Pres Ma's Popularity, or Lack Thereof + Australian Legation's Name-Change

choi

There is no need to read the rest of either report.

(1) Jonathan Manthorpe, Taiwan's President Ma Sees Popularity Plummet. Vancouver Sun, May 28, 2012.
http://www.vancouversun.com/busi ... /6688831/story.html

Quote:

(a) "Taiwan's newly re-elected president Ma Ying-jeou is the target of a spectacular case of buyer remorse by voters. In the five months since he won a slim but clear victory in January's election with 51.6 per cent of the vote, Ma's popularity has crashed to only 20 per cent and some polls put his public support as low as 15 per cent.

(b) "After the Second World War the allies in the Pacific Ocean operations led by the United States designated China's governing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to administer Taiwan, a former Japanese colony, until a referendum on self-determination could be held. * * * Meanwhile America's enthusiasm for Taiwanese self-determination withered first in the face of insecurity in Asia and then by the passion to improve relations with Beijing, which claimed and continues to claim Taiwan as a 'rebel province.'

(c) "perhaps the greatest inequality benefiting the KMT is its extraordinary wealth which in 1992 was tallied as at least $32 billion and which in recent years is estimated to have produced annual incomes of about $1 billion for the party's war chest. The KMT's wealth has grown out of its seizure in 1945 of what were Japanese investments on Taiwan. But instead of administering these as Taiwanese national assets, the KMT, which has a Leninist founding philosophy, grabbed them as party property.

My comment: Regarding quotation (b), I am unaware if there was indeed a stipulation to hold a referendum in Taiwan, for self-determination. I did not hear of it before.

(2) Emmanuelle Tzeng and Christie Chen, Australian Office in Taiwan Renamed. CNA, May 28, 2012
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/W ... amp;ID=201205280035
("The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Taipei has renamed itself the Australian Office")