2006-07-14

Guo Jia was right!

I blogged a month ago about how Guo Jia, a brilliant strategist 1800 years before us, predicted how Taiwan's political situation could play out in the next few months
  • "Yuan Xi and Yuan Shang are going to Liaodong. Illustrious Sir, you are on no account to attack, for Gongsun Kang has long lived in fear lest the Yuans should absorb his country. When they arrive, Gongsun Kang will hesitate. If you attack, he will save the Yuans to help him; if you wait, they will work against each other. This is evident. 今闻袁熙、袁尚往投辽东,明公切不可加兵。公孙康久畏袁氏吞并,二袁 往投必疑。若以兵击之,必并力迎敌,急不可下;若缓之,公孙康、袁氏必自相图: 其势然也。"
Guo Jia's prophecy was observed twice in a month.
  1. (pre-recall) Yuans and Gongsun are analogous to CSB and DPP. The recall motion from pan-Blue tied them together
  2. After the recall vote, CSB and DPP were tied to the same boats like the 2 Yuans, Gongsun is now analogous to TSU(LTH), Taipei Times and independent pan-Green scholars/ex-student activists (Taiwan Civil Society) (see this for English). Ma's refusal to corner DPP/CSB allowed the fissure within pan-Green camp to emerge
There will be more interesting development down the alley. Let's just wait and see.
(Former ROC president Lee Tenghui told reporters, "There are many 'son of Taiwan', if one cannot do his job well he should be replaced")
A natural question is what should Ma Ying-Jeou say. I think this would be appropriate responses
  1. "We maintain our view on the issue of corruption in general, and our recall motion"
  2. "The recent letter from pan-Green scholars reminds us that we (KMT) also need to work harder to keep ourselves clean. It should serve us as an good lesson and alarm, as we also have our own problems. We need to learn from the Green camp and deal with them proactively"
  3. "We believe our desire for a clean government should be placed above partisan politics. We would welcome constructive criticism from pan-Green, and everyone else, to us in the future. But better still, we should try our best to locate problems and correct ourselves and we should not wait for other parties to step in"
  4. "In order to show our respect to the scholars and activists, we pledge that we will not seek to profit from the current scandal. It would be a let-down to our people if we do so. Furthermore, as stated earlier, we will support the DPP vice-president if the president steps down. Doing the right thing is in the voters' interests. Voter's interests precede a party's own interests."
Good crisis management could reverse unfavorable event into advantages. This is what the pan-Green has done today. Expect Green support skyrocketing if this self-correction movement succeeds. Pan-Blue is now on the defense. It is the first real challenge to Ma since he became KMT chariman. Staying at selfless high moral ground is the way to deal with this new challenge.

Related: Huangpu's appeal for CCP to learn from Viet-cong
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p.s.
1) DPP seems to continue to tie itself with Bian. Since now it is no longer a partisan spat, the longer DPP clings on to Bian, the deeper it will sink, the less likely pan-Green support can rebound. The worse nightmare for pan-Green is spinning out from DPP.
2) There may be more scandals/evidences that have yet to surface. Some conspiracy theorists believe Chiu Yi probably has his source of information from CCP spy and the series of scandal break out is well planned
3) DPP's final split from Bian may be triggered by new development following the Sogo gift voucher scandal. Or one can view it this way, Bian could find a face-saving good excuse to step down as he promised so already.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Staying at selfless high moral ground is the way to deal with this new challenge"

Now THAT would be a first for Taiwanese politics :)

Of course, there is a mirror image point of view - has CSB been reading Guo Jia? I.e. it's the Greens that are waiting, and letting the KMT & PFP work against each other. If a future no-confidence vote turns PFP against KMT, then I think that's a valid perspective.

Incidentally, I do think there are very real differences between the DPP & TSU (irrespective of pan-Blue actions) which will come to the fore in the future ... been meaning to write something about that for a while.

Sun Bin said...

well, politics in a democracy is about getting the majority votes, and as many votes as one can.

it is really not that difficult to achieve this unless your opponent is also doing it. IMO it is really that easy to win in politics in taiwan, simply because no one else takes the common sense approach.

when everybody else realizes the basics. then it is about competing on policies and competence.

Sun Bin said...

Ma did say some right thing, 他說,若這些支持力量轉向的話,就值得所有政治人物虛心檢討,「不只泛綠,我們也要檢討」。

Sun Bin said...

apple daily editorial

民進黨要恢復當年氣魄

親綠學者和學運世代基於義憤,公開要求陳總統辭職。但是「笑罵由你笑罵,好官我自為之」的陳水扁,還在若無其事。

無須當扁陪葬
基於共同利益,民進黨的阿扁死忠派誓師勤王責罵倒扁親綠人士,意圖拯救阿扁。他們一則不願倒扁後呂秀蓮當總統;二則利益串連,倒扁等於倒自己;三則不敢在年底北高市長及議員選舉前,自亂陣腳,又擔心明年立委選舉崩盤,只好硬著頭皮挺扁到底。
古代有則寓言:有5百隻獼猴在樹林裡看到一口井,井水裡有月亮的倒影。猴王跟同伴說:「月亮掉進井裡了,我們應當把它救出來,免得夜晚黑沉沉。」於是猴王捉住樹枝,獼猴一個接一個捉住前隻猴子的尾巴,掛成一長串,差點碰到水面時,獼猴太重樹枝折斷,全數掉進井裡。現在扁有難,眾猢猻也掛成一長串救扁,最後什麼選舉都敗,形同全黨跌進井裡。
民進黨應該知道,無論從創黨精神、基本良知,還是選舉現實及全黨利益、甚至愛護台灣,壓迫扁辭職是民進黨自我救贖的唯一機會,也是救黨救台灣應該做的事。扁不可怕,是怕扁、縱容扁才可怕,扁不過是被總統職位投射燈光照得很大的黑影,其實本尊只是老鼠。《水滸傳》裡林沖上梁山,見當時坐第一把交椅的白衣秀士王倫拒絕收他,怒而嗆聲:「這梁山便是你的?」然後殺了王倫。民進黨眾家豪傑要有林沖的造反精神,不要在總統前面「矮了身子」,失去民進黨當年造反革新的氣魄。

理想閃爍不息
扁不敢請辭的原因,除了權力的滋味甜美無比之外,還怕一連串對他的清算,更怕家族妻婿被鬥爭,而有牢獄之災。為了全妻保家,不得不負嵎頑抗做困獸之鬥。民進黨有必要為他一家賠上理想、形象和眾多的各類競選同志嗎?
昨天,從美麗島世代到野百合學運世代共同連署迫扁辭職,顯現綠營的理想主義仍一燈如豆,閃爍不息,這才是民進黨的原形,才是民進黨還值得我們期待的地方。當然,扁不會輕易認輸,一定要到三項條件出現兩項時才會不甘不願的下台:一,司法調查找出了扁的貪瀆證據;二,年底北高市長雙輸;三,林義雄和李登輝一起出手。此外,就是全民持續不懈地逼退聲浪。此刻,我們共同逼他辭職,來為台灣創造偉大的歷史吧。