Over decades of ongoing revolution and construction, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has several strategies and tactics that were concisely described by Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Perhaps the best known is: “Seize both ends and drag the middle along with them,” ie, using what Mao called seizing “the advanced and backward extremes” to “drag” the middle “along with them.”
This is the strategy the CCP has been using to interfere during the campaign period for the Nov. 24 elections: First establishing Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) advantage in Taipei and then trying to pull Kaohsiung, which belongs to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and then using the north and the south to pull central Taiwan along toward victory for its preferred candidates.
The CCP has also adopted Lin Biao’s (林彪) “one point, two sides, three-three system” strategy whereby two sides deploy enough troops to make a double envelopment of the enemy before finding a weak link and breaking through at one point followed by deep attacks by groups of three.
The DPP used this strategy to great advantage in the 2014 elections, but this year it cannot deal with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).
Even with the spread of fake news and Internet polls, voters should be able to see through these candidates who say whatever comes into their mind without giving it any thought.
This can be easily seen by comparing the campaigns of the two camps in Kaohsiung and the changing tactics of the DPP’s mayoral candidate, Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁).
However, the Taichung World Flora Exposition has infused new vitality to Taiwan.
Just as the Kaohsiung MRT system’s Formosa station and the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) are world-class sites, the flora expo has received far more international praise than the 2010 flora expo held during former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) term.
The Taichung expo’s exceptional design is attracting thousands of visitors every day — evidence that green governance is a guarantee for quality.
While much of Taiwan’s important infrastructure was planned by a KMT administration, it has been completed by a DPP administration, such as the Taipei MRT system, the Hsuehshan Tunnel and the Taiwan High Speed Rail. Others were planned — and completed — by a DPP government, such as the 435 Art Zone (435藝文特區) in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) and Kaohsiung’s Love River project and MRT system.
The Taipei Dome, on the other hand, has been a mess from former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) time as mayor into Ko’s administration. It is time that DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智), who is running against Ko, gets to clean up the mess.
Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung’s (林佳龍) administration thanked his predecessor, Jason Hu (胡志強), for his initial efforts in organizing the flora expo, but Hu responded by releasing questionable polls to muddy the waters, while his disciples have blamed the city’s long-standing air pollution on the DPP.
Lin Chia-lung has worked to develop central Taiwan together with Changhua and Nantou counties, disregarding partisan differences and looking at what is best for Taiwan, an approach that the pan-blue camp could learn from.
Three former Government Information Office directors. all of the DPP, are running for mayor: Lin Chia-lung and Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) are seeking re-election, plus Yao.
Hopefully Chen will hold the south and the positive effects of the Taichung flora expo will spread north, and all three will win.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS