The KMT Assets Bill: transitional justice in action

Pigeon cages.

This week the focus was on the asset bill directed at the KMT. The bill has solid support: yet another poll came out showing public support for the recent passage of the KMT assets bill: 53.9% say that it is an important step in transitional justice. Solidarity translated the recent TISR poll on it, noting that 61% support the bill and only 11% believe the KMT's story on its assets. The public is on board with the idea of KMT assets being transferred to the state as a form of transitional justice...

The legislature approved the law on Monday. The Taipei Times reported:

The legislature yesterday passed legislation governing ill-gotten political party assets, which states that all properties obtained by political parties after 1945 — not including party membership fees and political donations — are to be considered illegal and must be returned to the state.

...

The act states that all assets of a political party are considered frozen the moment the act is promulgated, with violators facing a jail term of up to five years. Any attempt to avoid, deny or obstruct investigations into party assets could lead to a fine of between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000.

The legislature also voted to approve a key provision of the act that stipulates that assets obtained since Aug. 15, 1945, would be subject to the proposed law.

....

The DPP moved to amend the official name of the draft from the “act on handling ill-gotten party assets” (不當黨產處理條例草案) to the approved version to include assets held by the KMT’s affiliate organizations, such as the China Youth Corps and the National Women’s League of the Republic of China, as the funding of these organizations has always been included in the party’s fiscal budget.

Several pieces of interesting information here. First, the KMT has a year to do the accounting. Lots of stuff will disappear -- I hear interesting stories from my friends in the financial community about seedy attempts to sluff off these assets. Second, the law does have language allowing for seizure of assets if they have been offloaded. Third, only 31 legislators voted against the legislation from the KMT, which has 35. This means that four legislators defied their party. The KMT wants to send the bill for constitutional review -- the courts are packed with KMTers from the previous Ma Administration -- but it needs 38 votes -- 1/3 of the legislature. It is now attempting to find votes from other parties.

Ralph Jennings, the Taipei-based journalist, who manages to be both cynical and centrist at the same time, had a really great comment on the assets bill in our ICRT radio broadcast of the other day. He pointed out that the KMT will likely tie up all these asset seizures in court for years to come. That to me suggests the ultimate solution may well be a massive settlement. But that's years off...

This tale is only beginning...
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Daily Links:

• HEY: the DPP Administration is doing away with the ROC Yearbook. Wrong move. If you know someone inside MOFA or the EY, please tell them that the Yearbook is an important source of information and the Tsai Administration can shape what is presented to its political ends. Tell them to change the name to Taiwan Yearbook, too!
• Bad press for Taiwan in Canada
• Scientology on the rise in Taiwan? 
• The beautiful and informative blog Synapticism visits Fushui village
• Lovely pics from Josh Ellis of Shifen Waterfall
• Sexual subjects on the move across the Taiwan Strait
• Vietnam says 200,000 affected by Taiwan steel firm pollution
• Tsai approval down
• GDP limps up slightly for first time in three quarters
• Taiwan and Japan in spy satellite sharing
• Latest on the bus driver murder-suicide of 26: he was convicted of sexual assault and owed big bucks to the victim. This is another failure of that stupid system whereby people convicted of crimes are out on the street with the change for revenge or escape for weeks before being jailed. Can we get that reformed?

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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!

Meandering through the Party and Legislative Politicking

A friend near Baling. 

So much to catch up on! The KMT Chairmanship struggle is still a two woman race between Hung Hsiu-chu, the reactionary mainlander former presidential candidate, and Huang Min-hui, a Taiwanese faction politician from a family with long service to the KMT. Remarkable to think that if Chen Chu succeeds Tsai Ing-wen to the Chairmanship of the DPP, the president and heads of both major political parties will be female come May. This demonstrates not merely female power but continuity of female power, since the previous party heads will have both been female.

Interestingly, few of these powerful females are married. There are basically only two ways to become a powerful woman in Taiwan: as a wife delegated by a male when he is unable to carry out the duty (a favorite route of gangsters who run their wives for office while in prison) or as a public virgin. This situation was highlighted this week when TV personality Clara Chou criticized incoming NPP legislator Hung Tz-yung (my district!) for dating someone, saying she should be focusing on learning her job. Chou was probably just jealous, since Hung is 1000X more attractive than her, an authentic Taiwanese woman like so many I have known: beautiful, kind, warm, polite, well spoken, and made of steel.*

Hung's alleged sally into the world of romance also highlights another aspect of legislative power in Taiwan: she was said to be dating a reporter (who is now head of the Taichung City media organ, Donovan tells me). Many politicians have married reporters and TV anchors.

Meanwhile back in the KMT Hung Hsiu-chu and Huang Min-hui both courted the Huang Fuhsing, the Old Soldiers, this week. These Deep Blue seniors are crucial to winning the election, and they love Hung Hsiu-chu. Smart politician Jason Hu, the former Taichung mayor and briefly a potential candidate for party chair, said he was supporting Hung, an important indication that he thinks she will win. Hu no doubt has his eye on the long term and is courting the Old Guard, since next August there will be another KMT Chairmanship election at which point whoever wins in March will likely step down.

The courting of the Old Soldiers is a reminder, as a longtime observer put it on Twitter, that the KMT "cannot, will not, must not learn from their mistakes". They will likely ensure that no real change will occur. Note that neither Hung nor Huang is a "reform" candidate by any means. The KMT's downward spiral will continue, to the benefit of Taiwan and its democracy.

Speaking of not getting it, the legislature swung into action, with a flurry of draft bills being put forward and the KMT blocking the party assets law...

More than 100 draft acts sailed through their first readings and were referred to legislative committees for review and deliberation during the morning meeting, including draft bills on governing political parties; amendments to the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法); setting up reciprocal offices with China; and the much-discussed legislation on the presidential transition of power.

What did not get through were four bills aiming to deal with ill-gotten party assets proposed by DPP lawmakers, which the KMT caucus opposed and were sent back to the Procedure Committee.

KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said the regulation of political parties’ assets could be included in the proposed political party act, adding that the KMT opposed the DPP’s bills because they are “apparently targeting [the KMT].”

DPP Legislator Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) blasted the KMT’s move on Facebook, saying the KMT “still does not understand why it has been spurned by the public even after its 2014 and 2016 electoral routs.”

Recall that the Referendum Act is set up deliberately to make it impossible for public referendums to pass. Hopefully that will change. The Parade and Assembly Laws, deployed against protesters repeatedly over the years, are a holdover from the authoritarian days. Su Chih-fen, readers will recall, was one of the DPP politicians who was prosecuted in the opening days of the Ma Administration in 2008 when it went after the DPP (see this old post). She was of course found innocent. The KMT held a public meeting on the asset issue, with Huang adopting a cautiously conservative position (Hung was not present).

Gwen Wang, always excellent, set forth the great changes in this new legislature. Among the many changes she identified was the rise of the New Power Party (NPP)...

To continue their momentum, its five legislators will have to show the voters that they are not merely junior partners to the DPP, but a real “third force” in the political spectrum different from the KMT and the DPP. During the 2016 elections campaign, DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen lent her support to the NPP with herself and several DPP heavyweights, including the Tainan and Kaohsiung Mayors, attending many rallies held for NPP candidates. The close collaboration between the NPP and the DPP will be the “baggage” that the legislators will have to get rid of first, should they want to be a real alternative to the traditional blue and green camp rivals. As Dr. Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) of Academia Sinica commented, the NPP has to walk its own path because society is looking expectantly towards the NPP, to see whether they can be a real watchdog in the parliament.

...I should add that the Taichung mayor backed our NPP candidates and attended their rallies as well. The NPP came out this week with proposals for a parliamentary system. At present, with the KMT not yet eliminated, this is probably a bad idea -- indeed, it is something the KMT has called for as a tactic to weaken and cage a DPP presidency.

But to the extent that the NPP plays watchdog, it will set itself against the DPP. More importantly, the NPP has to differentiate itself because we need a viable alternative to replace the KMT as the second largest party.

The danger here, as I see it, is that the Legislature is inherently in opposition to the Presidency in Taiwan, and that dynamic could well continue under the Tsai Administration. Wisely, the Speaker is Su Chia-chuan, who is close to Tsai and was her running mate in 2012.

*Yes, I am crushing hard
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Daily Links:

• Ketagalan Media: Taiwan's built environments are ugly
• AmCham with sturdy piece on Taiwan's diplomatic dilemmas
• New Bloom interviews Tuhi Martukaw, the aboriginal TV personality.
• Japanese fishermen want the ROC-Japan fishing agreement for the Senkakus rolled back. Meanwhile the KMT's policy of irritating relations with neighbors continues as the Premier says the Senkakus belong to the ROC and Taiwan will not accept the court ruling on the South China Sea islands. Hope Tsai and the DPP give those up. 
• Taiwan Today piece on Kurt Lu, marketer who helped Tsai win election. I wonder how Taiwan Today will change with the new Administration
• The latest Taiwan Insider from Thinking Taiwan
• Rejection of visas for Chinese dissidents shames Taiwan
• Anyone who wants to understand why Obama's China policy is so completely wrong need only read this paper at Brookings by Jeff Bader, his former Asia czar. It's a long apologetic for Xi Jin-ping, terrifying and deeply depressing as it comes from a former Administration official. Bader had come from Stonebridge, the consulting firm that does tons of business with China, into the Obama Administration. Wonder what door he's revolved to now?
• Yup -- a huge problem in Taiwan is embezzlement and money laundering at private schools.
• Chang Kuo-wei's accession to the ownership of Evergreen Group is stymied. This highlights a growing problem: the founders of many Taiwanese businesses are old, triggering an urgent succession problem that the media has reported on several times in recent years. 
• Another iteration of Taiwan's improved but still boring Tour de Taiwan reviewed by Andrew Kerslake.

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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 continues to push bogus "reforms" of the government

Exploring.

Realizing that it can't win, the KMT is talking about Constitutional "reform".  FocusTaiwan has the list of KMT Presidential candidate and Party Chairman Eric Chu's suggestions:

....he would push for an amendment to the Constitution that would require legislative approval to confirm the appointment of the country's premier.

....will also include lowering the voting age from 20 to 18 and allowing absentee voting,

...He also proposed a change that would allow the president to report to and take questions from the Legislature and he suggested that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also adopt such a proposal, which he said should be implement within the first year of the new government.

Two of these three are intended to move the power from the Executive to the legislature, in anticipation of continued KMT influence there, and to rein in Tsai's ability to make her own policy. The absentee voting is to enable more Taiwan businessmen in China to vote, on the assumption that they will vote KMT, or that China can force them to.

These are not new ideas. Since Tsai has emerged as the frontrunner and likely next President, the KMT has been talking about having the legislature approve the Premier (April, for example). Back in January the KMT was already advocating these "reforms." The KMT will piously tell you that prior to 1997 it used to do that -- as if in the party-state era the legislature was independent of the KMT could reject a premier. LOL.

Also this week two announcements from the KMT. Former Taichung mayor Jason Hu was appointed Campaign manager and former presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu was given the empty position of chief advisor. Displays of unity followed, because there has been much grumbling among the Deep Deep Blues since Hung was displaced by Chu, and some were threatening not to come out and vote.

The Taipei Times interpreted all the swirling controversy around KMT vice presidential candidate as a KMT smokescreen to protect Eric Chu from scrutiny by the media, which in typical Taiwan Golden Retriever style has been focused on Jenny Wang's real estate deals. But judging from the way KMT candidates are typically protected by the media, I doubt that the KMT needed anything so powerful. A conspiracy theory among pan-Greens argues that Wang was chosen to take the blame when Chu loses.

Most interesting to me was the brief surfacing of the jockeying for the post-election KMT Chairman position. A piece translated by the indefatigable Solidarity observed that Hung wants to be Chair. However, it contended, because the KMT has rulz that say the President must be the Chairman, if Chu steps down because of the election loss, it might "default" to Ma. Of course, last year Ma stepped aside? up? to enable Chu to become the Chairman. So much for the rulz [WARNING: MAY CONTAIN RULES-LIKE SUBSTANCE]...

Lots of watchers feel that Ma will do much damage to Taiwan in the interregnum between the election and Tsai's assumption of the Presidency in May. I am not so sure. Ma is an ideologue whose identity is entirely KMT and ROC and for such individuals, the real battle is for control of the Party. I suspect he's going to expend tons of energy in trying to become Chair after Chu steps down and retain that post after he has to step down as President (when he will not by default become Chair).
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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!

118 Sunflowers to be prosecuted

J Michael at Thinking Taiwan reports:

Following the conclusion of three major investigations, prosecutors announced on Feb. 10 that 21 people, including Lin (who is currently doing his military service) and Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), will be prosecuted for their role in “318.” Despite conflicting reports, it has now been confirmed that student leader Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) was also indicted (full list here). Student leader “Dennis” Wei Yang (魏揚) and 92 others will be charged over “323,” while Hung Chung-yen (洪崇彥) and three others will face prosecution over “411.” In most cases, the charges involve “obstruction of official business.” Huang, who incidentally has spearheaded the Appendectomy Project targeting KMT Legislator Alex Tsai and others, will also be prosecuted for “incitement to commit a crime.” Prosecutors said they had yet to determine the nature of the punishments. They added that imprisonment was among the options that were being considered. And of course, gangsters like Chang An-le (張安樂) and his followers, the only people (besides the police) who actually used real violence during the crisis last spring, are being left completely alone by the prosecutors.

That pretty much sums it up. Two foreigners, the well known and longtime activist Lynn Miles, and David Smith, a Canadian photojournalist, were included among those charged, according to the TT. Cole argues that the timing of the indictments is intended to distract the public from the KMT's many problems.

Amnesty International's press release is here. I've included a Chinese translation below the READ ME line.

MaWangMess Postscript: Wang cleared of influence peddling

Green Island road.

Well well well. It appears that Speaker of the Legislature Wang Jin-pyng has won a complete victory over President and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou in the Affair of Influence peddling. The Taipei Times reports:

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has been cleared of allegations of influence peddling, the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office announced yesterday, after its investigative unit last month concluded that there was no evidence backing claims that Wang spoke with retired judge Yang Ping-chen (楊炳禎) to request that he influence an embezzlement case involving Formosa Telecom Investment Co (全民電通).

The case exposed the fact that the SID was wiretapping the legislature's phones. In a long post at the time I observed:

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.

No evidence was ever produced that Wang had acted on Ker's behalf. It will be interesting now to see the fallout. The pro-Blue media faithfully followed the Ma camp line, taking it as a fact that Wang had engaged in influence peddling (example, example), as did Ma himself (Taipei Times). There may be lawsuits, though I expect Wang to simply relish his complete victory and not stoop to suing the President and the newspapers.

Interestingly, the Prosecutor who illegally leaked the information that Wang had committed influence peddling to Ma received a 14 month sentence, which was commuted to a small fine. Does this mean that Ma had done something illegal as well?
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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 Splits?

Yep, there was still one larva on the leaf where I had first seen them. They had turned into this.

BREAKING: DPP Sec-Gen again summonsed by Special Prosecutors. Still named as "related person/ 關係人" not defendant or suspect. Thus technically no right to lawyer.

KMT Caucus Whip resigns over Control Yuan vote, scribes the Taipei Times. An interesting signal of what's going on inside the KMT...

Lin and the KMT caucus blamed outgoing Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien (王建煊) for the “surprising outcome” on Tuesday night, after it became clear that KMT lawmakers had failed to vote in line with the party’s wishes.

Not only was incoming Control Yuan president Chang Po-ya’s (張博雅) nomination confirmed by only a hair’s breadth, 11 of the 27 candidates for Control Yuan members were voted down by the legislature, despite Ma’s insistence on a “complete passage that leaves no one behind.”

The President, who is the Party Chairman, had insisted to his legislators that everyone pass. The KMT rejected the bulk of Control Yuan nominees. The President's clout in his own party does not appear great enough to get everyone to hold their nose and vote his way on Control Yuan officials. Ma is a lame duck in his own party.

Recall that the trigger for the occupation of the legislature was the KMT's decision to cut off the debate before it began, declare it completed, and then declare that the Services Pact had passed review and was now law -- without a vote in the legislature. It seems clear that the KMT lacks the power to compel its legislators to line up behind that dog of a service pact, if it can't even get them to vote for a routine bit of favor-swapping corruption like the Control Yuan nominees.

Hence the real problem with the delay in the Services Pact isn't the Sunflowers. They just make a convenient whipping boy. The real problem is that the KMT legislators don't want to pass it, and can't be made to.

I suspect they will just have to wait until after the election in November to move on the Services Pact.
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Daily Links:

• Wang Dan, exiled dissident from China, sided with Sunflowers and is anti-CCP: can't get special dispensation to return to Taiwan. Pro-China, pro-KMT gangster with outstanding warrants? No problem. UPDATED: they are letting him in. 
• Sean Lien, KMT mayoral candidate, still making gaffes faster than they can be tracked.
• Brian Benedictus on The Formula that the media uses to describe Taiwan. My view is that it should include what Taiwan thinks of China. 
• Mr Blue and Mr Green discuss Sean Lien's video with foreigners
• Anti-gay videos in school from nutcase Christians: poisonous, anti-social, authoritarian American religious nuttery is finally being exported to Taiwan. It's been such a wonderful place without it.
• BBC is the latest media organ to report on the ongoing struggles of Taiwan's family firms to replace their elderly leaders. Reports have been flowing these last few years.
• In which Ben prompts the CCK Foundation to make a clarification to the Taipei Times
• China-S Kor free trade pact to hurt Taiwan.
• Great feature on aboriginal affairs in Taipei Times. KMT has reduced aboriginal lands to 13% of what they were under the Japanese, Maddog noted on Twitter.
• Danny Bloom in the NYTimes on climate fiction. Go Danny!

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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 Materializes in Front of the LY

Banyan Q3. Are there differing opinions of the TiSA within the Kuomintang?
President Ma: The KMT holds a unanimous view internally but differs greatly from the opposition.

Well well. Eventful day as Speaker of the Legislature and KMT heavyweight Wang Jin-pyng showed up at the Legislative Yuan today to talk to the students. Taiwan Voice sent this around Facebook:

Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng takes humble approach, shakes students' hands, Lin Fei-fan and students warmly receive Wang's goodwill.

Arriving at the legislature, LY President Wang made remarks in front of building, apologizing for the disruption that ensued as a result of the Cross Strait Services Trade Agreement. He said that he will face these problems squarely and not avoid them, making a promise that "for now" there will be no review of the agreement. Wang made a last request for the students to end the occupation.

He then went inside the legislative chambers, shaking the students' hands and asking for their well-being. He also thanked the medical staff that have been taking care of the students all along.

Lin Fei-fan, representing the students, said that in their 20 days of occupying the legislature, this is the first time they have seen some goodwill gestures. His response was welcoming, but he stood firm on the purpose of their movement.

"We have seen and we have heard [Wang's goodwill], but we would like to emphasize our position on first passing the bill to monitor cross strait agreements, the citizen's version, and then we can review the agreement," Lin said.

In regards to leaving the legislative chambers and end the occupation, Lin said they will hold a meeting for about an hour and then give a response on that issue.

LY President Wang plays a key role in resolving this stalemate, but he must show that he intends to stick to his promise of not reviewing the agreement for now and respecting the students' opinion. His attitude and approach, however, is different from President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Jiang Yi-hua, both having shown no intentions in negotiating with the students and advocating their removal through force.

With Wang was DPP Whip Ker, who, readers may recall, was the man Wang called allegedly to assure him that his case had been fixed with the prosecutor's office, the phone call that sent Ma Ying-jeou haring off after Wang Jin-pyng's hide.

Before Wang met with the students -- thus separating himself from Ma, who is looking more and more like Saruman barricaded inside The Orthanc as the Ents smash it to pieces -- he went out and held a press conference. Bloomberg says:

Taiwan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said he will halt a lawmakers’ review of a trade pact with China until an oversight bill passes, in a concession to students who have occupied the legislature for 20 days over the deal.

Once again, Wang opts for delay. Immediately the Foxconn CEO came out in support of Wang's move. KMT caucus leader Lin Hung-chi responded by declaring that Wang's position left him in "great shock". The order to say this apparently came down from above, since Lin was with Wang when he made the announcement and later in the chamber. Clearly Wang is now (again) in the middle of a public split with the party leadership and on its face, with the party caucus. Notwithstanding this, caucus leaders all went into the chamber with Wang. Do you think they didn't agree beforehand on what would be said and how and to who?

Make of that what you will. Perhaps Wang knows that his support base within the party is large. As several longtime observers pointed out, Wang can't be doing this alone. This incident shows starkly how much power Ma has since he controls party resources and who can run for party seats: only Wang is openly defying him. But Wang's defiance may signal a massive split within the KMT...

....or else simple monkey-wrench-in-the-works defiance for its own sake, since Ma spat on him and rejected him. Who can tell?

These ostensible splits between Wang, Ma, the Taiwanese legislators, and the party Old Guard (where are they?) appear whenever anyone puts pressure on the KMT. What's new here is the openly public nature of the split, and the intensity of it. A longtime observer pointed out that Ma is scheduled to teleconference with CSIS on Apr 9th. Ma will not accept any questions that have not been approved prior to the interview, so don't expect too much, it will look and taste like Banyan's interview of Ma for The Economist.

Or perhaps it is the KMT playing eleven-dimensional chess with all of us.

As for the oversight bill, it is set up so that if there is a delay in ratification of future pacts, they become law. LOL.

Meanwhile...
If the trade pact is so awesome, why do its supporters consistently claim that Taiwan must sacrifice to make headway? This, very subtly, emphasizes that the pact is the dog its opponents say it is. Letters from Taiwan observes in a brilliant piece:

Back to the dental market, the CSSTA is potentially a great threat to the business I work for. That threat is now generating a sense of fatalism amongst Taiwanese distributors. If Chinese companies start to invest in or buy Taiwanese device distributors, international suppliers will shift their communication to the Chinese companies and Taiwanese distributors will become only ‘local sub-dealers’. The contracts we enjoy with our international partners today may be reformulated so that we can no longer directly communicate with them as partners but have to take direction from Chinese distributors who have been awarded contracts to manage the ‘Greater China Area’. If China can convince these suppliers that they can manage distribution in Taiwan as a ‘local area’ in their business chain, Taiwanese businesses will lose their economic sovereignty and be forced to accept terms of business from Chinese companies if they want the rights to distribute products in their own country. And President Ma, through ECFA, CSSTA, and planned CSGTA, is encouraging this trend. That is very bad news for independent Taiwanese distributors, and ultimately, for Taiwanese dentists.

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Daily Links:

• Ham-handed MOFA strikes again: Polish media asked to retract story. Don't they realize how stupid they look?
• For amusement purposes only: In the Taipei Times, John Copper explains why the students are protesting. Bad in every way. 
• J Michael rips a certain powerful representative office
• A Chinese student describes studying Taiwan History at SOAS
• Taiwan and Hong Kong should influence China, not vice versa
• Taiwan's thaw with China turning to slush
• Taiwan erects artificial reefs from old boats, Chinese scavenge them. 
• US expresses support for Taiwan's entry into the TPP
• Useful: Roundtable of Taiwan financial leaders discussing China stuff

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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!

NELSON REPORT: David Brown on Hsiao Bi-khim's letter

DPP legislator Hsiao Bi-khim wrote a letter to the Nelson Report, this is a response from David Brown at SAIS at Johns Hopkins. Brown is on the Board of AIT and is a former foreign service officer. His political sympathies will be obvious from the tone of the letter and the direction of its numerous errors and omissions.

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

LOYAL READER COMMENTARY ON BI-KHIM/DPP LETTER in last night's Report....Asia expert and SAIS scholar Dave Brown offers some helpful perspective, followed by a note from the hard-working team at TECRO here in DC:

Chris,

Thanks for sharing Bi-Khim's open letter. She deserves respect, but this piece is a partisan statement of DPP views on the current crisis in the LY [MT -- to which Brown replies with a partisan statement of KMT views]. That's her job, of course. [MT -- Hsiao is a politician. What is Brown's job as a SAIS scholar?]

You and others will note that it omits much of the story concerning the STA, which the DPP has opposed from its signing last June. She conveniently omits the DPP's record of obstruction of LY consideration of the agreement.[MT -- just as Brown conveniently omits the KMT's similar record]. That began in the special LY session last fall and continued with dilatory handling of forums on the agreement.

The week before March 17, the DPP had repeatedly prevented the planned article by article review of the STA at the LY committee level. That obstructionism was the proximate incentive for the KMT to ram through a decision moving the STA from committee to plenary consideration on Mar. 18. [MT -- both parties were engaged in it but it was very obviously the KMT that was blocking the process, as Cole notes. For example, here and here. As the pro-KMT China Post notes, it was the KMT that blocked the podium on Mar 13. Recall that the KMT does not want a floor vote, because their legislators don't want to be seen voting for this dog. They want it to become law administratively. Thus DPP obstructionism was not the "proximate incentive" but merely a KMT excuse. And another error here -- the pact was sent for plenary review on the 17th, not the 18th. Brown has the chronology all wrong.]

It is remarkable that the students reacted so quickly that same evening to occupy the LY. [MT -- this is unconscionable. The Interior committee "closed" the review on March 17 (China Post report) and the protesters occupied the legislature on the evening of the 18th. How is over 24 hours "quickly?" They were not even the same day as Brown claims!]. The KMT has accused the DPP of instigating this action, an accusation that many believe [MT -- and those believers are KMTers]. Unnamed DPP politicians were reportedly on the scene later that evening [MT -- yes, they and TSU legislators were there to protect the students from the police. They were hardly unnamed as they were in their party clothing and easily recognizable -- they were on TV and in thousands of videos and stills!]; and the party endorsed the action the following day, and then encouraged all its members to support the students' illegal occupation.[MT -- of course. When people support your values, you should support them. Hint, hint.].

A DPP poll published a few days earlier had indicated that a plurality of DPP members (40%) were dissatisfied with the party's knee-jerky opposition to every step forward in cross-strait relations [MT -- poll is here]. So rather than have the DPP LY caucus responsible for continuing to block consideration of the STA [MT -- the KMT caucus was blocking too], wasn't it in the DPP's interest to have students play that role? [MT -- yes. Perhaps Brown should ask why the protests have majority support and why so many students, including many of my own, were willing to come out. Not to mention that 70% of the public supports a line by line review, the review the KMT was trying to stop. And as polls show, that dog of a pact only has 20% support now.].

Bi-Khim portrays this as a struggle for democracy. It's really another fundamental clash of approaches toward the mainland and toward Taiwan's future [MT -- Ummm... hello! What is that but a struggle about the future of Taiwan's democracy!]. But if its about democracy, is the DPP's repeated physical blocking of LY action democratic? [MT -- is the KMT's? Obviously, the DPP's tactics are in the realm of normal tactics practiced by both parties in Taiwan's democracy. Obviously cutting off the review before it occurred was not.]

The DPP's problem is that the KMT, divided as it is, has a LY majority, and the DPP will go to whatever lengths are necessary to block the majority when their key interests are involved or when it suits the DPP's election mobilization goals to exploit issues for political advantage. [MT -- Brown is obviously trying hard to gin up a DPP conspiracy here. Can we have some actual evidence, please? O wait... Brown doesn't have any.]

I suspect that the fall election is a key consideration in how the party is handling the issue. In this country we would not permit such obstruction to occur in the Congress, and we would not view the DPP's obstruction tactics as legitimate democratic action.[MT -- once again, the 'only the DPP is doing it' refrain. Let's quote The China Post on the Mar 13 fun: "Several KMT legislators blocked the podium to prevent anyone from taking it; on the other hand, DPP legislators stood along the roster and held every microphone installed on the table."]

Taiwan is a democracy in transition. It faces challenges and some of those challenges come from the DPP. [MT -- let's recall why we're a democracy in transition -- because the KMT shot thousands of people and locked up thousands of others, and suppressed democracy here for decades, while the people who formed the party you say is engaging in 'undemocratic' tactics stopped them. You bet some of the challenges come from the DPP, but the vast vast majority of the problem is the "success" and legacy of the KMT.]

Dave

UPDATE: As J Michael Cole observes:

Brown was not speaking on behalf of AIT, as he is only a board member, nor was he a hatchet man on the Ma Ying-jeou government payroll. He’d simply involved himself into a very complex issue without fully understanding its context. And who could blame him, given that the media he likely relied upon for his information about Taiwan often couldn’t tell the difference between the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan? However, sources tell me that Brown hadn’t set foot in Taiwan in about seven years, sadly a not unusual absence for academics that are considered experts on the island’s politics.

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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!

Discourse and Ideology in the Media and the Taiwan Student Protests

Charles grabs a photo on our coast ride the other day.

One thing that's really great about the recent student protest is that it is being covered in the international media. For example, the WSJ had an article on the student leaders' rejection of Ma's offer for talks this week. Yet.... and one thing that's really terrible is the coverage in the international media. Well, actually, that's not true. When you flip through lefty media sites, this protest against a neoliberal trade pact by students and the common people, against a pact opposed by the majority of the people, including occupation of the legislature and massive international coverage, what sound do you hear?

*crickets*

Way to go, fierce defenders of the people!

Today I read Banyan at The Economist. You can't expect too much from The Economist of course, since it is basically a helpless prisoner of its pro-corporate ideologies. But the interesting thing to me about the Banyan piece is how much the positioning of Ma and the students in the discourses swirling around the occupation of the legislature is guided by Establishment economic and social tropes and above all, by outright concealment of Ma's actual position. This has two complementary results: it makes Ma look more middle of the road than he really is, and it makes the students look more radical than they are. The reality is that the middle of the road democrats are the students, and the right-wing radical is Ma Ying-jeou. One way the Economist accomplishes this is by framing:

Mr Ma sees the pact as a reward for the more conciliatory approach to China that he has adopted since he became president. The students occupying the legislature, as well as opposition parties who back them, claim that the trade deal....

Ms "sees" but the students "claim". No bias there! Think of all the other words that could be used: Ma argues and the students contend. Etc. Uncorrected is Ma's error that the police don't think it worthwhile to clear out the legislature. They don't have the authority to do that, only the Speaker of the legislature can.

Naturally Banyan (and other mainstream media writers) will never make clear that Ma is a right-wing Chinese nationalist expansionist who did his thesis on how China owns the Senkakus and appears to believe China owns Okinawa -- note that the underlying issue of the political-annexation aspects of the treaty, so important in many discussions of it, doesn't appear in this article, which presents the whole affair from his position and treats him as a sympathetic character, while focusing solely on economics. The students understand this political context, but Banyan removes it from the reader's purview. This helps make the students appear more radical than they are. In fact in another piece sympathetic to poor put-upon Mr Ma, Banyan argues that Ma is -- no, really -- defending Taiwan:

But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”.

In a way that piece is even worse...awesomely, it accuses the students of resorting to undemocratic means (because protests are undemocratic?) but fails to take note of the KMT's behavior. Space is lacking. Anyway...

The Economist piece also unloads all the neoliberal tropes that are taken up in a piece by J Spangler over at The Diplomat. First, Banyan describes:

Three days after the students began their occupation, Mr Ma argued that failure by the legislature to approve the agreement “could have serious consequences” (see Banyan). Going back on the deal, he said, could result in Taiwan being “regarded as an unreliable trade partner” by China as well other countries with which the island wants to negotiate free-trade pacts.

This trope is really common, I've been hearing it from people who both support and oppose that dog of a services pact. It's the kind of zombie insight people come out with when their brains are on media autopilot. Jonathon Spangler over at The Diplomat today squeezed a whole piece out of it. Judging from the contents of my inbox, many who read it assumed that Spangler was a pro-KMT foreigner. So did I, the first time I read it.

But on second reading I realized that Spangler's alignment with the KMT's position on the treaty, right down to repeating its rhetoric, isn't the result of him cheerleading for the KMT (it's unlikely that someone who obviously cares so much about ordinary people could be pro-KMT) but rather, is a consequence of the way Ma and the KMT have deployed neoliberal trade rhetoric as a front for their annexation of Taiwan to China by slow economic strangulation. Spangler writes:

Yet the deleterious effects of failure to implement the CSSTA would not only be domestic or bilateral; the international implications would be equally grave. Taiwanese history over the past decades has represented an arduous struggle for diplomatic recognition. Indeed, it is the foundation upon which almost all of the island’s foreign policy depends. Reneging on a bilateral agreement, such as the CSSTA, would serve as a clear indication to the international community that the local government lacks the capacity to effectively engage in international relations. The logic runs like this: If Taipei cannot succeed in fulfilling an already signed trade agreement with its closest neighbor and most significant trading partner, the risks involved for other countries in deepening economic ties with Taiwan may outweigh the potential benefits. For better or worse, international image and reputation are key to diplomatic relations. Should Taiwanese lawmakers fail to push through the agreement at this late a stage in negotiations, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Three issues here. First, Ma and the KMT have cloaked their sellout in neoliberal trade and political science rhetoric. By doing so, they can get others to forward their propaganda for them, since these ideas are widely subscribed to in the media and academia. Second, has anyone ever examined this idea to see whether it is in fact true by looking at the way countries behave in the real world? Finally, the logic of this argument runs like this: let's f@ck the 99% so that Taiwan can look "credible" when its 1% sits down and makes big business sellout trade deals with the 1% of other countries. That's neoliberal logic at its finest: the world's nations are so many game preserves and ATMs for the 1%... Aware of this, Spangler argues that Taiwan's ordinary people can and should be protected. Good luck getting any of that done....

Does having to renegotiate treaties and other treaty issues make one less credible on the international scene? Hmmm... how many times in your life have you ever heard anyone say "China tore up the 17 point agreement with Tibet! I'm not doing a trade agreement with them!" Or how about the SALT/START talks. Salt II never ratified by US, which withdrew in 1986 (wiki). Nevertheless, Russia and the US went on to negotiate the START pacts. In fact US non-ratification of treaties is normal, other countries still seek it out to do business with. If you think renegotiating, withdrawing, and unilaterally tearing up treaties and agreements means that other countries will stop negotiating pacts with you, I suggest you type the phrase "withdrew from the pact" in Google, or a similar phrase, and start reading. It's totally normal for nations to engage in such behavior and then to move on to cut deals in the future. Either humans have the memories of pocket calculators or maybe, just maybe, nations make deals with other nations based on current and future expected issues, and not on what such and such a state did with some other state at some time in the past. Can you imagine:

AIDE: Mr President, Chile promised Peru to hold a plebiscite in 1893, but failed to do so.
PRESIDENT: Scratch Chile. We obviously can't do business with them. What about Italy?
AIDE: Sir, after they changed governments in WWII, they left the Axis.
PRESIDENT: Who can trust them now? What about Thailand?
AIDE: It took them twenty years to negotiate a mere extradition treaty with India.
PRESIDENT: Is there anyone we can do business with?

Reality? Everyone knows that Taiwan's relations with China are special and no one is going to say: "Wow! Taiwan renegotiated a pact with China! OMG WE CAN'T DEAL WITH THEM!" The US isn't going to stop trying to include Taiwan in the TPP. N Zealand and Singapore aren't going to tear up their trade pacts. Other nations aren't going to stop sitting down to talk with Taiwan, unless Beijing puts pressure on them (did we get a promise in this pact for Beijing to stop that? Hahaha).

So, to cut to the chase because I know you are tired of reading, what is the function of the "sign the pact or else no credibility?" It's mere rhetoric to bully small nations into signing those unequal pacts with larger states. It's a form of shock doctrine designed to get the population to go along with a sell out by creating fear of being weeded out (another favorite trope of Ma's). It's a club wielded by Ma Ying-jeou to bash Taiwan's people into submission.

It's not inevitable that China will swallow Taiwan (in fact I am coming to the conclusion that China's rising power is making that ever less probable), but it will certainly become inevitable if academics keep forwarding these zombie insights exploited by the KMT that are completely untrue yet cannot be killed.
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Daily Links:

• RALLY ON SUNDAY on Ketegalen Blvd
• LiveStream from Inside the Legislature: thanks, Sean Su. You're awesome.
• Wen Chi-yu on Ma Ying-jeou's communications problem. At CFR no less, usually a bastion of anti-Taiwan Establishment writing, they've had a couple of really good pieces on the rallies. 
• Fumao Today: vids of the protest
• NYTimes: China reacts to the protests
• Tea Leaf Nation: social media and the student protests
• Why did the rally happen? Academic/Activist explains.
• NPR blog: why they stormed the legislature
• Water rationing in Tainan
• Haha. KMT plans counterrallies on Saturday.
• A Ma Ying-jeou DPP ad from a previous election gets an update.
• Hundreds of Hong Kongers publish ad in Liberty Times warning Taiwan to avoid dangers of Sinicization.
• Taiwan specialist Chris Hughes responds to a misleading article about him.
• CDC warns of scrub typhus among ticks while tomb sweeping.

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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!

Students Occupy the Legislature, Roundup and Linkfest =UPDATEDX9=

UPDATE 9: Three demands from students to Premier Jiang

Excellent: Anthropologist Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds on the Student Movement.
Anthropologist of Police in Taiwan Jeff Martin on Policing an Occupied legislature.

ketegalen media with a round up

UPDATE 8: TaiwanExplorer says on Facebook:

1. It's past 11PM now, students are still inside the Legislative Yuan listening to speeches. Watch it live here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/longson3000

2. #Taipei Police Department made the two protests legal (one inside the Legislative Yuan and one outside), so there is no need for the police to use force and try to get the students out
Source: http://bit.ly/1la6kkV

3. Police imposed traffic control in the area. Authorities advise to use public transportation. It's common for any legal protest taking place in Taipei.

4. Police increased their presence, they are watching, mingling. There are water cannons on standby "in case people get out of control", but no force has been used against the protesters so far, and protesters have been peaceful all the time.
Source: http://bit.ly/1pi2cwD

5. At 9PM there were around 25,000 people protesting outside the Legislative Yuan in support of the students, a lot of them came from other parts of #Taiwan. At 11PM were 28,000.
Source: http://bit.ly/NA27be

6. President Ma has not made any statements so far, he reportedly "went home to eat dinner with his mother".
Source: http://bit.ly/1mkQW5F

7. Some KMT lawmakers suport item-by-item review of the trade pact, which is the main request by the students
Source: http://bit.ly/1im0Uji

UPDATE 7: TVBS poll out. 48% support students, 40% oppose, only 21% support pact, 70% favor line by line review. That's in a pro-KMT media organ.

UPDATE 6: Lots of rumors flying around that tonight the police will move in to clear the legislature. Wang Jin-pyng's refusal to act has dumped the mess in Ma's lap, and he lacks the common touch and is neither patient nor subtle. Lots of police bussed up from elsewhere in Taiwan.

Apple reminds that today is 24th anniversary of the day Lee Teng-hui went down to talk to the Wild Lily movement.

A friend posted to Facebook:
Democracy at its best. I went to the Taiwan Parliament building to see the reality of the student protests and occupation of the building. I would fathom there are about 10,000+ people in protest. It was peaceful and organized -- there is a designated lane for medical emergencies, water stations, and locations to sit and organized lines for people to walk. I am astonished to see how organized the students put this into action. I salute their efforts, maybe the U.S. should learn something from how well the Taiwan students organized this protest.

UPDATE 5: Frozen Garlic asks, sensible and eloquent, can extra democratic measures be democratic.

Frank Hsieh speaks in English on the occupation of the legislature. Note that two of his demands are NOT the student demands.

Letters from Taiwan with Chris Hughes' analysis of the Taiwan economic system

UPDATE 4:  One of my students just walked into my office, back from the protest. She said that when the taxi driver took her down to the protest last night, when he found out she was going to join the protest, he knocked $200 NT off her fare.

No violence overnight. Yay!!!!!!

UPDATE 3: China Post says flower shops have sent over sunflowers to the sunflower student movement

UPDATE 2  Friday morning Taiwan time. Student statement:

“It has now been 48 hours since we occupied Taiwan’s legislature. We, a non-partisan group of students, civic activists, and people from all walks of life – have taken over the Legislature in protest against the undemocratic and autocratic manner in which the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement has been handled by the government and the legislature.

Since our occupation, we have seen tens of thousands of citizens from all across the country join us in support of our demands. Doctors have formed medical stations, lawyers have created pro bono legal teams, and professors have relocated their classes here. All this could not have been possible without the help and support from our fellow citizens concerned about Taiwan’s future.

As of 3/20, our demands include:

1. We demand that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) immediately void Legislator Chang Ching-chung’s announcement that the CSSTA has passed the committee stage.

2. President Ma Ying-jeou should begin dialogue with us and negotiations over:

(a) the rejection of the CSSTA; and

(b) the passage of a bill for monitoring cross-strait agreements, and a promise to refrain from negotiating such agreements in lieu of the bill.

If our demands are not met by noon on Friday, March 21, our protest will continue and we will begin our next round of action.”

UPDATE 1: CFR writing on Taiwan is usually crap. What a refreshing change from Lauren Dickey. Banyan over at the Economist. Banyan at the Economist focuses on the DPP and doesn't seem to get that the students are acting on their own. It's so awesome that no one in the mainstream media has bothered to look at the Services Pact itself to see what a dog it is. That would take work and wouldn't fit Establishment ideologies, after all.

+++++++++
Previous (through Thursday night Taiwan time:

English language liveblog from inside. Just heard over 20,000 down there tonight. Much fear there will be police violence against the protesters.

Thousands now out supporting the students, with students from universities all over Taiwan coming up to join them and to rally outside the legislature to support them. Even the KMT paper said 20,000 rallied there on Wednesday night. My Facebook and email are overwhelmed with pictures, etc. Really an amazing moment in Taiwan's history. Dafydd Fell explained in the Taipei Times today....

Over the past six years pressure has been building up that could have been released through dialogue. The current crisis was entirely avoidable. Students today are no more radical than those of 1990 and may well be more conservative. It seems unimaginable that students would have adopted such tactics 25 years ago. That student protesters have been willing to go to the extremes of occupying the Legislative Yuan represents a failure of political society to respond to the public.

To the outsider, it may seem hard to comprehend that so much anger has built up due to the government’s refusal to review a services trade agreement. However, the root of the problem has been a gradual building up of tensions and frustration within society.

The closing paragraphs that identify the fake 2004 election "crisis", simply the KMT going crazy because it lost the election, and the equally fake "red ant" march against Chen Shui-bian, another faux protest conducted entirely by KMTers, are wrong. Those were not systemic crises, but instead showed the nationalists' ongoing inability to live in a democracy. Perhaps that's what Fell means, though, but can't say out loud.

This crisis has similar roots. The DPP has been using legislative procedures and other delaying tactics to delay voting on the Services Pact (this English version of NTU Econ Department Chair explanation of why the Services Pact will be bad for Taiwan explains why the pro-Taiwan side is opposed to the pact). The student invasion of the legislature was triggered by a KMT legislator's sudden by-passing of the review process, and declaring the review over before it had even begun, after there had been an agreement for a line-by-line review of the pact, something supported by more than 70% of the public in polls. The KMT does not want a vote; they are trying to declare it law without a vote, because if the KMT legislators voted on it they would have to publicly vote, and thus, make a public declaration of their position. And after the failure of ECFA, nobody wants this dog of an agreement on their resume in the upcoming legislative elections. The fact that KMT legislators don't want to publicly vote on this dog should erase any doubt as to what a shipwreck the Services Pact really is.

J Michael Cole, a Taipei-based journalist, has been present throughout and has turned out some great pieces on it. First, the local media has been busy smearing the students...

Although there were a few incidents — a broken window, light damage to computers, chairs stacked up to prevent police intrusions — the legislature was never ransacked, as claimed. Furthermore, protest leaders repeatedly beseeched participants to avoid causing damage. Lin Fei-fan, one of the student leaders inside the legislature, went out of his way to remind activists not to put water bottles directly on the desks to avoid damaging the wooden surface (the so-called vandals evidently forgot to bring coasters along). Moreover, the impressive garbage-collection efforts that were launched around the legislature after March 17 should put to sleep any notion that the occupiers and their supporters are bent on destroying the Legislative Yuan.

Having created the myth of activists as vandals, later in the night “news” got out that the activists had engaged in binge drinking and were “making out,” preposterous behavior that, interestingly enough, never showed on the continuous video stream. Nobody seemed to question how illogical a decision it would be for the activists, having set up a live feed, to engage in activities that were certain to discredit them and their cause. Still, some media picked it up, and it became “fact.”

The Taiwan media has been simply awful and in my talks with students at CGU, who have classmates and friends among the protesters, this has led to much resentment. The "making out" became "fornication"in some media reports, which, considering how the legislature has screwed Taiwan, seems only fair return.

More fundamentally, the media both local and international have attempted to paint the protesters as dupes of the DPP. But they have kept them at arms length. The DPP and TSU legislators at the protest are there to keep the police from harming the students.

Another smear I've heard in KMT circles is that the students are all people who can't get jobs, not engineers and doctors, but history and lit majors. Nonsense, as they are actually students from the major universities of Taiwan including mine (a medical university), who have bright futures in many different fields. It is no exaggeration to say that these are among the cream of Taiwan's students.

Scarily, gangsters showed up the other night bearing knives and attempted to cause a fight. They failed. But they are a harbinger of what will probably happen at other pro-Taiwan events, and quite soon.

J Michael's piece over at The Diplomat is also excellent review. Cole notes of the sequence of events:

Negotiations on the matter resumed in the legislature in March 2014, when DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai secured the right to plan the agenda for a clause-by-clause review as agreed earlier. However, KMT legislators blocked the process, leading to clashes in the legislature over a period of three days. Meanwhile, civic organizations launched a sit-in outside the LY.

Then, on March 17, with the legislature brought to a standstill and the DPP occupying the podium, Chang, citing Article 61 of the Legislative Yuan Functions Act, announced that the review process had gone beyond the 90 days allotted for review. The agreement should therefore be considered to have been reviewed and be submitted to a plenary session on March 21 for a final vote. Immediately, the Executive Yuan “congratulated” Chang for successfully reviewing the agreement, even though no review was ever held, and experts later noted that Article 61 did not apply, as the CSSTA is a component of the ECFA, which itself is a “prospective treaty” (准條約) and not an executive order. With 65 members in the 113-seat legislature, the KMT was assured a victory, with expectations that the pact could be implemented as early as June 2014.

The sudden announcement caught everybody by surprise and sparked anger among the public. The sit-ins continued on the evening of March 17, followed by a much larger one on the evening of March 18.

The foreign media has actually picked up on this, which is good. The VOA provided a totally pro-KMT frame for the event, very sad to see, especially for the alleged voice of a western democracy. The event is treated as if the students are part of the opposition party (they are not) and events are misrepresented. For example:

A spokesman for the student protesters, Huang Yu-fen, said his group is demanding that a government committee revoke its initial review of the deal.

"We demand Legislative Yuan Chairman Wang Chin-ping declare directly that the decision made by interior committee yesterday is invalid. And we ask President Ma Ying-jeou to come here to respond to the people's demands in person," said Huang.

But as we know, the students occupied the legislature because the review was never carried out as planned. The students do not want the review "revoked", they want the review carried out as agreed. The "decision made by the interior committee yesterday" was the decision to pretend the review was carried out. This only appears further down in the text and as the one point in the "opposition's" favor -- the framing is obvious.

CS Monitor writes:

The occupation was unusual even for a city accustomed to protests and a parliament where lawmakers occasionally brawl with one another. But it signals anger with President Ma Ying-jeou’s ruling Nationalist Party for scheduling a vote without an item-by-item review of the deal that the main opposition party was expecting. The trade deal was signed in June 2013, but has not yet been ratified.

.....

The opposition party had asked for the review to protect Taiwan service sectors that could be hurt by competitors from the much larger mainland Chinese market, but the Nationalists felt that an item-by-item vote would take too long and that eight public hearings on the pact sufficiently got the word out about the deal’s content.

The "eight public hearings" that the CSM report refers to were actually crammed into the space of a single week by the KMT, obviously to reduce the ability of affected sectors to comment. The line-by-line review had been agreed upon during party-party negotiations; naturally the opposition had been "expecting" it. Although it should be noted that Interior Committee Head Chang said the line by line review did not mean that changes could be made to the text... heh.

AP also reported, the students are "several hundred opponents" of the trade pact, though they have been careful to say they are opposed to the way the democratic procedures have been hijacked by the KMT to ram the pact through.

WSJ had a good piece, saying that the number of students was 1,000 and quoting student leaders. Bloomberg's is also pretty good.

Wang Jyn-ping, the KMT Speaker of the Legislature, won his court case and will remain in the KMT. As Speaker has the formal authority for clearing the legislature, it is the legislature's business who occupies its buildings, after all, and institutions in Taiwan are often sticklers for deferring to the appearance of who has power over what. So they deferred to him, and he apparently has no problem with the students being there, he said in a public statement earlier today, so hopefully there won't be clashes tonight as some are fearing.

As for me, I think the students have missed another opportunity but we'll see; hopefully I am wrong.

Protests in other Taiwan cities taking place in support, here is one report on K-town. Video from K-town (h/t to Ben at Letters from Taiwan).

The NextMedia animators take on the student occupation of the legislature. Forward the 300! And speaking of comedy, at one point WSJ had on its web page:

The day's China news in pictures: Tibetans dance under pear trees in Sichuan, protesters clash with police inside Taiwan's legislature, smoke rises from a forest fire and more.

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Daily Links:

• Pew survey of Asian-Americans
• Taiwan's Maritime Security is US interest from Dean Cheng
• Yay! More three-day public holidays next year! Not that it matters, since no one will have jobs after the service pact.
• Yay! I was wrong: the F-16 upgrade is saved after the budget cut. It's not as good as new aircraft, but beats nothing.
• Missed this great post from Frozen Garlic on Population Trends since 1955.
• Sony Photography Awards
• NOT TAIWAN: Skeptical Science with a great post on global warming predictions from the 1970s.

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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!

The Pro-China team gets the attention of the locals

The 145A in Yunlin.

The pro-China forces were sprinkling the land this week with little reminders of just how life will be when China annexes Taiwan. First, the ongoing controversy over the changes to the high school textbooks showed the full colonial thrust of the Deep Blue pro-China academics who drafted them: aborigines in Taiwan are referred to as China's 56th minority, the "high mountain people" (高山族). Hey, way to go! And this an election year too. This controversy couldn't have happened at a better time.

Meanwhile this week China refused visas to journalists from Apple Daily and Radio Free Asia for the historic government to government talks, an action condemned by the International Federation of Journalists and Freedom House. Thus giving a very public demonstration to Taiwanese of what rule by China will mean. Hey, way to go! And this an election year too. This couldn't have happened at a better time.

Speaking of the "historic" talks, the awesome Jon Sullivan is everywhere these days since opening the China Policy Institute blog. See what a blog can do Jon?*  His latest was a cautiously hopeful piece in WSJ this week on the historic Taiwan-China government to government talks, and he has a piece similar in tone in The Diplomat with my friend Michal Thim. In the strong WSJ piece, the first public mention I've seen of the fact that meetings between the two parties go back to the 1990s, Sullivan observes:

Suspecting that President Ma might be tempted to authorize such concessions, regardless of public opinion, the legislature last week imposed restrictions on the scale of the MAC mission. In an extraordinary move, it passed a resolution barring the MAC chairman from speaking about, negotiating or signing any documents relating to sovereignty. In response he pledged to reiterate Taipei's commitment to the "1992 consensus."

In the early 1990s when representatives from the KMT and CCP met for the first time in an unofficial capacity, there were genuine fears in Taiwan that the two would come to a clandestine arrangement about the island's future. Such fears are unrealistic in democratic Taiwan, but the legislative resolution is testament to Taiwan's lack of trust in Mr. Ma, even within his own party.

While some have speculated that Mr. Ma is motivated by the glories history will bestow on the man who helps "unify China," a more prosaic explanation is that he and the KMT are operating with different time horizons. The president has two years left to cement any sort of legacy, while the party is looking ahead to mid-term elections later this year and national elections early in 2016. Heeding the public's opposition to quick or irrevocable decisions on changing the status quo is not the priority for Mr. Ma that it is for his colleagues who will stand in upcoming elections.

I don't think it is unrealistic to fear that the KMT and CCP will make clandestine agreements about the future of Taiwan since that is the nature of the two parties and open public agreements are not on the table. It is hard to imagine that whatever they are doing in formal meetings, in private settings they are not mapping out the fate of the island in fits of mutual fantasizing about the greatness of China, before they discuss which American university is the best one to send the kids to.

The stalled services pact and the legislature's restrictions on the meeting show how little influence Ma has over the legislature despite his status as Chairman of the KMT. I suspect it portends another local election in which Ma's face disappears from election posters since no one wants to be associated with Mr Unpopular.

Although the foreign media has been all a tizzy about the "historic meeting" of "two governments" it is, and always has been, the two parties, the KMT and CCP, dickering about the fate of Taiwan over brandy and cigars...

* It bringeth fame, yet increaseth not wealth. 
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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!

MaWangMess: Wiretapping Scandal Expands and other goodies

Pigeon cage outside Dongshih.

The papers were reported today that DPP Whip Ker Chien-ming said that the SID was tapping the legislature's switchboard number....

Earlier in the day Legislator Ker Chien-ming, a caucus whip of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told the press he had received notice from the court that the wiretapping of his phones had been discontinued, following his acquittal in a breach of trust case.

The notice listed several numbers that had been under surveillance, including his cell phone number and the Legislative Yuan's switchboard number 0972630235, Ker said.

"Even the parliament was being monitored," Ker said at a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, which was also attended by DPP legislators Wu Ping-jui and Kuan Bi-ling.

.....

Meanwhile, at a separate press conference Saturday morning, acting SID spokesman Yang Jung-chung repeatedly denied Ker's accusation, which was reported in a morning newspaper.

The SID "has never eavesdropped on the switchboard of the Legislative Yuan," Yang said several times. He said 0972630235 is the number of a cell phone used by an individual.

However, Tsai Wei-min, head of the Legislative Yuan's General Affairs Department, told the press the same day that the number has been used by the Legislative Yuan since August 2006 as part of a cost saving system.

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.

The case has produced, at least for this observer, many moments of delicious blinding hypocrisy. FocusTaiwan ran another piece saying that the KMT's lawyers told the Taiwan High Court that the party would not work out a political compromise in the Wang case...

Asking the KMT to consider a settlement is tantamount to advising the party to "compromise its insistence upon resisting influence peddling in judicial cases and upon defending the core values of democracy and rule of law, which is an independent judiciary," the statement said.

Anyone remember when the judge in the Chen Shui-bian case got switched? Media personalities gathered this week to protest the wiretapping mess in Taiwan

Meanwhile, back in Washington DC the diplomatic core got egg on its face...

Representative to the US, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), and Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) Press Division Director Frank Wang (王億) yesterday apologized over a controversial post on the Washington Post Web site, which describes Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) as “former Legislative Speaker.”

Frank Wang said Wang Jin-pyng was the “former Legislative Speaker” in the Washington Post Web site’s readers’ comments column on Sept. 14 and concluded by saying “I’m very glad the [Chinese Nationalist Party] KMT came to resolutely discipline its heavyweight party member.”

Events like this are reminders of how the KMT continues to imagine the State is an appendage of the KMT Party, using the diplomatic corps to comment on and defend what should be an internal matter of the KMT and a domestic politic issue. Note that if they had merely said nothing, or confined themselves to noting in a pro forma fashion how the open political conflict is an indicator of the strength of Taiwan's democracy, they would not now be having to apologize..... this affair continues to be a needless mess entirely the creation of Ma's KMT.... and judging from the comments on Facebook, tomorrow's news will be even funnier.

ADDITIONAL REFS: Jens Kastner with some sensible quotes from John Copper on the MaWangMess.
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