The agreement to cooperate between KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
For those of us less enamored with the blue camp and with a perhaps more realistic view of Taiwan's political dystopia, the immediate reaction was, in the worlds of baseball great Yogi Berra, "deja vu all over again." Yes, folks we have been here before -- at least twice.
For example, the two parties were supposed to cooperate in the races for county commissioners for the election in December last year as well as hammer out some kind of vote-equalization strategies for the legislative candidates. Such attempts at cooperation were laughable and "pan-blue unity" for all the sweet talk, became an oxymoron as inter-party relations became as edifying as two dogs fighting under a rug.
Then we saw the pathetic attempt to cooperate over the recent Kaohsiung mayoral election. True, cooperation of a sort was finally achieved, but only because Soong couldn't find his own candidate -- even his own vice chairman dropped out of the race.
Not the most impressive of track records.
Of course there are many who will say that the blue camp has learned its lesson, that united it wins office and divided it gets pasted by the DPP -- something that has been apparent ever since the Taipei mayoral election of 1994. But whether this is enough to rein in the giant egos remains to be seen. True connoisseurs of Taiwan's political freak show will now look forward to the clowns beating each other about the heads with inflated opinion polls before slipping on the banana skins of their own shady pasts and dubious relationships.
As usual it is what is deemed "not necessary to deal with right at this moment" that is the essence of the problems surrounding pan-blue cooperation, namely, as Abbott and Costello would put it, who's on first. Is it going to be Lien-Soong or Soong-Lien? We have almost a year of watching these two arm-wrestle over this question. But the result is hardly a cliff-hanger. Soong-Lien is simply never going to happen. Lien has no intention of playing second fiddle again after four -- very undistinguished -- years of it before. Is Soong willing to do so, or is he going to wreck the blue camp's chances a second time? Note the interesting use to which Ma Ying-jeou's (
Already we are seeing polls that suggest a Lien-Ma pairing is a winner. Now polls in Taiwan are almost invariably corrupt, being often the tools of political factions trying to show support for their questionable agendas. So polls showing support for a Lien-Ma pairing are best seen, not as a reflection of what the public really wants but as a message to James Soong that the KMT is quite prepared if need be to go it alone. In which case Soong would have to as well. The implication is that, though this might deny the top job to the KMT, a Lien-Ma pairing would probably take enough votes off Soong to keep him out of office as well. And Soong is of an age where he can't afford another four years in the wilderness. So forget what the polls claim to show, instead see them for what they are -- the KMT's ultimatum Soong can't refuse.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not