Jaw’s voter intimidation
After the failure of the blue-white alliance to agree to terms to form a joint ticket, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) named Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) — leader of the KMT’s “Blue Fighters” faction — as the party’s vice presidential candidate.
Jaw is good at inciting and intimidating the public. When running for Taipei mayor against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 1994, he deliberately elevated the stakes of the election — one would have mistaken the race for that of the presidential election — claiming that if a DPP member like Chen was elected as Taipei mayor, the Republic of China (ROC) might soon perish.
Chen served one term as mayor, and two terms as president, while President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the DPP is at the end of her second term, in office for more than seven years.
Not only has the ROC not perished in that time, but it has also expanded its international relations and gained greater recognition and support from the international community.
Pro-China candidates who wave the ROC flags and shout “long live the ROC” when running for office, often echo Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “1992 consensus” and “one China policy” after they are elected. Perhaps such candidates are the ones who really want to destroy the ROC. If Jaw wants to run for vice president, does he not need to clarify his previous remarks to the public first?
In the nine-in-one elections last year, Jaw scared young people when he said that “voting for the DPP is sending the youth to the battlefield,” and that “voting for the DPP is voting for war.” He took these youths as unpatriotic cowards, while encouraging the voters to vote for pro-China candidates in the elections.
After he was named the KMT’s vice presidential pick, Jaw immediately pledged to change the mandatory military service [which is to be extended from four months to one year starting next year] back to four months once elected.
On the one hand, the policy would please young people. On the other hand, it would weaken our defense capability, just to curry favor with Beijing. He is so fond of playing the “intimidation card.” In addition to the trick of “war and peace,” how is he going to bluff us this time?
Tsai Min-hsiung,
Taichung
Warm US-Taiwan relations
Something good has been happening in Taiwan lately, and it is opening new doors of connectivity across the borders of the US and Taiwan.
I am referring to the opening of new US state offices in Taiwan, most recently those of Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina and Virginia. These might be called trade and investment offices, Asia-Pacific offices, representative offices or Taipei economic and cultural offices, but they focus on an extensive range of issues, including economic ties, agricultural development, cooperation in health matters, educational exchanges and cultural and language relations, which will no doubt be key areas, with the US-Taiwan Education Initiative leading the way.
In addition to these new members of the American State Offices Association, prior members include Minnesota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, South Carolina and Wyoming.
A long line of US state governors have also led missions to Taiwan, including six this year. They have signed a number of agreements, letters of intent, memoranda of understanding, concordances and caucus agreements on all the key issues. Such connections surely facilitate and reinforce bilateral ties between the US and Taiwan, opening new people-to-people connectivity and serving as platforms to enhance trade and cultural ties with Taiwan.
These moves might demonstrate increasingly close Taiwan-US ties and might be seen at a roughly “subnational” level, but they might do much more: They might bring to Taiwan the recognition and approval of any number of US politicians and citizens, and this might lead to higher levels of “national” acceptance from other countries, not least to higher governmental and administrative levels in the US. This is bringing deep and wide new exchanges and awareness among citizens and individuals of these two commonwealths.
I look forward to the continued growth of these initiatives and the participation of state leaders from the US, such as California and New York in the future.
David Pendery
Taipei
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