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quote[quote] 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. [/quote]

I think it very likely, if the balance of power doesn;t change too much in the meantime. KMT has to do something to differentiate it from PFP if want’s to do well. Especially if they run Ma. he has too similar an appeal to Soong. Maybe they’ll come to an agreement and run a united Soong/Ma ticket. That would be their best chance of winning.

So I just hope PFP and KMT both get just slightly weaker and remain divided enought to balance each other off and split the vote.

Bri

I certainly don’t think that Lee conspicuously supported Chen. I think Chen certainly tried to give that impression, however, and long before the election campaign, with all that talk of being Joshua to Lee’s Moses.
Lee’s behavior during his presidency was always pretty ambiguous, however. For example, we know that Lee loathes Ma Ying-jeou and everything that he stands for. So why did he come out for Ma so strongly at the end of the mayoral election campaign in '98? My take has always been that he did the math, as I did myself – predicting in print the day after Ma announced he would run that he would win – realized late on that Ma WOULD win and knew that Ma winning ostensibly because Lee came to his rescue in the last days of the campaign was better than Ma winning without Lee’s help and not being beholden to him in any way. So there’s lots of positioning and calculation involved here.
What was interesting about the last election that SCL might want to think about was not that Lee helped Lien because, apart from a pro-forma campaign appearance or two, he didn’t. What I was intrigued by was that Lien’s team didn’t WANT Lee’s help. Lien surrounded himself with a group of youngish mainlanders who were so out of touch that first they rejected everything – Taiwan consciousness and all that – that Lee stood for and then tried to take on James Soong by trying to be even more butt-headedly “big China” than Soong.
The Lee-Lien break seemed to happen before the election; in fact I think it came over “state-to state” relations. Lee didn’t consult anyone about this announcement and went ahead and made it because he was suspicious of Lien and wanted to tie him down to a hard-line two-states scenario, thereby stopping Lien indulging his natural inclination to bed down with the communists. That Lee had reason to fear this has been amply born out by post-election events, of course.
Anyway, Lee announced “state-to-state” and his Cabinet then spent months trying to distance themselves from the concept. Lien hated “state-to-state.” He would say nothing about it after Lee announced it and, when I interviewed him about a month after the announcement, tried to pretend that it had never been made and that the 1992 consensus

Lol, you’ll really have to stop posting on this forum – this is an area for spouting off by people with little or no clue of what they’re on about.

We might actually end up learning something here if we’re not careful and if we continue to let people such as yourself hog the boards.

This is supposed to be ironic, btw, for the irony-challenged among you.

Does A-Bian deserve a prize for freedom after seizing more magazines in one fell swoop than the KMT ever did? Apparently they have now also banned the mainland’s CCTV channel 4 from Taiwan’s cable systems, though it was allowed under the KMT. And how about compulsory military service and the death penalty. What about freedom to travel across the Taiwan Strait? Need I go on?

Point taken, Sandman but I coudn’t let the last poster get away with it.
Let’s put this into perspective. The prosecutor’s office seized 160,000 copies of Next. This was only one edition of one magazine. It was later reprinted and distributed without incident.
My old boss Antonio Chiang, when he was a leading light of the illegal opposition media in the 1970s, had more than 100 editions of the magazines he was publishing seized and the magazines themselves frequently closed down. To say that the current government is as repressive than its KMT predecessors is simply unforgivably ignorant.
Probably the ultimate infringement of freedom of speech is murder. The KMT government used to murder its opponents and was doing so way into the mid-1980s (the Henry Liu case was 1984, for example). How many people has A-bian killed? A-bian’s wife was, as everybody knows or should know, crippled and nearly killed in a KMT-inspired hit in 1985. The only violence Lien Chan’s wife has ever faced … but I’m sure this is such common knowledge that I don’t have to go into it here.
Anybody who thinks that raiding Next is comparable to the extra-judicial killing and thuggish repression of anything deemed a threat to the party’s interests of the KMT years perhaps needs to be set right by a few sessions with an old-style KMT torturer (Taiwan was so good at training torturers it used to do it for Central American regimes as well, by the way). Many of these guys are only in their 50s, even now. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten how to properly attach electrodes to your testicles.

Ah, we foreigners - we know it all.

Hey Lol, Soong’s WAY older than 50!

By the way, you will never see a site like topozone.com for taiwan
topographic maps, as the minister of defence replied to my radio call
in: “we have our copyright”. You go to http://www.gps.moi.gov.tw
and the data is still rounded up to 10 meter blurred accuracy. Any
more and you have to apply, which I did but was rejected apparently
because I lack an ID card.

There is no concept that geographic data belongs to the taxpayers.
This has not changed under the DPP. The Ikonos satellite is snapping
away above, while the gov’t still makes one register for aerial photos
[get yours via the fuss on
]http://www.forest.gov.tw/frames/frame08.htm]
and wants to make a buck off them though the taxpayer paid for them already.

quote:
Originally posted by sandman: I'm also wondering what planet SCL comes from, but I'll reserve judgment till I see these "tons of articles."

Saying one will “reserve judgment” and in the same sentence making a snide comment – tsk tsk.

Anyway, I was working in Taiwan at the time monitoring the elections for an international NGO, and part of my job was to write a daily synopsis of local Chinese news articles, so I’m quite familiar with the news coverage of the events.

For starters I found the following editorial from the China Times (which by near concensus is the least biased of the major dailies):

http://forums.chinatimes.com.tw/report/vote2000/main/890304c2.htm

The editorial talks about the risks and rewards for Lien in seeking out a middle ground between Soong and Chen. As noted in the second paragraph: “Lien is Lee’s hand-picked successor, thus Lee offers Lien his total support.”

In the following article Lee forcefully rebuts rumors that he secretly supports Chen; he also takes swipes at Chen:

http://www.chinatimes.com/report/presidentreview/89000003.htm

Next is an op-ed piece written after the election, where the author notes that “there’s no evidence that Lee covertly switched his support from Lien to Chen [to ensure Soong is defeated]. At the same time Lee’s public words and actions always demonstrated unequivocal and full support for Lien.”

http://www.chinatimes.com/report/presidentreview/89517u21.htm

And in the news analysis below, the author notes that Lee’s movement towards the DPP grew out of events following the election and was more or less involuntary, as Lee was basically hounded out of the KMT by the traditionalists.

http://www.chinatimes.com/report/presidentreview/89516p11.htm

I could go on and on, but those who are interested can easily dig up “tons” of other articles with a little surfing.

Patiently awaiting links to articles for the opposing argument

The problem with SCL’s “evidence” here is that he seems to think that local newspaper journalists know what the hell they are talking about and in my experience they very often don’t.
Everyone has used this “Lien is Lee’s anointed heir” bit, damn it, I have probably used it myself even when I was always skeptical of its truth. By the end of the election campaign I was damn sure it was untrue. See http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/03/14/story/0000027790.
The fact is that Lien was Lee’s heir only because otherwise, according to the KMT’s seniority system, he would have had to choose James Soong and Lien was felt to be by far the more easy to manipulate of the two. He was never anointed, but was considered the less bad of a poor choice.
What I remember was a big effort long before the election to portray Lien as Lee’s heir. But by the time of the election Lien and his campaign team eschewed that heritage. The fact that Taiwan’s largely third-rate press corps, more given to parroting received wisdom than thinking for themselves, might not have been aware of this is a reflection on the quality of local journalism, not on the reality of local politics.
As for the question of whether Lee’s drift to the green camp was pre- or post-election, SCL is right, he was hounded out of the KMT as I said in my previous post. But I cannot but help think that Lee’s helmsmanship of the KMT was based on bringing the KMT into the green camp itself, something which he, of course, did not achieve. Actually, most of the “Lee is an independence advocate” drum-banging of New Party people like Jaw Shaw-kang back in the mid-90s was true. Close friends of Lee have told me as much and the celebrated interview in 1993 with the Japanese journalist whose name I have forgotten showed the same thing. But did Lee help Chen in the election? No. Did he help Lien? No more than as party leader, he was obliged to. Did Lien want his help? No, because he tried to distance himself from Lee’s policies.

I think if anyone were to be given a prize for freedom and democracy it ought go to Lee Tung Hui.

There would be few, if any, other political leaders in the world, let alone Taiwan, who could have overseen the political transition of Taiwan from the days of the ‘white terror’ to Taiwan’s semblance of democracy today without the shedding of even a drop of blood.

His record for that achievement stands, but is rarely recognized. Instead, he remains much maligned as opposed to admired. He has paid a high price for so masterfully manipulating, mauling and gouging the KMT. Whilst his old adversaries in the DPP don’t know whether they should embrace him or spit on him.

Yet when power was corrupting all those around him, he stuck with his agenda. Democratize Taiwan, ensure its validity through a change in government, and create a long term survival strategy for Taiwan’s sovereignty- hence the special state-to-state remark.

Whilst Lee Tung Hui most certainly is an independence advocate. I don’t think he is or has ever been an independence advocate at all costs. What you see are just master strategies from a man who knows how to manipulate the media,and political friends and foes alike to get what he thinks is the best long-term deal for Taiwan in dealing with the mainland.

He most certainly has acheived that. Long-term Taiwan requires a stong democracy, strong sense of identity, and strong military if it is ever going to negotiate a winning postion with mainland China.

I agree with Grasshopper here. Lee towers (perhaps “towered” these days) over all other politicians in Taiwan, both in terms of political vision and political tactics i.e. getting what he wanted. Too bad for him that:

  1. He had such a small “off Broadway” political stage to play on;
  2. He couldn’t find anyone sufficiently senior in the KMT to really be his heir.
quote:
Originally posted by Lol: The problem with SCL's "evidence" here is that he seems to think that local newspaper journalists know what the hell they are talking about and in my experience they very often don't.

In other words, neither I nor the local journalists know “what the hell” we are talking about, because our opinions differ from yours and yours is right. Um, okay… And I never referred to anything I quoted as “evidence”; that would be way too presumptious.

I read the article you posted (did you read mine?), and I didn’t see anything that contradicted what I stated. (By the way, are you saying that local journalists from the China Times don’t know what they’re talking about but foreign ones at the Taipei Times do?) Frankly I AGREE with most of what you wrote, so I’m not even sure what your’re objecting so vehemently to. It’s much the same fundamental analysis but with a different emphasis.

One thing I want to point out that many people forget is that Lee supported Lien because he thought Lien could and would win. Remember, in all the pre-election surveys Lien was never more than a couple percentage points behind the leaders. Given the KMT’s overwhelming advantage in grassroots mobilization, Lee and the other party leaders all thought they would easily make up that deficit on election day. Thus it came as a true shock to them when Lien was so roundly routed at the polls.

(Now what would Lee have done if it had become clear that the contest were a two-man race between Soong and Bien – that’s an interesting but altogether different scenario.)

quote:
Originally posted by SCL: One thing I want to point out that many people forget is that Lee supported Lien because he thought Lien could and would win.

I think this is perhaps a bit of a stretch. Lee supported Lien because he thought that Lien could win given the power of the KMT’s political machine at both the grassroots and boardrooms’ level. However, he assumed rightly that he probably wouldn’t win given that he was by far the more unpopular candidate.

A Soong-Bien race was exactly what Lee was trying to avoid. Soong was in control of the KMT’s grassroots’ vote through his provincial governorship and Lien was in control of KMT’s boardrooms through his tremendous wealth and influence.

To say how would Lee have responded to a Soong Bien race is a little naive. The fact that it never eventuated lets you know exactly how Lee responded to it.

And again…

Ah, we foreigners - we know it all.

quote:
Originally posted by grasshopper: To say how would Lee have responded to a Soong Bien race is a little naive. The fact that it never eventuated lets you know exactly how Lee responded to it.

Lee was responding to a Soong-Chen race, and he did it by supporting Lien just enough to make sure that Soong didn’t win, but not so much that Chen would not.

Right-on Mr. P. That is how he handled it. “never eventuated” was certainly a silly thing to say.

My point to SCL is to try and correct any impression that Lee chose Lien because he thought him an ideological soulmate who would continue the “Lee Teng-hui line.” He chose Lien, and we’re talking about the mid-90s now, not just prior to the election campaign, because otherwise he would have had to choose James Song and that was something he didn’t want to do, and partly because he thought that, as KMT chairman, he would still hold the reins of power over his successor. Granted SCL admits almost as much.
What he does not do however is address Maoman’s point that that “Granted, Lee never wore his `Bian Mao’ in public, but he was no cheerleader for Lien Chan” except to say he can “dig up tons of articles to back up his point.”
He gives us a few, from one particular newspaper which has a very interesting political agenda. But what about giving us something not from the China Times?
But my real complaint is that SCL claims that the split between Lien and Lee came after the election. I am certain it came before, as a result of “state-to-state.” I maintain that Maoman is spot on. Lee wasn’t “a cheerleader” for Lien Chan. SCL claims that “Lee Teng Hui campaigned vigorously for Lien in that election, not Chen.” While Lee did not deviously operate a “dump Lien to save Chen” policy," he simply stayed aloof; he did the minimum he could

quote:
Originally posted by 3q: And again...

Ah, we foreigners - we know it all.


So what is you point here. Many of the people posting have been here for quite some time. It looks like lol has been here for more than a decade and a half, and he’s also in the news business. I’m not saying that that means he knows it all, but he at least has a fair claim to having some perspective on the subject. Or are you saying that by virtue of birth foreigners shouldn’t speak out on Taiwan’s domestic issues?

And even as a relatively uninformed observer during the campaign, I could see that Lee wasn’t exactly breaking his neck to campaign for Lien and that Lien was possibly trying to distance himself from Lee.

quote:
Originally posted by Lol: ...Let's put this into perspective. The prosecutor's office seized 160,000 copies of [i]Next[/i]. This was only one edition of one magazine. It was later reprinted and distributed without incident. My old boss Antonio Chiang, when he was a leading light of the illegal opposition media in the 1970s, had more than 100 editions of the magazines he was publishing seized and the magazines themselves frequently closed down. To say that the current government is as repressive (as) its KMT predecessors is simply unforgivably ignorant... ...bla bla bla... Anybody who thinks that raiding [i]Next[/i] is comparable to the extra-judicial killing and thuggish repression of anything deemed a threat to the party's interests of the KMT years perhaps needs to be set right by a few sessions with an old-style KMT torturer...Many of these guys are only in their 50s, even now. I'm sure they haven't forgotten how to properly attach electrodes to your testicles.

Yes, but 160,000 mags is more than the KMT ever seized in one fell swoop, as I said. Has Next been compensated for the missing mags? I think not. Your problem is that you are going back to the 1970’s, 60’s, 50’s to make your comparisons with the KMT. Of course in those days you couldn’t watch mainland TV, listen to their radio or read their papers. But we are now in a new century. Should not the freedoms available under the current DPP government rather be compared with those prevailing under the KMT in the years before it was elected - i.e. the 1990s. Is Chen’s regime taking us forward or backward in terms of the democracy and progress it claims to espouse? And as to your suggestion that those who disagree with you should have electric shocks applied to their gonads, it makes your commitment to democratic values seem a little weak, doesn’t it?