With only five weeks left before the presidential election, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee Frank Hsieh (
DPP supporters must be beginning to wonder whether this slow drip attack strategy is leading anywhere, because short of a bombshell announcement that Ma is concealing US citizenship -- which would invalidate his nomination and throw the electoral process into disrepute -- Hsieh has nowhere else to go.
Ma has any number of weak spots that could energize a demoralized pan-green camp: allegations that he spied on Taiwanese students while studying in the US; his weakness within the KMT and probable inability to defend the office of president against a predatory KMT-dominated legislature and his rival, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
But Hsieh's campaign team, packed with failed legislative candidates, has picked the lamest of options. And behind this option -- this strategy of "green card stigma" -- is the insinuation that wanting to study, work or live in the US is an unpatriotic act.
This is an idiotic message, as if it weren't obvious, and matters are made worse for the DPP in that this clumsy nationalism obscures the remarkable anti-Americanism in the hearts of KMT ideologues.
It is absurd that Ma's credibility should be at issue over the possession of a green card, given that there is nothing remotely sinister about acquiring one. Ma's weakness has instead been his response to the "allegations" -- which by turns has been prevaricating and uninformative.
But this isn't enough to stop Ma from winning the election.
Hsieh made much the same strategic mistake during his token run for the post of Taipei City mayor. Seemingly resigned to defeat against the lazy, policy-free campaign of the KMT's Hau Lung-bin (
The fact that Hsieh increased the DPP vote in that election is notable: Either he has tremendous personal appeal that can overcome flaccid campaigning, or the DPP machine did its job properly in Taipei City (a rare thing), or both. But this good fortune, and his lawyer's games, are not enough this time.
If Hsieh does not change his campaign mode soon, DPP supporters may well wonder why vice presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang (
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
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this
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