I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,
and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
When you're gloomy there is nothing like Eliot to make you even more so. But how well Prufrock sums up Saturday's events. The Taiwanese were being called upon in rally after rally by Chen Shui-bian (
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
the Taiwanese voters respond pragmatically "Crisis? Certainly not!"
Let us not pretend that it wasn't disappointing. That a majority of Taiwanese could cast their votes for the parties of thugs, thieves, fraudsters, and scam artists, the parties of bagmen, gangsters, unreconstructed fascists, torturers and murderers beggars belief. Any progressive can only sympathize with Simon Bolivar's bitter last words: "He who serves the revolution ploughs the sea."
But the pan-greens can hardly escape blame for the debacle. There has been a lot of talk of their being too optimistic, running too many candidates and as a result spreading their vote too thinly. Then again there were total messes like Taipei City's second district where vote allocation simply fell apart.
But the disappointment was not the result of tactical failure, but strategic mistakes that were made at the very top. Chen chose to run a presidential election campaign for a legislative election. This means that he centered on symbolic issues of identity politics in a campaign which should have been about the basics -- support for farmers, opening direct links for businesspeople, pensions for the elderly, more school spending, a sustainable National Health Insurance system. Legislative elections in Taiwan are about pork-barrel issues -- the Taiwan voter's fundamental question to a candidate is not "what do you stand for " but "what can you give to me/get for me?" And here the pan-blues with their long practice of clientalism do actually have a better history of bringing home the bacon.
The election is being interpreted everywhere as a rejection of Taiwan separatism. Certainly there was a sense that themes from Chen's campaigning would, if realized, raise tensions with China. But there was also a wide realization that many of these would be impossible to attain, given that the pan-greens would never win the super-majority needed to make constitutional changes on their own. So there was a strange hollowness about the DPP's Chen-centered campaign, an emptiness that resulted in some 2.25 million who voted green in March -- a third of the total votes for Chen -- not showing up at the polls Saturday.
But while voters might have balked at the risky road the DPP seemed to be taking, Taiwan consciousness is not going to go away. Remember it was the strongly pro-reunification People First Party that was the big loser in the election, seeing a quarter of its seats go to the more moderate Chinese Nationalist Party.
For Taiwan-consciousness proselytizers, the message is clear: Do more work. Surely you didn't think that something that elsewhere has taken decades, is going to be accomplished in four or five years? You cannot create a sense of national identity, or national destiny in a handful of election campaigns. Building Taiwan as a nation has to go beyond political campaigning and find its way through civil society into people's hearts. Enough of politics -- for now.
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
Deflation in China is persisting, raising growing concerns domestically and internationally. Beijing’s stimulus policies introduced in September last year have largely been short-lived in financial markets and negligible in the real economy. Recent data showing disproportionately low bank loan growth relative to the expansion of the money supply suggest the limited effectiveness of the measures. Many have urged the government to take more decisive action, particularly through fiscal expansion, to avoid a deep deflationary spiral akin to Japan’s experience in the early 1990s. While Beijing’s policy choices remain uncertain, questions abound about the possible endgame for the Chinese economy if no decisive
China poses a dire threat to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry as it steps up efforts to poach Taiwan’s top chip talent, following the US’ implementation of stringent chip restrictions. Beijing is keen to develop its own semiconductor technologies, leveraging skilled engineers from Taiwan, Europe and other countries to circumvent US restrictions on providing China access to advanced US chips, particularly those used in artificial intelligence applications, as well as other chip technologies and manufacturing equipment. Taiwan has always contended with talent competition from China, but the situation is worsening. The Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday said that China’s ARK Semi and
Actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) on March 13 posted an Instagram caption after the opening of Tiffany’s Taipei flagship store two days earlier that read: “Thank you Tiffany for inviting us to Taipei China.” We know that Yeoh knows Taipei is in Taiwan, not China, because the caption was posted following comments she made — in English — in which she said: “Thank you to Tiffany for bringing me to Taipei, because I do love this country very much.” Her remarks and the subsequent Instagram caption were reported in Taiwan, in Chinese and English- language media such as Radio Free Asia, and overseas,