Where is the Hsieh vs. Hau airport debate?

Given that the future of the Songshan Airport is a major difference in their campaign platforms, why does there seem to be so little visible debate over this issue? Is it all just “I’m gonna vote for the guy I trust and let him make all the decisions that matter”? If people don’t have an opinion on stuff like this, why bother having a democracy?

Maybe it came up in the debates. I didn’t really pay attention. Sorry if I’m off base with this, but this is how it looks to me.

not only that is the major difference.
Hau wants the airport for the hypothetical direct flights to China (except that the people who actually live around the airport will mind having 10x more airplanes landing), and the renewal of parts of town to make it look more international (that means, if I get the point of the constructors in Taipei, making it more like the others), while Hsieh is trying to push for a more localized city, with more traditional things (as he said, “if it is unique, it is #1”). Soong wants to build more huge skyscrapers to call the attention of the world into Taipei.

Also, I agree that selling the terrains of the Taipei Airport would bring millions to the city and government coffers, that could be invested in the transportation system (who urgently needs renewal, specially, as all 3 candidates declared, low profile buses, so elderly people don’t have to make a huge effort every time they go on a bus).

It wasn’t a debate in the western sense of the word, but rather a chance to showcase their platforms. Xie wants to localize, because he’s DPP, and bentuhua is their mantra, although whose ben, what tu and how to hua have never been fully explained… Hao’s chances are firmly pegged to Ma Yingjiu’s, so internationalization and cross-strait flights from Shanghai to Taipei are going to make every businessman’s eye’s go ka-ching. Including mine. Hell, it’d be nice to see Taipei become something more than just a backwater of China.

Seems pretty clear to me. The issue is that there’s a whole sector of the population that grew up here but for some bizarre reason thinks its Chinese. They seem to be very confused about what they are.

Paradoxically, localization is the key to selling oneself in the globalized economy, I think Hsieh’s right on that score – the world has enough glass and steel towers and doesn’t need more. Taiwan needs to cultivate its own identity. At the same time the china ban is getting unsustainable. I think we ought to let the Chinese come over – if they aren’t a problem, then they aren’t. And if problems ensue, it will only prove what the anti-China crowd has been saying all along.

Vorkosigan

Maoman, do you really think the city needs 10x more air planes, with all the pollution they brings? For me, the send everything to Taoyuan International after opening a fast train connection to the city would be a much better solution to Taipei.

For information, the HK-Taoyuan International Corridor, is the second busiest in the world, after the Dublin-London.

Elections in Taiwan tends to be about personalities as much as about any issues, if at all. If people are concerned about issues, it would be only in the general sense of the word. They have a rough idea what a certain party represents and offers, and a lot of their decisions hinge on the appeal of the particular candidate, or voters’ impression of the party a candidate represents.

And anyhow the present contest seems to be stuck on issues of official corruption. At least thats what the parties are doing by way of(instead of?) campaigning; each side is trying to outmanoeuver the opposition in trying to get more of the other side indicted on financial improprieties that happened some years ago.

But they seem to care a lot about issues after the fact. The overall gist of the pan-blues criticism of the DPP administration is that it has prevented Taiwan from achieving the glory days it once supposedly had. The public seems very swayed by this dubious meme. Their judgement can be quite harsh in retrospect, and their approval generally marked by polite silence. “Yes, the MRT system is not so bad.”

It would be nice if the public would pay more honest attention to the future instead of letting a few big men sort it out for the remaining millions.

Yes, it’s pathetic.

I think the DPP is being totally stupid about the mayoral expense account thing. As if they can suddenly make the public think Ma is notably corrupt. What they should be doing is focusing on Ma’s hypocrisy, and – da, dum, dum – letting the courts decide his guilt or innocence.

Yes certainly they are overplaying their hands. Objectively speaking. Kuan Bik lin(?) is one of the DPP legislators (in the Taipei City Council I think) who is leading the charge of the bring down the mayor brigade. Her husband was the deputy commissioner of Tainan County and now he too has been caught in the maw of this special allowance trap.

However from their perspective, I could see how the DPP feel the need to press on, so as to keep it in the news as much as they can in the last few days running up to next Sunday. This is essential in a blue biased media, especially tv news which it seems most Taiwaneses rely on for information. They have to maintain momentum for this story or else allow the media set KMT friendly news agenda and bury the greens with them. What have been on tv news headline lately? Nothing but more Chiu Yi smear on the president’s son!

Its not what election should be about but there you are. It has been reduced to a contest to see which side do the most damage to the opposition. You can bet there is no debate on something as unnewsworthy as airports.

I say all this because Kuan, if she is Taipei City Council as I believe has the added incentive as the coming election is also for City councillors. Realistically, unless theres a conviction and a lengthy sentence, I doubt this act of theirs is sufficient to derail Chairman Ma’s putative plan for 2008. However, it does throw more favorable light on the president’s own problem, in that the people get an education on the confusing and possibly contradictory accounting rules that conceivably could have caused the problem in the first place. Especially in the president’s case.