The Foreigner in Formosa

Doesn’t the KMT brag about being Taiwan’s foreigner-savvy party?

A senior US official with knowledge of the meeting earlier this month between American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) has described as false most of the statements attributed to Burghardt by Taiwanese media, especially that Washington favors the KMT over the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the presidential election.

But the official said Siew had talked about so-called "dirty tricks" that the KMT claims the DPP will use to influence the election.  [emphasis added]

Exactly what "dirty tricks" did the KMT’s candidate for V.P. suggest Taiwan’s main independence party might pull before the election?

1. Provoke clashes between KMT supporters and DPP members during 2-28 commemoration marches or 3-14 marches protesting China’s Anti-Secession Law.  Major violence would, in theory, provide President Chen with justification to declare martial law and cancel the elections.
2. Provoke a major international incident by detaining Chinese fishing boats somewhere in the Taiwan Strait.  Another dastardly excuse for martial law.
3. Stage an assassination attempt on its OWN presidential candidate so that a man more to President Chen’s liking could take his place.  (In American terms, this would be somewhat akin to a Democratic Party front-runner asserting in all seriousness that President Bush plans to off Mike Huckabee in order to give Mitt Romney a better chance at the nomination!)

Talk about overplaying your hand.  In making prediction #1, I suspect the KMT was angling for an American expression of concern regarding the marches – anything to reduce local turnout for marches that would otherwise benefit the independence parties.  And who knows, if the KMT had limited themselves to that point, they might have gotten what they had wanted.  But with forecast #3, they can forget it.  About the only thing Siew can expect from America now is a nice shiny tinfoil hat for Christmas.  If he’s LUCKY.

Up until now, it’s been reasonable to assume that Washington preferred a KMT administration to take over in ’08, protestations of neutrality notwithstanding.  But surely this little conversation must be giving some people pause.  Learning that your favorite candidate for vice-president happens to be a certifiable loony-tune has been known to do that on occasion.

Thought this was a great line from Wednesday’s Taipei Times:

As with other meetings, Burghardt was "almost completely in a listening mode" about concerns raised by Siew.

Almost completely in listening mode.  I’ll BET.  I mean, what’s the guy supposed to do, ARGUE with the man?

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UPDATE (DEC 30/07):  Interesting, this:

[The coast guard from the Taiwanese island of Kinmen] yesterday seized 12 Chinese intruding into Kinmen waters and arrested 30 Chinese fishermen.

Whoa.  Sounds like the KMT might be on to something here.

No, no, just a second:

Kinmen Coast Guard official Weng Shin-chi said Chinese fishing boats often intrude into Kinmen waters to catch eel alevins (small eel) in the wintertime, which has compromised the security of Kinmen and its water lanes.

So Chinese fishermen often intrude into Taiwanese waters, and they’re often arrested for doing so.  And just how long does the law say they can be held?

…according to the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, Taiwanese authorities have the right to detain Chinese criminal suspects for five days.

Five whole days.  Tough to see an international incident blowing up over that kind of "provocation".

(Quotes from Coast guard captures Chinese boats, Taipei Times, Dec 23/07.  Sorry, no link available.)

From Dr. Joe Hung’s Monday column, Chen: gunslinger at a poker game

[Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian] wants voters to receive all four ballots at one stop, making it extremely hard, if not impossible, to abstain from voting on a referendum he has proposed to recover what he calls "ill-gotten" assets of the Kuomintang (KMT).  [emphasis added]

This is just about as silly as the BBC reporter who recently said that the blood-thirsty Sudanese mob baying for the teddy bear teacher’s head was "good-natured".  Dr. Hung: if your heart is so set upon abstaining from next year’s referendums, it ISN’T impossible.  Nor is it extremely difficult.  In fact, it’s as easy as falling off a log.

Dr. Hung, all you gotta do to make your fondest wishes come true is to spoil your ballot.*  Problem solved.  Choose both "Yes" and "No" options.  Tear, spindle or mutilate your ballot.  Heck, draw cute little happy faces in the margins, for all I care.  It’s a task so simple, I daresay even an intellectual like yourself can handle it.

But then, I don’t really think you’re so dense as to not realize this.  What you REALLY object to about the one-stop voting format is that it makes it extremely hard, if not impossible, for people like you to SELL THEIR ABSTENTIONS to the highest bidder.  Or to intimidate others into abstaining as well.**  And on those scores, abstentionists deserve no sympathy whatsoever.

More overwrought absurdity from the good doctor:

Chen may have some disturbances created at polling stations…  If there are scores of voters demanding the one-stop distribution, the guards will have no way of controlling them. Should free-for-alls take place at a third of all polling stations, the [Central Election Commission] is entitled to declare the parliamentary elections invalid and announce another round of elections.

The current Legislative Yuan has to dissolve on Jan. 31, and the new legislature must be sworn in Feb. 1. But the new parliamentary elections can’t take place in a mere 19 days! The one certain result is that the Legislative Yuan [would be empty.]

Enter President Chen. He takes center stage by issuing emergency decrees, which, according to the Constitution, have to be ratified by the Legislative Yuan within ten days of issuance. With the nation’s highest legislative organ ceasing to function, he may do what he wishes and, if there is opposition, may call it a rebellion and declare martial law. And there is no Legislative Yuan to deem it necessary to request the president to terminate martial law in accordance with the Constitution. President Chen has vowed not to declare martial law during the rest of his second and last term. His promises, however, have seldom been kept. Besides, he will have a good alibi this time. He has a rebellion on his hands, which requires the enforcement of martial law. He will then be free to have a new constitution of a republic of Taiwan adopted and run for president and win.

Short-time readers of the China Post should be forgiven if they get the impression from this that Dr. Hung disapproves of martial law.  Because nothing could be further from the truth: following the contentious 2004 presidential election results, Dr. Hung and the China Post begged – BEGGED! – President Chen to declare a state of emergency.  Flash forward to 2007, and we’re treated to the spectacle of Dr. Hung working himself into a lather about a scenario which he himself prayed for, only 3 years earlier!

Take a valium, Joe.  And make sure you practice extra-hard drawing all those little happy faces.

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* Which is not to suggest that I approve of either spoiling one’s ballot or abstaining from voting.  I’m simply pointing out that the one-stop voting process does not represent as insurmountable a barrier to abstention as Dr. Hung portrays.

** An abstention on the referendum measures is ROUGHLY the same as a "No" vote.

A big dispute in Taiwan over how the planned referendums are to be carried out alongside the Jan 12/08 legislative election.  The KMT and their allies would like a two-step process, whereby voters would cast votes for the legislative election first, and then move to another room (or even another building!) to cast their referendum votes.  The pro-independence parties however, prefer a one-step process, where voters are issued 4 ballots at once, which they then cast into 4 separate ballot boxes.

The arguments pro and con are these:  The KMT claims the one-step process will lead to confusion and ballots being placed into the wrong ballot boxes; pro-independence parties say that the two-step process is flawed, because it allows KMT election monitors to observe which voters vote in a referendum the KMT disapproves of.  In addition, the pro-independence parties believe a two-step process would reduce turnout for the referendum.  (I just waited an HOUR to vote in the legislative election, and now you want me to wait ANOTHER hour to vote in the referendum, too?)

An editorial in Thurday’s Taipei Times heaped ridicule on the KMT’s argument:

The pan-blues insist on a two-step voting procedure, arguing that the one-step voting formula adopted by the [Taiwanese Central Election Commission] would create confusion for voters and result in disputes at polling stations on election day.

But what’s so confusing about it?

Under the one-step format, voters will receive two ballots for the legislative elections and two referendum ballots at the same time and then cast them into four different boxes. So, are the pan-blues saying that Taiwanese voters are too stupid to follow instructions as simple as picking up four ballots and casting them into four different boxes?

I agree that the one-step process is the way to go, but add that if the Taiwanese really want to idiot-proof this, they might want to consider color-coding the ballots and ballot boxes.  White ballots, pertaining to issue 1, go into the white ballot box.  Yellow ballots, concerning issue 2, go into the yellow box.  Pink and brown ballots are cast into their respective boxes, too.

Now, if you’re really, REALLY concerned about voters goofing up (or the inhibitory effects of partisan election observers*), you’d keep the idea of color-coded ballots, but nix the multiple boxes.  White, yellow, pink, brown ballots – have voters put ’em all together at once into A SINGLE ballot box.  Sure, it’s a bit more work for vote counters to sort them out afterwards, but it’s not rocket science, either.  Just remember everyone:  White ballots go into the WHITE pile, yellow ballots go into the YELLOW pile…

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* The KMT is particularly interested in reducing turnout on the referendum question of whether voters think national assets stolen by the KMT over 40 years of martial law should be recovered.  By law, the results of the vote are invalidated if less than 50% of voters cast ballots on the issue.

Friday’s Taipei Times featured a scathing editorial about President Chen Shui-bian’s recent gaffes, most of which is hard to argue with:

A few weeks ago he crossed the line when in an attempt to highlight Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) faux localization effort, he attacked Ma over the inscription on his father’s urn.

I didn’t blog about that, but really, what could I say?  Speak no ill of the dead, I guess.  Sometimes it’s OK to violate that general rule, but in this case, he could easily have made his point without doing so.

The Times also indicted him for mentioning that declaring martial law was one option for resolving a procedural dispute for the coming referendums:

And just the other day, while at a campaign rally in Shulin (樹林), Taipei County, Chen raised a few eyebrows when he told the crowd that he was considering imposing martial law if the KMT did not back down on its threat to implement two-step voting in areas under its control during legislative elections.

Again, I didn’t blog about that because the threat seemed like nothing more than ill-advised machismo. 

Did I say ill-advised?  Stupid’s more like it.  Still, Chen didn’t declare a state of emergency back when he was shot in 2004, so I didn’t seriously believe he’d do so over an argument about this.  KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou said as much himself.

The Times mentions one gaffe however – one that I had a hard time figuring out what all the fuss was about:

[President Chen] thought it clever to hit back at a heckler with some snide remarks, only serving to spark a wave of copycat attacks and further damage his image and that of his administration.

Taiwan’s China Post sure made a big issue about that a few weeks ago:

…DPP leaders who once prided themselves on their folksiness and humble backgrounds now appear all but sick and tired of hearing complaints from the people. President Chen Shui-bian, the self-declared "Son of Taiwan" who rose from a poor farming family to become a famous lawyer and national leader, has now abandoned any pretense of being close to the ordinary man.

Last week when President Chen attended an exhibition of domestically produced high-fidelity audio equipment, a man approached him and loudly declared, "the people will soon be unable to live!" The president didn’t offer much of a reaction to the emotional heckler, saying only that he respected differing opinions that commonly occur in a democratic society.

But soon afterward, President Chen angrily announced that unlike his KMT predecessors, he would not train gangsters…and dispatch them to "whack" people like the protester…

After President Chen returned to his office, he told a group of visitors that Taiwan’s economy was clearly doing quite well, since the man who claimed the people could hardly live still had the spare time and money to buy a ticket to a hi-fi stereo exhibition.

I kinda thought Chen had a point.  Be that as it may, the Post went on to imply that this type of response was somehow less than democratic:

We do understand that leaders of all political stripes cannot abandon fundamental policies simply because they have been confronted by hecklers. However, we are quite surprised at the abrasive and harsh way that our leaders have dealt with these incidents. While heckling is rather common in other democratic countries, foreign leaders are almost always gracious enough to quickly brush away their critics and continue their original itineraries.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who has frequently been heckled during public speeches and gatherings due to the controversial U.S.-led war in Iraq, has never publicly lashed out at his critics with such abrasive and angry words. Even when an anti-war student spit in the face of the former U.S. President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s, the controversial American leader merely wiped off his face with a handkerchief and continued making his way to where he was going.

I think the China Post confuses tactics with ethics here.  It’s entirely ethical for a democratic politician to respond to hecklers if he so chooses.  A bad argument is a bad argument, whether it’s made by a rival politician, a China-appeasing businessman, the Foreigner in Formosa, or a drunk in the back of the hall. If a bad policy proposal is being entertained by a sizable number of people then it’s worth being rebutted, no matter whether the one making the proposal is a member of the political class or not. 

(What’s more, I’d argue that rebutting a heckler’s arguments is in fact a sign of respect.  Not to respond to somebody is to snub them – it’s a way of showing that I hold you in such contempt that I don’t consider your statements to even be worthy of a reply.)

Sarcasm is of course, less justifiable, but if President Chen was rude to some of his hecklers, well, I fail to see why this should give anyone the vapors.  Let’s not forget the fact that heckling is rude to begin with.  Folks came to hear Chen speak, but his speech was interrupted.  Now, I know that Miss Manners tells us it’s impolite to answer impoliteness with impoliteness.  But in the real world, if you’re rude to somebody, you can’t really complain too much if they turn around and respond in kind.

After reading the China Post‘s litany of Western politicians who turned the other cheek when confronted by hecklers, I was tempted to find a few counter-examples:

Hillary Clinton heckles a heckler – 2007

Bill Clinton slams 9/11 conspiracy moonbat

Bill Clinton tears strip off a protester – 1992

Ronald Reagan’s less than gentle response to a heckler

(Sure wish I could find video of former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien strangling a protester back in 1996.  Richard Nixon and Jean Chretien – one of these is NOT a Quaker.)

Why Western politicians don’t confront citizens who interrupt their rallies more frequently is really just an issue of tactics.  First, there’s often nothing to be gained by giving fringe ideas the dignity of a response.  And secondly, a politician who engages hecklers is a politician who is allowing his opponents to set his agenda.  Every minute of time that he spends answering hecklers is a minute not spent delivering his own message.  Particularly on this latter point I can see why a person might say it was somewhat unwise for Taiwan’s president to respond to the critics in the crowd.  But surely the brouhaha was entirely out of proportion to the "offense".  It almost seems like we’re being issued a new set of rules:  those who govern are henceforth forbidden from ever speaking back to those that they govern.

That the China Post damns President Chen for whatever he does I take as a given; that the Taipei Times objects as well to his confronting of hecklers suggests something more is at play here.  My pet theory about this reverse Confucianism is that it may have something to do with holdover attitudes from the martial law era.  Nobody in the world likes to be called out by authority, but in Taiwan there’s an additional dynamic.  You see, for forty years, Taiwanese dictators could publicly denounce anyone they liked. And if you were one of the ones being denounced, you knew you were in pretty deep trouble indeed.  No wonder people here have a stronger than usual aversion to being criticized by their leaders!  The days of the political prisons and the knock on the door in the middle of the night may all be gone, but those memories still linger.  Taiwanese may be free now, but deep down, they’re still a little afraid.  And that, I think, creates a conundrum.

Taiwanese are free, and they want the freedom to criticize.  But they’re still afraid, so they don’t want others to be free to criticize THEM.  So it’s freedom for me, but not for thee.

Frankly, this foreigner just doesn’t see how that can really work.