All the unfounded "evidence" Ma Ying-jeou used to attack the DPP on 6/4 (Part Two!)

Does this look like the face of a liar to you?

(Yes.)

It's easy to spout bullshit. It's easy to lie, or take a kernel of truth and present a slanted and ultimately inaccurate perspective on it, calling your take the real truth. It's been done since the birth of political discourse because it's efficient, it's simple, and people will believe you.

What takes a long time? Refuting someone else's lies and bad takes. That requires reams of free time and tracts of verbiage. 

Fortunately, I type fast and am in quarantine, and a blog has no word limits. Why not debunk every accusation Ma Ying-jeou hurled at the DPP in his offensive post on June 4th? Sure, he briefly mentioned the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but it's clear what he really wanted to do was compliment Xi Jinping and trash his own country's democracy and elected leader. 

At least, he wanted to trash Taiwan's democracy. I'm reasonably sure he believes that China is his country and Xi Jinping currently leads it. 

Regardless, the crux of his argument is worth refuting point-by-point. Much of what he references was barely covered in English-language media, if at all. He uses specific terms even the most fluent second-language Mandarin speakers might be unfamiliar with (I know I was). And there are people who will believe it. 

I discuss the entirety of his statement in my previous post. Here, I'll address the specifics, starting with the middle of the post where he goes into detail.

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

There's a lot to cover here, so let's go point-by-point, news item by news item.

"Closing television news stations"

The television station in question is CTiTV, which has severe editorial integrity issues and has been known to broadcast disinformation.  

It was done because they breached regulations several times and were routinely broadcasting false information without fact-checking. They were also found to lack editorial independence from their owner, pro-China Tsai tycoon Tsai Eng-meng, whose Want Want group receives funding from China. Want Want China Times Media Group (of which CTiTV is/was a part) was also accused of taking orders directly from the Chinese government. The original Financial Times piece is here, but paywalled.

Even if you oppose the closing of CTiTV, it wasn't done to crush dissenting voices. Plenty of pan-blue networks are still on television, and CTiTV is still alive on Youtube. While other networks may have fact-checking, editorial and general quality issues (including pan-green ones, which are hardly a bastion of fantastic journalism), CTiTV is the only one the NCC has actually refused a license renewal to. Typically a network won't fall afoul of the NCC if they plausibly believed false information was true at the time it was broadcast.

Some critical responses to this incident described Taiwan's media environment as being solidly "green" -- Han Kuo-yu even stated that "90% of media is pan-green" during the 2020 election -- and taken CTiTV's downfall as a harbinger of some sort of authoritarian DPP crackdown. That's simply not the case. It's true that by viewership the pan-green channels dominate (at about 66% as per the above link), but that doesn't mean that pro-DPP news channels are the only choice; it means more people choose to watch them.

In other words, it's possible to sincerely disagree on the NCC's decision, but it's not possible to credibly call this a grab to dominate the media or a sign of "Green Terror". 


"Liquidating opposition parties"

This probably has to do with transitional justice. Essentially, Ma is saying here that money the KMT can be credibly accused of stealing over the decades of its brutal, corrupt, totalitarian rule should not be taken from the KMT and given back to the nation it was stolen from. Not great.

"Checking the water meter"

This is Internet slang for the police entering a home on false pretexts, for example, to say that the home's water meter needs to be checked when it doesn't. It's also a catch-all for general intimidation of anyone who opposes you -- usually through a real-life visit -- while making excuses for your presence. 

The KMT likes to complain about this -- Alex Tsai at one point said it would lead to a modern Wuchang Uprising which...what? At first I thought it was pure projection: one thing I've learned in life is that people who make preposterous accusations against others either have engaged in those actions themselves, or want to. If someone (or a group) is screaming "all these bad actors are doing this to me!" but offers little evidence that it's happening, chances are they're the ones actually doing it, and trying to deflect scrutiny. 

Certainly, when I think of police intimidation to quell political dissent, the KMT has far more of a historical legacy. There is flimsy evidence for the existence of a "Green Terror", but the "White Terror" is a matter of historical fact. And frankly, even in modern times the KMT is not blameless.

However, a few cases did pop up after a search. Apparently some police showed up at a KMT think tank symposium saying protests could break out as the discussions were related to upcoming referendums, and protests were happening elsewhere. The KMT insists it wasn't a public event and only the press was notified, calling the excuse for the police presence "farfetched". In another incident, an elderly woman was visited by police after posting disinformation about the then-upcoming 2020 election.

Neither of these incidents, if true, looks great. However, the symposium was not stopped and no one was arrested or harmed. (I also couldn't find any proof that there's some DPP-led crackdown on freedom of expression). The woman was asked to explain her post at a police station in accordance with the Social Order Maintenance Act -- not great, as authorities paying someone a personal visit over something they've said sends a specific kind of message given Taiwan's political history -- but as far as I can tell was not arrested or further troubled. 

While the DPP is hardly perfect and their methods of handling disinformation potentially problematic, neither of these incidents definitively proves that the DPP is turning Taiwan into an "unfree democracy" or instituting a reign of "Green Terror". 


"Interfering with the judiciary" and "turning independent agencies green"

These accusations are more vague, but seem to refer to a variety of issues. This KMT News Network post is barely readable (no, it's not a machine translation) but provides little actual evidence of judicial interference, stopping at an insistence that it is happening. The KMT took a comment about the "Political Investigation Office" out of context in regards to the recent by-election between gangter Yen Ching-piao's son and DPP candidate Lin Jingyi -- there appears to be a lot of booming anger but very little actual evidence that anything illegal took place.

In terms of that "all-around greening of independent agencies", there have been a few accusations of nepotistic activity in various agencies, and an insistence that the NCC (the agency that revoked CTiTV's license, discussed above) has been "turned green" -- all with very little proof. 

I'm not saying that the DPP is perfect and incorruptible; that would be risible. All parties do unsavory things. However, when it comes to these specific accusations, I don't see much there.

"Revising the law to exonerate the corrupt former president"

This is getting very long, so I recommend reading the Taipei Times coverage of this issue if you want to know more. I'm not going to opine on whether the law being amended is actually unclear, or the types public funds in question are functionally the same, as I'm not an expert in that area. I'm also not going to spend a lot of time discussing Chen Shui-bian, as that's old news. 

Sure, it doesn't look great to change a law in a way that would exonerate someone convicted of corruption from your own party, although the KMT hardly has a spotless history when it comes to corruption and inappropriate use of funds (that's why the Ill-Gotten Assets Committee exists), and the article notes that they've done the same thing:

While saying that the KMT set a bad legal precedent in 2013 by amending the same article to exonerate former KMT legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標) from allegations of misappropriating public funds, the NPP said the DPP yesterday again set a bad precedent by forcibly passing the bill at the legislature.

 

Think what you like about Ma's accusation here, but remember that he's probably not too interested in discussing the KMT's similar political maneuvers.

"Using internal propaganda to mislead citizens and sowing hatred simply to follow the 'political correctness' of the so-called 'anti-China protection of Taiwan"

Look, honestly, this just sounds like mad ranting. There's no actual accusation here: Ma is just mad that society rejects his and the KMT's insistence that Taiwan is Chinese and should embrace a Chinese identity. They don't want to admit that the CCP is a threat to Taiwan and attempts at warming relations with them will only hand them opportunities to render Taiwan economically dependent on and politically tied to China, making a move away from unification more difficult. 

They simply cannot accept that Taiwanese do not think they are Taiwanese and that this angers China, and the DPP acknowledges and works with these facts. Acknowledging the general consensus on Taiwanese identity is apparently "propaganda" and being pragmatic on the threat of invasion from China is "politically correct" maneuvering to make Taiwan "anti-China". 

The KMT will never admit that their own forcing of Chinese identity -- including the attempted destruction of the Taiwanese language in favor of Mandarin -- onto an island they occupied was the "internal propaganda" they speak of. They'll never admit that the social change toward Taiwanese identity took place before the DPP took power in 2016, and in fact spiked when Taiwan fully democratized and grew throughout Ma's own administration. They'll never admit that China is a threat, not a friend. And certainly they'll never admit that Taiwanese by and large do not want to be part of China. They'll never admit that their own attempts to force Taiwanese to identify as Chinese failed, and are unlikely to succeed in the future.

There is literally nothing else there, so let's move on.

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

I discussed these particular distortions in my previous post, but I think they belong here as well, so I'll quote myself in green:

 

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

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

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

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

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

That is to say, there's nothing here but more distortion, including some statements that I suspect are outright lies.

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

 

Ah yes, because the KMT is renowned for always being so kind to the opposition. They were so friendly when they threw the Tangwai in jail. Their torture and interrogation techniques were employed in an attempt to establish core values in common! The KMT has never, ever attempted to "suppress or even eliminate dissidents", the White Terror is called that because it was just very bright outside for decades!

Obviously, there is no evidence -- I don't even have a link -- that the DPP is doing this. I discussed the inclusion of "cross strait common values" and the impossibility of an "elected dictatorship" in my previous post and won't repeat them here. 

Needless to say, this is the part of his argument that slides from plausible, debatable issue into lies and hokum.

Not just hokum, but more projection. Didn't the KMT spend decades during Martial Law lying about how the ideals of the Republic of China included democracy, while not instituting democracy beyond the local level in which every candidate was KMT-approved?

When someone like Ma bangs on and on about what the other guy is doing, you can be pretty sure he's done it, or he's aware that the KMT has. What was it that someone said on Twitter? Every KMT accusation is a confession? Like that.

Liars like Ma follow a second pattern, in my experience: they start out with claims that, while refutable, are based on real events or issues. You have to take time and energy to actually refute them. So if you know they're garbage, you ignore them, but if you don't, you might well believe it. In any case, at least some of them might be up for some kind of real debate, even if the actual claim made by that person is fundamentally flawed. 

Then, after you've been tired out, they go for vague accusations and outright bullshit. In other words, there's a veneer of plausibility to start out, which gradually drops as the case being made grows more and more deranged. 

If you ever find yourself reading something that starts out sounding pretty good, makes a few questionable claims that are nevertheless worthy of discussion, and then devolves down the road to Crazytown, be suspicious. This is a perfect example.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There ya go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Taiwan independence a mainstream position? It depends on how you define independence.

There's a visual metaphor in here somewhere about doors and corners.

"Most Taiwanese don't want independence, they want the status quo," I was told recently.

Well, that's half a lie: someone did say that to me not long ago, but I can usually claim that as there's always someone saying it. 

I'm never sure how to respond. I size up the person who's made the pronouncement, sitting proudly like they cracked the Mystery Spy Key Ring code and try to figure out how exactly they came to hold that opinion. 

Is it because they read the popular but frequently-misinterpreted polling on this issue from NCCU, ignoring the poll on the same site regarding identity? Possibly. Then it's time to take a leisurely drive through what does the status quo mean, though? and when people answer, how are they defining independence? 

Is it because they think that Taiwan's current official name, "The Republic of China", confers a Chineseness on Taiwan which cannot be cast off without changing it? That leads to questions about why, exactly, this name persists. Do most Taiwanese want it? We have no idea; I'm not sure anyone has ever asked directly. Or does it continue to exist because China has threatened to start a war if Taiwan does so, and most people would simply prefer to avoid that? 

Is it because they think Taiwan doesn't have independence now? But if that's true, then what does it need independence from? The People's Republic of China, or the Republic of China? If the former, Taiwan already has it. If the latter, then it's very easy to confuse people abroad who hear "Taiwan independence" and think "from the PRC".

Perhaps it's because they believe independence is a thing which must be proactively declared. Why must it, though? If "independence" means "independence from China (the one everyone recognizes)", then Taiwan has it. What's to declare? If it means ending the ROC system on Taiwan, I'm all for it -- but that's a different thing, and doesn't have to be bound up with extant independence from the PRC. 

However, plenty of people seem to believe these are one and the same, or perhaps they don't think about the difference. They issue forth their opinions on "independence" as if they are the master of that word. As if nobody else's concept of what that word might mean matters: they decide it must mean independence from the PRC or ROC or both, that it is a thing which must be declared, that it cannot be a thing Taiwan has now. That it means just what they choose it to mean -- neither more nor less. They don't question who is to be master of that word.

And of course, if anyone disagrees, it must be because they don't understand -- it could not possibly be a difference in how one conceptualizes what it means to be "independent".

Now that I've thoroughly plagiarized Lewis Carroll, I do question who is to be master of the words "Taiwan independence". Let's start with the idea that it means sovereignty from the PRC.

President Tsai has done a great deal of work to bring the concept of "Taiwan independence" into the mainstream. Under her leadership, it's become a term that means sovereignty: Taiwan as its own country, regardless of the name, independent from the PRC. More recently, she didn't reference the ROC at all in her New Year's speech.

This is exactly what she says: Taiwan is an independent country, and it's name is the Republic of China. There's no need to declare independence. 

If you define independence this way -- the sovereignty Taiwan already enjoys -- then it is indeed a mainstream position. Tsai was democratically elected and remains more popular than most Taiwanese leaders who've served as long as she has; clearly these pronouncements have not hurt her. 

And I fail to see, in any reasonable mode of thinking, how such pronouncements could be considered anything other than a pro-independence position.

We also know it's a mainstream position because there's polling to prove it:   

 

It’s noteworthy that an impressive majority – almost 75 percent – continue to believe that Taiwan is already an independent country called the Republic of China. [Emphasis mine].

 

Supporting this is a recent MyFormosa poll, which asked respondents what they considered to be the necessary conditions for independence, a huge majority responded that Taiwan already meets those criteria, the status quo suffices to meet them, and there's no need to change the name of the country (that's the yellow bar). The green bar are the people who think at a Republic of Taiwan must be established before Taiwan can be called independent.

It seems Tsai has not only pinpointed a mainstream position, she has changed what it means for Taiwan to consider itself independent. This is not just in terms of what voters think, but her own party (this isn't a position I could see the DPP of Chen Shui-bian taking, but it's where they are now.)

This makes sense: if one defines "Taiwanese independence" as something palatable, acceptable, normal even -- something that doesn't require a big change or a provocation -- then it becomes those very things. Palatable, acceptable, normal, unprovocative. Mainstream. 

It also captures the essence of what most people understand independence to mean internationally: that Taiwan independence means independence from the country they understand to be China. 

Suddenly Taiwan independence isn't a thing that doesn't exist, which some renegade province wants to make happen. It's not a change: it's something Taiwan already has which it merely wishes to keep.

It also allows for the bridging of some very deep cleavages. Yes, this means making nice with huadu (華獨 or "independence as the ROC") people whom one may not like, or fully agree with. It means accepting that some allies might still talk about the status quo, and being annoyed by that won't change it.

It means working with folks whom one might not trust: I hear a lot of huadu isn't actually a pro-independence viewpoint and yes, I wonder as well how committed they really are to keeping Taiwan sovereign and free. 

However, I'd rather work with them and turn that bloc of people who don't want to be part of the PRC into a force that can, y'know, keep Taiwan from being part of the PRC, not sit around hurling insults at people with whom I actually have common ground.

You might spit back "but the ROC question can't be left until later!" but reader, it literally can.

In other words, naming and coalescing the key view of the vast majority of Taiwanese -- that they want sovereignty and do not want to be part of the People's Republic of China regardless of other disagreements -- is genius. 

This is especially true given that there are still people who don't want unification but do maintain some Chinese cultural identity (although most prioritize Taiwanese identity -- and that does matter, as it means there's room for growth and change).

That may seem overly optimistic, but as most Taiwanese identify solely as Taiwanese, but a huge percentage of those want to "maintain the status quo", there seems to be a lot of maneuverability in terms of what the status quo means. 

It doesn't mean those who want formal independence and those who want to keep the status quo (which is effectively independence) are the same -- they're not. But it does mean they can work together. It would require quite a lot of public discourse, but it's possible. That's how it is when you're trying to bridge deep cleavages.

So, let's look at the other side.

If, on the other hand, one insists that "Taiwanese independence" can only mean one thing, and that concept must include a move away from the Republic of China -- that independence from the country most people consider "China" is insufficient -- then it's a much longer journey to popular support. If you demand that a word that can have many meanings can only be defined with its radical meaning, then you're relegating the concept it embodies to the edges of discourse, away from the mainstream.

It's also divisive rather than inclusive: we all agree that Taiwan is sovereign from the PRC and we don't want that to change is an umbrella that can fit all sorts of people. We must end the ROC colonial system too might be my personal view (in fact, it is), but it excludes people who might help and confuses those who don't follow these issues closely.

Does doing that help Taiwan? I don't think so, but it sure does help China. They want the world to believe independence doesn't exist yet, and the very idea is just the fever dream of some fringe splittists. I'd rather accept that every person is their own unique soap opera of ideas, as long as enough of them can work together to keep Taiwan free. 

Insisting that Taiwan is not independent (even though it is independent from the PRC) merely reinforces that view. For anyone who doesn't follow Taiwanese politics, the end result is usually confusion: isn't Taiwan already not a part of China? No, because the ROC is also China? Then Taiwan's not independent, better not rock the boat and support a change. That feels like separatism and the news makes that word sound negative. And I don't want a war. Better that Taiwan not become independent.

Where's the good in alienating a chunk of the electorate that agrees Taiwan should not be a part of the PRC, confusing people abroad who aren't aware of these conceptual differences, and giving the whole notion of Taiwanese independence a negative connotation?

Personally, I think it's smarter to court allies where one can and create a position that the mainstream can comfortably hold. If they already do, and a leader's job is merely to find that extant mainstream and give it a name, then all the better. 

Internationally, this means clarifying for all the people who have-listen to the news that Taiwan is, indeed, already independent from that country they call China. It's sovereign, and it's okay to just call it Taiwan. All they want is to keep what they have. 

This makes it harder to oppose or fear, and makes it difficult for international media to make it sound more provocative than it is. Perhaps it will lead to fewer moves likely to anger China and more talk of democratic, self-governing Taiwan.

That is, less fear of what Taiwan might declare and more discourse about what Taiwan already is.

Locally, this means working with the "status quo" crowd, even those who fear a move away from ROC names and norms. But it also means pointing out, whenever possible, that the ROC still contains concepts of Chinese governance that are inappropriate for Taiwan. It means normalizing the mainstream position that Taiwan is not and should never be a part of the PRC, while pushing for an end to the ROC colonial framework. They're both important, but they're not the same thing and can be accomplished on different timelines.

Note that word -- governance. Not culture. It's much easier to convince someone to change a set of laws than tell them how they should define their culture. Culture is non-static and how people define and relate to it are ever-evolving too: this is an issue that will solve itself, given room to breathe.

Such a view can sit quite comfortably alongside the NCCU poll that says again and again that Taiwanese prefer "the status quo". That poll asks nothing about what people mean when they discuss these concepts.

I accept that one poll cannot do everything -- adding questions addressing these issues would create all sorts of methodological hurdles -- and am happy to see there's now other information out there. I'd like to see even more in the future: we could begin to address some of this confusion if there were more research into what people mean when they say "independence".

In the meantime, here's a challenge: instead of talking about independence like everyone agrees on what it means, define your terms. Independence from what? Be clear: are you talking about ending the ROC conceptual, constitutional and juridicial framework in Taiwan, or are you talking about sovereignty from the PRC? Are you ignoring the distinction entirely and assuming they are one and the same? Don't. 

Perhaps, if that actually happened, we could all stop shouting from our respective corners, each using our own definitions of independence and assuming the other side shares them -- each pretending to be masters of our little word-kingdoms.

And then, perhaps, we could actually get somewhere.

Assorted thoughts and musings on yesterday's votes

A screenshot from the moment I realized it was all over and I could relax

Coming in late with the lukewarm takes on yesterday's recall vote against Freddy Lim and by-election in Taichung, but that's probably going to be how things are around here given my work schedule.  But there's great news: the KMT's revenge recall efforts are over (for now), and last night they lost. In fact, they've mostly lost in general.

For a solid, smart-person view of what happened, I suggest reading Frozen Garlic first.   

It strikes me that all those referendums and recalls, the only person they were able to unseat and replace with their own was Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hau-yu, and to be frank the guy had a history of picking fights and making insensitive comments, both in the Green Party and the DPP. 

Imagine all that time and effort over the past few years, and all you got was one ousted city councilor whom few liked anyway. Then you think you've scored big by mobilizing money-driven factional networks to take out a national legislator, only to have that seat taken by the DPP rather than a small pan-green party. 

It's hilarious, really. 

Here are a few things I noticed as all this went down: 

First, a lot of people seemed to think Freddy was safe right up until those vote margins got a little too close to actually taking him out. Closer than it should have been is the refrain I've heard. Too close for comfort. Especially, as Frozen Garlic notes, in a district where the people who elected him didn't seem to have changed their mind that much. 

I suspect, however, that strategists closer to this vote -- both from Freddy's team and the DPP -- had figured out what I (and others) hadn't: that he was in some danger of losing his seat, that it could be that close. The DPP pulled out a lot of stops for a legislator that isn't theirs -- why do that if you think his seat is safe? Maybe I'm wrong and it's just a good idea for President Tsai to show up at both rallies, even if the number-crunchers think one of them will survive comfortably, but it's worth pondering.

That said, the danger never really came from Freddy's track record or popularity. He's a serious politician and hard worker who managed to get re-elected and hasn't done anything to lose a great deal of support. Criticisms against him have been fairly mild. The issue is that the new recall rules are completely preposterous, making it far too easy to oust someone when there's no reason to oust them beyond pure spite. 

The second thing I noticed was that in Taichung, the DPP made it explicitly about what was done to Chen Po-wei. He showed up on stage with Lin. They hugged. There wasn't even the pretense of "Chen was recalled, now the seat is open so of course we're going to run someone else who might be more popular" -- the DPP bet, correctly it seems, that the issue was never Chen's popularity. 

Frozen Garlic notes that they chose an unfamiliar face without much electoral experience to run in Taichung 2. It's true that she's not electorally experienced -- her 2016-2020 seat was party list -- but is she that unfamiliar? She was the spokeswoman for Tsai's re-election campaign, until she wasn't. I'd heard of her, but it's possible your average Taichung 2 person had not. 

Chen was well-known for advocating outright independence -- that is, going beyond the notion that Taiwan is already independent to push for a stronger pro-Taiwan line. If the DPP thought that such views were the problem, or were so fringe as to be offensive to many voters, they would have run a more centrist candidate in his place. They didn't. 

Instead, they ran a candidate in Taichung 2 who once had to quit her post for saying that advocating unification with China was treason (which it isn't, though I think advocating for invasion by China is or should be). She's not a well-known pro-independence face, but they certainly did not run a centrist on the China issue. On the same night, they supported Freddy Lim, who also has a very clear pro-independence stance. 

While people accuse the Tsai administration of being "vague" on Taiwanese independence or outright saying they don't support it, that same administration has been swaggering around doing what? Calling Taiwan "an independent country (with the name 'Republic of China')". Not referencing the ROC at all in Tsai's New Year's address, while specifically giving the New Year celebrations a theme of global recognition and engagement for Taiwan.

And now, running or supporting legislators whose views might have been out of the mainstream a few years ago, but are fairly normal now. They might be towards the edge of that mainstream but they don't elicit gasps. 

Thanks to the referendums and the votes yesterday, the DPP and pan-green legislators like Freddy now has the luxury of running on two platforms: first, they're pretty damn competent locally and are generally in line with public opinion on domestic issues. The KMT tried to take that from them and lost. They tried to make it sound like the DPP were dangerous ideologues on China and incompetent on domestic issues. That's obviously not true.

Secondly, that their position -- it's time to treat Taiwan as Taiwan, and no matter your view of the country's name or national symbols, we can all agree that Taiwan shouldn't be part of the PRC -- is the mainstream. That they're not "dangerous ideologues" on China, rather, they represent more or less the center and take their cues from public opinion. They'll stand with pro-independence legislators like Freddy, and embrace Chen Po-wei on stage. They'll run someone who has made her stance on China very clear, in a district rank with factional bullshit and money, and win. 

Most importantly, by doing this they've made it clear to the country that the KMT's framing of these revenge recalls is a lie. These weren't targeted recalls at independent legislators for incompetence or poor public service: they were proxy wars against the DPP, and everyone knew it. By showing up for Freddy, bringing Chen on stage and handing Yen Ching-piao's son his ass on a platter, they've shown that the voters see it too, and are sick of it.

There has been some discussion about whether Eric Chu would resign chairmanship of the KMT -- so soon after winning it! -- in the face of all these defeats. I doubt that. He inherited these fights and hasn't dug in on any of them, and isn't going to give up what he so recently secured. It's a string of defeats to be sure, but no single defeat was the sort of thing that would cause a chair to resign. I am mildly amused by the list of people that could have replaced him -- could you imagine Chu stepping down after the KMT gets its ass kicked for being so annoying, and Chang Ya-chung taking his place? That's the stuff of reality TV, but also a world we won't be seeing.

There's more to be said about factional and black gold politics, but instead of repeating Frozen Garlic I'll just quote him here: 

In 2020, Yen lost by a mere 2.3%. In this election, that margin doubled to 4.6%. That’s not a crushing victory for the DPP, but they were running an unfamiliar candidate with no previous electoral experience. (It seems she turned out to be pretty good at this game, though.) This wasn’t an indication of a KMT collapse, by any means. The KMT is still just about as strong as they were before. As with the recall vote a few months ago, it seems the electoral balance right now is just about the same as it was in January 2020. However, losing is more damaging to patronage-oriented politicians than to those who build their careers on ideas. The latter can shrug off losses and start preparing for the next fight. If you rely on money to motivate your machine, it helps to be in office to secure a steady source on income. Moreover, this campaign pointed out several places for the judicial system to attack the Yen family. The election is over, but the inquiries might continue. Now Yen will have to resist those inquiries as a private citizen, not as a national legislator. [Although Yen's sister still holds office.] Old-school factional politics have been on the decline for a couple decades, and the Yen family’s defeat is one more symbolic step in that process.

I have several work deadlines to meet so I'll end it here. My only final note is this: it's been fun watching the KMT get whooped so often. It was delightful to watch the results roll in on 民視, where they started playing dopey music as he gave his concession speech as a transition to a series of commercials about terrible game shows on their network, and then cut him off mid-sentence to air said commercials. I smiled.

But I'm sick of the endless banging about and resource waste. I suspect many Taiwanese voters are, as well. It's time to stop. I don't think they'll ever quit being irresponsible revenge-seeking jackholes, but they could maybe just stop for awhile, take the pulse of the nation, and try to become the sort of party people actually want to vote for in large numbers again. It's not like there are no blue voters left. 

But, lol, they won't do that.

Go home, KMT, you're drunk.

Were the four referendum issues small, or just boring and rank with hypocrisy?

Ma Ying-jeou gives Eric Chu a warm package

(Yes, I know I'm translating it oddly, that's the point)

I haven't said anything about the referendum vote yesterday because the straight-up fact is this: I just haven't cared enough.

Now that all four have gone down in flames -- neither reaching the vote threshold nor garnering more 'yes' votes than 'no' -- I figure maybe it's time to offer up an opinion, such as it is.

Frozen Garlic has pretty much said most of what's worth saying about why voters stayed home, and why those who came out voted as they did. Notably, the fact that the DPP made it easier to get referendums going, the KMT managed to use this against the DPP once already, and despite these issues not being linked to the KMT's unpopular stances vis-a-vis China and Taiwanese identity, they still couldn't eke out anything close to a win. As Frozen Garlic points out, they did this to themselves. 

I also agree that very little of the result had to do with detailed policy arguments, but quite possibly a lot to do with widespread distrust of the KMT. To wit:

One possibility is that when these issues became associated with the KMT, they became a lot less popular. That is, perhaps people were willing to support the LNG/reef policy, but they weren’t willing to support the KMT LNG/reef policy. The KMT was a dead weight that not even a popular issue could save.

Perhaps I like this because it's a great analysis of why the liquefied natural gas/reef referendum failed. Perhaps it's because I too, regardless of policy, simply do not trust the KMT to run the country. I don't think the DPP is perfect by any means, but Tsai mostly seems to do a solid job. I trust her, and she's given me reasons to trust her. 

In other words: 

Maybe this referendum will be a message to the KMT that it can’t paper over its unpopular identity and China positions by distracting voters with shiny objects. Maybe they will be motivated to finally start thinking about altering those unpopular stances on the most critical issues.

Probably not though. Eric Chu has already signaled that he is more comfortable finding excuses than reflecting on the causes of defeats. I keep waiting for the KMT to reform itself, and it keeps disappointing me.

I get the feeling that Eric Chu spends a lot of time not realizing how disappointing he is, which is perhaps why he's a spot-on choice to chair the party that always disappoints and doesn't even seem to realize it.

But there's one area where I differ just a bit. Frozen Garlic says:

In their ungracious remarks tonight, Johnny Chiang and Eric Chu put the blame for the defeats on the DPP. Chiang said that the DPP had unfairly twisted these narrow issues by claiming they were about broader things, like international trade, relations with the United States, overall economic development, and what China wants. Apparently, when the KMT tries to deal the DPP government a serious policy setback, he doesn’t expect the DPP government to fight back to defend its agenda.

Yes, all correct. The thing is, I think the DPP is right about that. These referendums did tie in to broader, more important things like international trade, economic development and energy security. Does ractopork matter? No, not really.  But in terms of international trade and relations with the US, it does matter. 

Does the Gongliao nuclear power plant matter? Not really. Ma Ying-jeou himself mothballed it, and it's unlikely that it'd ever actually get restarted. But public sentiment on what role nuclear power should play in Taiwan's energy policy does matter.

Does the LNG plant matter? Now that there are revised plans to move it further out to sea, I don't think so. But the DPP asking the public to trust them that the LNG plans were both environmentally safe and necessary to Taiwan's energy policy and security? Yes, those things matter. Taiwan's energy security and ending dependence on coal? Yes, that matters very much indeed.

And the referendum timing? I'm honestly not sure it matters, though I think Donovan is right that the initial decoupling from elections was a blatant strategic move by the DPP, though I'm not sure about the weather angle. However, whether the public thinks the DPP can be trusted to make such decisions -- or whether they care at all -- does matter. 

The thing is, the very fact that each of these items ties into a broader discussion about Taiwan's present and future seemed to matter less than the fact that each individual issue was boring. I can't vote in Taiwan, but when I vote in the US I choose people to represent me whom I trust to deal with these fairly small things in a general direction I support -- the big things these issues all tie into -- even if I don't agree with every little thing. 

It's possible that many Taiwanese voters ultimately decided they felt the same way: we elect people to figure these things out. If we don't like the general direction, we vote for someone else. Please don't ask me to vote on everything from algal reefs to ractopamine, when I am an expert in none of it! 

What's interesting, though, is that the KMT couldn't seem to win whether we're talking big or small. Whether you think ractopork was just about ractopork or the grand theatre of international trade, either the KMT picks bad issues, or they have bad policies, or the public doesn't trust them regardless. 

Beyond that, it's amusing just how weirdly hypocritical the KMT is on just about every single issue.

On nuclear power, as noted above, the fourth plant was mothballed by President Ma. Now Ma seems to be the strongest voice in favor of restarting it, to the point that I think he's been giving both Johnny Chiang and Eric Chu his warm package for awhile now.

On the LNG terminal, this source states that it's been an active project since 2016, which means it must have been drafted and proposed before that. Who was in power before 2016? The KMT. Despite some media making the whole thing about the DPP's energy goals, this feels like yet another KMT turnaround.

On ractopork, remember that once again, the KMT allowed ractopamine beef imports and tried to allow in pork, but withdrew from that position amid public backlash. It's true that the DPP opposed it then, but the fact is that we now have some idea of what standards for ractopamine levels should be, which we didn't back then (interestingly, the safety data came out right around the time Taiwan was fighting about this in 2012, so it's not like the KMT doesn't know about it). So on that, too, the KMT come out looking like the bigger hypocrites. 

Ma Ying-jeou, Mr. Ractobeef and Wannabe Mr. Ractopork, out there fighting ractopork if the DPP is doing it? Come on. 

In fact, I suspect both parties know that these imports are important to US-Taiwan relations and are perfectly aware that if they're in power, pushing for their approval is a no-brainer, but they'll resolutely oppose the other party doing so. I'm curious to see whether 2026 will be the year of the DPP opposing KMT President Hou's approval of American racto-lamb. Will 2035 be the year of the KMT opposing DPP racto-venison? I hope we live through the climate wars to find out! 

On referendums, Donovan's already pointed out that the KMT has found itself in the very weird position of defending the DPP's old stance. Once again, I have to wonder what the KMT even stands for other than thinking Taiwan is Chinese and they Taiwan's superior Chinese leaders, and opposing the DPP. That's it, really. It's not like they can be trusted with the economy, or the environment, or China, or fighting corruption, or even defending Taiwan. Even on infrastructure, they seem to favor bloat over utility.

I'd love to see real opposition that one could reasonably vote for to keep the DPP accountable, but I fail to see the point of the KMT at all, except as opposition for the mere, shrieking, hypocritical sake of it. 

If you're wondering how I would have voted if I'd been able, I would have given the LNG/reef and election/referendum items serious consideration. The first for environmental reasons, and the second because holding elections and referendums at the same time doesn't seem like an obviously bad idea on its face (and was also how things worked in Taiwan until recently). But in the end, I probably would have gone no on both. 

The first because energy security matters a lot, and while I don't know who's right on the environmental angle, I certainly don't trust the KMT as stewards of Taiwan's fragile algal reefs. The second, because after the 2018 disaster I'm just not huge on referendums in general. They're an important democratic tool but I don't necessarily want every single issue to be up for a majoritarian vote. It may seem more democratic, but I'm not at all sure it actually is.

On the other two, I'd be a clear no: if both parties intend to allow ractomeat imports when they're in power, then I'm not voting for some ridiculous cudgel. On the nuclear plant, even if they've resolved the 'garbage in the cooling tanks' issue from a decade ago and had a safe way to store waste, I don't think Taiwan's plants could withstand a Fukushima-like event.

I'm not actually anti-nuclear per se, I just don't think it's right for Taiwan. And as long as there's still nuclear waste non-consensually present on Indigenous lands, there are ethical issues to consider as well.

Could Taiwan make nuclear safely and ethically? Certainly, if the government really wanted to. Would they? Doubt it. So that's a no.

In other words, the KMT picked four boring issues to be hypocritical about, all of which should be the purview of the leaders the people have elected to deal with rather than a big annoying resource suck. I'm not feelin' it.

What interpretations of "status quo" polls get wrong

Peer under the clouds and the valley is clear

I'm sure others will write on this in the coming days, but something's been on my mind and I have to unload it in long form. 

You know those polls asking Taiwanese citizens what they think about maintaining the status quo, independence or unification? A couple of them have come out recently, one from NCCU, commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council and one from the World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI). 

And I am here to tell you that while the data may be fine, interpretations of that data are almost always wrong. 

Interestingly, reporting of the MAC/NCCU poll doesn't seem to distinguish between maintaining the status quo and moving toward independence, deciding at a later date, or moving towards unification. The poll itself does so (look at Question 4). So what's up with the media? The MAC itself, the Taipei Times and Focus Taiwan all report "84.9%" of Taiwanese "support maintaining the status quo" with no further details offered. MOFA bumped that number up to "nearly 90%". I'm honestly not sure why, but my guess is that that's the line MAC wanted to put out there and the media reporting on it just followed their press release.

Previous NCCU polls differentiate as well. As of June this year, if you combine everyone who wants to maintain the status quo: indefinitely, with a decision at a later time, moving toward independence and moving toward unification, you get 83%, just slightly below this poll's results.

Those are very disparate views however: someone who wants to maintain the status quo but move toward independence (25.8% in the June poll) might agree on the "status quo" but their beliefs differ significantly in most other ways from someone who wants to move toward unification (an unimpressive 5.7%). "Move toward independence" is highly competitive with "maintain indefinitely" and "decide later", whereas "move toward unification" is down in the sewer. 

You simply cannot credibly combine those into the same set of beliefs, unless your bias and your goal are to push for maintaining the status quo and to mask what Taiwanese really think beyond that.

Despite not clarifying this, media reports do shed some light on the fact that for most Taiwanese, "the status quo" is a stand-in for we want peace, not war, and to maintain the sovereignty we already have. You can see this in the high agreement with Tsai's statements -- not perfect stand-ins for what Taiwanese actually, ideally want for their country but better than a lumpen status quo potato salad.

Most (77.1%) agree that neither China nor Taiwan have a claim on the others' territory, Taiwanese alone should get to decide Taiwan's future, Chinese annexation should be resisted, Taiwan's democracy maintained and Beijing's attitude toward Taipei was unfriendly. 85.6% don't support "one country two systems". 

Combined with the fact that most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, and those who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese prioritize Taiwanese identity, does this sound like a country that is actively choosing the status quo because it doesn't know what it wants, or a country that does know what it wants, but is deferring discussions on formal independence because de facto independence is sufficient given the threat from Beijing?

If this is a country that does know what it wants -- and it does -- why is there a continued insistence on forcing very disparate beliefs into one lumpen mess and claiming it as the "center" position? 

The actual center position is that Taiwan is already sovereign. In other words, unification (that is, annexation) is an extreme or fringe position, but trying to both-sides Taiwanese independence is straight-up wrong.

Taiwanese independence is a mainstream position. It is not remotely extreme. 

That's not my opinion. That's what the numbers say if you read them without blinders.

At first glance, the WUFI poll had somewhat different numbers. Moving toward independence and indefinite maintenance of the status quo were both near 40%. Independence as soon as possible was more popular than fast unification, at 7% and 1.8% respectively, and only 7% want to move towards unification. Most support using Taiwan as the name of the country despite threats from China, and most are in favor of diplomatic relations with the US. The only number that indicates much disagreement is the question of "just Taiwan" or "Taiwan and the Republic of China", which came in at about 40.5% and 30.9% respectively. It's not close, but the latter isn't swimming in the gutter alongside support for unification. 

What that means is that Tsai's re-imagining of what independence means is indeed the center position: that Taiwan doesn't need to declare independence because it's already independent, and its name is the Republic of China (the last bit of that being a current statement of fact, used to bridge the two perspectives). It certainly shows her "consensuses" in line with what Taiwanese actually think than the fabricated 1992 Consensus.

Back to the status quo: if you do the irresponsible thing and combine the numbers that all indicate some maintenance of the status quo -- despite their deeper ideological differences which should not be papered over -- you get approximately 87%, which isn't far off from the MAC/NCCU poll.

So okay, blah blah blah, lots of numbers. What's wrong with that?

Nothing, on the surface. The numbers are real. The desire to keep things as they are is real. However, they are often used to advance a line of thinking that simply doesn't match up with what all the other data tell us. 

I'm thinking not only of all those other questions that indicate a strong preference for maintaining sovereignty and resisting Chinese annexation, a general feeling that Beijing is unfriendly to Taiwan (which it is), a strong lean towards Taiwanese identity and using the name 'Taiwan' internationally.

It's also a question of what "the status quo" means, and under what conditions those questions are answered. 

An argument could be made that the questions themselves were constructed to push people toward answering "I prefer [some form of] the status quo" and then encourage the media to report that line. I know others will make that argument, so I won't as they can do it better. Besides, while it would be fairly easy to say that the Mainland Affairs Council is perhaps questionable, I doubt WUFI would intentionally construct questions that push for a specific kind of answer. And NCCU? As an institution they may lean blue but they've dutifully reported on the ascendance of Taiwanese identity for decades; I can't say they are intentionally engaging in academic chicanery.

In other words, I used to think the polls perhaps lacked basic construct validity. Maybe they do, but I'm going to back off that for now.

I feel quite comfortable, however, in calling out all the extraordinarily wrong interpretations of the data.  

There's the obvious question of what the status quo means to Taiwanese: as a friend pointed out, who could possibly look at the current situation -- the status quo -- and not consider it to be de facto independence? It's an answer that says "yes, I would like to maintain Taiwan's democratic government, institutions, borders, currency, military and society." In other words, a form of independence. As Tsai herself says: Taiwan doesn't need to declare independence because it is already independent.

The real news here is Taiwan wants to keep the sovereignty it already has. Does that not make for a sexy enough headline or something? Why is it always reported as "Taiwanese don't know", when that sort of data massage could get you a job in a Wanhua teahouse?

That should be clear from which "status quo" sub-sets have more respondents: almost nobody thinks the current situation is a holding pattern for possible unification. That's not my opinion, that's most Taiwanese saying -- in these numbers -- they don't want to move toward unification, now or ever. It's not an "undecided" and arguably, since democratization, it never was.

So why do people keep writing about it as though it's a big question mark, as though Taiwan is less decided on its desired outcome than it actually is? Even if the data are solid, why this off-the-wall interpretation of it?

I keep asking because I genuinely want to know why. 

We must also consider the conditions under which the questions are answered. With China insisting it will start a war if any move is made toward independence, and most people understandably not wanting a war, some version of "the status quo" makes sense, when the status quo offers both peace (of a sort -- our lives go on as usual but I'm not liking those warplanes either) and independence. It's an answer given under duress. Not by the pollsters, but the general atmosphere of Beijing's credible threats. 

It tells you a great deal about what Taiwanese want with a gun to their head, but nothing at all about what they ideally want for their country, if they could choose it without war clouds looming.

So why do people interpret it as some sort of freely-made final decision, not influenced by the threat of violent subjugation?

As one person commented, if you're asked whether you want to stay in jail or go free, most people will choose to go free. If told, "well, okay, but if you walk out the guard will take his best aim and probably kill you", your answer might differ considerably. The prisoner is no longer being asked what they want in an ideal situation.

One might say it doesn't matter: the Beijing war drums aren't slowing down, so there's no point in asking what Taiwanese would ideally want if they didn't have to contend with that. I disagree: it may be a hypothetical question, but it would get a lot closer to answering what Taiwan really wants for itself -- not just how the people react to a real external threat. 

Right now, people are interpreting the current results as exactly that -- what Taiwan really wants for itself -- when that is simply not what they indicate. It's just not. So stop showing your whole ass on this, please. All of you.

It's interesting, at least, that nobody seems to have asked this question that I know of, though the polls cited by Michael Turton comes pretty close. Like NCCU, the pollsters have their own ideological bias.

However, it does matter that when offered an ideal situation, most Taiwanese choose peaceful independence.

The closest we seem to get everywhere else are answers about how Taiwanese identify, how they want to participate in the international community, what they see as the name of the country, what they think of Chinese annexationism, and the differential between those who want to move towards independence vs. unification. None of these are a perfect stand-in, but they at least approach the question: is there a consensus on an ideal outcome for Taiwan?

And looking at those numbers, the answer is yes. And that ideal outcome is peace, with eventual independence. 

Repeat after me: 

Taiwan independence is a mainstream position.

Interpretations that say Taiwanese just don't know are harmful, unserious, ignorant and miss the point. Some intentionally so: there's a lot of institutional support for toeing the line at we want to maintain the status quo, please do not ask further questions thank you and good night. Some of it is well-meaning, an attempt to seem "nuanced" -- not in the good way, but in the both-sidesy fake-neutral way that the most pusillanimous analysts seem to adopt as a standard.

Consistently ignoring the contextual factors around these 'status quo' polls, applying odd assumptions to the questions actually asked and lumping together data that say far more when separated out is problematic.

It not only allows one to misconstrue what Taiwanese are accepting under duress as they actually want, it allows one to believe two very untrue things: that the KMT's position on China might be popular again given enough time, and that any talk of de jure sovereignty "angers" and "raises tensions" with Beijing, when Beijing is the antagonist -- not Taiwan. 

Neither of these things will ever be true, but if you believe Taiwanese don't know what they want and the only credible "center" position is an "undecided" despite all available data indicating otherwise, then believing those falsehoods becomes possible.

The dartboard is right there in the pub, most people in the pub are telling them exactly where the bullseye is, but their darts keep landing in the road outside.

I still want to know why.