Stop blaming the DPP for China's maliciousness

Somehow a bunch of drums one could beat seems appropriate

In recent weeks, a spate of opinion pieces have come out that lay out three very dangerous ideas: call for Taiwan to roll over and obey China as though it's the only possible option; romanticize the Ma Ying-jeou administration as some sort of golden era for Taiwan; and blame everyone but China for China's intentional maliciousness toward Taiwan.

You can read some examples in the New York Times, by former Minister of Culture and author Lung Ying-tai, and by some so-called analysts from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Foreign Policy, if you find them readable. It was a struggle, to be sure. 

Fortunately, these articles have received some sort of pushback. Unfortunately, although I like the Taipei Times, it doesn't have the readership of the New York Times or Foreign Policy, though those who meaningfully care about Taiwan surely include it among their regular news sources. This is (almost) as it should be: the original opinionators have every right to have and speak their minds, however misguided, and anyone can respond in disagreement. I only wish that the pushback would get as much press as the people who disseminated the original problematic views. 

All three of these opinions are problems for the same reason -- they blame the wrong people, and thus lay out a course of action that would utterly destroy Taiwan. I don't know whether this is due to the age-old problem with Taiwan "experts" pretending the Taiwanese electorate is still divided on whether or not China is a trustworthy negotiating partner (they aren't) because that sort of tension keeps them -- the analysts -- relevant, or they themselves being part of the anti-Taiwan opposition. The latter is certainly true in the case of Lung, who served under President Ma. 

Perhaps they're simply not informed about why China seemed friendlier when Ma was president and would probably be friendly again under a hypothetical future KMT administration. This is somewhat understandable, as a surface-level understanding of the mechanics of Chinese manipulation and KMT collaboration with Taiwan's only enemy implies that KMT politicians are better negotiators when it comes to dialogue with the CCP. Of course it looks like that! If they weren't, why would China be so much friendlier when they were in power? 

To this end, Lung says:

For decades, Taiwan and China were deeply estranged and essentially in a state of war. But after the Cold War, relations gradually thawed. They were at their best during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, of the Kuomintang, from 2008 to 2016. The Kuomintang emphasizes cooperation with China as a way to ensure Taiwan’s stability and prosperity.

Under Mr. Ma’s administration, exchanges in academia, culture and commerce flourished, culminating in his historic meeting in 2015 with President Xi Jinping of China. It seemed, after decades of hostility, that reconciliation was possible.

I see this echoed by others, as well: 

The Foreign Policy piece also begins by blaming Lai, calling him "hard-charging". I'm a far bigger fan of Tsai than I am of Lai: Tsai was calculating, smart, and tended to stand back, letting her policies and accomplishment speak for themselves. Lai's policies, however, are not fundamentally different even if his rhetoric is slightly more blunt. Both of them have always supported Taiwan's independence; this was never a secret, and the people elected them knowing this. 

That said, let's focus on Ma. The fundamental misunderstanding here is reading the China-Taiwan rapprochement as some sort of accomplishment of Ma's, not an intentional Chinese manipulation that made it seem as though Ma's approach were somehow superior. Forces within Taiwan -- business interests, mostly, and some traitorious politicians -- have also acted intentionally to make it seem as though the KMT is better for Taiwan-China relations than the DPP due to some imaginary flaw with the DPP's approach to China. 

Ma was the opposite of an independence supporter (he was, and remains, a filthy unificationist), but his stated policies, for the most part, weren't that different from the DPP's. The DPP has never been less open to trade or dialogue with the CCP than the KMT; the problem is that the CCP refuses dialogue with the DPP but accepts the same offers from the KMT. They further undermine the DPP by snubbing their repeated offers of dialogue by meeting with KMT officials instead. Let me repeat: every DPP president -- Chen, Tsai and Lai -- has re-iterated their openness to dialogue with the CCP and trade with China. 

It's not the DPP causing rifts, it's the CCP. 

It's worse than it sounds, too. Although I'm not quite finished, I've been reading André Beckershoff's Social Forces in the Re-Making of Cross-Strait Relations (review forthcoming). Beckershoff lays out a devastating case for China's intentional smearing of DPP presidents as "the problem", making it seem as though they aren't open to or capable of initiating or engaging in any discussions, let alone peace talks or mutually agreeable rapprochement. 

In fact, the CCP was able to sidestep DPP presidents, making them seem like bigger 'troublemakers' than they have been, by engaging instead with the KMT directly, as though they were the ruling party even when they weren't. Beckershoff says of the Chen years: 

The DPP's limited success, however, was not for lack of initiative: after first overtures beginning with Chen's election in 2000, the government proposed negotiations on a variety of technical issues from 2004 onwards, but as the party-to-party platform between the KMT and CCP emerged in the same time frame, the Chinese government could afford to stall, decline or even ignore the overtures of the Taiwanese government. 

Beckershoff goes on to give examples of the CCP, with the KMT's help, deliberately undermining all attempts at dialogue with the Chen administration, from tourism (a KMT-CCP Forum directly undermined agency-to-agency talks between Taiwan and China), to agriculture (the CCP directly invited at least one farmers' association to China without talking to the Taiwanese government), to trade (China refused to engage with TAITRA as it framed Taiwan-China trade as international, not domestic) and direct flights (again, a KMT-CCP forum enabled final-stage negotiations with the Taiwanese government to stall). Those are just some examples.

This pattern has continued under Tsai and Lai, with KMT officials, including Ma Ying-jeou himself, visiting China with the purpose of removing the need for the CCP to engage with the DPP, thus undermining the DPP and making it seem as though the KMT are simply 'better' at handling China. The truth is that the CCP wants the KMT or their lapdogs, the TPP, to win elections, and thus makes it seem as though the DPP are the problem. 

If the KMT truly supported Taiwan, rather than being focused on Taiwan-as-China, they would let DPP goverments do their job vis-a-vis China and not intentionally get in the way.

Wang Hung-jen and Kuo Yu-jen also point this out: 

Lung romanticizes the so-called “golden era” of cross-strait relations under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), but fails to mention that this era coincided with a more benign Chinese foreign policy under then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and the early, still-cautious phase of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) rule....

The conditions that made diplomatic and economic detente possible no longer exist. Xi’s China is now more assertive, more authoritarian and more willing to use military and economic coercion. The idea that Taiwan can simply return to the “status quo” ante by embracing Beijing’s preferred narratives is at best naive, at worst, a prescription for strategic vulnerability.

Many Taiwanese today view the Ma administration’s overly deferential policy toward Beijing as one of the root causes of Taiwan’s current economic overreliance on China and the hollowing out of local industries.

The so-called “diplomatic truce” turned out to be an illusion, one that collapsed the moment Taiwan elected a government unwilling to parrot Beijing’s “one China” principle. Beijing’s punitive diplomatic and military responses were not triggered by provocation, but by Taiwan’s assertion of democratic choice.

Exactly. Ma was "successful" not because he was a great negotiator, but because he was a CCP collaborator and unificationist. The CCP wanted him to succeed in "rapprochement", so he did. It was never about Ma being great at his job (he wasn't), it was always about China supporting someone willing to sell out Taiwan. 

And make no mistake that Ma was and remains a unificationist. He and the KMT framed rapprochement as an economic benefit, something apolitical. It never has been. His vice-president and co-traitor Vincent Siew gave away the game all the way back in 2001 -- it was never apolitical,  but always with the goal of eroding Taiwan's sovereignty:

Siew developed the abstract framework of "economics first, politics later" into a set of concrete initiatives....the mutual trust engendered by this process wouuld also entail the potential for positive integration, a "step by step integration of politics", and thus pave the way for a "sharing of sovereignty" in the long term.

In what way could this ever be good for Taiwan, if it wants to remain self-governing and sovereign, which it does? Is this really adroitness on the part of Ma Ying-jeou, or simply China being friendlier to the administration that wanted to give away Taiwan?

The Ma administration did not respect Taiwan's sovereignty, and the progress made in economic ties and freer travel always came at a price. Ma and his people called them apolitical -- it's just about the economy, they said -- but Siew made it plain long before Ma was elected: this was never, ever apolitical. Unification had always been the goal.

With the KMT, it still is. 

Beckershoff also offers some fascinating dissections of cultural and historical ties between Taiwan and China being presented as a grassroots consensus when it was manufactured by the political and capital class, and the instrumentality of business associations in pushing pro-China policies for their own profit and benefit, not the good of Taiwan per se. Those will come up in my review, but I wanted to mention them here as they're tangentially relevant to this very false idea of what rapprochement under Ma was and most definitely was not. 

Beckershoff points out how so much of this was simply China's doing: 

Preferential policies have been assumed from the KMT-CCP Forum...are merely the announcement of unilateral measures taken by the PRC designed to benefit Taiwanese citizens travelling to or living in China as well as enterprises operating there. Delegating the announcement of preferential policies from the party-to-party channel to the Straits Forum entails an effect of obscuration: while in fact, these unilateral decisions are a double-edged generosity of the CCP that is conditional on upholding the 1992 consensus, their announcement at the KMT-CCP Forum make them appear as the outcome of negotiations between these two parties; their announcement at the Straits Forum, however, bestows on them an aura of inclusive grassroots cooperation, designed to contribute to the universalisation of these measures. 

It's also worth pointing out that if the Ma years were a "golden era" for Taiwan, then the Sunflower Movement would have never happened. It wouldn't have had to. 

I lived in Taiwan during the Ma years, and I never felt them to be any sort of golden age. I worried often about the suppression of true grassroots protests (though these various social movements did eventually overcome attempts to sideline them and promote the KMT and CCP's vision of a shared culture, economy and even sovereignty). I worried about filthy unificationists intentionally buying up Taiwanese media to promote pro-China editorial lines. I worried about black box politics, where China's ultimate control of the KMT was obscured by false claims that economic rapprochement was "apolitical". 

In fact, I would call the Ma years the eight worst years Taiwan has lived under since democratization. I'd call him the worst elected president Taiwan has ever had. All he ever did was undermine Taiwan. It's true that in the last few years, I've grown worried about China (not Taiwan, not the US) starting a war. But during the Ma years, I was worried about something far scarier: that Taiwan's own government would sell out their country, and there wouldn't be a goddamn thing anyone could do about it. 

It was not a good time. It was anxiety-inducing, just in a different, arguably worse, way. 

When opinionators praise Ma Ying-jeou, the other edge of that tends to be criticism of Tsai Ing-wen or Lai Ching-te. That's what Chivvis and Wertheim did in Foreign Policy. Rather than quoting them, here's a big chunk of Yeh Chieh-ting's rebuttal:

Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions in exchange for Chinese restraint, or some kind of brokered one-shot resolution — rest on the fantasy that Beijing wants peace and just needs a polite nudge. There is no evidence for this. For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has steadily escalated its military threats, cyberattacks and diplomatic isolation of Taiwan regardless of who is in power in Taipei or how careful they are with their words. When Beijing says it would use all means to annex Taiwan, “by force if necessary,” it is clear that it sees its goal as more important than peace.

Therefore, Lai’s recent language, including his description of China as a “foreign hostile force,” is not a wild provocation, but rather a blunt acknowledgment of reality. Beijing flies fighter jets across the median line of the Taiwan Strait, simulates blockades and treats Taiwan as a rogue province to be absorbed. Lai is simply responding to years of coercion. If Taiwan stating the facts “angers” China, that is a problem with China’s ego, not Taiwan’s messaging.

Telling the US to “rein in” Taiwan unilaterally does not signal to Beijing any goodwill to be reciprocated. It signals to Beijing that threats work — and that Washington would cave if pushed hard enough.

The recent rise in cross-strait tensions is not a result of Lai’s rhetoric. It is the product of Beijing’s relentless “gray zone” operations — cyberattacks, economic coercion and military harassment that now includes near-daily incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. This is not theoretical brinkmanship. It is real-world intimidation, and it deserves to be called what it is.

Honestly, I couldn't put it better than this. Lai is not a provocateur. He's not wrong about China -- they are an enemy. They are undermining Taiwan. They are a danger. They are threatening war and annexation. He's simply not wrong, and China is the bad guy here. All they have to do is stop. Taiwan has done nothing wrong; there is nothing for Taiwan to change. Or is it wrong to call out Chinese warmongering for what it is?

Lai isn't wrong, either, to take a harder line on Chinese influence in Taiwanese civic discourse, military spies and political influence. It's no secret that China has wormed its way into all of these spaces, and many military and political leaders are, in fact, spies and traitors. Is it somehow wrong for Lai to try and stop this? Is it wrong to do something about collaborators with a hostile force?

As Wang and Kuo point out: 

Lai’s characterization of China as a “foreign hostile force” was not a provocation; it was a diagnosis rooted in empirical behavior. To ignore Beijing’s actions while castigating Taipei’s rhetoric is to invert cause and effect.

As with praising Ma, so with criticizing Lai: all of this has been China's attempt to force Taiwan into annexation by any means necessary. It's no more a fault of Lai's than it is a strength of Ma's that China is horrible to the DPP, and friendly to the KMT (and the TPP -- don't lie to yourself about that). 

Chivvis, Wertheim and Lung all call for Taiwan to bend the knee. From Lung: 

With China growing in strength and the United States turning its back on the world, Taiwan is right to build up its military as a deterrence against attack. But the only way for Taiwan to peacefully secure its freedom is to somehow reconcile with China. Recent history suggests that is achievable.

Reconcile how? With a country that wants to annex and subjugate, end Taiwan's democratic system, and take away its promise of human rights, no less. 

Taiwan would very obviously have to give these things up in such a "reconciliation".  There are no "concessions" (in Chivvis and Wertheim's words) that Taiwan can offer which don't sell out its sovereignty. What can Taiwan possibly offer China that would end these tensions except a path to annexation -- the one thing Taiwan can't give? 

Wang and Kuo have it right again:

As for Lung’s conclusion — that without peace there can be no democracy — we suggest the inverse is equally, if not more, true: without democracy, there can be no peace worth having.

Peace that comes at the cost of agency, freedom and sovereign identity is not peace; it is submission.

I've said this before, but the problem isn't Taiwan's rhetoric, or the US, or anything other than the plain, ugly truth: the one thing China wants -- Taiwan's subjugation -- is the one thing Taiwan can never offer. There simply is no middle ground. Every "concession" from Taiwan will be treated as one more step in the march to Taiwan, Province of China. There's no agreement in which Taiwan can truly keep the one thing it values most -- its democracy, and by extension its promises of freedom and human rights -- if it surrenders to China.

Once that happens, all bets are off. Taiwan would not be able to exit such a future. If it allowed itself to be sucked into that black hole, it wouldn't be able to pull out, any more than Hong Kong was. That's what happens when you become a part of China. You don't get out. 

Suggesting it is basically telling Taiwanese people that what they want is not important, that their democracy is not important, their self-determination is not important, their human rights are not important. Either that, or the person saying it is stupid enough to believe that Taiwan could retain these things in any way, or back out of a surrender. 

Just as abysmal are Chivvis and Wertheim's suggestion that the US force Taiwan into "concessions" and agree to "some kind of One China". The whole point here is that Taiwan doesn't want China forcing it to give up its sovereignty, but somehow the US doing China's dirty work would be acceptable? 

Some critics in Taiwan love to point out that the US also represents a form of empire, and they're not wrong. Some also say that the US is the true provocateur of China's aggression against Taiwan, but in this they are wrong. Taiwan doesn't want a war the US sparked, they say. I agree, or I would, if the US were the villain here. Isn't it the same thing from a different angle -- US as world police, telling Taiwan what to do -- if the US pushes Taiwan to do something it clearly doesn't want to? If Taiwan did want to "make concessions" with China, ultimately selling out their own country, it would do so. If the Taiwanese people wanted it, they would vote accordingly. 

It also implies that Taiwan is unwilling to engage in dialogue. As above, that's not true: the problem is that China only wants dialogue to the end of annexing Taiwan, it doesn't want an open discussion. Yeh points this out too: 

Taiwan wants an open dialogue with China to talk about how Taiwan and China can coexist, whether as separate countries, the same country, or some type of special arrangement. Lai, as well as every Taiwanese president before him, has stated that Taiwan is open and eager to engage in dialogue with Beijing without any preconditions.

However, that is not the dialogue Beijing is interested in having. Beijing’s “dialogue” requires Taiwan to agree it is part of China, therefore agreeing with China’s conclusion, as an admission ticket to the negotiating table. China is only interested in talking about how Taipei is to execute Beijing’s foregone conclusion.

Lung implies that Taiwanese are disillusioned and don't want to fight for Taiwan. The data say otherwise, and her evidence, as Wang and Kuo point out, are a string of anecdotes and one unscientific online poll. This is willful ignorance from a Ma stooge. Even Chivvis and Wertheim understand that this is not something Taiwan wants, which Yeh notes voters have rejected in three straight elections. 

Do they care for Taiwan's democracy as much as China or the KMT do -- that is to say, not much at all?

I don't know if this frequent reframing of China's aggression is some sort of intentional disinformation. I don't think people like Chivvis, Wertheim, Oung and Lung have, say, meetings to discuss how to uplift Ma's legacy and shift the blame for China's threats on anyone but China, whether that be Lai or the US. 

I do think this narrative that Taiwan is the problem and the Ma years were a "golden age" of China-Taiwan relations was created by some entity (perhaps the United Front, but who knows), and I do think some misguided people believe it, because they don't fully understand the mechanics of what those relations entailed. That is to say, these commentators have bought a story that was manufactured for them. Perhaps Lung herself is one of the manufacturers, given her history with the Ma administration.

They don't know or care about the pressure from business groups, or unilateral CCP decisions presented as the outcome of negotiations with the KMT, or that the KMT sought to undermine the ruling DPP at every turn. They think the idea of a shared cultural heritage is some sort of natural thing, when it was an idea planted by the CCP and their collaborators. 

They block from their minds, if they ever really understood, that China was only friendly to Ma because Ma and Siew actively sought to deliver them the annexation they so desired -- all support was predicated on that Faustian bargain. 

And certainly, they bring the US into it in whatever way suits their argument. The US is by no means altruistic or a force for good, but in the China-Taiwan conflict, the villain is and has always been China and their collaborators in Taiwan.

The Roach King is now in charge of handling roach infestations

The hilariously unconstitutional expansion of legislative powers has now passed its third reading under the guidance of a hypocrite, an idiot, and a guy who went to jail for corruption. Seriously, this new legislation is the worst game of fuck marry kill one could ever play. 

Honestly, the best thing I can say about caucus Whip Fu Kun-chi is that despite being a sex pest, it's not even the thing he's most famous for. 

So now Fu, a guy so corrupt his name is actually shorthand for corruption -- is now announcing a task force to root out corruption. And there are still KMT and TPP supporters out there who don't see the problem with that. You can be sure, however, that his new "anti-corruption task force" will only target corruption in the DPP. It certainly can't go after corruption in the KMT or TPP, because the guy leading the task force is also one of the most corrupt people in government. We just put King Roach in charge of roach extermination.

Someone asked me today why the KMT would put someone like Fu in a position of power, if he's so awful. My response was "that's an excellent question, you really should consider why the KMT would do that." 

You could say the same for Han Kuo-yu, the presidential nominee who failed so spectacularly that he couldn't even keep his day job as Kaohsiung mayor afterward, who beat up Chen Shui-bian over a misunderstanding and actually killed a guy.

Indeed, why would the KMT elevate men like this? Why would it encourage them to pass sweeping bills extending the legislature's power? There are many possible answers, and none of them look good for the party.


               

And this is why one should be immediately suspicious of legislation meant to "root out corruption": not because taking measures to stop it are inherently bad or useless, but because such initiatives are so often covers for one political group or party to target another. If it reminds you of Xi Jinping's "anti-corruption campaign", which is barely even a cover for destroying anyone who might challenge his reign...it should. The two share very similar goals, and Fu's announcement only cements that. 

The comparison to China is perhaps apt: the DPP have been accusing the KMT and TPP of passing this legislation as a result of collusion with the CCP. I can't prove that the KMT and TPP have been taking direct orders from China on this specific legislation, but dissidents have said that Chinese agents do attempt to undermine Taiwan's democracy, and one even states that China did in fact plan this, or something like it. 

                   


What's more, KMT lawmakers meet with Chinese officials openly and TPP leaders now lean strongly pro-China, no secrecy involved. Fu's recent trip isn't even close to the first one, and senior KMT leaders such as Ma Ying-jeou pretty openly work with the CCP and against Taiwan's interests. 

Frankly, the only reason I wouldn't call that collusion is because that term carries a strong connotation of secrecy or deception. Is it even collusion if they're not trying to hide it? I think the more appropriate term might actually be "treason", but you can be sure that King Roach's new task force isn't going to do anything about that. 

Some might say that the DPP accusing the KMT of collusion with China is baseless; I strongly disagree. I can't say the extent to which such an accusation would hold up in court, but in terms of saying it out loud, there seems to be plenty of evidence. In fact, I'll say it here: although the specific order to pass this specific bill may not have been directly given, the KMT are indeed colluding with the CCP to undermine Taiwan's democracy, and both the DPP and the protesters are smart to see it for what it is. 

Now that I've let out some of my anger about these developments, and I've finally got some free time after the protests, I wanted to look at some of the accusations flying against the DPP. The first is that they proposed the same legislation in the past, so they have no reason to oppose it now. 

                

As with much disinformation, there is a kernel of truth here (the best fake news is often at least partly correct, complete fabrications are less convincing). The DPP did propose legislative reform in the past, and some of their ideas look similar, at least superficially, to what the KMT just passed. 

Here's where critical thinking comes in, to indicate that there might be some disinformation here: if the proposals were exactly the same, then the KMT passing them now implies that they agreed with the core ideas. So why didn't the KMT accept them when the DPP proposed them in 2012? If the DPP wanted this, why didn't they pass it in the eight years they were in power? And if they still want it, why didn't they support the KMT and TPP in passing it now? 

None of that adds up, therefore, there are most likely differences between the 2012 proposals and the current legislation. 

For one, proposals and actual passed legislation are very different things. Proposals are almost by nature imperfect. They undergo discussion and revision and rarely, if ever, make it to law without major changes. Comparing a proposal to a passed law is at its core disingenuous. It's like comparing a clunky rough draft to a published novel. Higher standards must necessarily apply to the latter. 

You can read some of the pertinent documents in a tweet here. Although I can read Mandarin, my government-ese isn't quite sufficient, so I asked a translator friend to double-check (as I don't want to rely on AI tools for this). They do propose formalizing the legislature's investigative power, and do propose punishments for witnesses who lie or fail to appear. However, they do not appear to me to be exactly the same as what has just passed.

An infographic from the DPP outlines the differences between their proposals and the new legislation:

While it would be better to have this from an unbiased source, this is not bad. And this one I can actually read. It compares the DPP's 2012 proposal with the KMT's new slate of laws. 

The DPP proposal: 
- did not mention 'contempt of the Legislature'

- did not mention 'abusive counter-questioning' (these are both called 'vague' legal concepts)

- does not allow for 'continuous penalty'

The KMT-TPP bill: 
- allows the legislature to decide what constitutes 'contempt' or 'counter-questioning'

- allows the legislature to impose multiple penalties (this means they can penalize a witness with fines or jail time for more than one offense during questioning)

- allows the legislature to decide what is and is not punishable

So far, this is true. Nothing I can find from any of the DPP proposals mentions not allowing counter-questioning (although I've struggled to access the legislature's website recently, forbidding counter-questioning has been a major topic of discussion during these protests). 




In fact, I'd go so far as to say this first section is worse than it sounds. If the legislature gets to decide itself what is and isn't "abusive counter-questioning" and "contempt of the Legislature", and can impose consecutive fines or penalties for these, then does each penalized act count as its own case? If you wish to appeal, does each penalty become its own court case that you then have to fight? 

Because that sure seems like an excellent way to  big down people you simply don't like, even if you lose every case. It also sounds like a fantastic reason to fight this bill, and a major deviation from previous proposals. 

The DPP proposal also: 
- limits the existing 'document access rights' to previous judicial interpretations of the scope of the legislature's power (the constitutional court does outline the limits of the legislature's investigative powers, you can read it for yourself)

The KMT law: 
- expands the legislature's ability to subpoena "government agencies, military units, legal persons, groups, relevant persons in society"

- such power constitutionally belongs to the Control Yuan

This too checks out: the new bill does, from my non-lawyer perspective (again, not a lawyer, don't come at me), violate constitutional interpretation #585 above. It does overlap with the Control Yuan's power, and it's no surprise that now the KMT, which pretends to care ever so much about Sun Yat-sen's vision for the ROC government, is now discussing abolishing the Control Yuan.

The Control Yuan has also issued a statement. From Focus Taiwan: 

In response to the passage of the amendments, the Control Yuan issued a statement stressing that investigative powers are exclusively exercised by the Control Yuan under the Constitution and the expansion of the Legislature's powers violates the separation of powers.

The Control Yuan therefore cannot accept the decision, it said, urging the public to take the issue seriously.

You can read the statement in Mandarin via this tweet.

The KMT has tried to quell rumors that this new law can be used to subpoena just about anyone it wants and then punish them based on, well, vibes. However, that's not what the law actually says -- "relevant persons", "legal persons" -- these basically mean anyone. If you think they mean only government officials, you've gravely misunderstood what has just passed.

                   

The KMT has also tried to insist this is an issue of "balance of power", but it's not really: I haven't heard many people say that the legislative reform is entirely unnecessary. As we can see from the DPP"s 2012 proposal, they're not against it either. The KMT would sorely like you to believe that the DPP simply abhors reform, and wants to continue with its corrupt, violent and dissolute ways, and so doesn't want the legislature to have any real power. But if that were so, why did they previously propose reforms? It's simply not true. 

And as for being corrupt and violent, if you want to compare parties here, I suggest you look at the entire history of the White Terror and tell me which party has inflicted more corruption and violence on Taiwan. Because the party that created a bunch of nationalized industries, appointed their nepo babies and crony mafia buddies to ineptly run them as thinly-disguised money funnels, and then committed decades of mass murder when the people protested it is perhaps the more corrupt and violent party, no?

In fact, the legislator who suffered the worst injuries was Puma Shen of the DPP, and at the protests outside all I see is peaceful demonstrators and highly-organized volunteers and civil society groups. What violence, exactly? 

Does this look violent to you?

According to interpretation #585 above, the legislature does have investigative powers as they relate to its functioning, and which do not overlap with those of the Control Yuan. I personally don't have a fundamental problem with formalizing those powers, as long as they are within the scope of current law and the constitution. 

This is...not that. 

In fact, until recently, I didn't really have an opinion on whether the Control Yuan should continue to exist, but now, the alternative seems far worse. This isn't a balance of powers thing, this simply gives a lot more power to one branch of government. 

Parts of it are, as Frozen Garlic points out, almost certainly unconstitutional. The legislature doesn't have the power to compel the executive branch, so they certainly cannot force the president in for a 'state of the union' followed by questioning. In fact, if they do so, can they then decide that the president is not answering those questions well enough and thus can be held 'in contempt'? Is this an attempt at an end-run around the difficulty in impeaching a president under the ROC system?





I don't entirely agree with Frozen Garlic's assessment -- the existence of the Control Yuan and the exceedingly broad writing of the legislation, especially allowing the legislature to decide what is and is not "contempt" or "counter-questioning" make me extremely wary of the whole thing. But he is right about the balance of power issue, and he's right that if substantive discussion had actually taken place, these issues could have been ironed out. 

He is right, however, that there are a lot of unconstitutional elements of this new legislation. It will surely be challenged on those grounds and much of it will, at least in my estimation, be struck down.

As we can see, the DPP is open to legislative reform. They once proposed it! If their proposals had been given any time at all in these 'discussions', if the bill had been examined more deeply in committee, and if the final version being voted on were more available to legislators and the public alike, perhaps all of thise could have been avoided. 

To be honest, if the DPP had tried to pass a law like this, including the broadly-written clauses that give the legislature essentially White Terror-like powers to go after their political opponents, I would have protested it then, too. Even if I had to do it shoulder-to-shoulder with KMT voters.

So the final question remains: clearly the KMT and TPP wanted this to be a public fight. But why? They must have known that this would arouse such massive discontent, that the outcry would be Sunflower-level huge. They know that while their milkshakes don't bring the protesters to the yard, the DPP can and does.

So why bring that on themselves?

Again, this is an excellent question.

Legislature erupts in chaos, the KMT still sucks, and the spark of fresh resistance

Lawmaker and activist Puma Shen gets pushed off a rostrum head-first by KMT opponents

First, I just want to acknowledge that I haven't been blogging very much. I know. I've had other writing projects, but beyond that work is both a challenge and a treadmill. By that I mean it both requires creative energy (fantastic) but also feels a bit insurmountable (not fantastic). At least I'm happy with where I am career-wise, which I wouldn't have said six months ago. 

I felt a bit knocked out of my blogging stupor on Friday, when a fight broke out in the Legislative Yuan over a proposed bill to expand the powers of said legislature. Not only is the bill deeply undemocratic, but the method by which the majority coalition -- they wouldn't call themselves a coalition, but they effectively are one -- attempted to pass it. 

The sum of it: the KMT, with the TPP as their lapdogs, are trying to pass a bill that would require the president to give an address before the Legislature every year, and be subject to immediate questioning after. More chillingly, it would expand the legislature's ability to conduct investigations -- they already have some authority, such as access to documents -- and introduce the concept of "contempt of the Legislature" which would work like this:  

Those who refuse a demand by the Legislature or delay in responding, conceal information, or provide false statements to the Legislature during an investigation, inquiry, or hearing or when it reviews documents can be fined or, if serious, seen as "contempt of the legislature," according to the KMT lawmakers' bill. 

This would be a criminal offense, and refusing to appear or accused of lying to the Legislature would be punishable by fines or jail time. Those required to comply would not only be government entities, but private ones as well. 

The issues, legal scholars and others note, is that it's not clear where that power begins and ends. For example: 

Lin Chih-chieh (林志潔), a legal professor and a DPP legislative candidate in the January election, warned at a public hearing that if the bills passed, the Legislative Yuan would be able to demand the presence of, for example, TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) and accuse him of contempt of the Legislature if he refused to attend.

The Legislature could also ask TSMC or other enterprises to provide sensitive information related to their commercial secrets, Lin argued.

(I'm quoting at length from Focus Taiwan as their articles don't remain publicly available for long.)

What's more, what constitutes "lying", "delay in responding" or "concealing information" is not particularly clear. How it will be determined that someone called to testify has done these things is not, as far as I know, defined in any known way. The problem here should be obvious: with no clear, impartial mechanism to determine what constitutes a delay, a lie or concealment, who's to say what might be called, for example, a "lie".  Anyone can insist anyone testifying has "lied", threatening criminal punishment, and it's extremely unclear how that power might be wielded fairly. 

People whose testimony (or lack thereof) dissatisfies legislators -- again, this whole thing should chill you to the bone -- can be sent to court 'to impose a sentence' (it's unclear whether the court can overturn the legislators' decision). In other words: 

Furthermore, how contempt of the Legislature is determined, by whom, and the criminal elements of contempt of the Legislature are not explicitly stated in the KMT proposal. Critics believe that if the legislator does not like the content of the official's answer to the question, does not like their attitude, or "interrupts" the official who is answering the legislator's question...under a loose determination, it may be possible that legislators will use their own subjective desires to imprison the official under questioning through court resolutions.

(Translated from Initium Media)

Does this remind you of any other period in Taiwan's history? Perhaps a period of several decades, under which the government could pull you in for questioning and jail you if they didn't like your answers, using ill-defined powers with essentially no oversight? 

I don't think that the Legislative Yuan is going to start mass murdering dissenters or anything like that, but if this doesn't give you Big White Terror Energy...it should.

This lack of clarity seems very much by design: the bill bypassed a line-by-line reading as well as an article-by-article discussion, and according to Initium Media, all versions of the bill from the KMT and TPP were sent to committee while all DPP versions and proposals were blocked. Laws in Taiwan have a period of discussion (sometimes called 'freezing') where parties are meant to negotiate and come to a consensus on new legislation, which is between one and four months -- four months is the norm, but the 'freezing' of some crucial legislation may be shorter. In that period, the KMT refused to engage in any substantive negotiation or discussion with the DPP on this bill.

Because there was no line-by-line reading, and all versions were sent to committee (if I'm reading this correctly), it's unclear which version would have passed the vote on Friday. Not all versions are available publicly, in fact, I'm not even sure if the legislators themselves know what's in the bill. This is very wrong: in general, new legislation under consideration should be publicly available, discussed in detail by lawmakers, and the final version that goes to a vote known. 

It's also worrying that how the bill would play out against previous Constitutional Court rulings, specifically ruling #585, which states that the Legislative Yuan has the power to conduct investigations related to its own functioning but not beyond that: 

Under the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, the scope of the targets or matters subject to the Legislative Yuan’s investigative power does not grow unchecked. The matters to be investigated by the Legislative Yuan must be substantially related to the exercise of its powers under the Constitution. And, in addition, whenever a matter is related to the independent exercise of powers by an organ of the State that is guaranteed by the Constitution, the Legislative Yuan may not extend its investigative power to such a matter.

This interpretation already gives the Legislative Yuan the power to 'compel' testimony on matters under its jurisdiction, but it's unclear if attaching criminal penalties to this would be within the scope of the interpretation. In addition, unlike other countries that have contempt of Congress or Parliament laws, Taiwan already has an investigative body, the Control Yuan.

This body is in charge of impeachment, censure and audit. If they already have the power to investigate government officials, why exactly does the Legislative Yuan also need this power? Indeed, according to Interpretation #585 above, to take that power might well interfere with the "independent exercise" of the Control Yuan, making it unconstitutional. 

Of course, we don't know exactly which powers this will grand the Legislature and whether they step on the Control Yuan's toes, because we don't know what's in the bill! Even the Taipei Bar Association has weighed in with concerns about the bill. It's Bad News Bears, you guys, 

It's pretty clear that the goal of the legislators is to increase their own power during a term when the KMT has a legislative plurality, but the DPP has the presidency. It's not about punishing those who lie -- KMT legislators lie all the time -- and not really about filling a much-needed gap in the government's ability to function, as there's an investigative body that already does this. In other words, it's exactly what critics have called it: a power grab.

If this seems reminiscent to you of some of the black box politics characteristic of the Ma Ying-jeou era, that's because it is. The same sort of 'let's push this through and not make it entirely clear what the legislation entails' is the exact sort of authoritarian bullshit attitude that helped spark the Sunflower Movement in 2014. While the details differ, broadly speaking, the strategy feels quite similar to the attempted passage of the Cross-Strait Services and Trade Agreement (CSSTA or 服貿) in that year. 

With the KMT more or less back in power in the Legislative Yuan, it's not surprising that they are exactly who they've always been. 

Friday was voting day for the bill, and anyone could have predicted that fights over it would break out in the Legislature. Again according to Initium Media, the clause requiring the president to address the Legislative Yuan and then answer questions (which is somewhat unprecedented in ROC history) was passed by a show of hands -- meaning the names of those voting for and against were not recorded as is custom -- but due to the physical altercations, all other parts of the bill have yet to be dealt with. 

I'm not sure exactly why, but the violence in the Legislative Yuan on Friday somehow seemed more serious, or touched a deeper nerve, than scuffles I've read about previously. To me, the three most notable instances of scuffles or outright violence were DPP Legislator Kuo Kuo-wen (郭國文) grabbing the documents and sprinting out of the legislative chamber with them, which, to be clear, that guy rules.

Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) of the DPP tackled the KMT's Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽) while both were on the podium; Chung claims he slipped on a piece of paper, and from the video evidence, that seems likely. Notably, in some reports, pan-blue mouthpiece TVBS, despite offering a pretty awesome metal-lite background to the footage, seems to have edited out the part where Chung fell. 

Finally, DPP Legislator, democracy activist and founder of Doublethink Lab Puma Shen (沈伯洋) was  pushed off the rostrum and landed on his head. Shen was hospitalized along with five other lawmakers, though his condition at the time appeared to be the most severe. 

As of today, Shen appears to be in recovery -- or at least, he's conscious -- telling the public that the TPP's three-point statement on the issue is, essentially, three lies, and that they are the ones in "contempt of the Legislature". 

According to CNA, the TPP claims that only some reforms were on the agenda for that day, and the "contempt of the Legislature" was not. I'm honestly unclear on this point, but Shen claims it's wrong. Second, the TPP claims that the DPP either "didn't understand" the timing of the discussions, or put forward excessive motions to adjourn so no discussions could take place. Shen counters that in truth, the DPP called for adjournments because the KMT and TPP wouldn't discuss the bill, and accuses them of confiscating or dismissing DPP proposals, so what could the DPP do but resist the process? Finally, the TPP claimed that the 'show of hands' method of voting is a legal and recognized method. Shen points out that the vote counts are still unclear as a result -- some of them don't match up -- and as the tools to register names of who voted for what were available, intentionally not using them is not a good method. 

For anyone thinking "well that's just majority party strategy", the DPP as far as I can remember never did this to the KMT in eight years of having control.

In the aftermath, the DPP's Chung has apologized to Chen (the woman who was tackled), and clarified that he was also in pain from the fall. The KMT, as far as I can tell, has not apologized for injuring Shen or anyone else, with caucus whip Fu Kun-chi daring the DPP to sue the KMT over their actions. 

Not to get too biased or anything, but that corrupt sex pest really is a massive wet sack of steamy garbage juice.

Fu has also called the DPP "thuggish", despite arguably the worst injury being sustained by a DPP legislator. That's to be expected, though, the KMT loves characterizing the DPP as ignorant rednecks who could not possibly wield power with the grace and authority of the educated KMT. It's a also a time-honored tactic around the world used to discredit activist movements. Want to turn the public against a group? Call them thugs!

Of course, the DPP weren't the ones who terrorized Taiwan for decades under the White Terror and Martial Law dictatorship like thugs.

Anyway, calling anyone "thuggish" is pretty rich coming from, yet again, a corrupt sex pest. 

Speaking of the old dictatorship, the KMT also accused the DPP of being "used to monopolizing power". Hmm, let's review: which party imposed decades of Martial Law so heinous that it made the Japanese colonial era look like a paradise in comparison? Sent dissidents to Green Island, tortured them and killed them, claiming they were all "communists" (not all were, and regardless it shouldn't have been a crime in the first place)? Engaged in mass killing sprees after 228? Let the dictator's son run the secret police, deciding more or less on personal whims who lived and who died? 

Which party ruled Taiwan with violence for so long, and so horribly, that the people started organizing to force it to end? Which party's crimes against the people are now memorialized in prisons-turned-museums on Green Island and in New Taipei? Was that the DPP?

Which party, out of approximately thirty years of democratization, has held a majority in the Legislature for twenty of them (so, about two-thirds), even when the opposition had the presidency? Was that the DPP? Which party engaged in legislative chicanery so preposterous that a bunch of students occupied thei chamber and rallied many, if not most, Taiwanese to their cause? Which party's president is leaving office with unprecedented popularity, as opposed to her KMT predecessor who wishes he could have hit double digits?

So, which party again can we perhaps accuse of trying to monopolize power? Because it sure as hell doesn't look like the DPP.

With the inauguration tomorrow and fresh deliberations over the bill set for the day after, it's unclear what's next. I have noticed, though, that with the old KMT tactics of black-boxing their trash and calling the DPP "thuggish" for resisting, that perhaps a spark of that old civil disobedience is coming back. 

It's not that protests simply stopped after Tsai took office. There's been a Panay Kusui-led protest encampment in 228 Park for a very long time, focused on Indigenous land rights. There's a laor protest more or less every year, though they don't have much staying power. There were the marriage equality rallies. 

But it sure does feel like civil society has gone somewhat quiet in these years. I don't think I've attended a protest/rally since marriage equality (though, to be clear, my health took a tumble during the pandemic as my career picked up, so often I just haven't got the time). Many have commented that younger Taiwanese, now almost a generation removed from the Wild Strawberries and Sunflowers, and two generations from the Wild Lilies, don't seem to have that same activist spirit, aren't worried about China (and thus care less about the KMT's foreign policy of basically selling out Taiwan) or aren't the angry young protesters who helped bring Tsai to power in 2016 -- in fact, they're not necessarily enamored with the DPP at all. 

On the one hand, I've kind of noticed this, too. The desire to go out there and fight for something better hasn't seemed as alive of late. Perhaps it's because President Tsai, unlike her predecessor, actually did a good job leading Taiwan -- and I do think, with some criticisms and imperfections, that she did. Perhaps they're just used to the DPP being 'in power', and the people with the power are usually not the ones that inspire the youth. 

But now KMT avarice is laid bare once again, which was always going to happen once they were given national-level power again. I'm not sure why so many people didn't see it coming, and while it's certainly not a good thing, maybe the old fire will come back. Maybe the next generation will see once again what utter rapacious dipshits their parents voted for, and stand for something better. 

Spontaneous protests broke out outside the Legislative Yuan on Friday night, and on Saturday Internet celebrity and commentator Four-Pronged Cat (四叉貓), known for infiltrating and subverting KMT protests, held a "pilgrimage" to the street below the home of KMT legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯). She's the one who pulled out a musical instrument during the fighting and played the ROC national anthem -- honestly, don't ask. Apparently, people passing Hsu's house deemed to be protesters had been interrogated or otherwise documented by police, which frankly feels quite undemocratic. For a small-scale action, it's still impressive that, apparently, hundreds of people showed up. 

These are small numbers by the Taiwan protest standards I'm used to, but it feels like a step in the right direction as we head into the unknown territory of a third-term DPP presidency, and a KMT-led legislature that seems more cupidinous than ever. We're going to need that vim and vigor from everyone, not just Gen Z Taiwanese, to do something about it.

Five great things to read after the election

I spend so much time critiquing the media that sometimes, I like to point out pieces that are worth reading. The well-written (or spoken), thoughtful stuff that either makes you think, teaches you something, or elevates Taiwanese voices above the general din of foreign commentators. 

Not all of these are about the election specifically. Some are, but some are more about critical points and interesting ideas being made more accessible to international audiences, simply because more Taiwanese voices are slowly starting to be heard. 


A survey of Taiwanese history

First up is one I've already linked: Kathrin Hille's survey of Taiwan's history in the Financial Times. This is the article to give someone who doesn't know much about Taiwanese history, but would like to learn more. It gets a lot of little, often-overlooked details right without being overly long. For example, it's one of the only historical surveys clarifying both that the Qing, for most of their colonial reign, did not control all of Taiwan, and explores in some detail how 'not Chinese' Taiwan really became under Japanese colonial rule -- including in the minds of most Chinese leaders.

These crucial details are often overlooked in historical summaries of Taiwan, which tend to make it seem more tied to China than it ever really has been. It's engaging, readable and accurate. I honestly can't think of anything I'd fix. 

Why Taiwan's election matters -- for Taiwan, and for the ideals of democracy

Next, Michelle Kuo's excellent piece in The Guardian is well worth a read. I love this one because it centers everything Taiwan has gotten right. Essentially, that Taiwan may have its issues but the fundamentals are good. It also correctly positions Taiwanese democracy as something that grew out of the resistance movement to KMT dictatorship. That is, it came from the Tangwai, the fighters, the Taiwanese insisting on something better. 

Certainly, KMT supporters want to believe that they are the party of democratization, because it's easier to take comfort in that than to think about all the ways their party attempted to stop it from happening, and the leaders they take as role models were objectively bad people. (The one KMT leader who is actually owed some respect, Lee Teng-hui, is the one they kicked out of the party.)

Moving back to Taiwan

Next up is a fascinating listen-and-read from NPR on Taiwanese Americans who have chosen to move back to Taiwan. It addresses all sorts of topics, from how their families might feel about their choices, to the relative feeling of safety in Taiwan despite the geopolitical threats.

There's a lot here that expats who do not have Taiwanese heritage, like me, might not necessarily realize when it comes to Taiwanese Americans who make the move, and topics we probably wouldn't think to investigate on our own. 


Emily Y. Wu on CNN

After the election, Christiane Amanpour interviewed Emily Y. Wu on the election results and what they mean for Taiwan. I want to see more of this -- getting Taiwanese voices in the international media rather than bringing on some rando white guy commentator. Wu's answers were articulate and thoughtful, providing perspective on the results and why China's threats have not deterred Taiwanese voters. She does especially well in describing why, exactly, Taiwan is already an independent nation. 

I get so tired of "should Taiwan be independent" or "will Taiwan get independence" or "can we support Taiwan independence" as though Taiwan is not currently independent. If it isn't, who governs it? Someone other than the people of Taiwan? 

I was a little taken aback by Amanpour's seeming lack of preparation. She says Lai referred to Taiwan as "Republic of Taiwan, China", and then double-confirmed it. Of course, he did no such thing. He calls it exactly what President Tsai has always called it -- either Republic of China, Taiwan or Taiwan, Republic of China. Could you even imagine what would happen if a president of Taiwan switched the two names?

Amanpour also seemed to brain fart on President Tsai's name, but hey, we all have bad days. Regardless, Emily was insightful and worth listening to.

An election scholar's take on the results

Finally, there's Frozen Garlic's take on the election results. There's little here that I didn't already know, but Batto lays out a clear narrative of what happened, and what it might mean for the parties, the government and the nation going forward. He spends a lot of time discussing who might be speaker, what it could mean, and how much power the TPP now wields in the legislature (as well as what would happen if there were a battle over Lai's premier pick, and how that would affect the various parties -- especially the TPP). 

The only thing I'd add is that it would be interesting to see the DPP back the TPP's Huang Shan-shan as speaker. I'm not sure they will, and it would be unusual for the speaker to come from a party that holds only eight seats, but it might be a way to get the TPP to consider the DPP's agenda more favorably, rather than simply trying to convince the TPP to support the DPP pick for speaker. 

As a bonus, if you're interested in how the tiny parties did, there's Donovan Smith's take to read, as well. He spends less time on the speaker and premiership and more on how various parties' fortunes have risen and fallen.