Yesterday's mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung saw the incumbents -- Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) -- succeed in their re-election bids, thereby maintaining the current balance of power between the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
During the campaign period, many people defined the elections as a "test of confidence" in the DPP government, or a preliminary battle for the "second transition of political power."Many expected that the President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration would flunk, but yesterday's results were rather balanced.
The pan-blue camp's Ma saw significant gains in Taipei, beating the pan-green camp's Lee Ying-yuan (
Over-interpretation of the results are uncalled for. After all, these are local elections that have nothing to do with central government operations. The elections can therefore not be viewed as a "midterm" election for the central government, much less a second transition of political power. The ruling DPP lost the Taipei race but won in Kaohsiung.
The DPP's candidate, Lee, joined the race rather hastily and won far fewer votes than Chen did in 1998, but this should be attributed to personal factors. It is improper to view the results as a sign that the public mistrusts the DPP.
The elections will be followed by a reshuffle in the balance of power within the two camps.
The pan-green camp cooperated very well in the campaign, with the TSU's spiritual leader -- former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) -- stumping for the DPP's Lee Ying-yuan and Hsieh many times.
This cooperation will be extended to the 2004 presidential election. Ma's victory has made him the pan-blue camp's top celebrity in the election, but Ma would probably not try to rob KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) of his presidential candidacy in light of their teacher-student relationship.
Besides, the electorate may find it hard to accept a statement from Ma declaring his intent to run for president soon after he has won the Taipei mayorship. Ma is therefore unlikely to run for president. Instead, he will campaign for Lien and help him tackle Chen and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜).
The PFP did not play much of a supportive role in the mayoral elections, but the party nominated large numbers of candidates for the city council elections in an attempt to crowd the KMT and New Party out of the pan-blue support base. The PFP's behavior has created misgivings within the other two parties.
On the other hand, the PFP is unhappy about Ma's refusal to stump for the PFP's city council candidates. In the final stage of the election campaign, Soong set a new precedent unheard of in the democratic world -- he knelt down on stage and begged the crowd to vote for the KMT's mayoral candidates.
But Ma was already way ahead of his DPP rival and Soong's kneeling act did not increase Ma's chances very much. Instead, it stirred suspicions that Soong was in fact trying to curb Ma's performance from soaring too high -- thereby threatening Soong's presidential ambitions -- or that he was trying to claim some credit for use in the future.
The election is now over. This newspaper congratulates the winners -- despite the political muckraking between candidates, which we hope will be rectified in future elections. The winners should remember their election promises and the responsibilities entrusted to them by the electorate -- and work to improve the lives of the people.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS