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and extend some support for our President A-bian, who wishes to visit Denmark to pick up the Prize for Freedom himself and may not be able to do so because of bullies in China.
I had a look at the site. How typical. The West likes to talk about freedom and democracy, but let’s not let those get in the way of relations with China. China is “special.” Denmark would probably let in just about anyone else on the planet (freedom fighter/terrorist/dissident…) except for an official from the democratic government of Taiwan.
I’m glad Taiwan looks prepared to protest this “illiberal” treatment.
Kim, you seem to equate support of Taiwan with support of Chen Shuibian. These two ideas are not necessarily mutually inclusive. In China you gotta love Jiang if you love the country, but I don’t think we’ve gotten to that point here yet.
I agree that nobody should equate supporting Taiwan and supporting A-bian, but this Prize for Freedom is different. After all, if it weren’t for the democratic development in the island, A-bian wouldn’t stand a chance in the 2000 presidential election, let alone getting elected. And that is exactly why A-bian would get the Prize for Freedom this year. In my opinion, the winner of the prize is in fact the people of Taiwan, not A-bian.
A-bian also wouldn’t have stood a chance in the election if James Soong and Lien Chan hadn’t split the vote. Nor would he have stood a chance without Lee Teng-hui’s support. Maybe all of these people should go to Denmark.
It’s really a cool idea that all of those political heavyweights all go to Copenhagen for the Prize for Freedom.
Thanks for the link KIM.
Hey Poagao, great point. We should be very thankful to Soong and Lien and LTH. Now if Soong and Lien would just step down, A-Bien could go about his job of fixing what ails Taiwan.
So, is A-bian getting passing marks at this point?
quote:
Originally posted by Poagao: A-bian also wouldn't have stood a chance in the election if James Soong and Lien Chan hadn't split the vote.
This is based on the dubious assumption that most of Lien’s votes would’ve gone to Soong if it were just Soong vs Chen.
One could just as easily make the argument Chen would’ve beaten Soong by a wider margin if Lien hadn’t siphoned off Chen’s votes.
Not if one knows anything about the political situation here, one couldn’t. Lien and Soong stood on a very similar political stance in terms of cross-strait policy as well as other matters, while Chen stood on the other side. Naturally people would vote for a candidate with a similar stance rather than a radically different candidate.
What Poagao said. Ditto.
However Chen was elected, point is countries that claim to support democracy should not prevent a democratically elected head of state from visiting their territory (whether he deserves the award is irrelevant).
After all, America’s last election was even more screwed up than Taiwan’s, and Bush goes wherever he wants .
(PS To borrow someone’s log-in name "I love America, I just hate Bush)
To counteract, why doesn’t Taiwan innagruate an award, say the “Adolf Hitlar Excellence in Communism and Abuses to Human Rights and Freedoms Memorial Trophy”. Award China the winner, just ahead of Nth Korea and the rest. Then tell Jiang he actually can’t come and collect his trophy until A bian goes to denmark. Stupid idea, yeah it is isn’t it, but no more so than the Denmark government if they don’t allow A bian to go. Sad thing is they’re not alone in the world, and they’ll be damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
I’m a big fan of Chen. I think he has very high ideals but is continually stymied(?sp?) by the LY. Soong scares me and well Lien is pretty much asleep half the time.
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Originally posted by Poagao: Lien and Soong stood on a very similar political stance in terms of cross-strait policy as well as other matters, while Chen stood on the other side.
This is analysis distorted by developments since the elections. DURING the presidential elections the KMT tried hard to distance itself from Soong by emphasizing its pro-native (bentu) stance. Contrary to what you stated above, Lee Teng Hui campaigned vigorously for Lien in the election. Please provide a specific example demonstrating how exactly Lee showed his “suport” of Chen during the election.
quote:
Originally posted by Poagao: [QB]Not if one knows anything about the political situation here, one couldn't.
By the way I’m a new poster to the board, but I’m not a novice nor an outsider to Taiwan (though I’m currently in Cali for a work assignment). So please direct the haughty disdain to someone else, thank you.
Yeah, right. Vigorously. 
What colour is the sky in your world, cuz it sure ain’t the same as the one we’ve got here. Granted, Li never wore his “Bian Mao” in public, but he was no cheerleader for Lian Zhan. :?
It’s well known that Lee favored Lien because he thought Lien would be easy to manipulate and thus he could maintain power behind the throne. The split with Lien occurred AFTER the election and post-election fallout.
In any case, your argument would be much more convincing if you could provide specific examples or news analysis from before the election, rather than recycle myths or question the color of my sky.
I can dig up tons of articles to back up my point…
Interesting topic. Though rather than post-election analysis, I’d be keen to hear what people’s views are on the chance of Chen being re-elected next time (assuming he would run for the presidency again.)
I think that if the DPP were to have a chance at a second term in power, the party had better come up with a tougher candidate, though I don’t see any contenders at present.
I’m also wondering what planet SCL comes from, but I’ll reserve judgment till I see these “tons of articles.”
A dozen or so would be enough to be going on with though, SCL. You can post the links here. Make sure you include the title of the newspaper they come from. Not that they’re biased, of course, but…
I wonder if a similar situation could occur in 2004, i.e., if Soong splits the vote with the KMT candidate, possibly Ma Ying-jeou, and Chen Shui-bian takes up the resulting “largest third” by a small margin, just as he did in 2000.
Of course there are lots of articles about Lee’s “helping” Lien. The situation is a bit more complicated than was reported in the papers (I was working at one of them during the 2000 election, actually). I’m afraid it’s not easy in such a forum as this to point to any one facet of Taiwanese society and say “this here is how we knew Lee was actually supporting Chen.”