Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ghosts of Kissinger and Brzezinski

Taipei Times Editorial

Last week’s comments in the Financial Times (FT) by an unnamed “senior” official in the administration of US President Barack Obama expressing “distinct concerns” about stability in the Taiwan Strait if Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is elected president in January caused a storm of indignation among DPP supporters.

The race between Tsai and her main opponent, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), is a very close one, with the implication that any outside interference could tilt the game. It is one thing for authoritarian and undemocratic Beijing to meddle in Taiwan’s elections with money, political pressure and statements on its preference for Ma. It is another one for Taiwan’s principal ally, the democratic US, to do so.

Lawmaker alleges audit threats

Taipei Times

Many small and medium enterprises, as well as small hospitals, have said that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is discouraging them from supporting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates by threatening them with tax audits, DPP caucus secretary-general Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said on Sunday.

The Ma administration is fomenting another era of political terror, Wong said, adding that a number of hospitals had asked DPP representatives to ask on their behalf about certain taxation items they felt are unreasonable.

However, those inquiries resulted in even heavier taxation, Wong said.

Ma’s puppet masters in cross-strait tug-of-war

Paul Lin 林保華

The way Taiwanese politicians have been cozying up to the US as exposed in the WikiLeaks cables is totally understandable. In the past, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was only able to survive thanks to US protection. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose ideals are close to those of the US, only avoided being affected by the strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by gaining US support. However, it is disappointing to see that the leaked cables seem to indicate that the US has had close interactions with the KMT, but not so much with the DPP.

This is not normal. The KMT does have longstanding historical links with the US, but the DPP’s ideals are more in line with those of the US, so why is there so little interaction between the DPP and the US? This is one of the reasons for some of the misunderstandings between Washington and the DPP during the DPP administration. However, the main reason was that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, US president George W. Bush’s strategies changed and he had to sacrifice a little bit of Taiwan in order to please China.

‘FT’ source said to be from White House

Taipei Times

The “senior official” in Washington who tried to undermine Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) presidential campaign last week was almost certainly from the White House and not the US Department of State, analysts in the US say.

The official called the Financial Times to claim that Tsai had left US President Barack Obama’s administration with “distinct concerns” about her ability to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The resulting story has been seen as particularly damaging to Tsai and a clear attempt to influence Taiwan’s Jan. 14 presidential election in favor of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

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