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Editorial: Lu plays Chen's bad cop

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) left for the Americas yesterday. Ostensibly her trip is to attend the inauguration ceremonies of the new presidents of Nicaragua and Paraguay, both diplomatic allies of beleaguered Taiwan.

But perhaps the more serious part of her mission lies on either side of these events, in her visit to the US east coast on her outward journey and her stopover in Los Angeles on her way back.

This trip follows on the heels of her visit to Gambia, another diplomatic ally, in December, on the way back from which Lu stopped briefly in France and Austria. While these stopovers were not of the length of her US stays, the fact that she obtained permission to stop over at all showed an unusual warmth from the usually chilly EU. Previously it was believed that the EU had a consensus not to issue visas to Taiwan's top officials even for private visits. Lu's brief stops showed this to be not -- or perhaps no longer -- the case.

Lu's task in the US is to talk up Taiwan as an investment destination. Five years ago this would not have been the uphill task that the global recession and declining interest in Asia's economic potential have made it.

Some in Taiwan might be surprised to see Lu take on a more international role. Although she is well connected overseas, especially in the US, Taiwan's vice president is known for her outspokenness rather than her diplomacy. Her repeated condemnations of China and assertions of Taiwanese independence have often been seen as an embarrassment to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) who has, since assuming office, downplayed his own similar leanings.

There appears to have been a great deal of tension between the president, with his lengthening list of futile goodwill gestures toward China, and the vice president, for whom China is an ever-present threat to the civil liberties she has spent so much of her life trying to bring to Taiwan. But how seriously we should take this tension is open to debate.

We are presented with a picture of the president appearing to disdain his vice president -- who mouths-off in frustration in between bouts of anti-China rabble-rousing. Certainly the largely pro-China media have done its best to portray this as being a part of daily life at the Presidential Office. More discerning followers of current events might wonder, however, whether we are not being presented with one of the most able good cop, bad cop duos to be seen in international politics for some time.

Lu's scathing attacks on China are an essential counterpoint to Chen's goodwill gestures, keeping the pro-independence faithful on board and reminding China and the rest of the world how many Taiwanese feel about the regime across the Taiwan Strait. Lu can and does say things that need to be said, that are in fact simply statements of reality, but which would seem far too inflammatory coming out of the mouth of the president himself. The more the two appear to be at loggerheads, the more Chen appears to be a voice of reason.

If indeed we are witness to a great double act, then applause is due, although it would be a shame to interrupt the performance only halfway through. But there is a downside, namely that Lu's role as bad cop weakens her own position as a future leader.

Hence, perhaps the foreign trips are meant to restore some credibility to Lu's statesmanship, once thought so formidable and effective, in the wake of the bad press she has received over the last year.

If this is the case, then we can only wish the vice president the best possible outcome for her current trip. After being a whipping boy for so long, some substantial achievements would be welcome.
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