Was it a breakthrough in cross-strait relations? Or the first step in ‘selling out Taiwan’? Of course it was neither, but it was worryingly easy to find supporters of either of those arguments. However, almost everyone (except for people who completely distrust the KMT) agreed that it was a big political success. Two themes emerged from the visit
It’s good to talk
The main thing to say about Lien Chan’s trip was that it was never expected to have any concrete results (two panda bears excepted) – and so just completing the trip without any mistakes meant that it was a great political success. If the goal of the trip was just to talk, then it was pretty easy to complete this successfully.
However, a fairly common theme has been that the trip was a tactical masterstroke. I see two problems with this view:
- Ever since the KMT lost power in 2000, they have been the party that would/could talk with China – which makes it a bit surprising that it’s taken them five years to actually get round to doing it.
- The KMT is seeing a (one-off?) spike in popularity now … 3 years away from the next presidential/legislative elections. Doing this 18 months ago would have been a masterstroke; doing it now seems like bad timing.
Winding up the pan-Green camp
The secondary effect of this trip has been to annoy the hell out of the DPP & TSU politicians. This has meant that they have looked bad due to riots at the airport (irrespective of ‘who started it’), and petulant in complaining about everything related to the trip. Of course, the childish behaviour of the KMT in not clarifying whether they would obey the law, and in refusing to see the President helped to piss off the pan-Greens even more. I suspect the behaviour of the government and their supporters has had as much to do with increased support for the KMT as the trip itself.