Environmentalist. Anti-nuclear proponent. Openly gay. The profile of Wang Chung-ming (王鐘銘) reads like a description of a real liberal. But that didn’t get him elected when the political hopeful first ran for the office of the city council in New Taipei City as a nominee of the Green Party Taiwan (GPT) in 2010.
“Four years ago, we told everybody that we were young, full of ideas and passion. And that we wanted to bring about real changes. But it was just empty talk,” the 35-year-old Wang says.
Real changes do not come from championing ideas, as the candidate has learned. A textbook-perfect political platform on environmental protection, sustainability and social justice will remain empty if it lacks knowledge gained from experiencing local ways of life.
Photo courtesy of Wang Chung-ming
Having spent the past four years getting to know locals, Wang decided to join the Nov. 29 nine-in-one elections this year and run for the 1st constituency in New Taipei City, which comprises the Shihmen (石門), Sanjhih (三芝), Bali (八里) and Tamsui (淡水) districts, for the second time.
FROM SLOGAN TO ACTION
Wang’s political enlightenment began in 2006 when he and several other bloggers and internet pundits helped out with the election campaign for the Green Party candidates for the office of city council. The fact that what he deemed a “very successful public relations campaign” didn’t get the candidates anywhere near the public office led Wang to conclude that cyber advocacy, as powerful as it may appear, doesn’t necessarily translate into votes. Shortly after, the then-art magazine editor joined the GPT.
In 2010, Wang was among the party’s five nominees to run for city council in Taipei. Agriculture appears at the highest level on his political agenda, and the environmental activist/novice candidate frequently took part in sit-ins and street demonstrations against several high-profile construction projects, including the Suhua Freeway (蘇花高速公路) and Tambei Expressway (淡北道路, Tamsui-Taipei Expressway). However, his street activism also drew criticism from fellow activists and NGO workers who thought that by concentrating only on issue-advocacy campaigns, Wang overlooked the importance of working with local residents and groups to gain a deeper understanding of their issues.
For the past four years, grassroots outreach has been a top priority for Wang, who says that after the 2010 election, residents in his constituency would often come to him, for problems ranging from disputes over tree-cutting to the preservation of an old street.
In 2012, Wang worked with local residents to organize the ongoing campaign against the Construction and Planning Agency’s proposed phase-II development of Tamhai New Town (淡海新市鎮) in Tamsui, which plans to seize about 1,200 hectares of land, with most of the targeted area being farmland, forcing more than 1,600 households to relocate. The experiences with grassroots organizing, handling bureaucracies and influencing policy process have helped Wang to break out of the realm of ideas and enter the real world.
“Before, I didn’t know how to make my way into the countryside. The case of Tamhai New Town has helped me to develop a support base in the suburban areas of Tamsui. With the locals, it is all about emotional bonding. If you help them, they will support you no matter what,” he says.
INTO THE PROVINCES
With its progressive political views and platform, the GPT has often been criticized for being unrealistic and appealing to a limited demographic that is mostly urban, highly educated and information-savvy. The result of Wang’s 2010 election clearly reflects the tendency. Out of the 8,321 votes Wang received, more than 7,000 came from Tamsui, the most urban among the four districts. According to Wang’s own analysis, he received a 5 to 10 percent average voting ratio in urban commercial districts. In smaller communities mainly consisting of old residential apartment buildings, the voting ratio is 5 percent. In rural areas, the figure drops to 2 to 3 percent, and sometimes less than 1.
Wang has discovered that attending local religious event is an important way to meet community leaders, whether it is during deity statues’ “inspection tours” (繞境), traditional pudu (普渡) ceremonies or temple festivities such as bandoh (辦桌), a type of Taiwanese outdoor banquet.
“When there is a temple pilgrimage or bandoh, I am there, shaking hands and introducing myself,” he says.
Door-knocking is another way to reach out — Wang has trekked through numerous villages, rural communities and hamlets, visiting one household at a time.
“In the city, we can probably reach out to 100 people in 10 minutes by making a public speech and handing out flyers,” the candidate said. “In the countryside, I ride my bike for an hour, and there are only 20 households along the roadside. It takes a lot more time. But it allows me to not only meet with local residents but learn about their communities and what they think.”
The visits have helped Wang and his team to gain a better understanding of the various cultures, environments and sociopolitical compositions in different areas. Take Shihmen for example — though Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant is located there, anti-nuclear activists have had limited luck in garnering support from local residents. This is because it is a relatively affluent area where inhabitants are mostly seniors, as the majority of youth have moved out for work. Residents in Bali, on the other hand, have many things to complain about regarding their polluted environment, which Wang addresses on his political agenda.
Chatting with locals brings knowledge about their lives, and it can help the GPT gradually break its limits as an urban political party, Wang says.
Meanwhile, Wang’s anti-development stance has inevitably created a lot of enemies. When he successfully helped to nullify an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report for the proposed Tamsui-Taipei expressway construction project last year, many were furious, accusing him of being autocratic.
“I can understand people’s anger and frustration. It is exactly how we feel when the government does something which we believe is wrong,” Wang reflects.
He adds, “Dealing with emotions is much harder than participating in the debate about ideas. Part of a politician’s job is to communicate with people. And that is something I need to put more effort into.”
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
RSS