US academics over the weekend added their voices to the chorus of analyses following Saturday’s five special municipal elections, with highly laudatory remarks on the manner in which the campaigning proceeded.
While their argument that the two camps avoided highly ideological pitfalls and tried to appeal more to grassroots voters was for the most part accurate, the researchers were quoted by Central News Agency as saying that the parties had displayed “restrained reactions” to the shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文), son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), during a campaign rally for a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate for Sinbei City councilor on Friday night.
Unfortunately for the academics, they stumbled on that one, or failed to watch the right TV channels in the aftermath of the incident.
Although it is true that on election day President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and other KMT officials adopted a relatively neutral stance on the matter, on Friday night the KMT apparatus — and the pan-blue media — went into full gear insinuating that the attack was somehow related to the election and that the DPP stood for violence. They never said it directly, mind you, but when officials called for voters to “cast their ballots against violence” the following day, the implication was obvious.
The politicization of the shooting went even further when TV news reports allowed Ting Yuan-chao (丁遠超), director of the former vice president’s office, a chance to speak and hint that the incident was targeted and part of a larger campaign of violence, before a hospital spokesperson was able to provide an update on the younger Lien’s condition. Surely, given the interest in Sean Lien’s health, a status update should have preceded politics — at least if there had not been an attempt to turn the isolated, unrelated incident into a tool against the DPP.
Then again, after visiting his son in hospital, Lien Chan returned to a KMT campaign rally and heightened the rhetoric by implying that somehow the DPP was behind the assault on his son (the same Lien Chan who, back in 2004, accused the DPP of staging an attempt on president Chen Shui-bian’s [陳水扁] life).
To each his priorities, but there are very few fathers who would choose to leave their child’s hospital bed after he was shot in the head with a 9mm pistol to return to a local election event. It is also noteworthy that the following day, an otherwise magnanimous Ma did not once mention the other victim of the shooting, 29-year-old Huang Yun-sheng (黃運聖), who died of his wounds on his way to hospital. The man of politics, scion of a political family, mattered; the other, dead, didn’t.
This is not to imply that the whole incident was staged to give the KMT the edge it desperately needed in what was shaping up to be three very close races. In fact, announcing his victory by an unexpected 12 percent over his DPP opponent on Saturday night, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) admitted that his unexpected large margin of victory had received a “a great deal of help” from the shooting incident, hardly the comments of a conspirator.
However, short of fabricating the incident for political advantage, the KMT cannot be absolved of turning it into an opportunity. It did, and the US academics should take note.
That said, the impact of the shooting and the politicization that ensued are insufficient in and of themselves to account for the charismatic Su Tseng-chang ’s (蘇貞昌) loss to a less-than-impressive, scandal-plagued Hau, by such a margin, or why, despite favorable conditions, the DPP has still not found a message that appeals to a majority of the electorate in the northern cities.
Chinese actor Alan Yu (于朦朧) died after allegedly falling from a building in Beijing on Sept. 11. The actor’s mysterious death was tightly censored on Chinese social media, with discussions and doubts about the incident quickly erased. Even Hong Kong artist Daniel Chan’s (陳曉東) post questioning the truth about the case was automatically deleted, sparking concern among overseas Chinese-speaking communities about the dark culture and severe censorship in China’s entertainment industry. Yu had been under house arrest for days, and forced to drink with the rich and powerful before he died, reports said. He lost his life in this vicious
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
In South Korea, the medical cosmetic industry is fiercely competitive and prices are low, attracting beauty enthusiasts from Taiwan. However, basic medical risks are often overlooked. While sharing a meal with friends recently, I heard one mention that his daughter would be going to South Korea for a cosmetic skincare procedure. I felt a twinge of unease at the time, but seeing as it was just a casual conversation among friends, I simply reminded him to prioritize safety. I never thought that, not long after, I would actually encounter a patient in my clinic with a similar situation. She had
RSS