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has endeavored to create an ultrastable foundation, thus generating the greatest level of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait since the two sides came under separate rule 66 years ago.

  Not just stable. ULTRASTABLE!
  

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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!

Wang Jin-pyng Positions Himself for a Presidential Run

One reason I've always liked Taiwan is that you can take your dog to shops and restaurants. Very sensible.

Wang Jin-pyng, KMT heavyweight, Speaker of the Legislature, former faction politiciam whom President Ma Ying-jeou attempted to have removed from the party two years ago, is clearly positioning himself for a run at the Presidency. He stated yesterday...

不用說你是中國人，但不能否定自己是華人

You can't say I am a Chinese, but you cannot deny I am of Chinese ethnicity

Wang is dipping a toe in the perilous waters of Taiwanese identity politics. Recall that he is a Taiwanese faction politician from down south. Unlike Chiang Ching-kuo and Ma Ying-jeou, both of whom proclaimed themselves to be Taiwanese for political purposes, Wang does not have to make noises about being Taiwanese, he is already accepted as one. Rather, Wang has to find a position that makes him palatable to the mainlander elites who run the KMT, some of whom have already publicly stated he is an unacceptable candidate, but at the same time makes him electable to the population at large, an ever growing number of whom are designating themselves as Taiwanese. It may prove impossible to square that circle.

Meanwhile James Soong, once KMT heavyweight and member of that mainlander core that runs the KMT, now head of the People's First Party (PFP), was asked for his thoughts at an event today.

He also said he clearly understands that his extremely good friends, the KMT, will soon make a decision. “If they make a good decision, and select a candidate very correctly, we can work together as one. After they make their decision, we will make ours.”

Hard to say what he means, typical meaningless politician talk. Soong is still seeing what deals are out there. The KMT candidate won't be known til June...

The China Post also ran an editorial this week that said KMT Chairman Eric Chu is the only hope:

Tsai isn't unbeatable, however. The DPP won a landslide in the Nov. 29 elections because hard-core KMT supporters refused to go to the polls to vent their frustration over President Ma's failure to keep his campaign promises, including the one to conclude a peace accord between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. The opposition party won 47.66 percent of all the votes cast, only 6.85 percent ahead of the KMT's 40.7 percent. It isn't a disastrous rout, as far as voting shares are concerned.

While Tsai's presidential campaign is getting underway, the KMT has yet to start a party primary. One hopeful is Hung Hsiu-chu, vice president of the Legislative Yuan. She insists on opening political dialogue across the strait and signing the peace accord President Ma has renounced.

Doubling down on Chineseness, Hung Hsiu-chu is unelectable. Perhaps she is campaigning for Veep. More importantly, this editorial is essentially correct, Chu has a better chance of beating Tsai than any current KMT candidate, and Tsai is more beatable than many people think. Remember, a campaign has to actually be run...

Frozen Garlic picked up a story on Chu's China views, which are no different from Ma's, apparently. This was an important find, for Chu may simply have decided that his views, once widely disseminated, will hurt his chances to beat Tsai. Scroll down for Froze's delightful posts on KMT internal politics, but note that Sean Lien's attack dog in the Taipei Mayoral election, Lo Shu-lei, is taking a beating from the KMT central, as Froze posts.

If Chu doesn't run, as the recent victory of Ko in Taipei shows, there's a large population of disaffected blues who are willing to consider other candidates. In the 2000-2004 period, the People's First Party skimmed hundreds of thousands of votes from the KMT, which the KMT eventually hauled back in. It will be very interesting to watch this group in the 2016 election.
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Daily Links:

• Synapticism explores a fabulous wreck of a building in Changhua. Great imagery and info.
• Seven reasons China will go to war by 2017: as Synaptic commented on Facebook, amazingly, he writes all that without ever mentioning Taiwan. But it's always good when other commentators finally come round to positions I've had for years...
• Taiwan has a food problem.
• Want China Times (!) reports on J Michael Cole's response to Hugh White's stupid piece on selling out Taiwan.
• Taiwan Review May Issue is out. The article on Climate stuff is really good.

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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!

Rounding Up the KMT Again

You just never know where you'll end up biking in Taiwan...

Rounding up a bunch of news this week. Solidarity blogs on a TISR poll on cross strait relations and party favorability. Read whole thing, but as he points out, the people don't seem to see a whole lot of difference between Ma's cross-strait stance of 3 Noes and Tsai's Status Quo stance. Solidarity observed on Twitter that the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT have exactly the same unfavorable rating, 59.9%. The DPP meanwhile clocks in at 49.3% favorable.

Speaking of polls, a recent poll from the deep Green Taiwan Brain Trust replicated the findings of an earlier TISR poll in which Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng drew stronger support than KMT Chairman and putative savior Eric Chu among the voting public but was weaker than Chu against Tsai. Neither beats her. Taiwan Brain Trust observed in its recent newsletter:

On the other hand, disapproval of the DPP's performance increased markedly from 35.4% in December and 43.1% in January to 51.4% in March. Approval fell correspondingly during the same period from 46.3% to 37.8%. This decline in popularity is apparently related to the scandals over some local council speaker elections at the end of 2014. More recently, rifts have emerged within the DPP as party members fiercely compete to win nominations for the 2016 legislative elections. As a result, approval of the DPP within the pan-Green camp declined markedly from 67.4% in January to 54.8% in March. The DPP should take this apparent shift from high expectations to disappointment among its sympathizers as a warning sign.

Party preference remains largely unchanged. However, the share of those who most favor the DPP declined from 33.9% in January to 25.7% in March. At the same time, the share of those who do not favor any particular political party increased from 15.9% to 21.1% during the same period. Although the DPP remains the most popular party, clearly a shift in public opinion is under way that translates into heightened expectations toward third force political forces. In the eyes of more than 40 percent of the public,the KMT is still the most unpopular party. However, while 45.5% identified the KMT as the least liked party in January, that figure fell to 41.7% in March. In contrast, the share of those who least favored the DPP climbed from 15.6% to 16.9% during the same period. Obviously, the DPP has not shown its best recently, while the KMT has been able to prevent further erosion of public support.

The DPP is quite dull these days, which is good. The KMT is where all the fun is. This week Wang Jin-pyng, the Legislative Speaker and KMT heavyweight, began positioning for his Presidential (or perhaps Veep) run with some very interesting remarks.

“When one day the political systems of the two sides are compatible, the GDP per capita comparable, the social and public values similar, and religious freedom guaranteed, the heart of the two sides of the Strait could be melded together and nothing would be nonnegotiable then,” the speaker said.

Taiwanese reject annexation to China irrespective of China' political system. Wang isn't talking to Taiwanese, but rather his recapitulation of the "same culture" propaganda, as well as Ma's position that China must democratize before Taiwan can annex itself to Beijing, caters to mainlanders in the KMT ruling clique who despise him and will object if he is chosen as the candidate. Interestingly, if Wang is positioning himself for the Presidency, he must know that Chu isn't going to run... (More analysis from Ben)

Also fun this week was William Lai, an up-n-coming heavyweight in the DPP who will likely contest for the 2020 presidential election. Lai, who is tremendously popular, twitted Eric Chu...

“I have not yet decided [whether to run for New Taipei City mayor],” Lai said. “It seems like someone [intentionally] spread the rumor to hold Chu back from giving up his position and running for president... I do not want to spoil the effect of the rumor by giving a specific statement.”

Lai basically bragged that if he ran in New Taipei City, he'd win, which is likely true. If Chu runs for President, there will be a by-election. Lai will come north and contest New Taipei City, and the DPP can run a new guy in Tainan where he is sure to win. Win-win for the DPP, so to speak.

Meanwhile KMT legislators, horrified at the prospect of someone other than Chu running, have paid his entry fee and continue to try to draft him, Solidarity.tw chuckled on Twitter today.

Comment of the day from Ben Goren on Twitter:  

The '1992 Consensus' was just a vehicle to facilitate dom & int acceptance of public face of KMT-CCP united front during Ma admin.

REFS: Recent Posts on KMT, Reform, and Chairman Chu
KMT Roundup -- Things you should be reading today -- KMTitanic 8: Chu = monkey wrench -- KMTitanic 7: Existential Crisis --  KMT Shorts -- Chu Notes -- KMTitanic 5: Struggling for the Northern Lifeboats -- Chu Political Theatre -- KMTitanic 4 -- KMTitanic 3 -- KMTitanic 2 -- KMTitanic 1 -- Chu's Revolutionary Reforms?
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Daily Links

• Yehliu and the debate over geotourism
• Prosecutors to go after money in connection with the old Lafayette case: $340 million. Yet the bribe was alleged to be $400 million. Where's the other $60 million?
• All the really key stuff going on this week, but the media is all agog over dogs with square haircuts and whether China will ban Katy Perry for wearing an ROC flag. 
• Keating on the KMT diaspora in Taiwan.
• Obama says US will defend Senkakus

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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!

KMTitanic 5: Struggling for the Northern Lifeboats Round Up Edition

Alley in Shiziwan, Kaohsiung.

Ruth: Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I hope they're not too crowded.
Rose: Oh mother, shut up! Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough boats. Not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die.
Cal Hockley: Not the better half.

So much going on. Time to catch up.

First, Solidarity.tw supplies a pile of stuff. He summarizes a new poll from the staidly Establishment TISR that shows how awful the KMT's current situation is. Looking at heavyweights Wang Jin-pyng, current legislator at-large and Speaker of the Legislature, and KMT Chairman and princeling Eric Chu, he notes:

Chu beats Wang among KMT supporters while Wang beats Chu among everyone else. In one category, clean government and honesty, Chu is ahead of Wang among everyone, while in another, protecting the nation’s sovereignty, Wang beats Chu among everyone KMT included. And of course, Wu has no chance.

.....

The KMT is now only slightly more popular than the Communist Party of China.

Three-fourths of the population believes the economy is in bad shape. That will likely unleash a multitude of hurts on the KMT presidential candidate. First, the KMT's claim to economic prowess has been eviscerated by the incompetent, unimaginative Ma Administration. Second, a bad economy tends to shrivel support for the ruling party. Third, while legislative candidates can probably safely keep their distance from Ma, at some point, probably more than once, the KMT presidential candidate will have to make public appearances with Ma Ying-jeou, who gloriously has given almost every interest group a reason to be angry at his administration.

Note that while neither is popular, Wang is slightly more popular among all voters. Chu is not all that popular outside the KMT. His administration in Taoyuan and New Taipei City was lackluster, and the advent of Ko Wen-je in Taipei has made the public reassess all previous city administrations (Ko's popularity is madly high at the moment), which has not helped Chu. Moreover, his power base is in the north. Solidarity translated a TVBS poll on city mayors here -- Chu is not among the top 3 -- and another on their specific policies here.

Two other points on the polls -- a non-partisan fantasy ticket of Ko and James Soong outperforms Tsai and Chu in a hypothetical presidential poll, and the DPP's party favorability is now about 50% in the poll. Moreover, the KMT is nearing 60% negative in the poll.

A close friend, longtime pan-Green, and Taiwan political scholar observed last night over drinks that if Soong seriously runs for President it will likely hurt the KMT this time, since Soong will -- like Ko in the recent Taipei mayor election -- permit KMT voters to vote against the KMT without voting for the DPP. There's lots of anger among KMT voters...

Speaking of presidential nominations, Solidarity has a media report saying that Wang Jin-pyng is silently gathering support for a presidential candidate nomination. To wit:

A KMT legislator revealed that Wang has already visited an old colleague in the central/southern region, who told Wang during their meeting that he would gather grassroots support for Wang’s campaign. Wang gave him the green light. More and more people from the grassroots, in fact, are pushing for Wang.

The core of Wang’s support, however—the Kaohsiung Area Farmer’s Association (KAFA)—has not yet taken any clear actions. Wang’s networks—the local factions, the KAFA, and the Farm Irrigation Association of Kaohsiung—have at present prepared their troops but have not set out for battle yet. They are merely making connections under the table.

A source close to Wang said that according to a green camp think tank’s polling, although Wang would lose a primary to Eric Chu, in the general election Wang would do better than Chu, demonstrating that Wang can win light green votes while Chu would just consolidate the blue camp. This is an indicator worthy of notice, s/he said.

These latter days of the Ma administration are indeed a time for choosing for the KMT regarding Wang’s harmonious governing style. The local factions and Wang’s image as Taiwan’s image as “Taiwan’s ojisan” [“grandpa” in Japanese and Taiwanese] are Wang’s strengths, particularly in the central and southern regions of Taiwan where the KMT is weakest. And it seems like everyone in Taiwan has been helped by Wang Jin-pyng or owes him a favor. Hence, Wang truly has multitudes at his beck and call, and even if he isn’t on the ticket, the KMT will still need to borrow his strength.

Wang is the informal leader of the KMT's Taiwanese legislators. He's Taiwanese, Chu is a mainlander. The Deep Blue core of the KMT is very unlikely to support Wang for Prez (for example), while the Taiwanese KMT will be miffed if their boy Wang is passed over. The scenario many of us see is a Chu-Wang ticket, but a friend of mine argued the other day that a Wang-Chu ticket is a possibility. Running as Veep would permit Chu to retain his mayorship of New Taipei City. Since the KMT is likely to lose, at least on its current trajectory, the stain would fall on Wang and Chu would not have to give up New Taipei City. While senior KMT officials are pushing for an early declaration of who the candidate is, Chu is resisting.

Key point in this TVBS poll: Chu does better against Tsai than Wang does. This is why in the end they will go with Chu, I think. There's another evolving KMT-DPP split here that the KMT can exploit -- increasingly at the local level voters are trusting the DPP -- everyone can see how much better Kaoshiung and Tainan and I-lan are. One could argue that voters are evolving a strategy of voting DPP at the local level to promote their own hometowns, while voting for the KMT for president to ensure that China is quiet and their businesses are not shut out by China. It's still too early to say that, though.

Wang is in a bind. As another Solidarity post noted, Chu is Chairman, but another prominent mainlander princeling, Hau Lung-bin, the former mayor of Taipei, is basically running the KMT on a day to day basis. He is also in charge of the committee for nominating KMTers for legislative positions, and the rumor -- which Hau denies -- is that he is going to put himself up for the party list for an at-large seat, meaning that he could enter the legislature without being voted in, and become the Speaker. Wang is limited by KMT rules to two terms. Wang also no district in southern Taiwan since he is an at-large legislator, meaning that unless Hau puts him on the party list (not likely), he will get no seat. If he doesn't run for President or Veep, his political career is probably over.

Current Veep Wu Den-yi (warning: for amusement purposes only) has no chance at the nomination, which is not stopping him from trying, according to media reports. His support base is basically a few factions in sparsely populated Nantou.

The struggles for President are inherently interesting, but KMT dominance of the legislature is a key to KMT power. This election is shaping up to be quite interesting as KMTers rush for the safe northern lifeboats and abandon the south. Again Solidarity with the translation:

The Kuomintang yesterday finished its survey of incumbent legislators’ willingness to run for re-election, and it appears its members are hot for the north and cold for the south: although Taipei, New Taipei, and Taoyuan cities are bursting with aspirants for KMT nominations, in Yunlin and Chiayi not even the party’s incumbents want to run. This raises the question of whether party members are rushing to grab northern seats and are afraid to fight for the south.

Eight KMTers are vying for Alex Tsai's seat in Taipei, and only Ting Shou-chung, who lost the mayoral nomination to Sean Lien, is without a primary challenger, though the US-born Robin Winkler and Green Party member is running against him in the general election (FocusTaiwan). In Hsinchu another KMT seat has six challengers, and it looks like there will be a split in Miaoli as well.

John Chiang, 4th generation descendant of CKS, is running in primary in Taipei because, he says, the young have to come out and boost the KMT.

Several KMTers have been vocal about the party's selection process. The Taipei Times reported that several prominent KMT politicians are losing their at-large seats, which means there's an opportunity for new blood. Is this one: Taiwanese-Vietnamese immigrant to take at-large seat for a party she won't name.

Another factor that could affect the election, but so far I haven't seen any polling or other data on it: drought. Come the fall, if we pass another summer without typhoons, lots of voters are going to be asking loudly why the KMT government and KMT legislature did so little (in my more paranoid moments I wonder if the KMT is hoping to leave this as problem to discredit the incoming DPP government).

Refs:
KMTitanic 4
KMTitanic 3
KMTitanic 2
KMTitanic 1
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Daily Links:

• Rice Bomber named to board of Taiwan's ag marketing company
• Former AIT Director William Stanton on the Taipei Dome project, which looks a lot like a construction-industrial state giveaway. Next Media is now alleging that Ma himself rigged the bidding process in Farglory's favor. Stay tuned, if this is true....
• University merger proposal outlined by MoE
• Gogoro electric scooter to debut in Taipei
• Taiwan pushing for local submarine program, which EU nations have expressed interested in supplying. How serious is this?

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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!

KMTitanic: Iceberg in sight, no change of course

Cooking chicken for a popular restaurant

Rose: Next it will be brandies in the smoking room.
Col. Archibald Gracie: Join me in a brandy, gentlemen?
Rose: Now they will retreat into a cloud of smoke and congratulate each other on being masters of the universe.

So much to tell about the KMT this week...

Up on the bridge, Eric Chu, Chairman of the good ship KMTitanic has been struggling to marginalize and supplant President and Honorary KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou and take control of the KMT.

The axis of dispute is the case of Wang Jin-pyng, the Speaker of the Legislature who is obsessively hated by Ma Ying-jeou but whose support Eric Chu absolutely must have if he is to prevent the KMT from sailing to disaster in 2016. Wang is widely seen as the leader of the Taiwanese KMT, who were quite disgruntled by President Ma's accusation that Wang engaged in influence peddling and his subsequent attempts to have Wang kicked out of the KMT for influence peddling. Wang sued to retain his party membership, and won twice. The KMT appealed twice.

The case is now before the Supreme Court, but Eric Chu has said that the KMT will not pursue the matter further (As of yesterday the Supreme Court said that it must, The KMT news organ says that since Ma no longer has standing since he is not the Chairman, the Court says the KMT must appoint another representative.). The key point is that Chu has, by bringing Wang back in, marginalized Ma. That point is decisive. The KMT is now Chu's.

The KMT news organ translated a China Times editorial on the situation. Interestingly, when you read the whole editorial, it seems to suggest that the paper's writers think Ma was correct in attacking Wang Jin-pyng...

In September the year before, during the influence peddling scandal, President Ma was viewed as a disputant. As a result, his push for legislation forbidding the “obstruction of justice" lacked legitimacy. Chu is in a different position. He had no part in the September controversy. He is in a better position than President Ma to demand reforms. If Chu can make influence peddling illegal, he will have seized the moral high ground from President Ma. President Ma is constrained by political realities. All he can do is take a stand. Chu can implement reforms. This is the only way to let the people see that besides “peace supreme”, the KMT deserves its support.

This would constitute a positive response to President Ma's persistence quest for Right and Wrong. It would help mend relations between Ma and Chu. Of course, one must also consider Wang Jin-pyng's feelings. Chu can make clear to Wang that this is not about Wang personally, but rather reforms necessary to ensure the integrity of the government and lasting peace of the nation. Wang Jin-pyng has emerged victorious in the party struggle. He should display magnanimity and let the matter slide. Besides, familial harmony must not apply only to Wang, and it must also apply to Ma. President Ma's popularity may be low. But the 8% to 15% who support him are KMT loyalists. If these supporters feel betrayed, a KMT victory is even less likely.

Third, President Ma should relinquish all control. He should allow Eric Chu to guide the 2016 election. He can do this in two ways. The first pertains to the Wang Jin-pyng party membership litigation case. President Ma has already gone on record and spoken his piece. He must now relinquish control and allow Eric Chu to deal with the matter, for better or worse. Second, he might as well dispense with the formality of the party-government meetings and prove that he has relinquished control. He should concentrate on doing what a president should do. He should interact with the public more, enabling them to understand his policy prescriptions and years of hard work. He should avoid any further involvement in party and electoral affairs. Critics may question President Ma's magnanimity. But that would be preferable to maintaining the pretense of a substantive meeting, only to give critics occasions for ridicule.

Note how the editorial writer expects that Ma will continue to challenge Chu for control. As the Wang case proved, a mess in which Ma went absolutely nuts, claiming that Wang was corrupt and demanding he be tossed from the KMT, Ma has a powerful and vicious vindictive streak. It seems very unlikely to me that Ma is simply going to roll over and play nice. The editorial writer seems a bit nervous about what Ma will do...

WantWant published a piece that said that Chu had Brought Ma into Line. Commenting on a public appearance in which Ma, Wang, and Chu sang Kumbaya, it said:

The president's appearance beside both Chu and Wang suggests that, publicly at least, they have put their differences aside. Chu welcomed Ma in person to the event and sat between the president and Wang, stating that differences between people within one party were inevitable, but that consensus can still be reached as long as they respect each other and communicate.

KMT legislators were not ready to drop their beef with Ma, however, and are said to have let rip at the president during the question and answer session, telling him that his concerns were not in line with those of the party and that he should be more tolerant and reign in his temper.

In his concluding remarks, Ma did not restate his oft-trotted out comments on the KMT being a party that knows the difference between right and wrong–a not-so-subtle jibe at Wang Jin-pyng–and instead said that he would support Chu's party reform efforts and unity within the party. Chu stated that a line had been drawn under the conflict within the party and that it did not need to be brought up again.

A few remarks from the KMT lawmakers towards Ma are in this Taipei Times piece.

We saw a couple of weeks ago that Chu did nothing to reform the KMT's leadership, appointing essentially the same kind of people to head the local party organizations (KMTitanic I). Another possibility for imaginative leadership reform passed when Chang Ching-chung was renamed convener of the Internal Administration Committee. Chang was the one whose attempt to circumvent democratic procedure in passing the services pact triggered the occupation of the legislature...

The eight legislative standing committees elected their respective conveners yesterday, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), who attempted to ram through the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement in March last year, sparking the Sunflower movement, being re-elected as one of the two conveners of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee amid objections.

...and so the KMTitanic sails on into the night...  KMT heavyweight and former Taipei mayor Hau Long-bin has promised that the party list legislators will be significantly different in the next election.

Major events like Chu marginalizing Ma have their lighter moments. A headline described that Ma had listened to the people in the KMTitanic steerage on the Wang issue: President Ma says he has heard voices on Wang membership flap.

Finally, what's the long term looking like? One of my favorite Twitter denizens, FormosaNation, posted this graph from a TISR poll on Twitter:

This is TISR's tracking poll of party identification in Taiwan. Note the spike in green for the pan-Greens and the longterm collapse in the pan-Blues from its peak in 2008. The pan-Greens are at 35%, the Blues, only 25% and slumping. The DPP is at 28% in the party ID poll, the KMT, at just 19%.

In case you were wondering, once again several times Chu said he wasn't running for President. And once again Wang said he hadn't even considered it. Hard to imagine who they will run if Chu doesn't run (and for the Veep?). Lots of people are calling for a KMT unity ticket of Chu for Prez and Wang as veep...
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Daily Links:

• Hong Kong "independence"?
• DPP announces registrants for legislative election. 31 places with no candidates, says solidarity.tw
• Full text of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je's 2-28 speech.
• Journal of Asian Studies has made Ian Rowen's excellent paper on the Sunflowers publicly accessible
• How to Deter China
• Really excellent piece on Apple in Taiwan
• Japanese scientist says Taiwan should expect a tsunami
• Be Goren at ACT on the Status Quo as Schrodinger's Cat
• Latest Taiwan Insider and best of Taiwan Security Research for the week
• Project 2049: Taiwan's Role in Maritime Asia
• Michal Thim and Kitsch Liao: No Strait for Aircraft Carriers
• In the best Ko Wen-je style, the Taichung city government has decided to refer the Taiwan Tower case to the Agency Against Corruption. Referring a construction-industrial project of the KMT to the KMT's own handpicked "anti-corruption" agency is a stroke of genius.
• TaiwanTake: Woman strangles kids, no one reports it
• Formosa Foundation Ambassador Program applications end 3/31
• Shannon Tiezzi at The Diplomat discusses the comments of Xi Who Must be Obeyed on Taiwan independence and other stuff. Note how Xi describes Taiwan independence forces as bad for cross-strait stability, straight from Xi's mouth. That's a staple of Chinese propaganda -- whenever you see it in the media or analysis, you're looking at Chinese propaganda.
• Hilariously, as Xi lauds peaceful cross strait relations, China's military expansion is skyrocketing.
• SPECIAL: East Asia Image collection offers two photo albums from the 1890s of Taiwan here and 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!