A High Stakes Gamble of Machinations and Calculations

 A High Stakes Gamble of Machinations and Calculations

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

August 29, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

As Han Kuo-yu’s support ratings are no longer leading and the omens of Terry Gou entering the race are becoming more and more obvious, Yen Ching-piao, chairman of Zhenlan Temple in Dajia Township, a KMT bigwig, led the elected members of deliberative bodies belonging to both the Red faction and Black faction in a meeting, strongly supporting Han Kuo-yu, adding a hidden criticism of Terry Gou for "being a poor sport after losing the primary" and "being wealthy is his business." This was the first time that Yen Ching-piao has publicly and strongly supported Han Kuo-yu, which was of course a much needed gesture of friendship and encouragement for boosting the morale of Han Kuo-yu’s camp and supporters, while Yen’s candid remarks against Terry Gou even more bluntly pointed out the many blind spots in Gou’s desire to run for president.

For nearly a month, the so-called coalition of the trio, Terry Gou, Ko Wen-je, and Wang Jin-pyng, can be said to have captured the spotlight of the media and the Internet, sometimes talking to the media passing one another, sometimes seemingly having close comaraderie, sometimes looking like having fallen through, suddenly appearing together, and intermittently being reported to have mutually contradictory development, yet later with twists and turns for the better. All these were simply deliberate manipulations to the extreme, attracting all the while the interest of the public.

Viewed from any angle, the trio are all the most bizarre, contradictory and naked combination in the history of presidential elections. Not only from the point of the pressure of time, or flip-floppings, or the divergences of the trio’s vital political concepts and the inadequacies of their mutual trust, and even how the trio will maintain the division of powers after they should be elected, offering a possibility of allowing the state to stably operate and develop, all these are filled with many uncertainties. Moreover, since the trio have self-styled or described each other as lion, tiger, or fox, in these descriptions, it seemingly is precisely a high stakes gamble of machinations and calculations without any taboos, under the realistic scrutiny of the entire populace.

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