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2003 November 5

There is an interesting article by Ross Terrill

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/11/04/1067908444.htm

It is interesting because Terill's world view is so dissimilar to mine that it's hard to even begin to figure out where and how to connect to it.

Terill's main point appears to be to divide the world into two groups old, autocratic, imperialistic rulers and new popular, democratic ones. His notion is that the PRC is doomed because it rides with the old autocratic imperialists rather than with the new democrats.

The basic disagreement I have with Mr. Terrill is that he neglects how current functioning democracies work. Current functioning democracies allow for popular participation, but they do so through a system of law which often is anti-democratic. For example, the United States constitutions, and indeed almost all democratic constitutions require supermajorities and special procedures for amendment. Modern governments also have legal protections and a system of rights which protect the individual, all of which contradict the principle that the people have absolute sovereignty.

Terrill's comments that supporters of one China do not understand how citizenship and descent are different, simply are not true. Most supporters of one China don't have any difficulty understanding how one could be of Chinese descent and also Singaporean, Malaysian, or Australian. Also it is also interesting that one cannot meaningfully say "I am a Canadian of American descent." What Terill fails to understand is that the claim of sovereignty that the PRC has on Taiwan is based a controversial and not undisputed view of international law. It's interesting for example that the PRC does not have any claims on Mongolia or Singapore, as would be the case if the claims of the PRC rested on either historical boundaries or ethnicity.

The claims of the PRC on Taiwan based on law can be disputed, but what Terrill seems not to understand is that in determining sovereignty, law is just as an important factor as popular will. The problem with popular will is that unless you define the boundaries, it becomes difficult to figure out whose will wins.

I think that Terrill because of his dichotomy between "old" and "modern" is too optimistic about Taiwan's changes of gaining independence. My personal opinion is that Terill's notion of independent and autonomous nation-states is outmoded, and that China future will look something like the European Union in which notions of national sovereignty are outmoded.

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2003 November 5

Then again maybe not.

There has been a lot of talk about polls in the last week with both the DPP and the KMT releasing tracking polls, with the KMT asserting that Lien has been ahead by 10 points and has continued to be ahead, while the DPP asserting the Lien and Chen are neck and neck and that the gap is closing.

I've been quiet, worrying that the DPP is right, but today there are two bits of news that make me suspect that the KMT is correct.

The first is the latest TVBS poll, which shows Lien ahead by ten points. The interesting thing about the poll is that reaction to Chen's trip to the United States has been overwhelmingly favorable, and still it doesn't effect the poll numbers. One interpretation is the one that I've given earlier and that is that most people have decided who to vote for already, and that it is going to be hard to Chen to overcome his structural deficit.

The second bit of news is far more telling. The news has been the KMT and DPP attacking each other's polls as garbage. The DPP accused the KMT of faking numbers, and the bit of evidence they had for this was that all of the KMT's polls have exactly 1067 respondents and exactly half were male and half were female. However, this criticism suggests to me that the DPP doesn't know how to conduct a proper poll. 1067 is a statistical magic number in that it is exactly the number of samples you need to get a 3% error at 95% confidence, and when you have a poll you want exactly the same number of males and females. The fact that the DPP has made this criticism suggests that they don't know how to conduct a proper poll.

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2003 October 30

Looks very bad for Lien-Soong. The latest poll numbers show 41-35 with 25% undecided. He might lose the election after all. So let's take a look at the previous articles and look at where I was wrong.

The big dip seemed to happen in the last few days after the big demonstration in Kaohsiung. Where I think I got it wrong was the belief that Chen hurt himself in talking about the Constitution. Actually, what seems to happened is that once you talk about the Constitution, you have a reason to demonstrate, and once you put on a show that influences public opinion.

The KMT-PFP is now in trouble and it seems that their campaign strategy is being shook up. Before they were afraid of doing anything controversial because they had a lead, but with their lead evaporating, they need to take some risks.

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2003 Octoner 27

Pretty massive demonstration in Kaohsuing in favor of a referendum. The PRC has finally started to react to these things, although they are being quite mild in comparison to the past. The PRC is in a difficult position, they can't appear weak, but they also can't react so strongly as to cause a backlash. What I think the PRC is trying to do is to portray Chen as an irresponsible independence supporter.

Lien Chan is back in Taiwan and he is coming out charged and in attack mode. The two words that Lien is using are "lies" and "responsibility." Basically, the accusation is that Chen says one thing and does another. One reason for this sharp attack is because Soong's weakness is that he is considered by many to be personally corrupt especially after the rehash of the 2000 charges against him.

One thing that is noticably is how coordinated the KMT-PFP is in comparison with the DPP. Here you see the effects of the DPP round of infighting. The people in the KMT-PFP may hate each other, but they are all working off the same page, whereas the DPP is being quite uncoordinated and Chen Shui-Bian appears to be running the campaign from the seat of his pants. So you see some very inconsistent statements. One day Chen appears really independence focused by bringing up rewriting the constitution. The next day, his emissairy to APEC sound consiliatory and the DPP secretary-general writes an article saying that the constitution reforms really aren't about independence. The next day, Chen is in front of an demonstration on the referendum.

It's all very uncoordinated, and the KMT-PFP is going to start really drilling into Chen for being inconsistent.

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2003 October 20

TVBS came out with their poll. It shows that Lien-Soong is still leading by 15 points although the lead is smaller than last month. One thing that I like about TVBS is that unlike other media outlets, TVBS puts out a lot of numbers which is good for a number junkie like me.

Here is the link to it.... It's in Chinese however....

http://www.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/files/yijung/200310/yijung-20031020113216.doc

Some interesting things. First there is table one which is the graph of Chen's approval rating in his 3.5 years are president. It starts out at 70% and the flucuates back for forth. It's currently at 30% with disapproval at 55%. The most interesting thing about the graph is that it has been constant for about a year.

The next table is a graph of the Lien vs. Chen for the last year. The other interesting thing is that this graph has also been constant for a year with some ups and downs. I think the lesson for this is that Chen could win the election if the economy suddenly starts booming. However, it's an open question whether or not five months is enough time for that.

One way of interpreting the graph is to say that the point spread has narrowed less because of what Chen is saying than by the fact that he has simply been in the news. One thing that I have noticed is that Lien and Soong have suddenly been very visible. This would explain the burst of support that Lien had right after the Hualien byelections. On the other hand, we are looking at differences that are within the margin of error so what we could be seeing is just statistical noise.

The next chart is interesting because it is a breakdown by district. Lien is ahead in the north, but tied in the south.

The next chart is breakdown by party. What is interesting here is that all of the party faithful pretty much have decided who to vote for. The big block is the 38% of the people who are non-party. Lien is leading, but 45% of those people are undecided. This is where the big battleground is. Lien does better with educated voters. And interestingly Lien does best with people aged 30 to 50. There is a virtual tie among young voters.

Something that I think would be interesting is to look at the party affilations of the young.

The new constitution that Chen is proposing doesn't seem to have gotten particular support. 30 in favor, 37 opposed, 33 no opinion. Interestingly the people most opposed to a new constitution are again the 30 to 50 group. It's dead even in the 20-29 group, and there is support among the 50+ group.

I like TVBS because they ask interesting questions. 34% think that Taiwan should consider the opinions of the United States. 52% don't. 74% think that Taiwan relies on the United States for defense.

The next two questions are really interesting. 50% don't believe that Lien has received secret help from the Communists. 22% do.

Here is Lien's achilles heel, and I think the main reason that his numbers are down. The DPP has accused Soong of wasting money as governor. 34% disagree, 42% agree, 24% have no opinion.

All of these numbers don't take into account the dustup with Chen Shui-Bian and the VP. I think that Chen made a big strategic mistake bringing up the constitution. Chen's best chance at winning would have been to look presidential and hope the economy improved. The problem now is that Lien can now attack Chen for being two faced and incompetent and for attacking his character regardless of what the economy does. If Chen had not attacked the KMT for receiving aid from Beijing, the KMT would look petty for making these attacks, but now that Chen has drawn first blood, the KMT can hit back. It doesn't help that Chen is now concilatory. The KMT's new slogan is that Chen will say anything to get elected.

Chen's indecision at choosing a VP is going to really hurt him. If he doesn't choose Lu Hsulian, then the charges that he has a hidden agenda are going to stick. If he does choose Lu Hsulian, he is stuck with an electoral liability.

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2003 October 19

Interesting poll by United Daily News. It shows that the Chen-Lien race is closing. It's 42-36 if you have Lu Hsu-lian as the vice presidient and 40-37 if you have Su as vice-president. This is a drop of eight points from the last poll and puts Chen within striking distance of winning. What will be interesting is when the other polls (notably TVBS) come in to see if the shift is real or a statistical blip. The KMT says that they are worried by the poll numbers, but that there internal polls still show a 8-10 percent gap. Something that that suggests that there is a statistical blip is when there is a sharp change in one segment of the polls that aren't reflected in other groups. In this case, there was a huge shift in 20-29 year old votes toward Chen.

If it is real, it seems that the two major factors that are hurting Lien is that the Taiwanese economy is improving and also that there have been some accusations of corruption and waste on the part of Soong. The big question which I don't have a real answer to is how volatile things are. One thing that has been the case is that the DPP has been polling between 25 and 40 percent even back into the 1970's. So there is a real question about whether the attitudes of Taiwanese voters are "structural" in which case all we have been seeing in the past 12 months are statistical blips or if the shifts in the poll numbers are actual shifts in attitudes. It's worth noting that every poll that has been taken still shows Lien-Soong ahead. In the spring, the DPP was heartened by a trend showing people moving toward Chen, but that reversed itself in the summer.

Will be anxiously awaiting the TVBS poll. If TVBS also shows a sharp drop, then Lien-Soong has something to worry about, if not, then not.

Speaking of which, there is a lot of internal turmoil within the DPP over whether Lu Hsulian should be vice-president. It's a common opinion within the DPP that Chen has no chance of winning with Lu on the ticket, but Chen seems to have made up his mind, or maybe not. In any event, its a mess that has blown up in the last three days or so, and that hasn't been factored in the polls.

Both the PRC and the United States are sitting back and just watching. There isn't much that either can do about what happens.

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2003 October 17

There is an odd paper by Lawerence Lindsay about the appreciation of the Chinese yuan.

http://www.csis.org/china/031015_lindsay.pdf

It's bizarre because Linsday (correct IMHO) points out that China is resistant to floating the Yuan because its institutional system is well developed to handle capital flows. But he then goes to criticize the Chinese government for recognizing that its economy isn't well developed and thus adopting capital controls. In my view, its a good thing that the the Chinese government has a realistic assessment about the Chinese economy.

Also, I don't think that the main problem is the statistical infrastructure. Also I don't think that China is following a mechantilistic policy.

Also American Institute in Taiwan director Therese Shadeen is in Taiwan, probably trying to figure out what Chen Shuibian is up to. One of the interesting things is that in her speech, she promised American help to defend Taiwan as long as Taiwan does not take any provocative actions. The second provosio is a new thing, and it reflects American unease at what Chen Shuibian is up to.

Here is an interesting poll

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/10/18/1066439954.htm

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2003 October 15

In the words of Walter Cronkite...

Go.... Go.... Go....

Shenzhou 5 is a major accomplishment. The big question which people should be asking but aren't is what happens next.

Meanwhile back on Earth.....

National Security Council Advisor Condi Rice issued a warning to Taiwan which most of the newspapers in Taiwan noticed, but few in the United States did...

In the official transcript...

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031014-4.html

:Q The Taiwanese leader said, again, there's one country on each side of the Taiwan stream, referring to mainland China and Taiwan. Is the White House going to tolerate this, or are you going to do anything about it?

:DR. RICE: The U.S. is very clear on our policies about Taiwan, one China policy. We are basing our policy on the three communiques. And we, of course, always remind people that we also have obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to help China -- to help Taiwan defend itself. So those are the basic blocks of American policy. It is our very strong belief that nobody, nobody should try unilaterally to change the statue quo here, that this will come to a peaceful resolution. There must be a peaceful resolution of the cross-straits issue. And so the United States will continue to remind all parties that that is the position of the United States government and that it is a position to which we expect everyone to adhere.

Ouch. Something to note in the remarks is that the order is one China, three communiques, Taiwan relations act. In the early Bush administration the order was reversed.

It's likely that Condi Rice reads the Washington Post and the article on Lee Tenghui.

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2003 October 8

Chen is saying that the Washington Post article misquoted him. This has been big news in Taiwan, but this is the only English reference I could find....

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/10/09/2003070951

Also, it's still not completely clear that Lu Hsulian is going to be Chen's VP candidate. Chen keeps hinting that she is but he hasn't announced this formally. This is annoying a lot of people in his own party....

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2003/10/09/1065663644.htm

The PRC has also responded to Chen. It's a very mild response and responses go, and one of the more significant things is that they've include a new phrase in their formula. The new phrase is "we respect the desire of Taiwan compatriots to be masters of their own home." There was an interview of the head of the Taiwan office in the PRC, and the sense that I got was that he really understands the situation in Taiwan.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200310/09/eng20031009_125577.shtml

Something else that I don't think is a coincidence, but which a lot of people aren't catching. I think that it is odd that in all of Chen's previous transits through the United States, he was routed through "useful places" on both legs i.e. one leg to Los Angeles, the next to New York City. In this case, one leg is going through Anchorage which is not exactly a major city, and I think that is a subtle but important signal that the United States is sending to Chen.

My own impression is that Chen is "losing it." Chen has a bad habit of having inconsistent policies, and Chen's behavior over the last three weeks have shown him at his most amateurish and incompetent.

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2003 October 7

Chen Shuibian is really annoying the United States.....

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2003/24990.htm

Also it appears that he has chosen to continue with Lu Hsulian.

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2003 October 1

I don't know what it is today. The New York Times is missing the story in Taiwan, and at the same time it is chasing non-stories.....

Here is the New York Times article....

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/02/international/asia/02CHIN.html

Here is what Hu Jintao said ....

http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2003-10/01/content_1108712.htm

It's not a particularly important speech, and it's really not that different from what Hu has been saying in the past few months. What I find awful about the New York Times article is that it removes a lot of context. For example, it quotes a paragraph from Hu, but misses the sentence before that call for democracy....

The parts that are missing read.....

Hu Jintao that to promote the political civilization, the most basic part is support the unity of the party leadership, the people, and the legal and political institutions. This is the basic policy that we must follow in order to promote a socialist political civilization, and this is the basic difference between a socialist political civilization and capitalist political civilization. We must closely follow the road to a moderately well off society, closely follow the socialist legal system line, not stop looking at new situations and solving new problems, gather new experiences, tireless promote new forms of this unity.

Hu Jintao pointed out that the promotion of a socialist political culture is a systematic process with will require our long term efforts. In accordance with the wishes of the Sixteenth Congress, we most promote the socialist democratic system ..... (and then to trails into the New York Times quote)

Very little about the speech is very new or unexpected.

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2003 October 1

The talk about a new constitution seems to have dropped out of the radar screen. The big news in Taiwan is that the Environmental minister (who is a member of the opposition New Party) has resigned because he doesn't agree with the government's position on referenda. His point is that local referenda will make it pointless to pass environmental regulations that local governments can just overrule.

Lien Chan has shown himself to be a better campaigner than many had thought. When asked to comment on the Chen's proposal, he uttered one word that has been repeated and has probably doomed it. That word is "boring". That word has become associated with Chen's constitutional proposals.

The People's Daily has mentioned the situation on its section on Taiwan, but it has confined to factual reports. Beijing hasn't commented directly and is unlikely to. Not commenting means that you don't say anything stupid. It also keeps it out of the Western press. It's a really sad day when the People's Daily has better converage of a major event that may affect the United States than CNN or the Washington Post, both of whom haven't mentioned this at all.

What is also very interesting is that the United States stepped in. Officially the United States put a lot of pressure on Chen to reaffirm the four noes policy. Unofficially, the attitude of the United States was that Chen perhaps misspoke and that this was part of election rhetoric. This allows Chen to have a face-saving way out, which he has taken. Privately, a lot of the people in the State Department were hopping mad at Chen.

This episode has done incalculable damage to Chen and perhaps has doomed Taiwan independence. The problem isn't the immediate poll numbers. United Daily News shows a two point rise for Chen. TVBS shows a drop for Lien-Soong, but no increase for Chen.

The problem is that every poll shows Chen behind. For him to win he has to catch up and attack the opposition. By talking about a new Constitution, Chen has removed some of the arguments he could have used. It is now very difficult for Chen to criticize the opposition's objections to a referenda, since the opposition can claim that they are stopping Chen from subverting the Constitution. It is also difficult for Chen to use the argument that the opposition is authoritarian and anti-democratic. The opposition can now claim that Chen doesn't care about the economy and is dishonest. Chen's argument that the new constitution has nothing to do with unification/independence is not at all credible.

These won't change the poll numbers much, and that is exactly the problem. Chen is losing right now and he needs to change the poll numbers to win.

More seriously, Chen is wearing down Washington's patience. The United States does not appreciate Taiwan provoking a possible crisis, and it does appreciate Beijing not overreacting.

Something that seems clear to everyone and which may account for Chen bringing this up, is that if Chen loses, then Taiwan independence is dead. If Lien-Soong wins, then you will quickly have direct links which will tie Taiwan irrevocably to Mainland China. Another four years of growth both militarily and economically, and the PRC will have a huge amount of leverage over Taiwan. If the Hong Kong elections in 2007 have universal suffrage (and I think that the odds of this are far higher than most Western analysts acknowledge), then by 2008, we may have one country two systems seriously on the table.

It seems pretty obvious to everyone involved that if Taiwan independence is to have any possibility of success, some drastic must occur and it must occur quickly. The problem is that any drastic action is going to be vetoed by both the Taiwanese electorate and by the United States. The United States is going to be heavily engaged in Iraq for the next decade. With a huge fraction of its military in Iraq and looming budget deficits, it does not need a crisis in the Taiwan straits and it does need Beijing's cooperation to prevent a crisis in Korea.

The old Lee Tenghui strategy of "stealth independence" is not going to work. One problem is that "gradual independence" is too gradual. It requires time which Taiwan does not have. The second problem is that Taiwan independence ultimately requires that the United States support Taiwan against the PRC. This in turn requires that the PRC act stupidly self-destructively, which can no longer be counted on. The final problem is that a strategy of stealth can be countered by putting in red lines, which the United States has done.

It's all a complex chess game. It's still possible for there to be something really odd to happen (for example an asteroid Beijing, or super-SARS), but the chess position of Taiwan independence, does not look good at all right now. A big problem was that Taiwan independence requires that Beijing be very stupid. Beijing still has some "bad hair days" and does miscalculate (the WHO and SARS episode with Taiwan). But it is no longer consistently stupid.

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2003 September 30

Chen has backpedalled a bit, after a rather strong response from the United States. Chen is now claiming that the talk of a new constitution has nothing to do with the unification issue and that the name of the Republic of China will not be changed. The problem is that if the new constitution has a mean of referendum as Chen wants, then Chen or a new DPP administration can push for an independence referendum and then not claim any responsibility for it.

Chen's claims that this has nothing to do with independence are absurd. The problem with Chen is that he isn't quite as Machevillian as Lee Teng-Hui so that its hard for time to come up with a devious plot that people won't see through.

TVBS shows that since the announcement the Lien-Chen race is now 47-31 down from 54-31. I don't think that this has much to do with Chen's proposal on the constitution. The trouble the Chen not that Taiwanese are opposed to constitutional revision, but rather that there is no great support for it. The opposition can claim that Chen cares more about political games than saving the economy, and this makes that sting even more. Also, Chen's claims that political reform are separate from the independence issue, or that the opposition are authoritarian and anti-democratic, now are much less effective.

It's notable that both the KMT-PFP and Beijing are quiet about this. The reason for it is firstly that if they say something, they run the risk of saying something stupid. More importantly, especially from the KMT-PFP point of view, they don't want Chen to set the agenda. What I think both KMT-PFP and Beijing want is for Chen to keep talking about the constitution for a week or so until people just get bored of it, at which point the debate will return to Taiwan's weak economy.

Speaking of which, I'm amazed that no Western paper has covered this. I can understand the People's Daily not mentioning this, but what about CNN? They are all talking about the hotel orgy involving Japanese tourists in Zhuhai. Lurid, but that is not going to start World War III. What is going on in Taiwan right now, might, if things go badly.

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2003 September 29

Chen Shuibian has blundered badly. At the DPP party birthday party Chen announced the goal of having a new constitution for Taiwan by 2006. Unless the PRC blunders even more badly, Chen may have thrown the election.

The basic game in Taiwanese politics right now is to look like a moderate. The people on the extremes of the spectrum have already decided who to vote for. The problem is that by looking like a radical Chen is likely to scare off some of the voters in the middle.

The situation in Taiwan is that constitutional reform is not a vote winner or vote loser. However, the opposition has been portraying Chen as someone who is more interested in political games than helping the Taiwanese economy, and focusing on rewriting the constitution puts more sting into these attacks.

2003 September 17

Taiwan is starting to appear in the English edition news in the People's Daily and this is quite significant. One thing that is interesting is that Beijing has learned from its past mistakes, and is not screaming much this time. Beijing's dilemma is that on the one hand, it doesn't want to appear too friendly or else Chen Shuibian gets a political breakthrough. On the other hand, if Beijing visibly attacks Chen or supporters Lien, this will just help Chen Shuibian.

Chen on the other hand realizes his weekend and wants to put Beijing in a position in which it either creates a breakthrough or starts attacking him. Beijing, this time, has been very good at defending against this. For example, in the issue with the direct flights, Beijing's reply was "of course" Beijing would like cargo flights from Taiwan, but in the interest of fairness it is only naturally to want flights from the Mainland to Taiwan. This lobs the ball back into Chen's court, and of course he is going to say no.

There are also some interesting signals of Beijing's strategy.... Here is a wildly interesting article in the English version of the PLA Daily

http://english.pladaily.com.cn/english/pladaily/2003/09/15/20030915001016_TodayHeadlines.html

The interesting thing about the article is that most of the accusations that it throws against the DPP (i.e. that it is trying to get creeping Taiwan Independence) are things that the DPP does not deny.

There are also interesting linguistic games begin played here. One thing that Beijing really is trying to do is to look reasonable in English because part of the audience is Washington D.C.

The "Taiwan" section of the People's Daily is also fascinating becuase, although it has an obvious editorial bias, and it insists on putting things like government, election, and referendum in quotation marks, it is on the same planet as the rest of us. The news is biased, but it is a recognizable representation of what is going on in Taiwan. One article in particular caught my eye, "Don't underestimate Chen's chances of winning the election" and it was a pretty good analysis of why the polls which show Chen behind might understate his chances of victory.

This is significant because it means that Beijing is working with a good understanding of the situation in Taiwan, and is less likely to do something that is stupidly counterproductive.

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2003 September 11

I would have like to say something about the terrorists attacks two years ago, but there really is nothing to say. Just a moment of silence.

In other news....

The Taiwan election is heating up. Something that might be surprising to people who aren't following the news is how little relations with the PRC and national identity are overt campaign issues. The reason is simple. People for whom these issues are important have already made up their minds. The goal is to attract the "middle moderates" and more importantly, not to scare them away. So the KMT-PFP is today announcing a plan for free preschool for five year olds, and yesterday's attack against President Chen was that he has been hosting too many state banquets. One significant fact about the Taiwan naming demonstrations last week is how both Chen and the opposition tried to distance themselves from them.

The DPP has fired back with a proposal to allow Taiwanese planes to carry cargo to Shanghai while just touching down on Hong Kong. Chen's big weakness is that people worry that he is bad for cross strait relations, and his goal in this proposal is to bend a little to make it look like he is progressing, while making the PRC look intransigent. Something that people who have talked with Beijing have reported is that Beijing doesn't care who is President if it mean direct links. Beijing's fear is that Chen will pretend that it is in favor of direct links, thereby gaining political credit, but fail to follow through, leaving Beijing with nothing.

Beijing is going to respond on Monday. It is a tough call.

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2003 September 10

A few notes...

The interesting thing about the Taiwan presidental election is that both sides are not playing up the national identity issue. The reason is simple. Anyone who is interested in the national identity issue has already decided who to vote for, and the goal for both sides is to get at the uncommitted middle. The KMT and the DPP are both more or less focusing on the economy.

Another interesting article about Tibet about the conflict between the desire to maintain Tibetan tradition and the fact that the central government is pouring money into the place....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51993-2003Sep9.html

I'm reminded of this passage from the Life of Brian....

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2003 August 16

Fascinating set of articles here............

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/08/18/2003064187 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/08/18/2003064200

It's interesting the attitude that Taiwan independence supporters have toward Hong Kong. They want to use it as an example of why Taiwan should distance itself from the PRC, and for that to happen Hong Kong must be doomed.

The reaction of people from Hong Kong is interesting. There is a quote

:"We hope people in Taiwan could bless us rather than wish that democracy will go bankrupt in Hong Kong [to prove the failure of Beijing's formula]," Lee Yee said.

The thing that is being missed here is that Beijing acted remarkably well during the Hong Kong affair, and that the demonstrations were not anti-Beijing in the slightest.

Something that happened during the Hong Kong demonstrations was that I felt greatly liberated in talking with people from Hong Kong. The thing is that I'm quite a bit of a Chinese nationalist, and in discussing Taiwanese politics, I've always have to compromise a bit on my nationalism. Necessarily, but annoying at times. One thing that I found in talking with people from Hong Kong is that I don't generally have to compromise on this point. The demonstration on 7.1 was directed against the Hong Kong government, it was directed at creating a more open and democratic political system. However, the patriotism and national identity of Hong Kong and its inhabitants as Chinese was never in question. Very refreshing.

Here is where that becomes politically significant. In the past, there has been somewhat of an alliance between Hong Kong democrats and supporters of Taiwan independence, both as supporters of democracy and human rights. I think one of the outcomes of the conference is there is a split between these two groups. The basic issue is that HK democrats want One country, two systems to work and I think most of the believe that is it possible for Hong Kong to become democratic within the People's Republic of China. Taiwan independence supporters want Beijing to send in the tanks and for Hong Kong to burn to the ground.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Something that would be a possible scenario would be if Lee-Soong get elected in 2004. If it happens that Hong Kong has fully contested elections in 2007, then Taiwan independence has no more cards to play.