The Hou/Ko/(Ma) embroilment

The photo suits the post and you already know why

Two days ago, Donovan Smith wrote a fantastic column on Ma Ying-jeou's entrée into the weird "will they or won't they" situation between the KMT's Hou You-yih and the TPP's personality cult leader, Ko Wen-je. 

I'd actually missed this when it happened; I've been pulling odd hours at my many workplaces, because I've had a few career things (not bad things, as it turns out) shift in recent weeks. So, I've been a bad blogger and bad Taiwan politics follower. 

In fact, I'd thought the possibility of cooperation between Hou and Ko had long passed. I am fairly sure the DPP doesn't think there will be a joint Hou-Ko ticket, either. The two parties both keep dancing around the issue, and it sure seems like they've mostly wanted the attention the speculation is bringing -- as opposed to Lai's almost absurdly boring campaign -- more than they actually want to cooperate. Campaign ads have shown different deputies in the background for each, and it just didn't look very likely that one would subordinate himself to the other. 

Though, if I had to guess, I'd say Hou would be more willing to surrender to Ko than the other way around. He seems like that kind of person: not strong of character, certainly lacking an ethical compass, but generally willing to lie low and not say much. Not ruffle any feathers he doesn't need to (and even some he possibly does). Ko likes to...just sort of do what he wants, which may present a problem for cooperation and in the election generally.

That, however, is just my opinion.

As you might expect, both sides have put forth methods of determining who should lead the ticket that favor themselves. Ko's proposal makes it more likely that he'd get the presidential slot, Hou's obviously favors Hou. You can read more about it in Donovan's article; I don't need to repeat what he's already said. 

Then Ma Ying-jeou entered the fray, saying he supported "purely opinion based polling" to determine who might lead such a ticket. That was rightly described as a bombshell, because Ma is a KMT stalwart. Ko generally leads in the polls, not the KMT's own Hou. (Of course Ma would never come right out and say "I support Ko over Hou").

The KMT reaction to this has been...mixed.

Ma Ying-jeou's Enemy For Life Wang Jin-pyng -- a man I don't like, but I can admire that he doesn't lie supine for Ma -- has come out and said that he supports a joint ticket where Hou leads and Ko takes the vise presidential slot, but Hou, Ma and the KMT should "think twice" before using opinion polling to cantilever Ko to the top of the ticket. He cited the backlash in the south (where rural KMT supporters would probably go for Hou but not accept Ko), that it would split the KMT, and that KMT officials wouldn't necessarily know which authority figure to follow. And you know, KMT officials always need an authority figure to follow. 

Wang also pointed out that Ko is someone who does whatever he wants; he wouldn't necessarily accept sloppy seconds, but as a presidential nominee he wouldn't necessarily listen to others. (That's not an exact quote, it's an interpretation of comments he's made). 

On the other hand, Han Kuo-yu has expressed support for basically whatever Ma wants. My only surprise here is that what Han Kuo-yu thinks still matters. I kid -- a little. Yet, he does still have a support base.

KMT Chairman Eric Chu's response seems more ambivalent, but nobody really cares what Chu thinks, least of all the KMT. (Again, I'm joking...kinda. He actually does seem to have political chops, well-hidden behind an aggressively Milquetoast façade).  

Hou has said he "will not give up hope" in the face of such cooperation and he hopes the result will "meet everyone's expectations", which sounds like a very Hou, and very Taiwanese, thing to say. The two sides will talk tomorrow in a meeting that will be attended by Ma Ying-jeou, and take place at the (barf) Ma Ying-jeou Cultural and Educational Foundation. A place that sounds like my personal idea of hell...but anyway. 

Clearly, Ma is trying to force this union and seems to be willing to go to great lengths to do so. He's got his fingers all up in this thing.

I'm hardly an expert, but here you are reading this so please enjoy some wild speculation about why this might be. Why would a blue-from-birth KMTer like Ma pivot to Ko and get his weird bald minion to go along with it? 

First, I've said basically forever that KMT Chairman Eric Chu, along with Hou You-yih and honestly much of the KMT, are basically Ma Ying-jeou's puppets (傀儡). I'm not the only one who's said this, either. Friends have disagreed, pointing out that they come from different factions within the KMT. 

When it comes to Ma, however, I'm truly not sure that matters: he just wants to control everyone regardless of faction. Certainly Ma doesn't seem to like Hou very much, but beyond that I don't think being in different factions changes Ma's desire for continued influence. He'll control whomever he has to control to push through his pro-China, pro-unification agenda, no matter how unpopular it is with the public. Hou doesn't seem particularly able to push back, which is why the KMT campaign honestly feels like some sort of Ma-era zombie awakening -- part II of a particularly bad horror movie. 

Thus, the simple explanation would be that Ma wants two things: power for himself, and to defeat the DPP. Okay, three things: he's also a dirty unificationist.

It's been widely reported that Liou Chao-hsuan -- I don't think that's the romanization he prefers but let's go with it -- Ma's former premier, is the "driving force" behind the whole idea. I don't buy this for even a second: it reeks of Ma's dirty fingers. Liou is a feint. A ruse. A decoy. 

And if Ko on top is the ticket most likely to defeat the DPP, Ma might just decide he loves power more than he loves party loyalty.

Ma's own chances of having a say over national policy, and of Taiwan moving in a more pro-China direction, are better if the DPP loses by any means necessary. Quite possibly, he would have preferred to control Hou at the top. Sensing that might not be possible, he's just as willing to do Ko a favor, get him to the top, and thus be 'owed'. 

This is probably not the entire explanation, but I doubt it's entirely untrue, either. 

There is likely some factional infighting going on. There always is, with the KMT. (The DPP seems to have somewhat beaten back their own factional struggles, for now). Perhaps Ma thinks he can supercede all of the squabbling factions by using his power and influence to crown Ko, a man entirely outside such factional struggles. Certainly the deep blues who follow Ma don't care for the more 'local' Hou, and I doubt Hou cares much for them, either. 

I suspect that if this is the case, Ma doesn't know what he's getting into with Ko, a man who is happy to take the support given to him but never pay it back. 

You know, like he did with the Sunflower zeitgeist that helped him get elected in Taipei. 

Considering the way he's treated the Sunflowers since, it surprises me that he seems to be the 'youth candidate'. Quite literally, but why tho? He's not young and doesn't represent their interests. All he has to offer is that he's not from one of the stodgy older parties; being "not those other guys" with no clear notion of why he's better shouldn't be enough. 

Regardless, I am not entirely sure that Ko will feel obligated to submit to Ma even if Ma does propel him to the top of the ticket. I'm also not sure Ma understands that, because he doesn't seem to realize there are people he can't control. Certainly he wants to shove unification down the throats of a Taiwanese public that does not want it. 

                       


I'm sure Donovan will cover the factional angle in more depth; I'll leave him to it. It's not my area of expertise. 

I also can't help but think there's a China angle here. I know it's kind of lazy to take every little thing that happens in Taiwanese politics and say "yeah that's China's meddling", but sometimes it really is China's meddling! 

The biggest potential winners in a Ko-Hou ticket (as opposed to a Hou-Ko ticket) are Ko, Ma, and possibly Han Kuo-yu. Why Han? Because Wang Jin-pyng is probably right that the rural south isn't going to take kindly to such a ticket, and they'll need to bring out all the Han stans to win back that vote. That will help Han tidy up the reputation he marred a bit when he lost the 2020 election by such a humiliating margin.

You'd think Han's reputation would have been marred by the time he literally killed a guy well before losing an election, then losing the election he'd previously won, but whatever. Ma will certainly give his weird little minion some kind of treat for it. 

When I think of those three men, I think of Chinese backing. Do I even need to cite the notion that Ma is cooperating with the CCP? I mean, he doesn't try to hide it. If there's one thing Ma likely wants more than his own power and influence, it's for the CCP to get its tentacles into the brains of Taiwanese youth. 

It's been speculated quite a bit that Han Kuo-yu's weird (I'm sorry, that guy is weird, everything about him is weird, I will never stop saying this) return to power was due in great part to Chinese funding. I mean, is it even really 'speculated' anymore? Perhaps there was also a factional angle -- there always seems to be -- but more likely than not it came down mostly to a CCP-backed effort. They saw in him a pro-China, Trump-like dullard whom they'd barely have to control because he was already in bed with them.

As for Ko, it's been speculated that he's long since switched from green to light blue to (potentially) red. He was recently seen campaigning with New Party (and dirty unificationist) Chiu Yi, a man Ko once called "like a CCP nominee". Chiu Yi is almost too red for the KMT, but here he is actively supporting Ko, hosting "fan meetings", the works. 

If you think the support of one guy doesn't say much, I disagree. The support of this one particular guy says a lot. This is the dude who said that Taiwan independence activists deserve to be "beheaded"! Ko has also been seen associating with Terry Gou. You know, the Foxconn founder, rich asshole and presidential nominee nobody really cares about. Terry Gou, who is so relentlessly pro-China that it's almost comical. 

There's a lot more I could say here. There are still questions about Ko's comments regarding China ("we're all one family"), his family's investments in China, and his actions while attending events in China. He's even come out and said China wants him to run for president! 

If we take for granted that China is interfering in this election because they try to interfere in every Taiwanese election, and we note that the people (and one weird minion) at the forefront of this push for a Ko-topped ticket are all either suspected or outright known to be in China's pocket, then it's not a big leap to think this whole rigmarole is a China-backed push to get someone it can control in power. 

That Ma wants power too is almost secondary, in this case. He's happy to be the CCP's slimy bootlicker regardless. 

I'm not convinced these three options exist independently of each other. Ma wanting power and a defeat of Lai, factional struggles within the KMT and funding, disinformation and other election manhandling by China all seem to co-exist in every other election. Why not this one?

Potentially, the only difference regarding the 2024 election is that Ko has turned from a potential 'youth candidate' who could take the light blue/don't like Hou and light green/don't like Lai votes into a straight-up CCP agent, with known CCP agent Ma Ying-jeou at his back. And perhaps the incentives -- power, money, the usual -- from China are getting sweeter. 

Do 'most' Chinese really favor outright war with Taiwan? (Sort of, but not really.)

Don't ask how Taiwan should cross the red bridge. Ask whether.

Much fuss was made of a recent study in the Journal of Contemporary China assessing public support in China for various means of annexing Taiwan to China.

The authors don't don't use the term 'annexation', but that's what it would be -- not only does no option for peaceful dialogue leading to mutually-agreed unification appear in their so-called "full range" of policy options, but such an option is indeed unlikely to work. There's no plausible scenario in which Taiwan would want unification with China, and the resultant coercion to achieve that goal is, by definition, annexation.

I'm getting ahead of myself, however. I want to talk about the main finding from this article, published in media such as the South China Morning Post. Their headline reads "Just over half of mainland Chinese people back full-scale war to take control of Taiwan, poll finds". 



                         



I can't read the whole SCMP article as I'm not a subscriber and not interested in becoming one, but it leads with the assertion that "55 per cent in favour of “launching a unification war to take back Taiwan entirely”, with a third opposing it and the remainder saying they were unsure."

That sounds scary indeed. What are we to make of it? To be honest, not that much. I obtained a copy of the original publication -- not necessarily easy as I lost my academic access a few years ago -- and read it to see if it really does support the idea that most Chinese are "in favour" of all-out war to take Taiwan.

Well, that is indeed one possible interpretation of the results. However, I think it's a bit exaggerated, if not outright skewed. I don't just mean that the authors come to more moderate conclusions (though they do), but that I genuinely don't think a careful reading of the study supports the idea that so many are "in favour" of war, so much as they believe war to be one acceptable possibility among many. I'm no master of methodology, but I also think the study has some methodological issues and interpretation bias. 

Let's start with the finding heard 'round the China Watcher Circles. It comes from this figure: 

Yes, it's true that 55% of respondents said they supported "full scale war", with 33% opposed. The opposite -- "separation" -- had 22% acceptance, with 71% opposed. 

I am putting "separation" in quotes because it implies a change in the status quo. However, China and Taiwan are already separated under the status quo -- the PRC does not govern Taiwan -- so there would be no act of separating. It's a telling clue that the authors, despite their best intentions, are biased.

In other words, everything but "separation" was acceptable to the majority. This doesn't imply they are "in favour" of full-scale war. It means they find it one of four acceptable policy options presented, with less-aggressive options also on the table. The exact same number of people support the status quo as full-scale war, with likely quite a bit of overlap.

Although it's impossible to say without more data, one might reasonably infer that many such people would prefer not to resort to full-scale war unless other options are exhausted. Or perhaps many don't actually feel strongly about fighting a war for Taiwan, but feel they have to indicate acceptance for any number of reasons. 

It's still worrying, as when those options fail -- which they will -- these respondents say they find full-scale war an acceptable solution.

However, it's not as scary as 55% of Chinese wanting to go straight to war. I don't know if SCMP clarifies this later in the article as I can't read it, but you wouldn't get that impression from the free-to-read blurb.

The authors, to their credit, do point this out. They even mention that only 19 (not 19%, but 19 respondents total) supported full-scale war as the only option. Not 55%. Not even 19%. 19 people. Here, they explain it a little further: 

A closer look at the data suggest that the respondents largely fall into three categories based on their answers. First, 313 respondents (17.1%) are ‘pacifist’, who found either or both of the two non- aggressive options (‘status quo’ and ‘separation’) acceptable while rejecting the other three options. Second, 572 respondents (31.4%) are ‘bellicose’, who found some or all of the aggressive options (‘sanction’, ‘military coercion’, and ‘full-scale war’) acceptable while rejecting the other two options. Finally, the remainder of the respondents are ‘ambivalent’ (939, or 51.5%), as they endorsed both aggressive and non-aggressive options or were unsure on some or all of the policy options. Importantly, this simple partition of the respondents points to an even smaller share of citizens in support of the aggressive policy options. [Emphasis mine]. In fact, only 19 out of 1,824 respondents (or about one percent of the sample) rejected all but the most extreme option of armed unification.

Basically, to say more than half of respondents "favor full-scale war" is not quite right. More accurately, about half of all respondents favor some move toward unification, but it need not be war and indeed, might be peaceful. One-third view it as unacceptable, and the same percentage who do find war acceptable also 

The authors removed respondents who found all five options acceptable or unacceptable, for a total of 259 removals: 70 who found all options acceptable, and 189 who found all options unacceptable (I'm very curious about what this latter group tends to think are optimal policy options instead, but doubt I'll ever know). That's more people removed for finding both "separation" and "full-scale war" acceptable than people who favored only full-scale war. I do understand that such a response means they probably didn't take the survey seriously, but that it outweighs the number who only support the most bellicose option is, I believe, telling.

Frankly, this isn't surprising. In fact, given the extremely skewed and brainwash-prone education system in China, I would have thought support for military coercion, if not all-out war, would have been higher and support for Taiwanese independence would have been lower. That about one-third of respondents are fine with Taiwan maintaining its independence is actually more hopeful than I would have predicted! 

The authors point this out, too: that support for full-scale war is not as clear-cut as it may seem, and Chinese leadership should understand this. 1/3 of Chinese accepting Taiwanese independence whereas only half wanting war -- and almost no one wanting war as the only option -- is not the solid wall of public support that the CCP needs to attack Taiwan. I can imagine that quite a few Chinese who find war an "acceptable" last resort would nonetheless be very angry if a war were launched without attempting more "peaceful" means first. 

I also want to point out that the authors did not, in fact, include "all" policy options. Although I don't think unification would come of it -- frankly, none of these options would bring about "peaceful" unification, as Taiwanese simply do not want it, and being sanctioned isn't going to change that -- they fail to include "dialogue", "persuasive incentives" or "supporting preferences for unification among Taiwanese" (that is, helping out the unificationists in the KMT or more radical parties such as the New Party), or any truly peaceful means of pushing their agenda. This really isn't a full slate of policy options! 

They further separate "the status quo" and "separation". I could call this bias, but I'll be generous: perhaps they rightly believe that Chinese view these two concepts differently. Perhaps they view "separation" as China officially giving their blessing for Taiwan's sovereignty, and 'the status quo' as China neither recognizing Taiwan's independence nor doing anything about it. While I don't think there's a big difference -- the status quo is that Taiwan is not governed by the PRC, period -- I can understand that Chinese citizens might. 

The authors are indeed fairly reasonable in their interpretations of the data gathered. I'll quote at length here as this study is not readable to all: 

Conventional wisdom holds that the call for armed unification has been ramping up in mainland China in recent years,60 setting the stage for ‘an all-out war . . . devastating to all’.61 Despite the media hype, there is scant empirical evidence indicating the extent to which the Chinese public would support such a war rather than non-violent means to unification. Understanding mass support for the different policy options Beijing could adopt to ‘resolve the Taiwan Question’ is important because we know this is one issue about which public opinion holds sway over Chinese leaders....

We find that at the aggregate level, only a slim majority of the respondents are explicitly supportive of waging a unification war, which has been the focus of current policy debates and academic research, and a third of them are explicitly opposed to it. These numbers are consistent with a survey conducted on an urban sample in 2019,62 thus bolstering our confidence in the external validity of the findings. This also suggests that public support for armed unification has remained relatively stable, despite the rapid deterioration in Beijing’s relations with both Washington and Taipei....

Our study has important policy implications. Both pundits and policy makers who sound the alarm for an imminent or inevitable war in the Taiwan Strait, one that likely would involve the US and its allies, implicitly assume that Beijing’s hands are tied because most Chinese support ‘wutong’ and the public’s patience is wearing thin. An ambitious paramount Chinese leader who cares about his domestic audience can only make things worse. Our findings suggest that this pessimistic outlook may be based more on myth than on reality.

That said, I am not at all sure that they controlled for "social desirability bias" despite claiming to attempt to control for this (however, at least they mentioned it!) Having respondents analyze each option isn't a bad idea, but avoiding social desirability bias first requires guaranteed anonymity -- something that is impossible online in China and that any thoughtful respondent would realize was not necessarily a given. They might have opted in, but also been thinking (not without reason) that someone, somewhere was monitoring the answers.

Avoiding social desirability bias also requires evaluating questions carefully so as not to induce answers that respondents might think are "acceptable". The authors claim to have done that by avoiding the term "Taiwan independence" (smart), but as above, they did not offer all the possible non-military policy options, instead presenting two non-coercive and three somewhat or very coercive choices. That is, more coercive choices than non-coercive ones. Respondents might therefore feel a nudge that it's "better" to choose some form of coercive method, even if it's just sanctions, rather than none at all. Given the chance to say any or all given option is acceptable, why not also choose the one that the government so plainly wants you to support (war), as you can also choose the one you might think is more reasonable (such as sanctions)?

Regarding that bias, the authors do point out the role of the education system in China. They're clearly aware of the role of oft-repeated propaganda. That said, I'm still not sure they truly understood the impact this might have on the results. When people are fed fairly simple slogans (think "national rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation!" or, in Taiwan years ago, "long live the Three Principles of the People!") they might repeat those slogans in a "normal" and peaceful environment. It's so normalized that there probably isn't much of a second thought -- you repeat the slogan without much thought for the actual policy underpinning it or its details. How many Taiwanese once chanted "long live the Three Principles!" without thinking or caring much about what the Three Principles actually were?

I don't see a way to control for this: as with polls showing most Taiwanese are willing to fight to defend Taiwan, we can only gauge what respondents say they believe about war in the moment, not what they'd think or do under actual wartime circumstances. However, Taiwanese aren't pushed by society, education and the government every day to engage in sloganeering and not think too much: everyone is free to say they'd fight or not. You won't be put on a watchlist. That is to say, it's more difficult if not impossible to truly control for social desirability bias in an authoritarian regime. Offering five different options for analysis is insufficient to counter such inculcation. Why not acknowledge this?

Although I applaud where the authors attempt to either reduce or confront bias regarding outcomes, some parts of the introduction and analysis have me scratching my head. Towards the end they reference "The Taiwan Question" -- a heavily loaded term that has connoted genocide when used to describe other groups such as Jewish people and Armenians -- seemingly without much thought. They treat the 1992 Consensus as a real agreement between the two sides, when it was not a consensus and not even called such until 2000. Taiwan/China history is presented in a way that makes it seem as though Taiwan actually was fully controlled by China before 1895, when it wasn't. It was considered and treated as a colony, and for most of the centuries China "controlled" Taiwan, they only really controlled the western third or so. Total Chinese governance of all of Taiwan didn't last long at all. 

To their credit, they do not use the term "reunify" except in quotes, although they pepper the term "mainland" a little too liberally and do call it "returning" and "national unification", forgetting that, of course, Taiwan is not part of the current PRC "nation" and that Taiwan does not have a mainland. Taiwan "returning" to China is used only in reference to what respondents might believe; nevertheless, it's not in quotes -- it's treated as the appropriate term. While overall the authors do take a moderate tone, little things like this worry me.

They spend a lot of time going over China's position, and the US's as well. Taiwan's position doesn't get much space, however. It's limited to Tsai's "refusal" to accept the "1992 Consensus" (which is not called out as fabricated at any point), and this half a paragraph:

In Taiwan, the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University, which has been tracking the unification versus independence stances of the Taiwanese since 1994, reported the smallest pro- unification margin in 2022. In the same year, as much as 73% of Taiwanese explicitly expressed their willingness to fight should the mainland use force.

Cool, but they don't actually say that unificationism enjoys support that is more or less tied with the margin of error, and they don't mention that most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, not Chinese at all.

Towards the end, the authors imply (although don't outright say) that unification would be a good thing. They do directly state that Taiwan's annexation would be a "return": 

One contribution of our survey is that we move beyond the focus on armed unification. In doing so, we provide a more nuanced understanding of public preferences for a broad range of peaceful and non-peaceful policy options that Beijing could adopt in achieving unification during Tsai’s second term: military coercion short of full-scale war, economic sanctions, and embracing the status quo and waiting patiently for Taiwan’s return.

Okay, but why would anyone outside China want to "achieve unification"? Yes, the point is to see how Chinese feel about these policies the CCP "could adopt", but something about the tone is off. The authors are careful academics who do not say that the less violent but still coercive options might be good choices for China, but it sure reads as though they assume that putting some short-of-war pressure on Taiwan might not necessarily be a bad thing.  

Even where they don't offer a fully China-centric perspective, their word choices give questionable vibes:
 

Furthermore, we find all of these policies receive levels of support similar to that for full-scale war. And quite surprisingly, about one fifth of the respondents even find acceptable the unthinkable option of allowing the two sides to go their separate ways, which is tantamount to de facto independence for Taiwan.

What does "de facto" mean here? Taiwan is already de facto independent; that's a present reality. Why treat it as a future outcome? "Go their separate ways"? China and Taiwan are already governed separately! And sure, Taiwanese independence is "unthinkable" to the Chinese government. But why is Taiwan independence unthinkable in any broader sense that justifies its use without quotation marks? It is indeed very thinkable -- I think about it all the time! 

Although the authors do state a Chinese victory would be "pyrrhic", their choices regarding what background to include, as well as their word choice, indicate to me that they view the somewhat-coercive policy options as part of a potentially reasonable, justifiable endgame.  It all sounds very neutral on the surface, but I have to ask whether the language choices reveal a potential bias.

Of course, there is a difference between gauging what respondents think and what is actually true. For example, a discussion of what Chinese responders might think of the KMT and its ability to "facilitate the peaceful resolution of a cross-strait crisis" might differ markedly from what the KMT could actually do: that is to say, not a lot without general public approval. They might win in 2024, but that does not mean they have a mandate from the Taiwanese people to negotiate away Taiwan's sovereignty. They simply do not.

Also consistent with existing survey findings about Chinese public attitudes towards the western world,53 respondents with better knowledge about PLA development are more likely to prefer the more aggressive policy options. And those who believed that a KMT government could better facilitate the peaceful resolution of a cross-strait crisis in the future were more ambivalent, possibly hoping the KMT will win the 2024 election after Tsai’s second term. 

It's telling, however, that they don't differentiate much. They call it a "peaceful resolution of a cross-strait crisis" as though that's what selling Taiwan to China would actually be; they are not clear that this is how Chinese respondents might view the situation. They do not examine the possibility -- dare I say likelihood -- that a KMT win does not mean that Taiwanese are receptive to unification. There is difference to be explored here, and the authors do not explore it. They seem to equate "cross-strait peace" with the pro-China leanings of the KMT, as though the only obvious way to ensure "peace" is to move toward unification. The opposite is true: a decisive move toward unification is just as likely to precipitate war.

All in all, I do believe the researchers had good intentions. They don't seem to be unificationists even though some of the language employed and assumptions made were at times questionable. There was insufficient differentiation between language used to describe general sentiment in China (not "the truth", but Chinese perspectives), and the actual situation between Taiwan and China. 

Some flaws in the study, e.g. the difficulty if not impossibility in guaranteeing confidentiality, without which controlling social desirability bias is impossible, were not discussed from a methodological perspective. 

While the authors were circumspect and careful in their own interpretation of the findings, SCMP's portrayal of them, at least the lede presented in the 'free' nubbin of text, is highly questionable. I may have questions about the study, but the media is the bigger problem here. Can we really say that 55% of Chinese "favor" full-scale war when the exact same percentage can be said to "favor" the status quo?

Although I have some questions about the study itself, the overall findings don't fill me with concern, and they shouldn't worry you all that much, either. 

Although SCMP may not agree, if Liu and Li's research should keep anyone up at night, it's CCP officials who do need solid, large-majority public support for a full-scale war for Taiwan. Without it, everything from protests to difficulty conscripting soldiers who will fight fiercely for Taiwan will be more difficult and internal governance will be far more challenging. Right now, it seems they don't actually have the support they truly need. 

Perhaps they should heed the 55% who find the status quo acceptable, not the 55% who find war acceptable. If they're not the exact same 55%, it's probably pretty close.

And no one at all should heed the South China Morning Post.

The Tragedies of the Spotlight

Everybody seems to think that I'm a fan of Uncle Roger (British-Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng). I suppose this is because I live in Asia, I love a good joke and I know how to cook.

Yes, I found his fried rice 'thing' amusing. I was less amused, however, by his deletion of a video collaboration with a Taiwanese Youtuber who had criticized the Chinese government. The Taiwanese Chinese-American Youtuber, Mike Chen, had spoken up about China's treatment of Hong Kongers, the Uyghur genocide and the documented historical fact of Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Ng said about Chen that "I wasn’t aware of his political thoughts and his past incorrect remarks about China." In calling Chen's commentary "incorrect", Ng revealed that he believed -- or at least was willing to publicly say -- that China's denial of genocide in East Turkestan, its oppression of Hong Kong and attempts to erase the Tiananmen massacre from historical memory were all, well, correct.

Edit: Chen's nationality was reported in a few places as being Taiwanese. He was actually born in China and then lived in the US (I wouldn't know; I don't watch his content). Chen is also a member of Falun Gong and has various other views that I personally either don't agree with or find outright abhorrent. However, the stated reason for dropping the video at the time was "incorrect remarks about China", not those other issues. If that was the reason, Ng was still in the wrong. Whatever his other beliefs, Chen's remarks about China were indeed accurate.

It wasn't hard to quit Uncle Roger altogether. Underneath that, however, I couldn't shake the suspicion that this was not Ng's sincere opinion. It sounded too contrived. "Past incorrect remarks" isn't even good scripting; it sounds like something straight from the tweets of some low-level CCP lackey. If I were forced into saying something I didn't believe, I too would make it sound like such a clunky hack job that it'd be clear I thought it was nonsense.

It turns out I was right. 

Just a few days ago, Ng uploaded a promo teaser for one of his shows in which he pokes fun at the CCP, saying "we have to say that now" about calling China a "good country" (after which he smirks) because the government is "listening" on everyone's Huawei phone. He pretends to praise Xi Jinping while tapping the phone in his pocket, jokingly says Taiwan is "not a real country" and then asks the Chinese audience members to write up a report to the CCP calling him a "good comrade".

Uncle Roger about to get cancelled.

Buy the FULL SHOW now to watch from home: https://t.co/ebzr06mDV9

Dropping June 4 on @momentworld pic.twitter.com/zmYtTp0tBh

— Nigel Ng (Uncle Roger) (@MrNigelNg) May 15, 2023

Of course, Ng was banned from Chinese social media shortly after. He had to know that was going to happen, but did the routine anyway.

All of that was from Ng's own mouth. He made multiple jokes over the span of several minutes; this was no slip. Graphics and commentary added to the promo the sarcasm for anyone who didn't get the joke. Nobody makes several cracks in a row at the expense of the CCP, especially on stage, and then approves a video edited to highlight those jokes for mass distribution, if they sincerely approve of the Chinese government. 

Perhaps Ng feels it's less necessary to bow and scrape to retain Chinese fans now. Perhaps he hasn't been popular enough in the China market to bother faking tankie beliefs.

It's still irksome, though. On his way to the top, this Asian comedian had to step on other Asian people -- Taiwanese people -- and say some pretty awful things that were clearly insincere. I still don't know quite how to support AAPI voices in general when Taiwanese voices are so often left out, betrayed, rebuked,  actively squashed or outright done dirty by other Asians.

Compare Ng's turn to that of another Asian from a markedly different part of the continent: Enes Kanter Freedom -- yes, Freedom is now his legal surname. Unlike Ng, Freedom has been consistently clear on his ideals, both in speaking out against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling him a "dictator" and expressing hope that one day, Turkey would be "a democracy" (Turkey has elections, but I agree that it's not quite a democracy). He's also been vocally critical of the Chinese government and President Xi Jinping.

Freedom made international news for wearing sneakers painted by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao supporting both Tibet and Taiwan, as well as speaking up against Nike's alleged use of slave labor in China. Just in the last day or so he met with President of the Legislative Yuan You Si-kun, who is visiting the United States.

Less known is Freedom's admirable stance on the Armenian Genocide, a topic that any regular reader knows is of particular importance to me. I know there are plenty of Turkish people who recognize the truth of this history -- Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak come to mind -- and it's uplifting to see that play out in the public sphere. 

It’s time to destroy all the walls and
start building peace and bridges of love between two beautiful countries.❤️ pic.twitter.com/ei0unPCDL3

— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) August 15, 2021

What did all of these ideals get him? Well, he lost his Turkish citizenship and was stateless until eventually gaining American citizenship. He was slapped with extradition orders and threatened with trial in absentia and prison time in Turkey. Erdoğan personally placed a $500,000 bounty on his head, and he was placed on Turkey's most-wanted terrorist list. He was chased out of Indonesia and stranded in Romania when his passport was canceled. He chose not to travel abroad with his team due to credible threats against his life. 

Freedom was eventually dropped from the NBA. His skirmishes with the Turkish government don't seem to have stopped him from playing basketball, but vocally criticizing the Chinese government appears to have done so, at least according to Freedom himself. Representatives deny he was dropped for this reason, but even I can tell that his record as a player looks to have been pretty stellar -- what else could it have been? (Don't worry too much about him though; he's still a multimillionaire).  

In other words, Ng kowtowed with a fake apology and kept his career. Only now does it appear that he can say what he wants. Freedom has been consistent and firm, and lost his. Ng still gets laughs. Freedom gets Twitter trolls, attacks from the left and death threats.

This particular tragedy of the spotlight is pretty straightforward. In order to keep your spotlight, you might have to fake an apology along the way, as Ng did. Only then might you hope to remain relevant enough to say something closer to your true beliefs later on. To be honest, you may first have to lie.

There are other tragedies worth our attention, too. For example, that one can remain a public figure and stand firm in one's criticism on some topics (e.g. Turkish authoritarianism) but not others (Chinese authoritarianism). That organizations like the NBA will support you against one brutal regime, but deny that you were dropped for speaking out against another. 

I don't necessarily think Ng's beliefs are deeply held: he hasn't indicated any kind of lasting commitment to, say, Taiwan or holding the CCP accountable. So, he was able to grit his teeth and lie. What do you do, then, if you are so steadfast in your principles that you simply cannot lie about them, but you're not a basketball phenom like Freedom, who has at least some leverage to speak his truth?

The beauty of people like Freedom and (possibly) Ng is that they reach a broader demographic: Freedom raised awareness among sports fans who have no personal reason to care about these issues. Ng's audience might be a bit more AAPI-dominated, but probably just wants to laugh. We need people like that, because those who make most of their public life about one issue (say, Taiwan advocacy), so rarely get heard outside of the bubble of people who already care about that issue.

Ng found out the hard way that there's a point at which you either kowtow or face irrelevance. Freedom found out that no matter how famous you are, or how good you are at the thing that made you famous, you could still lose quite a lot to the CCP  Cancellation Machine. And we've all learned that being famous means having a platform, but having a platform does not necessarily mean you can engage in honest discourse. It's very difficult to remain relevant and heard at the level of Freedom and Ng if you have sincere beliefs, or really anything worth saying.

The only hope I can offer is this: Freedom still gets interviews; he may be out of the NBA but he hasn't been silenced. Ng seems to have finally broken free from his former insincerity and is willing to make jokes that the CCP doesn't like. But it's still a tragedy that the choice seems to be lose your job, or lie.

🎵 Ma Ying-jeou is a sack of trash 🎶 (Part One!)

This is the first of a two-parter. You can read the deep dive into Ma's actual claims here.

I was going to write a post going after an issue I'm angry about in a sort of general, ambient sense. But this other morsel of news I'm also angry about is timely, so at the risk of blogging only when I'm angry about something, here goes.

Yesterday was June 4th, the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Certainly, in Taiwan and around the world, politicians who put out statements about Tiananmen anniversaries generally avoid the overtly offensive. Some are sharp criticisms, whereas the worst of them are simply too anodyne. 

Take President Tsai's Facebook post for example. She touched on how Taiwanese people and their leaders, as in any democracy, hold a variety of opinions that don't always agree, but can hopefully be united through transparency, sincerity and communication. She touched on the crackdowns in Hong Kong, saying they won't destroy the memories of the people. Perhaps it wasn't necessary to talk about the pandemic and vaccines, but overall it's a perfectly acceptable statement.

Then there's former president and human dingleberry Ma Ying-jeou. I started out calling him a "garbage person" but honestly, I don't want to insult Taiwan's hardworking sanitation professionals by implying their necessary and respectable jobs might also describe such a man.

Ma spent most of it trashing the democratically-elected government of his own country, and included some brief praise -- yes, praise -- of genocidal dictator Xi Jinping. In this swash of effluent, he added a few admonitions that June 4th should be recognized and "rehabilitated", with vaguely-defined addressees. In other words, there are a few okay sentences in a big ol' gurgle of vomit. 

I'm not a professional translator and Mandarin isn't my first language, but I'll take a stab at parsing what he said in English. I think this is important because, having checked the machine translations available from Facebook and Google, the former is unreadable and the latter, while okay, will be unclear to anyone unfamiliar with the issues Ma touches on.

I've broken his words down into chunks for analysis. It's easier this way, and anyway "chunks" are a good descriptor of what Ma is spewing. At the end we'll look at why his post matters at all. 

Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the June 4th Incident. On the one hand, I once again call on the mainland authorities to courageously face history and accept responsibility so as to move forward. On the other hand, I also feel the need to use this opportunity to reflect on the fact that although Taiwan claims to be a "democracy", it is slipping step by step into "unfree democracy." It's highly worthy of vigilance.

This paragraph is hardly the worst. Note however that Ma calls on "the mainland authorities" to recognize the Tiananmen Square massacre. Yes, the use of "mainland authorities" is a huge eye-roll -- not the Chinese government, and nobody in particular -- but is expected coming from him. He'll continue the trend of calling China "the mainland" throughout the post. 

I can't imagine why he would think the Tiananmen Square Massacre deserves to be "one hand" of a larger argument -- it stands alone as its own issue -- but this is Ma Ying-jeou. 

I noticed that he couldn't even use the words "Tiananmen Square", let alone "massacre." Tsai also calls what happened an "incident" (a common way of naming historical atrocities in Mandarin), but at least she uses the word "Tiananmen." That's nothing, however, compared to the straight-up offensiveness of using June 4th as an opportunity to rant about how "on the other hand" Taiwan is so "undemocratic" that it deserves more space in a post about Tiananmen Square than the actual Tiananmen Square! 

As a quick reminder, Taiwan is consistently near the top of democracy rankings in Asia and the world. Ma alone is screaming into the wind that Taiwan is somehow unfree. 

Note as well that this "unfree democracy" tripe is one of Ma's common refrains; this isn't nearly the first time he's used it. It's pretty ironic, isn't it, that Ma is able to go online on social media from Taiwan and say whatever he likes about Taiwan, including scathing (if untrue) criticisms about its government, overall level of freedom, and ruling party. It's almost as if he has the freedom to talk about this issue. Huh! 

The world is unsettled lately. The trade war launched by the US against the mainland in 2018, the explosion of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, and the Russia-Ukraine War that began in February affect global peace and stability at each step. Therefore, I would like to remind the mainland that although the so-called "anti-China" trend initiated by the United States has complicated the situation, that the mainland can turn passivity into action and send a more positive message to the rest of the world.

So instead of talking about Tiananmen Square in a post ostensibly about Tiananmen Square, Ma decides in the second paragraph to attack the United States for starting a "trade war". I don't want to throw the Trump administration even the tiniest of bones, but was it a trade war, or was it the US finally standing up to China's unsavory trade practices, IP theft, tendency to tear up any agreements it doesn't like and realization that dealing with genocidaires is maybe a bad thing?

What's more, isn't his own party trying to rebuild friendly ties in the United States by opening a representative office, after ceding so much political ground to the DPP there? Isn't KMT chair Eric Chu there right now? It's not just offensive (and parroting the language of the CCP on US-China ties) but politically unwise to write a post about Tiananmen, and then use it to attack the United States right now. Is he trying to sabotage his own party, or does he assume this is vitriol for a purely domestic market -- that nobody in the US will pay attention to his words?

Anti-Asian hate crimes against individuals are indeed a problem, and certainly Trump harmed rather than helped in this regard. That said, the Chinese government bears responsibility for its own poor image as an institution in the United States and beyond.

Notice as well that he addresses this to unnamed authorities "on the mainland", not any specific leader or government body. Rather than scathing criticism, it reads as "c'mon you guys, all you gotta do is just recognize this so you can put a positive image out there!" 

Commentators kinder than me might call this diplomatic. I call it overly-gentle and downright delusional.

In October last year, Mr. Xi Jinping, the mainland leader, spoke of democracy at Central People's Congress Work Conference, extolling the principle that the people hold all the power in the country, and that as masters of the country they rule it to the greatest extent possible.  I sincerely believe this is the right direction to build a society with rule of law. If the trauma of June 4th can be truly faced and dealt with [rehabilitated], not only will it project a good image internationally, but it will cause the two sides of the strait to cease moving further and further apart.

By the third paragraph, he's praising Xi Jinping for his words and "the right direction" he's taking. This compliment is the only time he will address Xi by name in the entire post.

Nevermind that Xi's words are a straight-up lie: people in China hold none of the power, they are not the masters of their country and they don't rule it to any extent. Ma surely knows this, but he never lets an opportunity to bestow some compliments on Xi no matter how inappropriate the timing, and how inaccurate the compliment. This can't be the "right direction" if Xi literally isn't doing what he says here, and is straight-up lying! Which he of course is, and Ma knows he is. Indeed, taking the time in a post about Tiananmen Square to praise Xi Jinping is easily the most offensive part of this whole thing.

Not only that, he's praising Xi Jinping for talking about democracy and governance by the people! In a post about the anniversary of Tiananmen Square! What in the actual name of Jesus is going on here?

To quote respected activist figure Chou I-cheng, Ma can praise Xi and denounce Taiwan's democracy if he wants, but it's particularly disgusting to do so on such a significant day.

He adds at the end that such a recognition might bring "the two sides of the strait" (note: not "China and Taiwan" because he doesn't recognize Taiwan's sovereignty) closer together. Which perhaps it could, but the gulf between the two nations exists not just because of June 4th, and not just because China isn't a democracy, but because China wants to subjugate Taiwan -- and Taiwan does not and will never want to be annexed by China. 

Nevertheless, what does democracy mean when the two sides of the strait have different systems, their narratives and practices are different. Beyond appealing to the mainland, we should also turn inward and examine our own democratic development more carefully.

Democracy means the thing that Taiwan has where the people elect their leaders and have human rights, including the freedom to criticize and remove those leaders. It also means the thing China doesn't have. 

It's inappropriate and offensive to attack Taiwan in a post that purports to be about events that took place in China, especially as Taiwan is indeed democratic and China is not. 

Reading it, you'd almost think China wasn't so bad but Taiwan was a mess, when the opposite is true. 

Although Taiwan still flies the banner of democracy, under the Democratic Progressive Party's governance, it has gradually slid into "unfree democracy":  closing television news stations, liquidating opposition parties, "checking the water meter" of the people [this is a slang term], interfering with the judiciary,  an all-around 'greening' [turning pro-DPP] of independent agencies, revising the law to exonerate the corrupt former president [Chen Shui-bian], using internal propaganda to mislead citizens and sowing hatred simply to follow the 'political correctness' of the so-called 'anti-China protection of Taiwan'. International public opinion turns a blind eye to these initiatives, which harm Taiwan's freedom and democracy, but I am deeply concerned.

I have so much to say about this litany of accusations against the DPP.  In fact, I dive into it here.

Each is worth diving into for several reasons: they provide the "evidence" for Ma's perspective and case against the DPP in the most detail, they're commonly reported in Chinese-language media but not so much in English, and they form the backbone of the DPP's argument for why they're better leaders than the DPP.

They're mostly bullshit -- though the most plausible ones are listed first -- but breaking down why each one is indeed its own uniquely-shaped steaming turd will take a lot of time and verbiage.

It's fascinating how Ma tries to claim the high ground and make it look like he has a detailed and multi-faceted case against the Tsai administration, which is mostly founded on a heaping pile of garbage.

Finally, he seems upset that the international community has a generally positive view of Taiwan (or that understanding of and sympathy for Taiwan is growing among Western nations). Why? Does he want the world to think Taiwan is a shithole? Does he want everyone to disparage Taiwanese democracy the way he does? 

Furthermore, the coronavirus pandemic has shown over the past two years that the government has not done enough to procure vaccines, and their chaotic 'rapid screening' policies show that the government's "proactive deployment" is a falsehood.  DPP leaders and the so-called "1450" [the so-called DPP "Internet army", named for an amount of money said to be allocated toward cultivating it] attack and discredit any critics [the actual phrase is "smear red"].  

I'll admit that Taiwan's pandemic response has not been perfect in every aspect, at all times. There have been poor decisions, politically-motivated choices and lags. However, I'd describe the overall pandemic response as sterling -- no, gold standard. Anyone who thinks that Taiwan did a poor job handling the pandemic is straight-up full of it. All you need to do is look at how the entire rest of the world save possibly New Zealand handled it. Most accusations to the contrary distort what actually went on with the early vaccine purchases or blow up small mistakes into catastrophic ones. Most of it is based on lies.

As for the "1450" Internet troll army, well, I'm sure every party has people working on influencing public conversation. I won't pretend it's beyond the pale to say the DPP has one (and the KMT surely has one too -- I recall an ad surfacing years ago promising free bento boxes to attendees of a seminar on how to post online to bolster the KMT's image, but can't find a link).

That said, I can't find any proof that the "1450" army actually exists, and it would be very weird to allocate such funds through the Council of Agriculture, no? What's more, people decrying the "1450" have been known to misattribute the origin of the phrase to mean NT$1,450 paid to each Internet troll working for the DPP. 

Basically, there are a lot of accusations and very little proof here.

In sum, Taiwan actually has done an overall excellent job handling the pandemic. When you see people online praising that, it's because there's good reason to do so. If the KMT is sore that it's not very popular now, perhaps they should look at their own poor governance and attempts to force Taiwan toward closer relations with China. 

When we shouted that the opposition should be treated kindly in order to establish core values in common on both sides of the strait, the ruling party is suppressing or even eliminating dissidents, while falling into "unfree democracy" and "elected dictatorship." 

I have more to say here, but I'll save that for my next post.

Obviously, there is no evidence -- I don't even have a link -- that the DPP is doing this. Name one dissident who has been "suppressed" or "eliminated" by the DPP. 

Now, how many dissidents has the KMT suppressed or eliminated in its history?

There ya go.

There are two more points worth making here: first, tying "finding common core values" to "cross-strait relations". This implies that Ma's complaint isn't that the DPP hasn't tried to find common ground with the KMT -- it's hard to say whether they have or not, as the KMT doesn't seem very interested in finding common ground with them -- but rather that they haven't tried to find common ground with the Chinese government.

This is, of course, a euphemism for refusing to engage in talks that are aimed at eventual unification between Taiwan and China, or a recognition of the (fabricated) 1992 Consensus. It means that the DPP can't and won't work with China's insistence that all negotiations and discussions must begin with mutual agreement that Taiwan is part of China and Taiwanese people are Chinese.

Which they can't -- Taiwan isn't part of China, Taiwanese mostly don't identify as Chinese, and it goes against both the public consensus and the DPP's ethos. That's literally the whole point.

That line about "elected dictatorship" is another howler, barely worth acknowledging: there is no such thing as an elected dictatorship. It's possible for democracies to be less free or even unfree -- and there is such a thing as a sham democracy (I mean, even Vladimir Putin gets "elected"). But there is no such thing as an elected dictator. If you are elected and you can be removed, you might have authoritarian tendencies, but you are not a "dictator". 

On the 33rd anniversary of June 4th, we hope that the mainland will face history and move forward, but we cannot sit idly by and watch Taiwan's democracy fall backward, or advance toward "unfree democracy" and "elected dictatorship." We must begin with ourselves and defend Taiwan's true democracy.

There's not much to analyze here: this paragraph just concludes the post and re-iterates the justification for using a post about Tiananmen Square to attack the Tsai government, Taiwanese democracy and the general trend away from identification with Chinese nationhood and ideals in Taiwan.

It is worth discussing why this matters, however. Who cares about this old fuckbucket's post? 

Well, first of all, because the media is paying attention. New Talk posted Su Tseng-chang's response calling his words a "laughingstock". KMT-friendly outlet United Daily News, widely seen as reputable, simply reposted it without comment. People predisposed towards pan-blue sentiments will read that and not see all the problems inherent in his post, or question whether it's appropriate to use the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre to attack their own government, implying that China might move in the right direction (and indeed is, according to Ma, already doing so) and Taiwan is the real authoritarian state. 

What's more, Ma still unfortunately holds a hell of a lot of power in the KMT, keeping it from reforming into a party Taiwanese might actually want to vote for (that is, one not so laser-focused on insisting Taiwan is Chinese and the CCP is a friendly government and good-faith negotiator when it is clearly neither). He's very good at rhetoric -- I might think his post is a steaming turdpile, but I have to admit it's a well-written turdpile -- he's pulling a hell of a lot of strings in the KMT, and he's probably not going away. He almost certainly has a hand in the general tenor and perspective the KMT wants to project into the world and Taiwan.

That's a shame, as he seems to have nothing useful, inspirational, thoughtful or even truthful to offer.

Yes, Asian Boss planted a deep blue Youtuber and pretended he was a 'man on the street' -- and I want to know why.

Indeed they are.

Update 1/12/22: I talked to the person they were going to hire to do this interview, except he "noped out" when it became clear he was being asked to do something journalistically unethical.

Asian Boss, a YouTube channel that mostly does “vox pop” street interviews of people they say they’ve approached in public, recently came to Taiwan to ask what Taiwanese think of China.

Leaving aside the fact that not even Asian Boss seems to care what Taiwanese think outside of their opinions on China, at least this marks their first serious foray into Taiwan. Or rather, Taipei. They apparently don't have the resources to cover multiple cities.

They film across Asia, sometimes tackling difficult subjects such as the Myanmar coup or the Hong Kong protests, and sometimes doing softball man-on-the-street interviews along the lines of what does the ideal Chinese man look like or what’s fashionable in Taiwan right now. They also do occasional sit-down interviews of specific people of interest to viewers: a model from Myanmar, an American porn star in Japan, the inventor of bubble tea in Taiwan, a defected North Korean spy and more.

Other than the Hong Kong interview, their videos in China come across as far 'softer' than their work anywhere else -- it's all very surface-level, and can kind of feel like folksy Propaganda Lite. If you want to know what's happening in Uyghur detention camps, Asian Boss is not the place to look. 

It's important, I suppose, to humanize people who have to live under a dehumanizing regime, but it sure does make the CCP look better than it is, especially when it comes to mass surveillance. Chances are that if they really went for meaty stories, they wouldn't be allowed to film there at all.

This was the third time they've come to Taiwan that I could find: the other two were the bubble tea and fashion videos -- nothing hard-hitting.

I’m not here to body-slam Asian Boss or chase them out of the country. I don't know what their intentions were. However, a few things seemed off to me as I watched. Then, something I consider a bombshell — a huge problem that undermines the credibility of this particular video and Asian Boss’s reporting model in general. 

The short of it? They planted an interview with a fairly well-known deep blue Youtuber and presented it as a “vox pop” interview, just someone they approached on the street. 

For those who don't know, "deep blue" means very pro-KMT, generally favoring Chinese identity, closer ties with China and eventual unification with China. Some say that should be China as the ROC, but red/blues exist too -- people who would accept unification with the PRC. They are quite rare, however. 

"Deep green" means very pro-DPP, though there are a constellation of small parties and independent legislators that formed independently of the DPP who hold similar views. This side generally favors Taiwanese identity, sovereignty and (eventually) independence. They don't hate China, they're just not interested in being part of it. Most want to hold off on declaring formal independence, though some want it immediately and believe the existence of the ROC on Taiwan is a form of colonization. 

I'm far more sympathetic to the greens -- as I see it Taiwan is already independent, so any formal declarations, if they are needed, can wait until peace is assured -- but my personal views don't matter much. 

The video starts out saying that this video takes “the accurate pulse of the public” with the voices of "ordinary people". This can't possibly be true, as they're gathering anecdotes -- fluffy human interest stuff. It's not data. It's not bad in and of itself,  but it's not an accurate pulse of anything. We have actual research for that.





They then stress that they have no political affiliation, and get started. 

I wasn't the only one who noticed that one interviewee stood out. Something was just off about him -- he had extreme views but that wasn't it. His interview seemed...different. Guess which one?

The other interviewees seem to have truly been filmed under ‘street’ conditions, with noise, bad lighting, masks and foggy glasses, passers-by and the occasional sub-optimal angles. 

The Youtuber in question, on the other hand, was interviewed in a tree-lined park, with excellent lighting, at a 'good' angle with no mask. Nobody walked by. It was as though a space had been cleared for him. He sported a tan or light brown jacket and spoke without hesitation.

This man had views that are far outside the mainstream in Taiwan. Of course, there are people who agree with him, but might be quiet about their views because they know they’re not popular. However, his comments about Taiwan being a “province under the Republic of China”, Xi Jinping being a “calm man” can only be described as deep blue, if not fringe. He's also wrong about a lot of things, but that could be a post in itself.

I originally assumed the best. I figured that this is someone they happened to approach in that time and place, he happened to be well-spoken and ready to expound on his views, and he happened to be the living embodiment of a deep-blue eyeroll. Okay. Some people do feel that way. It’s possible. I think he's ridiculous but he has the right to his opinion. 

Then, someone I know did a simple thing: he typed “Asian Boss Taiwan” into Facebook search, and guess what came up?

The guy in the tan jacket, posting on Facebook about his interview. He’s a modestly successful YouTuber named Sean (柴Sean你說) with over 110,000 subscribers, with lovely content like “if Taiwanese want independence, why don’t they join the military?”, “Taiwanese now identify differently because of the way they are educated under the DPP” and “let’s not trash on Yen Ching-piao’s son, the bad stuff is all his father’s doing”. From the comments, he appears to have a lot of viewers in China. Someone on the side is commenting in Simplified Chinese that Mainland viewers don't care about the abuse of DPP legislator Kao Chia-yu:

His Facebook page is also straight cringe, no chaser -- taking swipes at the residents of Wanhua for no good reason, and calling COVID the "Wanhua Virus":

Update: soon after I initially published this, I was sent this link to a post on Dcard, where someone was asking how to find people with "deep blue views" for a "foreign Youtube channel". They'd done the interviews and felt it was pretty balanced -- they were explicitly asked to provide a "balance" of views -- but they asked him to find someone who represented that deep blue cohort. 

There's a link to a Google form from Asian Boss, and some replies saying he should go talk to old people.

That's more than a little suspicious.

It's also very strange because they asked this person to go find someone with deep blue views, but not deep green ones. There's nothing in the entire video that I'd call fringe or far out of the mainstream. Why just one side? Isn't that unbalanced?

There is a deep green fringe: the "declare independence now" types, the ones who wave "End ROC Colonization of Taiwan" flags. Yes, I happen to sympathize with them far more than the deep blue fringe, but I recognize they're not mainstream. If you want a "balanced" video, why would you include only the deep blue fringe, but not the deep green?

They weren't represented anywhere in this video, so in addition to not being a "vox pop" video, it's not actually "balanced", either -- if that's what you're going for.

I had thought he seemed a little suspiciously well-prepared and ready to present, though I wonder if someone as well-spoken and well-presented  -- good lighting, great angles, pleasant backdrop --  on the other end of the spectrum, closer to my own views, would have stood out as much to me. We all have our biases, so perhaps not. But I like to think the differences in how he was taped alone tingled a lot of people's spidey senses.

On his Facebook post, Sean said he thought it was going to be in English but they ended up doing it in Chinese — that’s interesting, as it implies they think using Asian languages makes the interviews more authentic. (It can, if interviewees are more comfortable in those languages, but it’s not a stand-in for authenticity). Then he himself asked if it was truly okay to interview him and pretend he was just someone off the street — no links to his YouTube channel, no introduction of who he was. 

Can they really do that? He mused. 

To be honest, from an ethical perspective, they can’t — or at least, they shouldn’t. If you say you are doing "man on the street" interviews, the only proper way forward is to stick to that -- you can't plant people and pretend you found them randomly.

It's amusing, though, that Sean, a comparatively small-time Youtuber, was handed a platform that reaches millions, including lots of Westerners. He had a golden opportunity to construct a narrative where his voice is closer to the center, represents the views of many Taiwanese, or is otherwise not a fringe perspective. All he had to do was not post about the fact that this interview was obviously set up, and I doubt we ever would have found him. Either he didn't think about that, or he did but figured he'd never be caught by anyone who mattered.

Perhaps that's still true. How many people are going to watch that video compared to those who will read this post?

It's also interesting that he agreed to talk to Asian Boss, allowing them to set up this lie that he represents a common set of viewpoints, and when doing so discussed how the media twists narratives to suit their own goals -- all while helping the media twist a narrative! 

That said, I might disagree with every opinion he has, but at least he pointed out that it's not great to seek out a Youtuber and then pass him off as some random pedestrian. Sean seems to have more of a moral code regarding this than Asian Boss! 

It seemed like he got more airtime than the others, too, but I'd have to go back and count the seconds -- perhaps it just seemed that way because this is so painful to watch.

What Asian Boss did here was wrong. It is a lie to say you approached people on the street to see what ordinary folks think regardless of knowledge level, but then plant someone you sought out in your video, to make it seem like extreme views such as his are more popular than they actually are.

That’s a propaganda tactic. A lie. It’s what you do when you want to push a certain narrative, but want it to seem grassroots. It’s unacceptable. 

If you can't find someone with these views in the wild, by approaching people on the street, then that's a sign they aren't particularly common views.

The world isn't a both-sides deal. In Taiwan there is a general consensus, a mainstream. The 'real' videos depict that, the plant distorts it. People want to think Taiwan conforms to their idea that there are a wide range of equally popular and valid views and perspectives, but that's just not the case: the consensus in Taiwan is that, well, Taiwan is Taiwan.

If you do street interviews, you'll get people who lean a but bluer than that, but ultimately it'll snap back to that consensus. Being honest about that is good reporting. 

Wedging such out-of-the-mainstream beliefs in anyway by seeking someone out and then presenting that person as just some guy you found is not. It's manipulation, bordering on misinformation. At the very least, it misleads the viewers.

I reached out to Asian Boss on Twitter and via their website to see if they’d answer a few questions about this, but received no response. 

As I see it, if you want to interview someone like this, you can, but there’s only one appropriate path: move away from the “ordinary people on the street” interview setup and state plainly that you’ve gathered representatives from all segments of the Taiwanese political spectrum. You have to actually do that, though: in addition to moderate voices, you have to find someone as far-out deep green as Sean is deep blue. The closest person in this video was the young man in glasses, and frankly, his views aren't fringe. They're pretty normal.

Then you show that video without subterfuge: we gathered these people because they represent specific things. We did not find them randomly. 

Doing it as they did not only sells a lie to the audience about how they find these views, but how common each view is in the wild. The fact is, you won’t find many people like Sean on the street, because his views are fairly rare. Presenting him as someone you ran into at the park makes it seem like there are a lot more Seans out there than there really are. Filming him mask less, in fantastic light with great angles and backdrops furthers the lie that he is an authoritative voice for what many Taiwanese think. 

Wrong. Everyone knows that. The thing is, they don't care, and you can't force them to.

It moves away from “we looked around and this is what we found” and turns into a constructed narrative. You cannot ethically create the latter and sell it as the former. 

It also skews where the “center” of Taiwanese views on China truly is. If you interview a deep blue YouTuber but have no deep green balance, the “middle” seems more blue than it really is. The actual center is closer to “we don’t want to be part of the PRC and don’t want a war" -- it's not "in fact Taiwanese are Chinese". However, that’s not what comes across in this video. 

Even his own YouTube subscribers commented on his appearance in Asian Boss: 

It does appear that Sean was the only plant, however. Everyone else truly comes across as a ‘vox pop’, and one of the founders of Asian Boss posted recently in the Working in Taiwan Facebook group, asking for students to help them approach people in the street. That video is supposed to have been filmed today, so I'm curious what they'll come out with.

The post implies that they aren’t a “team” of reporters but instead find local helpers for one-off videos. However, it also means they probably do usually approach people on the street. Sean might have been a one-off. A single plant. 

But if they do, in fact, approach people on the street, why plant Sean in there? Why present him as someone you just 'found' when that's not true? Why try to construct a narrative that his views are part of a spectrum of beliefs in Taiwan that you might find in the wild?

Wrong according to you, buddy. But if the people do choose that one day, it will probably be because they can do so without the threat of war from "calm" Xi Jinping!

I have other questions, too. Why do two videos on anti-feminism in South Korea, but no videos (that I can find) talking to Korean feminists? Why present yourself as a “startup” when you’ve been around for almost a decade? Why delete many of your older videos? (Some of the older ones are pretty bad, such as this drawn-out, unfunny prank asking white people their opinions about untrue facts about Asia. Maybe that’s why they deleted others -- dump the low-quality stuff as you grow your brand.) 

They do try to do good as well, however, and seem to get involved in local or personal causes beyond just reporting on them. 

It would be great if Asian Boss could take a look at how they’re producing content now, with an eye toward any ethical issues that could cause them to lose credibility. Be clear about what you’re doing and what it can accomplish. That you are offering anecdotes, not data. If you are interviewing personalities, you need to say so. You can’t present them as people you found on the street. 

At that point, I would welcome more videos from them about Taiwan. Right now, though, I have a lot of questions and very few answers. What's the deal, Asian Boss? Are you ever going to offer an explanation?

There's a good reaction video, too. Useful for the extra context, as well as a way to see the original if Asian Boss realizes their mistake and deletes the original:

alrighty! I've spent every single day for the past week trying to edit this video on my crappy 2014 PC that lagged just by moving the mouse or reviewing footage that I'm editing lol but here it is. My reaction to @asianbossmedia 's recent video on Taiwan. https://t.co/UYrICFru2k

— Daniel Ku 顧仲文 🇹🇼🇨🇦 (@danzwku) January 9, 2022

 

Well NCCU's Election Study Center says about 70% of them do, and you don't get to be the dictator who tells them they can't.