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This is fun: we have an argument! I made some assertions and predictions in a post on the upcoming LY election, and Nathan Batto of the Frozen Garlic blog has taken me to task a bit.
So what's my response? Well, let me begin by agreeing with Nathan: I AM completely wrong about one big thing. I made an elementary error when I calculated the effects of a swing toward Tsai and away from the pan-blue camp: I forgot to divide by two. As a consequence, my forecast violated what I will now forever remember as the First Law of Swing: if one party goes up, some other party must come down (click that link, BTW, it's good stuff.) In hindsight, a really silly mistake. This pretty much sums up my position:
So what's my response? Well, let me begin by agreeing with Nathan: I AM completely wrong about one big thing. I made an elementary error when I calculated the effects of a swing toward Tsai and away from the pan-blue camp: I forgot to divide by two. As a consequence, my forecast violated what I will now forever remember as the First Law of Swing: if one party goes up, some other party must come down (click that link, BTW, it's good stuff.) In hindsight, a really silly mistake. This pretty much sums up my position:
Nevertheless, simple mistake, simple fix. Divide by two, dummy. Below is the same ranking of LY seats, with an extra column added that gives the size of the swing needed to flip the district to the other camp (swing toward Tsai from 2012 is positive, swing away is negative).
(Updated data file is below. I've corrected a few errors in the previous file; they're listed in the documentation sheet. Most changes were small enough to be inconsequential, but Nathan pointed out a significant one: Tsai's Hualien vote in 2012 was 25.9, not 29.9. Thanks for catching that.)
Forecast, Take Two
With that mea culpa out of the way, I still think the basic approach here is sound, assuming one does the math right: go down the swing column, take a guess what you think Tsai will get above her 2012 vote share, and that’ll tell you roughly which districts she’ll carry. (Note that by "carry," I mean she'll win a majority over the combined Chu-Soong vote, not just a plurality over Chu.) And if Tsai carries a district, it’s going to be tough for the KMT candidate to hold it.
So, again assuming Taitung reverts to its natural blueness:
Nathan argues that we should give KMT incumbents at least an extra two points cushion on average (see discussion below). So let's be conservative, do that for all KMT candidates (most of the seats the DPP would have to win are being defended by incumbents anyway), and round up. That means if Tsai wins at least 53% of the presidential vote, then the DPP is likely to have a majority in the LY. She’s currently polling well above 53%, so the DPP is a strong favorite to win a single-party majority.
Thus, I'm actually coming down very close to Nathan's forecast that a Tsai share of the vote somewhere between 53-54% is sufficient to get the DPP to a majority.
I also agree that once Tsai gets much higher than that, the legislative election has the potential to turn into a slaughter. A uniform (big assumption!) 12 point swing toward Tsai (45.63-->57.63%) means she would carry every district all the way down to Hsinchu City, ranked #56 on the list. That would leave the KMT with at most about 17 district seats, which starts to look like the DPP's situation after 2008. (Unlike the DPP, the KMT is cushioned a bit by an advantage in the aborigine seats. But only a bit.)
So, basically, we're in agreement. But that's boring, so let's see if I can find something else to argue with Nathan about.
With that mea culpa out of the way, I still think the basic approach here is sound, assuming one does the math right: go down the swing column, take a guess what you think Tsai will get above her 2012 vote share, and that’ll tell you roughly which districts she’ll carry. (Note that by "carry," I mean she'll win a majority over the combined Chu-Soong vote, not just a plurality over Chu.) And if Tsai carries a district, it’s going to be tough for the KMT candidate to hold it.
So, again assuming Taitung reverts to its natural blueness:
- the magic seat number for a DPP is still #41,
- that's still New Taipei 10.
Nathan argues that we should give KMT incumbents at least an extra two points cushion on average (see discussion below). So let's be conservative, do that for all KMT candidates (most of the seats the DPP would have to win are being defended by incumbents anyway), and round up. That means if Tsai wins at least 53% of the presidential vote, then the DPP is likely to have a majority in the LY. She’s currently polling well above 53%, so the DPP is a strong favorite to win a single-party majority.
Thus, I'm actually coming down very close to Nathan's forecast that a Tsai share of the vote somewhere between 53-54% is sufficient to get the DPP to a majority.
I also agree that once Tsai gets much higher than that, the legislative election has the potential to turn into a slaughter. A uniform (big assumption!) 12 point swing toward Tsai (45.63-->57.63%) means she would carry every district all the way down to Hsinchu City, ranked #56 on the list. That would leave the KMT with at most about 17 district seats, which starts to look like the DPP's situation after 2008. (Unlike the DPP, the KMT is cushioned a bit by an advantage in the aborigine seats. But only a bit.)
So, basically, we're in agreement. But that's boring, so let's see if I can find something else to argue with Nathan about.
Assumptions about 2016: Room for an Argument?
As Nathan noted, debates are good because they force us to clarify our assumptions and claims and double-check our data. So in that spirit, let me list the key assumptions this forecast rests on (later I'll explore what happens when we relax a couple of these, so don't bug out yet!). They are:
I'll tackle A1 now, and address the rest in separate posts. (Otherwise this post will be book-length by the time I'm done. And the election might already be over!)
A1: Will DPP LY candidates run close to Tsai in 2016?
This assumption can be challenged on at least two fronts: (1) incumbency advantage, and (2) the behavior of disaffected pan-blue voters. Nathan devoted a lot of space to (1), so I'll start with a consideration of that. Here's what I find when I run the numbers again:
Now, the data. I initially claimed based on the full set of 73 districts that there wasn't evidence of a KMT "incumbent advantage" in 2012. That is, that KMT LY candidates didn't run significantly ahead of Ma Ying-jeou. Nathan argued quite sensibly that we should look only at those races where the KMT and DPP candidates together got almost all the vote. The question then is, what is "almost all"? Nathan went with 95% of the total vote. I initially went with no single 3rd party candidate winning >5% of the vote, which accounts for some of the discrepancy between us.
I've replicated his analysis with my data, and come up with similar numbers to his, although I find a weaker KMT incumbency advantage than he does (1.4 vs. 2.2 points ahead). The remaining discrepancy appears to be in our coding of incumbents in the head-to-head cases: I have 32 in the KMT, and 12 in the DPP, to 30 and 10 for Nathan. (I pulled my coding from the CEC website, which records party list legislators running in districts as incumbents, and I may have missed a couple of these. So I'd trust Nathan's incumbency coding over mine.) The signs remain the same, though, and so does the conclusion: incumbency provides an electoral benefit, albeit a small one.
As Nathan noted, debates are good because they force us to clarify our assumptions and claims and double-check our data. So in that spirit, let me list the key assumptions this forecast rests on (later I'll explore what happens when we relax a couple of these, so don't bug out yet!). They are:
- A1. DPP LY candidates will run close to Tsai in 2016; that is, every DPP candidate's vote share will be approximately the same as Tsai's LY district vote share.
- A2. The percent change in Tsai's vote from 2012 will be uniform across all LY districts.
- A3. The electorate in the presidential election in each district is the same as in the legislative election.*
- A4. The DPP will win 16 non-SMD seats: 16 PR seats and no aborigine seats.
I'll tackle A1 now, and address the rest in separate posts. (Otherwise this post will be book-length by the time I'm done. And the election might already be over!)
A1: Will DPP LY candidates run close to Tsai in 2016?
This assumption can be challenged on at least two fronts: (1) incumbency advantage, and (2) the behavior of disaffected pan-blue voters. Nathan devoted a lot of space to (1), so I'll start with a consideration of that. Here's what I find when I run the numbers again:
- "Incumbency advantage" in Taiwan does exist. Incumbents do better all else equal. Whether that's because they have the resources of office to draw on in elections, or they're better types, we can't say from just these data. It's probably a bit of both. But if you're trying to hold on to a seat, it's better to have the incumbent in the race than the challenger. So I agree with Nathan here.
- Once we look only at DPP-KMT head-to-head races: KMT incumbents ran ahead of Ma Ying-jeou on average in 2012 by about 1.4 points. And DPP incumbents actually ran further ahead of Tsai (+3.5 vs +1.4; Nathan's numbers are +4.5 to +2.2). So incumbents in both parties did systematically better than non-incumbents. I agree with Nathan here, too.
- But the big picture remains the same: relative to the potential swing we're talking about, any advantage the KMT will get from having incumbents running will be small. If Tsai is winning even 55% of the vote, a lot of KMT incumbents are toast even if their DPP opponents are running a couple points behind her. (I think Nathan agrees with this too.)
Now, the data. I initially claimed based on the full set of 73 districts that there wasn't evidence of a KMT "incumbent advantage" in 2012. That is, that KMT LY candidates didn't run significantly ahead of Ma Ying-jeou. Nathan argued quite sensibly that we should look only at those races where the KMT and DPP candidates together got almost all the vote. The question then is, what is "almost all"? Nathan went with 95% of the total vote. I initially went with no single 3rd party candidate winning >5% of the vote, which accounts for some of the discrepancy between us.
I've replicated his analysis with my data, and come up with similar numbers to his, although I find a weaker KMT incumbency advantage than he does (1.4 vs. 2.2 points ahead). The remaining discrepancy appears to be in our coding of incumbents in the head-to-head cases: I have 32 in the KMT, and 12 in the DPP, to 30 and 10 for Nathan. (I pulled my coding from the CEC website, which records party list legislators running in districts as incumbents, and I may have missed a couple of these. So I'd trust Nathan's incumbency coding over mine.) The signs remain the same, though, and so does the conclusion: incumbency provides an electoral benefit, albeit a small one.
Instead of a crappy image of a simple table (dammit, Weebly), I find it more helpful to see a visual representation of what we're talking about. Below I've plotted the 2012 LY vote data against the presidential vote, distinguishing between incumbents (solid) and non-incumbents (hollow). The red line is just the function y=x; that is, dots above this line represent candidates who ran ahead of the presidential ticket, and dots below represent those who ran behind.
Here's the DPP:
Here's the DPP:
This is a really good fit. The correlation between Tsai and the LY candidates vote share is about 0.826, and there's only one obvious outlier. (That's Kaohsiung 9, where Chen Chih-chung split the DPP vote.) Note also that even just at a glance, DPP incumbents appear to be doing significantly better than challengers: if we ignore Kaohsiung 9, all but about three are at or above the line, which means they got as many votes as Tsai did.*
Now let's look at the KMT:
Now let's look at the KMT:
The fit is...less good. (r=.377). There are a lot more outliers, especially in deep blue areas where Ma got a lot of the vote. If we want to evaluate whether there's an incumbent advantage on the KMT side as well, we need to account for this. Hence the decision to drop the 25 cases where there was a significant 3rd-party vote.
Here's what the picture looks like with just the 48 districts where KMT+DPP LY vote > 95%:
Here's what the picture looks like with just the 48 districts where KMT+DPP LY vote > 95%:
Ah, much better. Now the KMT looks a lot more like the DPP picture, and the correlation is about the same (r=.835 vs 0.860 for the DPP). I count 9 incumbents who clearly ran behind Ma, but at least 21 who ran ahead. Three of those even ran way ahead in tough districts where Ma got less than 42% of the vote. This is a demonstration that there's a KMT incumbency advantage, right? And isn't it therefore at least plausible that some KMT incumbents could survive a Tsai wave because of this, even if their districts turn green?
Well, yes, if you define this advantage as running significantly ahead of the KMT presidential standard-bearer, Ma. But this is not actually what matters for winning reelection. What the forecast above relies on is the Tsai vote in each district, which is the complement of not just the Ma vote but of Ma+Soong. In other words, I assumed that everyone voting for Soong would also vote for the KMT LY candidate in the district (in the head-to-head contests, I don't this this is crazy). If we add in Soong's 2.77%, then here's roughly what the picture looks like (Soong's 2012 vote varied a lot across districts, too, so this is a simplification):
Well, yes, if you define this advantage as running significantly ahead of the KMT presidential standard-bearer, Ma. But this is not actually what matters for winning reelection. What the forecast above relies on is the Tsai vote in each district, which is the complement of not just the Ma vote but of Ma+Soong. In other words, I assumed that everyone voting for Soong would also vote for the KMT LY candidate in the district (in the head-to-head contests, I don't this this is crazy). If we add in Soong's 2.77%, then here's roughly what the picture looks like (Soong's 2012 vote varied a lot across districts, too, so this is a simplification):
A bit less impressive: there are only six incumbents (of 32) who ran significantly ahead of the combined pan-blue presidential vote, and therefore would have won in districts where Tsai also won. There's just not a lot here from 2012 to indicate that the 40 KMT incumbents running in 2016, taken as a whole, have good odds of surviving if Tsai wins their districts, no matter how great their constituency service is. If it's like 2012, then we can expect about 20%, or eight, to run significantly ahead of the pan-blue presidential vote.
This is the main point that I tried--clumsily--to communicate in my previous post. Going into this analysis, I had a vague expectation that the KMT majority included quite a few districts that Tsai won in 2012 (that is, where LY vote of KMT > Ma + Soong), suggesting at least a plausible path to survival in this environment. (This stemmed from my own ignorance about 2012, not anything Nathan has written.) That's simply not the case, and unless 2016 is significantly different than 2012, this bodes very poorly for the survival of KMT legislators in districts on the 25-45 range on that list above.
This is the main point that I tried--clumsily--to communicate in my previous post. Going into this analysis, I had a vague expectation that the KMT majority included quite a few districts that Tsai won in 2012 (that is, where LY vote of KMT > Ma + Soong), suggesting at least a plausible path to survival in this environment. (This stemmed from my own ignorance about 2012, not anything Nathan has written.) That's simply not the case, and unless 2016 is significantly different than 2012, this bodes very poorly for the survival of KMT legislators in districts on the 25-45 range on that list above.
Is 2016 going to be like 2012?
That leads me to the second issue: is 2016 going to be like 2012? Nathan argues that it won't be: the last election was a nearly perfect blue-green head-to-head fight, whereas 2016 will have a lot of disaffected pan-blue voters searching around for alternatives. And some of them will back Tsai, then turn around and vote for pan-blue LY candidates.
Before I make my case for why I don't think this will be a large share of voters, a clarification: my goal here is to establish a baseline expectation for what district vote share DPP candidates will win with a given Tsai presidential vote share. So I'm focusing exclusively on the DPP side of the races. The mess of coordination failures on the pan-blue side is probably going to make this a conservative estimate, but again, I think it's useful to establish a generic partisan baseline first, before we start adjusting up or down, and it's much simpler to do that by starting with the DPP.
Now, to the question about 2016. I expect Tsai's vote share and DPP LY vote shares will again be highly correlated in 2016. We know there are going to be a lot more Tsai supporters in 2016: some will be former or disaffected pan-blue voters, some will be independents, and some will be newly minted voters. Let's rank-order how likely green-blue split-ticket voting should be given the origin of these groups of Tsai voters:
First is the shifting partisan identification of the electorate. Nathan wrote a very nice piece for the China Policy Institute blog about the shift in the number of pan-green vs pan-blue partisans over the last couple of years. (If you haven't read it yet, go do it--it's well worth your time.) The takeaway from that piece is that there are a lot fewer pan-blue identifiers now, and a lot more pan-green, than in 2012. How much? Well, instead of a 50-45 advantage in favor of the pan-blue, it's looking more and more from public opinion research like the ratio has flipped toward a green plurality. If we think about 2016 in this light, Tsai's increase in the polls is not entirely a protest vote against Ma and the KMT, but also reflects an increase in identification with the pan-green side of the political spectrum. It's difficult to estimate the size of that increase, but to the extent it's real it should help not just Tsai but DPP LY candidates, too.
Second is turnout. In the current environment, there are a lot of disgruntled pan-blue voters. They're presented with two presidential candidates, Chu and Soong, who aren't eliciting a lot of enthusiasm at this point. In addition, there's the little matter of how Chu ended up heading the KMT ticket: he arranged to have the previous nominee Hung Hsiu-chu dumped, and that angered her supporters within the party. It's not hard to imagine a significant chunk of the pan-blue side simply sitting this election out rather than casting a protest vote for Soong or Tsai. (There's also the matter of travel back from the PRC mainland to vote--it's costly for Taiwanese based there to do this, and the lack of a competitive race for president probably means many more of them will stay away.) If they do that, then those votes won't be there in the LY races either.
That leads me to the second issue: is 2016 going to be like 2012? Nathan argues that it won't be: the last election was a nearly perfect blue-green head-to-head fight, whereas 2016 will have a lot of disaffected pan-blue voters searching around for alternatives. And some of them will back Tsai, then turn around and vote for pan-blue LY candidates.
Before I make my case for why I don't think this will be a large share of voters, a clarification: my goal here is to establish a baseline expectation for what district vote share DPP candidates will win with a given Tsai presidential vote share. So I'm focusing exclusively on the DPP side of the races. The mess of coordination failures on the pan-blue side is probably going to make this a conservative estimate, but again, I think it's useful to establish a generic partisan baseline first, before we start adjusting up or down, and it's much simpler to do that by starting with the DPP.
Now, to the question about 2016. I expect Tsai's vote share and DPP LY vote shares will again be highly correlated in 2016. We know there are going to be a lot more Tsai supporters in 2016: some will be former or disaffected pan-blue voters, some will be independents, and some will be newly minted voters. Let's rank-order how likely green-blue split-ticket voting should be given the origin of these groups of Tsai voters:
- Disaffected pan-blue voters.
- Independents.
- New voters (i.e. young people aged<24).
First is the shifting partisan identification of the electorate. Nathan wrote a very nice piece for the China Policy Institute blog about the shift in the number of pan-green vs pan-blue partisans over the last couple of years. (If you haven't read it yet, go do it--it's well worth your time.) The takeaway from that piece is that there are a lot fewer pan-blue identifiers now, and a lot more pan-green, than in 2012. How much? Well, instead of a 50-45 advantage in favor of the pan-blue, it's looking more and more from public opinion research like the ratio has flipped toward a green plurality. If we think about 2016 in this light, Tsai's increase in the polls is not entirely a protest vote against Ma and the KMT, but also reflects an increase in identification with the pan-green side of the political spectrum. It's difficult to estimate the size of that increase, but to the extent it's real it should help not just Tsai but DPP LY candidates, too.
Second is turnout. In the current environment, there are a lot of disgruntled pan-blue voters. They're presented with two presidential candidates, Chu and Soong, who aren't eliciting a lot of enthusiasm at this point. In addition, there's the little matter of how Chu ended up heading the KMT ticket: he arranged to have the previous nominee Hung Hsiu-chu dumped, and that angered her supporters within the party. It's not hard to imagine a significant chunk of the pan-blue side simply sitting this election out rather than casting a protest vote for Soong or Tsai. (There's also the matter of travel back from the PRC mainland to vote--it's costly for Taiwanese based there to do this, and the lack of a competitive race for president probably means many more of them will stay away.) If they do that, then those votes won't be there in the LY races either.
Third is that the presidential and LY elections will be concurrent in 2016. 2012 was the first time that voters could cast a ballot for president and the legislature at the same time. Prior to that year, these elections were always held on different days, and often different years, which led to a significantly different electorate across these two types of races. In particular, presidential elections tended to have the highest turnout, with LY turnout 15-20% lower. I suspect, although I don't have the evidence at hand, that the KMT benefited the most from this lower turnout, because its resource advantages allowed it to push core supporters to the polls better than other parties. It's the kind of "hidden benefit" that can increase the size of the incumbency advantage and help sustain an LY majority for a long time even as the underlying nature of the electorate changes. But if the elections are held at the same time, this gap goes away. Just about everyone who shows up to vote in one election also votes in the other (unless they're deliberately boycotting something--see, e.g., the 2004 referendums). It's effectively the same electorate in both races.*
So while 2012 was a nearly perfect blue-green head-to-head contest, it's worth considering also the possibility that the close correlation between the presidential and LY elections that year was not exceptional, but more like a new norm. Like 2012, just about everyone who votes for president in 2016 will also vote for the LY. That means the fluctuation in turnout that we're used to seeing between presidential and LY elections will probably not be as stark going forward, and the likelihood that the presidency and LY will be controlled by different camps, as was true during the Chen Shui-bian era, will be lower from now on. (Note: I haven't looked much at the evidence here, and I'd be very interested to hear Nathan's and others' reactions to this speculation.)
For all these reasons, then, I think assuming a close correlation between Tsai's district vote share and the DPP candidate's in 2016 is a good way to start estimating how the legislative election will play out.
In future posts, I'll say something about the assumptions of a uniform swing, the complicating factor of separate yuanzhumin districts, and the PR seats.
So while 2012 was a nearly perfect blue-green head-to-head contest, it's worth considering also the possibility that the close correlation between the presidential and LY elections that year was not exceptional, but more like a new norm. Like 2012, just about everyone who votes for president in 2016 will also vote for the LY. That means the fluctuation in turnout that we're used to seeing between presidential and LY elections will probably not be as stark going forward, and the likelihood that the presidency and LY will be controlled by different camps, as was true during the Chen Shui-bian era, will be lower from now on. (Note: I haven't looked much at the evidence here, and I'd be very interested to hear Nathan's and others' reactions to this speculation.)
For all these reasons, then, I think assuming a close correlation between Tsai's district vote share and the DPP candidate's in 2016 is a good way to start estimating how the legislative election will play out.
In future posts, I'll say something about the assumptions of a uniform swing, the complicating factor of separate yuanzhumin districts, and the PR seats.
* I'm ignoring the fact that yuanzhumin (aborigine) voters don't vote in the same LY districts. In most cases this impact is minor, but in a couple districts they are 30% or more of the electorate. Since yuanzhumin voters have been to this point overwhelmingly pan-blue, this introduces a pan-blue bias into the forecast: I'm assuming those votes will be there in the LY races, which makes districts like Taitung or Hualien look a lot more blue than they really are. More on this in another post.
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Is this map realistic?! Actually, yeah. (map credit: Lucien Wei Hickman)
[UPDATE: some of the numbers in this post are wrong, including the forecast, which is way off; see the post above for the corrections.]
The race for the presidency in Taiwan appears all but over already: Tsai Ing-wen is going to win and it isn't going to be very close. What's both more uncertain and more challenging to forecast is what will happen in the legislative elections. I've seen some analyses that start with the results of each district race in 2012 as a baseline, then projects up from those results to estimate how many more seats the DPP will win with a particular partisan swing.
To me, the better place to start this kind of forecasting is with the 2012 presidential results in each district, when Tsai Ing-wen ran against Ma Ying-jeou and James Soong. The idea here is, put aside idiosyncrasies such as intra-camp splits and candidate quality, and just pit a generic DPP candidate for the legislature against a generic KMT one in a head-to-head competition. Then who should we expect to win? That's what the presidential results by district tell us. (This measure is roughly analogous to the Partisan Voter Index that the Cook Report does for the US every election cycle.)
A measure of "partisan balance" based on presidential election results is conceptually simple and straightforward, but it's also a bit of a pain to construct because in Taiwan the official data sources don't present presidential results in this way. In some cases (e.g. Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taoyuan) the legislative boundaries divide municipal districts in two, so figuring out an LY district's partisan balance in many cases requires some tedious aggregation of presidential results up from the township or district, or even the li (里) level.
I haven't seen district-level presidential results available online anywhere, so as a public service I'm posting them in the excel file below, so that anyone who wants to can play around with the numbers.
(The source data, of course, are from the ROC Central Election Commission's elections database.)
The race for the presidency in Taiwan appears all but over already: Tsai Ing-wen is going to win and it isn't going to be very close. What's both more uncertain and more challenging to forecast is what will happen in the legislative elections. I've seen some analyses that start with the results of each district race in 2012 as a baseline, then projects up from those results to estimate how many more seats the DPP will win with a particular partisan swing.
To me, the better place to start this kind of forecasting is with the 2012 presidential results in each district, when Tsai Ing-wen ran against Ma Ying-jeou and James Soong. The idea here is, put aside idiosyncrasies such as intra-camp splits and candidate quality, and just pit a generic DPP candidate for the legislature against a generic KMT one in a head-to-head competition. Then who should we expect to win? That's what the presidential results by district tell us. (This measure is roughly analogous to the Partisan Voter Index that the Cook Report does for the US every election cycle.)
A measure of "partisan balance" based on presidential election results is conceptually simple and straightforward, but it's also a bit of a pain to construct because in Taiwan the official data sources don't present presidential results in this way. In some cases (e.g. Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taoyuan) the legislative boundaries divide municipal districts in two, so figuring out an LY district's partisan balance in many cases requires some tedious aggregation of presidential results up from the township or district, or even the li (里) level.
I haven't seen district-level presidential results available online anywhere, so as a public service I'm posting them in the excel file below, so that anyone who wants to can play around with the numbers.
(The source data, of course, are from the ROC Central Election Commission's elections database.)
Ranking the 2016 Legislative Yuan District Seats by Partisan Balance
With the district-level results in hand, we can rank-order all 73 single-member districts* by the difference between the vote share won by the two camps in the presidential race (Tsai - (Ma+Soong)). I've also color-coded each district by which party currently holds the seat: green for the DPP, blue for the KMT. (For simplicity's sake I've just colored the two pan-blue independents--in Lienchiang and now in Hsinchu County--blue as well.)
The full list is below. At the top is Tainan City 1, the district with the strongest lead for Tsai--the greenest, in Taiwan politics parlance. in 2012 Tsai won here 63.62% to 34.05% for Ma and 2.33% for Soong, for a net difference of 27.24. By this measure of partisan balance, this is the hardest district for a KMT candidate to win in the country. On the other end of the spectrum is Lienchiang County--Matsu--where Tsai won only 8.03% of the vote, compared to 86.81% for Ma, and 5.36% for Soong. No surprise here: Lienchiang and Kinmen (right above it) are the two hardest districts for a DPP candidate to win.
A few observations follow after the break.
With the district-level results in hand, we can rank-order all 73 single-member districts* by the difference between the vote share won by the two camps in the presidential race (Tsai - (Ma+Soong)). I've also color-coded each district by which party currently holds the seat: green for the DPP, blue for the KMT. (For simplicity's sake I've just colored the two pan-blue independents--in Lienchiang and now in Hsinchu County--blue as well.)
The full list is below. At the top is Tainan City 1, the district with the strongest lead for Tsai--the greenest, in Taiwan politics parlance. in 2012 Tsai won here 63.62% to 34.05% for Ma and 2.33% for Soong, for a net difference of 27.24. By this measure of partisan balance, this is the hardest district for a KMT candidate to win in the country. On the other end of the spectrum is Lienchiang County--Matsu--where Tsai won only 8.03% of the vote, compared to 86.81% for Ma, and 5.36% for Soong. No surprise here: Lienchiang and Kinmen (right above it) are the two hardest districts for a DPP candidate to win.
A few observations follow after the break.
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I had the privilege yesterday of joining a two-panel roundtable session at George Washington University's Sigur Center for Asian Studies on the probable outcome and impacts of the upcoming Taiwan elections. Thanks to all who came to the event and asked great questions, and to Bruce Dickson for the invitation to participate.
I've gotten a couple requests for the slides from my presentation; they're linked here.
The short version of the talk: reform of the Legislative Yuan should be at the top of the priority list for the next president. Outside of Taiwan, the potential twists and turns in cross-Strait relations dominate the conversation and tend to overshadow everything else happening in the domestic arena. But there are a lot of problems facing Taiwan right now that don't directly involve cross-Strait relations.
I've gotten a couple requests for the slides from my presentation; they're linked here.
The short version of the talk: reform of the Legislative Yuan should be at the top of the priority list for the next president. Outside of Taiwan, the potential twists and turns in cross-Strait relations dominate the conversation and tend to overshadow everything else happening in the domestic arena. But there are a lot of problems facing Taiwan right now that don't directly involve cross-Strait relations.
The incoming administration will face several daunting domestic policy challenges, including:
Whatever the next administration tries to do, it will face opposition from some corners of the legislature representing vested interests that would lose out under reforms. Under the Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the LY's cross-party negotiation mechanism has in practice given any party caucus--even one with just three members--the ability to block most legislation. So the current system will prevent major changes on any of these issues unless Speaker Wang is replaced and the negotiation mechanism is weakened or abolished.
If the DPP wins a majority in the legislature, it will have a golden opportunity to reform the party caucus system and make it easier to pass legislation with a simple majority vote. It's critical for their own political future, for Tsai Ing-wen's, and probably for Taiwan's, that they do.
- a low tax base combined with a highly uneven distribution of the tax burden;
- widespread unhappiness with the Ma administration's China-first economic strategy, but no consensus about what to do instead, and long-standing opposition in the legislature to the kinds of domestic reforms required to enter the Trans-Pacific Partnership;
- a declining defense budget, now at 2% of GDP, and rising personnel costs from the faltering transition to an all-volunteer military force;
- a potential energy crisis driven by rising opposition to nuclear power without development of realistic alternatives.
Whatever the next administration tries to do, it will face opposition from some corners of the legislature representing vested interests that would lose out under reforms. Under the Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the LY's cross-party negotiation mechanism has in practice given any party caucus--even one with just three members--the ability to block most legislation. So the current system will prevent major changes on any of these issues unless Speaker Wang is replaced and the negotiation mechanism is weakened or abolished.
If the DPP wins a majority in the legislature, it will have a golden opportunity to reform the party caucus system and make it easier to pass legislation with a simple majority vote. It's critical for their own political future, for Tsai Ing-wen's, and probably for Taiwan's, that they do.
- Published on
In yesterday's Taiwan Democracy Project Taiwan Democracy Project talk, Cortez Cooper noted the DPP has developed an extensive set of Defense and National Security Blue Papers which reflect the party's current thinking about national security issues. The development of these policy papers was done over the past two years by the New Frontier Foundation, the DPP's de facto policy think tank.
The full set are posted below for reference. Source is here.
On a related note, the Ministry of National Defense released the latest biannual Defense White Paper in November 2015. The report is currently available only in Chinese; the English version should be released soon. However, for readers who prefer to get their information about military affairs in graphic novel form, a comic book version is already available. Seriously.
The full set are posted below for reference. Source is here.
On a related note, the Ministry of National Defense released the latest biannual Defense White Paper in November 2015. The report is currently available only in Chinese; the English version should be released soon. However, for readers who prefer to get their information about military affairs in graphic novel form, a comic book version is already available. Seriously.
DPP Defense and National Security Blue Papers
In order of release:
In order of release:
- DPP's Defense Agenda (June 6, 2013)
- Transforming the CSIST: Strengthening Indigenous Defense Research and Development (June 6, 2013)
- An Accountable National Security Council (June 6, 2013)
- New Chapter for Taiwan-U.S. Defense Partnership (June 6, 2013)
- China's Military Threats against Taiwan in 2025 (March 3, 2014)
- New Generation of Soldiers (Aug. 22, 2014)
- Bolstering Taiwan's Core Defense Industries (Oct. 6, 2014)
- Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (Dec. 5, 2014)
- Taiwan's Military Capacities in 2025 (May 26, 2015)
- Information Protection and Strategic Communications (May 26, 2015)
- Refinement of Veteran Affairs (May 26, 2015)
- Preparing the Development of Indigenous Defense Industry (May 26, 2015)
- Published on
The Taiwan Democracy Project will hold its next seminar of the fall on December 1, in conjunction with the new U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. The speaker is Cortez Cooper, a senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. He will be speaking about potential changes in cross-Strait relations and China's security strategy in light of the upcoming 2016 presidential and legislative elections in Taiwan. The event is free and open to the public; you can register at the event page.
The talk is entitled: "Of Paradigms, Politics and Principles: The 2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for China’s Security Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations." Details are below.
The talk is entitled: "Of Paradigms, Politics and Principles: The 2016 Taiwan Elections and Implications for China’s Security Strategy and Cross-Strait Relations." Details are below.
Abstract
During the recent meeting between PRC President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, the “1992 One China Consensus” served as a mutually acceptable paradigm for maintaining “peaceful and stable” conditions across the Taiwan Strait. For Xi Jinping, the warmth of the visit thinly veiled a message to Taiwan’s leaders and electorate, as well as to onlookers in Washington. Chinese officials and media clearly link the talks and confirmation of the 1992 Consensus to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—a concept that is increasingly unpalatable to many in Taiwan. Xi hopes to keep DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (and perhaps even future KMT leaders) in the 1992 Consensus “box” and to co-opt the U.S. in this effort, but perhaps underestimates the political transformation underway on Taiwan.
The Xi administration has also hardened its position regarding “core interests” such as Taiwan, embodied in a “bottom line principle” policy directive that eschews compromise. Although many commentators and most officials across the region have shied away from stating that the PRC and Taiwan are at the crossroads of crisis, the collision of political transformation on Taiwan and the PRC’s “bottom line principle” will challenge the fragile foundations of peaceful cross-Strait co-existence. Changes in the regional balance of military power brought about by a more muscular People’s Liberation Army compounds the potential for increased friction, providing Beijing with more credible options for coercion and deterrence.
This talk will consider the politics and principles involved in cross-Taiwan Strait relations in light of the upcoming 2016 Taiwan elections and the policies of the Xi Jinping administration; and will discuss some of the possible implications for China’s national security policy, regional stability, and the future of cross-Strait relations.
During the recent meeting between PRC President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, the “1992 One China Consensus” served as a mutually acceptable paradigm for maintaining “peaceful and stable” conditions across the Taiwan Strait. For Xi Jinping, the warmth of the visit thinly veiled a message to Taiwan’s leaders and electorate, as well as to onlookers in Washington. Chinese officials and media clearly link the talks and confirmation of the 1992 Consensus to “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”—a concept that is increasingly unpalatable to many in Taiwan. Xi hopes to keep DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (and perhaps even future KMT leaders) in the 1992 Consensus “box” and to co-opt the U.S. in this effort, but perhaps underestimates the political transformation underway on Taiwan.
The Xi administration has also hardened its position regarding “core interests” such as Taiwan, embodied in a “bottom line principle” policy directive that eschews compromise. Although many commentators and most officials across the region have shied away from stating that the PRC and Taiwan are at the crossroads of crisis, the collision of political transformation on Taiwan and the PRC’s “bottom line principle” will challenge the fragile foundations of peaceful cross-Strait co-existence. Changes in the regional balance of military power brought about by a more muscular People’s Liberation Army compounds the potential for increased friction, providing Beijing with more credible options for coercion and deterrence.
This talk will consider the politics and principles involved in cross-Taiwan Strait relations in light of the upcoming 2016 Taiwan elections and the policies of the Xi Jinping administration; and will discuss some of the possible implications for China’s national security policy, regional stability, and the future of cross-Strait relations.
Bio
Mr. Cortez A. Cooper III joined RAND in April 2009, providing assessments of security challenges across political, military, economic, cultural, and informational arenas for a broad range of U.S. government clients. Prior to joining RAND, Mr. Cooper was the Director of the East Asia Studies Center for Hicks and Associates, Inc. He has also served in the U.S. Navy Executive Service as the Senior Analyst for the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific, U.S. Pacific Command. As the senior intelligence analyst and Asia regional specialist in the Pacific Theater, he advised Pacific Command leadership on trends and developments in the Command’s area of responsibility. Before his Hawaii assignment, Mr. Cooper was a Senior Analyst with CENTRA Technology, Inc., specializing in Asia-Pacific political-military affairs. Mr. Cooper’s 20 years of military service included assignments as both an Army Signal Corps Officer and a China Foreign Area Officer. In addition to numerous military decorations, the Secretary of Defense awarded Mr. Cooper with the Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 2001.
Mr. Cortez A. Cooper III joined RAND in April 2009, providing assessments of security challenges across political, military, economic, cultural, and informational arenas for a broad range of U.S. government clients. Prior to joining RAND, Mr. Cooper was the Director of the East Asia Studies Center for Hicks and Associates, Inc. He has also served in the U.S. Navy Executive Service as the Senior Analyst for the Joint Intelligence Center Pacific, U.S. Pacific Command. As the senior intelligence analyst and Asia regional specialist in the Pacific Theater, he advised Pacific Command leadership on trends and developments in the Command’s area of responsibility. Before his Hawaii assignment, Mr. Cooper was a Senior Analyst with CENTRA Technology, Inc., specializing in Asia-Pacific political-military affairs. Mr. Cooper’s 20 years of military service included assignments as both an Army Signal Corps Officer and a China Foreign Area Officer. In addition to numerous military decorations, the Secretary of Defense awarded Mr. Cooper with the Exceptional Civilian Service Award in 2001.
- Published on
One of the major figures in East Asian Studies at Stanford, Ramon H. Myers, died this month after a long illness. He was 86.
Myers was the former curator of the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution, where he played a central role in acquiring new materials on Taiwan's post-war history, including a vast collection of documents from the KMT party archive in Taipei as well as the Chiang Kai-shek diaries.
He also wrote several influential books and articles on Taiwan. The best-known in Taiwan studies is probably The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, 2nd ed. 2002), with Linda Chao, but he also co-authored a history of the 2-28 Incident in 1947 and co-edited a widely-read volume on the Japanese pre-war colonial empire, among others.
For those interested in a personal history of sorts, I recommend this interview conducted by Hsiao-ting Lin and Da-chi Liao in 2007, before he retired as curator. It gives a fascinating view into the practical challenges and opportunities and the intellectual cross-currents faced by his generation of East Asia scholars. I've excerpted a particularly interesting bit below:
Myers was the former curator of the East Asian Collection at the Hoover Institution, where he played a central role in acquiring new materials on Taiwan's post-war history, including a vast collection of documents from the KMT party archive in Taipei as well as the Chiang Kai-shek diaries.
He also wrote several influential books and articles on Taiwan. The best-known in Taiwan studies is probably The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, 2nd ed. 2002), with Linda Chao, but he also co-authored a history of the 2-28 Incident in 1947 and co-edited a widely-read volume on the Japanese pre-war colonial empire, among others.
For those interested in a personal history of sorts, I recommend this interview conducted by Hsiao-ting Lin and Da-chi Liao in 2007, before he retired as curator. It gives a fascinating view into the practical challenges and opportunities and the intellectual cross-currents faced by his generation of East Asia scholars. I've excerpted a particularly interesting bit below:
...
Why did Hoover want to recruit you?
Good question! The curator was a Chinese gentleman called Ma (馬). His predecessor Eugene Wu had been in charge of the Yenching Library at Harvard. Before him was Mary Wright. I also took the name Ma (馬). The first Ma was only at Hoover for 6 years, but he had a very serious problem with women. Several of them went to Director Glenn Campbell and complained. Campbell offered Ma the choice of resigning or being fired. Campbell wanted a curator who was also a scholar and a fundraiser. I did not know about all these internal developments until I had been here 2 years. I applied to be a senior fellow, and the committee concurred. Finally, the President of Stanford University agreed.
Did you have connections with Taiwan then?
No. That came 2 years later. Wei Yong (魏鏞) had been a National Fellow at Hoover in 1974. But he left to take up a job in Chiang Ching-kuo’s cabinet. Campbell and Wei Yong and also Yuan Li Wu (吳元黎) helped me to visit Taiwan. Richard Starr, who was Campbell’s deputy, suggested I take a couple of trips to Taiwan. Based on these travels, I developed a friendship with many in the KMT.
With Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)?
I met him much earlier, when I went to Taiwan in 1959. He was at the Nong Fu Hui (農復會) and Taida’s Agricultural Economics Department (台大農經系). We were once at conferences together, and admired one another’s agricultural economic work, which was the focus of our dialogue. When I went back on short 2-3 week trips to meet Taiwanese people, I developed an interest in the KMT, and began to learn about Taiwan; one thing led to another. I wrote a book on the February 28 Incident (二二八事件) with two other Chinese scholars. Next visit was to go to the Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung (中山大學) in 1982-83.
How did you know Qin Xiaoyi (秦孝儀)?
That was also accidental. When Qin made his first visit to the US in 1984, he was invited to the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Chicago. He wanted to come to Hoover or Stanford to get some publicity. I learned of his desire to visit Hoover before going to Chicago. So I arranged for Qin to come here. He gave a talk in the reading room of the East Asian Library. We had a huge audience for him to address. He got a lot of publicity in the local newspaper about being invited to speak here. He was very grateful and so he and Lee Huan (李煥) arranged for Edna (my wife) and me to go to the Sun Yat-sen University (中山大學). Qin used his connection with Hoover to gain support from among the Chinese community. This worked out very well for him and for us. Then when I went out to Sun Yat-sen University, my ties with the KMT became closer. I would say the Qin Xiaoyi’s trip in 1984 was very important.
Didn’t you know him before that?
I only had met him when he came to Hoover, and also two years later when Edna and I visited Kaohsiung. I also met Kuo Ta-chun (郭岱君), who came here on a grant from Institute of International Relations, National Cheng-chi University (政大國關中心). She came to Hoover and worked with me on a long article, which became a book on how to interpret Communist China. We published it at the Hoover Press, and many people used it. In the early 1980s, Western scholars were trying to re-evaluate the achievements of Chinese Communism, particularly Mao Zedong. Our book was a comparison of how good the work of Taiwanese China-watchers compared with that of Europeans and America’s. I think we omitted the Japanese. We pointed out, quite credibly but controversially, that the Taiwanese Chinese-watchers were the best: they had met and were with Communist revolutionaries when they were doing underground spying. They had inside documents from intelligence sources far much better than we had. They could make powerful arguments about CCP rule of China and interpret change. Where they did best was interpreting how China was having a series of problems with the Communist system which proved that its problems were serious.
...
Why did Hoover want to recruit you?
Good question! The curator was a Chinese gentleman called Ma (馬). His predecessor Eugene Wu had been in charge of the Yenching Library at Harvard. Before him was Mary Wright. I also took the name Ma (馬). The first Ma was only at Hoover for 6 years, but he had a very serious problem with women. Several of them went to Director Glenn Campbell and complained. Campbell offered Ma the choice of resigning or being fired. Campbell wanted a curator who was also a scholar and a fundraiser. I did not know about all these internal developments until I had been here 2 years. I applied to be a senior fellow, and the committee concurred. Finally, the President of Stanford University agreed.
Did you have connections with Taiwan then?
No. That came 2 years later. Wei Yong (魏鏞) had been a National Fellow at Hoover in 1974. But he left to take up a job in Chiang Ching-kuo’s cabinet. Campbell and Wei Yong and also Yuan Li Wu (吳元黎) helped me to visit Taiwan. Richard Starr, who was Campbell’s deputy, suggested I take a couple of trips to Taiwan. Based on these travels, I developed a friendship with many in the KMT.
With Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)?
I met him much earlier, when I went to Taiwan in 1959. He was at the Nong Fu Hui (農復會) and Taida’s Agricultural Economics Department (台大農經系). We were once at conferences together, and admired one another’s agricultural economic work, which was the focus of our dialogue. When I went back on short 2-3 week trips to meet Taiwanese people, I developed an interest in the KMT, and began to learn about Taiwan; one thing led to another. I wrote a book on the February 28 Incident (二二八事件) with two other Chinese scholars. Next visit was to go to the Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung (中山大學) in 1982-83.
How did you know Qin Xiaoyi (秦孝儀)?
That was also accidental. When Qin made his first visit to the US in 1984, he was invited to the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in Chicago. He wanted to come to Hoover or Stanford to get some publicity. I learned of his desire to visit Hoover before going to Chicago. So I arranged for Qin to come here. He gave a talk in the reading room of the East Asian Library. We had a huge audience for him to address. He got a lot of publicity in the local newspaper about being invited to speak here. He was very grateful and so he and Lee Huan (李煥) arranged for Edna (my wife) and me to go to the Sun Yat-sen University (中山大學). Qin used his connection with Hoover to gain support from among the Chinese community. This worked out very well for him and for us. Then when I went out to Sun Yat-sen University, my ties with the KMT became closer. I would say the Qin Xiaoyi’s trip in 1984 was very important.
Didn’t you know him before that?
I only had met him when he came to Hoover, and also two years later when Edna and I visited Kaohsiung. I also met Kuo Ta-chun (郭岱君), who came here on a grant from Institute of International Relations, National Cheng-chi University (政大國關中心). She came to Hoover and worked with me on a long article, which became a book on how to interpret Communist China. We published it at the Hoover Press, and many people used it. In the early 1980s, Western scholars were trying to re-evaluate the achievements of Chinese Communism, particularly Mao Zedong. Our book was a comparison of how good the work of Taiwanese China-watchers compared with that of Europeans and America’s. I think we omitted the Japanese. We pointed out, quite credibly but controversially, that the Taiwanese Chinese-watchers were the best: they had met and were with Communist revolutionaries when they were doing underground spying. They had inside documents from intelligence sources far much better than we had. They could make powerful arguments about CCP rule of China and interpret change. Where they did best was interpreting how China was having a series of problems with the Communist system which proved that its problems were serious.
...
- Published on
The Taiwan Democracy Project will hold its next seminar of the fall on November 11. The speaker is Jong-sung You, a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change at Australian National University, and he'll be speaking about electoral campaign regulation in South Korea and Taiwan. The event is free and open to the public; you can register at the event page. The talk is entitled: "Liberal Taiwan versus Illiberal South Korea: The Divergent Paths of Electoral Campaign Regulation." Details are below.
Abstract
Both South Korea and Taiwan are considered consolidated democracies, but the two countries have developed very different sets of electoral campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive election laws during their authoritarian eras, they have diverged after democratic transition. South Korea still restricts campaigning activities, including banning door-to-door canvassing, prohibiting pre-official period campaigning, and restricting the quantity and content of literature. Taiwan has removed most campaigning restrictions, except for finance regulations. This study explores the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, using both archival and secondary sources.
The preliminary findings suggest that the incumbency advantage and the containment of the leftist or opposition parties were the primary causes of regulation under the soft and hard authoritarian regimes of South Korea and Taiwan. The key difference was that the main opposition party as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but that in South Korea did not. Democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by successive liberalizations in campaign regulation, but in South Korea the incumbent legislators affiliated with the ruling and opposition parties were both interested in limiting campaigning opportunities for electoral challengers.
Both South Korea and Taiwan are considered consolidated democracies, but the two countries have developed very different sets of electoral campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive election laws during their authoritarian eras, they have diverged after democratic transition. South Korea still restricts campaigning activities, including banning door-to-door canvassing, prohibiting pre-official period campaigning, and restricting the quantity and content of literature. Taiwan has removed most campaigning restrictions, except for finance regulations. This study explores the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, using both archival and secondary sources.
The preliminary findings suggest that the incumbency advantage and the containment of the leftist or opposition parties were the primary causes of regulation under the soft and hard authoritarian regimes of South Korea and Taiwan. The key difference was that the main opposition party as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but that in South Korea did not. Democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by successive liberalizations in campaign regulation, but in South Korea the incumbent legislators affiliated with the ruling and opposition parties were both interested in limiting campaigning opportunities for electoral challengers.
Bio
Dr. Jong-sung You is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. His research interests include comparative politics and the political economy of inequality, corruption, social trust, and freedom of expression. He conducts both cross-national quantitative studies and qualitative case studies, focusing on Korea and East Asia. He recently published a book entitled Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared at American Sociological Review, Political Psychology, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Perspective, Trends and Prospects, and Korean Journal of International Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UC San Diego. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.
Dr. Jong-sung You is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University. His research interests include comparative politics and the political economy of inequality, corruption, social trust, and freedom of expression. He conducts both cross-national quantitative studies and qualitative case studies, focusing on Korea and East Asia. He recently published a book entitled Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared with Cambridge University Press. His publications have appeared at American Sociological Review, Political Psychology, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Perspective, Trends and Prospects, and Korean Journal of International Studies. He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UC San Diego. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.
- Published on
Just about everyone with an interest in Taiwan has weighed in on the coming meeting between Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping, abruptly announced on Tuesday. My own reaction: it's a big deal mostly for the symbolism, and there's not a lot of substance likely to come out of it. Thoughts in order:
1. This is not really about the 2016 elections in Taiwan. A lot of observers have suggested this is an attempt by President Ma and the KMT to influence the upcoming elections. I don’t think it is. The KMT is likely to lose the presidential election no matter what they do, in part because Ma Ying-jeou is a very unpopular incumbent. For the party to have a chance, the new KMT nominee Eric Chu needs to distance himself from Ma as much as possible. Ma’s meeting with Xi will knock Eric Chu off the front pages for a week and remind everyone that Ma Ying-jeou is still the president. I don’t see how that’s helpful to the KMT’s election chances.
2. This is a good thing for Taiwan's next leader. There's speculation that the meeting instead will serve to lock in the improvements in the cross-Strait relationship that have accrued under Ma, and somehow constrain Tsai Ing-wen's room to maneuver. Maybe, but I don't see how this will really harm a DPP president. Beijing is setting a precedent here for future meetings with whoever the directly elected leader of Taiwan is--note that Ma is meeting Xi as "Taiwan leader," not the chair of the KMT (a role he no longer holds), and the special emphasis on meeting as equals, right down to calling each other "Mr." and splitting the bill for the meal! That's a principle that adds to the legitimacy of the office of President of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in turn makes it harder for Beijing to sustain the claim that a non-KMT president is illegitimate and that direct engagement is therefore inappropriate.
3. This is less about Ma, and more about Xi. These kinds of events are often the result of years of diplomatic maneuvering. A meeting with Xi Jinping has been a goal of the Ma administration for several years. It would be a symbolically powerful capstone to his legacy of improving Taiwan’s ties with the PRC. In fact, it could have happened over a year ago at the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing. From what I can tell, it didn’t because leaders in Beijing rejected the idea. For it to happen now suggests that something has changed on the PRC side of the relationship, not the Taiwan side.
4. This is part of a larger diplomatic initiative by Xi. It’s useful to place this action by Beijing in a larger context. Xi Jinping recently completed a successful visit to the UK, and just last week premier Li Keqiang attended an important trilateral meeting with the leaders of South Korea and Japan in Seoul. Beijing also recently received a delegation from the Vatican. So the meeting with Ma fits into a larger pattern recent of conciliatory gestures by the Xi foreign policy team toward major players in the region and beyond. Again, it’s not as much about Ma as about what’s going on in Beijing.
5. The meeting will probably be long on symbolism, short on substance. The historical symbolism is striking, but the meeting is unlikely to have significant practical consequences. President Ma is not in a position to offer any meaningful concessions, and cannot credibly commit to any deals that might be struck, since he’d have to get them approved by the legislature, and he’ll be out of office in just a few months. The more important steps have already been taken: the leaders of the official agencies of the two sides—the Mainland Affairs Council in Taiwan, the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing--have already met in person before, and they communicate regularly. Under Ma, Beijing and Taipei have signed over 20 agreements to institutionalize aspects cross-Strait interactions. The fact that ordinary Taiwanese can get on a commercial flight in downtown Taipei and be in Shanghai in two hours is far more consequential than anything that is likely to come out of the meeting on November 7.
1. This is not really about the 2016 elections in Taiwan. A lot of observers have suggested this is an attempt by President Ma and the KMT to influence the upcoming elections. I don’t think it is. The KMT is likely to lose the presidential election no matter what they do, in part because Ma Ying-jeou is a very unpopular incumbent. For the party to have a chance, the new KMT nominee Eric Chu needs to distance himself from Ma as much as possible. Ma’s meeting with Xi will knock Eric Chu off the front pages for a week and remind everyone that Ma Ying-jeou is still the president. I don’t see how that’s helpful to the KMT’s election chances.
2. This is a good thing for Taiwan's next leader. There's speculation that the meeting instead will serve to lock in the improvements in the cross-Strait relationship that have accrued under Ma, and somehow constrain Tsai Ing-wen's room to maneuver. Maybe, but I don't see how this will really harm a DPP president. Beijing is setting a precedent here for future meetings with whoever the directly elected leader of Taiwan is--note that Ma is meeting Xi as "Taiwan leader," not the chair of the KMT (a role he no longer holds), and the special emphasis on meeting as equals, right down to calling each other "Mr." and splitting the bill for the meal! That's a principle that adds to the legitimacy of the office of President of the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in turn makes it harder for Beijing to sustain the claim that a non-KMT president is illegitimate and that direct engagement is therefore inappropriate.
3. This is less about Ma, and more about Xi. These kinds of events are often the result of years of diplomatic maneuvering. A meeting with Xi Jinping has been a goal of the Ma administration for several years. It would be a symbolically powerful capstone to his legacy of improving Taiwan’s ties with the PRC. In fact, it could have happened over a year ago at the 2014 APEC meeting in Beijing. From what I can tell, it didn’t because leaders in Beijing rejected the idea. For it to happen now suggests that something has changed on the PRC side of the relationship, not the Taiwan side.
4. This is part of a larger diplomatic initiative by Xi. It’s useful to place this action by Beijing in a larger context. Xi Jinping recently completed a successful visit to the UK, and just last week premier Li Keqiang attended an important trilateral meeting with the leaders of South Korea and Japan in Seoul. Beijing also recently received a delegation from the Vatican. So the meeting with Ma fits into a larger pattern recent of conciliatory gestures by the Xi foreign policy team toward major players in the region and beyond. Again, it’s not as much about Ma as about what’s going on in Beijing.
5. The meeting will probably be long on symbolism, short on substance. The historical symbolism is striking, but the meeting is unlikely to have significant practical consequences. President Ma is not in a position to offer any meaningful concessions, and cannot credibly commit to any deals that might be struck, since he’d have to get them approved by the legislature, and he’ll be out of office in just a few months. The more important steps have already been taken: the leaders of the official agencies of the two sides—the Mainland Affairs Council in Taiwan, the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing--have already met in person before, and they communicate regularly. Under Ma, Beijing and Taipei have signed over 20 agreements to institutionalize aspects cross-Strait interactions. The fact that ordinary Taiwanese can get on a commercial flight in downtown Taipei and be in Shanghai in two hours is far more consequential than anything that is likely to come out of the meeting on November 7.
- Published on
The Taiwan Democracy Project is holding its annual conference this Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 26-27, at Stanford. The event is open to the public; you can register and find more details here. The conference description is below.
Taiwan's Democracy at a Crossroads: Options and Prospects for Constitutional Reform
These are unsettled times in Taiwanese politics. In recent months, prominent voices from across the spectrum have called for fundamental changes to the structure of Taiwan’s political system, ranging from simple reforms such as lowering the voting age to 18 to fundamental ones such as adopting a full presidential or parliamentary regime.
The impetus for constitutional reform has multiple sources. But at its core is a deeply problematic relationship between the executive and the legislature. When different parties controlled the two branches during the final years of the Chen Shui-bian administration, cooperation came to a standstill and governance suffered.
More surprisingly, executive-legislative confrontation returned with a vengeance in President Ma Ying-jeou’s second term, even though the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) held both the executive and a majority in the legislature. The prolonged struggle over cross-Strait agreements is only the most prominent of a series of political conflicts that have blocked the adoption of new policies and threatened the legitimacy of those that do pass. And it is not clear that the next administration and legislature will fare any better than previous ones.
For the 10th Annual Conference on Taiwan Democracy, we will consider proposals for reforms in the context of the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s current constitutional structure. Among the topics to be considered at the conference are:
Conference participants will help to develop a set of recommendations for a non-partisan reform agenda for Taiwan, one that is informed by a clear understanding of both the most pressing challenges facing Taiwan’s democracy and of best practices in other successful young democracies.
These are unsettled times in Taiwanese politics. In recent months, prominent voices from across the spectrum have called for fundamental changes to the structure of Taiwan’s political system, ranging from simple reforms such as lowering the voting age to 18 to fundamental ones such as adopting a full presidential or parliamentary regime.
The impetus for constitutional reform has multiple sources. But at its core is a deeply problematic relationship between the executive and the legislature. When different parties controlled the two branches during the final years of the Chen Shui-bian administration, cooperation came to a standstill and governance suffered.
More surprisingly, executive-legislative confrontation returned with a vengeance in President Ma Ying-jeou’s second term, even though the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) held both the executive and a majority in the legislature. The prolonged struggle over cross-Strait agreements is only the most prominent of a series of political conflicts that have blocked the adoption of new policies and threatened the legitimacy of those that do pass. And it is not clear that the next administration and legislature will fare any better than previous ones.
For the 10th Annual Conference on Taiwan Democracy, we will consider proposals for reforms in the context of the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s current constitutional structure. Among the topics to be considered at the conference are:
- Diagnosing the problems: What have been the sources and implications of political strife in Taiwan in recent years, both under divided and unified one-party control? What reforms, if any, might make these conflicts easier to resolve and increase the legitimacy of government policy-making?
- Executive type: Would switching to a different type of executive—presidential, parliamentary, or another form of semi-presidentialism—mitigate some of the disadvantages of Taiwan’s current system?
- Electoral systems: What are the problems with Taiwan’s current electoral system? What changes might mitigate some of the disadvantages?
- Direct democracy: What functions do Taiwan’s referendum and recall laws serve in practice? How would changes to these laws affect Taiwan’s democracy?
- Accountability institutions: How have Taiwan’s judiciary, Control Yuan, and prosecutorial agencies performed during periods of partisan conflict between the executive and legislative branches? How might their effectiveness be improved?
- Comparative perspectives: How does Taiwan’s recent experience with divided government and institutional reform compare to other Third Wave democracies in the region (e.g. South Korea, SE Asia) and more broadly (e.g. Latin America, Eastern Europe)?
Conference participants will help to develop a set of recommendations for a non-partisan reform agenda for Taiwan, one that is informed by a clear understanding of both the most pressing challenges facing Taiwan’s democracy and of best practices in other successful young democracies.
- Published on
On October 11, the Taiwan Democracy Project hosted Ian Rowen, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geography at University of Colorado, Boulder. His talk was entitled, "The Sunflower Movement and the Future of Taiwan's Political Culture." The abstract and speaker bio are below.
Abstract
Based on first-hand participant-observation, this talk will examine the culture, politics, and spatiality of the Sunflower Movement. Taiwan's most significant social movement in decades, the Sunflower Movement not only blocked the passage of a major trade deal with China, but reshaped popular discourse and redirected Taiwan's political and cultural trajectory. It re-energized student and civil society, precipitated the historic defeat of the KMT in the 2014 local elections, and prefigured the DPP's strong position coming into the 2016 presidential and legislative election season.
The primary spatial tactic of the Sunflowers-- occupation of a government building-- was so successful that a series of protests in the summer of 2015 by high school students was partly conceived and represented as a "second Sunflower Movement". These students, protesting "China-centric" curriculum changes, attempted to occupy the Ministry of Education building. Thwarted by police, these students settled for the front courtyard, where a Sunflower-style pattern of encampments and performances emerged. While this movement did not galvanize the wider public as dramatically as its predecessor, it did demonstrate the staying power of the Sunflower Movement and its occupation tactics for an even younger cohort of activists.
The Sunflower Movement showed that contingent, street-level, grassroots action can have a major impact on Taiwan's cross-Strait policies, and inspired and trained a new generation of youth activists. But with the likely 2016 presidential win of the DPP, which has attempted to draw support from student activists while presenting a less radical vision to mainstream voters, what's in store for the future of Taiwanese student and civic activism? And with strong evidence of growing Taiwanese national identification and pro-independence sentiment, particularly among youth, what's in store for the future of Taiwan's political culture?
Based on first-hand participant-observation, this talk will examine the culture, politics, and spatiality of the Sunflower Movement. Taiwan's most significant social movement in decades, the Sunflower Movement not only blocked the passage of a major trade deal with China, but reshaped popular discourse and redirected Taiwan's political and cultural trajectory. It re-energized student and civil society, precipitated the historic defeat of the KMT in the 2014 local elections, and prefigured the DPP's strong position coming into the 2016 presidential and legislative election season.
The primary spatial tactic of the Sunflowers-- occupation of a government building-- was so successful that a series of protests in the summer of 2015 by high school students was partly conceived and represented as a "second Sunflower Movement". These students, protesting "China-centric" curriculum changes, attempted to occupy the Ministry of Education building. Thwarted by police, these students settled for the front courtyard, where a Sunflower-style pattern of encampments and performances emerged. While this movement did not galvanize the wider public as dramatically as its predecessor, it did demonstrate the staying power of the Sunflower Movement and its occupation tactics for an even younger cohort of activists.
The Sunflower Movement showed that contingent, street-level, grassroots action can have a major impact on Taiwan's cross-Strait policies, and inspired and trained a new generation of youth activists. But with the likely 2016 presidential win of the DPP, which has attempted to draw support from student activists while presenting a less radical vision to mainstream voters, what's in store for the future of Taiwanese student and civic activism? And with strong evidence of growing Taiwanese national identification and pro-independence sentiment, particularly among youth, what's in store for the future of Taiwan's political culture?
Bio
Ian Rowen is PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and recent Visiting Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, and Fudan University. He participated in both the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements and has written about them for The Journal of Asian Studies, The Guardian, and The BBC (Chinese), among other outlets. He has also published about Asian politics and protest in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (forthcoming) and the Annals of Tourism Research. His PhD research, funded by the US National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, has focused on the political geography of tourism and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Ian Rowen is PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and recent Visiting Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, and Fudan University. He participated in both the Sunflower and Umbrella Movements and has written about them for The Journal of Asian Studies, The Guardian, and The BBC (Chinese), among other outlets. He has also published about Asian politics and protest in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers (forthcoming) and the Annals of Tourism Research. His PhD research, funded by the US National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, has focused on the political geography of tourism and protest in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.