Fascinating article about a person I’d never heard of. It certainly makes sense for Beijing to patiently engineer the political capture of Taiwan rather than rely on a risky military invasion.
Quite, an infantile belief, shared with all western leaders, in warp speed effective jabs that could be administered to entire populations at the height of a pandemic illustrates your point.
Unfortunately many are still pushing their corrosive narrative.
Tom K
7 months ago
The DPP are relying on anti-China sentiment to cover a faltering economy, repeated missteps on covid, and a constant stream of scandal and corruption in the party particularly with regard to the home-made covid vaccine, massive overpayment on military procurement, and an outbreak of mass plagiarism worthy of Harvard (though in this case, the culprit seems to be the London School of Economics, alma mater of many senior Greens including current President Tsai).
The KMT on the other hand have stepped back from much of the old pro-China rhetoric, though at the same time promising closer economic ties. They are tapping into a genuine fear among the populace that they can’t rely on America’s promises with Ukraine being watched very carefully. This may or may not be enough to convince Taiwanese they can be trusted on China – two-term former KMT president Ma Ying Jeou has become far closer to China since leaving office, something many have been concerned about – he was also the guy behind the proposed aliance with Ko, which fits the author’s interpretation here of Ko possibly being in China’s pocket. On the other hand the KMT presidential and vice-presidental candidates are the most pro-local Taiwanese KMT leaders in history, both speaking fluently the local dialect spoken at home by over 80% of the population – the remaining 20% largely descended from post 1945 incomers mostly speak Mandarin.
But Taiwanese vote on other issues than the country’s relations with China, and on that, thanks to the Green Party’s poor economic performance, as well as a feeling that democracy requires a switch of Government now and again, does give the KMT a fighting chance.
The polls are close and it would be naive to think that should the KMT win (polls vs results suggest KMT voters are shy to pollsters about their intentions) that it’s necessarily a signal that Taiwan will roll over to China, rather than a purely local question disgruntlement over the performance of the ruling Green party over the last eight years,
My two cents based on 20 years of visiting taiwan, often for a month or two at a stretch. I was last there in April.
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i love the smell of pig offal in the morning
Fascinating article about a person I’d never heard of. It certainly makes sense for Beijing to patiently engineer the political capture of Taiwan rather than rely on a risky military invasion.
Alas, the same approach of very slowly boiling frogs has been going in many countries.
“He’s not anti-expert or anti-science like Trump,
OFFS, Trump was taken in by scientists over Covid, he accepted their lies and was to enamoured of “science”
Quite, an infantile belief, shared with all western leaders, in warp speed effective jabs that could be administered to entire populations at the height of a pandemic illustrates your point.
Unfortunately many are still pushing their corrosive narrative.
The DPP are relying on anti-China sentiment to cover a faltering economy, repeated missteps on covid, and a constant stream of scandal and corruption in the party particularly with regard to the home-made covid vaccine, massive overpayment on military procurement, and an outbreak of mass plagiarism worthy of Harvard (though in this case, the culprit seems to be the London School of Economics, alma mater of many senior Greens including current President Tsai).
The KMT on the other hand have stepped back from much of the old pro-China rhetoric, though at the same time promising closer economic ties. They are tapping into a genuine fear among the populace that they can’t rely on America’s promises with Ukraine being watched very carefully. This may or may not be enough to convince Taiwanese they can be trusted on China – two-term former KMT president Ma Ying Jeou has become far closer to China since leaving office, something many have been concerned about – he was also the guy behind the proposed aliance with Ko, which fits the author’s interpretation here of Ko possibly being in China’s pocket. On the other hand the KMT presidential and vice-presidental candidates are the most pro-local Taiwanese KMT leaders in history, both speaking fluently the local dialect spoken at home by over 80% of the population – the remaining 20% largely descended from post 1945 incomers mostly speak Mandarin.
But Taiwanese vote on other issues than the country’s relations with China, and on that, thanks to the Green Party’s poor economic performance, as well as a feeling that democracy requires a switch of Government now and again, does give the KMT a fighting chance.
The polls are close and it would be naive to think that should the KMT win (polls vs results suggest KMT voters are shy to pollsters about their intentions) that it’s necessarily a signal that Taiwan will roll over to China, rather than a purely local question disgruntlement over the performance of the ruling Green party over the last eight years,
My two cents based on 20 years of visiting taiwan, often for a month or two at a stretch. I was last there in April.