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.
US President Donald Trump created some consternation in Taiwan last week when he told a news conference that a successful trade deal with China would help with “unification.” Although the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan, Trump’s language struck a raw nerve in Taiwan given his open siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression seeking to “reunify” Ukraine and Russia. On earlier occasions, Trump has criticized Taiwan for “stealing” the US’ chip industry and for relying too much on the US for defense, ominously presaging a weakening of US support for Taiwan. However, further examination of Trump’s remarks in
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
It is being said every second day: The ongoing recall campaign in Taiwan — where citizens are trying to collect enough signatures to trigger re-elections for a number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — is orchestrated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), or even President William Lai (賴清德) himself. The KMT makes the claim, and foreign media and analysts repeat it. However, they never show any proof — because there is not any. It is alarming how easily academics, journalists and experts toss around claims that amount to accusing a democratic government of conspiracy — without a shred of evidence. These
China on May 23, 1951, imposed the so-called “17-Point Agreement” to formally annex Tibet. In March, China in its 18th White Paper misleadingly said it laid “firm foundations for the region’s human rights cause.” The agreement is invalid in international law, because it was signed under threat. Ngapo Ngawang Jigme, head of the Tibetan delegation sent to China for peace negotiations, was not authorized to sign the agreement on behalf of the Tibetan government and the delegation was made to sign it under duress. After seven decades, Tibet remains intact and there is global outpouring of sympathy for Tibetans. This realization
RSS