TW Presidential Race

choi

(1) Keith B Richburg, China Frets as Taiwan President Faces Tough Reelection Bid. Washington Post, Dec 9, 2011
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wo ... QAbVXvhO_story.html

Quote:

"Caught off guard  While clearly concerned about the turn of events, Beijing’s authorities seem uncertain how to respond.

"The Chinese government’s association supporting Taiwanese businesses on the mainland announced on its Web site that it had negotiated with the main airlines flying between China and Taiwan to offer heavily discounted tickets for Taiwanese who wanted to fly home between Jan 1, 2012, and the morning of Jan 14, election day. Chen Naishu, 38, a Taiwanese coffee shop owner who has lived in Beijing for 11 years, said she bought one of the discounted tickets for 2,280 Chinese remninbi (about $359), about half the normal fare.

My comment:
(a) Quotation 2 cites 全國台灣同胞投資企業聯誼會（簡稱台企联). I am unfamiliar with it.      
(b) JIN Canrong 金 灿荣
(c) As I indicated, foreign influence is little. "All politics is local." Thomas "Tip" O'Neill.
(d) I disagree with the report's assessment that Pres Ma "is suddenly in a tough race for reelection." paragraph 2.
(i) Outsiders--in this case, the NYT reporter, Americans and Chinese alike--just can not possibly take a pulse of locals. For example, before, during and years after Tiananmen Square massacre, I could not empathize with Chinese students or visiting scholars in US about their seething anger toward then premier LI Peng of China. For one thing, I did not believe he had the power to cast the decisive vote. For another, his decisions on various (other) projects were not obviously bad to me, though Chinese around me insisted they were.
(ii) Taiwanese hatred toward Ma is deep-seated, visceral, almost from the start of his presidency. He pushed his agenda without consideraion to the little power there is of Taiwan legislature as well as people of Taiwan. He should have known that Taiwanese view him suspiciously (after all, he is 外省人, burdened with the original sin 原罪 of bringing in Chinese troop to massacre Taiwanese). Chen Shui-bian had said that similar to Nixon's unique vantage point in opening China, he (Chen) alone could achieve detente with China, because as the self-styled "Son of Taiwan," Taiwanese trusted--and still trust--him.
(iii) Taiwanese gave Ma the benefit of doubt for a year. But they lost last shred of faith in him in 集集大地震.
921 earthquake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/921_earthquake

Never recovered ever since, President Ma's approval rate and disaprroval rate have had ups and downs, but never above 35%. Even the weakest presidential nominee of DPP, Frank HSIEH 謝 長廷 in 2008, had 41.55% (5,445,239 votes) against Ma's 58.45% (7,658,724 votes). A certain segment of Taiwanese always opposed--and oppose--KMT; for as long as anybody can recall, the percentage was/is 38 to low 40s.
(iv) Even without a third-party candidate James Soong, DPP will win presidency of 2012. What is amazing is that The Exchange of Future Events (see next) has predicted for a week that DPP's Tsai will win a majority of electorate (slightly more than 50% of the votes, that is).
   
(e) It seems to me that the presidential race has fallen into a rut, unless something dramatic occurs. See
政治大學預測市場研究中心
http://nccupm.wordpress.com/the-exchange-of-future-events/


(2)
(a) 中共助马英九竞选？ 马总部“两个反对.” VOA Chinese, Dec 7, 2011.
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/n ... tion-135163803.html
(b) 中共统战官员传为马助选在台引起争议. BBC Chinese, Dec 7, 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... tion_ma_china.shtml

(3) 美专家看台湾总统大选. VOA Chinese, Dec 9, 2011.
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/n ... tion-135334513.html

Note:
(a) Taiwan in a Sifting International Landscape. The Sigur Center for Asian Studies, George Washington University 乔治·华盛顿大学西格尔中心, Dec 8, 2011.
http://www.gwu.edu/~sigur/news/events11.cfm
(b) In the same web page is an introduction to Professor Michael Yahuda, at a book presentation for his textbook:
The International Politics of the Asia Pacific. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2011.
http://books.google.com/books?id ... %202011&f=false

(4) Ralph Jennings, Bid for Peace Accord With China Backfires on Taiwan's President. Christian Science Monitor, Dec 9, 2011.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/A ... -Taiwan-s-president