China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

 

October 25, 2018


 Translation of an Excerpt

 

At the early stage of the 9-in-1 local elections this year, the DPP believed that it was in complete control of political, economic, and social resources, while the KMT, having suffered heavily after being defeated twice in the elections, coupled with the loss of party assets, must have been weak and fragile. However, it overlooked the factors of ineffectual governance and the clamor for change, thus it became over-negligent. In the latter stage, the DPP found that its election prospects were unfavorable, scrambling to salvage its election prospects, but with little success. In Kaohsiung, the "anti-annexation, protecting Taiwan, anti-intervention, and caring for Kaohsiung" grand march did not successfully achieve its goal. Entering the last stage of thrusting, the DPP, from President Tsai, Premier Lai, and party machinery for stumping, as well as the candidates themselves, had to accuse the Mainland, in unison, of fabricating fake news, offering contributions through Taiwanese businessmen on the Mainland for “vote-buying,” hosting grassroots lieutenants to tour the Mainland, and other tactics to intervene in the elections, attempting to use the “PRC-phobia card” to salvage its election prospects. The intervention of prosecutors and investigators may produce a chilling effect, but will the voters buy it?

 

The KMT is much worried that the prosecutors and investigators might, on the eve of election day, on the grounds of “receiving political contributions” from the Mainland, in a high profile act, conduct searches of KMT candidates; it is especially worried about Han Kuo-yu. "Pro-PRC" seems to have become the last resort of the DPP to salvage Chen Chi-mai’s election prospects; launching the prosecutors and investigators to conduct searches, even if in the end they prove fruitless, the act would leave the voters unable to distinguish veracity and falsity, thus affecting their votes. 

 

The DPP legislators even upped the ante to the extreme, saying that the Mainland’s "tourism cum united front tactics" were affecting the elections, even claiming that money exchanged hands offshore, to launching a netizen army to massively attack specific political parties or candidates, at the last moment of the electoral campaign. If the tactics this time were effective, in the future, we are afraid, they would be duplicated, continuing to manipulate the intervention in the 2020 presidential election.

 

Employing the electoral maneuverings of resorting to reunification-independence hatred, radicalizing cross-Strait confrontation, the DPP has seriously harmed cross-Strait relations, causing extreme risks to Taiwan’s future. Facing the crisis in the Taiwan Strait following the escalation of US-China confrontation, countrymen must loudly saying "no" to the DPP’s maneuverings. Only when voters reject the impact of untoward incidents prior to the voting could we eradicate the oft repeated occurrences of electoral ploys.