The DPP may be down in the dumps (and the polls) recently, but it seems that the pan-blues are doing everything in their power to reinvigorate their enemies. Three news items have come up in the last day which make me wonder what’s going on in the land of the blues:
- James Soong is continuing his crusade to split the blues, force unpopular policies onto the KMT and elect a DPP mayor of Taipei. If you’re looking for confirmation that the ‘recall the president’ movement was nothing more than a naked political power-play by James Soong you need look no further than this article. Soong’s lust for power is driving him to run for mayor, the recall was the start of his campaign, and a promised no-confidence vote in the Executive Yuan will consume the majority of his time while campaigning. DPP candidate Frank Hsieh must be pissing himself with laughter when reading this.
Chairman James Soong of the People First Party is expected to declare candidacy for mayor of Taipei soon as his popularity received a lift for his relentless drive to oust President Chen Shui-bian for incompetency and scams involving his family and senior aides, according to a PFP lawmaker close to Soong.
- A few days ago, I mentioned two PFP politicians moving back to the KMT. It now seems that the local chapter of the KMT is blocking Shen Chih-hwei’s application to rejoin the party. Although her move fits in perfectly with the KMT’s plan to hollow out the PFP until there’s noone left, local rivalries are spoiling their plans. Shen ran against Jason Hu for mayor of Taichung, and the local members aren’t ready to forgive her for that. The tensions under the surface between returning PFP politicians and their KMT counterparts are only going to get worse as we get closer to legislative election where the contest for nominations by your party will be fierce.
- The most unbelievable news of the day: it seems there’s a campaign to get Lien Chan to run for president in 2008. Remember Lien? The uncharismatic, unelectable loser who led the KMT from disaster to disaster. The man who was humiliated in the 2000 election, and then lost an unlosable election in 2004. And what’s the reason for wanting Lien to run?
Part of the argument was that Lien’s presence on a Lien-Ma ticket would produce a “localized,” or Taiwan-centric, image and attract voters who identify with Taiwan but have been disappointed with the current Democratic Progressive Party government formed mostly of native Taiwanese figures.
That’s right. Ma Ying-jeou (born in Hong Kong, moved to Taiwan aged 1) needs Lien Chan (born in Xian, moved to Taiwan as a teenager) to attract the ‘native Taiwanese’ voters. Surreal.
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For those that can’t or don’t watch Taiwanese news: promptly after United Daily News manufactured the headline that a “Lian-Ma” ticket could be good for getting the benshengren vote, TV news walked up to Wang Jinping and asked his opinion about it.
1) You gotta love the reporters that love shoving in Wang’s face the fact that again, he lost to Ma for chairmanship and thus is out of the question for 2008 and again, he’s clearly a much stronger supporter of localization and is much more palatable than Ma is to benshengren–but again, he overshadowed by Ma and ridiculously, Lian.
2) United Daily News, seeing how well China Post’s ploy of manufacturing an alliance between Annette Lu and Wang Jinping worked, is now jumping in on the bandwagon. With the game of dare and double-dare now on, what will these two “respectable” Taiwanese papers think of next?
Ma does face the problem that even though he’s lived in Taiwan for most of his life, ideologically, he’s still partial to what I’ll call Chinese-ness, and it unnecessarily causes him to lose a lot of the bensheng vote, regardless of how much he tries to pander by speaking broken Taiwanese. So while the Lian-Ma ticket murmurs are false, the rumbles that Ma needs to pick up someone bensheng (…Wang?… there are many reasons why he wouldn’t, one of them being pride) are not.
Lien as a candidate again? I would almost come back to Taiwan to laugh in his and his brain addled-supporters’ faces.
Then again, he could always set up his own assassinatioin attempt and win the sympathy votes to win. Hell, he’s seen how it works…
every politician will have (and always have some) supporters.
if soong can have a team, why not lien?
no need to read too much into these noises.
David, that report on Lien makes my day. And the fact that Soong is declaring for the Taipei mayor post makes my day too. It’s not for nothing that the military term for fratricide is Blue-on-Blue…..
Michael
Would I be wrong to guess that the people who are pushing for a Lien/Ma ticket are the very same paleo-cadres who pouted and stomped their feet until Lien received his “Honorary KMT Chairman For Life” title after Ma won the chairmanship?
Jason – could be, but my guess would be it’s Su Tseng Chang wearing a wig and a few of his mates 🙂
“Paleo-cadres”? How evocative!
It seems that pan-bluers never understand how exciting it is for pan-green to see Lien coming out again. The politics in Taiwan sure never runs out of laughters… :):)
Michael, it makes my day almost everyday, 🙂
Hello,
I am a curious foreigner that lives in the Eastern U.S. and has never been to Taiwan.
I have a question about local politics:
After reading about Taiwan, I am really confused.
What do the Pan-Blues want?
Surely they don’t think that reunification with China will mean more freedom for Taiwan?
Are they not wary of communism?
What benefits do they think Taiwan will get from reunification?
Another thing that I am not quite sure of is this:
Why is relations with China such a big thing in electoral politics?
It seems to me that there are so many other things politicians might talk about instead that would be more relevant to people’s everyday lives (increasing tourism, home ownership, banking reform etc.).
Lastly, I think any government of Taiwan should focus intensely on developing the country further, increasing democracy and local culture (as well as business and technology). The reason I say that is I think more than anything else, Taiwan should take steps to form its own destiny. No need for symbolic stuff to enrage China. If they don’t want Taiwan to declare formalindependence, then that is fine. I just think Taiwan should find ways to increase the cultural distance between themselves and the mainland, so that as time goes by re-unification will become naturally more difficult.
In 20 or 30 years, a culture that is used to democracy and free speech would not be too excited to move backwards.
What do you think?
-John (brunsboy12 at yahoo is my e-mail)
“What do the Pan-Blues want?”
for some (esp the deep blue who also happen to have been those who were benefited during the Chiang dictatorship era), it is out of fear of being persecuted/marginalized. — so it is ethnic driven.
although you may argue that their fear is not justified. but that is what it is.
these are the die hard supporters of soong and lien. one could argue that they are also dragging the feet of KMT’s reform, and even helping DPP effectively.
—
unfortunately, on the deep green side, they are no better. there were enough animosity (though justifiable given how they were persecuted by the deep blue’s elder generation) and that sometimes turned into irrational hate. that only exacerbates the reaction from deep blue and defeating their original goal to pursue democracy.
—
so basically, the politic is very partisan and ideological. perhaps the only solution is to break the two camps into two parts each and remix. or one of the parties gravitate toward the center. it seems Ma YJ is answering to that call, but whether he would be sucessful in appealing to the center is still too early to tell. meanwhile, some visionary from the Green camp may match the center-strategy. if that happens, it would be good for everybody.
“What do the Pan-Blues want?”
Power.
today’s apple daily op-ed
http://www.appledaily.com.tw/AppleNews/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Article&loc=TP&PageType=new&sec_id=5&NewsType=twapple&showdate=20060710&art_id=2738101
還擁連大選
要害國民黨2008大選再敗一次，就再推連戰連敗的連戰掛帥選總統吧！
工商大老對馬英九採取與工商界保持距離的態度很憂心，唯恐馬當選後會對工商界整頓開刀，或不再羽翼、或無利可圖。於是主張2008年大選連馬配。這是「作賊心虛」。
大老闆為何怕馬
正正派派做生意，為什麼要怕馬英九？馬不跟工商財團來往，正是選民希望的，尤其在扁家族政商勾結臭不可聞的薰染下，選民紛紛掩鼻，怨聲載道，正希望馬的不沾鍋能一改敗壞的風氣。工商大老還想什麼呢？懷念那個政商勾結的美好時代以至於排馬迎連嗎？把連戰看成什麼了？另一個阿扁嗎？
民進黨的第一志願就是連戰捲土重來，什麼連馬搭配、王金平當行政院長、老宋當立法院長的春秋大夢，剛好讓民進黨心頭暗喜。連戰的中國色彩已使他不可能當上總統了。不信邪？試試看吧！
“What do the Pan-Blues want?”
They want what all gay people wants! If you had joined Taiwan military and had watched many young Taiwanese conscript boys forced to roll on rocks for military training that had nothing to do with winning a war against future China attack, you would come to understand how gay the KMT system really are.
It’s kind of like that Ang Lee’s father, a closet fag that can’t win a war against PRC. He was part of that Tainan school re-education system to make sure Taiwanese are reduced to simply slaves to work in KMT sweatshops in order to enrich their KMT pockets. Ang Lee certainly follow his old man’s foot step in art of brain-washing (making unrealistic believable… movie magic as they would say in Hollywood)!!
And, when Taiwanese are no longer useful for making KMT easy money, we’ll be forced to be used as cannon folders for their get away to other countries when PRC do drop by!!
Now, all Taiwanese needs to LEARN is to chant anti-Japanese rhetoric, pro-China rhetoric, and vote faggots (who don’t give a shit for Taiwan) to Legislative Yuan. Well, that should bring us closer step to KMT’s true fundamental purpose and their design!!
Your right on about Soongs goals, but I think you may be giving him too much credit in terms of actually being a threat. Ma out-manuveured him on the impeachment thing and his popularity continues to plummet. Soong may be an annoyance that Ma has to deal with, but I doubt he’s a serious threat.
Iron Jackal, you’re selling your bigotry and hatred to the wrong people. In the US, it’s bad to be gay. In Taiwan, nobody cares. Calling someone from Taiwan gay isn’t an insult, as far as I know.
TOS – have you got figures to back up your claim that Soong’s popularity is plummeting? A couple of months ago I’d have said he was an unpopular irrelevance – now I’m not so sure. I agree that Ma is trying to deal with him – but it seems that recent events have hurt Ma and helped Soong …