KMTitanic 7: Existential Crisis

A car with pronounced political views.

Rose: Mr. Andrews... I saw the iceberg and I see it in your eyes... please, tell me the truth.
Thomas Andrews: The ship will sink.
Rose: You're certain?
Thomas Andrews: Yes. In an hour or so, all of this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Well, the KMT has settled on a selection process for its candidate, and will likely announce in mid-June (report). The opinion poll for settling the issue will take place June 5-13th. Chairman Eric Chu, the popular choice, is still claiming that he won't be the candidate, while Wang Jin-pyng, the Legislative Speaker, isn't commenting. Chu is off to China in early May to kow-tow meet the leadership. WantWant reports that the KMT is still trying to "woo Chu" by extending the party's window for registering as a candidate to 27 days from the usual 2. The spectacle of Chu reluctantly accepting the offered crown is going to be very enjoyable. The (pro-KMT) China Post editorialized:

Yet the public is now greeted with the familiar KMT ritual as the party's presidential hopefuls and their cronies begin clamoring for their candidacy. Once again the stern vows by the party favorite not to join the race is greeted with universal disbelief (Ma famously vowed “over a hundred times” not to run for Taipei mayor). The “sedan chair carriers” of Eric Chu have been calling for the party leader to break his promise and run for the KMT in the upcoming election. According to local media, lawmakers supporting Chu are even urging Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) to drop her bid in order to “maintain party unity.”

Meanwhile, the news from central Taiwan: the KMT fiefdom of Miaoli is broke. Solidarity has the translation:

Employees of the Miaoli County Government today received a letter from Commissioner Hsu Yao-chang 徐耀昌 titled “Pass through these hard times together to save Miaoli.” About 1,500 Chinese characters in length, it explained that the county treasury is “penniless” and called on everyone to cut costs in order to “save Miaoli.”

had already been much discussion about whether government finances were in dire straits, as Miaoli County staff had not yet received their monthly salaries and the county is behind on billions of NTD of project payments to contractors. There are also questions about whether county infrastructure projects will be halted.

In his letter, Hsu wrote that only after taking office did he realize that the government was NT$64.8 billion (US$2.16bil) in the hole and no matter how much more flexible fiscal deadlines were made and how much resources were stretched, administration was about to reach an unprecedented bottleneck.

The county commissioner blamed the allocation of revenues by the central government. Nantou is also in a fiscal crisis; Donovan Smith, the ICRT central news reporter, observed that the government is renting county land for businesses to place advertisements in order to raise revenue. All of the county governments are broke, starved of money to pay for the lifestyle of Taipei, and such monies as they have handed down to patronage networks. Debt is how the counties are kept in bondage.

Miaoli has long been a KMT stronghold, and its massive debt is partly the result of the KMT's patronage spending. If construction projects are scaled back or halted, there is likely to be rebellion among the factions that support the KMT in Miaoli, and infighting among them (remember, when the gruel gets thin, the knives get sharp). This will hurt the KMT in Miaoli.

I can't resist adding that I've spent over twenty years here listening to people utter fertilizer about how the KMT is the "rational" party. I think of news like this, and laugh.

Back to the China Post, the stalwart pro-KMT paper, which ripped the KMT in brutal fashion, sounding rather like me, actually.

The lack of true reform spirit is evident even in Chu's proposals, of which the most eye-catching reform is not even directed at the party itself. Chu's idea of moving toward a parliamentary political system is seen at best as a veiled criticism of the president and at worst as a plot to undermine the influence of possible Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidencies in the future. In his next biggest reform, Chu restructured the National Policy Foundation to “systemize” the party's think tank. [MT- the NPF is headed by Chu but his deputy is former Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin, another princeling and heavyweight. The mainlander clique is keeping its hands on the reins]. The New Taipei mayor, who went on to win unchallenged in his party leadership bid, also promised to bring more young scholars into the think tank.

The party failed in last year's election not only because of Ma's unpopularity — more importantly, it was the result of an awakening of younger voters desperate at a time of exorbitant home prices and stagnant wages. To young voters, the party is mostly dismissed as an infirm organization trapped by its authoritarian past, its dangerously close ties to mainland China and its obsession with power struggles over everything. To change these voters' minds, the party needs to do much more than reorganizing a think thank and taking a swipe at Taiwan's political system.

........

The all-too-familiar sight of party strongmen vying for positions under the table does not bode well for the self-proclaimed reform-minded KMT. Instead of wasting its time in court politics, the party should realize the existential crisis it is in. The brouhaha over a Chu versus Wang candidacy and “would he wouldn't he” speculations distract the party.

The China Post's linkage of Ma and Chu in their rejection of posts is interesting, because one complaint we're already hearing is that Chu is simply Ma II, with more political sense. As I've noted in other posts, the KMT public yearns for youth and reform, yet we're not seeing anything like that from Chu. Unless there are some serious changes this summer, this will likely translate into trouble for the KMT at the polls.

The TISR tracking polls for March of this year are worth reviewing. The Party ID poll (on left) shows a jump in DPP ID, which may be temporary, but note the KMT -- affiliation has been falling since 2008 and more steeply after 2012. The Ma effect, illustrated. Finally note another crash which is fascinating -- in both the Party ID (left) and Blue-Green-Unaffiliated poll (right) the gray line represents people who identify as either not having a party (left) or being in the middle (right). In both cases, there is a fall in that group that more or less matches the rise in the DPP/Green camp. I've highlighted that in the image below...

It's not been long enough to be a trend, but at this point, post the November 2014 election, the middle sure looks like it is switching (or coming out) to the Green camp. This may simply be people expressing frustration with the KMT's inability to enact meaningful change, but coupled with the three year long free fall in KMT ID, I think it is probably more than that...

REFS: Recent Posts on KMT, Reform, and Chairman Chu
KMT Shorts -- Chu Notes -- KMTitanic 5: Struggling for the Northern Lifeboats -- Chu Political Theatre -- KMTitanic 4 -- KMTitanic 3 -- KMTitanic 2 -- KMTitanic 1 -- Chu's Revolutionary Reforms?
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Daily Links:

• US-China Econ and Security Commission Annual Report, Taiwan section.
• Cole in the Diplomat: The great Chinese lie about Taiwan. Cole was excoriated by some PLA officer, and Apple Daily printed his bombastic remarks. Good work, J Michael.
• Cole at CPI: Apache-gate
• Office of Naval Intelligence report on Chinese Navy
• Lin Jia-lung, Mayor of Taichung, takes a beating: Steel beam for MRT collapses on busy Taichung Street (Video), critics claim it occurred because he wanted things speeded up. Appears construction boss scheduled construction during the day against regulations, instead of at 11:30 at night as contract called for.
• BBC on Sunflowers, one year later. Economist on the Sunflowers, one year later.
• Michal Thim at CPI on the M503 air route controversy.
• All over the news: as investigation of President Ma heats up, his right-hand man King Pu-tsun leaves country with mucho baggage (solidaritytw).UPDATE: solidarity.tw said...
  

  King finally returned to Taiwan this evening...with one very small suitcase. He immediately met with the press and threatened to, you guessed it, sue the pundits and papers who suspected him of ulterior motives for libel.
  
  http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20150411/590849/

• Hong Kong and Taiwan: a tale of two cities. Two Indian scholars on the China-HKK-Taiwan story.
• A rare catch: smuggler caught with rare orchids from China
• Ralph Jennings on Ma unyielding in the face of failure, protests. And Solidarity translates comments by Ma at the AmCham meeting, in which he is moved by how the Americans helped China shoot down Japanese planes in WWII.

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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!

DPP's China policy very clear, thanks

Drying squid in Kaohsiung.

The DPP mission in the US sent this around. The DPP's position on cross-strait affairs is quite clear; those who claim that it isn't are doing the work of Beijing and the KMT. It looks like the "DPP's lack of clarity" on cross-strait affairs is going to be a KMT talking point this election, as I noted a couple of weeks ago in The Coming Pressure on the DPP, and as this Taipei Times piece again clarifies:

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus yesterday urged Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to clarify her stance on cross-strait relations.

The call came after former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said the DPP should not exclude the unification option and that the idea of independence was outside the party’s mainstream opinion — comments that were criticized by several prominent DPP members, who affirmed the party’s platform upholding independence.

The Taipei Times should have noted that after being DPP Chair, Hsu and other DPP turncoats formed the Mountain Alliance which was allied to the KMT -- Hsu switched sides. Hsu's complicated and shifting allegiances are rarely made clear in media presentations on Hsu, even local media presentations. The DPP keeps taking him back, because of his old connections to the tangwai era. He looks to me like a pathetic has-been attempting to remain relevant.

So if anyone claims to you that the DPP has no clear China policy, just refer them here.

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

DPP China Affairs Committee: 

Maintain Cross-Strait Status Quo

April 9, 2015 - The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) China Affairs Committee (CAC) today convened its second meeting to analyze and discuss the current major trends in cross-strait and international dynamics. Taoyuan City Mayor Cheng Wen-tsang and Deputy Mayor Chiu Tai-san provided a briefing on the status of Taoyuan City’s Cross-Strait Committee and its experiences with city-to-city cross-strait exchanges, and Secretary General Joseph Wu reported on recent interactions between the DPP and the United States (con't below).

KMT shorts

An old waterway in Fengyuan. The old hemp factory in Koroton -- Koroton being the Japanese name of Fengyuan -- was near here, and received shipments of raw hemp via this waterway and the rail line. 

The current KMT party selection process for the presidential candidate is decided 70% by a public poll and 30% by a party poll,  but some in the KMT are advocating that the KMT use a 100% public poll. Since Wang Jin-pyng has a better shot at a public poll, some are seeing this as a favor to him. UDN says it is what Wang supporters want. However, according to the Taiwan News/CNA article, the legislator advocating a 100% poll is a Deep Blue mainlander core politician, Lee Ching-hua, so perhaps this poll will favor Chu.

The process will be cleared up this week, says a KMT official, and the candidate selection process will be clear by Apr 15.

The blogger Frozen Garlic observes in the comments:

I think both the Chu and Wang camps want 100% polls to cut Ma (and Wu) out of the loop. Chu thinks he can win the polls without needing to make any concessions to Ma, while Wang's only chance is with 100% polls. Ma still controls quite a few people within the party, so if the party votes count for 30%, he'll have some clout. With polls, you can ignore him.

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Daily Links:

• Military scandal in which local pilot let outsiders into restricted area and had celeb Janet Lee sit in Apache helicopter cockpit, also included six foreigners, including Japanese.
• Ko wants to change the stamp culture of Taiwan's officialdom. I wish him luck.
• TaiwanTake: Longtime independence and democracy stalwart Lin Yi-hsiung opts for New POWER Party, Argh, sorry about leaving out POWER.
• Taiwan international documentary film festival 2015 begins this month.

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

A few monday links

Taichung at night, from the west.

Enjoy some links....
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Daily Links:

• Hung Tzu-yung, sister of the corporal whose punishment caused his untimely death, rips the military for its double standards.
• State Owned Enterprises very inefficient, covered by central bank
• Typhoon Maysak is sending us some rain.
• FSC is tightening rules for bond market to protect Taiwan banks
• China's defense spending increases exceed GDP growth again. It can only mean war. D'oh. Good to see more of this stuff. 
• Repatriations of profits from China fall -- as one canny observer pointed out, even as Taiwanese firms are sinking more into China, locals are sending money out of China as fast as possible.
• Nikkei looks KMT chances in the upcoming elections
• Filipinos, Tsou share same ancestry.
• Musings on Tibet and Taiwan -- in Huffpost.
• Chu has KMT platform modified to highlight his goal of eliminating nuclear power and prevent KMT support for nukes from becoming a campaign issue.
• GDP gap with Korea increases. Note another fabulous Ma Ying-jeou success:

Taiwan's GDP per capita was higher than South Korea's until 2004. The difference was less than US$1,000 after the global financial crisis during 2008-09. Over the past five years, the gap has begun to increase again, reaching US$3,666 in 2013 and US$4,790 in 2014.

• Eric Chu visits the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial this week. 

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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!

Chu notes + Links

@FormosaNation on Twitter sent around these two polls from SETV. The bottom one shows that 64.3% of New Taipei City voters, where Eric Chu, the chairman of the KMT and likely Presidential candidate is Mayor, would prefer that Chu finish out his term. The top one shows that among Blue voters in New Taipei City, 56.3% don't want him to run for president (neither do 85% of the Green voters, naturally, since Chu is a formidable opponent).

New Taipei City is the biggest municipality in Taiwan, so if Chu gives up his mayoralty and runs for Prez, lots of voters are going to punish him.

If he doesn't run, and instead runs someone less popular, like Wang Jin-pyng, Hau Lung-bin, or (please please please) Wu Den-yi, the KMT will likely lose. If the party loses, it is traditional -- the Chairman must resign (as Chairman Ma Ying-jeou actually did after the crushing November defeat). Not resigning, especially if the KMT takes a beating in the legislature, may be difficult to pull off. Since Chu has handed off the day-to-day running of the KMT to Hau Lung-bin, the former Taipei mayor, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Hau will emerge as the frontrunner for the most powerful position in the KMT if Chu resigns. As Chair Hau can do grievous harm to Chu's chances in 2020 if Hau wants a shot at the presidency himself. Note that Hau is running the selection committee for KMT legislative candidates, meaning that many people picked will owe Hau a favor.

Surely Chu has considered this...

UPDATE: My man Ben observes to me:

If Chu doesn't run and KMT lose then Chu won't be to blame no? If Chu runs and loses then has to resign then Hau for 2020

A loss either way will likely result in a Chu resignation, IMHO. Others comments?
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Daily Links:

• LUNAR ECLIPSE TONIGHT
• Water prices in Taipei to rise after 21 years. Finally. TVBS polled consumers on water prices.
• LED lit indoor, pesticide-free farms come to Taiwan
• This blog has some old pics of Jingguashih Copper mine and discussion of its history in English (scroll down).
• NZ exports to Taiwan rise.
• Weirdness. Selling on Steam now: A Japanese anime game in which the characters wind up in the 2-28 massacre.
• Taiwan Air Blog on stats for US bombing of Formosa in WWII
• Drew on the Tour de Tai-yawn and Drug Cheats
• China pushing US toward more arms sales

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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!

Then and Now: Mt Banping

The image above, from the East Asia Image Collection, shows Banpingshan in what is now Kaohsiung (map link), in the Japanese era. Wiki says:

During the Qing Dynasty rule of Taiwan, the mountain was the site of the most important limestone quarry in Taiwan. After the quarry was closed in 1997, the mountain was turned into a nature park. Vegetation is used for its slope protection and the old cement plant's grit removal pond was transformed into Banping Lake Wetland Park in the neighboring Zuoying District.

I got to searching for some images and stories about the limestone quarry, and I found this thesis about fengshui and Banpingshan which was filled with pics. In the abstract the thesis says that "Because of the specific geology, the geomantic records describe Banping Mountain as a dangerous mountain implying ill omens." The two images above, according to the text, show the mountain as it appeared between 1895 and 1950. The angle is nearly the same as in the image at the top. The mountain was originally over 200 meters high, but extensive limestone quarrying over two centuries removed the top layer of the mountain, reducing its height to 200 meters by 1895 and then again to its current 180 meters. The graphic below is from that thesis, the topmost line is the original Qing height, the middle line is the Japanese era height, and the green line is the extant mountain.

In 1917 the Japanese built a concrete firm below the quarry, which eventually was transferred to the incoming KMT after the war. Three concrete firms eventually ended up there. The text of the thesis does not say, but this image above I think shows the concrete and limestone in the post-1950 period.

Another shot of the concrete company and the quarry, taken in 1961, according to the text.

Here is Banping Mountain today, from Wiki. This speech notes that in 2004 the Kaohsiung city government decided to whack away the southern tip of the mountain to put in a road. The Kaohsiung metro tunneled right through the center of it. Today it is a nature park and wetland district with walkways and good views over the city.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

KMTitanic 5: Struggling for the Northern Lifeboats Round Up Edition

Alley in Shiziwan, Kaohsiung.

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

So much going on. Time to catch up.

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

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

.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rounding up Taiwan and the AIIB

Selfie sticks. The end is nigh.

China's proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) created quite a stir in the world news, with Washington totally losing its grip, and Taiwan... jumping on board? Shannon Tiezzi summarizes at The Diplomat:

Perhaps the most surprising late application to the AIIB is Taiwan. The Taiwanese government had previously expressed interest in joining, with Finance Minister Chang Sheng-ford telling legislators that Taiwan was willing to join “upon invitation.” Its official application wasn’t sent in until the evening of March 30, South China Morning Post reported. Presidential spokesman Charles Chen I-hsin said in a statement that joining AIIB would “increase the odds of the island taking part in international affairs and international economic and trade organizations.”

Despite Taiwan’s interest, it’s not clear if Beijing will welcome its inclusion in AIIB. When asked about Taiwan’s application for membership, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said, “Concerning Taiwan’s application, problems like ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’ should be prevented from emerging.” Current requirements limit AIIB members to states, which would preclude Taiwan from joining under the “one China” policy. However, China could alter the requirement to define members as “economies,” using the same language that allows Taiwan to take part in APEC.

...

Taipei seems willing to apply to AIIB according to China’s “one China policy” restrictions. For example, Taiwan submitted its application via the mainland State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office rather than directly to the AIIB secretariat. As J. Michael Cole covered over on our Flashpoints blog, the Ma Ying-jeou administration’s decision to join AIIB under the “one China” framework has sparked protests on Taiwan, with detractors accusing the government of opaque decision-making on cross-strait affairs.

Cole's piece was good, don't miss it. The Ma government seems to have carefully staged this. Friends of mine who work in the Executive Yuan told me privately that while they had seen documents for the services pact for sometime beforehand, they saw nothing for the AIIB until the announcement this week, on the last day. By announcing the bid to join on the last day, the Ma Administration forestalled protests -- and any democratic review at this stage.

Earlier in March the government had stated that the whole proposal was vague and required review before Taiwan could join. Taiwan's former negotiator for trade agreements Francis Liang was in Washington earlier this week and two days before the Ma Administration's announcement he had said that it was premature to talk about such a thing -- then two days later the Ma Administration announced its bid to join. Ma convened an NSC meeting on monday night to discuss the issue, according to media reports.

Note that, as Liang noted in his comments, the structure of the organization does not even exist, it remains to be negotiated. This is merely a proposal. As a longtime Taiwan economist pointed out, China moved to develop the AIIB after the US rejected a proposal to give it greater input into the IMF. The IMF is widely reviled for its rapaciousness and brutality, and many countries would welcome an alternative. But, as the economist pointed out, an infrastructure bank is a challenge to the World Bank, not the IMF. Though I should point out that AIIB is only a name, there is nothing to stop the bank from assuming the IMF role, perhaps without the forced reductions in public welfare and services that have made the IMF so murderous and so despised. Or maybe even worse -- this is Beijing we're talking about, after all.

The Ma Administration immediately sold out. Premier Mao said in a Q+A session in the Legislature:

Taiwan would rather not take part in China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) if it is not treated with dignity and equality, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said yesterday.

I laffed when I saw this, because I knew what happens when the Ma government talks this way -- sure enough, the Taipei Times reported today that the letters to China/AIIB lacked any formal titles or ROC signifiers. The government also filed the application not government to government, but through the PRC's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), which generated a few complaints as well. No doubt the KMT and CCP will negotiate some derogatory title that will permit Taiwan to join.

Ricky Yeh over at the Diplomat observes its many problems. Not only does joining the AIIB subordinate Taiwan to China as part of China, it also means that Taiwan money is strengthening China's diplomatic clout and ability to claim Taiwan.

Over at Ketagalan Media, Albert Tseng wrote on the pros and cons, asking the key point: does Taiwan need to join to reap the benefits? Probably not. This is likely to be a way for China to scoop money from rich countries to fund China's own infrastructure firms which everyone will soon sour on. I'm looking forward to the headlines from 2020: AIIB members complain projects go only to Chinese firms. UK and other EU nations mulling pulling out of AIIB as China steers bulk of contracts to China-connected firms. Leaked internal documents suggest China has China-first policy for AIIB. African leaders descry racism, lack of local purchasing in AIIB projects. Activists claim AIIB projects have poor quality, high failure rates, demand independent audit. 

That last points to the likely outcome. The World Bank and IMF have been colossal failures at creating growth and sustainable development in the developing world. It's hard to imagine that the AIIB is going to be any different, with the added joy of that Made in China quality and China's caring environmental stewardship.

Hopefully Taiwan will put only small sum of money in, to limit the damage it does and the damage done to it.

It's too soon to see what the domestic fallout will be, but its unlikely to help the KMT, especially if the AIIB starts becoming an issue during the fall presidential campaign, and the KMT candidate has to defend joining the AIIB under some rubric that makes Taiwan part of China. In a debate with former trade negotiator and China policy wonk Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP...

That should be fun.
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Bashing in the Bashi?

Waiting for pole dancers who will never come.

Well well. On 30 March the Chinese air force conducted exercises in the Bashi Channel between Philippines and Taiwan.

On Monday, China’s air force held its first exercise in western Pacific Ocean airspace. As reported by the South China Morning Post, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) carried out drills in the air over the Bashi Channel, the body of water between Taiwan and the Philippines archipelago, considered the rim of the first island chain. The purpose of the exercise was to boost the PLAAF’s capability to carry out far-sea operations.

The thing is, the Bashi Channel is also the site of local expansionist claims, which occasionally appear in the local Taiwan media. In this case, there is a weird claim to the Batanes Islands in the Bashi Channel. For example, this Taipei Times piece from 2013:

In the 1898 peace treaty, the two parties [Spain and US] explicitly identified Cagayan Sulu Island, which is located at 6o north latitude, and the Sibutu Islands, at 4.83o north latitude, as part of the archipelagoes as a whole. They did not mention the Batan Islands, which are at 20.42o north latitude, and thus not a part of the Philippines as defined by the treaty.

Similarly, this one from Taipei Times in 2007:

He also says Japan and Taiwan never occupied or controlled the Batanes Islands, whereas the US did. This argument is based on military occupation and not on international treaties. If we must choose between occupation and treaties to base our borders on, treaties should win.

There isn't any public dispute between the two national governments, but I always wonder about things like this... the recent ten dash line map includes a chunk of the Bashi Channel, but not Batanes. Its obvious that it could, however.

The following day two US F-18 Hornets landed in Tainan...

Two American F-18 fighters have made a rare landing at an Air Force base in Taiwan after one of the planes encountered mechanical problems,Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense confirmed Wednesday.

One wonders if there is a connection between the Chinese exercise and the US fighters, and between the Chinese exercise and the (currently very fringe) idea that Batanes is part of Taiwan. Let's hope not, in the case of the latter. But it highlights the irresponsibility of fringers who write this stuff, which the Taipei Times should not have printed. I can't find any story on this earlier than the 2007 Taipei Times piece, so I wonder if that is the locus classicus of the whole thing.

But in Phils the Nine Dash Line is sometimes interpreted to at least potentially include the Batanes. For example. A Chinese writer notes the link here. And note the dash on China's recent ten dash line map, which includes Taiwan and a significant portion of the Bashi Channel.

As an acquaintance reminded, Tainan AFB has a storied history with the south: it was the launching pad for Japan's attacks on US bases in Philippines that opened its war with the US. Saburo Sakai, the legendary Japanese ace (see Martin Caidan's excellent biography of him Samurai! and also Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook's Japan at War: an Oral history) flew in those attacks.
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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!

FAPA emerging leaders workshop Jun 21-26

This got sent around:

Please help me to circulate FAPA Emerging Leaders Workshop announcement widely to all channels and groups you know in Taiwan. We like to recruit in young Taiwanese who are interested to learn more foreign relations, to join the workshop on June 21-26, 2015 in Washington, DC .

RSVP deadline is April 14. Only 30 spots. Take a action to share, register or do both now. Thank you!

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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!

Some links

My favorite work of art at the art museum in Kaohsiung: this beautiful Chinese-style painting of Kaohsiung.

Too tired to post today... enjoy a few links....

• Major problem for Taiwan: US commentators and policy shapers are doing business with China and firms interested in China. Henry K gets $5m for consulting for Rio Tinto. Then there he is asking the US to go slow in the South China Sea. Right Henry, like it's the US frantically building islands there. 
• Commonwealth with a comprehensive water shortage piece
• One in five in Taiwan has insomnia.
• Lunar eclipse visible next week in Taiwan
• WantWant says Taiwan wants Russian tech help for its 5th gen fighters
• WantWant: More Chinese pressure on the 1992 Consensus
• TVBS poll says 1/3 of Taiwanese under 40 want to work in China
• SPECIAL: Ben Goren on the Sunflowers and Taiwan's history of protests

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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!

Cihou Fort, Kaohsiung

Dogs get out of the sun at the fort's entrance.

Yesterday gave the legs a test with a day spent walking around Kaohsiung. Lovely weather and great company made it a perfect day.

One of our stops was Cihou Fort, the Qing Dynasty gun battery located outside Kaohsiung harbor (map link). The fort is easy to get to: just take the metro to Shiziwan, then walk to the ferry, take the ferry across the harbor (5 mins, $15 nt), then walk half a kilometer or so to the fort entrance. Entrance is free.

The walk up offers some good views over the city, including one of a hospital being torn down. Note where the power shovel is parked...

Wiki notes:

First fortifications were built in 1720 (during Kangxi's reign and Qing rule). After Japanese expedition in 1874 Chinese authorities constructed a modern fort, which in 1880 had new Armstrong's guns installed. It played no part in the Sino-French War; the fighting in Taiwan took place around Keelung and during blockade French ships did not approach the port.

Taiwan was ceded to Japan according to the Treaty of Shimonoseki in the aftermath of the first Sino-Japanese war. The local troops, however, fought on. On 12 October 1895, escadre commanded by admiral Arichi Shinanojo (cruisers Yoshino, Naniwa, Akitsushima, Yaeyama, Saien (ex Chinese Jiyuan, captured in Weihaiwei) and corvette Hiei) arrived at Kaohsiung and prompted the foreigners to evacuate, as they would conduct the attack on the next day. The foreigners boarded gunboat HMS Tweed and two tugs and withdrew (only to return once the fight was over). At 7 am, 13 October, Japanese ships "opened fire on the Takow [Kaohsiung] forts at a range of about 6,000 yards. For the first half hour, the forts responded, but after this their guns were silent...The forts fired twenty four rounds, the best shot being from the 8-inch B.L. Armstrong guns in Apes' Hill fort, which struck the water about 500 yards from the Naniwa Kan."The Japanese troops seized the forts in early afternoon, suffering no casualties (4 Chinese soldiers were killed).

The Chinese text says the fort's commander ran away when the Japanese appeared. The gun crews, incompetent though they were, bravely soldiered on, firing a few rounds. Wiki adds that the fort, designed by a British engineer, consists of three parts:

...fortified barracks, around rectangular square, with close-defence parapet on the roof. Of the two gates, one leads to the battery, the other used to be a main southern gate. It bore a Chinese inscription, which could be translated as "Mighty blow to the South" – the characters for "mighty blow" were shot away by a shell from Yoshino. The rest, still visible, serve as ironic remainder of history.

Much of the fort still remains, since it was still used in the KMT period. It was restored in the early 1990s by the Kaohsiung city government.

The gate.

A pan of the interior.

The barracks and other rooms, all locked.

The parapet where the four 7" guns were mounted.

Gun site.

Good views over the nearby sea.

Half the fort.

Rear gate.

Well worth a visit on a day trip out here, Cihou Fort remains an evocative historical site of Taiwan as a nexus of colonial interest from Imperial Japan, the Manchu Empire, and the European powers.
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Friday links....

Penghu.

Enjoy a few links:

• Lorand Laskai in The Diplomat on Taiwan's love for Japan. Good stuff. The rage of the 50 center brigade in the comments is hilarious.
• Natalie Tso at RTI interviews Mark Kao, President of FAPA, on US and Taiwan
• FocusTaiwan on the KMT's proposal for absentee ballots and lowering the voting age. If the Taiwan businessmen in China can vote absentee. the likely vote for the KMT will more than offset the gains to the DPP from the youth vote, which will likely be split among the non-KMT pro-Taiwan parties. At the local level, many young people will not know the candidates, especially for the local precinct and township positions -- they will take instruction from their parents. And the KMT is still strong at that level. Never mind that the actual mechanics of absentee voting remain to be worked out. 
• In ten days KMT automatically loses appeal in Wang Jin-pyng case.
• Ma says Taiwan should take part in AIIB, China's new development bank.
• HSR introduces new financing plan, some tix prices to drop.
• Taiwan Insider out

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Gordon Chang's Keynote Speech at World Taiwanese Congress

Nantou.

The attached keynote speech was delivered at the annual symposium of the World Taiwanese Congress in Taipei on March 14. Placed here with permission of Gordon Chang.

++++++++++

Text
Gordon G. Chang

In an ideal world, the 23 million people of Taiwan would determine their own fate.

In an ideal world, everyone would be free.

In an ideal world, no one would listen to Communist dictators.

But we do not live in an ideal world. In the world in which we do live, the dominant narrative is that this is “China’s century.” The Chinese believe it, and so does most everyone else.

And because just about everybody thinks we are living in a Chinese universe, they
follow Beijing’s line and shun Taiwan.

But this is going to change soon, for two reasons. China is falling, and Taiwan is rising...

click READ MORE

[UPDATED] Chu political theatre, Reuters

Ants are like the future, constantly in motion, and getting a clear pic of them with the aphids is hard. Very pleased with this one.

[I took the post down about Chu. Burned by a bad translation from KMT's own news organ. Many thanks to the commenter who pointed that out]

The KMT is whipping up some grand political theater apparently designed to make it possible for Chu to backtrack on his promises not to run for President. The KMT news organ reports:

The DPP’s (Democratic Progressive Party) standard bearer in the 2016 Presidential race has virtually been decided, but no one in the KMT (Kuomintang) has yet stepped forward to run for President. On March 25, Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) asked, “if no one in the KMT expresses a willingness to run in the Presidential Election, then how could I shirk the responsibility to do so?” KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has insisted on first formulating the nomination procedures in May. Hung denounced Chu’s decision as an act of “dragging himself [Eric Chu] and the KMT into quicksand!”

Dragging out the process increases the pressure and tension, which can be resolved by Eric Chu beating his breast in anguish, and reluctantly, oh so reluctantly, reaching out a hand to take the crown, forced by his supporters. Note that Chu has said the whole thing will have to wait til May, when all the backroom deals have been made and support garnered. And for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

The problem is New Taipei City. Turnout was low when Chu nearly lost it in the November election. If Chu goes for the presidency, there will be a by-election in New Taipei City. Chu forsaking the city after two years will further dispirit KMT voters while energizing voters who want to punish him. This poses the very real threat of the KMT exiting the 2016 elections with a DPP president and DPP mayors ensconced in every municipality. [UPDATE: This might be an error, in that the Vice Mayor will rise. But I thought there had to be a by-election... will check. Nope, not error apparently, see this 2010 piece on the 2012 election, last paragraph. Same situation holds now. I'll double check.]

Media notes
With the election coming up, Reuters is positioning itself well for this blog's needs. This piece on the Sunflowers in court was rife with international media tropes. I'll point out some from different paragraphs....

(Reuters) - Anti-China [why not pro-Taiwan or democracy since that's what they were] activists told a court in Taiwan that their weeks-long protest campaign last year saved the island from further economic colonization by Beijing, in defense statements given at the start of their trial on Wednesday.

The protests, dubbed the "Sunflower Movement", marked the largest display of anti-China [not anti-China but pro-Taiwan] sentiment seen in Taiwan for years and followed nearly a decade [not nearly a decade, just six years if you count Ma only, or over twenty if you start with LTH or 15 if you count Chen] of rapprochement between the two historical foes [the foes are the CCP and the KMT, not China and Taiwan].

Opponents launched the protest movement after accusing Ma of trying to ram through legislation for a far-reaching services-trade pact without public consultation in March of last year.[the services pact was indeed rammed through without public consultation. Why not just report that, since it is true?]

Before the pact could become law hundreds of protesters led by Chen and others forced their way into Taiwan's parliament and repelled police efforts to evict them.[before the pact could become law... ROFL. the committee head attempted to proclaim that the pact was law without a vote. That's what triggered the occupation. The report makes it sound that the students were interrupting due process. Just the opposite: they were trying to re-establish it.]

Opponents say it would have accelerated political reconciliation [political reconciliation... between who and what, about who and what? The CCP and the KMT have already reconciled and are allied, the problem is the Taiwanese.], a key goal of China's foreign policy [again as always in the Establishment media we are told what China wants, but not what Taiwan wants][note that what China wants is not reconciliation but annexation.] also. Last September, China's President Xi Jinping reiterated the "One Country, Two Systems" principle for bringing Taiwan back under Chinese rule [Taiwan has never been under Chinese rule, not once, not ever] [again, as always in the Establishment, we are told what China wants. This is the ideal moment to inform readers that Taiwanese emphatically reject 1C2S in poll after poll and reject a Chinese identity and consider themselves Taiwanese. What do we get? Silence.].

The emergence of the Sunflower Movement is regarded as a turning point in Taiwan politics, as new parties and grassroots voices have begun calling for more openness in negotiations with China.[well, some points for saying the Sunflower Movement is a turning point, but then once again the issue of local identity is completely neglected.].

The protests also accelerated a steep decline in popularity for Ma and his ruling Nationalist party, as evinced by the party's drubbing in recent local elections.[note that the piece does not explain why Ma's popularity has dropped. After reproducing all the pro-China tropes at the beginning, and implying that Ma's economic agreements are beneficial -- information on their effects is omitted -- Reuters could hardly explain that Ma's closeness to China is a huge problem, along with the failure of pacts to deliver benefits, and of course, the (unmentioned) Taiwanese identity. Hence, the silence -- no explanation of Ma's slumping popularity is given, as in so many pro-China tropes in the media, it happened without involvement of human agency.]

Thanks Reuters! With reporting like this, my blog will always be in demand from readers who want to know what's really going on.

UPDATE: Ben at Letters collates the Rules for Writing on Taiwan
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Daily Links:

• MUST READ: Solidarity's translation of the changes to the history curriculum
• SPECIAL: Frozen Garlic with two excellent posts on Kaohsiung local politics, one explaining why Chen Shui-bian's son dropped out of a legislative seat race, and one follow up.
• First Annual Mackay Gala Charity Ball
• This link lets you monitor Taiwan's reservoir levels.
• One of the Left's more bizarre obsessions: ignoring the massive influence of China in Washington, while complaining about Taiwan's tiny budget for lobbying: Taiwan Lobbyist writes Republican Party Resolution calling for more weapons for Taiwan. Taiwan spends $1.39 million. 
• Ko Wen-je's approval at 75%
• ICRT starts new show: Taiwan this Week, in April.
• China Youth Corps, the most KMT of KMT organizations, finds 90% of youth identify as Taiwanese.
• DPP proposals to make the referendum threshold more rational blocked 128 times in 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!