The Political Economy of the Taiwan Special Administrative Region, 2008-2016

Old military works outside of the port of Keelung.

...excerpted with permission from Mai Che-en's The Political Economy of the Taiwan Special Administrative Region 2008-2016, published in June of 2017, Armonk: ME Sharpe.

....in the summer of 2008 controls on Chinese investment in Taiwan were lifted, and both Chinese capital and international capital flowed into Taiwan to drive up real estate prices in urban areas around the island, especially in the north. This writer recalls, nearly a decade ago now, speaking to an aide to a former US senator turned lobbyist, who remarked in anticipation of the triumph of Ma that came four days later: "We've been lining up clients for two years for a Ma victory."

The influx of international capital resulted in a real estate boom, and secondarily, a boom in services. Taiwan's underdeveloped leisure industry also received a jolt from Chinese tourists. Months prior to the 2008 election, foreign companies had been quietly revising Taiwan's infrastructure. While writing this book I had the pleasure of staying in the Far Eastern hotel complex right next to the Tainan Train station, whose renovations began in 2007, also in anticipation of Ma's victory. Nowadays Chinese tourists arrive regularly at the airport outside of Kaohsiung, and then are immediately whisked to the hotel where they go on tours of Tainan's historical sites. None of them know, of course, that the five star hotel they pay such extravagant prices for began life as an office building that had sat for years, unused....

...but it was obvious in hindsight what would happen. As Taiwan's industries offshored to China, with the last of the major semiconductor firms leaving in 2011, tourism and real estate boomed. Yet a growing uneasiness with the new, American style casino economy of rapidly rising income disparities, continuing income stagnation, and stagnant productivity could have led to the revival of a working class social justice movement. How was the threat of working class revolt averted?

The roots of the answer lie in the legislative election of 2008, the first of the many elections that have since given the KMT an unbreakable grip on the island's local electoral politics. That year a major electoral reform created winner-take-all districts, a move that many later came to see as a crucial setback for democracy. With its superiority in cash and unrivaled local networks, the KMT easily won a large majority, one that it has been able to preserve over time. While vote buying was a time-honored practice in Taiwan's elections, the 2008 Presidential election and subsequent legislative elections brought back the long unused practice of ballot box stuffing. Though few outside Taiwan realize it, the routine use of schools and other community centers as polling stations means that in practice the ballots are stored, counted, and processed by KMT supporters, since those institutions are heavily KMT controlled.

However, to win the 2008 elections, the KMT spent large sums of money. In order to recoup this expenditure, the KMT-controlled legislature then turned on the infrastructure faucets, creating flows of funds into their patronage networks which legislators then tapped. For eight years the KMT had starved the island's infrastructure spending in a bid to reduce incomes and discredit the DPP. This strategy was highly successful. The working class, which had suffered the most, experienced growth in household incomes as the flow of money out from the central government revived local construction and with it, local incomes. Essentially, the working class was bought off. KMT coffers were replenished as well. Out of the loop, the DPP, the TSU, and the Green Party remained impotent and impoverished, unable to gain any political traction.

The political effects of this were profound. KMT planners, adept at divide-and-rule strategies, also revived the party labor unions to divide the working class and prevent it from allying with the DPP. The DPP's own attempts to forge links with the working class suffered from its history of using the social justice movements to get in power, and then spurning them. With the KMT in sole control of government funding flows, local factions that had been allied to the DPP returned to the KMT, eliminating the DPP as a local political force throughout most of the island. Additionally, the flow of construction money, combined with the resurgent power of local clan and patron networks, kept workers in line. When those failed, there was always the threat of violence. The 2010 murders of four labor activists in Taoyuan by unidentified thugs still resonates among labor leaders seven years later.....

...the first three years of the Ma Administration saw excellent economic figures driven by increased public debt fueling massive public construction and asset inflation, especially in the north. This was accomplished over the strident objections of the Central Bank, resulting in the replacement of two central bank governors by an impatient President Ma. Completion of the Suhua Highway in the first Ma administration was followed immediately by commencement of work on the widely-derided tunnel through the central mountain range, by far the longest in the world, to connect Hualien on the east coast with Taichung on the west, planned to cut travel times to under an hour. The tunnel is under construction as of this writing. Except in certain service industries, however, productivity growth was non-existent, and the Administration took a hit when it closed many universities in the early 2010s due to falling enrollment and the funding pinch. Incomes remained stagnant, undercut by rising inflation driven by rapidly increasing land prices and expanding public expenditures. There was even suspicion in certain quarters that the economic numbers were becoming unreliable. Nevertheless, entrenched and well supported by local networks, the KMT won another resounding victory over the increasingly irrelevant and poorly-funded DPP in the legislative election of 2011. In 2012 Ma, riding the excellent economic growth of 2008-11, was easily able to achieve re-election against DPP Chairman Su Tseng-cheng. The DPP then broke up into its constituent factions. Five years later it remains a spent force...

....The real estate boom in the north and rising public construction lead inevitably to upward pressure on local wages, and thence, in turn to the importation of Chinese labor. The first Chinese laborers actually began arriving in the summer of 2010, as an "emergency measure" for "temporary labor" during peak construction periods. As Heinlein once noted, there is no such thing as a temporary emergency, and sure enough, two years later permanent flows of Chinese labor were legalized, leading, among other things, to diplomatic protests from the government of the Philippines, which was dependent on Filipinos in Taiwan for a large portion of its foreign exchange. Local businesses eagerly welcomed cheaper Chinese workers, arguing that it would enable retention of industry on the island, though by then the island's industries had largely left. Hardest hit by job losses, the aboriginal community remains strangely loyal to the KMT. Perhaps that is a legacy of....

...in the second Ma Administration was a foregone conclusion. With the onset of a genuine recession in 2012, and over 400,000 Chinese laborers in Taiwan, clashes between local workers and Chinese workers became commonplace, especially in the south, where Chinese laborers moved about only in groups even in the day. Protests from Beijing rose concomitantly. In June of 2015 President Ma was summoned to Beijing for talks, accompanied by an ailing Lien Chan, confined to a wheelchair, but still honorary chairman of the KMT. The now famous 17 Point Treaty was finalized, and....

UPDATE: Hai Tien had a great response below. I've put it up here.

... however, the shift by the KMT to a more Taiwan-centric position proved to be permanent. Senior cadres amongst the CPC were sorely disappointed to find that the growing Taiwanese identity continued unabated under President Ma, despite what was ostensibly portrayed initially in the international media as a pro-China government.

Despite increased cross-strait economic exchanges, the rising cost of manufacturing in the PRC, as well as increasing political instability spreading from the west of that country, ensured that future Taiwanese investment remained more or less at prior levels. In pursuit of ever cheaper labor, low level manufacturing continued moving into underdeveloped countries in Southeast Asia, and later - Africa.

... internal reforms undertaken by the DPP included large-scale decentralization, and the dismantling of the former KMT-inspired Stalinist party structure in favor of delegating increased power to local party offices - a move that would later be emulated by most political parties by 2012. Galvanized by their 2008 electoral loss, the DPP sought to convey a more professional image, a newfound emphasis on recruiting capable administrators and policy experts, as well as cosponsoring bipartisan legislation on various levels. The presence for the first time in Taiwan, of a responsible opposition party, continued the consolidation of liberal democracy in Taiwan. Coupled with the implication of several prominent KMT members in the Casino-gate scandal of late 2009, the DPP staged a major comeback in the 2010 local elections, winning Taichung City for the first time since 1997...

Yep. The future could go many ways. But crucial to a positive outcome is the revitalization of the DPP in the directions you've named. It's practically been a religious invocation on my blog that they need a professional chairman. And they need to stop mimicking the KMT as well.

More later today.

[Taiwan]

Election Rejection

Wow! That was certainly a blast with no uncertainty. Taiwan took a huge step backward yesterday, all the way back to before 2000. Lots of people have written over the years that Taiwanese are committed to their democracy and love it. That will now be put to the test. The KMT-dominated legislature has repeatedly attempted to hollow out institutions such as the Central Election Commission. That will now be possible. Will it be carried out, and will it be stopped? I'm betting that the answers to those questions are yes and no.

The canned stories are coming out in the international media. It's wearying to see the same crap -- the NYTimes again refered to Ma as a "Harvard-educated lawyer." Note that there were no reports of post-election violence, something only associated with the KMT. Nonetheless, we're certain to see those reports saying Taiwan elections are "marred by controversy"....

A couple of things. I was always maintaining optimism -- why not? no one else was! :) -- but it was two months ago, at the first rally in Taichung, that I first privately concluded we were going to lose (didn't foresee the magnitude of the blast, though! More on that later...). I went there, as I told some friends later, to get religion, and I most emphatically didn't. Intead of becoming more enthusiastic about the outcome, I became less. The presentation was lackluster and formulaic, relying on stuff that was old and the stroking of emotions and themes from previous campaigns. Every speech was in Taiwanese, except part of one (KMT rallies offer a mix). My kids sat there bored, addressed by people who couldn't be bothered to find a way to talk to the two Taiwan citizens I am raising. The DPP campaign, as I have noted, has been lackluster since day one -- the bounce I expected never came, I never felt the electricity -- the Ma team ran a better campaign, in almost every way -- more cash, better ads, better responses to issues as they arose, better talking points, and better handling of the media. And not too much Taiwanese. Very well done. Ma's victory shows that if Lien hadn't mailed in his campaign in 2004, or Ma or Soong had run instead, then Chen would have been a one-term president.

I bet, if anyone ever does the surveys (this being Taiwan no one ever will) that it was Ma who benefited from the Tibet issue the most. It gave him the opportunity to look and talk tough, when he needed to.

Many things were symptomatic. Went to a meeting of FAPA, the main pro-Taiwan group in the US, in Taipei on Thursday. It was painful to watch. Sometimes I contemplate taking out ROC citizenship, but the brave new world they advocate doesn't include me or my children -- and if a strong supporter like me gets that vibe, how then the young on the street who chatter in a delightfully liquid lingo that is predominately Mandarin, with leaven of Taiwanese and English? Every person at the FAPA meet was older than I, and they were speaking Taiwanese. Not one speaker or two, but Every. Single. One. As I listened to a bunch of speeches in a language I didn't understand -- every word reinforcing my overwhelming alienness, one of the photographers standing next to me turned to camera guy next to him and remarked, rhetorically: "Why are they speaking that language? I don't understand a word they are saying!" Not one of those people took the time to compose and deliver their speech in Mandarin, a language spoken by everyone in the room -- and, mind you, a language understood by the people they most urgently need to communicate with: the Chinese. Of course there was no English, the language of the international media. Brilliant to hold a press event in a language the press don't speak. Yes, Mandarin is the language of the hated colonialist KMT. Yes, Mandarin was imposed at gunpoint. But if you want people to listen to you, you have to speak their language. For all its gaping flaws and debased values, the KMT offers this multiethnic island a multiethnic vision. The DPP and its supporters still do not.

Another thing -- the atmosphere in Taipei is nightmarish. Never again will I spend an election there -- the conventional wisdom is totally out of touch with the reality of the electorate. In 2004 I stayed in Taichung and got a pretty good line on what would happen, but not this time. I used to describe what circulates in Taipei as a cloud cuckoo-land of KMT talking points, but even that isn't right -- I lack a good grip on the kind of language to characterize its vast and all-encompassing wrongness. As reporters were churning out articles saying that the election was going to be tight Ma win, as speakers everywhere were retreating to positions of nervous ambiguity, and people talking to both campaigns said it would be tight, voters were preparing to hand Ma a 17 point victory. On Friday the DPP was saying it was seeing a late surge for Frank Hsieh, which I didn't report because it so obviously reeked of lying spin. But some apparently did. Nobody I talked to in the capital even got a whiff of a 17 point Ma victory, though all thought he'd win. Certainly somebody knew, because there were massive capital inflows into Taiwan in the last week before the election as international capital prepared to hollow out Taiwan like a gourd invest in our fine nation in anticipation of a Ma victory. Ironically, the nearest polls were the nutcase polls in the pro-Ma papers, though a close examination will show they were nowhere near correct either.

Voter patterns! I'll have a full discussion on them later this week. One thing that really really really stands out here is the desperate need for thorough, credible, detailed survey work that is reliable through time. Tomorrow's analyses in Taipei are going to be largely groups of people talking without the numbers to back them up.

I'm burnt out and heartsick, and I am going to take a few days off from blogging. Enjoy yourselves.

11:00 News

Lots of news out there. Snapped these pics of a DPP commercial on Tibet and Taiwan as I rode the bus out to Keelung tonight. Clearly percieved as a major issue useful to the DPP. The Taiwan Documents collection has rounded up a several articles in major newspapers on the relationship between the Taiwan elections and Tibet (see list at upper right).

The DPP --

-- drove away many of the old line foreign activists
-- drove off or split with all of the social justice groups
-- inflicted a terrible bloodletting on itself in the primary
-- screw up its relations with the international media
-- is cash-poor
-- blew the legislative elections, lost the three-in-one elections
-- lacks a strong youth cadre development program
-- suffers from crippling ethnic essentialism
-- does not control the bureaucracy, the universities, the judiciary, the police, or the military
-- is opposed by its major ally, the United States
-- is opposed by the rising power of China

... and could still win this election.

Think about that.

Watch this relationship. Because the man behind Ma Ying-jeou is there shaking hands with the power that wants to eat Taiwan.

Enjoy yourselves. The good fight has been fought; whatever happens tomorrow, we did our best. Tomorrow I am going hiking and I won't be blogging (famous last words). So instead of something about Taiwan, I am leaving you with this hilariously unrelated website my close friend Karl flipped me: International Association of Time Travelers: Members' Forum Subforum: Europe - Twentieth Century - Second World War

[Taiwan]

5:00 update

Banged around Taipei visiting events. Came back to Yungho to find a miniature parade for Frank Hsieh marching around the residential areas there.

Of course, not everyone was focused on what they were supposed to be doing. Take AP, for example: they recommend that Taiwan's electorate, take two Xanax. Yes, Ma Ying-jeou, a calming figure:

Ma Ying-jeou isn't a charismatic figure. He calms rather than inspires. He's a soft spoken administrator who promises to govern by consultation.

Aren't you reassured? And strangely for foreign media, they assert Ma is not charismatic -- that's in case you were confused by all the other foreign media pieces that assured readers Ma is indeed charismatic (NPR, IHT, Economist, to name a tiny few). It's actually not that bad, and even spends a few paragraphs establishing that Ma is a wuss, but they blow their chance about halfway down:

Ma has another weapon in his armory _ a Mr.-Clean reputation.

After Chen's bare-knuckled and allegedly corrupt rule, 57-year-old Ma, who has a doctorate in law from Harvard, is presenting himself as an exemplar of integrity with a track record of fighting corruption even in his own party.

No mention of being indicted for stealing money nobody was disputing was actually in his private accounts, or that his defense was "everybody does it." Isn't it great that you can spend a career in opposition to democracy and still be Mr. Clean? Ah, well.

That ubiquitous symbol of speed, modernity, and successful government projects, the high speed rail, puts in an appearance.

Readers are probably aware that the US has put a couple of carriers into the area to deter....whatever. I was told that a US-based academic said that there could be more to the deployment than meets the eye. Hope not.

Jeeps are the vehicle of choice for politics.

Religion and politics, mixed again. On my list of top 5 things I never want to hear a newbie under-25 foreigner say, "Taiwanese don't care about religion" is right up there with "I'm here to teach critical thinking."

They say that when you are badly injured, your body floods with endorphins, your brain shorts out, and you simply accept what happens with a sort of existential joy.

That is what watching Taiwanese politics is like.

In addition to mysterious people from the tropics, there were clowns.

And fan dancers.

In Hell the man who invented megaphones is locked in the room with 1,000 of them, all blaring 1,000 different covers of Carpenter songs.

When I came home my father in law was growling at me that no one in Yungho was Green, but there were plenty of people out there proving him wrong.

Traffic came to a standstill.

Beneath an ad for the Other Team, the parade vanishes into the distance....

And the neverending traffic surges into the gap....

[Taiwan]

Two from the International Media

You keep reading 'em, I'll keep churning 'em out....

Jon Adams, the local correspondent who has been turning out some really high quality stuff recently, visited Kinmen this week to take a peek at the future of Taiwan-China relations....

Direct cross-strait travel is largely prohibited because of the decades-old standoff between Taiwan and China. But here in Kinmen, Chinese tourists visit freely and Taiwanese businessmen can ferry across the strait to the mainland.

The Kinmen model will be expanded to all of Taiwan if either of the two candidates in the Taiwan's presidential election Saturday has his way. Their only argument is over the speed and scale at which that should happen.

For behind all the boisterous rallies and China-bashing rhetoric across Taiwan in recent days, this election is not about the usual hot-button issue of unification with, or independence from, China – neither of which is in the cards anytime soon.

Rather, it's about how economically close Taiwan should be with its giant neighbor. Will it be an uneasy handshake or a passionate embrace?

Either way, the candidates' willingness to engage rather than confront Beijing signals a pause in Taiwan's independence push and the likely cooling of a long-simmering Asian flash point.

"No matter who wins, we'll move closer to China," says Lin Wen-cheng, a China expert at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung and a former adviser to two Taiwan presidents. "Cross-strait relations are going to improve."

Adams' work contains a significant improvement over that of other foreign media workers here: no quotes from taxi drivers. I'm not sure that people are "voting their pocketbooks" as Adams structures it -- people in Taiwan are not making a choice between an economic future and no economic future. Rather, they are making a choice about what kind of economic future they want, as well as rendering a verdict on Ma Ying-jeou -- far more so than Frank Hsieh.

++++++++

Ted Galen Carpenter has a piece on the Taiwan election in the Wall Street Journal. You may remember him around last year claiming that Taiwan was "free riding" on the US defense agreements. Some highlights of his current work:

Ma Ying-jeou's impending victory in Taiwan's presidential election Saturday promises to usher in a period of relative calm in the island's turbulent relations with mainland China. Mr. Ma's Kuomintang Party is determined to end the bold and provocative policies that President Chen Shui-bian has pursued toward Beijing over the past eight years. Beijing and Washington will both be relieved to have a government committed to preserving the status quo in the Taiwan Strait rather than pushing the envelope on a transition from de facto to de jure independence.

It's funny to read people in Washington claim that Chen was "pushing the envelope" when people in Taipei are claiming what he did was no real use. Carpenter's claim of Ma's impending victory is also an eyebrow raiser, but I doubt he reads my blog, and so is stuck with the Ma's Going to Cruise! propaganda of yesteryear. Still, an admirably succinct presentation of the Establishment view that Chen is a problem for the status quo. All honor to Carpenter for saying later that the missile build-up is provocative....

Beijing has an opportunity to maintain the momentum toward peace and stability, but it remains to be seen whether Chinese leaders will be wise enough to seize the moment. President Chen's strategy of antagonizing Beijing by such measures as substituting "Taiwan" for "China" in the names of state-run corporations, purging most Chinese history from Taiwanese school textbooks, and seeking admission to the United Nations under the name "Taiwan" understandably made sensible Taiwanese nervous, but Mr. Ma must show that his more subtle and conciliatory approach will reduce tensions and bring tangible benefits.

Ever notice how Libertarians writing on Taiwan sound just like Beijing writing on Taiwan, only more so? Carpenter neglects to note that Chen was just returning "Taiwan" to names that had been "Taiwan" historically -- like the shipbuilding corporation and the post office. Note the underlying accusation that Chen is irrational -- "sensible people" were made nervous by him. Mad Chen^(tm) lives! Nothing is ever said about Beijing's irrational behavior -- antagonizing Taiwan with threats, refusing to speak to the DPP, and so on. It's ironic to look at the language Carpenter uses, and then mentally frame a picture of Chinese troops killing Tibetans. Who are the irrational people in this equation? Chen doesn't make me nervous. Americans serving Beijing and saying that democracy supporters are irrational -- those make me manic, however.

After arguing that Beijing should not give the DPP ammo to use against Ma by continuing the missile buildup, Carpenter then notes:

...Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) has now dwindled to 23 mostly small nations in Africa and the Caribbean. There was some logic to Beijing's strategy when President Chen repeatedly adopted measures to assert Taiwan's sovereignty and separate national identity. Chinese officials wanted to demonstrate to Taipei that such conduct was counterproductive and would only increase Taiwan's diplomatic isolation. The same consideration motivated China's effort to exclude Taiwan from membership in international bodies, including even relatively apolitical ones like the World Health Organization.

Beijing was not responding to Chen, but strategically moving into Africa and Central America to capitalize on opportunities in countries that have FTAs with the US, and to dislodge the US from its position in those areas. It is wrong to perceive the Chinese moves in the China-Taiwan context -- that is just cover.

This is, of course, just another way of blaming Chen for perceived foreign policy failures. It is funny that people complain about the DPP's loss of diplomatic recognition, when the reality is that the KMT lost far more nations than the DPP has, and that the Chinese could easily buy the remainder if they wanted, for I have heard what Taiwan pays. But they won't, because one of the props of that virtual state, the ROC, is recognition by other nations. Without that, Taiwan would become.... alone or, to use another word: independent...

Carpenter correctly notes that nobody in Taiwan supports annexing the island to China, and thus argues that Beijing should not pressure the KMT to annex the island to China -- not because that would be a bad thing mind you, but because it would undermine the Great Mr. Ma. He concludes that the ball is in China's court -- it should stop bullying Taiwan -- not because bullying is wrong, but because that would be bad for relations with a Ma Ying-jeou-run Taiwan. Even when the Establishment advocates something sensible, it is for the wrong reasons.... *sigh* It does appear from this piece, however, that it is widely understood that a Ma presidency does not mean that the Taiwanese have given up on independence.

[Taiwan]

2:00 Commentary

Friend calls me today: there's a concert for Tibet at 9:00. Am I going? Certainly, I explained. I'm going to need a new lost cause after this election....

....no, seriously, after months of hearing how Ma was going to blow away Hsieh (and hearing people laugh in my face when I mentioned the possibility of a Hsieh win), everyone is now nervously moving into the "too close to call" position. I'd be laughing my ass off, but being up here in Taipei has me completely strung out on coffee and chocolate muffins. I've been carefully testing them at every Starbucks to make sure they are of the same high standard everywhere, but I still am a few short of the thirty needed to satisfy Central Limit Theorem....

1:30 ...my wife calls to complain about Ma's ridiculous claims that the Greens are going to have him blown up with a suicide bomber...."Hope nobody does anything!" she says crossly. One of the Blue neighbors came around to our house to complain that she had to go too far to vote, a thought my wife worked assiduously to encourage, she said. My wife is a Tibetan Buddhist, and said that at the Thursday night meeting last night, her Lama gave a talk on events in Tibet and the sad history of Chinese colonialism there. It obviously had an effect. All over Taiwan, this week, dozens of gurus are giving similar talks.....

[Taiwan]

Pre-mortem: How the International Media have Failed Taiwan

A 3-D presentation at the 2-28 Museum shows the spread of the revolt across Taiwan in early March of 1947.

First, moment of humor, courtesy of my friend Sponge Bear. For some reason raving China apologist Gregory Clark still gets space in the Japan Times, and he has another one of his excuses for murdered Tibetans today:

"As for Tibetan independence, people forget that the strongest opponent was the Western-backed Nationalist Chinese government that ended up in Taiwan. Beijing simply inherited that Western-approved situation."

Yes, it is Taiwan's fault China is murdering Tibetans...speaking of Tibet, there's a petition on AVAAZ that has been passed around the pro-Taiwan community...

...Keith Bradsher had another sturdily sound article in the NYTimes about Taiwan and Tibet, which I understand made the front page, even. Bradsher opens by pointing out that the race has tightened:

China’s suppression of protests in Tibet and missteps by the opposition Nationalist Party have made the Taiwanese presidential election on Saturday an unexpectedly close race. What once seemed to be an insuperable lead for the Nationalist candidate, Ma Ying-jeou, has narrowed considerably, politicians and political analysts said.

A narrow victory for Mr. Ma would give him a weaker mandate for his goal of closer economic relations with mainland China. An actual defeat for Mr. Ma, now a possibility although not yet the most likely outcome, would be a serious setback for Beijing officials, who have cultivated relations with the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, over the past four years.

It must be a jolt for anyone who has read the "Ma will cruise" propaganda that has oozed like black ichor out of the KMT papers and into the international media. Still, at this late date, everyone one both sides is saying the same thing -- Ma in a tight one.

Only one sour note in Bradsher's piece:

President Chen won re-election then partly because of the sympathy he received when he was lightly wounded in a shooting while campaigning on the eve of voting.

As I've pointed out countless times, no credible evidence supports this position -- Chen had already drawn even in the polls by this time. Yet here it is, like gospel, solemnly intoned. What is it about nonsense that gives it such a long half-life?

Speaking of nonsense, a longtime local expat here flipped me his letter to the Canadian writer of the piece I blogged on earlier this week:

As a Canadian who has made his home in Taiwan for the better part of two decades, I must say I was appalled at the lack of knowledge and understanding your article "Scores of Taiwanese-Canadians travel for vote" displayed. Have you ANY idea about what you're writing, or do you make it up as you go along?

1. You said "Under current law, all Taiwanese citizens must travel to their registered precincts to vote." That is not true. Voting is not mandatory.
2. You said "The island state is officially administered under the Republic of China but is in practice autonomously governed." Your sentence should read "The Republic of China, better known as Taiwan, is an island state that is autonomously/independently self-governed.
3. You said "The issue continually at the forefront of domestic debates is whether it should formally declare its independence." That is not true. Declaring formal independence has not been brought up in this year's debates. Where did you get this information?
4. You parenthetically added to James Chou's quote: "About half of the people support the (People's Republic of China) and the other half has very strong grassroots emotions about the land of their ancestors." Where did you get the impression that ANYONE in Taiwan supported the PRC? Your parenthetical insert should have been the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China. There's a big difference and while it's understandable for a layperson to be confused, it's unforgivable for a professional journalist to not know the difference.

Please, do your readers the courtesy of due diligence before writing about countries of which you have scant knowledge.

I blogged on that bit about supporting China below, but ignored the rest of that surpassingly stupid article. Good catch, man.

Ma dominates the foreign media. In addition to this short piece this week from Cox News that gives Ma good publicity and blames Chen for cross-strait tension, there was a long, in-depth piece in Time this week that attracted much attention and a large number of emails to my mailbox.

I cannot give details, but the pro-Ma slant of the Time piece was inevitable given the massive DPP fuckup with the Time reporter, who wanted to do a similar piece on Hsieh. It was pure banana republic. In several years of watching the DPP's mishandling of the foreign media, that one really stood out. So don't blame Time, except for the usual nonsense I'll touch on below. Onward to the piece....

First, there are the usual errors: speaking of the half-life of nonsense...

Ma believes the time for change has come. Squished into his train seat, the Harvard-educated lawyer outlined to TIME a detailed program that he hopes will broaden Taiwan's relations with China and eventually lead to real peace.

When will the light dawn? Ma never passed the bar, and never practiced law. He's not a lawyer. Darwin was soooooo right: bad facts never die.

The Time piece also quotes Philip Yang, whom readers will know from long experience is pro-KMT, and is, according to a recent NYTimes piece, acting as advisor to the Ma campaign:

"We tried to help our sense of Taiwan identity, but it resulted in self-marginalization in the region," says Philip Yang, a political scientist at National Taiwan University in Taipei. As a result, "we believe Taiwan is losing its edge, losing its advantages and losing its chance at long-term prosperity."

Note that in the pro-KMT construction of Yang, marginalization of Taiwan is entirely the result of Taiwan's actions. Beijing is not an actor. [Broken record]Observe that Time does not identify the political affiliation of Yang.[/broken record]

The Time piece didn't do too bad a job of handling the economy, pointing out that the massive investments in China render claims that the economy sucks problematic, but all the quotes are pro-KMT. Again, they couldn't help it, the DPP totally fumbled the ball on this opportunity. And remember, this is a piece about Ma; it is inevitably slanted toward his opinions. There is a section on the DPP -- with counterbalancing comments. But the reporter still believes that the "landslide victory" in the legislative elections was due to being fed-up with Chen, though no evidence supports that view. *sigh*

However, all honor to Time for these two paragraphs that show how Ma's slippery claims on sovereignty bump up against China's obdurate insistence on annexing Taiwan:

But there's a catch. Hu insisted that any negotiating party had to accept Beijing's view of "one China," a prerequisite even the KMT might have trouble swallowing. An overtly friendly Taipei will also force Hu to make sensitive decisions on Taiwan policy he has so far been able to avoid, and it is uncertain how far he's willing to go. "Taiwan's leadership will be looking for concessions and will almost certainly be willing to make concessions of its own." says Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert at Davidson College in North Carolina. "That will force Beijing to decide: Where do we draw the line?"

Yet Ma's biggest stumbling block might well be the ambivalent feelings of his own people toward China. Fear of domination by China is still widespread among Taiwan's population and Ma might have to tread carefully or risk a backlash. Even those in favor of closer relations, like Kaohsiung's Wayne Lee, harbor lingering fears of the consequences. "We have to ask ourselves if it is worth making a lot of money for 10 years and trading away our sovereignty," he says.

If only the reporter had caught how sovereignty for Ma really means the Republic of China, not Taiwan.

++++++++++

But that's not the issue of this blog post. No, the topic of this post is the colossal failure of the English-language foreign media to discuss Ma's background. We are 24 hours from the election and not one piece I have seen this year has mentioned Ma's emergence from the KMT security state. In the entire run up to the election over the past seven months there has been only one. The potentially excellent media narrative of Frank Hsieh the democracy activist vs. Ma Ying-jeou the lifelong democracy opponent -- his defense of martial law in public correspondence, including long prison sentences for dissidents, his opposition to democracy, his opposition to the lifting of martial law, his opposition to the repeal of the notorious Article 100 -- was completely blown off by the foreign media. Even when Hsieh is correctly presented Ma is ignored: Caroline Gluck of the BBC had an otherwise nicely balanced piece the other day that mentions Hsieh's background as a democracy activist -- but not Ma's as a democracy opponent.

No excuse exists -- this has been covered in the local media quite extensively -- Gerrit van Der Wees' recent piece in the Taipei Times being only the latest example. It's out there in books and many different documents -- credible allegations that Ma was a student spy, for example, have been circulating in the democracy community for years and in print since Taiwangate in the early 1990s, where current EPA minister Winston Dang [Chen] alluded to them in the introduction. It's been a theme on this blog, which I know is read by working media people.

The international media has comprehensively failed both Taiwan and its own readers.

Why? I think Jim Mann was on to something.....

Consider, for example, this NYT piece on Putin from 2000:

Mr. Putin, who became prime minister of Russia only last August, has suddenly come to power from relative obscurity at the young age of 47. His resume's bare bones -- including his service in the K.G.B.'s foreign intelligence arm and his role as director of its successor, the Federal Security Service -- are known.

Putin's connection to the Russian security forces are forthrightly described. But in case the reader imagines this is because Russia is great and powerful, it is not difficult to find similar pieces for the Baltic states or Poland. When Arnold Ruutel ran for President of Estonia, the media said clearly that he was head of the Estonian Supreme Soviet (where he apparently worked for Estonian independence). Similarly this NYT article on the former Francoist Manuel Fraga Iribane identifies Fraga as a Francoist:

Mr. Fraga, though, is not one to apologize for his Francoist past. ''You can't treat everyone over a 40-year period in the same way,'' he said. ''Everyone knew that I was a reformist. I think few people did more than me to carry out the transition. I have maintained my ideas all along, always looking for agreement.''

The issue is not the current and former stances of politicians -- it is that the past of Ma Ying-jeou has completely vanished from the foreign media, whereas similar anti-democracy pasts of European politicians are generally put on display, whatever their current positions. Yet Ma is treated completely differently....

....I think Mann was on to something when we wrote that dissidence in the Soviet sphere had cachet for westerners, but dissidence in the Chinese sphere does not. And I think the Taiwan election coverage by the foreign media has completely vindicated his position.

[Taiwan]

The Young and Shy

FAPA press conference

Big News today: Lee Teng-hui convened a press conference this afternoon to announce that he was giving his vote to Frank Hsieh. Finally. As I sat in a taxi listening to him on the radio speaking in gruff Mandarin, the taxi driver bluntly informed me that Lee would have no effect. That led to a long political lecture by the driver on the rising prices and our failing economy. "People have no money in their pockets!"

This one is going down to the wire....

Jonathan Adams has a piece in the International Herald Tribune on the youth vote. It's up at Thirsty Ghosts:

In the 2000 and 2004 elections, the youth vote helped propel the DPP into power. It may have been critical in 2004, when Chen Shui-bian won the presidency by fewer than 30,000 votes.

That year, nearly 60 percent of voters aged 20 to 29 favored Chen, who was seen as promising a fresh start after more than half a century of rule by the corruption-tainted Nationalists, or Kuomintang. But this month a United Daily News poll found a reversal, with more than 60 percent of prospective voters in their 20s now supporting the Nationalist candidate, Ma Ying-jeou.

The DPP's own corruption scandals have been one source of disenchantment. Another has been concern that the party's often strident emphasis on Taiwan's independence from mainland China may be hurting the island's economy and costing it jobs.

My own experience is that it is automatic among the young to say they have no political affiliation, and one has to dig a little to find it. They are very cagey about revealing their political preferences. Note that the poll Adams quotes is a UDN poll -- a KMT paper. Yet I have heard many knowledgeable people say that the DPP thinks it will be lucky to get half the youth vote. The KMT's strategy of impoverishing the island to bring down the Chen government has been very successful.

Speaking of youths, I stopped by the Overseas Student Association Press Conference in Taipei to see what they had to say. Representatives from Taiwanese student organizations from all over the world were there. Unfortunately the media wasn't, since Lee Teng-hui was putting his foot into the race at that very moment. The kids made some good points, but no one was there to listen.

At 3 I dropped in at the FAPA press conference. Lots of local press there. No foreign press. The speeches were delivered in Taiwanese, although the sign pictured above was in English. There was a video in English with various US Congressmen speaking on Taiwan, though, in English. The press conference appeared geared toward the local media....

Frustrating experiences: people complain that there are too many white foreigners speaking for the Taiwanese -- and it is because of the bu hao yi si problem. Taiwanese need to speak out more! Case in point: I got a call today from a reporter for an international publication. He's in Taichung and wants to talk to some Greens -- Taichung being a fairly Blue city. It just so happens there's a planeload of locals in from overseas, all originally from the area, and they have with them a leaven of locals who live there. Interesting people with roots in the area going back a couple of hundred years, and they speak English. Perfect for what he needs! So I swing into action to set it up....only they won't talk to the reporter -- saying they were afraid their English isn't good enough. Really, it seems they are just too shy to talk. But ultimately, if Taiwanese won't talk for themselves, no one will want to speak for them.

[Taiwan]

Manthorpe, Tibet, Taiwan

Wednesday night I stopped by O'Ginny's, which is in a warren somewhere off of Mingsheng East Road, to listen to Jonathan Manthorpe, author of Forbidden Nation, speak on the election and on Taiwan in general. Manthorpe proved to have a rare knowledge of Taiwan, and was a pleasure to listen to. The food was meh, but the eye candy behind the bar was outstanding. Unfortunately, I can't give you directions because I doubt I could find it again -- it appears to be located in a tesseract that expands in every direction as you walk along it. I think I walked around there for about three hours, but never actually got any nearer to Nanjing E Road.

Manthorpe talked for roughly 45 minutes. Unlike many newsman, Manthorpe was aware that the published polls in the pro-Blue papers are nonsense. He said that people he respected from both parties had told him the election was tight. It's Ma's election to lose, but if he screws up, he could lose.

On Tibet, Manthorpe said that everyone had told him that it would have little effect on the election. He did say it could have an effect if the election is close. My own prediction is that if Hsieh wins, the KMT will immediately blame it on Tibet even though they are saying beforehand that Tibet will have no effect.

One thing about the Tibet issue not being discussed: most discussions of the Tibet-Taiwan relationship have focused on their mutual threat from China. The context, in other words, is the sovereignty issue. But it should be kept in mind that there are millions of Buddhists in Taiwan for whom the Dalai Lama is a revered figure, and thousands of Tibetan Buddhists who might well be affected by events in Tibet. In other words, religion is another point of entry for the Tibet issue into local politics, not just sovereignty. Caveat: many of the Buddhist institutions are pro-KMT, another complicating factor. In Taiwan, politics is never simple, one of the sources of its addictiveness....Hsiao Bi-khim also pointed out another connection in the post below -- opening Tibet to China economically through the railway has simply resulted in greater exploitation of Tibet by Chinese -- an obvious parallel to the One China common market. This is a cogent point that might swing a few votes.

Max Hirsch over at Thirsty Ghosts has an article on the Tibet Factor:

Ma's attack on Wen is hardly novel among politicians here. For the ruling, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, bashing Beijing is virtually a pastime. But Ma -- considered Beijing's best hope for curbing independence moves by Taipei -- has staked his presidential bid on vows to further cross-strait detente.

Those plans now appear in danger as public outrage here over Beijing's ongoing crackdown in Tibet has forced Ma to mothball his ''China-friendly'' persona. With just three days left before the island's presidential election Saturday, the frontrunner is scrambling to prevent rival Frank Hsieh of the DPP from painting him as a Beijing apologist amid the clampdown.

''At the beginning of Mr. Ma's campaign, he was rarely harsh on China. But because of [Hsieh's] attacks for being soft on the Tibet issue, Ma's had to adjust his strategy,'' said Huang Kwei-bo, a political scientist at National Chengchi University.

''I sense a shift [in Ma's rhetoric],'' Huang said.

Making matters worse were Wen Jiabao's Tuesday comments, which ''forced Mr. Ma's hand,'' he said.

''It was very unwise for Wen to talk about Tibet and Taiwan together -- that will remind people here of China's view of the island as a renegade province,'' he added, referring to Wen's blaming the Dalai Lama for riots by Tibetans and then slamming Taiwan's referenda in the same press conference.

As everyone braces for a probable Ma victory, there's a new line out that Ma and Beijing might not necessarily work with each other as well as people like me believe. Lots of people in the community of Taiwan observers are taking that position. I remain skeptical. Because for all that Ma has criticized Beijing, he hasn't said that Tibet should be independent. At heart, I believe, Ma remains committed to the China-as-Zion theology of the ROC. In any case, the focus on Ma is wrong; if Ma himself ran the KMT, I would have fewer worries -- but the ideologues at the top like Lien Chan, who think of themselves as Chinese and despise Taiwan, are running the show. Ma has never shown any ability to stand up to them. I'm afraid that those betting on a Ma show of strength are trying to build castles out of pudding....

[Taiwan]

ICRT Election Roundtable Results

On major streets at rush hour, the two parties have people standing on street corners with signs, and handing out packets of kleenex. Here a bevy of young beauties supports the DPP.

Today began with a lightning ride up to Taipei to attend some of the events that are happening around the capital as the election approaches. First up was the ICRT Roundtable on the Election. ICRT's Jeffrey Mindich acted as moderator of the panel, which consisted of the DPP's own Hsiao Bi-khim, Ho Si-ying from the KMT, and three academics. Bi-khim was outnumbered, which was not to say outgunned, since two of the academics, Raymond Wu, and Alexander Huang, gave every appearance of being strongly pro-KMT. The third academic, Dr. Lin of the Academic Sinica, did a better job of appearing neutral. I was upset for Bi-khim's sake: on an island with 160 universities, ICRT could only find one academic willing to sound uncommitted? It was an excellent example of the way the KMT's networks continue to pay off -- enabling it to get its people to key events so that it can get its talking points into the media as "analysis."

My notes on the Q&A session are given below:

Jeff began by introducing everyone, and saying that the format called for the reps of the two parties to speak for a minute and then the floor would be open. Hsiao Bi-khim opened

She started by asking, since the two platforms do often appear the same, who is better at getting things done? In terms of general tone of campaign, she said, the DPP was now focusing on "reversing the tide." This concept originated with the "dramatic defeat" in the legislative elections, which has generated tremendous anxiety about one-party domination returning to Taiwan, she said. "This very difficult situation leads us to talk about reversing the tide." After mentioning Beijing's increasing pressure on Taiwan, she turned to the DPP's major themes and major policies. The party's general themes highlighted differences, including normalizing economic relations with trade, and further liberalizing trade, vs opposition to Ma's One China Common Market. Another theme she spoke of was "the need for checks and balances vs one party domination." "Yes" to checks and balances, "no" to one party domination. Yes to job security, no to common market. Bi-khim sounded great -- on message, eloquent, forceful. Very impressive. Totally hot too. Is there a fan club I can join?

After Hsiao came Ho of the KMT. Ho was tall, well-spoken, on message, and bluntly humorous. He hit the usual KMT themes: the economy, "corruption", rapproachment with China. Addressing the One China Market, and One Party dominance, he said that "we believe it is only natural for a political party to pursue the ruling power in the government in both the executive and legislative branches." No one would say in the US that one party dominance is bad. As for the common market, he pointed out that the market is global. Ma wants the cross-strait common market, he said. The term "one china market", he argued, "presupposes area limited to Greater China only." Responding to DPP attacks on the possibility of Chinese labor coming to Taiwan, the DPP says that market is about labor mobility, but the idea that opening will result in 200 million laborers coming to Taiwan is not tenable. He said that the One China Market is very much based on experiences in Europe and other places, based on WTO rules, and that its direction is to have a deeper business relationship with China.

Mindich then compared the US election, with so many issues, to the local election, where the range of issues appears narrow. Is my perception wrong, he asked?

Alex Huang answered first. The China factor "is always there in any campaign." He then offered the KMT interpretation of the One China issue: one campaign, he said, says shelve issues that can't be agreed on and go for practical stuff, the other emphasizes soveriegnty. One side thinks dignity carries more weight, but other side says prosperity comes first, Huang said. Huang's position is a caricature, and a KMT-oriented caricature at that. These little soirees go a long way to explain why the KMT is so good at getting the foreign media to absorb its positions as the conventional wisdom. I had listened to Huang frame the referendum issues to one of the foreign press representatives prior to the panel, so I got a pretty good line on what his political beliefs were.

Mindich, who seemed, at least to me, to monopolize entirely too much of the time that should have gone to the foreign press, asked whether the panel thought that voters understood the issues.

Raymond Wu answered that the presidential elections are are candidate centered, not policy centered. Both Ma and Hsieh have policy white papers, but having such policy studies, he said, is a fact of life rather than a necessity to drive the campaign. Do people actually read the thick policy papers? Wu then went on to criticize the attacks on friends and family in the election. He then went totally off topic to talk about what qualifications each candidate should have, answering a question no one had asked.

Mindich followed up by asking whether issues been ignored for the focus on person.

Jih-wen Lin of the Academica Sinica picked that up, observing that "we know from theory and empircal research that people have already made up their minds." "Probably most voters have made up mind several months before the election." Short-term campaign issues boost turnout and are important in tight campaigns, he said. "If the election were close...but with Ma leading in polls, so...." He finished by observing that "20 days from now" [voters] will forget everything.

Sitting there -- bored to tears, and slowly coming to understand why international correspondents must sooner or later become substance abusers -- I was tempted to ask why anyone would pay attention to polls from pro-Blue papers, with their long record of error, but Mindich beat me to it. I decided not to ask any questions, so that I could preserve the possibility of attendance at future events....heh.

Mindich asked: Previous polls. Do you buy the hype about polls, Hsiao Bi-khim? Have voters made up their minds?

She neatly sidestepped that issue, for as she noted, according to Taiwan law, it is illegal to discuss or disclose polls ten days prior to an election. Instead, she pointed out the absurd polls for the Kaohsiung and Taipei mayoral elections. She observed that people are not willing to disclose their preferences when one candidate or party has a dominate position in media and society.

Mindich then asked whether DPP claims that Ma is pro-China, and in the media, where Ma is sometimes portrayed as pro-China, could be hurting Ma.

The KMT's Ho responded that when the media says the KMT is pro-China, it is a relative term. "Compared to DPP's position, you can say that," he added, with no little humor. Ho said that the KMT believes that there shouldn't be any change in political symbols like anthem and flag and constitution and so in that sense, it is for the status quo. [Yes, dear reader, get out your barf bags!] This assessment Ma has been out there for many, many years, he noted, so Ma's campaign regards this as a constant rather than a barrier.

Mindich then observed that the two candidates appear to be meeting in the middle, with Ma becoming more critical of China, and Hsieh more moderate. Ah, I would add, the power of illusion. Mindich asked whether they would meet in the middle so voters won't know what the differences are?

Dr. Huang said that the change is a technical change aimed at undecided voters. Confirmed or committed voters will not be affected by such tactical changes.

Dr. Lin asked: who are the centrist voters? Some say they don't exist, but they are wrong, he said. There might be more consensus between the two candidates then differences, he noted, adding that the idea is then to shift attention to other issues. "That is why the parties aim at families, at fathers." Everything depends on the undecided voter...how many are there? he wondered aloud. "In this campaign younger people under 35 I would consider that group." He asked: if they come up out to and increase voter turnout to 80%...who are they going to support?

Mindich then asked about the amount of mudsling compared to previous campaigns.

Dr Wu fielded that one, and his party affiliation became blindingly obvious. He started by noting that "negative campaigning is common, look at Geraldine Ferraro, and the negative campaigning by Obama's Reverend." (Except that there weren't any by him, only about him, I mentally corrected). Friends and families of these two candidates were not spared by these attacks and allegations, most of which were not founded, he said. He then took off in flights of fancy. "This is not something voters are accustomed to," he said, piously, "and the extent in this campaign took me by surprise." (Apparently Dr. Wu just flew in from Mars this morning.) Next came the pro forma warning about DPP dirty tricks. I quote verbatim: "We about three days left before the election and you have all been here long enough to know, and you know the 'dirty tricks' and you know that if we have any dirty tricks -- and I think we'll see two responses by the voters -- after experiencing something that happened 4 years ago today -- and I don't think that voters will be suprised by anything..." Anyone nutcase enough to believe that Chen staged his own assassination is living in a KMT fantasy world. I quote more as he moved on to regurgitate the KMT platform: "If there are dirty tricks, we are really having some very dire economic problems, and these quality of life issues are very important to voters, and I don't think if we are unfortunate enough to have dirty tricks in the next few days, voters will buy it." Too bad I couldn't convey the delightful tone of patronizing warning, complete with the piously serious stare at the audience, with which Dr. Wu conveyed these important words. Dr. Wu, your special certificate for a lifetime supply of KMT Koolaid is in the mail....

Readers can see why Bi-khim spent the afternoon wearing the grimly determined look of a Japanese suicide infantryman.....

Mindich finally opened the floor to the people the meeting was ostensibly for. The first questioner was someone from a Russian business magazine, whose name I didn't catch. He asked whether the winner from either camp would appoint a PM from the other camp. This was dealt with quickly, and then Max Hirsch, one of the best foreign reporters here on the island -- [FULL DISCLOSURE: Max bought me dinner once] asked how Tibet affected the election. Max couldn't mention it, but yesterday Ma was saying they might consider boycotting the Olympics over Tibet -- and you can only imagine what will happen to the independence movement in Tibet if it fucks up the Olympics for China -- and then just this morning, after Ma had attempted to separate the Tibet and Taiwan issues, Wen Jibao of China was out there claiming that Tibet and Taiwan were the same issue and China will not be split, etc. Just what we need: China getting all bombastic as an election in Taiwan approaches. I hope voters here get the message....

Alex Huang answered first, guardedly saying that information coming out of Tbet is quite opaque, so it is a difficult question. (I thought that was an admirably evasive answer). He then went on to add that international news agencies have not provided enough information to discuss it in the classrooms. Then he made his main point, which was that his morning class of 69 undergrads care more about job opportunities than Tibet. The pro-KMT slant of that point, if not Dr. Huang, should be obvious.

A woman from the VOA, Peggy Chan (Chen?) asked about Ma, Hsieh, and relations between China, Taiwan, and the US.

Dr. Lin fielded that one, saying that it is "more complicated than we imagine." Lin offered the conventional view that a Ma election will cool down relations between China and Taiwan (MT: I suppose if you call capitulation, "cooling down"), but if China and the US warm to each other, then who is upset? he said. A Hsieh election, he argued, would be a strong signal to the US that Taiwan wants to be separate from China.

Dr. Huang added that the question actually hangs on US election, since so many assistant secretaries won't be confirmed until this time next year.

An academic from the US China policy center at USC then asked a question trying to get a description of the voting population.

Dr. Lin answered that the voting population is not clear. There is a huge group susceptible to mobilization, but which party's? Young people tend to have personal judgments that are perhaps positive to Ma or Hsieh, but will vote party image or issues....

Mindich jumped in to asked about the Pentagon annual report, which stated that the growing economic power of China gives it increasing economic and diplomatic tools to coerce Taiwan. Unless Taiwan can counter china's free trade agreements that it is signing with many Asian nations, then Taiwan faces problems.

Dr. Wu observed that the possible marginalization of Taiwan in the world is a concern with. "Do we need someone to go to Beijing to break the dealock? Or can we go through Washington or some other nation?" Wu then once again veered off topic, determined to bring up issues no one had asked about. In this case he actually noted that no one asked about the referendum, but he went on to discuss it anyway.

The salon was then disturbed by a pro-Taiwan fellow, an old Taiwanese guy, who started a speech attacking the KMT ("I am Taiwanese not Chinese!) but he was hushed up and Mindich politely ignored him. He was too serious to be described as comic relief, but too comic to take seriously.

Simon from Christian Science Monitor was up next. He asked with all the different labels applied to Ma, can Mr. Ho tell us what label we should be using? Everyone laughed at that, but then he moved on to ask what changes Ma would make? What does Ma have to offer that Beijing wants to hear? Perhaps Chen can be blamed, but what really can Taiwan do? he said.

The KMT's HO had a good chuckle over the label, evading it with a joking refusal to answer. "But bottom line is that the cross strait atmosphere must be improved. He then said, "first on the international political economy front, the KMT believes we must bow to wealth." (direct quote, folks. My friends and I sitting there almost died laughing.) The second is tourism, which will improve cross strait relations, he added.

Bi-khim jumped all over that: "it sounds like what Mr. Ho said is exactly what my candidate is proposing." She went on to say that Hsieh is talking about expanding flights. Because a framework for charter flights is already in place, expanded charters are most practical way to achieve that, she said. She then noted that with 70% of the island's investment already in china, investment should be diversified to India, Vietnam, and elsewhere. She also said that Hsieh in economics has been on moderate side, "at least within my party." He talks about normalizing trade relations. She then made an excellent observation -- the One China Market is not just an economic issue, but an issue of sovereignty as well.

A long question about Tibet followed, and Mindich followed on by saying that the DPP has said that if the KMT is elected Taiwan will look like Tibet.

The KMT spokesman, Ho, said that Tibet will have only a "quite limited effect on election." First, he argued, "we believe that most voters have made up their minds" so it really depends on how many voters will be mobilized for their cause. My count is 23% of total population." Who is likely to be affected? he asked. The youngest age cohort. He claimed that he was in constant contact with young people, and Tibet doesn't play a role in their voting. "I asked them if tibet will influence their voting intentions, but our situation is different. We have 90 mile strait between us and China, so it is different." Michael Fahey, sittting next to me and kibbutzing, pointed out that those were Ma's exact words. One way the KMT shapes the media discourse is presenting its political points as "analysis."

Hsaio Bi-khim spoke next. She said that she agrees that "Tibet ... will not create decisive waves", but the election outcome may be close enough that a 1-2% difference in attitude change might affect the outcome. She then described how the Taiwanese and Tibetans had protested side by side, since there was a feeling that they "share a common oppression from China." She then cleverly observed that the Tibetan Railway was supposed to bring economic opportunities but instead has only brought increased colonialism in Tibet -- an oblique reference to the effects of the One China Market.

Mindich then asked what the relative quiet of Chen and Lee Teng-hui meant.

Dr. Wu answered that Chen took step backward and let Hsieh stand out. Wu then gave the strict KMT claim that Chen became symbol of division in Taiwan, and backward steps in policy. Realizing, I think, that he had gone too far, Wu then added that Chen had raised Taiwan consciousness.

Dr. Huang, said that "my personal observation is that Lee Teng-hui has always placed himself at high altitude to observe what is happening on the ground." Huang added that Lee was hurt in the last legislative campaign. "He threw in everything into the TSU vote but was not successful."

Ralph Jennings of Reuters asked: "moving to end of may, what is first thing your candidate will do when elected?"

Ho answered: rebuild trust with US, work on china cross-strait relationship

Hsiao Bi-khim answered: our priorities would not be too different. Hsieh has timeline for charter flights. but our society has became extremely partisan, and of course both parties must take responsibility. Bi-khim often seemed to be positioning herself for a DPP loss, for she then remarked, "For us, how do we ensure that the voice of our part of society will be heard."

ABC News then chimed in with a question about domestic policy moves once elected.

Laughably, the KMT's Ho said that their first move would be to strengthen transparency in government -- laughable, because they've been blocking sunshine bills for the last eight years. He also said they would reduce the budget deficit. Ma has also promised to reduce the corporate tax, Ho said.

Hsiao Bi-khim then pointed out that there's a fundamental contradiction between reducing taxes, reducing debt, and spending $4 trillion on infrastructure projects.

The last two questions enabled the two sides to get in their views, though, responding to a question about the KMT would control its members, Ho made everyone laugh when he growled, humorously, that you don't control people, you control damage.

So true.

[Taiwan]

Interviews and Views

A sombre Ma overlooks an intersection in Taichung.

First, Taiwan News reports some good news out of the EU:

Members from the European Parliament yesterday issued a statement supporting Taiwan's efforts to become a member of the United Nations, and urged other European Union countries and U.N. members to support Taiwan's U.N. bid.

In the statement, the parliament members also criticized U.N.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his earlier remarks that claimed Taiwan is an integral part of the People's Republic of China.

A total of 100 members from the European Parliament yesterday jointly issued the statement, saying Taiwan, with its 23 million citizens, is a sovereign state. Taiwan has its own Parliamentary and Governmental systems, an independent territory and a distinct population, the statement read.

"Taiwan has never been under the control of the People's Republic of China. On the contrary, Taiwan is a full-fledged democracy that realizes the rule of law and universal human rights. Furthermore, Taiwan has diplomatic relations with 23 sovereign States. For all these reasons the U.N. Secretary-General's statement that said Taiwan is an integral part of the People's Republic of China is clearly false and unjustified," the statement said.

Members of the parliament said in the statement that the parliament has passed many bills to call for more support for Taiwan's 23 million people's participation in international organizations.

A very strong statement, and most welcome! "False and unjustified!" Strong language....

85 year old Peng Ming-min, the 1996 DPP presidential candidate and a lifelong independence advocate, speaks out in an interview with the Vancouver Sun:

"For democracy to function you have to have some self-control. You have to have some restraint," said Peng whose 1964 secretly printed manifesto launched Taiwan's democracy movement with its demand for an end to one party rule and a declaration that the island is a nation independent from China.

That act of defiance against the military rule of the KMT former nationalist government of China, which fled to Taiwan after being defeated in the civil war by Mao Zedong's Communists, earned Peng an eight-year prison sentence. But he escaped to Sweden and then lived in exile in the United States.

Peng returned to Taiwan in 1991 after martial law was lifted and the transition to multiparty democracy affirmed. He was the DPP's unsuccessful candidate in the first free and fair presidential elections in 1996.

What Peng called "the epoch-making moment" came at the next elections in 2000 when current DPP president Chen Shui-bian won and was then re-elected in 2004.

But Chen is leaving on a sour note of public unhappiness, the whiff of scandal and the air of failure.

Peng's bleak view is therefore fuelled not only by the particular grubbiness of Taiwanese politics at this time, but also the strong possibility that Ma and the old one-party dictators of the KMT will return to power.

Most observers would say that the modern KMT is not the repressive and massively corrupt organization that occupied and ruled Taiwan like a subject colony for half a century until forced into the democratic transition 20 years ago.

There's two pages of it. Great stuff. Frank Hsieh was Peng's vice presidential candidate in 1996....

[Taiwan]

Tibet and Taiwan

Make no mistake: Tibet is an issue for Taiwan, and it is now a hot topic. The PRC shooting people a week before an election here has forced every voter to examine where they stand on Ma Ying-jeou's promise not to sell out the island -- and is a marker of how far Taiwan has come that Ma is forced to excoriate the PRC for its behavior -- the kind of abusive, authoritarian behavior that Ma, ironically, defended when he was working for the regime in the early 1980s. My how the world changes.....

Lots of commentary on Tibet in the local media. In addition to strong statements from Ma and Hsieh, the DPP presidential candidate, Taiwan News had another hard-hitting editorial on the 17th. After describing the incident, it observes:

...Unfortunately, the fate of Tibet and what is occurring in Tibet now have direct and pressing relevance to Taiwan precisely because its current fate may well be our future.

The Chinese Communist Party-led PRC regime has followed four steps in its subjugation of Tibet, which long used to be an independent kingdom ruled by a religious aristocracy, whom did, indeed, as claimed by PRC propagandists, imposed a backward and oppressive feudalist system on the majority of the Tibet population.

Nevertheless, what ultimately happened in Tibet was a tragedy for both the Tibetan religious elite and the vast majority of the "oppressed" which the CCP claimed to be "liberating."

In 1951, the PRC forced a "peace agreement" upon the Dalai Lama led Tibetan government; in 1959, the PRC's People's Liberation Army moved forces into Tibet, followed by massive encouragement of immigration of Chinese into Tibet and the rising Sinification of Tibetan culture and, finally, the co-optation of the Panchen Lama as a Beijing puppet.

Right to decide

Could this happen in Taiwan, with our democratic political system and our modern society and culture?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Indeed, this process may have already started and may accelerate after the March 22 presidential election if Kuomintang presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou wins and returns Taiwan to the "China-centric" rule of the "formerly" authoritarian "Chinese Nationalist Party," which remains the KMT's official name.

The first step has already been taken in the form of the "party to party" forums between the KMT and its former bitter enemy, the CCP, initiated by KMT honorary chairman Lien Chan and PRC State Chairman and ruling CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao, who ironically was lifted to high office after a repressive term as governor of the "Tibet Autonomous Region."

The prospect of PLA entry into Taiwan is implied in the Anti-Secession Law enacted by the PRC's National People's Congress on March 14, 2005, under which Beijing gave itself the "legal authority" to use force against a Taiwan that refused "peaceful unification."

The process of Taiwan's assimilation into the PRC may be spurred by Ma's advocation of a "cross-strait common market" with the PRC, one of the agreements of the Lien-Hu dialogue of April 2005.

Last but not least, Taiwan may find that its elected president could well turn into a virtual puppet or "chief executive" if Ma fulfills his campaign promise to "return" to the so-called "Consensus of 1992" and promise to accept "political integration" as a precondition of restored "consultations" with Beijing.

Of course, the fundamental reason why Tibet was open for PRC intimidation, occupation and suppression under Beijing's new hegemony lies precisely in the fact that it stood alone against its far more powerful and massive northern neighbor.

Does this scenario sound familiar?

It should, since Ma's notion of a "cross-strait common market" and his declaration of intent to follow "three noes" of "no unification, no independence and no use of force" posits that Taiwan will face the PRC alone without involvement by the international community or negotiation of such an agreement to end hostilities.

And only the election of Democratic Progressive Party president nominee on March 22 together with the passage of the referendums authorizing our application to join the United Nations will allow the 23 million Taiwan people the right to have a voice to express their resolve to control their own destiny and refuse the fate of Tibet.

What the sad history of the infamous 17 point agreement shows is that China simply will grab what it can take and will do and say anything to do so. Also on tap for Tibet is an online petition:

After decades of repression under Chinese rule, the Tibetan people's frustrations have burst onto the streets in protests and riots. With the spotlight of the upcoming Olympic Games now on China, Tibetans are crying out to the world for change.

The Chinese government has said that the protesters who have not yet surrendered "will be punished". Its leaders are right now considering a crucial choice between escalating brutality or dialogue that could determine the future of Tibet, and China.

We can affect this historic choice--China does care about its international reputation. China's President Hu Jintao needs to hear that the 'Made in China' brand and the upcoming Olympics in Beijing can succeed only if he makes the right choice. But it will take an avalanche of global people power to get his attention--and we need it in the next 48 hours.

The Tibetan Nobel peace prize winner and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama has called for restraint and dialogue: he needs the world's people to support him. Click below now to sign the petition--and tell absolutely everyone you can right away--our goal is 1 million voices united for Tibet:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/1.php

Tibet also affects the Taiwan vote in another way: thousands of Taiwanese are Tibetan buddhists of one strain or another, and millions of Taiwanese, as Buddhists, revere the Dalai Lama. And now the KMT's Chinese allies are shooting the Dalai Lama's people in the streets.... a week before the presidential election. Taiwan and the Tibetan independence movement are closely linked, going back to the days when KMT agents infiltrated the independence movement in order to direct it at the communists but prevent it from achieving its goal of Tibetan independence, to today, when the democracy movement has forged links to the Tibetan independence movement....

[Taiwan]

Robin Winkler on the Green Card Issue

Robin Winkler's office flipped me this translation of a piece from the Liberty Times, an interview with Robin Winkler on the Green Card issue. Most foreigners don't get the whole green card thing, especially in Taipei, where there is widespread dismissal of any possibility of its effectiveness. Yes, and they tell me Ma is winning by 26 points in the polls too....

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The following translation is an account of an interview with Robin Winkler, a naturalized Taiwanese citizen and former EPA commissioner. The Chinese original appeared in the March 18th edition of the Liberty Times. [Explanatory notes in square brackets].


Attorney Robin J. Winkler said yesterday that based on the US State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual, travel to the US on a non-immigrant visa does not necessarily mean that one has abandoned lawful permanent residence status. Winkler, a naturalized Taiwanese citizen, said that he did not want to see a president elected who could run off to the US at any time. He argued that to show respect to voters, Ma Ying-jiu has a duty as a candidate to produce evidence that he has abandoned his lawful permanent residence status and should not play semantic games.

Winkler said it was incorrect to argue that a US lawful permanent resident loses that status automatically after leaving the US for a few years. [The US Department of Homeland Security takes the position that residency has been abandoned when an LPR is out of the US continuously for more than one year. 8 CFR § 211.1(a)(2). Ma has cited this regulation as proof that his LPR status has been abandoned. However the courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals have consistently taken the view that intent to relinquish permanent residency is the standard, not the length of time that the LPR has been out of the country. For example, in Hana v. Gonzales, 400 F.3d 472 (9th Cir. 2005) an LPR had permanent job, real property, and immediate family in Iraq and never worked, paid taxes, or procured a bank account or driver’s license in the US, and was absent for the vast majority of four years, but her trip was nevertheless determined to be temporary in nature because her failure to put down roots was due to her desire to help her family safely flee Iraq and to take care of her terminally ill mother-in-law and her return was fixed by an early event – the safe emigration of her family from Iraq to the US. Based on this reasoning, the court determined that the LPR had not abandoned her LPR status despite having been out of the US for more than one year. ] According to US immigration law, there must be an expression of fixed intent to abandoned permanent residency. For this reason, Ma needs to fill out the I-407 form. He cannot just say that he has abandoned LPR status.

Moreover, it is also incorrect to claim that because Ma has been issued B1/B2 non-immigrant visas or used this visa, his green card has expired. Volume 9 of the US Foreign Affairs Manual states that consular officers may, at their discretion, issue non-immigrant visas [such as B1/B2 visas] to applicants with LPR status if the applicant needs one. Consular officers may not refuse to issue a non-immigrant visa solely because the applicant has LPR status, nor can consular officers require a visa applicant to relinquish her green card as a condition to issuing a non-immigrant visa. Consular officers [who work for the State Department] do not have the authority to determine whether a person has lawful permanent residence. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) [an agency under the Department of Homeland Security] reserves this authority to itself.

Winkler emphasized the importance of citizen participation in democracy. A candidate who is faced with questions from voters should use all possible subjective and objective means to make the people understand. This is a duty. Ma said [last week after Winkler and another lawyer placed an ad in the China Times saying that Ma's permanent residency was still valid] that Winkler was an environmentalist, not an expert on immigration law. Winkler said that this means that if you are not an expert recognized by Ma, you have no right to speak. Or that as long as Ma knows, others don't need to know. For Winkler, Ma's comments were from another era and represent exclusionary, elitist thinking. If he becomes Taiwan's president, said Winkler, people can think about what kind of example is being set.

Winkler also said that many people were concerned about whether Ma is a US permanent resident who could leave Taiwan for another country at any time. The real issue though, said Winkler, is why Ma won't let everyone know the truth. Proving that Ma does not have lawful permanent residence status is simple--sign a power of attorney and have a respected third party apply to the US government for proof that he has abandoned LPR status. That person can go to the USCIS and copy the information he needs. Access can be applied for today and received tomorrow. Now would be good time. It would stop this waste of social resources and be more environmentally friendly. Is this so hard for Ma?

[Taiwan]

March 16 DPP Rally

As we pulled into the gas station, this KMT sound truck screamed inanities at us. In Hell the sound trucks run 24-7, and they play pro-KMT music.

Yesterday the family went to the big rally an Gencheng Park in Taichung. Snagged some great Hsieh paraphenalia, and soaked up some that powerful pro-Taiwan feeling.

I snapped this pair of dueling signs on Nanjing Rd in Taichung. The sign on the left has Ma's 6-3-3 promise, while on the right, the sign calls on voters to oppose Ma's One China Market.

We arrived at the rally and followed the crowd into the world of green.

The vendors were out in force. My wife picked up a nifty "Taiwan Nation" hat.

One side of the main rally area. The field extended off to the sides and back for several hundred meters.

Contingents of supporters were bused in from all over the island.

A group of supporters arrives. Note the big smile -- everywhere I went people insisted I take their picture, and offered grins and encouragement.

People arriving. Best part: lots of young people.

Like the last rally I attended<, this one opened with a singer.

Crowd and plot both thickening.

Totally hot DPP babes.

A group of young people showed with their "Reverse the Tide" shirts. They looked great, and the shirts were nice too.

Backstage.

Anticipation....

The speeches begin.

The cameraman at work.

Surrounded by a sea of green.

After the initial speeches, groups representing sought-after demographics appeared. Here are the farmers, threatened by Chinese produce.

The crowd cheers.

The crowd says a prayer for the dead of Tibet. Chinese treatment of Tibet is a key indicator of their actual attitudes, for Tibet and Taiwan are exactly the same issue: China attempting to incorporate territories that may or may not have belonged to the Qing empire into its own colonial system. Tibet is an important rallying point for the DPP.

Plenty of old people were there, cheering themselves hoarse, listening intently, crying and clapping. The music, taken from major feature films, was also quite effective. My son, a movie buff, identified the theme from Independence Day. Also heard were the love theme from Braveheart -- the background to Hsieh's speech -- and themes from Saving Private Ryan. Let's see....a film about independence, a film about resistance to colonialism with a bonus hack on the collaborationist noble class, and a film about saving someone.....

Locking up the youth vote.

The crowd eats it up.

Young people in the crowd watched as...

...a group came out to represent students threatened by recognition of Chinese credentials.

This wonderful woman and I had a great time together laughing and cheering.

Lin Chia-lung, Sec-Gen of the DPP, speaks. Lin ran for mayor of Taichung in 2004 and was decisively beaten by Jason Hu of the KMT. Lin also headed the DPP's Tibet liaison organization and spoke on the topic of Tibet as well. The independence forces in both Taiwan and Tibet maintain close links, symbolized by the marriage of a key aide to Lee Teng-hui to the Dalai Lama's nephew.

Lots of faces painted and....

...decorated.

"And the old men shall dream dreams...."

Everywhere I went in the crowd people opened their hearts to me with big Taiwan smiles. "Take my picture! Me! Me!" People held up babies and children, and attempted to jump up to be seen. What a wonderful feeling it was!

Another contingent of supporters demanded I take their picture.

My friend Andrew Kerslake, who joined us for the rally, took this one. The crowd was gigantic, spilling over into areas on the wings of the rally, standing in the streets -- none of the shots taken by myself, my son, or Andrew adequately conveyed the size of the crowd.

Plenty of thumbs up for Hsieh.

Freddy Lim of the metal band Chthonic appeared onstage to appeal to the crowd.

The crowd loves him.

A Hsieh supporter smiles at the camera.

The media contingent set up on a platform overlooking the crowd.

Father-daughter bonding.

The current premier addresses the crowd.

The warmth was incredible.

Supporters cheer the premier's speech.

More young people, followed by....

...performing children.

Vice Presidential candidate Su arouses the crowd. Su's rich, gravelly, basso profoundo rolled across the crowd like an elemental force.

Thumbs up for Frank!

My daughter snapped me.

Hsieh, also a superb public speaker....

....roused the crowd to a fever pitch.

Then they bowed to the crowd.

To confetti, cheers, the boom of air horns and the screams of supporters, the rally closes.

Hsieh and Su came out for the curtain call.

The crowd goes nuts.

Local DPP politicos gather for the big send-off. And so we stayed to savor the atmosphere, stayed with the hard core, with the clean up crew, and with those who had forgotten where they parked their motorcycles.....

As if by magic, the clean-up began.

Outside the vendors make a few last sales....

....as rally-goers waited for their buses home.

[Taiwan]