I am curious why. Let’s discuss. And merge later with other Lu threads.
Mostly, I just saw this where China FM said this:
“Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jian-chao wouldn’t comment on Chen’s decision Thursday to select Annette Lu, Taiwan’s often incendiary vice president, as his running mate for re-election, ****saying that was a domestic matter++++ with no relevance to the Foreign Ministry.”
How can a sane man from China call Taiwan politics to be a DOMESTIC matter in today’s world? Reporters in the USA covering that press conference must have been stunned at the mindcontrolled brainwashing of poor Mr Liu. How sad.
But remember, Soviet PR people used to say the same things way back when. Communism is powerful brainwashing PR tool. OUCH!
But back to Lu: why did CHEN choose her and what will the fall out be? and no, I am not talking about a nuclear war>
I beleive it is a form of self defence.
If re elected , no one can try to impeach, assasinate or remove by any other means , Chen becuase they know the replacement would be Lu. Imagine that , Lu as President of Taiwan. Surprised the opposition dont make more of this point.
[quote=“Scuba”]I beleive it is a form of self defence.
If re elected , no one can try to impeach, assasinate or remove by any other means , Chen becuase they know the replacement would be Lu. Imagine that , Lu as President of Taiwan. Surprised the opposition dont make more of this point.[/quote]
Reminds me of the Bush/Qualye and the Clinton/Gore years. ha ha ha!!!
the dress she was wearing yesterday when she accepted the selection, a green jump suit with a CLOWN collar, made her really look like a Barney and Baily clown. Who picks her wardrobe for her? That one really took the cake!
The utter obfuscation by Western media of the China-Taiwan issue is stupefying.
CNN had a bulleted list of headlines and the top one read:
Taiwan’s president chooses pro-independence running mate for upcoming presidential election.
For God’s sake, talk about twisting the facts.
It’s very simple … he needs her to appease and solidify his more radical base of supporters. He’s losing a lot of the “middle-of-the-road” voters, so he needs to make sure his base is fully supportive of him and energized in the south. Annette Lu will allow him to do that while he tries to recover more of the aforementioned “middle-of-the-road” voters. Is that clear or mud?
I think sticking with Lu was the wisest choice. The main problem – other than her ego – is that the administration never managed to perfect the good cop, bad cop routine. Lu could have been the one to make the most vocal pro-independence crowd happy by throwing a scare into China, while Chen acted the part of the reasonable, responsible leader by putting her rhetoric into phrases more acceptable to the general electorate – and to Washington. The real problem, then, wasn’t that Lu couldn’t keep her mouth shut; it was that Chen couldn’t keep himself from spouting inflammatory words.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this yet. Do any of you watch the local news programs? This was a hot topic back when it looked like Chen would pick another running mate.
Chen choose Lu to stay on the ticket with him in 2004 to prevent any conflict within the DPP over a new VP candidate. Lu is a safe choice to continue in her position precisely because she is not a serious presidential candidate for 2008. Lu simply does not have strong support within the party and she is not closely identified with a viable faction. (Lu was of the Formosa faction, but I’m not sure of her current affiliation or if she even has one. Most of the former Formosa faction bigwigs are now either dead or wandering in political exile from the DPP.)
When it appeared Chen might dump Lu sometime back, the jockeying for who would be selected as Chen’s running mate intensified. The big swinging dicks of the DPP – Premier You Xikun, Taipei County Chief Su Zhenchang, and Gaoxiong Mayor Frank Xie – were reportedly all considered. All three of those men are also serious candidates for running as the DPP’s presidential candidate in 2008. If Chen were to select one of them as his running mate, he risks offending the other two (and prejudicing their chances to win the top DPP spot in 2008) just before a tough election in 2004. Why would he want to do that when he can just keep Lu onboard?
Lu was originally picked to run as Chen’s partner in 2000, not just because she was a woman, but because she had been Taoyuan County Chief. The DPP had traditionally run poorly in the northern counties of Taoyuan, Miaoli, and Xinzhu (Hakka territory). Lu is not Hakka, but the DPP hoped her favorite daughter status in Taoyuan would win them more support in an area in which they usually did not do well. (I don’t know how well this worked in practice, but that was the theory.)
Perhaps for this reason, when it appeared Chen would dump Lu, two other women’s names came up: Head of Hakka Affairs Ye Zhulan and Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Cai Yingwen – Ye because she is Hakka and Cai because she is a woman and perceived to be competent. For whatever reason, however, apparently neither one was thought to be attractive enough as running mates for Chen to dump Lu. I do know that one of the drawbacks of Cai is that she has never held elective office.
Lu is somewhat not a bad canidate for VP, she took a lot of shit while she is in the office and she had done few things for the government. In the past, none of the VP was famous, productive, or out-spoken like Lu.
I think Lu will help Chen win election victory again come March 20, but then she will be booted off in her second year of second term, or she might quit herself. She is bound to put her foot in her big mouth again after the election and really get into hot water. Some say she might be President fodder in 2008, year of Beijing Olympics. Do you think so?
