Alishan Riding

I took this weekend off and Drew and I rode down to the Alishan region for some monster climbing and photo ops in one of Taiwan's most beautiful areas. Very hard work, topped off with a long ride down 159甲 that was pure heaven. Drew's wonderful report on the ride is here.

On our ride down to Gukeng a few weeks ago Drew and I realized that we could easily make the Caoling tourist area from Taichung in a day. So to open this ride we reprised that one, starting in Taichung and running down 3 to 149. 149 is a pleasant ride up an easy grade. On the way we stopped at McDees in Mingjian for some coffee and fast food fuel.

For more pics of this wonderful area, see the photos from our previous visit.

Drew consults a map.

We stopped for an early lunch in the little village where we had turned off for 158甲 on our previous ride.

The main street, 149. We soon turned off onto 149乙 and immediately started climbing up a long series of switchbacks.

The views were lovely, of course.

149乙 winds around a bluff.

The views back towards the north were stunning.

Across the gorge we could see the road we had ridden several months ago out of Meishan, 149甲.

149乙 eventually came round and above a stupendous gorge. We rode across the exposed face at the end of the gorge as the road climbed steadily upward.

Excellent views at the top.

Drew turns on his light. We had pushed hard over what I thought were 6-8% grades. Drew laughed when I told him that -- his Garman indicated there was quite a bit of 11% grade. I was pretty worn out and was glad to reach the tunnel at the top and go over to Caoling.

We crossed over into the lovely peaks around Caoling about 1:30, which in retrospect was too early. Should have rested more on this day's climb.

Then it was downhill and to the Caoling Spa for the evening. $1200 a night. I don't recommend this for cyclists. You're better off finding a place closer to town where there is a better selection of food. Also, the tour buses come in and the tourists KTV until about ten, singing songs at the top of their lungs neither gently nor on key.

Moon over Caoling.

Day 2 opened gloriously with lovely skies and never wavered. We had great conditions throughout the ride. We had breakfast at the Caoling Spa's restaurant, which is in the courtyard of what must be the owner's home.

Had a few shots with some really funky sun effects.

In case anyone wanted to sleep in, some dorks were hard at work setting off fireworks at 6:30 am on a Sunday. These reverberated through the mountain gorges, because everyone knows that Taiwan peaks are stable and never have landslides.

The nearby town area was dead on a Sunday morning, but a few shops were open. There is no breakfast place in that town or in the area, and once you sail down the hill and beginning climbing 169, there are no restaurants until you reach Fencihu, 1500 meters up and ~25 kms away.

As always, the mountain views were outstanding.

Caoling overlooking what had been a reservoir.

Setting up for the required Bike With Sign And Rider shot.

The slopes are overrun with betel nut trees.

Rock formations.

Gravel operations went on unabated. At the lower altitudes trucks were a constant annoyance.

We climbed up 148甲 to 169. Unfortunately I was still pretty tired from the day before, had pushed too hard, and hadn't slept well. The grades were much worse 10-13%, and after we reached 169, I conked out. I walked a large section of the route, about 6-7 kms to 1400 meters, where the road leveled off and I could ride again.

Stirring views, but also terrifying ones.

Slopes of betel and tea agriculture.

A lovely hint of the tremendous views to come.

A land contoured in tea.

Trucks and road construction: a hazard.

The higher we rose, the better the views of the awesome massif that faces Alishan. I believe it is called Siang Shan.

Tea against the mountains.

A clear day. We had dressed for cold, but ended up stripping down as the sun was warm.

Slopes full of tea.

Clouds rolling in from the southeast, but they couldn't catch us.

A frustrating collection of buildings, where nothing was sold but tea and betel nut.

At 1750 meters we summited and crossed the border into Jhuci township. We rolled downhill to the tourist madhouse of Fencihu, where there is a train station to Alishan.

We stopped for coffee, which was superb, and totally recharged us for the kilometers still in front of us.

It was actually reassuring to me to be back among the tourist hordes.

As we sipped the coffee, the aroma of fatty pork tortured me.

From Fenchihu we rolled down to the intersection of 169 and 18 at Shijhuo.

Fencihu against the peaks. The area on this side of the ridgeline was much hazier.

In Shijhuo, another tourist madhouse, we picked up 159甲 and took that directly back to Chiayi city to avoid the life-threatening traffic madness on 18.

It is hard to adequately describe 159甲. It is not a beautiful road. No, it is more like a meditation on beauty in the form of a road. It plunges downward through the intimate rippling light of cedar groves and bamboo forest, clambers upward through betel nut farms, then rushes down along stunning gorges filled with farms surrounded by towering peaks. A completely amazing ride.

It was hazy, and we didn't stop much because the ride was so beautiful. Just wanted to enjoy it.

The towering peaks of the Alishan region make a stirring backdrop for a gorgeous ride.

There was only one climb, just before Dahu, of roughly 150 meters. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful rides Taiwan has to offer. Riding up it will be lovely, but there's no place to get food. I suggest you pick it up in Shijhuo and go downhill from there.

Then it was back to Chiayi, covered with late afternoon haze....

...and the train back to Taichung. Drew will have a few sharp words to say about the idiocy of designating the rush hour local train as the sole bike train of the evening on a Sunday. I will simply say that it was great to be home after awesome mountain riding in the glorious Alishan area. Map of the route.
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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.

Something to think About: DPP China Policy

I'm offline for the next couple of days, but I wanted to leave something up here for discussion. As many of you are aware, the DPP is setting up a new think tank within the party to produce policy, send out authoritative DPP statements, and house DPP politicians when the party is out of power. The think tank will have two sides, domestic policy and China policy.

Imagine you are appointed head of the China policy section. What policies toward China do you think the DPP should adopt? How should it define and present its China policy? Recall that the DPP must not only please its local constituencies and all Taiwanese, but also the US with its diverse Wall Street and security interests, Japan, and perhaps other nations as well in crafting these policies. Think about it. I'll put the comments up on Sunday night when I am back on line.
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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.

Beijing's Alternative Nobel Flops

NextMedia's hilarious animation of China's Faux Nobel.

Great job with the chicken! Enjoy NextMedia's animation of China's faux Nobel as, in a light moment, China's Nobel prize flopped this week as winner Lien Chan didn't show up to collect the prize and the awesome $15,000 US sweetener. NYT reported on the Chinese attitude:

Tan Changliu, chairman of the committee, made every attempt to steer the conversation away from that subject. In a page seemingly taken from the Harry Potter books, he tried to avoid referring to Mr. Liu by name, instead calling him the man “with the three-character name.”

Mr. Tan said the prize was meant to give “a Chinese perspective on peace.” When pressed on its relation to the Norwegian prize, he said that China had had a longer history with peace. He added, “Did the Nobel Peace Prize influence Confucius, or did Confucius influence the Nobel Peace Prize?”

The panel distributed a booklet that opened with a paragraph saying the 1.3-billion-strong nation of China “should have a greater voice on the issue of world peace” and that “Norway is only a small country with scarce land area and population.”

Chinese speakers have a habit of saying things like "your country is small so STFU" out loud.
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The 2004 Presidential Election TVBS Exit Poll

I was arguing about the recent assassination attempt just prior to the municipal elections this year on Forumosa.com, when I stumbled across this statistical paper on the exit poll conducted by TVBS after the 2004 election in which Chen Shui-bian was shot by a disgruntled KMT supporter the day before the election. This exit poll was the first ever for an election in Taiwan. ADDED: One of the authors is a TVBS poll center employee.

According to this paper, the poll was conducted from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm on the day of the election. More than 13,000 individuals were interviewed by trained poll-takers using a paper and pencil questionnaire. The paper describes:

The poll center of TVBS collected the exit poll data and sent them to Mitofsky International by Internet at 3:38. Mitofsky International processed the data analysis and sent the result back to TVBS at 3:55, which predicted the support rates of President Chen Shui-bian (Democratic Progressive Party, DPP) and his opposition Kuomintang (KMT) challenger Lien Chan were 47% vs.53%. Since precincts in some regions, such as Taizhong, Kaohsiung, were not closed until 5:00pm, TVBS decided to delay the projection. Until 5:12pm, they projected that the supporting rates of two candidates were 47% v.s.53%. However, since the margin of difference was less than 8%, according to the principle of the projection of exit polls, they did not declare who was the winner.

Then TVBS sent the quick counts (real voting results) of those precincts which were sampled in the exit polls to Mitofsky International, until 5:20pm the real results of 80 precincts had been sent to U.S. At 5:36pm, based on these 80 precincts’ real counts, Mitofsky International revised the prediction as 50% vs. 50%. At 6:01 pm, they received the data from real counts of all 150 precincts sampled and confirmed the revised support rates (50% vs. 50%).

Note that a couple of hours before the poll counting had finished, based on returns from 80 and then 150 precincts, Mitofsky International already called the election at 50%-50% though the TVBS poll had Lien-Soong ahead 53-47. The paper notes that revisions to exit polls are common for large geographical areas. In sum, what this paper shows is that contrary to some of the propaganda floating around, the TVBS exit poll, once revised with a few early returns, showed the KMT and the DPP in a statistical dead heat.

What were the problems with this poll? They are a legion. The sampling error was rather larger than in American surveys. Non-sampling errors are more important; they show a statistically detectable bias in the poll against the DPP, which accounts for its skew toward the KMT. This is probably not the result of TVBS' innate bias against the DPP but is the result of several issues outlined in the paper. For example, there is the problem of incentives for participation in the poll. Read closely:

In 2004 Taiwan presidential election exit poll, they boldly employed incentives with intent to increase the response rate. They used magnets with logo of TVBS, the sponsor of the survey, as incentives (worth about $3 each). From the aspect of advertisement of the company, it was a good way to enhance the company’s image. TVBS has a relatively neutral image among media in Taiwan, which helps it get trust from the voters.

Not only were they handing out TVBS paraphenalia, but the poll-takers at the individual precincts were all wearing caps with "TVBS" emblazoned on them. Imagine how a DPP voter might react to being accosted by representatives of a rabidly pro-KMT TV news station for polling information. (ADDED: TVBS did not become openly pro-KMT until after this time). Further, the Chen Administration had sent down word that its voters were not to participate in the poll.

In addition to these obvious dampeners to participation by DPP voters, the exit pollsters were forced to stand 30 meters from the polling places. It is known that in exit polls error increases significantly when distance exceeds 25 feet/8 meters. The paper does not define "polling place" but given that polls are conducted in schools and community centers where the voting booths are deep inside the building, it is likely that in practice distances were even greater than the 30 meters suggested here. For example, I stopped by the polling station in my neighborhood during the election, and non-voters were being kept outside the school, roughly 50 meters from where voting was taking place.

That last issue may explain why there are no exit polls for Taiwan elections, because under the current rules that govern access to polling stations on election days, pollsters cannot get close enough to make them reliable.

UPDATE: Mitofsky himself noted in a piece on exit polls that the student poll-takers were not well-trained:

Regrettably, bad sampling and no estimation are the rule and not the exception in emerging nations. It seems to be common practice to tabulate the results in SPSS with little or no weighting. There are other types of missteps, too. Interviewer selection and training in recent exit polls in Venezuela and Taiwan led to biased results. Recent partisan exit polls in Azerbaijan and Mexico led to deliberately distorted results.

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Daily Links:

• Exports rocket up over 20%
• Taiwan doctor serving with MSF in Yemen pens book on experiences -- if you are trying to get your students to think about international volunteering, this might be a book to start with.
• Being persuasive across cultural divides.
• Having children may be beneficial to one's mental health. Clearly these researchers are childless.
• 100,000+ hectare wildlife conservation area to be established in Nantou.
  

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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.

China creates new Serve China prize

A committee in China has invented a faux Nobel peace prize, the Confucius Peace Prize, which is being given this year for the first time, to none other than longtime authoritarian and KMT heavyweight Lien Chan, whose son was shot by mistake the other day. AFP reports:

Named after the famed philosopher, the new prize was created to "interpret the viewpoints of peace of (the) Chinese (people)," the awards committee said in a statement it released to the AP on Tuesday.

Awards committee chairman Tan Changliu said his group was not an official government body, but acknowledged that it worked closely with the Ministry of Culture. He declined to give specifics about the committee, when it was created and how the five judges were chosen, saying it would be disclosed later.

The first honoree is Lien Chan, Taiwan's former vice president and the honorary chairman of its Nationalist Party, for having "built a bridge of peace between the mainland and Taiwan." A staffer in his Taipei office said she could not comment Tuesday because she knew nothing about the prize.

.....

Tan, who leads the awards committee, acknowledged that the new prize, which comes with a purse of 100,000 yuan ($15,000), doesn't have international recognition: "It needs to grow gradually, and we hope people will believe the award is of global significance."

This victim mentality prize? Note how the prize is envisioned -- for fulfilling the Chinese definition of peace, opposing "China" to the international standard. Scary/hilarious. The first choice, of Lien Chan, is sublimely parodic, the perfect culmination to a profoundly silly idea. The stinginess of the award, a mere $15,000, is the cherry on top of this dessert. How different this idea is from the USSR's Nobel parody, the Lenin (originally Stalin) Peace Prize, "awarded by a panel appointed by the Soviet government, to notable individuals whom the panel indicated had 'strengthened peace among peoples'" (Wiki). The prize went to Communists and sympathizers, but even so, the USSR felt that a pretense of universality was necessary.
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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.

As originally reported: Sean Lien shooting incident an accident

The KMT news org offers a brief report in Anglais, complete with the Twinkie Defense. It goes without saying that if you listened to the first hour of news, before everyone got their stories into agreement, you already knew this:

Banciao District Prosecutors Office’s investigation into the Sean Lien Shooting Incident is on-going. After administering two lie-detector tests to the gunman Lin Cheng-wei and questioning relevant witnesses, the prosecutors concluded that Lin was telling the truth when he stated that he had shot Sean Lian because of mistaken identity and that his intended target had been Chen Hung-yuan, the KMT Xinbei City Council candidate for whom Sean Lien had been stumping.

The prosecutors said that with the exception of when he replied to questions about how he acquired the handgun, the lie-detector readings had been normal, indicating that he was answering the prosecutors’ questions honestly, including his claims that he had been motivated by financial disputes with the Chen Hung-yuan family.

Asked why Lin had pulled off an execution-style hit, the prosecutors revealed that some people were inherently prone to large mood swings and at the time of the shooting, Lin must have been out of control.

Of course, this won't end the tiresome conspiracy theory speculation. It won't stop the local and international media from creating drama where there isn't any. And it still won't get the public up in arms about gangsters in politics. Or get gangsterism mentioned in the big international press.

*sigh*

Love the "mood swings." It permits the eye to be turned away from what's going on. "Look man, it's just too many Twinkies. Move along folks, no gangland conflicts to see here."
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Daily Links:

• China clones, sells advanced Russian fighters
• How do ya say 10 gazillion in Chinese?
• Taiwan's troubling lack of cycling advocacy.
• Cross-Strait investment pact negotiations on hold.
  

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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, Dec 6, 2010

My daughter with our new dog.

BLOGS:

• Here in Taiwan on Chen Chu
• Jim on Hsueh Shan
• The Temple of Baron Su from the Danshui history blog
• Way Cool: the factory that makes the garments of the gods
• Landslides can happen anywhere
• The Daily Bubble Tea has multiplied!
  

ELECTION & ANALYSIS

• China Brief: Michael Hsiao
• A new generation steps forward in the elections: David
  
• Jens Kastner in Asia Times
• Charles Morrison in WSJ pukes up a load in an otherwise pedestrian piece on the election. The DPP doesn't have an "image" as a radical, violent party, except in the minds of people controlled by KMT propaganda. That comment should be removed and apologized for. And speaking of violence, how many people has the KMT killed over the years?
  
• UDN reads the tea leaves on the election, noting the KMT's eroding long-term base.
• Frozen Garlic on the election results
• DPP's next steps are crucial
• China Times: KMT in crisis as a result of the election.
• Sean Lien now admits he doesn't know what gunman said. Now that the election is over. Who could have imagined that?
• Cast your vote against violence, said the KMT
  

MEDIA:

• Another in the string of bizarre articles that more or less assert that it was ok for North Korea to shell civilians because South Korea shelled water.
• More people now defined as low income.
• Taiwan in the World Bank Doing Business rankings.
• Ming Chuan becomes Asia's first US-accredited university
• MSF doctor writes about experiences in Yemen.
• One reason Taiwan is so great: the gov't has a commercial to tell employers not to force muslim workers to eat pork.
• Record number of couples registered marriages on Lucky Nines Day. Good they got married on a lucky day, because the divorce rate of people who marry on lucky days is so different from those who get married on normal days.
• Out of Touch Official of the Week blasted for saying students with part time jobs are stupid.
• Taiwan dollar continues to rise.
• Coral reefs still in danger.
  
• Cheap coal fueling China's rise, global problems
• Way cool: the U of Tex map collection, with a page containing US military maps of Formosa cities of 1944-45
  

EVENTS:

• SOAS in Taichung Dec 11-12
• Petition against the dominance of SSCI papers in faculty evaluations 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.

Government to attack housing bubble?

One of America's least attractive exports is its bizarro-world Christianity. Here it says the end is near, plagues will increase in coming years, you can only rely on prayer, and you should get to a church quickly.

The property bubble, slowing spreading around the island, is compelling the government to contemplate strong measures to bring it under control. To curb speculation, which some say accounts for half of all transactions, one of these is a new property tax on real estate.

Taiwan’s central bank on Sept. 30 increased its benchmark interest rate by 0.125 percentage point for the second time this year after a jump in home prices fueled concern the island’s economic recovery may stoke a property bubble. Prices in the capital rose 7 percent from December 2009 to the end of September, said Stanley Su, an analyst at Sinyi Realty Co., Taiwan’s biggest real-estate brokerage.

The government is studying the tax “and we hope this would discourage speculation,” Lee told reporters in Taipei today.

The tax on property sales could be as high as 30 percent, the Taipei-based Economic Daily News reported, citing an unidentified official at the Ministry of Finance. Lee said the ministry hasn’t decided on the tax rate.

The government is also considering revising the land valuations more frequently to keep up with the exploding market:

Taiwan also plans to revise its so-called published property values every year starting as early as the second half of 2011, said Wang, who works at the Interior Ministry’s land department. The benchmark for annual real estate taxes is now revised every three years.

According to an RDEC-run online survey, rising costs for housing are the number one complaint of locals. Similarly, Taiwan Panorama reported a few months ago:

According to a survey of residential housing demand trends published by the Ministry of the Interior's Construction and Planning Agency, the price-to-income ratio in Taiwan's five largest metropolitan areas over the past few years has typically ranged from 6.0 to 7.0. For the last half of 2009 the figure stood at 7.08. But in Taipei City and County the ratio rose substantially-to 9.06 in the last half of 2009. It is estimated that residents of the silk-stocking Da'an District would have to put up 14.6 years of income to buy a home there.

The following graph clearly shows that the price-to-income ratio in Taipei City began to rise rapidly in 2006-2007, and it now stands as high as it has since the housing bubble that peaked in 1990.

1990 levels! Remember after that bubble popped housing prices in the major cities spent the next decade collapsing. Ugh.

It will be interesting to see what happens, given that powerful construction and land development interests are intimate with the government. Will the government have the courage to push prices down?
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Daily Links

• An Indian view of China and Taiwan.
• Beef noodle festival started last week. Working toward that glorious day when every food has its own festival.
  
• Don't forget to vote for the Taiwan blog of your choice!
• Five local firms are bidding for AIG's Taiwan unit, responsible for insuring about 1/4 of Taiwanese.
• Military trim: 1 in 4 generals to be retired
• Ma fumbles his message
• Frozen Garlic looks at the city council results
  

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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.

"Swim across the Pacific Ocean"

Here are the directions I got today in Google Maps when I typed TAIWAN and CHINA in the GET DIRECTIONS function. My Mark I eyeball says it gives directions from geographical center to geographical center.

UPDATE: Try your own combinations! For Ireland/UK, it instructs you to take a ferry, while from France to the UK, go straight at the Chunnel. For Norway to UK, drive to Denmark and "turn left". Hilarious.
UPDATE II: For Japan it is the priceless "Jet ski across the Pacific!!!"

UPDATE III: US to Japan asks you to kayak it, and if you do Taiwan-Japan-US, you get all three! also produces kayaking for US cities and tokyo to Honolul. ROFL.
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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.

Brookings on the Costa Rica Decision to Switch Recognition to the PRC

Brookings generally hosts pretty good stuff on Taiwan, and this article on the decision of President Arias to flip to the PRC makes some interesting points. Among them:

Domestic political benefits. Why Costa Rica insisted on being part of that club for so long is a complicated story with some chapters that are less than pretty. To put it shortly: as in the case of other countries, Costa Rica’s relationship with Taiwan was fraught with conflicts of interest and outright corruption. The list of examples is long and it’s pointless to repeat it here. It includes the legendary “fact finding” trip to Taiwan that was routinely offered to politicians, journalists, trade union leaders, etc., in which they were given super-VIP treatment and lavished with, literally, thousands of dollars in gifts and shopping vouchers.[16] It was also the hundreds of thousands of dollars contributed by the Taiwanese government to the election campaigns of the main political parties in Costa Rica, something that was well known to political insiders in the country but that broke into the open in the wake of the 2002 election. Then, a journalistic investigation showed that, defying the electoral law that banned foreign contributions, President Abel Pacheco’s campaign had received at least $500,000 from two Taiwanese companies through a bank account in Panama.[17] Given the well established use by Taipei of slush funds to buy influence in the developing world, it was widely presumed that the Taiwanese government was behind the donations.[18] Most disturbing of all was the creation of a Taiwan-sponsored charity, the “Chinese-Costa Rican Association”, which for years made donations to top up the salaries of civil servants at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Costa Rica.[19]

The relationship with Taiwan had become a corrupting cancer at the heart of Costa Rica’s foreign policy, a tumor that had to be extirpated. President Arias’ decision to approach the PRC government and hit the reset button with China, was partly motivated by the hope that the relationship with the PRC would be a far more transparent and institutional affair than was the case with Taiwan.

These long-term gains in terms of political transparency were, of course, scant consolation for the many domestic actors that stood to lose out in the short run. The latter took the matter to the public opinion, presenting President Arias’ decision as a betrayal of human rights, and as the ultimate slap in the face of the generous Taiwanese government. That’s why negotiating a hefty assistance package from the PRC, one which included, amongst other things, the continuation of each and every project hitherto funded by Taiwan, was essential for President Arias to contain the public opinion fallout.

For Costa Rica, says author Kevin Casas-Zamora, the switch has been very positive. Casas-Zamora also notes that the Costa Rican experience of a positive result from the switch is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in Latin America despite the large sums flowing in from the PRC, because Costa Rica has a small high tech trade with China that no other Central American nation has. Taiwan also responded to the loss of Costa Rica by ramping up diplomacy in the area.

Another factor is that in the long term China's low wage manufacturing threatens industries across Central America even as commodity exporters make a bundle on relations with China. Textiles, the region's biggest industry, can be made even more cheaply in China. Hence outcomes for local businesses are mixed, meaning that the business communities in those nations is not always pulling for deeper engagement with China. A Jamestown Brief piece last year summarized:

Given the increasing weight of the Chinese economy in the global system overall, all of Taiwan’s allies in the Western Hemisphere are under continually building pressures to formalize their budding ties with Beijing. This makes the fact that there has been no additional movement in Central America toward recognizing Beijing all the more intriguing. At this juncture, the loss of even one more Central American ally would represent a damaging reversal for Taiwan that could further cripple Taiwan’s claim to sovereignty. The Costa Rica example demonstrates, however, that China’s regional strategy has shifted toward providing more succulent carrots (rather than punitive sticks), and there is little question that Taiwan is desperately trying to prevent additional defections. China appears to have bet that developing an intensive, multi-faceted relationship with Costa Rica may have a powerful demonstrative effect on other countries in the region—assuming that Costa Rica is viewed as reaping substantial benefits. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom may be too absorbed in his country’s contentious politics to risk a China diversion, but other governments in El Salvador and Honduras are certainly eyeing Beijing, even as they play host to President Ma of Taiwan. The spring election of Mauricio Funes of the left-wing FMLN as El Salvador’s new president has prompted an especially frantic wave of outreach from Taiwan, including an impromptu post-election visit by the Taiwanese foreign minister, in an effort to keep another Central American country from falling into China’s grasp. Since the election of Daniel Ortega in November 2006, Nicaraguan officials have been careful to assure Taipei that cooperation between the two countries will continue. China has attempted to put pressure on tiny Belize by working through the Caribbean Community, a regional organization of mainly English-speaking governments who have mostly eschewed Taiwan in favor of China. Recently elected Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli vowed to review his country’s relations with China and Taiwan during the election campaign, but his instincts as a successful businessman may pull him toward China.

Chinese leaders are eagerly interested in expanding their success with Costa Rica to other parts of Central America, but in the short term they are not going to force the issue. Rather, China correctly views Costa Rica’s 2007 conversion as a major victory that they have time to savor and deepen before conducting their outreach to other countries in the region with renewed intensity. China’s carefully calibrated patience toward Central America helps to explain why even President Ma’s upcoming visit to the region has not caused much of a stir in Beijing. When it comes to the battle for diplomatic recognition in Central America, China feels confident that time is on its side.

How much longer can Taiwan continue to keep a strong presence in Latin America?
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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.

Time for US to engage the DPP

CS Monitor has a balanced and thoughtful commentary on the election commentary, entirely free of the totally incorrect Ma validated by lower vote! that cluttered up the analysis in so many media publication. The CS Monitor says:

The party almost lost the city of Taichung in central Taiwan, a race that should have been a slam dunk. Most unsettling is the rising voter support for the anti-unification “greens” that caught many observers by surprise.

In islandwide tallies, the DPP won nearly 50 percent of the total vote, compared with less than 45 percent for the KMT, an advantage of more than 400,000 votes. This was a large erosion of support for President Ma and his party, which won the 2008 presidential race by more than 2.2 million votes. Turnout of 72 percent was unusually high for local elections, reinforcing the menacing math for the China-friendly KMT. The opposition also pulled even with the KMT in seats on local city councils across the island, showing strong support at the grassroots level that has traditionally been a heavy advantage for the ruling party.

One conclusion from all this is that Taiwan's two-party system is working better than many analysts had believed. It is now obvious, too, that Ma is vulnerable in 2012, when he is expected to stand for a second term and could initiate political talks with Beijing.

The key thing to take away from this is not the numbers which will certainly change in subsequent elections -- the municipal vote is not coterminous with the presidential vote -- but the rise of the DPP irrespective of whatever flexibility is in the numbers. And especially, the rise of DPP Chair Tsai Ing-wen who now appears to have a clear lead in the runup to the DPP 2012 presidential nomination. The CS Monitor observers:

DPP members give much of the credit to Tsai Ying-wen, a British-educated law professor, trade negotiator, and former vice-premier who took over party leadership in May 2008. With her makeover of the DPP's former image as a bastion of fundamentalists who stridently advocate Taiwan's independence of China, Ms. Tsai is a different kind of opposition leader.

This difference, the "New" DPP, is also a theme in Project 2049 head Randall Schriver's call for the US to open a channel to the DPP. The Taipei Times reported:

At a Heritage Foundation discussion on the elections, Schriver said: “The US government needs to pay some attention to the potential return to power of the DPP.”

He said he was not making a partisan statement, but rather that he was basing his recommendations on what happened the last time the DPP was in power.

Schriver said that many senior political leaders in the US did not understand the DPP, its motivations or its core interests.

“And that led to some difficulties,” he said.

If the DPP should come to power again, the US should be careful not to repeat the mistakes it made in the past, Schriver said.

The fact that this DPP is headed by the redoubtable Tsai Ing-wen, with a western education, excellent English skills, and a moderate image, will make it hard for the US to dismiss her and for Beijing to demonize her. Tsai and the DPP may also benefit if the US-China relationship continues to go south.

One thing that would help is for the media to stop putting the negative term "anti-" in front of descriptions of the DPP. The DPP is a pro-Taiwan party. Its positions on other issues flow from that, and that is how it should be described.

The Economist also turned in an excellent commentary on the election, though the person who titled it Taiwan’s voters are inching towards a kind of closer union with the mainland didn't read it very closely.....

The DPP has anyway reinvented itself. Two years ago it was at a low point: its former leader, Chen Shui-bian, had been sent to jail on charges of corruption. President in 2000-08, he was a firebrand for explicit independence. But under the leadership of Ms Tsai, a new generation of moderates has emerged and the DPP is working hard to attract professionals and youths. Ms Tsai has been hailed as a DPP candidate for the presidency, as has Su Tseng-chang, who served under Mr Chen.

Their party is now doing its best to show that it too can engage with Beijing. Ms Tsai announced plans for a think-tank to act as a point of contact between the DPP and China, provided their talks can be held without preconditions. Ms Tsai tells the Taiwanese public that her party presents a “trustworthy alternative” to Mr Ma’s hasty approach to China.

The thinktank mentioned above is actually dual; one part will focus on domestic issues, the other on China issues. Part of the problem is not merely formulating a China policy but also reining in the rowdy independence of DPPers who have the ugly habit of getting off message, as I've often complained on this blog, and creating a place from which authoritative policy statements on China can be made.

And for all the media organs that erroneously said this election represented support for Ma's pro-China policies, as a pro-Taiwan friend of mine remarked, "if this election signals support for Ma, fantastic! I hope Ma enjoys even greater support in the 2012 presidential election."
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DAILY LINKS:

• US has no position on the status of Taiwan and has intimate cooperation between the two militaries.
  
• Cable cars planned for Ta-ken Scenic Area in Taichung. Because every city must robotically do whatever Taipei does. No city can be different. Up next: the Mayor of Chiayi announces the construction of a set of metro lines centered around a 101 story building that incorporates a gondola ride to the top.
  
• Lee Guan Yew on China's rise and how the US should respond. Not gonna happen Dr. L, the US is too busy making sure Central Asia is properly pacified for Chinese expansion.
• China skepticism spreads in Korea.
• WaPo: China ad or article?
  

NOTHING TO DO WITH TAIWAN:

• I think I will laugh for days over this, the finest article ever published in a refereed journal. Pay close attention to reviewer's comments. NIH link to same: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles. Don't miss 2007 replication: Robert Didden, Jeff Sigafoos, Mark F. O’Reilly, Giulio E. Lancioni, & Peter Sturmey. (2007) A multisite cross-cultural replication of Upper’s (1974) unsuccessful self-treatment of writer’s block. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40, 773, Winter 2007
• DKOS with extensive article on NASA announcement of new kind of life. Awesome.
  

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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.

HKK mag says Lien Chan for PRC Veep

Hong Kong's Jingbao magazine ("北京拟邀连战任国家副主席") quotes an "authoritative source" that in 2013 China may offer KMT honorary Chair Lien Chan the position of Vice Chairman of the PRC. The magazine further speculated that this would not be possible given Taiwan politics unless Ma should be re-elected in 2012.

The mind reels.
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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.