Category: Taiwanese Politics

I’m not going to prejudge the case, but the Taipei Times printed accusations on Saturday that the man slated to become the next Archbishop of Warsaw may have been a spy for the Polish communist secret police.

My reaction is to say, hell, that’s nothing, because the current KMT chairman of Taiwan is accused of informing on fellow students during the martial law era.  And Ma Ying-jeou isn’t slated to become archbishop – he’s frontrunner for the office of president of the freakin’ country.

UPDATE (Jan 9/07):  CNN International reported Sunday night that the candidate for archbishop withdrew after admitting his former collaboration with the communist secret police.  Monday’s China Post has more here.

Taiwanese subservience to communist China is rational; Taiwanese independence is IRRATIONAL.  How do I know this?  ‘Cause somebody from the pro-unification media said so, that’s how!

…an independence movement is not rational.  It is emotional.  That is not easily understood by Americans or Englishmen or Frenchmen, who have little experience of a people aspiring for independence.  Yes, the Americans fought a long war of independence against England, but their yearning for independence was totally different from, let’s say, the Diaspora Israelis, the Basques in Spain and France, Tamils in Sri Lanka, and the people of Taiwan…

You mean, pre-revolutionary Americans sat around and debated the pros and cons of their independence dispassionately, like Vulcans?  And today’s Taiwanese never look at Tibetans being gunned down in the snow, and QUITE RATIONALLY ask, why would we ever want to be a part of THAT?

Please.

What the columnist here doesn’t realize is that rationality applies only to means, not to ends – to how we achieve our goals, not to our goals themselves.  Steven Landsburg gives an example of this on pages 10-11 of his book, The Armchair Economist:

When we assume that people are rational, we emphatically do not assume anything about their preferences.  De gustabus non est disputandum – there’s no accounting for taste – is one of the economist’s slogans.  There is an appalling population of otherwise literate adults who prefer the poetry of Rod McKuen to that of William Butler Yeats.  We do not pronounce them irrational.  Some McKuen lovers might purchase a volume of Yeats with no intention of reading it, because it looks nice on the coffee table or impresses their more sophisticated friends.  We still do not pronounce them irrational.  When we assert that people are rational, we assert only this:  That by and large, a man who wants to read the poetry of Rod McKuen, and who does not care how his books look on the table, and who feels no urge to deceive his friends about his literary tastes, and has no other good reason to buy the collected works of Yeats, will not go out and buy the collected works of Yeats.  And most of the time, this is true.

By the same token, the desire of some Taiwanese to be a part of a Greater Chinese Empire is no more rational or irrational than the desire of the majority to be independent.  Those are merely preferences – obviously with far more reaching consequences than preferring McKuen over Yeats – but preferences nonetheless.  If some Taiwanese block a weapons package for their country over 60 times over two years, they are not behaving irrationally – provided that their goal is for Taiwan to capitulate to communist China.*  At the same time, it is entirely rational for OTHER Taiwanese to doggedly attempt to pass that same weapons package in the face of insurmountable odds – provided that their goal is to keep Taiwan independent.  In short, rationality is nothing more than an amoral tool (that’s amoral, not immoral!) for achieving one’s goals, whether those goals be good or bad.

* We can add extra wrinkles to the argument, as Landsburg has done.  Like McKuen lovers who buy Yeats, some Taiwanese capitulationists might indeed vote for weapons to defend their country because they value the maintenance of their democracy (or they fear of being sent to re-education camps) more than their desire to be part of a Greater China.  Such a vote would not be irrational.  But if a capitulationist was uninterested in keeping democracy alive in Taiwan, and if he felt confident that he wouldn’t be sent to a re-education camp, and if he wanted to be part of Greater China, then we would not expect him to vote in favor of a weapons package for Taiwan.  And this rational and completely predictable response is, of course, what we have witnessed from the KMT over the past 2 years or so.

Heh, heh.   More from the man the China Post recently dubbed a "prolific, witty writer and social critic":

Meanwhile, maverick [independent] candidate Lee Ao* – who won a total of 7,795 ballots, or less than 1 percent of the total votes – said that the results of the [Dec 9th Taipei] mayoral election proved there is no justice in Taiwan. "The results only showed Taiwan’s democracy is a fake democracy and that voters are polluted by partisanship," said Lee.  [Emphasis added]

[* Alternately spelled Li Ao, depending on the newspaper – The Foreigner]

Welcome to the real world, Li, where party candidates have an advantage over their independent rivals.  And no, what the results ACTUALLY show is that Taiwan’s voters are polluted with the silly notion that mayors shouldn’t be lunatics who open cans of teargas inside deliberative meetings, or reveal grainy 40-year old black-and-white NUDE POSTERS of themselves within the legislature.

I remember what good-ol’ Al Bundy used to say at times like that.  Something to the effect of, "My eyes!  Oh God, I think I’m blind!"

(Li Ao vs. Alessandra Mussolini.  While neither would get my vote at the ballot box, I know who I’d rather see nekkid!)

Over at the China Post, Joe Hung couldn’t resist looking down his nose at the electorate, too:

The heart of Khaohsiung belongs to the ruling party.  And the heart won.

[KMT chairman] Ma Ying-jeou appealed to their minds in vain.

In other words, we lost because the voters were nothing but a bunch of irrational boobs.  Oddly enough though, Taiwan’s major independence party is probably toasting Khaohsiung voters right now for their wisdom and perspicacity.  While I’ve seen this sort of sour grapes at the China Post before, I’ve never commented on it.  Cry in your beer the day after if you must, but never, EVER, express contempt for voters.  Particularly majorities.  Tough to get elected when people realize you despise them.

James Soong’s reaction was something of a contrast with Li Ao’s and the China Post‘s.  Must be rough getting a measly 4% of the votes in a crummy race for mayor 12 years after handily winning a provincial governership race with 4.7 MILLION votes.   Yet despite his drubbing, Soong still managed to say that he respected the decision the people of Taipei made in the election.

Can’t quite give him full credit for that though, seeing as though he couldn’t even find it within himself to congratulate the victor afterwards.  What’s the deal with that, anyways?  Bad sportsmanship?  Excessive pride?  Sense of entitlement?  He did the same thing when he lost the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004, but those were narrower contests.  This time he clearly lost – lost by a huge margin – and he STILL couldn’t pick up the phone and say, "You sure fought a good campaign.  I wish you well the next four years."

Admitting defeat and congratulating the winner in democratic politics isn’t just a matter of good manners; it’s a way of reaffirming one’s allegiance to the system.  We fought a political battle according to a set of rules, and I lost.  I may not like you or your ideology, but I recognize that the country will be better off if I recognize that you now have the right to lead.  Conversely, the country will suffer if I step outside the system and try to wrest that right away from you.

But beyond that kind of altruism is another reason – a purely selfish reason – why candidates and parties admit defeat after democratic elections.  Recall The Right Stuff, and John Glenn’s response to the press after learning the Soviets have racked up yet another first in space:

I think we ought to be forthright, gracious and magnanimous about this and say, well, the Russian guys just beat the pants off us, that’s all.  And there’s no sense in kidding ourselves about that.  But now that the space race has begun, I think that there’s going to be plenty of work for everybody.

Glenn admits losing because he doesn’t want to kid himself.  He wants America to roll up its sleeves and get to work so it can do better next time.  But if you can’t acknowledge defeat, like Li Ao and James Soong and the China Post, then there’s a big temptation to engage in self-delusion instead: I lost because the election was stolen, or, I lost because the voters are my intellectual inferiors, or, I lost because of a mysterious "assassin’s" magic bullet.

Tough as it may be to admit, sometimes the fault lies not within the voters, but within ourselves.

UPDATE (Dec 14/06):  Wednesday’s Taipei Times seconds my final point here and here.

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In my last post,  I admitted to initially wavering on the question of whether Taiwan’s President Chen was innocent of corruption following the indictment of his wife on November 3rd.  In this however, I was not alone.  A timeline of the four most pivotal days of the latest presidential recall saga:

Friday, Nov 3/06:  First Lady Wu Shu-jen is indicted on corruption charges.  Chen Shui-bian is unindicted only due to presidential immunity, but the prospect is raised of his indictment once he leaves office.

The evidence of corruption consists of falsified receipts for the presidential State Affairs Fund.  Some were submitted by an individual who was not in country at the time, and others were for personal jewelry purchased by Mrs. Wu.

Chen’s party, the independence-minded DPP, tries to distance itself from him by beginning talk of referring the First Lady to their internal ethics committee.  Meanwhile, the KMT and its pro-unification ally, the PFP, announce they will again attempt to have President Chen recalled.  What separates this attempt from previous ones is that the TSU, a party allied with the DPP, has now announced it will support the recall.  If a mere 12 DPP members defect and vote for recall, the measure will pass in the legislature and a public referendum will be called.  A simple majority in this referendum will be enough to remove Chen from his post.

Saturday, Nov 4/06:  The DPP circles the wagons, and collectively agrees not to answer media questions until Chen gives a speech on the subject on Sunday.

Sunday, Nov 5/06:  The tide turns against the president, as three members of his own party break media silence, and to varying degrees declare their lack of support for him.  Good news comes later for him though, as some TSU members announce they are unhappy with the party’s support for a recall vote.

Also during the day, the prosecutor discusses some of the bogus receipts, while the president gives a speech in his own defense.  The speech does not address the receipts specifically, but does raise the issue of motive.  Chen claims that if he had wanted to swindle the government out of NT$14 million ($400,000), he wouldn’t have abolished a secret NT$110 million ($3 million) account and reduced his salary by NT$3 million ($1 million) over six years.  He insists he will only resign if his wife is found guilty in a court of law.

Monday, Nov 6/06:  Following Chen’s Sunday speech, the TSU reverses its support for another recall.  Given the unlikelihood of 24 DPP members breaking ranks, a recall is now doomed to failure.  Yet despite the odds, the KMT vows to press onward with the vote.

Since this is the third recall attempt, it’s fair to wonder how many more times the KMT can try to get rid of him before they start to look ridiculous.  But for a while there last weekend, with Chen’s support crumbling, I could have sworn he was a goner.

UPDATE (Nov 14/06):  Both the Taipei Times and the China Post are portraying a recent call by Dr. Lee Yuan-tseh for President Chen to step down as a major development.  I’m aware that the Taiwanese Nobel Prize winner and former president of Taiwan’s premier research academy has moral authority here, but I’m a bit sceptical that his withdrawal of support will mean all that much.  Do people really look to experts on chemical kinetics for political advice?  Taiwan’s governed by democratic institutions, not the Science Council of Krypton.

The reactions to the announcement are interesting in themselves.  The KMT now hails Lee as a statesman, a profile in courage, when it was only a few weeks ago that they lambasted him to his face in the legislature for his endorsement of Chen Shui-bian in the 2000 presidential race.  The DPP on the other hand, now denounces him as being "biased and unfair", though that didn’t stop them from taking his endorsement back in 2000.

For my own part, I think Dr. Lee is wrong.  But I also think he has a right to be wrong.

I confess that within the last week I’ve done a lot of vacillating on the question of whether Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian is guilty of corruption.  (My initial reaction can be found here.)  From the start, I realized that the people trying to bring him down were pretty contemptible – nothing but communist sellouts who’ve been fishing for six years for a pretense to get rid of him.

But that doesn’t mean he’s innocent. 

I understood that the money involved is far less than the pay cut he voluntarily imposed upon himself, and the slush fund he abolished.

Still doesn’t mean he COULDN’T have taken the money.

I mean, his wife submitted personal JEWELRY receipts for reimbursement from the State Affairs Fund, for Pete’s sake.  The prosecutor knows her RING FINGER SIZE.  Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Chen supporter had to admit it looked a little shady.  Which is why I think Michael Turton’s recent defense of President Chen is so important.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the situation, I should give a little background.  Because the Republic of China (Taiwan) isn’t regarded as a sovereign nation by many countries, it pays a premium to those who secretly lobby for its recognition.  Because of the military threat from communist China, it hires spies within that country to keep abreast of the danger.  And because the current Taiwanese government is democratic, it secretly funds certain pro-democracy activists who live across the strait.

For many years, part of the funding for all of these covert lobbyists, spies and democratic agitators came directly from Taiwan’s presidential office.  This arrangement is a bit unusual – most established democracies probably fund and manage these sorts of people through their spy agencies.  But Taiwan was once a dictatorship, and its previous dictators sought unfiltered information and direct control.  Though Taiwan has since democratized, this is one aspect of its former government which has not yet been fully reformed.

One reform which was implemented came soon after President Chen assumed office.  For reasons of transparency, Chen abolished the secret fund that the presidency had at its disposal.  In retrospect, this now appears like an unwise undertaking, because Taiwan’s need for secrecy in its foreign policy remained as strong as ever.  But what is inexplicable was Chen’s failure at that time to hand over the responsibilities for covert missions to Taiwan’s intelligence apparatus.  Instead, Chen decided he would continue to pay for covert intelligence and diplomacy with the only means he had left at his disposal: public funds.

As Michael points out, this created an insoluble dilemma.  Use of public funds need to be accounted for with receipts, but Chinese spies and democratic activists fear far too much for their lives to ever provide them.  If such people are to be paid from the "State Affairs Fund", then bogus receipts will have to be submitted.   Receipts such as the ones the prosecutor used in his indictments.

So, there it is.  None of this precludes the possibility that the President and First Lady skimmed money from the government, but there now exists a perfectly plausible explanation for the existence of all those damning jewelry receipts.  Thankfully, those who maintain the president’s innocence need no longer feel foolish for doing so.

We’ve got a whole SYSTEM set up to prevent people like you from becoming mayor!

Undeterred by Grandpa Simpson’s words of wisdom, Independent Legislator Li "The Fumigator" Ao is, indeed, running for mayor, so the Taiwan News asked him for an interview.  Some highlights:

"[If elected mayor, I will] use Taipei as a political base for combatting the central government…I will leave the [infrastructure and economic development] jobs to my deputies…and focus my energy on fighting the central government."

Now, depending how you look at it, that means he’ll be either a hands-off…or a hands-on kind of mayor.  Just what’ll his primary weapon be for this intended fight of his?

"Seventy-three percent of the city’s revenue goes to the central government.  As mayor, I will order the tax department to stop the practice."

Uh-huh.  I’d be remiss if I forgot to mention a couple of particularly well thought-out policies that Taipei-ers could expect from a Li mayorship:

"[I plan] to re-zone the parking lot next to the Presidential Office and build a 10-story funeral parlor on it where people mourn their dead family and friends while [Buddhist] monks and nuns chant sutra."

[…]

"I also support direct air links between China and [Taiwan]…I may cut [the] water and electricity supply to the [Central Government] agencies that oppose direct air links."

I SWEAR I’m not making this stuff up.  There’s more, though.  Here, he (sort of) answers how he would make Taipei a more English-friendly city:

"I don’t like America, Japan and other foreign countries.  As mayor, I will not allow the city’s police to protect the [de facto American embassy].  Also, I will ask them not to protect President Chen Shui-bian and Vice-President Annette Lu."

But there’s ONE question on everybody’s mind that unfortunately the Taiwan News DIDN’T ask.  Namely, just how long are we all going to have to wait before the cops haul Li’s crazy, publicity-seeking ass off to jail for illegal possession of an electric stun baton, illegal possession of teargas, assault with an electric stun baton, and criminal discharge of teargas within a crowded room?

iiiit’ll be a while.

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