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.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
The Taipei District Court today ruled to extend the incommunicado detention of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇) for two more months as part of an ongoing corruption trial. Codefendants in the case — real-estate tycoon Sheen Ching-jing (沈慶京) and Ko's former mayoral office head Lee Wen-tsung (李文宗) — were granted bail of NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) and NT$20 million respectively. Sheen and Lee would also be barred from leaving the country for eight months and prohibited from contact with, harassing, threatening or inquiring after the case with codefendants or witnesses. The two would also be
RSS