The “blue-white” alliance farce continues. Yesterday evening, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, was still waiting on a definitive answer from Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) about whether he intended to proceed with the coalition, with only 48 more hours to go before the registration window closes.
Do the KMT and Ko think this is some kind of reality TV show, where voters are kept at the edge of their seats until the final reveal? Taiwan has a vibrant democracy, but this is getting beyond daft: Voters are hungry to understand policy platforms, not witness lovers’ tiffs on a national stage.
Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, remains in pole position, but his poll ratings are slipping. The opposition parties’ suggestion that this translates into 60 percent of the electorate desiring change is a disingenuous misinterpretation of the data. Nevertheless a substantial portion of the electorate would like to see the DPP out of government after two terms in power.
The KMT leadership and Ko are letting these voters down by allowing themselves to be embroiled in this farce. Having come to an agreement with Hou, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Wednesday last week, Ko subsequently reneged on its terms, saying he had been tricked by the KMT members. This alone should set alarm bells ringing regarding Ko’s suitability for high office.
To a certain degree, there is little sense in blaming the hapless, compliant Hou, who has shown himself to be a competent local government head, but easily led by the big beasts in the KMT. In some circles, Chu has a reputation of being something of a strategic genius. Considering how he bungled the 2016 presidential election campaign and is messing up this one, including his handling of the closed-door nominee selection process and the alliance negotiations, it is difficult to see how he earned this reputation.
Ma holds no official position within the party, aside from his party membership and grandee status. However, he still commands considerable influence within the party, as he demonstrated when he bulldozed his way into the coalition negotiations, orchestrating a shotgun marriage that swiftly fell apart when Ko realized he was being taken for a ride.
The manner in which Ma convinced Ko to accept the terms of the agreement, and the actions of certain members within his circle, including their trips to Beijing just before last week’s meeting, have given rise to suspicions that Ma had convinced Ko to comply by passing on a message from Beijing. Voters might want to consider whether they would be in safe hands with a compliant Hou doing the bidding of the Beijing-backed KMT grandees or an ill-prepared, congenitally unsuitable Ko to handle the Chinese Communist Party in cross-strait relations.
Meanwhile, Lai on Monday officially named former representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as his running mate. Hsiao has been an effective envoy to the US who has forged good relations while in Washington, and would bring this to the role if elected as vice president, complementing Lai’s relative lack of experience in foreign relations.
Lai is presently leading the polls. A considerable proportion of the electorate would like to see somebody else in the Presidential Office, but Hou, Ko, Chu and Ma are clearly not taking voters seriously. Undecided voters have seen how the different prospective candidates have disported themselves during the campaign and, based on this, are likely to make up their minds regarding who they would like to have as their national leader.
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) earlier this month said it is necessary for her to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and it would be a “huge boost” to the party’s local election results in November, but many KMT members have expressed different opinions, indicating a struggle between different groups in the party. Since Cheng was elected as party chairwoman in October last year, she has repeatedly expressed support for increased exchanges with China, saying that it would bring peace and prosperity to Taiwan, and that a meeting with Xi in Beijing takes priority over meeting
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman for maritime affairs Rogelio Villanueva on Monday said that Manila’s claims in the South China Sea are backed by international law. Villanueva was responding to a social media post by the Chinese embassy alleging that a former Philippine ambassador in 1990 had written a letter to a German radio operator stating that the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) did not fall within Manila’s territory. “Sovereignty is not merely claimed, it is exercised,” Villanueva said. The Philippines won a landmark case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 that found China’s sweeping claim of sovereignty in
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