The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will no longer be able to cover its stance on China in next year’s presidential election and it will not be easy for it to reproduce its electoral success of late last year, a former top US envoy to Taipei said in an interview.
“It’s going to be hard to repeat that kind of plurality in votes, the majority of votes for the DPP in a national election. The issues are different,” said Douglas Paal, who was director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office until 2006.
Paal made the remarks during a recent interview in Taipei with the Chinese-language monthly magazine CNA Newsworld.
Paal was referring to the DPP taking about 400,000 more votes than the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the Nov. 27 special municipality elections.
However, the DPP failed to win any of the KMT’s strongholds — Taipei City, New Taipei City (新北市, the proposed English name of the upgraded Taipei County) and Greater Taichung — although it secured Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung and lost by a thin margin in Greater Taichung.
“I do think the KMT has an advantage on the national level because the DPP still has that party Constitution problem [in seeking Taiwan independence],” Paal said.
“They [the DPP] have to so carefully avoid alienating 35 to 40 percent of the [the party’s pro--independence] voters by making too generous a step toward China,” he added.
During its special municipality election campaign, the DPP stayed away from Taiwan-China issues, including the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).
Following the elections, the DPP said it would create a think tank that, among other functions, would focus on a China policy.
Another challenge that will face the DPP in the presidential election is the economy, Paal said.
“I think the economy is going to be very much better by the time of the election,” he said. “[The] DPP will have a hard time winning on the economy.”
However, if China gets “ugly” in its dealings with the US over North Korea this year, Paal said, that would favor the DPP, which has capitalized on anti-China sentiment in past elections.
“In those circumstances, [the] DPP might have an advantage. You know, the ugly China. How dare [President] Ma [Ying-jeou] (馬英九) get so close to them,” he said.
After last year’s electoral losses, Paal said, Ma and his campaign chief, KMT Secretary--General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), “must be worried” and will need to “do something to not alienate so many voters at a popular level.”
“And whether that’s going slower on China; whether that’s speaking up more on national defense, pushing the F-16 issue; whether that’s changing the way King Pu-tsung’s operations are being pushed in the KMT system. All of those are the questions they have to ask and try to find an answer to,” Paal said.
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