Bullets and Elections in Taiwan

The popular China blog ESWN, discussing the recent bullets flying in Taiwan, observes....

(TVBS) In Taichung's District #3, DPP legislature candidate Hsieh Hsin-ni lost her primary election but she has filed an appeal on the grounds that one of the polling research companies had an improper business relationship with her opponent and this company gave her really bad numbers that resulted in her losing by 0.28%.

Yesterday, the office of Hsieh-Hsin-ni received a threatening letter which contained a bullet. The letter told her not to support DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh anymore.

Hsieh Hsin-ni had appealed to the Appeals Committee of five persons, of which three agreed that there was a procedure flaw in the selection of the polling research companies. But there was also no evidence of wrongdoing by that research company. The matter has been referred to higher levels. If the polls should have to be taken over again, then Hsieh Hsin-ni's current public campaign against the nefarious collusion between her opponent and the polling company will in fact be an unfair factor in the public's mind. That is to day, a poll taking back then and a poll next week will differ to the extent that the public has been exposed to blanket coverage of the public brawl. Oh, yes, it is also well-known that bullets can affect election outcomes in Taiwan.

That last sentence appears to refer to the assassination attempt on Chen Shui-bian by a disgruntled Blue supporter the day before the 2004 Presidential election. It's an article of faith among the pro-Blue crowd that Chen arranged to have himself shot, or dickered the surgery, or something, but anyway, it was all a conspiracy, and of course, it swung the election over to Chen. This theory is on par with alien abduction claims and spoon-bending and other claims of faith that fly in the face of reality -- those same people who constantly claim that Chen and the DPP are hopeless incompetents nevertheless argue that they pulled off a conspiracy involving a cast of thousands at several different locations. The one good thing about, however, is that it makes it easy to sort out who is pro-Blue: pretty much anyone who pushes this theory.

Reality is a bit different than the pro-Blue fantasies alluded to by ESWN, however. It is an article of faith among the Blues that the assassination swung Chen over the edge, giving him the election, but no evidence exists to support this claim. In fact, Agence France Press (AFP) reported on March 7, 2004, that the pro-Blue China Times had come out with a poll showing that the election was close and that Chen had a slight lead over Lien Chan on March 6, 40-38. DPP internal polls were also showing a very tight election with Lien Chan trailing Chen Shui-bian as well by this time. Two days later the pro-Green Taiwan Thinktank came out with a poll that showed results similar to the pro-Blue polls, putting Chen up 40-39.5. In other words, both sides had the election was tight with Chen leading two weeks prior to the assassination attempt.

Chen won by less than 1% of the vote, a number that would have been greater if invalid ballots had been counted, as they had in previous elections. In early March he was leading by up to 2%. Any way you cut it, there's no support in any numbers for a claim that the assassination gave Chen the victory. Instead, any rational analysis of the 2004 election results would have to start with the incompetence of the Blues, who thought they had the election in the bag, mailed in their campaign, and blew a 20 point lead from the 2000 election - a lead that shrank steadily from December of 2003 on. They also had no counter for the 2-28 rally three weeks prior to the election that brought together people from all over the island, and apparently pushing up Chen's support. The DPP government thoughtfully arranged for the Taipei-Ilan tunnel to open five days before the election, and several other things, such as a last-minute endorsement of Chen by Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tse, also fell the DPP's way. Fundamentally, if you start with a 20+% lead, and lose by 1%, then you're the one with a problem.

The full irony of the KMT selecting Lien Chan as its Presidential candidate in 2004 is that in 2000, when the Blue vote was split between Lien Chan (24%) and James Soong (38%), enabling Chen to win with 39% of the vote, Deep Blue conspiracy theorists blamed Lee Teng-hui for promoting the candidacy of Lien Chan as a way to split the Blues. Wikipedia records:

Though more popular and consistently ranked higher in the polls, the outspoken former Taiwan Governor James Soong failed to gain the Kuomintang's nomination. As a result, he announced his candidacy as an independent candidate. The Kuomintang responded by expelling Soong and twenty one of his allies in November 1999. It is a very common belief by KMT supporters that President Lee Teng-hui was secretly supporting Chen Shui-bian, and purposely supported the less popular Lien in order to split the Kuomintang, and this belief was given a great deal of credibility after the 2000 election with Lee defected to the pan-Green coalition. Soong, a mainlander, tried to appeal to the native Taiwanese by nominating pro-independence surgeon Chang Chao-hsiung as his running-mate.

In other words, the KMT conspiracy position on the 2000 election recognizes, explicitly, that Lien Chan was too unpopular to win. Yet in 2004 that very same KMT went ahead and nominated that very same Lien Chan themselves!

It is clear that the function of the Chen Asassination conspiracy claim is twofold: it exists to attack Chen Shui-bian, and to more importantly, to divert attention from the incompetence and venality of the Blues.

On a lighter note, in that same post ESWN observes that

Late today, independent legislator Li Ao's office received a threatening letter with a bullet in it. The author claimed to be the leader of a criminal gang and he used foul to language to call Li Ao a coward who is taking money from Frank Hsieh. The writer also said that only Ma Ying-jeou can save taiwan.

Li Ao is a pro-annexation mainlander who ran for President in 2000 on the New Party ticket, the first of the many parties to spin off from the KMT. Li Ao, you may recall, gassed the legislature last year. Li once brandished a knife during a legislative session and told Minister of Defense Lee Jye that he should castrate himself. He has also claimed that the CIA gave him information that Chen arranged his own assassination. Li, who was once a useful public intellectual, has become a clown who told the authorities in Beijing that he hopes they have another 1,000 years of rule....

This is not the first time for Li Ao to make a bullet claim. A couple of years ago he also reported that he recieved a bullet in the mail. Let's hope the police find the culprit, whom I suspect will not be very far from Li Ao's mailbox....

[Taiwan] [Li Ao] [ESWN] [media] [Chen Shui-bian] [KMT] (cr0ss-posted from The View from Taiwan)

Ma indicted, resigns, runs for president

An eventful day for Ma.... indicted, resigns as KMT chair, then announces presidential bid. ESWN has the news via the pro-Blue TVBS station:

Former Taipei city mayor Ma Ying-jeou was indicted today for embezzlement. During the course of eight years as mayor, Ma Ying-jeou had NT$1.632 million transferred from the mayor's special fees into his personal account. While it is true that the special fees do not require receipts, they must still be spend for public purposes. Of these, it was determined that NT$1.1 million had no indication of being spent on public matters. Furthermore, the amount was also reported as personal assets. Therefore, the prosecutor determined that there was sufficient evidence to indict for embezzlement. In addition, Ma's secretary was indicted for falsification of documents as well as embezzlement of NT$760,000.

There was no joy in pro-China mudville tonight as the China Post noted of its fair-haired boy:

Taiwanese prosecutors indicted Nationalist Party leader Ma Ying-jeou on corruption charges Tuesday, dealing him a heavy blow ahead of the island's March 2008 presidential elections.

The prosecutors said Ma had diverted 11 million New Taiwan dollars (US$333,000; �257,000) from a Taipei city expense fund between 2002 and 2006 when he served as the city's mayor.

The pro-democracy Taiwan News has a more in-depth account:

Prosecutors probing alleged misuse of public fund by Kuomintang Chairman Ma Ying-jeou during his stint as Taipei mayor indicted Ma on corruption charge Tuesday afternoon.

Ma, widely considered the frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race, offered to quit the KMT chairmanship after an emergency meeting of the party's Central Standing Committee at 6pm.

Despite the indictment, Ma said he will enter the 2008 presidential race.

The party's charter bars indicted members from seeking its presidential nomination, however.

Chief Vice Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung will temporarily take over Ma's responsibility before the largest opposition party elects a new chairman within three months.

My favorite part of this report is what the prosecutor said:

Prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen, who was responsible for the probe, suggested in the indictment the judiciary deal with Ma lightly, noting that the former mayor was not fully aware of his misconduct.

In Taiwan, politics provides never-ending entertainment. Let's see...the former Minister of Justice is unaware of what the law is? He didn't notice that he put the money in his wife's account? (according to the pro-Green Liberty Times the other day). He didn't see his account burgeoning by thousands every month? Either Ma is so dumb that he shouldn't be permitted to sell newspapers in front of the metro station, let alone be President, or he's so corrupt that....you get the drift.

The report doesn't note that Ma and the prosecutor are friends -- Ma was a witness at his wedding.

There's a year ahead and anything can happen. But right now, me, a lemon, some soda water, and a bottle of Bacardi have a date. More tomorrow after I sober up.

Taiwan] [KMT] [media] [Ma Ying-jeou] [Chen Shui-bian] [corruption]

New Year in Taiwan, same old ESWN in Hong Kong

Words mean things

Both Feiren and I wrote on Saturday about DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun's dispute with the China Times. Among the differences in our posts was that Feiren linked to ESWN, a blog by Hong Kong-based Roland Soong in which the author takes little tidbits of truth and presents them buried among tons of crap.

Feiren had this to say about Soong's presentation:

In this rather long post, I summarize and comment on a typical example of ESWN's misleading work on Taiwanese politics: ESWN's treatment of DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun's dispute with the China Times [...] What I find particularly objectionable and intellectually dishonest are ESWN's rhetorical gestures toward objectivity by giving 'both sides' of the story and his suppression of the context that even relatively informed readers (such as China-based correspondents) need to make a critical judgment.

Therefore, it was hardly surprising when Soong took the BS-TV approach in what may be a response to Feiren touching a nerve. I'll begin with paragraph 7 of Soong's post:

In my blog post, I have summarized all the pieces from
various parties that I have come across the mainstream Chinese-language media in Taiwan. If you only read English, you may have not have read all of them. So I was just collating the reactions and translating them from Chinese to English as a public service. For balance, you can read Taiwan Matters.

I think he has the part about "balance" right. There, he links to Feiren's post in which Feiren was careful with his words and opinions. But the other part about "just" doing those things "as a public service" falls just as flat as it has every time he's made similar claims. Soong has a constant habit of using words like the ones within these posts (hover your cursor over the numbers to see: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) to attract visitors to his site. Then, when he has your attention, he hits you with crap like this (continuing directly from above):

For comparison, I ask you to imagine:

At a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference, the spokesperson declared that no questions will be taken from New York Times reporters until as such time as their China bureau chief is removed on account of a specific article as well as what is perceived as persistent negative criticisms.

At a Hong Kong Government Information Office press conference, the spokesperson declared that no questions will be taken from Apple Daily reporters until as such time as its chief editor is removed on account of a specific article as well as what is perceived as persistent negative criticisms.

At a White House press conference, the spokesperson declared that no questions will be taken from the Washington Post until as such time as its chief editor is removed on account of a specific article as well as what is perceived as persistent negative criticisms.

Let's begin at the beginning. Soong wants readers to "imagine" a completely different scenario while he pretends these things somehow relate to Yu's comments about the China Times. The other bits I've highlighted demonstrate how Soong repeatedly gets the most basic details wrong. Yu's court case against the China Times is based on a specific point of contention which, as Feiren pointed out, was repeated several times over a period of five days, culminating with a front page story. The things the China Times repeatedly printed weren't "criticisms" -- they were actual lies, not merely "perce[ptions]." Furthermore, even Tuan "if he isn't a spy for the China Times, he might as well be" Yi-kang said that the China Times had repeatedly twisted his words. Yu's reasons, therefore, weren't limited to just the cases involving him -- the paper was harming the reputations of the Chen Shui-bian administration, DPP officials, and their supporters.

Worldwide reaction? Universal condemnation? Ubiquitous BS?
Soong finishes his crap off by taking the reader to the Toilet Bowl of Hyperbole [/high-PURR-buh-lee/] (again, continuing directly from the previous quoted section):

Worldwide reaction would be overwhelmingly against those hypothetical decisions. This is the reason why Yu Shyi-kun was almost universally condemned across the board -- blue and green. Given all that is said, what would you do in Yu Shyi-kun's place? This is not just about your personal reactions, but also about your sense of global reactions from others. My purpose in going through those collations/translations is to pose that question to you, whether you are in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States or elsewhere. If you believe that Yu Shyi-ku's actions are correct, please say so to the whole wide world.

And there you have it -- a bowl filled to the brim. The problem here is that Soong not only doesn't give you enough information to make up your mind for yourselves -- he distorts the information he does give you, and confuses you with non-analogous imaginary situations. How do you spell "deceit"? R-O-L-A-N-D_S.

It's real simple, and it goes like this: If somebody repeatedly spreads lies about you, your associates, your friends, and your supporters, there's no reason to trust them to accurately represent your words. That's the stuff of self-destruction, and anyone with a healthy mind and an ounce of intellectual honesty could see it.

Just some of Yu's vocal supporters
Taiwan Society backs Yu in press spat (Taipei Times)

Aside from the Taiwan Society, other groups lending support to Yu's decision include the Taiwan Northern Society, the Taiwan Southern Society, the Taiwan Eastern Society [Maddog note: The Taipei Times told us just last June that the Taiwan Society is an umbrella group which covers those other three plus many more] and the Taiwan Bugle Society [Maddog note: previously corrected to "Taiwan Society Herald" in Taipei Times reports] -- all known for their pro-Taiwan independence stance.

Before Yu's announcement, these groups had months earlier already denied the newspaper interviews and refused to read or subscribe to it.

[...]

[Secretary-general of the Taiwan Society, Chet] Yang (楊文嘉) yesterday said as much as he respects the China Times reporters' rights to work, he did not think these rights should be overemphasized.

"Their work rights cannot take priority over and exclude other public values," he said. "For example, they should not exploit their rights to creating false news."

In a public statement last Friday, the Taiwan Society criticized the newspaper as a "media trust" which "fabricates news" and "sows discord."

It said Yu, as a public figure, was not refusing to be interviewed by other media, and was not trying to avoid media supervision.

The China Times should initiate a review of the quality of its own reports instead of blaming others the Taiwan Society said.

Hey, Roland -- I gotcher universe right here! (Hey, Taipei Times editors -- wake up and smell what you've published!)

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Things which are and aren't parts of China (not necessarily in that order): Taiwan, 台灣, media, 媒體, Taipei Times, 台北時報, ESWN, 東南西北, Roland Soong, 宋以朗, China Times, 中國時報, Yu Shyi-kun, 游錫堃, Taiwan Society, 台灣社, Chet Yang, 楊文嘉, Tuan Yi-kang, 段宜康

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!