Both the US and Taiwan will be electing a new president next year. There are 22 months left before the Nov. 4 US elections, but would-be candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties are already gearing up for a tough competition.
In Taiwan, there are only 14 months left until the presidential elections. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou's (
The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) "big four" -- Vice President Annette Lu (
A race between these four DPP politicians could prove tough. A look at the run-up ahead of the US presidential election might say something about what we can expect in the DPP primary.
US Vice President Dick Cheney has announced that he will not seek the Republican nomination. Perhaps as a result, a dozen politicians have said they will vie for the party's nomination.
Among them, Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani are getting the strongest support, and the two currently enjoy equal support ratings in the party.
In Taiwan, the issue of official independence will continue to be the focus of politics in the run for presidency. In the US, the war in Iraq will be the core issue. Both McCain and Giuliani are firm supporters of the war and seem convinced that it is possible and necessary to win the war.
Although their pro-war stance tows the party line, their positions on other issues differ, and this is a source of concern for party conservatives. For example, McCain once opposed US President George W. Bush's tax cut proposals. As a result, a good number of Republicans disapprove of McCain.
During Giuliani's eight years as mayor of New York City, he was generally credited for the sharp reduction in welfare recipients and crime rates in the city. He was lauded for his leadership following the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on Manhattan. But given Giuliani's pro-abortion and pro-gay-rights stance, many Republicans regard him as too liberal.
Former US House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich said that conservatives were usually dissatisfied with Republican presidential candidates and that it would take finding someone like late US president Ronald Reagan to make them happy.
The Democratic Party also has a dozen prospective presidential candidates. Currently, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama -- who have both announced their formal decisions to run for the presidential primary -- enjoy the strongest support.
Compared with the even split in support for the two potential Republican candidates, support for Obama is far lower than Clinton's at this point. The primary reason is Obama's perceived unclear stance on major issues, including the war in Iraq, National Health Insurance, and minority rights. Therefore, despite constant attention from the media, Obama is still behind Clinton.
Clinton's political convictions have become clearer since her time as first lady.
The competition within these two US parties implies that a clear stance on major issues is essential for winning the nomination.
This is a lesson Taiwan's presidential candidates should take to heart.
Cao Changqing is a writer based in the US.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
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