James Soong (宋楚瑜) stunned political circles when he chose Chang Chao-hsiung (張昭雄), President of Chang Gung University (長庚大學), as his running mate. More surprising is the fact that Chang has close links with both the KMT and DPP. He is good friends with both Premier Siew and DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian, and has been a generous patron of the DPP for some time. The Chang Gung Community (including the university, hospital and surrounding residential communities, all run by the Formosa Group) is also well-known for its enthusiastic support of the DPP ticket. Yet for all of this, Chang chose to run with James Soong. What's the deal?
Soong's choice of Chang is not that surprising. For Soong, Chang has three advantages. First, Chang will help Soong to dodge the issue of ethnicirty. With a strong native Taiwanese identity and close connections with opposition groups, Chang will deflect some voters' unease about Soong's mainland Chinese background. Next, Chang's involvement in the Formosa Plastics empire will help Soong to curry favor with its chairman, Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), and tap into local business support. Last, Chang will bolster Soong's image as being above party politics and distance Soong from internal KMT squabbles.
In short, Chang is just what Soong needs to fend off both KMT and DPP attacks.
Soong is conscious of Chang's importance, shown when he put Chang in charge of drawing up a China policy soon after he was announced as Soong's running mate, silencing attacks from the other parties. Some have attacked Chang for "betraying the opposition party," but Chang replied: "The only betrayal possible is a betrayal of the people," adding to Soong's appeal to voters dissatisfied with the ruling party.
Unlike KMT and DPP vice-presidential candidates Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) and Anette Lu (呂秀蓮), Chang is without political experience, but this just makes it more difficult for opponents to target his weak spots. Chang's connections with the opposition, his clean image and his background with Formosa Plastics (台塑) make Chang someone who could add a lot to Soong's campaign. But this depends on the interaction between Soong and Chang.
Chang's opposition party connections will also help Soong to tone down his own KMT dominated past, but this may not last. Soong's camp is dominated by former KMT members who were with him when he was Provincial Governor. Even if Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), current senior advisor to the president, Wu Tun-yi (吳敦義), previous mayor of Kaohsiung, and former Minister of Justice Liao Cheng-hao (廖正豪) announce their support for Soong, his power base will remain firmly in the non-mainstream faction of the KMT. Only the addition of influential non-KMT members will change this.
Overall, Soong's selection of Chang is favorable for Soong in the short-term, and may work to Soong's advantage in the long-term if the two are able to cooperate well. His entry into the race seems to have cast a pall over both the KMT and DPP camps. If Chang can help prevent the specter of ethnicirty from being raised in the election, and reduce some of the mud-slinging, then whatever the results, it will be a victory for democracy in Taiwan.
Julian Kuo is assistant professor of Political Science at Soochow University.
Labubu, an elf-like plush toy with pointy ears and nine serrated teeth, has become a global sensation, worn by celebrities including Rihanna and Dua Lipa. These dolls are sold out in stores from Singapore to London; a human-sized version recently fetched a whopping US$150,000 at an auction in Beijing. With all the social media buzz, it is worth asking if we are witnessing the rise of a new-age collectible, or whether Labubu is a mere fad destined to fade. Investors certainly want to know. Pop Mart International Group Ltd, the Chinese manufacturer behind this trendy toy, has rallied 178 percent
My youngest son attends a university in Taipei. Throughout the past two years, whenever I have brought him his luggage or picked him up for the end of a semester or the start of a break, I have stayed at a hotel near his campus. In doing so, I have noticed a strange phenomenon: The hotel’s TV contained an unusual number of Chinese channels, filled with accents that would make a person feel as if they are in China. It is quite exhausting. A few days ago, while staying in the hotel, I found that of the 50 available TV channels,
There is no such thing as a “silicon shield.” This trope has gained traction in the world of Taiwanese news, likely with the best intentions. Anything that breaks the China-controlled narrative that Taiwan is doomed to be conquered is welcome, but after observing its rise in recent months, I now believe that the “silicon shield” is a myth — one that is ultimately working against Taiwan. The basic silicon shield idea is that the world, particularly the US, would rush to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion because they do not want Beijing to seize the nation’s vital and unique chip industry. However,
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever