What makes laowai's green? (or blue, or whatever)

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

What combination best describes you?

  • Green (TW) - Left (original country)
  • Blue (TW) - Left (original country)
  • Green (TW) - Right (original country)
  • Blue (TW) - Right (original country)
  • Green (TW) - Apolitical (original country)
  • Blue (TW) - Apolitical (original country)
  • Don’t care anywhere

0 voters

Not sure if this topic has come up before, but I’m genuinely curious. As some of you know, AC and I have chanced upon the topic (in some other thread I can’t remember) of what makes the foreigners/laowais in Taiwan trend green (not just pro-TI, but trend green), or so it seems.

This will be the first (?) of perhaps a series of unscientific studies to discover the chain of causation. This one will be on political leanings in the original/home/birth/other country. Take the poll seriously, please.

2

I’ll start a poll as to how many votes this one gets.

Nah. Can’t be bothered.

3

I have some hypothesis, but, politics makes strange bedfellows, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see interesting results.

4

This is actually an interesting topic. I don’t know if your supposition is true in general, or just for this board, or for, say, Taipei Times readers, so I doubt it’s very scientific, and I doubt you’ll get much more information than “well, duh, of course I’m (insert color here), because the other side is just loopy.” Still, interesting.

5

Right, well it is unscientific. But maybe there is some minimal predictor set that we can find.

The other thing is, unlike in the country of birth, one is exposed to a new set of politics in Taiwan as an adult. That is kind of a different experience, one would think, though I am sure the immediate community has an influence on that.

6

Basically, I come from a country, like most forumosans, where democracy, respect for human rights, and acceptance of other peoples opinions are seen as givens.

Therefore I would come out for the most democratic parties here, no matter what their failings. Also, the unhealthy mix of money and power traditionally a part of KMT’s heritage is also a great turnoff for me.

7

But how do you figure which are the “most democratic” parties in Taiwan? I mean LTH was KMT for the longest time until he was kicked out. He was, what? “Mr. Democracy”? I’m not trying to start a fight here about LTH, btw.

8

Yeah - i think it’s interesting. Some general reasons off the top of my head:

  1. We don’t have any emotional attachement to China. Your average Taiwanese obviously does, which would make your average Taiwanese more pro-China than your average waiguoren.
  2. Living in Taiwan, you see the day to day reality that Taiwan is (de facto) independent.
  3. We haven’t been through the Taiwanese school system which pushes China (and the KMT) down all the kids thoats
  4. Reading up on the history of Taiwan makes the unpleasant bits stick out much more. Stuff like 2-28 and the white terror make a much bigger impression than boring stuff like land reform, general relaxtion of restrictions etc. This makes the simple connection of KMT = bad guys, DPP = good guys. (E.g. who did you support in the last presidential election? The guys who were put in prison for advocating democracy, or the guys who put them in prison)
  5. Most people would support the absolute right of the Taiwanese for self-determination. The DPP seem to support this much more strongly than the KMT.
  6. Threats from China don’t go down to well. (Of course, combined with the fact that all foreigners can escape back to their home country if things go to pot)

I’m sure there are others. Actually for me, the main one is number 7:
7) The behaviour of the KMT/PFP (especially their leaders) over the past year has been shocking. Unless/until the KMT reforms itself, I would describe myself as anti-pan Blue (as opposed to being pro-Green).

9

This one at least sounds like a legacy issue because as far as I know nobody has been put in prison or been putting people in prison (of this nature) recently.

10

Interesting idea, zeugmite!
However, right, left and apolitical aren’t really exhaustive. One can be politically interested, motivated and involved, and yet be a centrist or moderate (as opposed to being apolitical & uninterested). I’m vehemently anti-Ashcroft, anti-neocon, but not particularly pro-Kerry. But that doesn’t make me apolitical. So you might want to either refine the poll or take this into account (that your “apolitical” may be collecting political moderates too), when interpreting your results.

I will add a comment on what I think makes expats go ‘green’. I once heard someone try to equate ‘green’ with ‘left’ in the US, and ‘blue’ with ‘right’, but I don’t think it’s a valid parallel. Remember that just like Democrats, most Republicans in America (for example) are fiercely protective of democracy, free speech and self-determination. Perhaps folks from other countries can add their own homeland parallels to flesh this out.

zeugmite: “But how do you figure which are the “most democratic” parties in Taiwan?”

Democracy, free speech and self-determination are things which the DPP has traditionally fought to establish in Taiwan, in contrast to the old, oppressive KMT autocracy. Some of the expats I know (both right and left) still judge the two parties based strongly from this historical standpoint, rather than on current squabbles, scandals, and performance levels. As far as I’m concerned, the KMT has not yet reformed itself enough or behaved well enough recently to earn forgiveness of its “legacy”.

Like David said, “simple connection of KMT = bad guys, DPP = good guys. (E.g. who did you support in the last presidential election? The guys who were put in prison for advocating democracy, or the guys who put them in prison)”

I was editing an academic paper (draft, not yet citable) the other day which was analyzing poll results by Taiwan’s National Science Council and NTU, which showed that correlation for “feel democracy is suitable for Taiwan” was -.675 for Blue (statistically significant at p<0.01), which means that non blues believe MUCH more strongly in democracy than blues do. For those who don’t know stats, this is a strong correlation. I’ll ask the author if I can cite him or a separate publication of this data foryou if you’d like. I think this speaks volumes about which party is more democratic.

And I agree that the post-shooting behavior of the pan blue was outrageous, childish, and simply inexcusable. I too am more anti-blue and anti-commiebandit than pro-green. But I have friends of both colors here, and respect their opinions and political choices.

11

who suggested the referendums?

who’s trying to separate media and political parties?

Lee was fairly disgusted with the KMT when he got kicked out. Also note that the KMT has tried to roll back a fair part of what he did. Does anyone here recall their “We Miss You Jiang Jingguo” rally a few years back???

12

This one at least sounds like a legacy issue because as far as I know nobody has been put in prison or been putting people in prison (of this nature) recently.[/quote]
Well, yeah. I’m talking about history - so sure it’s a legacy issue (but the current pres & VP did spend time in prison, and their opponents were in power at the time). My point is (sort of) that reading up on history is different to living the same history. If you have lived your life in Taiwan, then the white terror is probably something you just had to accept - and (hopefully) didn’t really affect you as long as you “kept your nose clean”, while economic reform is something that has affected everyone. If you are reading about history, then the white terror is a recent injustice, while economic reform is just normal governance.

13

Hmm. Very interesting. These are all very good reasons to support pan-green. In fact these are the reasons that pan-greens would actually give. However, that by itself doesn’t explain why there is a convergence of views with pan-green to begin with. It could be that pan-green is a truly more “Western” politcal force in outlook, so to speak. Or it could be that pan-green does a better job in presenting that aspect of itself (through the English media, for example).

14

I brought up this idea in another thread once.

A legacy? Historical issue? It was happening 20 years ago.

That, as well as other points people have raised here have made me anti-blue, and pro-green by default. It seems like the KMT was able to just put everything behind it with little or no censure or punishment and most people are willing to accept that this is history and vote a former murderer into a legislator seat.

Seems nuts to me.

Greens aren’t looking so lily-white though, but they come off as much less tainted than the blues to me.

James Soong will do anything to get elected and he’s a big joke. But, now he’s in bed with CSB, so back to my promise to never take the politics here seriously…

15

???

Pan-Green is pro-democracy, supports free speech, human rights and self-determination. These views are convergent with all expats I know. Not sure the convergence needs explaining, it just “is”.

16

Most of the time I’m white. If left out in the sun too long I’m pink.

17

Wait, who killed what now? I characterize it as a legacy issue because in the US, for example, past transgressions on the issue of race still have an effect in politics, but unless a politician comes out in support of racisim now or something, those are considered legacy issues.

18

Yes, pan-green self-describes as such or is perceived as such. Pan-blue is perceived by its supporters as the same. That’s why it doesn’t explain the convergence.

19

[quote=“zeugmite”]Not sure if this topic has come up before, but I’m genuinely curious. As some of you know, AC and I have chanced upon the topic (in some other thread I can’t remember) of what makes the foreigners/laowais in Taiwan trend green (not just pro-TI, but trend green), or so it seems.

This will be the first (?) of perhaps a series of unscientific studies to discover the chain of causation. This one will be on political leanings in the original/home/birth/other country. Take the poll seriously, please.[/quote]

At least the poll clearly shows the Green party domination (2/3) and why Blue folks (1/3) feel a bit “besieged” when it comes to discussions here. I think the numbers will skew even further toward the greens. :neutral:

20

[quote=“david”]Yeah - I think it’s interesting. Some general reasons off the top of my head:

  1. We don’t have any emotional attachement to China. Your average Taiwanese obviously does, which would make your average Taiwanese more pro-China than your average waiguoren.[/quote]

I think this is pretty much the reason why.