In the aftermath of Saturday’s special municipality elections, the US government should establish new links with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a forum in Washington has been told.
Randy Schriver, president of the Project 2049 Institute and an expert on Taiwan, said that the DPP had shown its “strength and viability,” which has implications for the US.
At a Heritage Foundation discussion on the elections, Schriver said: “The US government needs to pay some attention to the potential return to power of the DPP.”
He said he was not making a partisan statement, but rather that he was basing his recommendations on what happened the last time the DPP was in power.
Schriver said that many senior political leaders in the US did not understand the DPP, its motivations or its core interests.
“And that led to some difficulties,” he said.
If the DPP should come to power again, the US should be careful not to repeat the mistakes it made in the past, Schriver said.
He said that Saturday’s voting suggested there was a possibility that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could be defeated in the 2012 presidential election and that the possibility “should be taken seriously.”
Ho Szu-yin (何思因), a former national security adviser and Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), president of the Taiwan Brain Trust, analyzed the poll results, which saw the DPP win the most votes overall, while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won three of the five mayoral seats.
The elections will “have a major impact on Taiwan’s 2012 presidential race with all that entails for US-Taiwan and cross-Straits [sic] relations,” Heritage said in a statement.
Both Ho and Lo said the DPP had made an “impressive” comeback from the defeat it suffered in the 2004 presidential election. Lo said that the party had given a “great performance” and that “the KMT did not win and the DPP did not lose.”
Given the DPP’s “strong showing,” the KMT will now increase its interest in strengthening the US-Taiwan relationship, Schriver said.
“One of the charges from the green camp has been that the KMT has been going too far and too fast with China and not paying enough attention to traditional friends like the US and Japan,” he said.
As a result of the just demonstrated “domestic political dynamic,” KMT policies could be modified as the 2012 presidential election grows near, he said.
He added: “We in Washington are non-partisan and neutral in these affairs, but it is no secret that Beijing is not ... They have a preferred outcome for 2012.”
While he did not actually say it, he was clearly referring to a Chinese preference for the KMT over the DPP.
Schriver said that following the election, Taipei might push for more interaction with the US, while Beijing might create more tensions.
“This would return us to a more traditional state of affairs,” he said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS