According to the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Administration and media reports, Chang Yang (張揚), who is in charge of organizing campaign activities in northern China for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) is a fugitive who has been sentenced for committing fraud, forgery and breaking banking laws in Taiwan.
Even more interesting, a former minister of justice, who now also serves the Lien-Soong alliance, was seen hand-in-hand with a fugitive on a campaign occasion. He has even been networking in public among China-based Taiwanese business associations and established campaign offices for pan-blue candidates, carrying out with remarkable impunity activities to which China's communist system is particularly sensitive. We are not only deeply impressed with Beijing's leniency toward these activities, but also worried that the neck-and-neck presidential campaign may drive some people to take extreme measures that will lead to the recurrence of corruption and endanger Taiwan's independent, sovereign status.
Although this will be Taiwan's third direct presidential election, the Chinese government still attempts to influence the election result. Based on the painful lessons learned in 2000, China is not displaying forceful and barbaric behavior this time by launching military threats. Rather, it has resorted to soft propaganda to assist its preferred candidates in seizing power.
However, China did not expect President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to propose a referendum last September to let the Taiwanese people determine the future status of Taiwan. China thus employed strongarm diplomacy to force the US, Japan, France and other countries to pressure Taiwan into refraining from holding the referendum.
From a diplomacy perspective, Chinese leaders have, during their overseas visits to other countries, seized on the opportunity to threaten and lure leaders of the world's leading nations into publicly opposing Taiwan's referendum, making this the criterion for determining the success of a foreign visit. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's (溫家寶) visit to the US and Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) visit to France, Beijing swapped significant economic benefits in return for these leading powers stating their opposition against Taiwan's referendum. In fact, not only will US, Japanese and French opposition fail to stop the Taiwanese people from holding a historic referendum, but it has led to criticism against these countries' double standards and their submission to communist China. However, the pan-blue camp has slandered, distorted and opposed the referendum -- echoing Beijing -- in an effort to stop the referendum, no matter what. Both the pan-blues and Beijing believe that only by stopping the referendum can they stop President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) from being re-elected.
From the perspective of cross-strait relations, everyone knows that China intentionally has blocked any progress in cross-strait relations by setting various premises or conditions in order to prevent Chen from scoring on the cross-strait issue, while still putting the blame on him.
In the past two months, Beijing has arrested Taiwanese businesspeople and lured the media to label them "Taiwanese spies." The media even laid the blame on Chen for his disclosure about the 496 missiles China has targeted at Taiwan. The attempt to sway Taiwan's presidential election is obvious, but the strategies and methods employed are brand new.
Take, for example, the Taiwanese intelligence agent surnamed Lee (李) who was recently arrested in China. In the past, these spy cases were first revealed by Hong Kong media, and later followed by official Chinese verification and vigorous propaganda. But this time, the scoop was first reported by a certain pro-unification media outlet in Taiwan, which ran Lee's photo pasted on his "Taiwan compatriot travel document" (台胞證), before the Chinese government verified the arrest.
This has highlighted an expansion of China's strategies and manipulation of information and psychological warfare aimed at Taiwan. Its targeting has extended to sites inside Taiwan, causing a domestic crisis of division and conflict.
Faced by this phenomenon and crisis, the pan-blue and pan-green camps must not view China's psychological warfare as advantageous to their campaign, and sit idly by or use the "red force" to help them win the election.
Take Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪), for example. Amid stiff electoral competition between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, the fugitive Chen has been hiding in China, making insinuations by fax instead of seeking justice for himself through judicial channels. He has accused the Presidential Office of being a "black gold hub" in an attempt to wash away his disrepute as a man who took his money to China and left his debts in Taiwan.
Add to this the deliberate hype by the pro-unification media and we get a pathological phenomenon in which a "financial robber" and fugitive becomes a media hero because he has made accusations against the Presidential Office.
Another fugitive changed his name to Chang Yang (張揚) and became a Taiwanese business leader in Shenyang as well as an important cadre in the pan-blue camp's election campaign in China. This raises doubts about the pan-blue camp's determination to break away from "black gold." In the light of later developments, Chen's motive for stepping forward and making accusations against the government is very clear. He was prompted, not by a concern for clean, democratic politics, but by his personal political and business interests and grievances over his arrest warrant.
We would therefore like to call on the pan-blue camp not to manipulate the election by making accusations against the Presidential Office through a fugitive. Instead, they should stop having anything to do with financial criminals who left their debts in Taiwan.
They should also pay attention to the bad loan problems caused by financial criminals, the steep rise in unemployment caused by the westward migration of Taiwanese industries and the serious impact that Taiwan's rising economic dependency on China will have on Taiwan's economic development.
Only then can they be responsible political parties and responsible presidential and vice presidential candidates. Furthermore, government and opposition should not let economic criminals run free in China, attacking government and national leaders based on electoral concerns.
Nor should they try to win these criminals over by extending hopes that if they help win the election, their crimes will be pardoned and they will be allowed to return to Taiwan following a transition of power, thus ignoring the interests of the public and Taiwan' security.
In addition, interference by big gamblers in election betting to promote rumors regarding a certain political camp is becoming more intense as election day draws nearer. According to investigators, because the outcome is difficult to predict, political forces may be interfering using large amounts of gambling money to influence the election mood and create an impression that support for one of the parties is higher, thereby increasing that party's number of votes. Rumors from the underground gambling world are spreading everywhere.
The public will be easily confused by specious rumors, making it even easier for those trying to influence the election mood to succeed. Neither the blue nor the green camp should therefore use gambling to improve their own image and thus influence the election. In order to protect the legitimacy and fairness of the election, we call for investigators to investigate all election gambling, in particular whether there are any attempts at using gambling, which is illegal, to influence the election.
As the day of the presidential election draws nearer, the pan-blue and pan-green camps will unavoidably enter into close combat, and they will strengthen their defense and improve their attacks on various election issues and strategies. Nor will China want to sit idly by, but they will want to interfere to influence the outcome of the election. We sincerely hope that government and opposition will not seriously influence the survival and security of Taiwan just to win one single election, by either neglecting or taking advantage of the integration of the force of black gold and money from China.
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