Pasuya Yao, the head of the Government Information Office, just can’t keep out of the news – and it’s never in a good way. This week, his plans to regulate the amount of Korean and Japanese TV shows that can be shown in Taiwan have already been ridiculed from all quarters. Taiwanese TV already suffers from a severe case of “quantity not quality”, so the idea that space has to be made for even more low-quality local shows is just bizarre.

For me, however, the interesting thing about this story is how Pasuya thinks he can implement his latest insane idea. Taiwan is in the process of setting up a new media watchdog, the ‘National Communications Commission’, which will take over most of the responsibility from the GIO. The Legislative Yuan confirmed the members yesterday, and it is expected to start work shortly after Chinese New Year – which means that any regulation restricting foreign TV dramas would be the remit of this new body:

Receiving supporters for his plan to restrict airing imported programs, Yao said the National Communications Commission, which will take over supervisory authority over electronic media in two weeks, should ensure domestic productions account for 70 percent or more of the prime time broadcast.

So, Pasuya Yao is trying to set policy for a body in which he has no involvement. Anyone who thought that the arrival of the NCC would mean the end of Yao’s incompetent meddling will have to think again:

The GIO will still be in charge of media guidance, incentives and planning, while the NCC will take charge of media law enforcement, Yao told reporters after attending a news conference held by a Taiwan delegation that is to take part in a record exhibition in Cannes, France.

Noting that several of the GIO’s Department of Broadcasting staffers will be transferred to the NCC to help the commission deal with related affairs, Yao said he is hopeful that the division of labor will enable both sides to handle their business more smoothly.

To help the relationship between the GIO and the NCC run smoothly, the GIO is currently lobbying for a ruling on whether the NCC is unconstitutional or not. Anyway, I look forward to watching how Pasuya’s ‘guidance’ will be received by the NCC – it will certainly be more entertaining viewing that your average home-grown Taiwanese TV drama!

What to make of the stories, and the subsequent denials, that Chen Shui-bian’s new year speech caused complaints from the US government?

The Presidential Office yesterday blasted a media report that said the US was displeased with President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) New Year’s speech and had asked him to change it several times.

The draft of Chen’s speech was allegedly rejected by Washington three times prior to its release, particularly in relation to constitutional amendments that Chen said would be completed before 2008, the United Daily News reported yesterday.

The report quoted unnamed sources as saying that Washington was displeased with Chen for delivering the address without changing parts of the draft it considered unsatisfactory.

The first point to make about this is that, if the reports are true, the US complaints would have been completely perfunctory. The US government knows very well that any constitutional changes have a close-to-zero chance of happening before 2008, and certainly any changes which would upset China have absolutely no chance of getting passed by the legislature. So the worst that could happen from this speech is that Chen annoys China – and the US could very well make a “please don’t wind them up!” plea about that. The US being mildly annoyed that China might get mildly annoyed is hardly a major diplomatic spat.

This then leads onto the interesting question of who ‘leaked’ the report to the UDN – and why. It’s certainly possible that one of the many Chen-haters (whether green or blue) leaked the story in an attempt to discredit Chen further, but this doesn’t really fit. What happens as a result of this story is that:

• Chen’s major talking points from the speech get repeated in the news media for another couple of days.
• Chen can be seen as taking a strong stance on constitutional reform and relations with China while not backing down on his principles under US pressure.
• The fact that the US government is at least informed on speeches (but not given too much control over them) before they happen is highlighted.

While none of these points are going to endear Chen to your average KMT (or undecided) supporter, they are all very strong points for most grass-roots DPP members. Given that the DPP Chairman’s election is now only 4 days away – and the campaigns of all the candidates are revolving around CSB – you have to wonder: is this leak a deliberate effort to make Chen look like the man every DPP member loved up until last year?

The Taiwan provincial government is one of those relics of the the Republic of China which Taiwan doesn’t seem to be able to quite get rid of (a bit like their claim to be the rightful ruler of Mongolia). Its powers were slashed in the 1990s by Lee Teng-hui (much to the disgust of his good friend then-provincial-governor James Soong), and today it has almost no power. So it is no surprise to hear a couple of legislators calling for it to be formally abolished.

What is surprising is that it isn’t pan-Green politicians (who normally jump at any chance to weaken the ties to the concept of China) calling for this – but two of their pro-China KMT colleagues:

Two lawmakers of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) called Monday for the termination of the Taiwan Provincial Government (TPG) and the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council in order to save taxpayers’ money.

Given that the provincial government is a useless reminder of Taiwan’s links to China which is also a waste of money, you might wonder why the DPP hasn’t abolished it already. The KMT legislators certainly have their suspicions …

Lin questioned the way the members of the TPG and the council are appointed by the Executive Yuan, saying they are invariably former city and county chiefs or legislators. “For the sake of the taxpayers’ money, the two organizations obviously have to be terminated,” he said.

The DPP wouldn’t be putting “Jobs for the boys” ahead of its principles would it?

Just over a month ago, there was a fuss about a Taiwanese political blog – ‘Wiego’s blog‘, which proved that soon-to-be Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) didn’t understand weblogs at all. However, maybe blogging is moving into the mainstream in Taiwanese politics. Here are a few blogs which have caught my eye recently:

• President Chen Shui-Bian has published his ‘mood notes’ for a while – which is very similar in style to a blog.
• Premier Frank Hsieh’s blog. This has been active since October 10,2005
• The ‘official’ DPP weblog. This has been active since October 26, 2005

Plenty of politicians have quite extensive websites – but Hsieh’s and the DPP’s sites are the only ones I know about which are definitely blogs (using completely standard blog templates etc.). It’s a bit hard to tell whether these are spoof sites or really official. For instance, Frank Hsieh’s site has this photo which would scream ‘fake’ in almost any other country:

However, as all politicians in Taiwan regularly go in for truly cringe-worthy ‘photo ops’ (has anyone got a photo of CSB as Superman from his time as mayor of Taipei?) [Update: Link to photo added – thanks Jason!], it actually lends credibility to the site.

President Chen Shui-bian saw in the new year by giving a public speech; his new year speech is a couple of notches less important than his Double-10 National Day speech (which is again a few notches below his inauguration speech). Since it was his first major speech since last month’s local elections, many observers were expecting a major change in policy as a reaction to the DPP’s poor showing – Chen will have disappointed them [*]. The speech was his usual mixture of righteous defense of Taiwan’s sovereignty combined with a few policy announcements which were completely overlooked by the international media [**].

The standard bit

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a speech by Chen which hasn’t praised Taiwan’s achievements, mentioned the importance of forming a national identity, the need for constitutional reform, asserted its sovereignty and mentioned the threat from across the water.

The sovereignty of Taiwan is vested in its 23 million people, and is not subject to the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China. Only the 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to decide Taiwan’s future.

Of course, each time he says something like this, all the international reporters go running off to get a quote from Beijing (or if they can’t be bothered to do that, preface it with “in a move which is sure to anger Beijing …”) while ignoring the fact that a) It’s been said about 30 times before in the last 5 years, b) It was wholly predictable that he would say this, c) It’s a (mild) statement of the position that Chen was elected to uphold, and d) it’s blindingly obvious to anyone with the most cursory knowledge of the island. At least it makes life easy for all those journalists: if you can write 90% of your article before the speech is given, you’re not going to have any trouble hitting your deadline.

The new bits

Chen’s speech did touch on bits which, while hardly groundbreaking, will have an effect on the people of Taiwan – needless to say, these bits went completely unreported.

• The biggest news from the speech was the decision to hold a second Economic Development Advisory Conference [***]. The first EDAC was held in 2001 and resulted in a big liberalization of cross-strait economic policy. Partisans from both sides of the political spectrum actually worked together along with economic experts and representatives from most areas of industry to agree on a set of economic reforms which replaced the KMT’s “Go slow, be patient” policy on links with China with a more open “active opening, effective management” policy. The 2nd of these conferences will include an equivalently wide range of participants and is a positive move from a president who is currently being criticized from all sides for making decisions unilaterally and without consultation. The only worrying aspect is that the new policy will be called “effective opening, active management” which implies the government wants to stick its fingers in as many places as possible.
• He mentioned the reform to income tax which starts this year, which put more of the burden of taxation on companies rather than individuals. Many companies (in particular in the high-tech field) got huge tax breaks when they were trying to develop Taiwan’s industry. Those tax breaks are now less justified for established industries and are being reduced.
• There are ongoing attempts to change the pension system in Taiwan. This is needed, but is unfortunately a political hot potato; retired military personnel and teachers are huge beneficiaries of the current pension system due to the fact that these were the standard jobs of KMT stalwarts. The KMT can be guaranteed to fight to defend these perks.

Who was he talking to?

Many intelligent commentators (e.g. Peking Duck, Michael Turton) noted that his speech was not very conciliatory (either to China or to the KMT) – but neglected to mention the most obvious reason for this. The target audience for this speech wasn’t the international community. It wasn’t China. It wasn’t even all those disillusioned Taiwanese voters who voted KMT recently. It was the loyal DPP members who will be voting for a new DPP Chairman in just under a fortnight.

Chen’s popularity with DPP members started to go downhill when he made conciliatory noises to China and the opposition. He was criticized for his attempts to work around the “One China” impasse (talks in the ‘spirit of the 1992’ meetings), was criticized for meeting with James Soong, and was criticized for his mild reaction to the Lien/Soong visits to China. If he wants to win back the support of the average voting DPP member, then he knows he’s got to revert to the sort of rhetoric he normally reserves for national elections. Hence this speech.

Of course, Chen isn’t running for DPP Chairman but ‘his’ man Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) is, and is only likely to win if his relationship with Chen is seen as an asset rather than a liability. I suspect, Yu’s chances of winning have improved after this speech. If you consider this speech to be a rallying call to the DPP faithful, it gives it a whole new perspective. This speech was never going to be about the recent local elections – it was about the upcoming DPP elections. Remember: it’s not the last election that’s important – it’s the next election.

* Allow me to be a little bit smug that I predicted there would be absolutely no affect on national policy from the local elections the day after the election.
** This happens with every speech by Chen. Given the option between running a headline of “Chen asserts Taiwan’s independence” or “Chen announces changes to income tax laws”, you know which one everyone will run with.
*** This is not strictly speaking ‘new’ news, since Chen had been talking about this for a couple of months. It was however his first announcement of it in a major speech.

Michael Turton says:

This raises a very interesting issue: if the island is annexed by Beijing, how can China exist half-free and half-slave? China will either be required to crush the island’s democracy — which might have grave international and internal repercussions — or else it will have to live with “one country, two systems.” And when ordinary Chinese visit Taiwan and see how much different things are here than there…

Be careful what you wish for, eh? Perhaps our democracy here is a better insurance against annexation than we think.

While I’m a big fan of the ever-deepening acceptance of democracy in Taiwan, and accept that China has problems with the idea of democracy on their doorstep (let alone in their own country), I have a few problems with Michael’s thesis:

• China currently seems quite happy to live with the “One country, two systems” concept. Plenty of mainlanders have visited Hong Kong, and (as far as I’m aware) noone in Shanghai is clamoring for their own ‘Basic Law’. I doubt this would be any different for Taiwan.
• If we’re talking ‘annexation’ rather than peaceful reunification, then China won’t be too backwards in enforcing their vision on the Taiwanese. In particular they could impose martial law until the Taiwanese are ‘ready’ for proper Chinese democracy (that worked for the KMT for 40+ years), or just declare separatist activities illegal (thus outlawing the DPP & TSU). Back to the fig-leaf democracy days of the KMT plus a few token ‘tangwai’.
• If there is some form of peaceful unification, then one of the two main parties would have lost their main platform. In this situation, it’s debatable whether the DPP could remain a serious contender for power in Taiwan – there’s a pretty good chance that the KMT and CCP could coordinate to marginalise everyone else. Would Beijing really care if the DPP commanded 30% of the legislature and spent all their time railling against the injustice of it all?
• If anyone can crush a democracy without worrying too much about international reaction, I’m betting that China can. Unless Taiwan can find someone as media-friendly as the Dalai Lama to promote their cause, I’m guessing that international reaction would be at the sub-Tibet level.

Further thoughts at Peking Duck, MeiZhongTai, and Asiapundit

“The buck stops here” is a noble statement which shows a willingness to take responsibility for your decisions. “The buck stops over there” is slightly less edifying to hear. No prizes for guessing which version Taiwan’s ever-impressive-politicians are keen on.

The FT recently ran an article by Kathrin Hille which featured a bunch of senior DPP politicians laying into President Chen Shui-bian. The article itself was pretty poor – I don’t want to repeat the fairly comprehensively analysis of it by Michael – but the interesting issue for me was the lack of introspection by DPP members, and their willingness to blame the boss. Five different DPP politicians were quoted – all of them either saying or implying that all the Government and the DPPs problems were down to Chen (as against an unnamed presidential aide who defended him). The best quote to illustrate this was:

“I don’t believe that clean government is the most important issue on our reform agenda,” says Lin Cho-shui, a veteran DPP lawmaker. “A much bigger problem is that Chen Shui-bian’s mysterious leadership style and his short-term opportunistic decision-making don’t work any more.”

Anyone who tries to downplay the importance of tackling corruption in Taiwan is either a) A liar, b) Completely clueless, c) On the take themselves, or d) All of the above. Of course, because corruption is endemic, it is not something that can neatly be blamed on someone else. It also can’t be solved simply by picking on a scapegoat.

This complete unwillingness by many senior DPP members to take a hard look at their party and go beyond a simplistic laying of blame on one of their members is important because it comes during the campaigning for the next DPP Chairman. Of course, some of it is down to which candidate they support: since Yu Shyi-kun is widely seen as Chen’s choice, supporters of the other two candidates are likely to lay into Chen as a way to promote their own candidate. However, it’s also in danger of turning the election into a Catch-22 situation: If Yu wins, then there’s no real powershift in the DPP, and so nothing will change, while if Yu loses, then all the DPPs problems will be blamed on Chen, meaning that nothing will change (apart from the leader).

It’s not all bad news though: The DPPs willingness to criticize their most senior member during their chairman elections stands in stark contrast to the recent KMT chairman election – where both candidates felt it necessary to be nauseatingly obsequious to a man who had led their party to two presidential election losses, lost them their majority in the legislature (twice), and nearly bankrupted the richest political party in the history of mankind. At least the DPP expects their leaders to take some responsibility – they’ve just got to learn to take some responsibility themselves too.

Chen ‘flip flopping’ on China?

On a completely separate note, the article makes this claim:

Mr Chen’s government has frequently changed policy direction, most obviously in relations with China. After pledging more economic exchanges across the Strait early in his first term, he later turned to aggressive anti-China rhetoric and last year played to pro-independence sentiment in a re-election campaign that provoked the mainland.

I’ve seen this claim again and again in various forms, and I don’t understand it. From my perspective, Chen has been completely consistent in his policy on China: He has consistently adhered to the 1999 DPP Resolution on Taiwan’s future (which states that Taiwan is an independent nation), has consistently refused to accept the ‘One China’ principle as a precondition to talks, and has consistently pushed for increased economic links within these limitations. Just about the only promises which he’s been able to keep from his inauguration speeches were his “5 noes” promise on China. Fiery rhetoric around election time is one of Chen’s trademarks (and usually a vote-winner), but it doesn’t imply any change in his policies. So, what policy shifts are we talking about here?

A recent interview in Newsweek by KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou has caused some discussion among Taiwan blogs. There’s plenty of interesting stuff both in the interview, and the backtalk.

The interview

ADAMS: The DPP lost a lot of ground to your party in the recent elections. Are you pleased?
MA: We did well, but not because the KMT has really improved itself. Rather, the DPP has become so corrupt, and so inept, that people have lost confidence in them.

I think he’s spot on here. Despite the fact that I mocked him for this comment in an earlier post, it has some interesting implications. Firstly, Ma has only been Chairman for 6 months, so can’t really claim to have yet molded the KMT into what he would like – hence the KMT “hasn’t really improved”. Secondly, the implication is that he thinks change is necessary – which has got to be a good thing.

Under your leadership, the KMT seems well positioned to reclaim the presidency in 2008. How would your party change Taiwan’s relations with China?
The DPP is somewhat handicapped by their ideology. They have to keep a distance from mainland China. They have been very timid, very conservative and very reserved in pushing ahead a productive policy toward the Chinese mainland. If the KMT is able to get back in power, we will open up direct flights with the mainland in two years.

Again he’s right. The DPP are keen on stuff like direct links and improved (up to a point) economic links – but because China requires adherence to ‘One China’ as a precondition to talks, things are stalled. The KMT has no such idealogical problems (although the inherent bizarreness of their One China policy is worthy of a separate post), and so improved economic ties with China is one of their biggest assets.

Beyond economic links, what is needed for unification talks with China to begin?
Actually, the mainland is not pushing unification anymore. They don’t want to see de jure independence for Taiwan, but they are not talking about [unification]. Their hands are full. But if Taiwan makes a provocative move, they would be left with no choice but to use force. So the most important thing for Taiwan is to maintain the status quo, not to provoke the mainland, but increase trade and investment and to relax cross-Strait relations.

This answer along with a couple of follow-up questions (where Ma dodges the arms purchase issue, and eventually says he doesn’t really expect unification in his lifetime) get to the core of his (and so the KMT’s) position on China. His position can be summarized as:

• Adhering to their version of ‘One China’ will allow the KMT to promote economic links with China much more easily than the DPP.
• The KMT is only pursuing economic links. They plan to ‘maintain the status quo’ when it comes to political links.
• They believe that China is only interesting in stopping independence – and doesn’t care about progress towards unification. This means that there is no serious threat to Taiwan based on KMT policy, and they can plan their defense policy accordingly.

These points throw up a lot of questions (most notably “While China is only talking about stopping independence now, does Ma really think this will be true in the future -when there is a KMT government for example?”), but are interesting because it’s the clearest definition of a KMT position that I’ve heard in some while [*].

I suspect Ma understands that adhering to ‘One China’ by itself is a vote-loser. However, adhering to ‘One China’ while giving clear promises of the resultant economic benefits and promising to protect Taiwan’s existing sovereignty is (if he can convince people) a big vote-winner. If Ma succeeds in explaining a clear and sensible China policy over the next couple of years, I don’t think the next election will even be close.

Blog reaction

Michael took issue with how the interviewer was being so easy on Ma. There were no really searching questions, and the whole interview was a chance for Ma to talk about his position in the way he wanted. While that is true, that doesn’t make it a bad interview; the lack of understanding outside Taiwan of the position of the two main camps is huge – and so there is a need for the Blues and the Greens to try and articulate their positions better in the Western press. Ma did this clearly and eloquently.

Jason follows up this point by lamenting the inability of the DPP to explain their position in a similar manner. Good relations with the US are more important to the DPP than they are to the KMT, and yet the DPP seem to either not care about Western opinion or to be genuinely incapable of explaining themselves to the Western press in a sensible manner. If an equivalent interview with President Chen was run alongside this interview with Ma then it would provide an excellent overview of the main political positions in Taiwan. Yet I don’t see this happening.

A good example of this imbalance was the 2004 post-presidential election chaos: It was the KMT who opened up their HQ to CNN to shoot footage of the protests (while ‘explaining’ the situation to the reporters), it was Lien & Soong who held a press conference in English for foreign journalists to air their grievances, and it was Lien who (ghost)wrote an article in the IHT for international consumption. What did the DPP do to promote their views in the international press?

The KMT has outdone the DPP in terms of media relations in an era when they’ve had a weak, uncharismatic bad communicator as their chairman at the same time as the DPP have had a clear leader and a fairly clean image. What is going to happen now that the KMT has a charismatic Western-friendly leader, and the DPP are a mess with noone in control?

You can hardly blame the Western press for bias when only one side is trying to talk to them.

* Lien Chan never got much beyond “Trust me. I’ll work out a good deal for the KMTTaiwan”, while LTH’s government was always kinda conflicted on the issue. You have to go back to the Chiang dynasty’s adherence to a ‘the only good communist is a dead communist’ position for any real clarity.

The DPP will be voting for a new chairman on January 15th. As with the KMT Chairman election back in July, the fact that there is a real contest on which all party members can vote is a step forward. (Although the DPP has had open elections for the party head for a while, recent elections have only had one candidate standing).

There are three candidates: Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) – the ‘heavyweight’ who has done spells in most of the senior DPP positions, Trong Chai (蔡同榮) – a well-respected senior member of the DPP, and Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) – who would be considered an outsider if it wasn’t for the support of DPP giant ex-chairman Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄).

Although there was quite some talk about the need for a fresh face to lead the DPP forward, it is quite notable that none of the three candidates are particularly young (Yu and Wong are in their late 50s while Chai is 70); in particular all three are older than Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou. The current generation of leaders in the DPP were all involved in the fight for democracy and the setting up of the DPP, and it will probably be a while before a younger member who wasn’t involved in this struggle will be trusted with a senior position.

One issue which it seems will be raised during the campaign will be the role of factions inside the DPP. The various factions have always wielded a large amount of power behind the scenes, and this often results in members being more worried about internal power-struggles than more important stuff (like trying to run the country). One sign of how the factions in the DPP have way too much power was the reaction of the New Tide faction to Wong registering as a candidate, while leaving her faction:

Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), chief convener of the faction, announced last night that he would resign from the post to take responsibility for Wong’s decision to run for DPP chairperson without consulting the faction beforehand.

Not only does this imply that the New Tide faction expected Wong to ask for permission before running, but that her not doing so is such a shocking embarassment to the faction that it’s a resigning offense for the chief convener.

Trong Tsai has already said that he will aim to get rid of the factions if he wins the election – although whether this is any more acheivable than the next premier saying he will stop the cross-party fighting remains to be seen. Ironically Tsai is the only candidate who has the official backing of one of the factions (the Welfare State faction); all other factions have said that their members should vote as they see fit.

Whoever wins this election will have their work cut out to turn the DPPs fortunes around. For more thoughts on the candidates hop on over to Wandering to Tamshui (here and here), and Michael Turton’s site.

Nothing emphasizes the deadlock in Taiwanese politics better than the stalled ‘Arms bill’. This is a proposal for a special budget to buy arms from the US, which has been in limbo for nearly the whole of Chen Shui-bian’s five year reign. Despite the fact that the arms purchase was originally requested by the KMT, and is strongly supported by the president, the bill has not even been discussed yet by the legislature. Until this week. On the 42nd attempt by the government to get this bill heard by the legislature, they succeeded – by waiting until the KMT weren’t watching:

Taipei, Dec. 20 (CNA) “Pan-green” camp legislators pulled a fast one on their opposition “pan-blue alliance” colleagues at the Legislative Yuan’s Procedures Committee Tuesday by calling for a snap vote on the long-stalled arms purchase bill when some opposition legislators were away at another meeting.

At around noon time, when only five “pan-blue alliance” lawmakers were present at the meeting, one of the 12 lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), which form the “pan-green” camp, proposed a vote whether to put on the legislative agenda the arms bill and the review of the president’s nominations for Control Yuan members.

Committee chairman William C.T. Lai of the DPP ruled that a vote be held immediately to decide on DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung’s proposal. By 12: 30 p.m., the committee had voted 12-5 to put the two matters on the legislature’s meeting agenda, leaving the five “pan-blue alliance” legislators in a daze.

Another triumph for democracy? Or another childish move in Taiwan’s ever-puerile government? What happens next is wholly predictable:
The KMT will spend two days bitching about how it’s unfair that the DPP abused their 30-minutes of majority rule, after which the arms bill will be conclusively voted down in the legislature’s plenary session on Friday.

Presumably all pan-Blue lawmakers will now be issued with colostomy bags to make sure the DPP can’t sneakily pass any laws while they’ve nipped out to the toilet.