Defining Ma Ying-jeou's "relevance"

He deserves an unflattering screenshot

I recently read with interest Donovan Smith's analysis of the continued relevance of former president and slightly burnt mannequin Ma Ying-jeou. Smith argued that despite being called "irrelevant" by the pan-green camp, that his power player position in the KMT meant he could not possibly be so. 

Donovan makes a good point. When it comes to shaping KMT policy and which puppet or inveterate Very Good Boy he'll trot out as his skin mask at rallies and for elections, and whose prior image he'll eviscerate in order to turn him (they're always male) into his next puppet, Ma is frighteningly relevant. 

In fact, I'd argue one cannot discuss KMT policies and directions without at some point discussing Ma. Even when he's not got his talons into this or that KMT candidate, his vision for what the KMT -- and Taiwan as a whole -- should be still shape the policies, platforms, desires and wet dreams of hardcore deep blue supporters. While their numbers may be dwindling, they're still a political force and not dismissed so lightly. 

So yes, in that sense, Smith is right. Perhaps, though, we should consider what these commentators mean when they call Ma "irrelevant" -- because it depends somewhat on how you define the term. 

The thing is, one might interpret political relevance as requiring being at least somewhat in touch with the general (or at least popular) consensus. You're relevant if your own ideas and commentary reflect the national mood, however roughly. If what you say resonates with the public and perhaps most importantly, the voters. 

In this sense, Ma is indeed irrelevant. It would be easy to point to his Deutsche Welle interview just before the election. He laid down some real whoppers here. Leaving aside "Taiwan can never win a war with China" (debatable, but I'll give him that based on the power imbalance), Ma stated that we should "trust" Xi Jinping, a point so ridiculous that it was basically an own goal for the KMT. I don't think it lost them the election, but it didn't help. However, if we're talking about Ma's relevance, I found this bit more alarming (and mendacious): 

Unification is something that our constitution says [sic]. So it's actually acceptable to Taiwan. But it has to be done peacefully, and through a democratic process. If that can be done, the chances are people in Taiwan may be interested in accepting this.

He says that again later on -- "if it is peaceful and democratic, the people of Taiwan will probably accept this." It's not a slip.

The constitution doesn't actually say that -- if it ever did, the series of amendments adopted from1990s through 2005 extirpated it -- but whatever.  It's not even the ludicrous notion that unification could possibly be peaceful or democratic when the government Taiwan would be unifying with openly doesn't care about democratic norms, and their massive military preparations indicate they don't care much about peace, either. 

What renders him irrelevant is the second half of that quote: the idea that because the constitution says it and theoretically it could be voted for (which would mean no immediate war), that "chances are" Taiwanese people would be "interested in" such a path. 

Every major poll, whether we're talking status quo or Taiwanese vs. Chinese identity, and the past three presidential elections have shown that the people of Taiwan are not interested in peaceful unification. Whether or not it's peaceful is not the point; they don't want unification period. They want to continue to govern themselves under the sovereignty Taiwan has as a result of the so-called 'status quo'. That is, a form of independence  (depending on how you define 'independence' -- my definition includes Taiwan's current state and so does President Tsai's). 

For such a thing to be "democratic", Taiwanese people would have to vote for it in a state of non-coercion and without political interference from China. Ma seems to think they might, if dialogue continues. The polls, however, say otherwise. If unification is deeply unpopular, and most Taiwanese don't even identify as Chinese, chances are that won't change. 

It wouldn't avoid a war, by the way. In the highly unlikely event that Taiwan chooses this path, once they see that they've quite literally used their democracy to vote away said democracy, and brought all sorts of oppression upon themselves the second they 'democratically' diverge from Beijing's plans for Taiwan, all hell will break loose. It will make Hong Kong look like a children's birthday party. There will be a war of some sort, and there will be violence and slaughter.

There is no such thing as peaceful unification with the PRC, because even if Taiwan 'agreed' to it (which they wouldn't, because most people are not that stupid), the mass death starts when they realize what they've lost and begin to resist. 

To even imply that democratic and peaceful unification is possible, and that Taiwanese would be interested in it -- or that they'd be so gullible as to believe it were possible -- is such an extragalactically out-there thing to say with a straight face that I simply cannot reconcile it with any notion of "relevance". Ma's finger isn't even on his own pulse, if he has one, let alone the pulse of the nation. 

He doesn't stop the Chundertown Express at any point during this interview, by the way. When it's pointed out to him that Taiwanese don't identify as Chinese, especially among the youth, and reject unification and the 1992 Consensus, he says those young people need to "understand" what cross-strait relations and the 92 Consensus mean "to them" -- one China, respective interpretations. He takes it for granted that this interpretation (which China has never agreed with, they've never accepted the 'respective interpretations' aspect, so it's not a consensus at all) would be popular and accepted among Taiwanese. 

But it wouldn't, because to do so, they'd have to fundamentally believe they are Chinese, which they do not. (Ma does not engage with the poll results showing most Taiwanese do not identify as Chinese; most likely he believes that forcing pro-China changes to the education system will sufficiently brainwash that notion out of their minds). 

His off-the-rails commentary (or lack thereof) on public opinion and what Taiwanese "will probably accept" is so far removed from what Taiwanese seem to actually be thinking that I simply cannot call it "relevant". 

When the presidential candidate you taxidermied into your own little puppet boy publicly distances himself from your words, you might still be a political player but when it comes to public opinion and the path Taiwan is on, again, you're not exactly relevant. 

On that note, Ma only remains relevant within the KMT because their stance on China has not evolved to be more palatable in Taiwan. You might argue that they're hanging onto him because they have nothing better -- he's the last KMT candidate to win a presidential election. I'd argue the opposite: the KMT's platform is stuck in the dark ages because Ma has his talons in it; he won't let it evolve or modernize. 

I suppose that's a form of relevance, but not in the way most people likely mean.

To be truly relevant, you do indeed need to have some basic understanding of current public opinion, why it is what it is, and how to present your ideas in such a way that they might at least be considered in that light. Ma is constitutionally incapable of this -- pun intended.

It's not surprising, of course. This dude is deeply in love with Chinese-style authoritarianism and seems to wish more than anything that the KMT itself had the ability to be just as authoritarian. You know, like in the bad old days when they could just drag anyone who disagreed out back and shoot them.  

Looking at it another way, consider commentary about Ma's irrelevance to be a backlash against the way he acts every time he goes to China, and much of the resulting media coverage. He certainly traipsed around that country like he was some sort of ambassador on an official dialogue and peace mission. Whatever part of his brain had a stroke leaving him unable to empathize with Taiwanese people seems to have been filled with delusions of grandeur, that he can represent a side of the 'Republic of China' that China can talk to, because they agree they're part of some interpretation of China.

Even basic reporting on the visit implied (without saying outright) that his visit was somehow relevant to Taiwan's current government, even though Ma wasn't there in any official role. He was basically a glorified tourist-cum-useful-idiot. Other media make it sound like he is some sort of rational, peace-seeking emissary with the potential to "build ties" and -- again it is implied -- reduce tensions. That no serving Taiwan president has visited China is mentioned in such reports to imply that it matters to Taiwan if a former president does so. But I'm not sure it does, when his party doesn't even have the presidency. In terms of Taiwan's policy vis-à-vis China, he is irrelevant and his visit is irrelevant.

I even heard a radio segment in the Western media on his visit that I can't find again (so it's not linkable), but which astoundingly managed to get every basic fact right, while getting the story completely wrong. It implied again that he is some sort of peaceful messenger from Taiwan, creating hopeful dialogue and averting war unlike that dastardly Lai Ching-te whom Beijing dislikes for unspecified reasons. 

No discussion of how Ma's party had just lost the election in a historic third term for the DPP, possibly helped along a bit by that DW interview. No discussion of why Beijing dismisses Lai, or who exactly is refusing official dialogue (hint: it's not Lai). No mention of how unpopular Ma's opinions are in Taiwan, and how profoundly he misunderstands and outright ignores public opinion. 

Listeners abroad who don't follow these issues might take that hopeful note to heart -- oh look, a former Taiwan president is looking for dialogue with China, that can only mean a reduction in tensions! They'll completely miss the context that he's not speaking for the government, his trips are not affecting current policy, it's not even Taiwan who doesn't want dialogue but rather China gumming up the process, and his views do not enjoy broad social support.

That is, the take-home impression might be that Ma Ying-jeou is more relevant than he actually is.

When that's what the rest of the world is reporting about the guy who left office as the most unpopular elected president in Taiwan's history, like he's a beacon of hope in ever-escalating tensions (which are implied to be created by the DPP when in fact they are entirely manufactured by China), then perhaps one does want to call him irrelevant in response, no?

Because he's not an emissary. He has no official role. He's not in China to build ties between the two governments, because he no longer works for the Taiwanese government. He's not "building cultural and social ties" because his own views are completely out of tune with Taiwanese society and culture. He's promoting himself and the KMT to their support base.

While he's not quite sunk to the level of "local resident surnamed Ma" or "Taipei area man", he doesn't enjoy the broad social respect that a former president might expect. According to one poll, less than 40% of voters approved of his last trip to China in 2023, and that one was ostensibly of a more personal nature. 

Of course, it really wasn't: he was attempting to set the groundwork for the KMT's China policy, giving the KMT's presidential candidate less room to offer their own interpretation of cross-strait affairs. That worked for awhile, with Hou Yu-ih seeming to capitulate to Ma on matters of policy.

As we saw in the DW interview, however, Ma eventually seemed to take it a step too far and ended up with Hou declining to sign on to the broader Ma vision for the rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation.

Ma himself seems to think his actions, and especially these trips to China, have an effect on cross-strait relations, but from what I can tell, they don't. He seems to believe he can convince Taiwanese voters of the fundamental correctness of his vision, and their Chineseness. It has not worked. He tried to Frankenstein an opposition candidate to the DPP, and failed.

So when we say he's "not relevant", we mean that his actions do not reflect a broad social consensus and don't actually change much in Taiwan. When his actions are reported on as though he actually were the highly-respected elder statesman he believes himself to be, it gives the wrong impression to readers who don't know the whole context. 

When Ma actually has a policy success as an elder statesman that enjoys the support of the electorate, maybe we can talk about his return to relevance. When he lays out a groundwork for cross-strait policy that the ruling party doesn't feel they have to distance himself from, that might matter. And it would be unfair to dismiss him as completely irrelevant. His lightly-melted spectre haunted Hou's campaign and continues to rattle his chains in the halls of KMT headquarters too much for that to be true.

But if you define 'relevant' as "taking actions which have a tangible impact on Taiwan's governance", or as "engaging in statesmanship which enjoys broad support", he's not exactly relevant, either. If you include "has some understanding of public opinion and incorporates it into his actions and statements", he's so deep in left field that he's left the stadium and is wandering alone in the woods. He doesn't even seem to understand that public opinion exists, let alone that he should consider it.

And if a rando in the woods babbles on and on about how Taiwanese will choose "peaceful unification" and no-one's there to agree with him, did he really say anything at all?

Chillin with 120,000 of my people at the big DPP rally

I usually only go to one big rally per election season, because the big ones are exhausting. It can be hard to leave depending on where you are, so attending may be a real commitment. If I get the chance I might seek out some local rallies for legislative candidates, because I can bail at any time. The presidential ones, though? I know people who rally-hop, but I don't have the energy for it. 

You can see more live commentary and pictures on my Twitter thread. I updated it until the crowd got too big and I lost connectivity.

This year, I picked the big DPP rally on Ketagalan Boulevard, just two days before the election. Ko Wen-je's TPP rally will be held there tomorrow, I believe -- I'm not sure if they just happened to snag that date, or if the ruling party is being sporting in letting someone else (who is unlikely to win) have the big downtown venue the night before the race. 

Speakers at the rally estimated the crowd at around 120,000, and that seemed accurate. It was impossible to reach Ketagalan Boulevard itself by 6:30pm; I was somewhere on the circle around Jingfu Gate. It was a pleasure being around people with similar politics; I live in a very dark blue area and while I appreciate being confronted with other perspectives, it can also be tiring. 





It had all the bells and whistles one can expect from a rally...literally. Candidates speak and then the crowd is led in a chant for their election ("凍蒜!"). The music is carefully orchestrated to follow the tone of whatever's being said; I'm not sure if it's all carefully timed beforehand, or if they have a DJ who switches up the generic cinematic orchestral background depending on whether the audience is meant to be energized, touched, furious or elated.

I did notice they used the same sequence of villainous chords whenever a speaker mentioned Chiang Kai-shek, Ma Ying-jeou, Xi Jinping or Han Kuo-yu. Each one of them, I suppose, is just a different version of Darth Vader.

Actual presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih was barely mentioned, if he came up at all. I'm not sure if the thought process was to (mostly) refrain from attacking direct opponents to focus on the DPP's achievements over the past 8 years, if they don't see Hou personally as much of a threat, or if people like Ma have made themselves easier bait from dumbass comments they've made recently. Ma, famously, gave an English-language interview in which he said that Taiwanese should "trust" Xi Jinping. The "trust" comment has been setting the news cycle on fire, but I found his comments that "unification...is acceptable to Taiwan" because it's what "the constitution says", and that Taiwanese people "might be interested" in peaceful, democratic unification (they are not, but perhaps Ma has been unwisely reading too much Bonnie Glaser). 







The idea that because the Republic of China constitution can be interpreted that way -- an interpretation I happen to think is inaccurate -- that unification is therefore "acceptable" to Taiwan is a total dismissal of what Taiwanese people actually want. No wonder just about everyone on stage Thursday night used Ma as a rhetorical punching bag. Even KMT candidates don't seem too pleased about Ma running his big stupid mouth. 

Giving Ma a thorough thrashing constituted most of the 'negative' talk, with the exception of former premier Su Chen-chang 蘇貞昌, who played the role of attack dog for the night. He's very good at it. 





The rally began with a full slate of Taipei city legislative candidates, including Hsieh Pei-fen 謝佩芬, Kao Chia-yu 高嘉瑜, Wang Shih-chien 王世堅 and my personal favorite, Miao Po-ya 苗博雅. A quick run-down: Hsieh has impressive academic chops, ran a losing race in Da'an against Lin Yi-hua, and is now running in Zhongshan/North Songshan. Kao was the youngest sitting member of the National Assembly back in the early 2000s and served on the Taipei City Council. She's known for being frequently in the media (or a target of the media), and is running in Nangang/Neihu. Wang gave a bombastic speech in Taiwanese; he's a former legislator turned city councilor, running in Datong (where he is also from; his grandfather and father were killed in 228 and arrested during the White Terror, respectively). Wang is famous for making weird bets that he always makes good on, and for apparently looking like Chucky. 

Miao got the biggest response from the crowd: they absolutely went nuts for her. I'm not surprised: she helped turn the unwinnable Da'an/Wenshan legislative seat into a fiercely competitive race. I've stanned her since before most people had heard of her, and now I stan her even more. I'm hoping to talk more about Miao tomorrow, before the moratorium on election talk, but suffice it to say, she's fantastic.





The DPP focused on its successes, with both former vice president Chen Chien-jen 陳建仁 and health minister Chen Shi-chung 陳時中, who lost the Taipei mayoral race, talk about Taiwan's world-class pandemic response. Gender and marriage equality also featured, with lots of rainbow flags among the pink and green campaign flags. Party list legislative candidate Chen Jun-han 陳俊翰, who is both a lawyer and disabled, gave a touching speech about how his disability has helped him see the value of life, and that he chose to accept the call from the DPP because he believes Lai Ching-te will build a "just" and "warm" Taiwan. 

Much of the rest of the rally was about linking Lai to Tsai -- essentially, a vote for Lai is a vote for four more years of Tsai, or at least Diet Tsai (my words, not theirs). Fire EX performed Child of Taiwan (Tai-oân Kin-á), which has a direct musical link to their hit Island Sunrise 島嶼天光 and Stand Up Like A Taiwanese, which I believe references a line from Chthonic's Supreme Pain for the Tyrant. Speakers emphasized Taiwan's comparatively progressive society in Asia, how it leads Asia and even the world in freedom and democracy, and is not an "orphan of Asia". 

The idea? It's not so much about beating the other guy, but that a vote for the DPP is a vote for Taiwan. That said, the content of a commercial showing all of Taiwan's progress regressing under a KMT presidency, complete with a scary campaign poster reminscent of Han Kuo-yu, was referenced frequently. If a vote for the DPP is a step forward, the logic goes, a vote for the KMT is a step back. Protesters back on the street, Sunflowers back in our hands. (I can't find a video of the commercial in question, but if I do I'll link it). 







Basically, if the KMT is trying to appeal to its own base by running people like Jaw Shao-kang 趙少康(honestly don't even ask me what his preferred spelling is) and Han Kuo-yu to turn out the reactionaries, the DPP is leaning into the "progressive" part of the party's name, or at least the promise of it. 

One could say that they're the more positive and optimistic party, as the KMT seems to mostly be in attack mode. That might not be entirely fair, however. It's a lot easier for incumbents to highlight their successes, if indeed they had successes (and the DPP has). 

The fact that Lai is essentially running on Tsai's record shows not only that even though Tsai Ing-wen may no longer be at the height of her popularity, she's still more popular than previous outgoing presidents Ma and Chen. The DPP feels public faith in their tenure is strong enough to run on; maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but it's telling that they don't have to distance themselves from that record.

A combination of Lai Ching-te and Hsiao Bi-khim's names (美德, which means 'virtue') was frequently referenced, along with campaign slogans "choose the right people, take the right path" (選對的人，走對的路) and Team Taiwan (挺台灣), which comes with a whole sports theme.

President Tsai spoke toward the end, saying she realized that many young people felt she didn't do enough. She acknowledged that but pointed out that every step was a step forward. Hsiao Bi-khim re-iterated many of the previous points, adding that she was appreciative of all the female voices in the DPP and among its supporters, calling herself a "proud Taiwanese girl" (echoing the Fire EX song). Hsiao noted that despite Taiwan's difficult history, the world can now see that Taiwanese people don't give up. 







She also mentioned a minister in Pingtung? I'm not really sure, but it was the first time I've actually heard a word from my Taiwanese class (bok-su, or minister) used in the real world. So, that's cool. 

To be honest, I had a metal screw drilled into my jaw on Monday and hadn't had painkillers since lunch, so I started to lose the plot by the time the big candidates took the stage. 

I'm beginning to lose the plot again now, so I'll leave it there. 

Lai Ching-te has Taiwan, not the ROC, to thank

I've been avoiding election commentary to keep my anxiety levels in check. Plus, I had a piece of metal drilled into my jaw today, and I'm working six days a week. Suffice it to say, I've had to let blogging take a backseat again. 

But now that I have two days to recover from the whole metal-in-jaw thing where I get to lounge around in my LL Bean hoodie and sushi pajama pants, and I wanted to make a quick point about some stupid thing Han Kuo-yu said on the campaign trail. 

I don't want to care about anything Han has to say, but as the KMT is putting him at the top of the legislative party list candidates, unfortunately, we're probably going to have to hear his stupid voice for awhile yet. (It also shows that the  KMT pivot back to reactionary rhetoric and policy isn't shallow, it's a full, tire-screeching turn). 

The clip is 8 minutes long, but only the first minute or so grabbed my attention. Han says, "how can a miner's son become the vice president? How can they run for president?" This is a jab at Lai Ching-te, who made good as a doctor and then political figure, and is also the son of a Wanli miner. 

Taken alone, this could be seen as pure classism, but it's not really what Han meant. He went on, "this is eating the Republic of China's rice, smashing the Republic of China's bowl, cutting the roots of the Republic of China."

(Regarding that last phrase, 斷根 is an interesting choice to me. If you change the object being cut off at the root, you can use it to mean something more like excising an illness). 

What Han really meant here is that he's ungrateful for everything he became thanks to the ROC. The implication is that the great Republic of China government lifted people from humble beginnings like Lai so that a miner's son might hope to run for president. 

That sounds a bit better than just "how can a miner's son run for president?" but I think, in some ways, it's actually worse. The first part of his statement, taken alone, is shallow classism. It would be readily and rightly attacked. In fact, I can't imagine anyone would dare to say such a thing on the campaign trail; it could only hurt their party and candidate. This doesn't mean the KMT doesn't think it -- I believe many of them do -- only that they wouldn't say it. 

On the other hand, spinning a story that the miner's son is ungrateful that he is able to run for president of the country because he supports Taiwanese sovereignty, not ROC ideology, is likely to strike a chord with many supporters. Watch the video -- Han was met with cheers. It doesn't surprise me that attendees at this rally believe this nonsense, and it's what makes that nonsense so much more dangerous. 

It's all claptrap, of course. 

From an economic standpoint, when Lai was born, the ROC on Taiwan was concerned primarily with re-taking China. They didn't even really want to be here -- to live here, build lives here -- besides some vague claim to the land. The ROC was spending over 90% of its budget on the military. They also kept tight controls on the economy: that's where all those poorly-run national enterprises stuffed with nepo babies came from. Their economic development goals were, kindly put, unachievable. 

Aid from the US helped stabilize this situation, not anything the ROC specifically did. They used ineffective measures to curb inflation and talked a big game about local development while spending nothing on it. It took a great deal of pressure from the US, along with aid, to convince the ROC to actually prioritize economic stability and development. 

Even then, it took decades for Taiwan to regain the level of economic development and stability it had under Japanese colonial rule. Considering Taiwan's level of development and infrastructure before the war, it simply should not have taken this long. To the extent that the ROC government 'developed' Taiwan, they were only fixing the two generations of bad economic policy that led it to need 'developing' in the first place. 

In other words, Lai Ching-te did not grow up in a Taiwan where the ROC was doing everything it could to ensure people like him had the opportunity to go from a miners' sons to leaders. Quite the opposite. If we can give the ROC credit for developing Taiwan to the point that a miner's son could get an education that would help him become a doctor and public official, then we can frankly give just as much credit to US aid and US pressure on that government. 

As someone who strongly dislikes most US foreign policy, it pains me to say this, but the numbers don't lie. If you'd like to see the numbers, I recommend Samuel Ho's Economic Development of Taiwan 1860-1970, especially the chapter on post-war Taiwan.

From a political standpoint, the ROC government wasn't all that interested in people like Lai succeeding, either. Obviously, they didn't want someone like Lai running for president at all, seeing as they did not have presidential elections. That eventually changed, thanks not to the efforts of the old dictatorship, but the Tangwai who opposed them and never gave up fighting for democratization, along with Lee Teng-hui, without whom it might not have happened as it did (or, perhaps, at all). If Lai can be grateful to anyone for the opportunities he's had in public life, it's them. The democracy movement originated in Taiwan, so that would be gratitude to Taiwan, not the Republic of China. 

Beyond that, Lai's formative years were spent under an ROC government that blatantly discriminated against local Taiwanese. They didn't want miners' sons to succeed; they wanted government and national enterprise sinecures for the 1949 diaspora elite. They wanted people like Lai -- children from humble local backgrounds -- to know their place and not question the dictatorship that ruled over them, even when said dictatorship couldn't even properly get the economy on track without an influx of US cash. They wanted to rip their own history and language from them, teaching them that they were not only 'Chinese' but inferior Chinese at that because they came from a backwater and were corrupted by life as Japanese imperial subjects.

From school admission to government jobs to merely speaking the right language, the ROC if anything placed barriers on people like Lai. It was Taiwan -- that is, those who pushed for reform -- that helped him overcome them. 

And that's not even taking into account that people of Lai's political persuasion were arrested, disappeared, tortured and killed throughout Lai's formative and early adult years. It absolutely horrifies me that someone stumping for the party that conducted the White Terror could possibly say that Lai is not "grateful enough" to the government they forced down Taiwan's throat. 

And yet, people will believe it. Some people genuinely think the ROC was a net good for Taiwan, and gave people like Lai opportunities they should be "grateful" for. They conveniently ignore the ROC's poor governance in its early years of colonizing Taiwan. They forget the White Terror repression, fear and massacres. They forget that Taiwan has elections today despite, not because of, the way the ROC has governed Taiwan for most of its occupation of Taiwanese territory. And they forget that the KMT has deep-rooted prejudices against local Taiwanese which were far stronger, and resulted in far fewer opportunities, during Lai's formative years.

But this sure is a great way to whitewash history to suit a bullshit narrative that the ROC Lai grew up under uplifted, rather than oppressed, Taiwan.

That's what the KMT really wants: to once again force a narrative that not only is the ROC a right and just government for Taiwan, but that it always has been. They want you to believe the ROC has done mostly good, and that Taiwanese people should be grateful for it rather than angry at the brutality and oppression they actually experienced. 

Like any stable person would with an abusive parent or ex-partner who thinks you should be "grateful" for all they did for you and ignore all the suffering they caused, I think it's time we collectively go no-contact with the KMT so we no longer have to tolerate their narcissistic, gaslighting horseshit. 

Good commentary about bad eggs

There's no reason for using this photo. I just like it.

I've been trying to write something about Artsakh but just can't seem to get my head in the right place. In the meantime, I wanted to share some commentary from others on my last post about the ridiculous egg "scandal". I don't necessarily agree with every comment, so I'll offer some thoughts about each. 

First up, we have my favorite comment, which clarified an idea that had been bouncing around in my head but I couldn't seem to articulate properly (plus, I didn't know all of the details). This was a comment (on my public Facebook post, so not anonymous) by political scientist and blogger Nathan Batto, whom you might know as Frozen Garlic. 

What drives me nuts is that everyone seems to be saying that this is corruption because it didn't match regular market efficiencies. Thing is, there was a huge international market failure, so the markets weren't efficient to start with. [Emphasis mine].  

International chicken feed was very expensive for several reasons including climate crises in several locales and the Ukrainian crisis. , so chicken farmers stopped producing so many eggs across the globe. There's a reason they had to source eggs from Brazil, which is not the normal place that Taiwan buys eggs. I might be wrong but I don't think Taiwan usually imports many eggs at all. I don't think Taiwan has a whole lot of companies with expertise in importing eggs who were clamoring for this particular contract. The government was trying to make sure that there were eggs on supermarket shelves at a reasonable price in short order in the midst of a fucked up international market. And you know what, they managed to do that. Was the process perfect? No. But All in all, this should be seen as a policy success, not a calamitous failure. [Again, emphasis mine]. 

It's the same sort of thing for the Medigen vaccine. At the time, governments across the world were not worried about getting best value for their investment . They wanted a vaccine immediately, and they didn't really care how much it cost. Remember, the United states program was called "warp speed," not "don't waste a penny." Taiwan wanted a vaccine, and it was willing to invest some money to get one. And they got one that worked pretty well . It wasn't as good as Moderna or Pfizer, but if you remember those were unbelievably effective vaccines by most common vaccine metrics. Lots of big pharmaceutical companies and countries tried to produce a vaccine and either failed or came up with something pretty lousy. Taiwan, which didn't have a huge pharmaceutical industry to start with and was using this in part as an opportunity to kick start an industry, produced a reasonably good product in a reasonably short time. This is a policy success!

If you're looking for institutionalized corruption, these are not examples you want.

Yes, exactly. As far as I know importing eggs at all is unusual; they're a delicate product, prone to breakage, and they do expire. I'm no agriculture expert, though, so that's just an educated guess. I have felt in the past that Taiwanese voters have high expectations, and international observers tend to adopt that stance as well. That is, when Taiwan performs well -- or outperforms just about everyone else -- if there is some small imperfection or fault in said performance, it's cause for heavy criticism. Medigen is a great example; Taiwan succeeded where most countries failed. They kept COVID at bay long enough to develop a vaccine, and then developed a pretty good vaccine! And yet, because KMT-led media scares and lack of international approval (thanks, you WHO fuckers) kept people from accepting the domestic vaccines, suddenly it was a bad idea? China was praised for rolling out mass vaccinations with a formula that does not work, but Taiwan developed an effective one, yet got hit with a fake news cyclone? Give me a goddamn break. 

With the egg shortage, Taiwan actually did what a lot of wealthier countries failed to do; it got eggs on shelves at reasonable prices. Given that eggs are an affordable source of protein and a great deal of them are consumed in Taiwan daily, we can speculate that they're an important source of nutrition especially for low-income families. The "reasonable prices" thing is actually central to that issue. 

This brings me to the next comment, which I don't agree with.  There's a little more to this conversation, and you can read it here if you like. 

The egg problem is easily solved. Simply remove the price cap. That’s one of the principal reasons these shortages happened to begin with.

I have libertarian friends who would agree with this. Without arguing about price caps and their role in the market in general, I don't think this would have been a good solution to the egg shortage specifically. Besides, the shortage was due to a screwed up market, high chicken feed prices and bird flu outbreaks, not low prices per se. Most of the world has suffered egg shortages in the last few years, and not all of those countries have price caps. 

First, this would have allowed egg prices to skyrocket, perhaps to double or more. If eggs matter to low-income families (and I believe they do), then all this does is get a few more eggs on shelves, but at a cost beyond the reach of the consumers who need them most. So unless the goal is to "let them eat steak", I don't really see how this solves the central problem. 

There is one thing I do agree with: the shortage might have been somewhat alleviated -- just somewhat! -- by higher prices only insofar as it might have dissuaded the higher-income egg hoarders. Remember when supermarkets were putting limits on the number of cartons of eggs each individual could buy? Well, at least in my area, families would send different household members separately to buy their "share", resulting in egg gluts for some, and no eggs for others. Then, of course, social media was flooded with posts asking what to do with all the hoarded eggs that were about to expire. 

I understand the impulse to stock up on eggs, but this is behavior is both selfish and stupid, in the long run. Fortunately, plenty of people recognized the very good reasons not to hoard eggs, so not everyone engaged in it. 

But as with Medigen, where the objective was "fast, effective vaccines", not 'saving money", people misunderstood the goal. The goal wasn't just "eggs back on shelves", it was "eggs on shelves at prices low-income families could afford". If that matters -- and I believe it does in this case -- then removing price caps isn't a solution. 

My libertarian friends would argue that price caps push purchasing power down in the long run. I won't comment on the general argument as I'm not an economist, but for this particular shortage, I disagree. 

A friend of mine pointed this out in a Facebook message -- I'll keep them anonymous as it wasn't a public post: 

I don't get it either, the government prevents any mislabeled or bad eggs from getting into the food supply, and that is somehow a sign of incompetence? Meanwhile, in the past our past administrations let us eat gutter oil and that's not a bad thing?

The gutter oil, as far as I know, was from private food companies, and this policy was from the government. However, I otherwise agree completely. It was the government's job to regulate food safety and ensure something like 'gutter oil' would never be used in food. They failed -- and that was the Ma administration, so it was a KMT failure. 

And yet the KMT have the absolute bloody stones to yell at the DPP for averting any food safety catastrophes? 

The lot of 'em can bite me. 

Finally, although I'm working towards quitting Twitter (or only posting blog links), an interesting comment: 

I don't think DPP are so faultless. There's been egg shortages for 2 years now. They've been in power for 8 years.  Taiwan is a rich country. It should be able to supply itself with such a basic commodity as eggs.

Sure, though again, the entire world was struggling to supply itself with eggs. Wealthier countries than Taiwan had egg shortages that persisted far longer, or had eggs, but they cost astronomical sums (which isn't that much better). However, I agree that the DPP could have done more of this successful policy.

I do worry that this is another case of criticizing Taiwan for not performing perfectly, when it's actually outperformed most of the world. Beyond that, in local media (not from this particular commenter) I feel again that the two-party double standard seems to be in hyperdrive. 

The KMT fucks up so much. They couldn't conduct reasonable trade relations with China. They let Taiwan's defenses fall into disarray. They let people eat gutter oil. The last time they did anything major for Taiwan's infrastructure was...well, I can't remember when, but it might just have been the Ten Big Projects.

And yet, they attack DPP successes -- for being not enough of a success, or not a success in the exact way they insist it should have been (which they're usually wrong about). Or, they paint a DPP success as a failure, and the media runs with it, and suddenly people think DPP domestic policy is terrible and the KMT are better administrators. They are not -- at best, the two parties are about the same on domestic policy and local development, and the DPP has a clear edge in international relations and the general consensus about Taiwan's sovereignty. 

When this is pointed out to light blues (people who might be willing to concede that the KMT isn't perfect, but will vote for them), one often gets a "yeah, well, the DPP sold themselves on being idealists but they're just as corrupt!" Nobody thinks the DPP is free of corruption, but this is a very weak argument. It doesn't prove that the KMT runs Taiwan better. "The other guy sucks too" arguments don't stand up well, especially when the other guy actually sucks a lot less, but you want to make their successes look like failures to win elections. 

A bunch of bad eggs

This big snake covered in money lives in a Burmese temple, but it's what I picture when I think of the KMT.

Imagine spending three weeks traveling in the US and Canada -- San Francisco, Las Vegas (for a wedding), the Grand Canyon, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria -- complete with a break from Taiwanese current events, simply because maintaining good health requires lots of breaks. 

Then you return only to see memes and cartoons of the Minister of Agriculture on Facebook. No government job strikes you as less glamorous, but here we are, all because "a number of controversies" popped up about an egg import scheme the government enacted during the Great Egg Shortage of early 2023, and the subsequent resignation of Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲).

As a newly-minted diabetic who was diagnosed just as the Great Egg Shortage was ramping up, eggs became both a cornerstone of your diet, and also the bane of your existence; they were nearly impossible to find. 

That's where I was coming from with all this, and I still struggled to care. It had the whiff of a bogus controversy propped up by exaggerated creative storytelling. 

After looking into it, it still reads as a big fat nothing-omelet. I'd like to talk about why, with a quick caveat: I've done a lot of reading, but I'm still extraordinarily jetlagged and honestly, can't be particularly arsed. So a lot of this is just my opinion in an intentionally casual tone, with maybe some links sprinkled in if my arse decides to...arse. I'm only really writing about it because it's a good example of what happens when the important opposition function of keeping the ruling party accountable devolves into any ol' random attack. Besides, as above, I care about eggs perhaps a little bit more than most people. 

Most English-language news doesn't offer much in the way of actually describing the "various controversies", and the Mandarin-language news is breathlessly reporting all sorts of bullshit, so it took awhile to find anything meaningful.

The Taipei Times points out that a large number of the egg imports expired and had to be destroyed as domestic supply stabilized, and the subsequent waste totaled about US$6.25 million. (TaiwanPlus attributed that number to the total cost of the import project). Other eggs had to be destroyed as the wrong expiration date was printed on them, but the total number doesn't seem to be very high, and no expired eggs were sold to the public. 

Some questioned the nature of a company who got the import contract -- apparently they're new and don't have a lot of capital -- implying there was corruption afoot without actually saying so, probably due to lack of evidence. There's (frankly insane) insinuations that "maybe" there is a "money issue", again with no proof or even a hint that such proof might exist. Others are calling Chen "Tsai's Boy".

One KMT legislator accused the DPP of waiting to designate Brazil as a bird flu outbreak zone, but those familiar with the imports noted that the eggs in question left Taiwan before the outbreak began. 

None of this seems like a particularly big deal to me. US$6 million sounds like a lot, but on the scale of government budgets it's not really. Nobody bought, ate or got sick from expired eggs. 20,000 mislabeled eggs is unfortunate, but it still just...doesn't sound like a lot? Big recalls are often much, much more sweeping than that.

Even pan-green media are publishing opinion pieces admitting that the issue isn't "about the truth of the egg import turmoil", saying Chen was right to step down as an issue of "ministerial integrity". How, exactly, Chen lacks "integrity" is not explained -- and I can't see that he indeed lacks it. The writer cobbled this (non) issue together with a previous thesis plagiarism scandal by an entirely different person, but I don't see how they're related. One is actually a breach of public trust. Importing eggs and having some of them go bad isn't. 

From a political perspective, stepping down was probably the right move in an election year, but not because he did anything wrong. This is just...what happens when a furor is made -- manufactured, really -- right before an election. I don't think it's anything more complicated than that. 

And yet, it's all over the news. The public is mostly dissatisfied over the government's handling of the whole thing, but I honestly can't find anything to be that upset about. In fact, nobody seemed that dissatisfied when the imports started flowing in and eggs became available again. I, for one, was overjoyed! There are very few foods I can stomach for breakfast that won't spike my blood sugar; without eggs, I didn't really have other good options.

I know Taiwanese voters have very high expectations, resulting in satisfaction rates that seem low by any other standard, but come on.

So here's my extremely biased (but to my mind accurate) take on the whole thing. The KMT would desperately like for there to be a real scandal to take down the DPP. They'd love it if the DPP actually took a major misstep or two. There are even things they could say about Tsai's tenure that I'm not entirely happy with either. Low wages and lack of paid time off for Taiwanese workers, a failure to meaningfully address Taiwan's increasingly broken water and energy systems, lack of sufficient forward movement on migrant exploitation -- and that's just off the top of my head. Knowing they can't promise to do any better and the public likely won't be whipped up into a frenzy over them, however, the KMT leaves those alone and goes for eggs.

After all, a great way to get a lot of Taiwanese voters angry very quickly is to imply there's something dangerous about the food supply. It never fails. 

Nevermind that the DPP has pledged to subsidize improvements in hatcheries to circumvent future potential shortages, something the KMT never seems to have done after past shortages have sounded warning bells about the state of the domestic egg industry. (If I'm wrong about this and the KMT has actually tried to help farmers upgrade their equipment, let me know, but I don't recall this ever being addressed). 

When a party acts as the opposition -- something the KMT never learned how to properly do -- their chief mandate is to hold the ruling party accountable. I haven't seen the KMT actually do this. Where is the push for better energy and water supply solutions? Where is the push for stronger defense forces? Where is the push for pay, working conditions and affordable housing that will encourage people to start families, along with improved immigration procedures as Taiwan's population ages? Where is the push for an improved social safety net?

Oh yeah, right, the KMT doesn't actually care about any of that. Energy doesn't matter because they just want nuclear -- but don't care enough to build public trust that the plants are safe, or safer plants with waste storage solutions that don't infringe on Indigenous land rights. They don't care about water, because...well, I don't know why but this issue is pretty fundamental so I assume it's because they don't care about Taiwan. They don't care about birthrates because they fundamentally don't understand why people aren't having children (I've heard discussions of this on talk shows and it's always some inane bullshit about 'kids these days' -- no, idiots, people need enough money and a good place to fucking live). They don't care about defense or stopping information warfare or cybersecurity because they want Taiwan to be subjugated by China.

So they turn to eggs, and take a non-issue to stir up some fucking bullshit election "controversy", pushing a good man to step down and falsely causing their base to believe there's some sort of scary danger in the food supply when there was none. Failing that, the most famously corrupt party in Taiwan's history implies DPP corruption without proof.

Not that the DPP doesn't have corruption -- of course it does -- but probably not in this specific instance.

And now egg prices are rising again. I've also noticed fewer eggs available at grocery stores -- great. What the hell does the KMT suggest be done about it? Nothing, it seems. 

And what else was the DPP supposed to do about the egg shortage? Just let prices remain high and eggs scarce? Taiwan apparently eats 20 million eggs a day -- I can't remember which media reported that number, but it's in one of the links above. That's almost one egg per person. They're important to the Taiwanese diet, and it makes sense to import when domestic production is adversely affected.

It's like the Medigen "controversy" all over again. Imply there was some corrupt dealing around imported vaccines, with no real proof. Then imply Medigen doesn't work (it does). Then imply that vaccines, not COVID itself, are the real danger (wrong, and dangerous). Then COVID waves continue to roll in and we're not as prepared as we could be. 

All because of a few bad eggs.