The big one

Tomorrow is the big one — the presidential elections here in Taiwan. The people will decide to vote for Frank Xie, the candidate of DPP, the independence party, or for Ma Ying Jiu, the KMT, Guomingdang, candidate. To a large extent people’s choices are determined by questions of who they, and Taiwan, really are. If your family came here with KMT in 1949 and you believe Taiwan is a part of China, you are for Ma. If your family has deeper Taiwanese roots, and you believe Taiwan is an independent country, you are for Xie. As always when questions of people’s identities are involved, sentiments run very high.

I sympathize very strongly with the DPP’s’ point of view (and I have several good friends who are fervent DPP supporters). They feel their country was taken over by outsiders in 1949. Outsiders, moreover, who ran Taiwan like a dictatorship for some 40 years, imprisoning and killing people. Still to this day, DPP supporters tend to be under-dogs. On average they have lower socio-economic position and lower education. They want their dignity and their island back. All of this makes a lot of sense.

However, I really hope Ma and KMT will win. To isolate yourself from China, as the current DPP president Chen Shiu-bian has done, is a very stupid policy which has strongly negative economic effects and which invites all kinds of unpleasant sabre-rattling. It’s outrageous, for example, that Taiwan is the only country in the world which is trying to limit the number of Chinese students and that there are no direct flights to the mainland. Relations to China have to be permanently sorted out and all military threats removed. Yes, it’s good for Taiwan. Only Ma and KMT are in a position to do that.