Tuesday Night Flights

News from all over....

The Atlantic reports that US Vice President Joe Biden is going to be in charge of China during 2012, which will feature leadership transitions in China, in Taiwan (hopefully) and in the US with election and second term of President Obama. Biden is not known to be a friend of Taiwan; with new leadership in Beijing, the Obama Administration is likely to begin with another round of concessions on permanent issues for temporary gains. The article says:

The view of some of the administration's China-handlers is that management of US-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges that the administration's approach needs to be both broad and managed with "a deep and senior bench." The evolution of many functional offices at the Department of State and Treasury tasked with various line items in the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue has helped stabilize many aspects of the relationship and has helped to benchmark meeting to meeting progress on core concerns.

The US-China relationship will be very interesting during Obama's second term....

WSJ blogs on the sudden re-appearance of Chen Shui-bian as it is likely he will attend the funeral of his wife's mother next week. Chen Shui-bian will receive permission to attend, will only be given three hours out of prison, will spend only a half-hour at the services, and must wear shackles and leg irons and be attended by guards at all times. Most of that is according to the law. There doesn't seem to be anything very political about the KMT's decision, in fact they seem to be loosely following the law -- the smart move for them would be to grant special clemency, let him speak to the press, and generally cause a ruckus that would harm the DPP four days before the election. But they hate him too much.

It's way cool that Korea is now a cultural exporter, with K-pop making it big all over the world. Unfortunately competition with Korea is a sore point for the locals. Case in point....

In 2010, Taiwanese TV stations aired 162 Korean dramas or an average of 13 dramas per month. They broadcast as many as 120 Korean dramas in last year`s first half, yet Korean dramas have faced a flurry of negative sentiments there. In September 2011, Wu Denyih, Taiwan`s administration chief, said, “Taiwanese TV programs are outdated and boring, and are filled with Korean dramas,” criticizing the excessive airing of Korean shows. Recently, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission requested that Taiwanese broadcasters refrain from airing Korean dramas. As an example, one TV station was advised to air programs other than Korean dramas for at least one hour between 6 p.m. to midnight per day.

The weirdness of Taiwanese avidly watching Korean soaps despite the sensitivity of Taiwanese about things Korean has yet to be fully plumbed in the media or academia, AFAIK. The Taiwan National Communications Commission (NCC) recently ordered Gala TV to reduce its broadcasting of Korean soaps. Interestingly, this does not seem to have become an election issue for either party.

The Asian manufacturing picture is clouding, says WSJ. Manufacturing data have contracted for the fifth straight month in Korea and the seventh straight month in Taiwan (but the rate of decline is slowing).  WSJ writes:

In Taiwan, HSBC's PMI remained well below 50 in December, though at 47.1 it did beat November's 43.7. Some 70% of Taiwan's gross domestic product comes from exporting electronic components, technology products and petrochemicals, leaving the small island particularly exposed to a global slowdown.

The effect of this steady slowdown on the Jan 14 elections may be muted because it has been so steady; people are adjusting to it as the new normality. Local makers like bike industry firms are waiting to see what will happen after Chinese New Year, as Europe implodes and America dithers, amid fears that the China market is looking like the bubble there might finally go ka-boom.

Portnoy has a great collection of Netizen's questions for the President over at Ballots and Bullets. Consider:

The ECFA that Government signed with China is designed to reduce the bilateral trade restrictions, however, the biggest barrier between Taiwan and China is nothing but Internet and information. It is well known, China’s Golden Shield is the most complex system for filtering and control of Internet speech. The gradual implementation of the Web site registration and users’ real-name system, among other measures, are turning the Internet in China into an Intranet. Many websites from Taiwan are blocked in China, and many Chinese websites in are extremely slow in Taiwan, which is extremely inconvenient for netizens to communicate on both sides. If you are elected, will you prioritize this issue, and how will you negotiate with China?

Finally, Taihan has an excellent post on Taiwan's short-term energy security prospects. This is a comprehensive review and no excerpt can do justice to it. Go thou and read!
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Daily Links:

• WaPo hosts a video offering interviews with Ma and Tsai and coverage of the election. It's the usual line from Ma. He is always on message. 
• Last DPP poll has Tsai up by a point. So they say. The KMT says its polls show their guy will win.
• AP actually reported on allegations that Ma is using the security forces to spy on Tsai Ing-wen.   .
• Drew says Ma distances himself from the 1 Bike 1 promotion which looked like a thinly disguised campaign rally.
• Ang Lee drives US effects firm investment here 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! Delenda est, baby.

Happy New Years! 13 days to go...

Love the Powershot S95s color accent function... it produces such interesting shots.

Remember when Ma promised to establish a Ministry of Ocean Affairs? -- no doubt the public's disappointment with that failure is behind is low satisfaction ratings.

The mother of former President Chen's wife has passed away. Chen is petitioning to be let out Jan 10, four days before the election. Hopefully the KMT will block this move. Hopefully someone from the DPP will take him aside and explain how he can negatively affect the elections if he opens his mouth. Hopefully some bright boy will solve all the problems by advising the family to move the funeral back five days....

Announce plans to privatize the Grand Hotel right before the election? Totally not political, says the ruling party. The opposition candidate accusing the ruling party of smears? The opposition candidate accused of benefiting from insider knowledge in a business deal? The president visiting the Spratlys with a month to go in the election denying that the visit had anything to do with the election? Those are all from 2008.... Yes, it's deja vu all over again here in 2012. And of course, like 2008, the US favoring Ma Ying-jeou (AP):

Washington has been lavishing attention on Taiwan, stepping up official visits and saying it will likely allow visa-free travel to the U.S. The moves are raising suspicions that America is trying to influence a tight presidential election here in January.

President Ma Ying-jeou has seized on Washington's favors, touting them as reasons voters should re-elect him. The Taipei Times, which supports his main opponent, Tsai Ing-wen, said in an editorial: "Foolhardy or malicious, inadvertent or by design, the U.S. has taken sides in next month's elections."

The reporter cites two longtime scholars and analysts of things Taiwan, June Teufel Dreyer and Arthur Waldron. It also contains the usual tiresome pro-Beijing slant:

By contrast, Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party supports formal independence from China, as opposed to the de facto independence Taiwan has now. Her predecessor as party leader, Chen Shui-bian, frequently angered Beijing — and gave America fits — when he was president from 2000-2008. Though Tsai has backed away from his brinksmanship with China, she has never publicly renounced independence.

"....she has never publicly renounced independence." Readers can understand how completely biased this is if you imagine some universe where in the mid-1980s AP writes of Vaclev Havel: "Though Havel has not angered Moscow and its Czech puppet rulers as much as his fellow travelers, he has never publicly renounced his support of democracy." Resistance to Soviet expansion? Huge approval for that. Resistance to Chinese expansion? Not so much, thank you. There's just no need at all for the last sentence of that paragraph..... AP could have put Tsai in context and neatly explained part of her appeal: "Like an increasing majority of Taiwanese, Tsai supports eventual independence for Taiwan." Or injected balance: "Tsai is known to support eventual independence for Taiwan, just as Ma has publicly stated on many occasions that he supports eventual unification." Or....

It must be said that the western media coverage this time around is not nearly as ugly as it was last time.

The Ma government made some interesting moves recently to shore up its election hopes. One was to announce that males born after 1994 will need to serve only four months of military service. This was immediately criticized as pandering to voters, which no doubt it was. Every government does this, the DPP did it in 2008. No doubt whoever wins will do it again in 2016.

Locally roads seem to be undergoing repairs all over the nation, and a section of the new expressway in eastern Taichung was opened on the 31st. The money taps are opening....

My man Drew remarked yesterday that now that Ma has stopped trying to win, he's doing much better. Let's hope this descent into the negative maelstrom two weeks before the election won't hurt the DPP too much.

Oh yeah, Happy 2012, everyone!
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Daily Links:

• Droll article on Nobody Keen to Answer the Big Taiwan Question down in Oz.
• Frozen Garlic with excellent post on Taitung county legislative politics.
• China pressures Chinese magazine on Taiwan election jaunt.
• Crowd-funded investigative journalism to begin 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! Delenda est, baby.

Legislative Election musings

The form it is alleged that the National Security Bureau used to record information about DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen and her activities and supporters. My own view and that of many others is that despite the sickness of using the NSB as a political tool, Tsai needs to get off the mudslinging and back on message about income, economic growth, and social justice that has served her well so far.

The kinds of choices that face local voters, as well as the corruption of politics in Taiwan, are neatly encapsulated in the choices my wife faces in the election for legislative candidates in our area. There are a half dozen candidates. Two of them are brothers from the Tung family that owns the huge hospital out near Taichung Harbor (one of the best in the country). The whole family is pro-KMT and one of the Tungs is running as a KMT candidate. Another Tung is running as the DPP candidate but appears to have recently swapped parties, though he claims he alone among his clutch of pro-KMT brothers has always been pro-Green. Another candidate, who was quite good and whom my wife likes, is now running as an independent but in recent years has been associated with the TSU although before he was DPP.

If you support the DPP, who do you vote for? Voting for the Tung feels like a vote for the KMT even if he wears DPP clothing. Voting for the good pan-Green/TSU candidate feels like the right move but may hurt the DPP because it needs people in the legislature. In may all be moot because the major KMT candidate,  a woman, is extremely successful and has powerful patronage connections to many local infrastructure projects and all the schools in the area.

One thing one hears steadily is how deep contempt of Ma is among KMT supporters. One lifelong pan-Blue supporter I know well told me he detests Ma but is voting for him out of fear that the mainlanders will be kicked out of Taiwan if the DPP wins out. Tsai needs to find a way to reach out and reassure those people....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Dec Election Poster Photos

Another month closer to the election, another set of pics. Here KMT Pres and Veep Candidates Ma and Wu cover a poster in Guishan in Taoyuan county. Click on the READ MORE below to see 'em all.

BREAKING: NEXT magazine says Ma Administration using security forces to spy on Tsai

This is huge: Next Magazine says Ma Administration is using the security forces to spy on Tsai, naming 28 agents (Taipei Times report):

According to the Next Magazine report, Weng Shih-tsan (翁詩燦), director of the NSC’s Secretariat, attended an intelligence meeting organized by the Investigation Bureau last week and took away information related to the presidential election, before submitting the information to Ma via Hu.

The magazine’s report named 28 senior agents at the bureau, who it said were given the task of monitoring Tsai and submitting weekly reports on the times, locations and the attendees at Tsai’s campaign events.

The magazine said agents also made evaluations on the influence of local politicians or businesspeople who met with Tsai — KMT members and non-partisan representatives in particular — and predicted how many votes were at stake if they offered their support to Tsai.

It also cited an unidentified high-ranking official at the National Security Bureau (NSB) as saying that the NSC and Hu had ignored the intelligence system’s chain of command.

In response to the report, the NSC said that while it did send Weng to the meeting, he did not take any information away and no information had been submitted to Hu and Ma.

Anyone who has followed the KMT's use of the security agencies throughout the nation's history will not be surprised at this report....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Integrate with Large Power Next Door, Feel more Localized

You know the story. A small island state is integrated to the Big Ugly Neighbor next door. The media is shocked to learn what everyone knows intuitively -- despite economic integration, the locals feel that their local identity is strengthened. No, I'm not talking about Taiwan, but Hong Kong... (via SCMP):

Despite increasing economic integration, locals are viewing themselves more strongly as Hongkongers rather than Chinese citizens than at any time in the past decade, a survey has found.

The poll asked 1,016 city residents to rank the strength of their feelings as "Hong Kong citizens" on a scale from zero to 10, and found an average rating of 8.23 points, a 10-year high.

Asked the same question about their identity as "Chinese citizens", the average rating was 7.01 points, a 12-year low. The poll was conducted from December 12-20.

The University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme has conducted such surveys from time to time since the 1997 handover.

Dr Robert Chung Ting-yiu, the programme's director, said: "This [trend] is contrary to the [direction of] China's economic development in recent years, so it must be due to factors beyond economic development." But he stopped short of speculating about the reasons behind the fluctuations in these figures.

The pollsters combined all the survey results into an identity index on a scale from zero to 100. City residents' strongest feelings of identity are as "Hong Kong citizens", at 79.1 points, followed by "members of the Chinese race" at 72.5 points.

Then came "Asians", at 72.1 points; "Chinese citizens", at 67.9 points; "global citizens", at 67 points; and finally "citizens of the People's Republic of China", at 61.1 points.

"The feeling of being `citizens of the PRC' was the weakest among all identities tested," Chung said.

It's not "despite", it's "because". Economic integration with big colonialist powers next door never makes locals feel like part of the Power but usually has the exact opposite effect: it reinforces local identities. Ask the Taiwanese, the Canadians, or the Baltic states.....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Futures Market Biases and other Election Errata

Belly dancing and other imported forms of dance, including flamenco and Bollywood, are hugely popular in Taiwan. Here is a performance in Fengyuan the other day. If your wife is looking for something to do in the evenings, belly dancing is a great way to socialize and slim down. Most local community colleges offer some form of dance class.

The topic of poll divergence, which I have often lamented on this blog, led the Taipei Times today.  The paper noted that the NCCU futures market has Tsai up enormously:

The exchange’s closing “prices” on Sunday showed that Tsai received 50.4 percent of the vote compared with Ma’s 43 percent and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong’s (宋楚瑜) 7.7 percent.

Almost two in three “buyers,” or 65.6 percent, said that Tsai would win the election, while 30.8 percent predicted a victory for Ma, who had been leading Tsai before Soong entered the race on Nov. 4.

....whereas a Taiwan Thinktank poll had Tsai down by less than 1% to  Ma Ying-jeou -- the Taiwan Thinktank being a pro-DPP institution. In passing, the most recent China Times (pro-KMT) poll has Ma up by five.

I've been complaining about the irrational exuberance of the prediction market, whose pro-Tsai numbers I've long considered are too high, and sure enough, Nathan over at Frozen Garlic came out with a great post this week on its predictions for the legislative election that shows in this election it is fundamentally biased (if you are following the election, you need to be reading that blog). He says:

I’m on record as not being a big fan of the futures market here in Taiwan, but rather than explain why I think it is flawed from a theoretical perspective, I’m just going to bury them with their own numbers. Welcome to fantasyland.

Frozen Garlic has long argued that the Xfutures market is flawed because, among other things, people aren't committing real money (which is what he means by the first sentence there) and thus risk nothing with their choices. Here he has the numbers....

You may have noticed that there are a lot of DPP districts.  According to the xfuture market, the DPP will win 52 of the 73 districts.  The KMT wins only 20, and the New Party wins the other one.  The DPP is predicted to win 5 of 6 in Taoyuan, 9 of 12 in New Taipiei City, and 4 of 8 in Taipei City.  Just for reference, they did not win 18 of those 26 seats four years ago; they won a mere two.  You know that phrase the DPP loves to repeat about how the KMT can’t cross the Zhuoshui River?  The prediction market takes it literally.  The DPP wins everything south of the river, and that even includes Penghu and Taitung.  There are crazy predictions up and down this list.  The DPP is supposed to win Jilong City by a comfortable 6.7%.  If that happens, I’ll eat my pink Tsai Ing-wen flag.  Maybe the most incredible result is one that gets the winner right.  In Taoyuan 6, the KMT is predicted to win by a mere 1%.  That could happen, but only if you change the “1%” to “30%.”

These numbers are fantasies. The DPP will likely perform better this time around, but not to the tune of 50 seats -- it might reach 40 with the wind at its back. Nathan has shown that the prediction market has a pro-DPP bias. Hence, its numbers are no more trustworthy than any other public poll from media supporting either party, at least for this election.

If you have trouble using the text graphic FG offers, there's a map of the districts here. Just sweep your eyes over it... even if you give the DPP everything south of Taichung/Nantou, that's only 26 districts. Assuming a split in Taichung, the DPP would have to pick up ten more districts in what has historically been Blue territory. 3 or 4 maybe, but ten? I think the DPP will be lucky to get more than 35 single member districts (remember there are an additional 34 at-large seats). Still the dumbest move ever, reducing the number of legislative districts.....

Another remark in the Taipei Times article also struck me:

Former DPP legislator Kuo Cheng-liang (郭正亮) said it was ironic that Tsai’s support rates were higher when she was attacked than when the DPP retaliated with an attack on Ma’s integrity in a bank merger case, which showed that negative campaigning might very well “have the opposite of its desired effect.”

Last week I pointed out that going negative on the Fubon merger case would likely hurt Tsai.... sure enough, Tsai's lead in the prediction market has fallen, as has the value of her shares, which are now at 65, though they were pushing 70 last week. Interestingly, this trend has not appeared in the pro-KMT polls. But I suspect that if Tsai loses this campaign by a whisker, the decision to stage a frontal attack on Ma, rather than let one of her supporting media such as the Liberty Times handle it, will have been a key factor.

Fortunately for the DPP, the KMT is continuing its attack with the Yu Chang case (love to know what their internal polls are telling them). This may help wash the effect of the DPP's negative turn. The government is planning a big nationwide biking activity for Dec 31 that looks a lot like a KMT campaign rally....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Taipei Times Editorial says America IS taking sides

A Taipei Times editorial argues that the US timed the announcement of the possibility of a visa waiver for Taiwan to support the KMT in the election. The editorial also points out that the KMT in its usual despicable manner, failed to tell the public that the initiative for the program began with the DPP:

What was left unmentioned was the fact that it was the DPP that got the ball rolling on the visa-waiver program, with former envoy to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and his staff at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington doing the groundwork in 2007. A few more years were required before Taiwan could meet all the requirements for the nomination and admittedly some of the necessary adjustments were made under the Ma administration. However, in the end, the nomination is as much a victory for the DPP as it is for the KMT — in fact, it represents a victory for all Taiwanese.

However, by failing to take the necessary precautions against the inevitable politicization of the announcement, Washington has played into the KMT’s hands, or possibly cooperated with it.

In its press conference on Thursday, the AIT said an agreement on tightening immigration controls against felons and terrorists was the final step before the US could put Taiwan on the list. That agreement, we were told, had been signed the previous day.

Maybe the timing is just a coincidence — and coincidences do happen — but it is very convenient for the KMT that all this happened when it did. The US government could have waited until after the Jan. 14 election to make the announcement, a postponement that in no way would have hurt the KMT or helped the DPP.

One really wonders why, within 24 hours of Taipei signing the document on terrorists and felons, the AIT would rush into making the announcement on the visa-waiver program, especially as Taiwan’s adhesion to the program remains contingent on months of careful evaluation by the US Department of Homeland Security. There simply was no justification for making the announcement at such a highly charged juncture in the presidential election.

Despite the nomination being the result of hard work by both the DPP and KMT administrations, the timing of the announcement now allows the Ma camp to silence some of its detractors, who had accused it of failing to secure anything of substance from the US over the past three-and-a-half years, despite relations between the two allies allegedly being their “closest” in years.

Not anymore, and the KMT has appropriated this success as if the DPP had nothing to do with it. Fool-hardy or malicious, inadvertent or by design, the US has taken sides in next month’s elections.

AIT officials had to know what they were doing when they made the announcement in the middle of a hotly -contested election. On the other hand, perhaps they were afraid if they waited until after the election they'd be accused of helping the DPP. Or if they waited a week, of being accused of timing the announcement even more closely to the end of the election to help the KMT. Or they knew the KMT would make the announcement and wanted to pre-empt an even more partisan announcement on the KMT part. The AIT announcement did note that AIT did not favor either party.

What it really shows is how pathetic the Ma Administration is -- the best it can do to show its good relationship with the US is lay claim to a program initiated by the DPP.

If the best AIT can do to influence the election is announce a visa waiver program early, then the US hand in the election isn't very useful to the KMT. At the moment.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Daily Links, Monday, Dec 26, 2011

Send this cold weather back to Siberia! But while we're waiting for it to leave, here's a few things to keep you warm....

ELECTION:

• Incredibly, the KMT is still pushing the Yu Chang case. Minister Liu of the CEPD is still out there saying Tsai Ing-wen has more questions to answer. 
• Apple Daily election poll has Ma up by eight points over Tsai. Even the TVBS poll only has Ma up by six.
• Frozen Garlic on the mini-revolt within the KMT in Xizhi district in Taipei. Lee Ching-hwa in this tale is not just any politician, he is the son of powerful mainlander insider Lee Huan. 
• Letters from Taiwan on Ma's latest gaffe: even the dogs complain about me....
• Frozen Garlic demonstrates looking at the legislature numbers what I have long wondered: the futures market could well be just plain wrong in this election. If the DPP wins the Keelung legislative seat, I'll take a portion of that hat. I thought a couple of weeks ago that the numbers for Tsai were too high; FG's look at the legislature shows the market is too pro-DPP. 
• China won't be flinging missiles at us, assures Far Eastern Sweet Potato.
• Parris Chang criticizes Ma in Washington Times, TECRO responds.

BLOGS:

• Photoblog: This is what I think
• Todd with some absolutely superb pictures of caterpillars.
• No wonder the daughter cuts herself.
• Hiking on Yangmingshan
• Taiwan beer: a history.
• 2012 economic forecast: 3.3-3.7% growth. And other econ stuff from ETRC
• US snuffs Taiwan's indigenous spacelaunch program, out of military fears? Naw, they just feared another low-cost launch competitor.
• Taiwanophile Fili lists the best blogs by category.
• Global Voices on how the land expropriation law revisions still don't address farmer's woes.
• Alive and Kicking goes blacksmithing in Taitung

MEDIA:

• East Asia Forum: US, China await Taiwan Election with Apprehension. Washington and Beijing face the nightmare of a pro-democracy, pro-Taiwan party getting elected to the Presidency. 
• Frank Ching looks at how the Chinese take pride in the Taiwan elections. No, Frank, the idea that Taiwan democracy could influence China did not start with Chiang Ching-kuo, who ran a centralized security state and fought the emergence of democracy his whole adult life. 
• The US just gave Indonesia F-16s, and now Philippines wants them. 
• I have to admit that for years before I started this blog I dismissed right-wing claims that there is a whole tribe of commentators on the left that is basically shilling for Beijing. Yet since I've started this blog again and again I run into these people, still wearing their Cold War lenses. Like this piece, from the normally nuanced Peter Lee, who claims -- no seriously -- that the US is being all provocative in Asia, and talks about the South China Sea without ever mentioning that the problem is that China claims the whole damn thing. Again and again I see constructions like this from analysts with clear Leftish sympathies. Recently I had an email exchange with some leftist nutcase who dismissed me with a single word when I pointed out China's behavior in Tibet: "fantasies". No wonder these people have no time for Taiwan.... 
• This great run-down of Taiwan's WHO lobbying shows how the "success" of Ma's WHA observer decision significantly downgraded Taiwan's status.
• Delegation of Taiwanese banks to visit Thailand to help hard-hit Taiwan businesses there.
• Amis protest gov't land practices in Hualien, biggest protest in 20 years.
• The Patriot missiles found on ship in Finland and bound for Shanghai were actually a German sale to South Korea.
• Labor costs continuing to impact Taiwanese firms in China
• Land subsidence stops trains in Kaohsiung
• Avg temps in Taiwan hit 15 year low

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Is America sticking a hand in the election?

The Taipei Times ran a piece today on a post at Ballots and Bullets on the Taiwan election in which CSIS analyst Bonnie Glaser argues that the US has a clear preference for Ma Ying-jeou. CSIS offers sturdy center-right Establishment analysis, and she is almost certainly correct; many high-level officials within the Obama Administration prefer Ma but could work with Tsai, as she puts it. The money paragraph:

Obama administration officials’ preference for a Ma victory is also a consequence of their hope to avoid introducing additional contentious issues to the increasingly complicated US-China agenda. Bilateral tensions have run high in recent years over a long list of issues, including North Korea, South China Sea, China’s military modernization, and China’s currency valuation and trade practices. US arms sales to Taiwan in January 2010 and September 2011 infuriated the Chinese and soured US-China relations as well, but the impact was relatively confined and short lived compared to the likely Chinese reaction to the return of the DPP to power. Past experience demonstrates that when Chinese fears of Taiwan independence spike, other issues are crowded out in US-Chinese consultations, making compromises and solving problems even more difficult than usual.

She goes to argue that "in the absence of policy steps by Taiwan that damage American interest in the maintenance of cross-Strait peace and stability" relations will go well. The basic problem here is that Taiwan is not in control of stability in the Taiwan Strait, China is. It is China that determines the level of tension between Taipei and Beijing, which -- as I have noted a million times before -- is a policy choice whose purpose is to affect US policy in its favor. No matter what "policy choices" Taiwan makes, China can simply react negatively in an attempt bring down US pressure on Tsai -- it is a key policy goal of Beijing to transfer tensions between Beijing and Washington to the US-Taiwan relationship. Hopefully American policymakers will learn to recognize this dysfunctional political response and act accordingly.

Two other aspects of US policy are highlighted in Glaser's piece. The first that the US-China relation is in the tank and that this has nothing to do with what Taiwan has done. US-China relations have deteriorated despite having Ma in power and will continue to decline, so it is hard to see why the US is so sold on him.

The second is one I have also alluded to, the way Taiwan is treated in isolation from other East Asia issues.   Analysts writing about it invariably ignore Japan and the South China Sea. This means that the Administration is essentially pursuing the contradictory policies of telling Taiwan to shush while quietly moving to shore up allies elsewhere in Asia, most recently with the addition of a paltry couple thousand marines to Australia and the announcement that the US is considering basing ships in Singapore.... remember this pic? (I just updated it).

That, in a nutshell, is where this counterproductive, shortsighted treatment of a possibly critical ally is taking us. Ask yourself, in the coming conflicts with China, does the US want a friendly government headed by a pro-western president, or a pro-China government headed by a pro-China ideologue who views himself as a True Chinese^©? I submit the answer is obvious -- if you don't live within the Beltway.

I should add that Glaser also puts her finger on an important psychological strategic function of the Taiwan issue: "when Chinese fears of Taiwan independence spike, other issues are crowded out in US-Chinese consultations" -- Taiwan fixates Chinese minds.

In a separate article the Taipei Times also reported that several US Congressmen are writing letters to the Administration warning it not to take sides in the upcoming election.

There is a growing chorus of protest against perceived efforts by members of US President Barack Obama’s administration to interfere in Taiwanese elections by boosting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election on Jan. 14.

Glaser's piece was in response to one of the recent policy moves -- sending a minor cabinet official to visit and announcing the possibility of a visa waiver for Taiwan. The announcement of the visa waiver was seized upon by the KMT as tantamount to the US certificate of approval for Ma Ying-jeou, who has been trumpeting himself as the US choice.

The visa waiver campaign -- that idea originated with the pro-Taiwan side, of course.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Pollution: It's here, it's worsening

A friend of mine passed these four stories to me, outraged. The EPA is obviously doing a terrible job; indeed, it frequently sides with developers against the environment (for example). What can be done about these stories? She wrote:

"The following news stories, all recent, are extremely worrisome. You can buy organic fruit and vegetables or grow your own to avoid some of the exposure to toxins, but you cannot avoid breathing. How is it in anyone's best interest to encourage highly polluting and energy-intensive industries on a small island? Taiwan's power generation from coal-fired plants and nuclear power plants is killing us."

The translations are hers; the issues, everyone's.

++++++++++

Doctors rally after pollution survey - The China Post
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2011/12/23/326751/Doctors-rally.htm
TAIPEI, Taiwan --Taiwan's air quality ranked an abysmal 35 out of 38 countries surveyed by the World Health Organization (WHO), with Taipei at number 551 out of the 565 cities profiled, boasting an air quality on par with “smoker's paradise” Lebanon.

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Taiwan uses too much pesticide, 5.5 times higher than that in the U.S. Pesticide residues are also too high. There are 541 types of approved pesticides in Taiwan. For every hectare of farmland Taiwan uses an average of 11 kilograms of pesticide. The average in the U.S. is 2 kilograms. These figures were published in a report from Taiwan's Control Yuan yesterday.
http://www.epochtimes.com/b5/1/2/13/n46958.htm
台灣使用農藥過量 高出美國5。5倍 蔬菜水果農藥殘留過多
台灣監察院昨天公布的「農藥濫用影響國人健康及生態環境」報告中指出，台灣核准使用的農藥有541种，台灣單位耕地面積農藥使用量為每公頃十一公斤，而美國為二公斤，台灣比美國高出五．五倍。台灣農民使用農藥已明顯過量，對生態環境造成了嚴重衝擊。

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Full report on the Orchid Island nuclear waste radiation issue
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8-mCqMRHgw

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And this report from Taiwan's Environmental Information Center on the growing nuclear waste issue just at the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
http://e-info.org.tw/node/72556
環保署今（21）日召開「核能一廠用過核燃料中期貯存計畫第二次變更內容對照表專案小組審查會議」，北海岸在地居民與環保團體於會前召開記者會，反對核能一廠繼續興建乾式貯存設施，並呼籲將使用年限的問題納入本次變更內容的討論。
The EPA today (Dec. 21) organized a task force meeting to review a second set of changes to the spent nuclear fuel medium-term storage plan for the first No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant. At a press conferences held immediately before the review meeting, north coast residents living near the nuclear power plant and environmental groups voiced their opposition to the continued dry storage facility of the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant and called for the issue of setting a deadline for the spent nuclear storage to be included for discussion in this review meeting.
核一廠用過核燃料中期貯存計畫在2008年8月27日的環評會議中決議，開發單位應依承諾將用過核燃料於設施使用40年後移出，且貯存設施不得轉作最終處置場所。但環團表示，去（2010）年12月，原能會放射性物料管理局長邱賜聰直言核一廠乾式貯存場使用年限屆滿後不排除再繼續使用，而今年11月28日的核廢料政策環評中的資料更證實了邱賜聰的說法；既然當初環評條件的承諾已經無法得到保證，環評的效力令人質疑，而這一次的變更內容對照表中對使用年限的問題卻依舊隻字不提。
The plan for medium-term storage of spent nuclear fuel from the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant was decided upon at the August 27, 2008 environmental impact assessment (EIA) meeting, the terms of which stipulates the removal of the spent fuel from the facility after 40 years of use and that the facility not become the long-term storage site. Environmental groups pointed out, however, that in December of last year (2010), the Radioactive Materials Management Bureau Chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, Chiu Hsi-tsung, directly said that he does not rule out the continued use of the facility after the 40-year period, which was confirmed at last month's November 28th nuclear waste policy EIA meeting. If the conditions stipulated in the first EIA cannot be guaranteed, the effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment process will come under doubt. Moreover, the current EIA review meeting does not even include an agenda item for discussing the time limit issue.
環團質疑，最早，政府告訴北海岸居民，40年後核電廠就會走；後來，核一廠乾式貯存環評會議，環評結論告訴北海岸居民，40年後核廢料就會走；現在，核電廠還沒走、核廢料又會逾期擺放。政府「只求現在過關，不管未來問題」的態度，讓北海岸居民要等幾個40年？
Environmental groups point out that from the start the government told the north coast residents that the nuclear power plant would be gone after 40 years. Later, the EIA concluding report on the No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant Dry Storage Facility for the spent fuel told the residents that the nuclear waste would be gone after 40 years. And now, the nuclear power plant is not gone and the nuclear waste will continue to be stored on-site past the deadline for removing it. The government's attitude of "just getting things approved without any regard for the future problems" - is this to say that the north coast residents have to wait perhaps several more 40-year periods?
北海岸居民則擔心，核一廠乾式貯存未完工，原能會官員就坦誠將逾期使用，而在政府對核廢料最終去處毫無頭緒的狀況看，很可能直接就讓「中」期貯存變成最「終」處置。
The north coast residents now worry that the dry storage facility for the No. 1 nuclear power plant waste has not been completed and that the AEC has already admitted that it will continue to be used for storage past the deadline. Also, as the government does not appear to have solution to the final storage site problem, they are also worried that the medium-term storage site will become the final storage site for the spent nuclear fuel.

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To this list she sent, I'd like to add another, the Alangyi Trail, pristine coast to be destroyed for a highway.

The Alangyi Trail, a 12km hiking trail along the Pacific coastline between Taitung County’s Nantian Village (南田) and Pingtung County’s Syuhai Village (旭海), is being threatened by the planned construction of Provincial Highway No. 26. A section of the planned highway would run alongside the trail.

Taiwan's construction-industrial state has metastasized into a giant tumor that is slowly killing its host by polluting land, water, and sky. The question is, when will the people of Taiwan say, enough!
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Events: Formosa Foundation Ambassador Program and South China Sea Workshop

The Formosa Foundation is taking applications for its annual Ambassador Program. "Up to 30 college/graduate students and young professionals will be selected from theUnited States and Taiwan to participate in this highly competitive “congressional boot camp.” Academia Sinica has a workshop Jan 12-13 on the South China Sea. See more info by clicking READ MORE below....

Forgery or Fark-up: DPP points out further alterations in documents

When we last looked, the documents submitted by the KMT Administration for public view had certainly been altered -- a date in Chinese had been added to them. Today the Taipei Times reported that the DPP had turned up further evidence of significant alterations:

DPP spokesperson Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told a press conference yesterday that Liu and the KMT were suspected of not only altering the date on the document, but also erasing the marking tag of “Attachment No. 3” to cover up the fact that it was one of six attachments to that document.

The document originally carried a stamp saying it was Attachment No. 3, the third of six (TT image here). That had been whited out before the copy was made.

Let's point that out again -- a copy was made (image) and then submitted for public view. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a copy was made to cover the alterations, which are less obvious in a copy. Covering alterations? That implies forgery.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Ma Administration takes steps to goose the stock market ahead of the election

The Ma government took two steps aimed at pushing up Taiwan's fading stock market ahead of the election this week. First, as AP notes in WaPo, the government is allowing Chinese banks to purchase pieces of Taiwan banks.

The commission says individual Chinese banks will be allowed to take stakes of up to 5 percent in Taiwanese banks. It capped total Chinese ownership, including by institutional investors, at 10 percent.

Investment by Chinese banks can give Taiwanese lenders access to China’s lending market and bolster their earnings.

Cross-strait financial investments like these are one of the most important goals of Beijing/Ma's economic integration program and the big financial houses backing the Ma administration. This may push the market up.

A second move was announced as well...Taiwan shares jumped as the government announced the commitment of funding from the national stabilization fund to shore up the stock market:

"The announcement of the National Stabilization Fund's possible intervention in the local stock market has successfully bolstered market sentiment, as investors hailed the long-awaited show of strong government support," MasterLink Securities analyst Tom Tang said. Vice Premier Sean Chen said Tuesday that in the wake of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which could lead to instability in the region, the NT$500 billion (US$16.4 billion) National Stabilization Fund would enter the stock market.

Kim's death provides a convenient excuse for buying votes on a galactic scale by using public money to subsidize wealthy investors while appearing to spark the market for Taiwan's tens of thousands of small players. Let's not forget that a major institutional investor in the market is the KMT itself, through its large Party-owned investment company. But there's no conflict of interest there....not that any of the major international media will ever report that, either...

The stock market has an outsized influence on the way Taiwanese view their own economic performance, which is probably another reason people panic or cheer depending on what its doing. Recall that in 2008 Ma benefited from what appeared to be a coordinated effort by foreign analysts to pump the Taiwan market in the run-up to the election. It promptly began sliding the day he swore in, and hasn't recovered since.

Polaris cut Taiwan's growth prediction next year to below 4%, a move that I suspect heralds further downgrades of Taiwan's economic performance next year. If Tsai wins, she is going to inherit a formidable economic mess exacerbated by whatever damage the KMT can do in the four months between the election and the transfer of power, and by the intransigence of Taiwan's nigh-on useless legislature.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

A few links

Taichung city from atop Dongyang Rd outside of Fengyuan. Weather has been just brilliant this week, but cold front to hit Thursday night.....

No time to blog today. Enjoy a few links...

ELECTION:

• Pai ping-ping, the entertainer, claims electing a female would cause a calamity, just as in Thailand. 
• DPP steps up attack on Fubon merger.
• DPP lays out strategy -- says 5% is the biggest win they can expect. That's about what I think is possible if they win.

BLOGS:

• Ding, Ding Kim Jong-il is dead. In case you can't remember, the same histrionics took place when The Peanut finally died. People cried in the streets, and the government made everyone spend a month in mourning. 
• Giant bikes promotes bike touring even though it has no touring bike in its line of bikes, says Drew.

MEDIA:

• Krugman worried China might break.
• US to station naval ships in Singapore to face Chinese aggression in the South China Sea
• Save the Alangyi Trail, says world environmental group
• People, you can't do things like this. Your butt will be kicked, as actually happened. As you would if some arrogant foreigner did that to you!
• US chamber of commerce sends job after job to China, is repaid by....hacker attack.

You'd think at the National Immigration Office (website) they'd have somebody who could handle the English, or perhaps they'd know a foreigner or three....

ONLINE RESOURCES:

• Steve Crook's new app: Taiwan for Culture Vultures
• Fill out the Taiwan gov't survey on the Taiwan government entry point
• Kim Jong-il Looking at Things

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.