12.20.05
Taiwanese whispers
The three most powerful men in Taiwanese politics are President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九). The fact that they have serious trouble communicating with each other is fairly reflective of the problems and divisions in politics here in general.
Last Saturday, Chen invited Wang to a private meeting. There was no announcement by either party as to what they discussed, but the following day, Ma gave his interpretation of what happened:
Ma held an unusual news briefing at Taipei Main Station at 2:30 p.m yesterday to announce that Wang had phoned and informed him of the president’s invitation.
“I learned from (Legislative Yuan) President Wang this morning that the president had invited him to form a Cabinet,” Ma told reporters. “The KMT recognizes the president’s will to break the current political deadlock by seeking inter-party cooperation to form a Cabinet,” Ma commented, continuing that considering the interests of the whole country and society, “The KMT is willing to give a friendly response to the idea.”
A pretty sensational piece of news. However, there was a swift response from the Presidential Office, who came out with a press release within a couple of hours:
“The president did not invite Wang to form a Cabinet during their meeting,” the press release stated, rebutting reports that claimed Chen had invited Wang to be the new premier during their closed-door meeting Saturday.
The next day, Wang confirmed it was all just a silly misunderstanding between himself and Ma:
Wang yesterday said a Cabinet reshuffle was one of the topics he discussed with the president on Saturday and that he had never considered taking up the job, nor did he want to.
“We first talked about the arms procurement plan, then about the confirmation of the president’s selection of Control Yuan members and then cross-strait issues,” Wang said. “We then talked about the Cabinet reshuffle and other important government bills.”
So, how to explain the fact that Ma’s public briefing was 100% wrong? There are two possibilities:
- Ma made a massive mistake, and instead of listening to what Wang was telling him he only heard what he wanted to hear. That would be a pretty worrying thing for a President-in-waiting; I shudder to think what could happen if he used this ’selective hearing’ when in negotiations with the PRC.
- It was a deliberate piece of misinformation: Ma thought that by announcing that Chen had chosen Wang to head up the cabinet he could get public support for a KMT-based cabinet, while discrediting Chen if Chen were to ‘back down’ from this deal. Unfortunately, for this to have worked he would have needed the cooperation of Wang - hardly likely given the tense relationship between the two.
(There is a third possibility, that Wang actually set Ma up: he implied over the phone that he’d been offered the job, and then innocently said “But that’s not what I said” when Ma went public. Intriguing though this idea is, I don’t think relations between the two are quite that bad)
Whatever the story, Ma comes out of this looking pretty stupid - and it’s not the first time he’s been caught out by a Chen-Wang double act. Back in October, Chen discussed with Wang about him representing Taiwan at the upcoming APEC meeting. Wang didn’t mention this private little discussion to Ma, who was then got very grumpy about not being told when it was announced by the Presidential Office.
Ma’s biggest asset is his ability to manage the media - so why has he been putting his foot in it so often recently (Michael spotted another last Saturday)?
Wolf Reinhold said,
December 20, 2005 at 6:28 pm
For you’s guyses information, one of “the three most powerful men in Taiwanese politics” is Annette Lu. She may claim to be a woman and sort of even looks similar to one who won the shot-put for the USSR in 1979, but she’s all gristle.
She is the one pulling all the strings.
…Ma is no media maven, he just looks young for his age and women like him for it (and men envy him for it). If Ma said that Wang told him something, rest assured that Wang told him what Ma said he told him, unless Lu told Wang to tell Ma what Ma wanted Wang to be saying to Ma, given that Wang is still miffed about the chairman thing, which Lu was going to act in but is in the wrong party so couldn’t and instead got left with the short straw in the DPP’s finger-pointing acting election that she accepted until everyone woke up to the fact that Lu as chairman and the drugs wore off.
David said,
December 21, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Wolf, do you really believe Lu has a lot of power? I don’t doubt she wields quite a bit of influence behind the scenes in the DPP (but then so do several others), but she seems to me to spend half her time bitching about not having enough power (after all, what does a VP actually *do*?)
I do think Ma’s popularity is more than based just on his looks: he’s got good PR and has worked hard on his keeping his profile high (you can’t escape his face on billboards etc. in Taipei). I think he’s done an excellent job of managing the media as Taipei mayor. The question I am starting to have is whether he can do the same as KMT Head … most Taipei city stuff is pretty apolitical, while everything he says as KMT Chair is very political, and he doesn’t seem quite so adept in this role …
sun bin said,
December 21, 2005 at 1:05 pm
i think what Ma said is actually what he heard and was led to believe
1. Chen talked to Wang about the option, it is an informal invitation and testing the water
2. Wang exaggerated a little to Ma (quite understandable due to the tension between them), which effectively is your ‘3rd possibility’, even though Wang might not have been consciously plotting it.
when the water was testedm wang/chen naturally retreated to the more cautious statement of that just being an ‘idea’.
you know how imprecise the chinese language could be in these situations. that was actually how i interpreted Ma’s first announcement.
David said,
December 21, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Hmm … there may be subtle differences in language between asking someone about the premiership and asking them to take the premiership, but any politician in any language has to be able to understand clearly what is said. I think it’s pretty likely that Chen was sounding Wang out about whether he’d be interested in the premiership - but that’s a world away from offering him the post, and Ma should know that.
Wang and Chen didn’t do any retreating to a cautious statement: it was always only an idea for them (at least publically). Ma was the one who was claiming it was something more - and he as a result he had to explicitly retract his statement.
It does seem a standard game in Taiwanese politics for two sides to take a vague and ambiguous statement and then loudly take very different meanings from it (is that due to language? I suspect it’s more to do with the maturity of the people using the language). But in this case the two sides (Wang & Chen) agree on the meaning.
I know Chinese is always imprecise when I’m using it, but can’t really extrapolate to native speakers from that
sun bin said,
December 22, 2005 at 1:14 am
well, chinese language itself is said to be a less desirable language for legal terms (lacks the nuances etc).
but of course it is also the habit of people using it (and habit of the audience who are used to it)
yes, they try to blur the line and push the boudary. they all do.
that is why i discounted Ma’s original word automatically. ‘inviting him to be’ = ’sounding out’ when i put into the contexts.
i thought many people did the same as well.
sun bin said,
December 22, 2005 at 5:00 pm
however, since Ma was trained as a lawyer. he should have been more careful and precise.
if i were ma, i would simply use ‘quote’ and let the press/audience to interpret what Wang meant to say.
Simon World said,
December 30, 2005 at 1:14 am
s economy hits problems? It’s official: you can’t go a year without buying something made in China. Korla: a remote boomtown where mainly newcomers benefit. China’s Supreme People’s Court five year plan for court reforms.Communications problems at the top of Taiwanese politics. Jeff Ooi compares Singapore and South Korea’s development and finds South Korea has done more with less (via A/P). What good is ritual? How Koreans chose Japanese names
Nuabiseedeapifs said,
August 22, 2009 at 12:15 am
It is none of your business!
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