Kharis Templeman
中文姓名:祁凱立
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This Week in Taiwan: Catching Up

12/13/2013

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Programming note: I'd like to do this feature weekly, but my other work duties have kept me from posting on Taiwan events for the last couple of months.  I hope to be back at it starting next week.  In the meantime, here are a few notes on events in domestic politics since the last post in October.      

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Premier confidence.  On October 15, a formal vote of no confidence in premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) failed in the legislature, with 67 of 112 legislators voting against the motion (1 seat is currently vacant).  No big surprise here at the result, as the KMT holds 65 seats.  There were no defections from the party, demonstrating the KMT's ability to enforce party discipline on critical votes despite the failed attempt to purge speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).  In fact, Premier Jiang paid a visit to Speaker Wang shortly after the vote to thank him for his support in keeping the caucus unified.  Voting with the KMT caucus were two independents, Kao Chin Su-mei (高金素梅) and Chen Hsueh-sheng (陳雪生).    

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Takin' it to the streets.  The regular protests and demonstrations to call attention to the cause du jour near the Legislative Yuan continued over the last month.  One issue getting a lot of attention: gay marriage.  On October 25, a bill  introduced by DPP legislators that would revise the Civil Code to allow same-sex marriage was referred to the Judicial Affairs Committee for review and possible first reading.  The issue has triggered competing demonstrations in downtown Taipei, including a gay pride parade on October 27 and a counter-demonstration opposing the bill on November 30.

Taiwan has a reputation as being fairly tolerant towards homosexuality, contrasting favorably with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and especially mainland China, and if the bill passes, it would make Taiwan the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.  So the sizable turnout for the anti-gay-marriage protest has attracted a lot of international coverage, including pieces in the Economist and AFP, as well as U.S.-based advocates on both sides of the issue.  Perhaps less well-known is that Taiwan has a significant Christian community, estimated at between 4-5% of the population, that has played a disproportionately large role in Taiwan's post-war political history.  Christian evangelical churches, a newer phenomenon in Taiwan, played a central role in organizing the counter-demonstration, as this blog post details.

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An old horse knows the way (老馬識途).  DPP party nomination contests continue for local mayor and county executive races, due to be held in December 2014.  The biggest to be decided so far is in New Taipei City, where former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) won the nomination after his main competition, county party chief Lo Chih-cheng, withdrew, complaining of an "unfair polling mechanism."  (The DPP has long used telephone polls as a central part of its nomination procedure, as this article by Dafydd Fell details.)  Yu is not exactly a fresh face for the DPP, having previously served as Yilan County executive, premier, and DPP chairman.  Given that New Taipei City leans slightly blue, the party probably hurt its chances here:  a younger candidate who does not carry baggage from the Chen Shui-bian era would be better positioned to attract swing voters than Yu.  

The battle over nominations is also uncovering old factional fault lines within the DPP.  Especially striking is the success of the New Tide faction (新潮流派系)--the nominees for Pingtung, Changhua, Nantou, and Yunlin Counties all have ties to the faction, and another New Tide member, Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), is battling for the nomination in Taichung City.  

The DPP's nomination for Taipei City has yet to be decided, but Wellington Koo (顧立雄) is drawing endorsements from many New Tide members as well.  He's going up against another "old face" in the DPP: former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).  The best candidate the DPP could run, according to polls, is National Taiwan University physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). There's only one problem: Ko is not a party member, wants to remain independent, and recently called the DPP "chaotic and dangerous", while at the same time looking increasingly likely to run.  If the DPP can't persuade Ko to join the party, it will face an unpalatable choice between running a spoiler candidate and not running one at all.  The fight over the Taipei nomination has signs of being a proxy battle for the 2016 presidential nomination: current DPP chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌 ) appears to favor Koo, while 2012 nominee Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been linked to Ko.

On the KMT side, Sean Lien (連勝文) is still polling better than anyone else and looks to have the inside track on the nomination if he wants it.  His stiffest potential challenge would probably be from current New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), who might be interested in switching seats to improve his presidential prospects.

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TDP Seminar: Ronald Heiferman

12/9/2013

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The Taiwan Democracy Project last week hosted Ronald Heiferman, Professor of History and Director of the East Asian Studies program at Quinnipiac University, for a presentation on the Cairo Conference of 1943.  The Cairo Conference was a key moment in Taiwan's history, even though no Taiwanese were present and it was held on the other side of the world, as it effectively determined that Taiwan would be handed over to Chinese Nationalist authorities after the defeat and surrender of Japan in World War II.  Professor Heiferman shared some of the findings from his recent book, The Cairo Conference of 1943: Roosevelt, Churchill, Chiang Kai-shek, and Madame Chiang.  The official event page can be found here.

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A Postscript to the 1943 Cairo Conference: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Chinese Dilemma.  

That the Cairo Conference has been overshadowed by the wartime summits at Teheran and Yalta is understandable given the start of the Cold War in Europe almost immediately after the German surrender in May 1945. To understand the collapse of relations between the Anglo-American allies on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other, it is important to look at the conferences at Teheran and Yalta, the interactions between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, the understandings they reached, and their misunderstandings. That said, the Cairo Conference also marked an important turning point in the relations between the allies in the war against Japan: China, Great Britain, and the United States, the consequences of which were critical to the defeat of Japan and the post-war order in East Asia.

The interaction of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Chiang in Cairo is every bit as compelling from a human interest perspective as the interplay between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Teheran and Yalta, albeit less studied, and offers a sobering reminder of what can happen when policy is made at the very highest level by individuals who know relatively little about the culture of their partners and are not able to separate myths and stereotypes from realities. Summit conferences may make for good theater, but do not necessarily result in good policies as an examination of the Cairo Conference reveals.

Each of the parties at the Cairo Conference came with their own agendas, frequently contradictory. Generalissimo and Madame Chiang hoped to obtain a commitment to make the China-Burma-India theater of war the focal point in the war against Japan, a matter not only of strategic importance to them but also of poetic justice. They also sought to redress grievances against Japan and Great Britain in the post-war era. Roosevelt hoped to buoy the ego and spirits of Chiang and to insure that the Kuomintang regime would not make a separate peace with Japan thus allowing the Japanese to redeploy the nearly one million troops they had stationed in China. Churchill had no real interest in meeting with Chiang and his wife at Cairo at all, but felt obliged to humor Roosevelt and to make sure that no agreements would be reached in Cairo that would in any way prejudice British colonial interests in Southeast Asia in the post-war era. Given these conflicting agendas, it is no wonder that none of the participants would be satisfied with the results of their labors in Cairo.


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APSA Conference Group on Taiwan Studies: Call for Papers

12/9/2013

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The American Political Science Association includes a Conference Group on Taiwan Studies (CGOTS).  Paper proposals are reviewed and panels organized separately from the regular paper submission process.  Anyone interested in presenting a paper on any aspect of Taiwanese politics is encouraged to submit a proposal by the deadline of December 15th.  The official call for papers is below.  Papers from this past year's panels can be found here and here.

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The 2014 American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting will be held from August 28 - 31 in Washington DC. The conference theme is “Politics after the Digital Revolution.”

CGOTS invites paper and panel proposals on Taiwan’s domestic politics and international relations that are consistent with the conference theme of “politics after the digital revolution.”  For instance, how has the evolution of Taiwan's democracy been enhanced and/or stymied by the use of the internet or social media?  How are Taiwan’s democratic institutions impacted by and/or reflect the ever increasing utilization of digital communications?  Do current technologies enhance or restrain the ability of majority and minority parties and social groups to engage in the democratic process?  Which emerging technologies hold the prospect for empowerment or repression?  Applicable to each of the above are proposals that also address cross-disciplinary and methodological approaches to questions of democracy and the information highway.  We especially welcome proposals that address the contribution of Taiwan Studies to the broader political science literature, use Taiwan as a case for theory development, or compare Taiwan with other countries.

Please send proposals through the APSA website www.apsanet.org/2014. If the website is not accessible to you, you may send proposals to Professor Hans Stockton (stockton@stthom.edu), CGOTS Coordinator. The deadline for proposals is December 15, 2012. Decisions on the proposals will be communicated to you in February 2013. Travel support for CGOTS panelists is subject to the availability of external funding.





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    About Me

    I am a political scientist with research interests in democratization, elections and election management, parties and party system development, one-party dominance, and the links between domestic politics and external security issues. My regional expertise is in East Asia, with special focus on Taiwan.

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