In the six months leading up to the Taipei and Kaohsiung municipal elections, pro-China politicians and media outlets relentlessly attacked the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), prompting its approval rating to plunge to an all-time low. Despite that, the DPP still managed to make some progress, even in Taipei.
This is evidence that voters have been hardened by the political turmoil over the past six months. After defeating the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the 2000 presidential election, the DPP has abandoned its old campaign style. The party's Taipei mayoral candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) made great contributions to future campaign strategies through the integration of different factions and handling of several opponents.
The most important part of Hsieh's concession speech was his pledge to continue to support Taiwan's core values and work for Taiwan and its people in different areas. Voters were able to see through the smoke-screen laid by the anti-corruption campaign and make the right choice because they insist on core Taiwanese values. They understand these values better than the "pro-green" academics and "reformists" calling for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) resignation.
Throughout the electoral campaign, one of the pro-China parties' gimmicks was to bury core Taiwanese values under its anti-corruption campaign and mislead the public. However, it failed to present a vision for its policies in Taipei and Kaohsiung and avoided discussing values altogether.
If the nation loses its core values and identifies with the "one China" concept, it would fall into the corrupt hands of the Chinese government. Without core Taiwanese values, the city government's political accomplishments would be seen as China's accomplishment, regardless of how good these policies were.
Taiwan certainly needs to fight corruption but must do so safeguarding its sovereignty and core values. Such a drive must not only be targeted at individuals, but also at systemic corruption and special privileges. Unfortunately, few people have a clear picture of the Chinese forces behind the pro-China parties.
A Beijing-based academic analysing the election results said that although the KMT lost the Kaohsiung mayoral race, the total number of votes it won there had increased, indicating that centrist voters in southern Taiwan are beginning to identify with the pan-blue camp and favor unification.
However, quite a few academics predicting that the pan-blue camp would do well were obviously disappointed. The illusory hopes of these hired academics show that Beijing saw the elections as a battle between independence and unification forces.
A recent survey conducted by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University, the University of the Ryukyus and the University of Hong Kong showed that if Beijing "allowed" the Tai-wanese to decide Taiwan's future, 62 percent of respondents would seek formal independence.
A further 54 percent said that even if Beijing did not "allow" Taiwan to pursue independence, that independence should still be the goal. The survey also found that the percentage of respondents who consider themselves Taiwanese had increased from 56 percent to 60 percent.
This shows that Taiwanese are no longer as strongly influenced by China when debating the issue as they were before. That is why political parties representing core Taiwanese values will remain popular among voters.
If, however, core Taiwanese values are to conquer the country as a whole, the pan-green camp must first maintain its own core values. If parties and factions remain hell-bent on protecting their own interests, agendas and short-term thinking, they will one day be abandoned by their supporters.
Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taipei.
Translated by Daniel Cheng
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs