Tag: Taiwan presidential election 2016

Once Is Happenstance. Twice Is Circumstance. 80,000 Times Is Enemy Action.

People's Liberation Army 32nd Troll Division attacks Facebook page of Tsai Ying-wen (the woman most likely to be elected to the Taiwanese presidency in 2016) — leaving behind 80,000 hate mail comments.

The Foreigner has always maintained that website (or Facebook page) owners have the absolute right to treat comments as leniently or as strictly as they see fit.

Now in general, I see no earthly reason why the average site owner would allow their site to be hijacked by 80,000 anti-democratic messages from the Chinese Communist Party apparatus. But in this case, Tsai's decision to leave their anti-democratic screeds online is no doubt the correct one.

After all, it reminds Taiwanese voters who their enemies are.

UPDATE (November 12 / 2015): In the interests of accuracy, it should be noted that the comment swarming was conducted by People's Liberation Army Cyberwarfare Unit 61398, and not (as satirically postulated), the 32nd Troll Division of the People's Liberation Army.

Xi Jinping’s Utter Contempt For Ma Ying-jeou

A revealing exchange from the meeting between the presidents of China & Taiwan:

During the meeting, Ma raised the issue of Taiwanese concern over China’s military deployment against Taiwan…

According to Ma, Xi said that “the [PLA] deployments do not target Taiwan.” [Emphasis added]

UPDATE (November 12 / 2015): From today's Taipei Times:

Ma said nothing in response [to Xi's contention that China's missiles were not targeted against Taiwan]. He did not point out the obvious: Taiwan is the only nation in sight in the direction and range of China’s nearly 1,600 short-range missiles along its coast across the Taiwan Strait.

If, as Xi claims, the missiles are not aimed at Taiwan, what are they aimed at? Xi cannot possibly be suggesting that the missiles are targeting bluefin tuna off the coast of Pingtung County or humpback dolphins of the coast of Changhua County, can he?

Supreme Communist Leader Campaigns For Taiwan’s KMT At Ma Ying-jeou’s Request

My first reaction to the recent meeting between President Mister Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan and President Mister Xi Jinping of China:

Over the past 10-15 years, other observers have noticed the similarity between Taiwan's KMT and cargo cultists — particularly as the KMT touted economic relations with China as a panacea for curing all of Taiwan's woes.

After nearly 8 years with Ma in the presidency, voters don't believe Chinese manna's going to fall from heaven anymore, so the KMT's cargo cult has morphed from the economic to the political realm.

Got a tough election coming up?

The correct response isn't to fight a tough campaign or even prepare to retrench in the face of potentially-large losses at the polls.

No, the correct response is to go crawling to Beijing for a contentless photo-op with China's Communist dictator.

'Cause remember those 500,000 people who marched last year against closer trade relations with China? Well, when they see Ma shaking hands with Xi, they're gonna have a complete change of heart and demand MOAR ONE CHINA.

Or so the theory goes.

Ma Ying-jeou shaking hands with Xi Jinping

(Image from CBS News)

Now personally, I would be inclined to vote against the KMT for pulling a stunt like this to influence the outcome of an election only 2 months away. (Recall how bitterly the KMT bitched and moaned for 4 years about "sympathy votes" after an assassination attempt prior to the presidential election of 2004. Now however, the party seems positively smug about DELIBERATELY manufacturing a "November Surprise".)

But that's just me. I very much want to see how Taiwanese voters react.

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Hey Eric Chu, Remember That KMT Candidate Nobody Wanted To Vote For Because Of That Policy They Hated?

The China Post says you should adopt her platform yourself. Just totally GO with it:

Chu has to modify his stance on unification [ie: to a more unificationist position] if he wants to win over those hardcore supporters of [Hung Hsiu-chu] and improve the KMT's chances of returning enough lawmakers to keep a majority in [Taiwan's] highest legislative organ.

On this matter, the Foreigner finds himself in rare agreement with the editors of the China Post. Does Eric Chu have the, uh, guts, to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results?

UPDATE: The China Post comically suggests that the KMT's Eric Chu is closing the gap with the DPP's Tsai Ying-wen in the race for the Taiwanese presidency.

Opinion polls however, appear to dispute that.

“Little Hot Pepper” Gives KMT Indigestion

Hung Hsiu-chu toppled in party coup:

“Some have said that this [emergency] party congress is being held to replace me, but I do not agree. I think, this party congress is being held so that I can seek support among the delegates” to remain as the KMT presidential candidate, Hung said. [Emphasis added]

Obtuse to the very end. 812 out of 891 Kuomingtang delegates voted to strip her of the party’s nomination for president…so maybe the party congress was ENTIRELY about replacing her.

(Curiously, 1,607 delegates were supposed to be present, but only 55% of them stayed to vote. Where were the other 45%? Unwilling to antagonize Hung’s supporters? Squeamish about being perceived as railroading her?)

Regarding that last point:

Apparently, the KMT has a rule requiring two months’ notice before holding an ex tempore congress such as was held today. Rule broken. RAILROAD.

According to one of Hung’s supporters, the KMT has a rule stating that once its nominee has been selected, she can only be removed if “she has committed a crime or issued bribes”. Rule broken. RAILROAD.

And finally, a proposal to have the vote conducted by secret ballot was shot down by the KMT with an unconvincing excuse. Clap yo’ hands, everybody. ALL ABOARD!

New KMT presidential nominee Eric Chu with train: Thanks for Chu-Chu-Choosing me.

(The KMT’s new nominee for president, Chairman Eric Chu.)

What Hung never understood was that she was nominated as a placeholder. A seat warmer. Or, in the military parlance which she enjoys, a soldier who charges up the impregnable hill only to die an honorable death while waving the party flag.

Definitely NOT someone with a mandate to make innovations to KMT unification policy.

Despite all the (well-deserved) ridicule leveled at her on this blog, I for one shall miss Hung Hsiu-chu. For she offered voters a real choice. An unpalatable one, but a choice just the same. And she had the honesty to attempt openly what most KMT politicians would rather do by stealth.

UPDATE (Oct 18 / 2015): More on the death throes of Hung Hsiu-chu’s campaign:

  1. Hung Hsiu-chu Campaign Death Watch
  2. Hung Hsiu-chu Campaign Death Watch: Give Me 20 cc’s Of Alarmism, Stat!
  3. Is The KMT’s Party Coup Against Its Presidential Nominee “Fair”?
  4. “Little Hot Pepper” Gives KMT Indigestion (Hung Hsiu-chu finally stripped of KMT’s nomination)

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Remember When Hung Hsiu-chu Put A Gun To KMT Heads To Get Them To Nominate Her?

Me neither:

The KMT had no choice but to nominate her for president at its national congress on July 19 after going through the process of party primaries. [Emphasis added]

Next time: measure twice, cut once.

What readers no doubt WILL remember are the numerous times the KMT has lauded its own brand of paternalism over the rule of the common man — deriding democracy as mere populism…or even "mobocracy".

But the spectacle of the KMT nominating Hung and then stripping her of the nomination nicely illustrates this:

While the KMT wishes to govern others, it is incapable of governing even itself.

Is The KMT’s Party Coup Against Its Presidential Nominee “Fair”?

Usually with these blog posts I pick a viewpoint and defend it, but this time I'll break with convention and simply list a few arguments and let the reader decide which are the most persuasive. The arguments will be:

  1. Yes, the KMT is being fair with Hung Hsiu-chu.
  2. No, it isn't being fair with her.
  3. What's "fair" got to do with it?
  4. Final rebuttal.

Again, the post is simply about the fairness of the KMT's treatment of Hung Hsiu-chu, and not whether the party is breaking its own rules or Taiwanese law. A good treatment of that is something I'd very much like to read (but am sadly not competent to write myself).

Argument #1: The KMT IS being fair with Hung Hsiu-chu

Hung Hsiu-chu is the KMT's presidential candidate, and as such, receives KMT money to pay for her campaign. She also depends upon the KMT's political machine to run her campaign, and upon the KMT's name to put her in the spotlight.

And yet, despite all those advantages given to her by her association with the KMT, Ms. Hung refuses to sing from the KMT hymnal – preferring instead to advocate a type of extreme Chinese unificationist philosophy which is counter to party orthodoxy.

She also refuses to accept advice from the KMT leadership, and frequently blindsides the party with her words and deeds.

The KMT has given Hung Hsiu-chu a lot, and received very little in return. With her campaign going down in flames (and taking the party down with her), the KMT is fully justified in pulling the plug on her candidacy.

Argument #2: The KMT has been grossly unfair to Hung Hsiu-chu

Argument #1 is partly based on the notion that Ms. Hung obtained her nomination by misrepresentation and fraud. This is categorically untrue.

Hung's views

From the beginning, Hung made her views well-known…and the KMT nominated her anyways. She performed no bait-and-switch — the KMT went into this with its eyes wide open, with full knowledge that her position on unification was outside of the party's mainstream. It is not she, but the KMT, which is responsible for the current fiasco. 

To illustrate: recall that in early June, Hung Hsiu-chu first floated her "one China, one interpretation" theory. A unificationist position. And what was the KMT's response?

The timeline shows that on June 17th, the party's Central Standing Committee confirmed her candidacy as the KMT's presidential nominee. If her views were really so objectionable to the KMT, why would it confirm her nomination?

Furthermore, in early July, Hung publicly stated that she couldn't say whether the Republic of China actually existed. Another unificationist position. Again, what did the KMT do when it learned of this?

Did the party admonish her, saying, "Your views are far outside the KMT mainstream, and you are unfit to be our nominee?"

No, no, it did not. Rather, on July 19th, the KMT's National Congress assented to Hung's candidacy by a solid majority with a round of applause. Once more, if the KMT found Ms. Hung's views so abhorrent, then why did it so readily assent to her candidacy?

Hung's relationship with the KMT hierarchy

A similar case can be made regarding Hung Hsiu-chu's pig-headed rigidity in her relations with her party.

Back in early June, Hung's chief rival Tsai Ying-wen (of the DPP, Taiwan's main independence party) went on a 12-day tour of the U.S.A. Tsai met privately with some U.S. officials, gave some lectures, did a few Q&As…and the people she met with saw she wasn't some wild-eyed, flame-breathing independence firebrand. Her trip was a huge success, with her interlocutors regarding her as a serious and sober politician.

Not to be outdone, KMT Chairman Eric Chu suggested that the KMT's nominee for president also visit the States, where he averred she would make just as good an impression.

Ms. Hung turned the party chairman down. Flat.

Now, anyone who's ever lived in Taiwan or China would recognize that Chu's "suggestion" was nothing of the kind — it was a request couched as a suggestion for politeness' sake.

I leave it to others to decide whether Chu was irritated, insulted, or humiliated by Hung's refusal. The point is, it didn't go down well.

And the larger point is that the KMT witnessed this brusque treatment (and doubtless, observed other cases where she brushed aside the party's requests and advice). And with all this knowledge of her temperment, it still went through two nomination procedures (on June 17th and July 19th, remember) to nominate her anyway.

Conclusion

Prior to her nomination, the KMT had ample evidence of Hung Hsiu-chu's ideology and was quite aware she was a renegade who didn't play well with others. It's a bit rich to complain about these things and use them as an excuse to remove her now, 2 1/2 months after the KMT reviewed these very same traits and found them desirable — or at the very least, forgivable.

Argument 3: What's "fair" got to do with it?

A little parable will do quite nicely. Note that it takes place in the West and not in Asia.

(The whole story breaks down completely if it takes place in Asia, as you shall soon see…)

Once upon a time, in a Western country whose name escapes me, was a restaurant in a small town. The restaurant served swill and had wretched customer service — but since it was the only restaurant in town, customers had no where else to go.

This persisted for 40 years, until at last a new restaurant opened across the street. Customers flocked to the competition, and the original diner began bleeding red ink. 

The owner of the original restaurant grew sorely afraid, and he scrambled to see what he was doing wrong. From a set of customer surveys, he was dismayed to discover that his eatery had only a 9% approval rating. What, oh what, could he do?

The next day, as chance would have it, a chef walked in asking for job. "Hire me," she said, "and I will turn your business around. For I know how to prepare a dish – a wonderful dish – a dish which is wildly popular in the far-off land of Taiwan."

"What is the name of this dish," asked the restauranteur, "this dish which will put my business back on the top of the heap in this hick burg?"

"Chou dofu," replied the chef. "Otherwise known as 'stinky tofu'. "

Taken aback, the owner said, "I do not know of this 'stinky tofu' of which you speak. And I have great reservations about any food which has the word 'stinky' in its name. Nevertheless stranger, I shall hire you — for without a change to my current business model I shall most surely be bankrupted."

And so it was that the new chef (a stubborn, sharp-tongued woman who enjoyed eating spicy chili peppers) set to work. Day and night she toiled — for two and a half months — preparing the stinky tofu. A dish which is so beloved that it is served in night markets and food carts everywhere across the beautiful far-off land of Taiwan.

At the end of two and a half months, the restauranteur approached the chef and would speak with her. And the chef smiled, for she knew she was about to receive high praise for single-handedly saving the poor man's business.

"Wretch!" the owner cried, "Your stinky tofu smells like shit, of which I am not fond. More importantly, my few remaining customers flee from their seats to escape the foul stench, and tell all and sundry to avoid my diner whatever the cost. Be thee then gone from my sight, and do never return!"

Did any injustice really occur here? The chef gave what she promised, and the restauranteur gainfully employed her for a time.

But tastes differ in Taiwan and the West. And all chefs know they will not long have work if they persist in making food that doesn't appeal to their customers…

Same deal with politicians and voters.

Argument #4: Final rebuttal

At a certain point, the analogy in the previous argument breaks down. Most presidential nominees have the expectation that they will be permitted to continue on until the election, come what may. This is so true that one is hard-pressed to present an example of ANY major party's nominee being ousted in such a manner as Hung Hsiu-chu.

Chefs don't have that expectation.

If a party's nominee (and the general public) have a reasonable expectation about the rules of the nomination game and those rules are summarily violated, then it does indeed make sense to say something unfair has occurred.

(To which I suppose the rejoinder would be, "Well, what about the party's expectations?" Which brings this blog post full-circle, back to Argument #1…)

UPDATE (Oct 18 / 2015): More on the death throes of Hung Hsiu-chu's campaign:

  1. Hung Hsiu-chu Campaign Death Watch
  2. Hung Hsiu-chu Campaign Death Watch: Give Me 20 cc's Of Alarmism, Stat!
  3. Is The KMT's Party Coup Against Its Presidential Nominee "Fair"?
  4. "Little Hot Pepper" Gives KMT Indigestion (Hung Hsiu-chu finally stripped of KMT's nomination)

That Is Why You Fail, Part Roku

Seems KMT presidential nominee Hung Hsiu-chu DOES appeal to some:

China Unification Promotion Party Chairman Chang An-le (張安樂), also known as the “White Wolf,” appeared for a short period of time [at a rally in support of Hung Hsiu-chu], shouting his opposition to the KMT’s plan to remove Hung from the race.

“What is wrong with calling for an ultimate unification [between Taiwan and China]?” Chang asked. “If you are called the Chinese Nationalist Party, you should not object to unification.”

For those not in the know, Chang An-le is a Taiwanese gangster with connections to the Chinese Communist Party. 

In psephology circles that's what's known as, "a very narrow demographic".

That Is Why You Fail, Part Cuatro

Some weird paranoia on display from the KMT's nominee for the Taiwanese presidency:

“However, it should be our initiative to unify [with Communist China], rather than being annexed by someone else,” [Hung Hsiu-chu] said.

This observer is not aware of anyone OTHER than Communist China who's expressed an interest in annexing Taiwan in this day and age.

Would Lady Straitjacket be so kind as to reveal the identity of this diabolical enemy hiding so stealthily in the shadows?

The Constitution May Actually Be A Suicide Pact

KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu declares Anschluss with Communist China is the ONLY option for Taiwan:

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday said that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution calls for “ultimate unification with China…”

“At the end of the road, it is unification, be it in 50 years or 100 years,” Hung said.