A shameful day for a democracy

How on earth did we get here? After 16 years of peaceful political transformation how did we get to the stage where President Chen Shui-bian (???), one of the region's foremost liberal democrats, could be shot in the street? The perpetrators of yesterday's assassination attempt on the president and Vice President Annette Lu (???) must be found, and eventually we will learn what their motives were. Until that happens there are a few things to note.

First, the government deserves credit for its handling of the situation. It must have been tempting to call off the election, given yesterday's events. But this would only further increase the pressure cooker-like atmosphere that has been building up in the last few days, making more violence possible if not inevitable. When bullets start flying it is as well to get people off the streets as quickly as possible. Going ahead with the election was the best way to do this.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was also wise to call off its campaigning for last night. With Chen and Lu in hospital, it might have seemed to have little choice. But the party could have fielded any number of major figures, including respected figures not in themselves politicians such has Nobel Laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (???), to speak out against political violence. The problem was that amid the shock and anger pervading yesterday evening that message might have had exactly the opposite result. A rioting, 500,000-strong mob sweeping down on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters in Taipei might have been understandable but it would be no more edifying a display of those values that Taiwan wishes to be known for than were the shots that rang out in Tainan yesterday afternoon.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/03/20/2003107074

in short form who the good guys and the bad guys are? and why this election is so important to the china/ taiwan relations.i`ve tried to follow this but with everything else going on it gets lost in the fog.

mainland China to the election scenario. Supposedly, a Yes to independence/democracy wouldn't necessarily such a move would take place. However, Peking has been pressuring against such a vote for months.

From what I heard this morning on the BBC World Service, the feeling was that this assassination attempt would almost ensure a Yes vote. China is apparently bristling....

This could get ugly...

I posted an article from Taiwan in the World Media Watch (link below) in which one of Taiwan's cros-straits representatives analyzed the situation. She felt China had no choice but to go along with democracy. Some Chinese think that if China goes along, in the long run, that's the way to get the Taiwanese "on board." The other side says China shouldn't let this go. We'll see what happens....

have been close range. No one apprehended? Damn frustrating. It would help to know the who was behind it. I suppose the not knowing will be ultimately more damaging to the Taiwanese trust of China and the KMT.

and he scares the mainland government and the KMT shitless,
and most of our Western pseudo-democratic leaders, he makes
nervous.

The army of Pancho Nazi is being defeated and will surely be destroyed (mostly because they are so corrupt that Pancho Nazi's generals are selling it's own arms to its enemy Pancho Communist. So Pancho Nazi swipes up all the nations treasures, gold, art... and flees to Texas. Murders most of the people in Texas and renames it to Bushland, Republic of Mexico. Then one day Mexico become a bully bastard and says that Bushland belongs to Mexico but the people living there say, 'hey wait, we are Texans. You invaded us. We don't want to be a part of you dirty murdering corrupt Nazi/Communst bastards.' But this story isn't told by the American Whore Media. What is reported to the world, who most really don't know what happend, the Whores say, Bushland is a renegade province of Mexico and we will kill everyone in Bushland if they don't submit.

1. The land never belonged to Mexico
2. 80% of the citizens and not Mexican. The small minority with the guns who invaded Texas are Mexican.

The obvious solution is for President Chen to extradite all the criminals back to China and give back all the gold and art which was stolen from China by the KMT. This would be a fair settlement. Then China could try and execute Lien, Soong, and all the other KMT murderous bastards.