The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on

I started blogging not long after the DPP lost the presidential election in 2008. I did it because I was worried that it would become increasingly difficult for the Taiwanese to be heard as freedom in Taiwan and the sovereignty of Taiwan gradually disappear. Over the past 3.5 years, what I worried would happen happened. I did hope that Tsai would win and make some changes but she didn’t.

Last night (14^th Jan), a number of people phoned into the Talking Show and talked about possible vote rigging or at the very least poor vote counting practice in their local polling stations. Bear in mind that most of the polling and count staff are KMTers or KMT supporters.

An observer said that he had arrived 4pm sharp to observe the vote counting but no one was allowed in for 15 minutes and no one knew what was going on inside. This is illegal but when he questioned it, a police man came to keep him outside.

Some said that they had witnessed the staff in their local stations being very quick to rule papers not clearly marked between DPP or KMT as a vote for KMT.

An officer was caught to rule an ambiguous one invalid when it was supposed to be counted as a valid one for the DPP legislative candidate. When challenged, all the staff ganged up on the observer who caught them red handed. Luckily, the observer refused to budge and insisted that they consult the guidelines and physically turn to the page with that particular rule in.

A woman said that she went to observe but got ordered around by the officer as if she was an assistant. She did not get to observe at all. She did not argue at the time because she did not know the rules or what to expect. She wished that she had been given more information beforehand.

The above stories do make people wonder the fairness of this election. I am not suggesting that the results would have been different if the above did not happen. The point is that they shouldn’t happen. The margin by which one loses matters as well. More importantly, everyone who has made the effort to vote deserves to have their ballot paper handled properly.

There was a song written in Taiwanese by A-hsiang (阿翔) for Frank Hsieh when he lost the 2008 presidential election. The title could translated as ’the windier it is, the more determined I am to go on’ (風越大, 我越要走). This title was taken from the poetry Hsieh quoted in his first public speech after the 2008 legislative election. Between 2007 and 2008, Hsieh was fighting an uphill battle with a lot of backstabbing and antagonism from within the party. A lot of supporters not only wanted the DPP to win but also really felt for him personally. I guess the writer was one of them. Although Tsai Ing-wen did not meet with the same kind of hostility during this election, she had to dealt with a lot as well. Anyway, it says:

Let’s hold each other’s hand and keep going.
We have lost but are not afraid.
God has seen our hard work.
One day, our children will know that Taiwan is our name.
Oh~  The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on,
regardless of any difficulty or suffering ahead.
The windier it is, the more determined I am to go on.
Wipe away those tears.
Falling down is no big deal
because we are the proud sweet potatoes*
* meaning Taiwanese

Where is Taiwan going from here? Where is DPP going from here? Will more DPP seats make a difference? Will freedom and human rights continue to disappear? We’ll see…

Sky lantern

A Tsai supporter (not a professional singer but with a nice voice) made a song, ‘sky lantern’ (天燈). Releasing sky lanterns is considered sending good wishes and praying for good luck. It’s about hope. A clip is now on youtube, edited for this presidential election. The song is in Taiwanese and sounds very Taiwanese. All the lovely photos were taken from Tsai’s campaign website.

I translated the lyrics for those who don’t understand Taiwanese. Sorry for the awful English – not as beautiful as the Taiwanese but hopefully tells you what the words mean.

Red lanterns fly in the sky.
Good wishes are just like stars and the moon.
They fly over mountains and streams.
The love and sentiment can warm up the coldest night.

Lanterns of hope fly in the sky.
Gratitude and encouragement follow one another.
Flying high and flying together, they find us peace and happiness.
We always work so hard and only hope to have a better future.
Happy or sad, we want to be able to tell what we see and how we really feel.

Twinkling lanterns fly in the sky.
They are all in our heart.
The darker the night, the more beautiful they look.
They will always protect our beloved home.

(Just realised that this is my 100th post. Seems fitting to blog about something this nice)

Does Miaoli prosecutors’ office work for the people or KMT?

Michael Turton quoted a Taipei Times article about Miaoli county prosecutors’ office issuing an indictment to a DPP legislative candidate and political commentator for public defamation. I’d like to add that the alleged defamation referred to them describing Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) (KMT), as “an official without moral principles and a bully” on the Talking Show on 23^rd June, 2010.

Their comments were because of Liu’s part in the Dapu incident, in which the Miaoli County Government seized farmland to expand the Hsinchu Science Park’s branch in southern Hsinchu by blocking off roads and sending excavators into farms that were awaiting harvest.

Premier, Wu Den-yi and Liu actually apologised for what happened in Dapu in 2010. If it was wrong to criticise Liu for the Dapu incident, why did Wu and Liu apologise then? It is puzzling why Miaoli county prosecutor indicted the two commentators only days before the election. More bizarre is that the same prosecutors’ office and the police never seemed to have investigated the death KMT legislator, Hsu Yao-chang’s wife caused or contributed to.

Hsu was also found to have plagiarised someone’s Masters Dissertation. This is Hsu’s dissertation. This is the one he plagiarised. Here’s a comparison table highlighting the parts Hsu copied. It seems that Hsu did not just quote the study but copied pages and pages, chunks and chunks of someone else’s writing. When asked, Hsu claimed that he had never heard about that study but it was actually in his reference list. Apparently, both dissertations were supervised by the same person. How he missed such obvious plagiarism is beyond me.

Fatal crash swept under carpet: KMT control of media and law enforcement?

The wife of a KMT legislator, Hsu Yao-chang (徐耀昌), was involved in a fatal accident on 29^th November 2011 in Miao-li County, Taiwan. She hit a motor scooter while in traffic violation and the rider died instantly. Witnesses said that there had also been a man in the car when it happened but no one confirmed the identity of the man. Some have wondered whether Hsu was the man and whether the man was actually the driver. There had been literally no press coverage. This aroused suspicions of a cover-up. Some residents started posting information on Facebook, demanding answers.

On 31^st December 2011, Miao-li city chief, Chiu Ping-kun (邱炳坤) questioned the complete silence on Facebook. ETtoday then put out an online report yesterday. However, within hours, the page was removed. There is now only one report on Newtalk. Hsu told the press: 1) the rider was drunk and 2) he had nothing to say because what happened already happened. The victim’s uncle confirmed that Hsu had visited two days before the funeral. Hsu emphasised to the reporter that the victim’s family were very grateful for the financial compensation he paid.

The whole thing was a huge contrast to the press coverage and police efficiency when a DPP legislator was involved in an accident. The DPP legislator’s attitude was also very different from Hsu and his wife’s, as he immediately called a press conference to answer questions, resigned his position as a legislator and withdrew from the upcoming legislative election.

No one is suggesting that Hsu’s wife was solely responsible or that Hsu was involved. People just want answers and at the same time feel stunned by the lack of press coverage of this incident.

Update: Yes, Hsu is running in the 2012 legislative election. This could be why there has been such a tight lid on this incident.

KMT’s attempts to silence pundits?

In a public speech in a church, Talking Show host Cheng Hung-yi (鄭弘儀) revealed that during the 2010 special municipality elections, ‘a political party’ offered a huge amount of money to ‘his boss’ (I don’t know whether he was referring to the producer or the president of SETTV) to buy off Talking Show for three months, with a catch – Cheng had to be removed from the show. According to Cheng, his boss flatly refused and soon after that, Cheng was sued by individuals closely associated with Ma’s government and currently there are six ongoing cases against him personally. If you understand Taiwanese, please see the clip of Cheng’s speech at the end of this post. He also talked about how his high school teacher/military instructor tried to bully him into joining the KMT and how Taiwan has changed since. Towards the end of the talk, he showed figures that indicated a steady increase in support for the DPP.

The most controversial of all the legal cases against Cheng was probably the DoH complaint. Apart from Cheng, six regular guests of Talking Show (Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), Chung Nien-huan (鍾年晃), Wu Kuo-tung, (吳國棟), Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), Hou Han-chun (侯漢君) and Ho Po-wen (何博文)) and Dr. Billy Pan, a psychiatrist, were also named. Taipei Times reported:

The Taipei Prosecutors’ Office on Friday began handling a request by the Department of Health (DOH) to prosecute seven talk show pundits and a physician for allegedly spreading rumors about the influenza A(H1N1) flu vaccine.

While former DOH head Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) revealed on an ERA News talk show on Thursday that the petition against the pundits was the last official document he signed during his time as the country’s top health administrator, the complaint was filed in the name of the DOH.

…

The government is using the executive and judicial agencies to control comments it does not like Lin (DPP spokesperson) said.

Contending that their sensational allegations made people reluctant to get vaccinated and left some vulnerable to severe bouts of flu and even death, Yaung said he felt compelled to file the complaint to prevent the further spread of misleading information to better protect public health.

This marked the first time that a government agency has taken legal action against television pundits over what it called false comments about the flu vaccine.

…

If indicted and found guilty, each of the pundits is subject to a fine of up to NT$500,000 (US$17,100), according to a law on the prevention of contagious disease.

…

Cheng has refuted Yaung’s accusation and said the former DOH head had refused an invitation from the show to discuss the vaccine issue.

He insisted the show was only providing the public with information about both the positive and negative impact of flu vaccines, and added he would consider filing a defamation lawsuit against Yaung.

As a viewer, I do not think Talking Show was spreading rumours as the discussions were based on facts and figures. They were questioning the high number of individuals developing serious side effects, the vaccine production details, time scale (i.e. whether the testing and production were rushed) and the relationship between the company and Ma’s government. Dr. Pan, who is quite into number crunching, posted his comparisons on his own blog. The figures showed that although the overall prevalence of side effects for Taiwan produced vaccine was similar to those produced by other countries but the prevalence of serious side effects (including deaths) was about four times higher than others. In a follow up post written about three months later, Dr Pan estimated that the death rate immediately following vaccination in Taiwan was approximately 16 times higher than in the USA. At the 12 month follow up, Dr. Pan calculated that the prevalence of serious side effects for the Taiwan produced vaccine was 6 to 10 times higher than other countries.

The above demand answers and the pundits simply asked the government to explain and respond but DoH under Ma was not forthcoming with information and figures and at no time was there any mention of recalling the vaccine. If Dr Pan’s analyses were inaccurate, all the government had to do was to refute with proper stats. Yaung’s action looked like another attempt to silence those who questioned what Ma’s government was doing. He filed the complaint under the name of DoH, meaning that he was using public resources. He did it on his last day as Minister, meaning that he left the donkey work to the next person and the liability to the agency.

Some of you may have worked out that this was not the first time Talking Show or Cheng’s position as the host was under threat. Please see my previous posts:

KMT’s control of media: the real reason behind Talking Show’s reduced hours

‘Talking Show’ in Taiwan being cancelled altogether?

I am concerned that this will only get worse if the KMT wins again.

Happy New Year

I’d like to wish everyone a happy and fruitful 2012 and apologise for the fact that I haven’t posted anything for a few months by now. This was due to heavy workload and changes in job responsibilities. Everything I planned to write about or said I would write about will still go ahead. I’m hoping to ease myself back into blogging again and get into the full blogging mode soon.

Again, Happy New Year to everyone!

Su Tseng-chang and the Liberty Times

In today’s Taipei Times, there is an article on the latest development of the DPP selection for their presidential candidate for the 2012 election (i.e. telephone polls). Before discussing the article, let me explain the way it works (I’ll do my best). When someone gets a call, they will be asked three questions and they have to answer all three for the call to be valid in the polls. The three questions are:

1. Between Tsai Ing-wen and Ma Ying-jeou, who would you support in the 2012 presidential election?
2. Between Su Tseng-chang and Ma Ying-jeou, who would you support in the 2012 presidential election?
3. Between Hsu Hsing-liang and Ma Ying-jeou, who would you support in the 2012 presidential election?

The person who gets the highest support against Ma Ying-jeou would win. In other words, the comparison is always made against Ma rather than each other. As such, if someone supports all three DPP candidates, none of them is going to get any point and their answer becomes useless. In this situation, if all green supporters support all three (or both of the strongest two), then the outcome is going to be determined by blue or middle voters and if the blue camp wants to interfere with the outcome, their supporters can simply pick someone they think is the weakest.

To show the true support level each candidate gets, the best way is for everyone to say that they only support the candidate(s) they are most sure about in all three questions. This means that when asked about the person they support vs. Ma, they say the person’s name and when asked about the others they do not like as much, they say ‘no comment’ or simply repeat the name of the person they truly support.

In this article in Taipei Times, something in the following passage seems to be misrepresenting the fact.

Advertisements produced by groups connected to Tsai’s campaign have said that voters should “only support” the DPP chairperson, suggesting that they should choose Ma over the other two candidates.

As far as I know, no Tsai supporters within the DPP suggests that they should choose Ma over the other two candidates. They have always been saying that voters can say ‘no comments’ orjust  repeat ‘Tsai Ing-wen’.

I also think it is quite funny for some DPP figures to suggest that ‘asking voters to “only support” a single candidate would run counter to its ideas of avoiding inner party strife’. Asking voters to ‘only support XXX’ has actually been used for years in all the other DPP polls. Those who are criticising this approach now have probably all said the same thing when they themselves or their faction members are in the primaries for council or parliamentary elections. Why have they suddenly developed this aversion? Is it because the one they support is lagging behind and they are hoping that the strongest candidate’s support gets balanced out by those who give support to both of them? If everyone is confident with the one they support, they can all ask voters to ‘only support’ whoever they support, can’t they?

I am disappointed but not exactly surprised to see Taipei Times misrepresenting this point because it is not a secret that its Mandarin version, the Liberty Times (the best selling newspaper in Taiwan) has been a loyal supporter to Su Tseng-chang for years. They not only support Su but either viciously attack anyone in Su’s way or ignore news associated with those individuals. Now, I am beginning to wonder whether the owner’s influence has seeped into Taipei Times as well. If anyone knows the running of Taipei Times or has observed their reporting for a long time, your observations and comments are really welcomed. I will write another post in the near future, looking into how the Liberty Times supports Su and the ramifications. I would just like to point out the possible reason for their unwavering loyal to Su today.

The owner of Liberty Times is the owner of a huge construction company. The company owns a lot of land in Taipei County. When Yu Ching was the county chief, he refused to issue the license for three buildings because the company did not comply with the regulation where companies have to give up land to offset the engineering cost. Since then, Liberty Times has been extremely negative about everything Yu did. After Su Tseng-chang became the chief, he quickly let it through. Those three tall buildings brought in potentially billions of profit for the company.

A lot of Su supporters argue that SETTV supports Hsieh and therefore Hsieh is no better. I completely disagree because one programme on SETTV showing more support for Hsieh during the 2008 election does not mean that the whole company does. SET News has often been observed to stir trouble for Hsieh as well. Also, that particular programme’s support for Hsieh completely disappeared after he lost the 2008 election. It may be true that the owner of SETTV is a friend of Hsieh’s but I am inclined to believe that his support for Hsieh is based on his appreciation of Hsieh’s achievements in Kaohsiung (he came from Kaohsiung) and personal friendship rather than any profits Hsieh helped the company make. If there is any dodgy exchange, with the level of hostility other media companies has towards Hsieh so far, I doubt it could remain hidden after all these years.

All the rivalries and who wins in the end: the Chang-Bian rivalry

The first public presentation for the DPP primary for the 2012 presidential election took place on at 14:00, 9^th April 2011. I am not going to write a detailed analysis or critique this. But my general impression is that out of the three candidates, Tsai Ing-wen was the strongest because she was able to take a broad and international perspective, looking at issues from the country or from a political party’s level and her arguments were solid and much better thought out compared to the other two. Her supposedly strongest rival, Su Tseng-chang, paid a lot more attention to details, his own abilities and spoke more like a minister rather than a country’s leader even though he has always been a better public speaker.

Apart from their current performance, it may also be useful to look back and see how the DPP has arrived at this point and what contributions everyone has made before making a firm decision. Given that politics comes with a lot of debates, competitions and cooperation, in this mini-series, I would like to look at the main rivalries which have heavily influenced the DPP’s development and Taiwan’s politics so far. This could be seen as part of the series on Hsieh where I look at his application of mutualism and the contrasts people do not necessarily notice (or like to mention) but this mini-series does NOT include any of Hsieh’s own writing nor represent his views.

The most legendary ‘rivalry’ in DPP history should be the one between Frank Hsieh (Chang-ting) and Chen Shui-bian. Given that Chen was the most influential DPP figure for 14 years (since he became the Taipei mayor in 1994 until he finished his second term as President in 2008), his decisions and actions would have undoubtedly determined where the DPP was going and the life/career paths of those who were supported or disliked by him.

Chen and Hsieh entered politics at the same time and through the same event (i.e. being a defence lawyer for the dissidents in the Formosa Incident), got elected into the Taipei City Council at the same time and later the Parliament at the same time. They used to sit at adjacent tables in the Council and worked well together. When Chen Shui-bian was wrongly accused of libel, Hsieh acted as his legal counsel. When Chen went to prison for this because he refused to appeal, Hsieh and his wife took Chen’s children for a day out along with their own children on several occasions. Hsieh also helped Chen’s wife get elected as a legislator in the 1986 parliamentary election. However, competitions between the two were inevitable as they progressed further in their political careers and maintaining friendship seemed to become more and more difficult over time.

In 1989, they both got elected as legislators and they both wanted to be the party whip during the first parliamentary session, which would guarantee more media exposure than in the second session. At the time, Hsieh was the obvious choice and got the unanimous support from the DPP caucus because he won over 10,000 votes more than Chen in the election, the number of Taipei City Councillors Hsieh endorsed and won was more than any other DPP legislators and those councillors were spread across all the districts. In other words, Hsieh was stronger than Chen in terms of popularity as well as local networks. However, Chen was very tenacious in his pursuit. Therefore, Hsieh let Chen take the position and he settled for being the party whip during the second session.

In the 1992 parliamentary election, they both ran for the parliament again. Chen set his goal as winning more votes than Hsieh in Hsieh’s base (Shi-lin and Peitou District) ‘even if it was by only one vote’ and told all his campaign staff to meet this target. After they both got elected, they both went for the party whip position for the first session and again, it was Hsieh who stepped aside and took it in the second session. Chen’s competitive nature, as evidenced in his approach as legislator, led to Chen being more popular than Hsieh and put Hsieh in disadvantage when he entered the primary for the 1994 Taipei Mayoral election.

Even though Hsieh had given Chen so many opportunities and genuine support, when Prof. Peng Ming-min and Hsieh were running for the 1996 presidential election, Chen did not give much support and told the press that they had no chance at all. After the defeat in 1996, Hsieh went for the Chair of the Central Review Committee of the DPP. Chen tried to prevent Hsieh from being elected by nominating and supporting Chen Chu, the then Commissioner of Department of Social Welfare, Taipei City Government instead. It was only with the support of another heavyweight at the time, Hsu Hsin-liang that Hsieh got elected.

Towards the end of 1996, the ‘Sung Chi-li incident’ (see my previous post on Frank Hsieh campaign genius) grabbed every headline in Taiwan. Hsieh was at the deep end and Chen predicted that Hsieh would never recover from that blow. Chen not only stayed as far away from Hsieh as possible but immediately labelled the building Sung’s followers gathered as being illegal before the investigation concluded and sent a team to demolish the building within days. He also publicly ridiculed Hsieh by impersonating Sung. A lot of people felt that it was completely unnecessary for Chen to kick Hsieh when he was down. Some believe that this may have affected supporters’ motivation to vote for Chen when he was seeking his second term as Taipei Mayor in 1998. I am not sure how much impact this had on that election but would agree that it did not make Chen more popular, at least not among green supporters.

In 1996, apart from the election defeat, the DPP was also having financial difficulty. Unfortunately, as the most influential figure in the DPP, Taipei Mayor, who had two foundations, Chen did not raise or donate a penny. Hsieh, on the other hand, worked really hard on fundraising and got a lot of donations for the party. In 2008, Chen admitted that the funds his wife transferred overseas were the surplus of campaign funds / donations he had accumulated from 1994 to 2004, before the legal restriction on political donations came into effect. So in retrospect, Chen could have made some contribution to the party in 1996 but chose not to.

In 1997, the DPP’s chance in the county chief elections was very good. Chen launched a ‘Formosa campaign group’, in competition rather than collaboration with the one coordinated by the then party leader, Hsu Hsin-liang. When the result showed a huge success, all the credit went to Chen. However, in 1998, the DPP’s chance in the local elections (chiefs for towns and villages) was not good. Chen simply refused to campaign. The outcome was of course quite miserable, which ultimately prevented Hsu from getting elected as the party leader for the  following term.

In 1997, the South African military attaché, McGill Alexander’s family was taken hostage by a serial killer on the run. The police was unable to get the killer to release the hostages and they were ready to take the killer down with the hostages inside. It was only after Hsieh responded the killer’s demand to let him in and negotiate terms the crisis was over. The killer was upset about the fact that his wife might have been tortured by the police because they believed that she was an accomplice. The killer therefore asked Hsieh to be his wife’s legal representative, as he believed that Hsieh was the fairest lawyer and the only one he could trust. At the time, some people in the society did not believe that serious criminals and their accomplices deserved to be legally represented. Therefore, when the press asked Chen what he thought, he as well as denounced Hsieh by saying that he would not represent criminals of this sort even if he had been asked. He did not acknowledge the significance of Hsieh’s diffusing a highly dangerous situation that could have turned into an even bigger international incident.

It is a real shame that the episode on this story in the National Geographic Channel (Channel 5 production) show ‘Banged up abroad’, there was no mention of Hsieh at all even though Hsieh was caught on camera walking hostages out of the house. If anyone paid attention to the credit in the end, it showed that the ROC General Information Office as one of the sponsors (Thanks to my friend, Jay, for pointing this out). If anyone is interested, I strongly recommend reading Alexander’s book ‘Hostage in Taipei’ as he (one of the hostages) honestly talked about how significant Hsieh’s role was in changing the event.

Underneath the ruthlessness, Chen probably had momentary appreciation for Hsieh’s support and friendship. In 1998, Chen persuaded someone who also wanted to run for Kaohsiung Mayor to withdraw and leave Hsieh a clean field within the party. After he became the president, he also helped divert more resources to Kaohsiung City than when it was under the KMT (although it was still nowhere near what Taipei City received from the central government). This made it easier for Hsieh to reinvent Kaohsiung and turn the city around. When Hsieh was leading the bid for the 2009 World Games, Chen also gave his support.

Hsieh campaigned really hard for Chen in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections (please also see my previous post on Frank Hsien’s campaign genius) and the results were impressive.

In 2000, the total votes for Chen represented 39.3% of the overall votes. In Kaohsiung city, Chen got 45.79% of votes, which was 16.1% (139,358 votes) more than what James Sung won.

Interestingly, in Taipei County where Su Tseng-chang was heading the county wide campaign, Chen got only 36.73% of votes whereas Sung got 40.26%. Even in Taipei City where Chen just left as the Mayor two years prior, he got only 37.64% of votes when Sung got 39.79%.

In 2004, Chen’s overall support was 50.11%. In Kaohsiung city, Chen won 55.65% of the total votes whereas Lien chan only got 44.35%. The difference was 101,535 votes.

In contrast, in Taipei County where Su was in charge, Chen got only 46.94% when Sung received 53.06% of votes. The difference was roughly 130,000.

One might argue that Kaohsuing was a ‘green’ city and therefore Chen would have naturally won. This is completely incorrect because the pre-Hsieh Kaohsiung was a definite ironclad ‘blue’ area. Hsieh not only got a good reputation for being a good Mayor but managed to change the political culture and laid a solid foundation for the future. This is something that Chen and Su never achieved in Taipei.

While Chen might have supported Hsieh for his Kaohsiung projects, he remained watchful for Hsieh’s popularity political influence. To be precise, he was watchful for all potential leaders’ development to make sure that none of them could challenge him. The one he watched most closely was Hsieh probably because Hsieh was the most talented and influential of them all. This was evidenced in the number of votes Hsieh was able to get for him in both presidential elections. After he was re-elected as the Kaohsiung Mayor, Hsieh was given the name ‘the King of the South’ (南霸天). I do not think Hsieh himself would pay much attention to this but it does reflect how much influence he had. Anyone could see how crucial it was to have Hsieh’s support in major elections and I believe that Chen went to great lengths to make sure that he could exploit Hsieh’s influence without having it used against himself.

In 2001, Hsieh was the DPP party leader and worked with TSU, which resulted in the pan-green coalition getting the most seats in the parliament for the first time in history. With such a huge success, Hsieh could have easily got elected as the party leader for another term. However, before Hsieh announced his intention, Chen publicly said that Hsieh would stay with the people of Kaohsiung. Chen’s aides also sent up a trial balloon about Chen taking over the party leadership. A respected columnist asked Chen in their meeting whether he meant it. Chen admitted and said ‘I’m too embarrassed to say it myself’. So as soon as he got out of the Presidential Office, the columnist phoned Hsieh and advised Hsieh to go along with Chen’s wishes to avoid rumours about their ‘rivalry’. Even though no one would have blamed Hsieh for seeking another term and Chen was very likely to lose if they had both entered, Hsieh simply facilitated the change of party rules to pave the way for a sitting president to be the party leader, publicly supported the idea and handed it over to Chen without any quibble. Sadly, with this level of cooperation, Chen’s aides were still hostile and suspicious towards Hsieh and Hsieh’s aides and associates. In the parliament, legislators associated with Chen and those associated with Hsieh did not get on either. What’s more depressing was that years later, when faced with criticism of being too dominating because he took over party leadership as a president, Chen blamed it all on Hsieh, saying it was Hsieh who initiated it and he simply followed Hsieh’s idea and arrangements.

In 2005, when the political confrontation between the blue and the green camps was getting worse, Chen finally invited Hsieh to become the premier. However, their honeymoon period did not last because they had very different ideas and approaches. Chen often publicly made snide remarks about Hsieh, leaving the embarrassed premier to deal with all the questions and speculations. Despite this, Hsieh never publicly criticised Chen and always told the press not to over interpret or misinterpret Chen’s remarks and that they got on just fine. Chen on the other hand, never denied any of those reports or rumours.

When the blue friendly media started accusing Hsieh and his team for corruption over the Kaohsiung MRT, without considering the evidence, Chen immediately distanced himself from Hsieh and said in a TV interview that he was never involved in the running of Kaohsiung City and knew nothing about what Hsieh did. Years later, none of the investigations found any wrongdoing and all the accused were cleared but no one has made any apology to Hsieh and his team. Interestingly, when the World Games turned out to be a huge success, Chen changed the story and said that it was actually his idea to ask Hsieh to bid for the Games.

Hsieh stepped down as the premier in January 2006 and went to Harvard University as a visiting researcher. In the same year, Chen and his family were knee deep in suspected corruption cases and his support rating was dropping even faster than before. On 31^st May 2006, Chen announced that he was going to release his power to the then premier, Su Tzeng-chang, under questionable volition. Su became the first and only premier with real power. It was even more obvious who Chen was going to (or had to) side with. When the ‘red shirt army’ protest against Chen was full on and the whole green camp was about to fall apart, Chen came up with the idea of asking Hsieh to run for Taipei Mayor, which I doubt any of the other heavyweights who were thinking about the 2008 presidential race would object. Even though Chen kept arguing that he was trying to give Hsieh a platform for the 2008 presidential election, not many people were convinced because Chen’s preference was very obvious and all the political commentators and civil organisations supporting or associated with Chen never hid their hostility towards Hsieh. They would attack anything Hsieh says or even twist what he actually means. For example, when Hsieh proposed ‘mutualism and reconciliation’, a lot of dark green commentators and supporters accused him of ‘giving up’ and saying it was useless to try and reconcile with the blue camp. Another example was when Hsieh pointed out the ‘one-China’ clause in the Constitution and that it had to be changed, the same critics accused him of leading Taiwan towards unification with China and insisted that Taiwan does not belong to ROC, Hsieh should not have pointed it out even though it was right there in the Constitution.

At that time, Chen also kept antagonising former President Lee Teng-hui. It is speculated that when Chen and the KMT agreed on the current parliamentary election system, KMT’s intention was to marginalise People’s Party, led by James Sung and Chen’s intention was to marginalise TSU, founded by Lee. The end result was that no one in TSU got elected and the DPP won miserable 27 seats (less than 25% of seats). This is a huge (and very sad) contrast to what Hsieh achieved when he was running the party in 2001 and serves as a perfect example that when one violates mutualism, he himself gets hurt at the same time.

It should be noted that for years, the blue friendly media worked hard to put a wedge between Chen and Hsieh. They did this by skilfully editing news reports and commentaries to push Chen’s buttons and directly whispering rumours about Hsieh to Chen’s ears. It became even more obvious after 2005. The blue camp knew to manipulate this because as early as the martial law era, the KMT intelligence already found that the combination of Chang and Bian would be a powerful weapon Taiwanese could use against the KMT as Hsieh has the brain and quick wit while Chen shows a strong drive and an earthy charm. It is also true that when the two of them worked together, the green camp was always the strongest. I guess the blue camp would love to see both of them destroyed. Unfortunately, Chen walked right into it and even unwittingly helped the blue camp by trying to destroy Hsieh himself.

A week before the DPP primary for the 2008 presidential election ended, a confidential official letter written by a prosecutor, saying that Hsieh’s corruption was confirmed, was leaked to the press. This letter was most likely to be fabricated because 1) Hsieh was never prosecuted and there was no way the prosecution would let it go if they had any evidence; 2) everyone who got implicated were all cleared. However, after it was reported, Su wasted no time in putting in a huge newspaper advert in the Liberty Times, asking Hsieh to face this accusation and explain himself. Although the prosecutor has been suspected of fabrication, no one has been able to find who actually leaked it to the press. It has been suggested that it was actually one of the ‘higher ups’ in the DPP government.

Despite the above, Hsieh still won the primary. Normally, the presidential candidate should lead the presidential election campaign and set the tone for the parliamentary election campaign that takes place two months before the presidential election. However, Chen was reluctant to let go and often publicly criticised or contradicted what Hsieh had just said. He even openly interfered with Hsieh’s choice of his running mate. It did not seem to have occurred to Chen that a lot of people were already tired of his way (strongly indicated by the fact that the one he supported lost by about 10,000 party member votes in the primary). Chen only grudgingly handed everything over to Hsieh after the DPP lost in the parliamentary election in January 2008. This means that Hsieh had only about two months left to straighten the campaign out. It was highly suspected that Chen was not going to support Hsieh from that point because Chen had never supported anyone who he could not control. Indeed, Chen himself admitted in his book that he did not raise a penny for the 2008 election. It was also clear that not many people who supported Su in the primary helped out in the campaign either. At this point, all the KMT had to do was to keep playing the ‘Chen’s corruption’ card. So in a way, the 2008 election was a competition between Ma and Chen. Some have also said that Hsieh was not really defeated by Ma, but by Chen.

After Chen was detained, he wrote a couple of books. In one of them, he accused Hsieh of trying to push him out during the red shirt army protest. What actually happened was that Chen asked Hsieh whether he should have stood down and Hsieh replied candidly that standing down might not be the worst outcome. Chen became angry and apparently has resented since that Hsieh did not convince him to stay. This may have been the main reason why Chen was so intent on supporting Su before. What Hsieh meant by ‘the worst’ was that the DPP collapsed and Taiwan’s democracy being set back years as Chen was finished. Hsieh’s prediction was actually resonant to Chen’s current situation – the green camp’s struggle since and Taiwan’s political development (or regression) since Ma got in power. It is sad that Chen is still in denial and externalising responsibilities. It is also sad to see their story to end this way. A lot of green supporters cannot find it in them to argue strongly for Chen’s human rights after his unlawful detention not because he did something morally questionable (i.e. the handling of campaign funds) but because of the level of damage he did to the stability and unity of the green camp over the years. It is clear that Chen only knows zero sum games whereas Hsieh is the opposite. There has not been as much rivalry as someone’s one sided obsession to win in their famous ‘rivalry’. Ironically, Chen’s approach guarantees that no one wins; everyone loses except the enemy.

Mutualism in politics: Frank Hsieh’s quest

Here is my loose translation and amalgamation of the 2^nd and 5^th chapters of Frank Hsieh (謝長廷)’s book: Mutualism and Prosperity: Believing in Taiwan. I did not translate word for word but the meanings of his original writing. To merge the two properly, I have had to trim off parts that are not essential, swapped paragraphs around and did some heavy editing to make it flow in English. But I have made sure that it stays true to what his chapters meant to convey.

I have left translations in black and my elaboration or explanation in green.

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When I proposed the concept of ‘Taiwan as a community sharing a common destiny’ (台灣命運共同體) in 1987, the aim was to promote cooperation and positive interactions between ethnic groups and between political parties. I was hoping to establish an ideological and theoretical basis for unity in the midst of all the conflicts in the democratic movement. Now, what the majority of Taiwanese want for future has been quite clear, that is to be a free and independent country entitled to full international participation. However, it is less clear how we are going to achieve this goal and how much we are willing to pay for it. All those issues require political leaders, intellectuals and the public to engage in continuous discussions in order to find a sensible and feasible strategy.

In 2005, President Chen Shui-bian announced in his New Year message that he would like to bring about a new prospect by having full scale consultations, negotiations and dialogues with the opposition (the KMT). He hoped to have a cabinet that can end the continuous internal frictions by having dialogues and negotiations on a good will basis. After several long conversations between President Chen and myself, I decided to accept his invitation and become the premier because that fit in with my belief in mutualism. I was sworn into the office on 1^st February 2005. The core philosophy behind my policies and political practice was mutualism and my aim was to ameliorate animosity between political parties and in the society by initiating positive communications and negotiations. I was hoping that the society can recover as the political divide and confrontations subside, which would then create a more stable environment for investment. I was also planning a welfare reform, which would improve the quality of life, as one of my greatest goals is that everyone can live a happy life and feel hopeful about their future.

With the political frictions, there has been a pervasive lack of trust in the society. Without trust, nonzero sum games would not work. In fact, the society would not be able to function without trust in the first place. We might be suspicious of even the most basic provisions in everyday life such as whether our food is poisoned or contaminated or whether someone would run us over in the street. The higher the level of trust in a society, the more potential there is for development and vice versa. One must recognise that trust can be destroyed quickly and the speed by which it is rebuilt is extremely slow in comparison. Therefore, everyone, including politicians and the press, should all refrain from actions that destroy trust in the society. Once trust has been violated, it cannot be rebuilt by only half of the population or one political party. There is an urgent need to find a new way to interact with each other through which we replace zero sum games with non-zero ones and dissolve hostility with cooperation.

However, cooperation between the blue and the green camps has never happened before. After democracy was established in Taiwan, the dynamics between parties should no longer be characterised by oppression from the dictator and resistance from the oppressed. They are supposed to be equal competitors and protected by the constitution under which one is in charge and the other(s) keep the one with executive power in check. However, after the opposition and dissidents in the past got in power, transitional justice has not been properly dealt with and the party that used to oppress the people can still gain massive influence through democratic elections. Because the past human rights violations have not been investigated and the perpetrators have never been prosecuted or dismissed from their positions, the sense of injustice still lingers around and the tension between parties is always there. Such a gradual transition is like paying the price of reform by instalments (i.e. the cost is spread out but the interest is higher). Therefore, there are going to be challenges when we try to adopt mutualism. Nevertheless, I still believe that support for cooperation will emerge as we realise that the old zero-sum system no longer works.

Under mutualism, political parties do not have to give up their own values and stance but should set up transparent and accountable platforms for communications and negotiations. In other words, cooperation can take place on policies that do not violate each other’s core values or fundamental principles. For example, in the parliament, all parties can make announcements of their negotiable and non-negotiable items as well as their priority. As such, parties can cooperate through policy negotiations and establish an alliance, which would be a stable majority based on consensus on policies and priority (rather than party membership per se). Later on, we can decide whether there should be any power sharing between parties depending on how the alliance works.

Similarly, the Cabinet can communicate with the opposition legislators on bills or proposals they are working on and incorporate comments which both sides can agree on into the bill/proposal the Cabinet is going to send to the parliament. I wanted to establish a mechanism by which the executive and the legislative branches can communicate openly and effectively and different values and ideas can be considered in the process. I also believe that different parties have to learn to share and acknowledge the others’ contributions. For example, if a bill is the product of a bipartisan effort, the ruling party then has to acknowledge the contribution made by the opposition and should not take all the credit themselves. Similarly, no party should place all the blames on the other party and never admit to their own part in the mistakes. This way, a lot of political confrontations may be avoided. However, certain conditions have to be in place to make it work:

1. Respect for each others’ rights to exist and take part
2. Mutual benefit
3. Equality
4. Trust
5. Rules and boundaries that facilitate mutualism

Respect for the others’ rights to exist is the most fundamental of all because without allowing others to exist, there would be no other parties to work with. When one is faced with someone who intends to destroy them, the first thing to do is to defend oneself. That is why all countries place their national security at the top of their priority. Similarly, if a party sets out to destroy another party (or other parties), they are threatening the others existence and are therefore not acceptable. If everyone spends all their energy attacking those who hold different views with the intention to eliminate competitions, common ground will become less and less visible. We should stand up to those who do so and resist in a constructive way. After all, differences themselves may  be neutral and should be respected. If we do not suppress those differences, common ground will naturally emerge and serve as a basis for unity.

Throughout history, when a government or political system fails to maintain mutualism, it will eventually be overthrown and a new system will be born. Therefore, we are not discouraging resistance or speaking against the effort to end a bad government. What we should be against are those unnecessary antagonisms because they always lead to lose-lose situations. For example, when I first became the Kaohsiung mayor, the city councillors kept on attacking me to the point that my support rating dropped to about 30%. Interestingly, the satisfaction rating of the city council was only 19%. The same pattern emerged when I was the premier. My support rating and the satisfaction rating for the parliament both dipped to a new low when the KMT caucus kept on attacking me and blocking my bill. These examples show that when one attacks others without provocation, the attacker him/herself also gets hurt in some way.

Taiwan’s democracy is still in infancy compared to western democracies and therefore, the ways by which parties compete with each other are not always mature or healthy. Nevertheless, I still believe that mutualism is vitally important for politics and indeed Taiwan’s long term survival and development. If individuals within Taiwan cannot get along, how do we expect everyone to stand together against China’s threat? If China’s aim is to annex Taiwan, would it be easier for them with a unified or divided Taiwan? The answer is obvious. Therefore, if political parties are preoccupied with finishing each other off, who is going to benefit in the end?

Of course, in reality, it is rather difficult to adopt mutualism in politics but we need to try. We need to be better able to swallow our disappointment and see beyond our own grievance. It will be much easier if we have a greater goal and adopt a broader perspective. Besides, there is usually tremendous diversity within any party. If we leave those with the most extreme views, we may realise that there are many with whom we can establish agreements and amenable working relationships.

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CJ’s thoughts:

Hsieh stood down as the premier in January 2006. During the 11 months of his premiership, despite his good intention and hard work, the Chinese Nationalist Party continued to block everything he and his cabinet put forward, one of which I have written about before. The fact that Chen gave him little backing didn’t help. It was a tall order to expect Hsieh’s work to show visible benefits in that difficult political context within 11 months. It begs to the question on how genuine Chen was when he put Hsieh in that position. Even if Chen was genuine, he did not seem to have the wisdom to know what it takes or how long it takes. Even if he did have the wisdom, he certainly did not have the patience to wait for it to work.

However, we can still assess whether Hsieh has been practising what he preaches elsewhere and whether mutualism can work in politics. I have talked about how he worked with the TSU and maximised the political influence of the pan-green coalition before. What people tend to forget is that he managed to turn a hostile and KMT dominated Kaohsiung City Council around without making questionable exchanges and get his plans and proposals through as the Kaohsiung Mayor. Without that bit of effort, Kaohsiung definitely would not be like it is now.

Kaohsiung City Council used to be difficult to the point of being unreasonable, not only to Hsieh but the previous Mayors (i.e. Wu Den-yi and Su Nan-cheng). When Hsieh first got elected in 1998, there were only eight DPP councillors, which represented less than 20% of the seats. Hsieh and his cabinet often got into arguments with the councillors and they were kicked out during session several times. For a while, he was not getting very far with his proposals and even got reported to the Control Yuan like Wu and Su before him. He felt that the City Council was difficult for no good reason because neither he nor the previous Mayors were found guilty in the end but a lot of projects that could benefit the residents were put on hold. All the delays cost the taxpayers’ millions of dollars. Nevertheless, he decided to put his frustration to one side and patiently communicate and negotiate with the KMT councillors rather than confronting them like Chen did with Taipei City Council. Hsieh also accepted at least one KMT member into his cabinet and worked with them as a team. Hsieh’s success in Kaohsiung indicates that mutualism can work in politics if one persists and is sincere in their bid for cooperation.

There have been a lot of discussions among green supporters about who they’d support for the 2012 presidential race. The media successfully turned it into a Tsai Ing-wen vs. Su Cheng-chang competition. Despite having a lot silent support (Similar to Hsieh, his supporters are usually quiet and patient) and that he had the ability to turn it into a tight three way split, he still did not throw his hat in the ring. He said from very early on that everyone should talk about their vision and put forward their proposals before expressing an interest to run because vision is more important than personal ambition. He also said that everyone should be prepared to let someone else run if their ideas are similar and the other person stands a good or better chance to win. ‘It’s OK to let someone else realise my dreams if we share the same vision’, Hsieh said.

I’ll talk more about how he has been practising mutualism throughout his political career and highlight some contrasts in my next post.

References

‘A Youngster from the Blacksmith Street: The Story of Frank Hsieh (打鐵街少年: 謝長廷的故事)’written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2005.

‘Seeking Success in Adversity (逆中求勝)’ written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2007.

‘The sun in the south (日出南方)’ written by Frank Hsieh (Chang-ting), published in 2002.

Relevant post

Mutualism: the ultimate value and winning strategy

(Thanks to Jay for sharing his ideas and observations)

Mutualism: the ultimate value and winning strategy

According to Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), the longstanding philosophy behind his actions is ‘mutualism’ (共生), a term often misunderstood. He believes that it is the only way Taiwan, a highly polarised society and faced with a hostile country that never gives up its claim over Taiwan, can survive and develop further.

Below is my loose translation of the first chapter his book: Mutualism and Prosperity: Believing in Taiwan (共生繁榮, 看好台灣). I did not translate word for word but the meanings of his original writing. I have also trimmed off parts that are not essential and swapped a few points around to make it flow better in English.

I have left the translations in black and marked my elaboration or explanation in green.

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I often ponder on what the ultimate value of human civilisation is and what a politician’s true mission is. Through experience, I have learned the answers. I believe that mutualism is the ultimate value and a politician’s primary mission is to draw up and implement policies and strategies that help the society move towards mutualism.

What is mutualism?

Mutualism, in biology, denotes the interactions between two organisms where both parties benefit. When applied to human societies, there are three levels:

The first and the most fundamental level of mutualism is coexistence. It refers to a state where various organisms (including human beings or human organisations) live in the same space without disrupting one another. Once this has been established, there has to be positive reciprocity between individual units or groups. In social psychology, this term refers to responding to a positive action with another positive action. It indicates that individual units would interact and their actions are based on mutual benefit, which will eventually maximise the overall well-being of the whole society. To achieve mutualism, both levels must be reached because different groups can coexist in a society with minimum interactions or even in total isolation from each other. Such a passive state may be sustainable for a while but in the long run, individuals within each group may be susceptible to misunderstanding about the other groups or at the very least miss the opportunity to maximise the overall benefits they could create for each other.

The third level of mutualism is the understanding of the interdependence between individual units and their environment and the fact that every organism is intrinsically linked together. Only when individual units fulfill their potential can the society reach its optimal development and vice versa. Interdependence may also refer to the causality or interrelatedness between events, in other words, karma. Every event can potentially be the cause or the effect of another, just like the butterfly effect in chaos theory. At this level, mutualism points to the Buddhist idea of ‘shared karma’ (共業). Whatever decisions we make or actions we take, everyone else will eventually be affected by those decisions/actions in some way.

To me, mutualism is not simply a biological or social phenomenon but symbolises the ultimate value, a universal ideal and the highest good. In other words, I see mutualism from a philosophical point of view. Different religions or cultures seem to have different names for what they see as the ideal world. Confucianists call it ‘the world of harmony (大同世界)’; Buddhists call it ‘the pure land on earth (人間淨土)’.  Some may emphasise ‘we are the world (四海一家)’; some emphasise compassion (慈悲) and love without discrimination (博愛). Even though the terms are different, they all come down to the same concept, which I call mutualism. When talking about humanity, the core philosophy is mutualism. When asking for peace, the basis is mutualism. Even when we promote democracy, the aim is to achieve mutualism. When I proposed to build Taiwan as a community sharing a common destiny (台灣命運共同體), the idea is also mutualism.

As mutualism is the direction all civilisations should be headed for, the ultimate indicator for the progress of a society would be how much closer it is getting towards the state of mutualism. Human development starts from individual survival, which is largely based on natural instinct and therefore should be neutral. However, after a society is formed, it would be chaotic and irrational if everyone solely focuses on only their own survival and disregards the well-beings of others. Only when the majority act on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit can a society be considered rational and advanced. An advanced society is one that embraces values in line with mutualism and encourages actions that are conducive to creating a mutualistic state. In this regard, each individual has the responsibility to promote mutualism by living its principles and the assessment of a politician’s achievements should also be based on how much he/she facilitates the move towards mutualism.

Mutualism as a winning strategy

In game theory, zero-sum games occur when a participant’s gains are a result of other participant(s)’ equivalent losses. If the total gains are added up and the total losses are subtracted, everything will come to zero. In such a situation, everyone may employ negative tactics to beat the others in order to maximise their own winning. Non-zero sum games are, on the other hand, situations where a player’s gains do not necessarily come from the other(s)’ losses. Players’ interest may overlap and therefore, each participant may be more motivated to work for the others’ interests as a way of benefitting themselves at the same time. As all players are expected to consider each others’ interests and reciprocate appropriately, trust is implied, at least implicitly, in nonzero sum games. They are much more complex than zero-sum games because in order to accommodate so many factors at play, the whole system will inevitably become more and more advanced and sophisticated over time. If a society moves towards zero-sum games, it is going backwards and on its way to destruction. Therefore, to solve problems which the zero-sum mindset cannot solve, we need to work towards a more sophisticated system and turn zero-sum games into nonzero sum games.

Mutualism, in this respect, can be seen as a nonzero sum game and also the ultimate winning strategy. The success of mutualism is not the total of each zero sum game. It will create a win-win situation or even multiple rewards for the whole through changing their strategies. No one should resort to tactics that may win a battle but lose the war.

Here, I need to clarify that mutualism does NOT mean amalgamation or surrender. Before moving towards mutualism, everyone has to be sure that their own survival and existence is not under threat. All individual units must be able to keep their identity, coexist and have positive interactions with the others. Therefore, mutualism certainly includes independence and autonomy. After all, respect for one’s own and the others’ rights to exist is the very basis of coexistence because without individual existence, there would be no one to coexist with in the first place.

Similarly, mutualism does NOT eliminate competitions. The key is to make sure that everyone competes with respect to the others and refrain from using unethical tactics. Mutualism certainly does NOT mean no tension or resistance between individuals or groups because if the focus is solely on a stable appearance and reconciliation, injustice and unfair treatment will never be gone. For example, if someone keeps bullying the other(s) and we keep emphasising reconciliation without dealing with the bullying behaviour, we are in effect condoning bullying.

Mutualism and globalisation

In the climate of globalisation, mutualism is even more important. Otherwise, globalisation will be marred by unfair exploitation. Every time there was a WTO or G8/20 meeting, there were always agricultural or environmental groups protesting outside. Some of the demonstrations may have been a bit extreme but the points they were making cannot be dismissed.

Globalisation has increased the gap in development between the better off and the worse off. Even though the overall wealth has increased, the income distribution has left something to be desired. Governments should adopt policies to support those at a disadvantage and share the benefit of globalisation with them. It is only when the entrepreneurs, the workers and the vulnerable all benefit can the global economic system be sustained.

Another issue the world has to face is the changes in population due to cross-cultural marriages and the employment of foreign workers. This trend has led to countries becoming increasingly multicultural. Such diversity may become the norm and mutualism is, therefore, of greater significance. Take Taiwan as an example, Taiwan has always been an immigrants’ society. Apart from the aboriginal groups, there have been several waves of immigration from China. The island has also been occupied by the Europeans and the Japanese for various lengths in history. In recent years, many have migrated from South East Asia. Official statistics show that approximately 1 in 7 newborns are from transnational marriages. Taiwan will see a much more complex and diverse population makeup. Diversity brings a lot of strengths but also has potential setbacks. For the country to run effectively, developing a mutualistic system is necessary.

Living by the principles of mutualism may be the best contribution Taiwanese can make for the world. If we can resolve the animosity between ethnic groups and between political parties and become an example of mutualism to the others, Taiwan will be much closer to the global standard and can better influence the Chinese people. If Taiwan can overcome all the difficulties and create democracy based on mutualism and cooperation, our success must be able to have profound and positive impact on the Chinese population.

Taiwan was once an economic miracle. We have also created a political miracle by ending one party rule and establishing democracy. If Taiwan can work towards mutualism, another miracle may just be around the corner. The reality is that the whole world has no other options but adopting mutualism. We Taiwanese can learn the necessity of mutualism the hard way, i.e. through conflicts, disruptions or even destruction or we can let our inner wisdom prevail and avoid potential harm by moving towards mutualism early on.

(Coming up next: ‘Mutualism in politics’)

The Story of Frank Hsieh (II)

After the difficult birth of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the working group (n=10) expanded into the founding committee (n=18). Chiang Ching-kuo’s policy was to deny its existence by not giving any acknowledgement but at the same time keeping a close eye on their progress. The founding committee were worried that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would strike with the most trivial excuse or at the slightest disturbance. Therefore, things were kept secret wherever possible. The decision on a date and a venue for the first party convention was made in silence by passing a piece of paper with possible dates/venues on around all the representatives for them to make a choice. They also moved swiftly, hoping that the KMT could not keep up with them. The party convention took place only two days after all the representatives were elected.

On the day of the first party conference, they held their 8^th founding committee meeting at Taipei Provincial Consultative Council (now abolished) Taipei Office in the morning to convince the KMT secret police and investigators that they were still in preparation but went straight to Holiday Inn Asiaworld Taipei (now Sunworld Dynasty Hotel) for their party conference that afternoon. When booking the conference venue, they had to say it was for the Tamkaing University Alumni Association. Otherwise, not only the KMT would have found out but no one would accept their booking. They also finished electing their first party leader the same evening at Yuen Nung Tea Gallery (元穠茶藝館). Luckily, everything went according to plan.

The 1986 Parliamentary Election and the New Culture Theory

Hsieh was a Taipei City Councillor at the time. As he was drafting the party constitution and busy discussing with the subgroup the content of party constitutions and rules, he was not planning to run in the parliamentary election at the end of 1986. Chen Shui-bian, who was not part of the working group on the other hand, was. However, in May 1986, Chen Shui-bian went to prison after he was convicted of libel and refused to appeal because it was a political prosecution. So his wife, Wu Shu-jen ran instead. When there was a rumour that Wu might be rejected for health reason (she was already paralysed from her waist down at that point), Hsieh also registered as a candidate so that at least one of them could run and win. When Wu was given the green light later and they were both in the race, Hsieh made sure that Wu got elected even though he might not. He was already very popular at that time but in every public speech, he always told supporters to put Wu first by voting for her themselves and then get someone else to vote for him if they could.

It was unfortunate that another opposition figure in the same district (Kang Ning-Hsiang) suddenly appealed for support by saying that it would be ‘the last battle in his life’. A lot of supporters felt that Hsieh’s place was guaranteed because of his popularity and therefore switched their support to Kang. Hsieh immediately sensed a loss coming but was adamant not to appeal for support to avoid affecting the number of votes Wu might get. The result was that Wu got elected, Hsieh lost by only 3,000 votes and Kang won by over 70,000 votes. Many in the crowd gathering outside of Hsieh’s campaign headquarter were in tears after they saw the result and many regretted voting for Kang. Hsieh addressed the supporters there at 23:15, thanking them for their support and then went to Wu’s and Kang’s HQs to congratulate them.

Even though Hsieh did not get elected, he gained a lot of respect for being so supportive to Wu and Chen. In fact, Hsieh was also Chen’s defence lawyer in the alleged libel case. It transpired that Wu wanted Chen to appeal and urged Hsieh to persuade Chen when Chen was adamant not to. Chen got angry with Hsieh when Hsieh tried to present alternative options and Wu was not happy that Hsieh did not achieve what she wanted. The couple had really put Hsieh in a difficult position but he put up with it and supported them regardless.

From a historical perspective, one good thing that came of that campaign was the opportunity to present his New Culture Theory for Taiwan (新文化理論) to the public. The theory was based on his observation and analysis of the society such as why Taiwanese struggled to effectively tackle the injustice and social problems they faced. He also proposed solutions to the root of those problems. One of the fundamental problems was the confusion over their own identity and culture as well as the lack of trust and unity after decades of KMT indoctrination and white terror.

On 15^th January 1987, a high profile public debate between him with Jaw Shao-kang about Taiwan’s future took place. While Jaw presented the unification arguments, Hsieh expressed that Taiwan’s future had to be decided by the residents of Taiwan. He believed that Taiwan should apply for UN membership as a means of unifying all Taiwanese because it would highlight to the international community that Taiwan was a sovereign country. It was also the first time he put forward the idea of building ‘Taiwan as a community sharing a common destiny (台灣命運共同體)’ as a solution. These ideas form the foundation or can be seen as the predecessors of the better known ‘mutualism’ and tested over time.

The price of protests

After the DPP was formally established, it was getting harder for the KMT to keep a tight grip. The DPP took on the role of leading movements during that time, demanding more freedom and justice. Hsieh was given the title ‘Director of Social Movements’ within the DPP and coordinated many major demonstrations during that time. This was a task other politicians in his generation would not touch with a barge pole. Chen Shui-bian and Su Tzeng-chang, for example, never participated, let alone coordinated any protest at that time. Not only was it daunting to coordinate thousands of people but most likely to be set up and portrayed as being violent or unstable by the KMT and the media.

The 612 incident during the 3 day protest (10-12 June 1987) against the National Security Act was a perfect example (KMT was going to abolish the martial law and replace it with this act. The problem was that the content of this act was almost identical to the martial law). It might have been the KMT’s attempt to damage the DPP’s reputation and destroy Hsieh’s career because when the protesters arrived at the Parliament on 12 June, the building was already surrounded by the police and members of the Anti-Communism Patriotic Alliance (反共愛國陣線) were all standing BEHIND the police, occupying areas where the government investigators were sitting the day before. All of a sudden, four men from the Anti-Communism Patriotic Alliance started provoking and hitting some of the protesters and the others in the crowd started to retaliate. It soon turned into a huge fight. The KMT also seemed to have arranged for some women and students to shout out insults to the protesters, which led some angry protesters to respond with physical force. As the leader of the protest, Hsieh tried to negotiate the then Deputy Director-General of the National Police Agency and asked him to also calm his people down but it did not work. Hsieh then had end the protest earlier than planned.

After the incident, Hsieh was immediately prosecuted and restricted exit for affray (he himself did not hit anyone) and obstructing official affairs along with two other DPP members and two from the Anti-Communism Patriotic Alliance. The media portrayed the DPP as being vulgar and violent and the reason for the protest was hardly mentioned. Hsieh initially got a three year custodial sentence. This verdict meant that he would be disbarred and not be able to run for any public office. He therefore had to appeal and enter a long legal battle.

During the proceedings, the court suddenly issued a warrant on 18^th August 1987 for his arrest by 30^th August. Because he attended most of the hearings and even when he could not make it, the reasons he provided were all accepted by the court, there was no ground for an arrest. It felt more and more like a set up. As the Speaker of the Council had to be informed before an arrest of any councillor was made when the Council was in session, Hsieh asked the acting speaker to tell him if he heard anything from the police. The acting speaker agreed and informed Hsieh before the police action on 29^th August. When the police was waiting at the front door of his home, Hsieh slipped away through the side door and got into a taxi. He first attended a funeral where the police were watching and then got into another car to be taken to the old building of the Taiwan National University Hospital. This old building was like a huge maze with a lot of exits and was always crowded with outpatients during the day. The police soon lost him after they got into the building. Hsieh used the rest of the day to write a formal complaint and gather relevant paperwork. He turned up at the court the next day (30^th August), making a formal complaint against the judge for the illegal arrest and filing a motion to recuse the judge. As a result, the hearing was adjourned.

In the spring of 1989, before the Taipei City Council went back in session, the court issued another warrant for his arrest. Hsieh had anticipated that the court might try again when the Council was not in session (he would be without protection), so he never stayed at home at night during that time. He always had dinner with his family before finding somewhere safe for the night. On 31^st March 1989, he was in the sitting room after dinner when his wife took the rubbish out. His wife saw four men getting out of a taxi. They stopped her and asked her for ID. She calmly told them that she did not have it with her while trying to work out how to alert Hsieh. A neighbour saw this and called her ‘Mrs. Hsieh’, the four men surrounding her got the confirmation that she was Hsieh’s wife and immediately ran towards Hsieh’s home. She ran after them, worrying about her children and husband’s safety. When the door bell rang, Hsieh looked through the peephole and saw two men outside. He immediately grabbed a jacket and jumped out of the window in his study. The early training in gymnastics enabled him to jump from the first floor window and land on the ground safely. He then ran all the way to a main road and got into a taxi.

As no one answered the door, two men got into his home through the balcony and the other two waited by the front door. When his wife got home, the front door and the window in the sitting room were wide open. Deeply frightened, their two children ran to her, crying and trembling. She stood there, holding both children in her arms, while the four men searched their home and the surrounding area. She questioned them on what ground they broke into her home. They ignored her the whole time and only left when Hsieh rang home to say that he was in safety. Apparently, he first asked the taxi driver stop by a shoe shop before taking him to Keelung because he was still wearing indoor slippers after jumping out of the window. Hsieh chose to stay in Keelung that night because it used to rain a lot there and everyone using umbrellas, hats or raincoats would make it harder for the police to spot him. He stayed in a place owned by the police the next night because he knew that the police never raided business that belonged to one of their own.

Hsieh suspected that the KMT was trying to prevent him from running and winning in the 1989 parliamentary election. Therefore, he tried to delay the proceedings as far as possible to make sure that the matter could not be concluded before the election. To delay his receipt of the written judgement, he cancelled the registration of his law firm and made someone else the publisher for his magazine. He also moved his residence registration to Penghu and lived there for a while because the maximum time to file for an appeal after receiving a verdict/judgement for residents within the island was 10 days but 27 days for those living outside the island.

After witnessing the break-in and his escape, his chatty and lively daughter became quiet and subdued until she was in the university. His son became more clingy and insecure and it took quite a while for him to settle. In fact, his daughter was already bullied at school by children whose parents thought Hsieh was evil for representing the KMT’s ‘enemies’ (i.e. Henry Liu’s widow). They had to change her school as a result. He feels guilty about what his children had to suffer because of his work and takes his family’s privacy seriously. To date, his children have both remained low key and rarely appeared in the media or in public.

The 1989 parliamentary election and the Four Major Priorities

In December 1989, Hsieh got elected as Legislator. The court of appeal sentenced him to 4 years probation for the 612 case on 18^th September 1990 and he got to keep his legal qualification. In the Judgement, the Judge mentioned ‘Hsieh Chang-ting has always endeavoured to promote democracy and political reform and has achieved a great deal to date…’ This was a huge contrast to the initial Judgement from the district court.

During the 1989 campaign, he put forward the Four Major Priorities (四大優先) for the first time. These are Taiwan, the culture, the environment and the disadvantaged/vulnerable. His work in the parliament was genuinely in line with what he proposed in the campaign. While Chen Shui-bian, who was also elected the first time as Legislator in 1989, focused on defence issues and exposing corruption within the military sector (which are most likely to attract media attention), Hsieh spent most of his time on less exciting/sensational issues such as educational reform, media reform and improving parliamentary transparency and accountability. He was one of the first to declare personal assets, campaign and office accounts for public scrutiny when pushing for Public Functionary Disclosure Act and Political Donations Act. When Chen was holding press conferences, exposing suspected corruption, Hsieh was often in his office talking with teachers about banning physical punishments or with media experts and academia about the reform of public television. He believed that education and culture were the foundation of a society. Therefore, he was willing to work on issues least likely to grab public attention and most likely to be neglected by other legislators.

Due to the differences in the issues they presented, Chen’s media time and public support seemed to be gradually surpassing Hsieh’s. No one knows whether Hsieh was bothered but his assistants were certainly worried. They often urged Hsieh to expose corruption but he rarely did. He often reminded his assistants that they could never act on any information until they found corroborating evidence because people’s lives could be seriously affected or even ruined. Many informants did not have the patience to wait for Hsieh’s office to corroborate what they provided and gave the information to other legislators who were willing to go public before checking all the facts instead. Therefore, throughout his time in the parliament as a legislator (1989 to 1996), Hsieh was never a whistle blowing ‘hero’.

After the 2008 presidential election

His political life between 1994 and 2008 was already covered in my previous post. After the 2008 presidential election, he stood down as party leader and was semi-retired for a while. He bought a house in a small village and has been learning to grow organic vegetable there. However, Ma Ying-jeou’s performance was worrying and the DPP had barely 25% of the seats in the Parliament. Hsieh therefore founded the Taiwan Shadow Government as a way of monitoring the government actions. He had become more active in public after May 2009, a year after Ma got in office, supporting DPP campaigns and various initiatives. In May 2010, he organised an ECFA referendum sit-in to highlight the impact of ECFA and the importance of having a referendum for this. The current DPP leader, Tsai Ing-wen, the former leader and premier, Yu Shyi-kun and many other prominent figures (except Su Tzeng-chang) in the green camp participated.

In 2011, Hsieh first proposes that the pro-independence and those who want to keep the status quo should join forces and fight against annexation to China. He later proposes that Taiwanese find their consensus based on the constitution. There are a lot of misunderstandings and confusions over his proposal and some people probably did not even look into it before slamming him because of the sheer mention of the ROC Constitution. I do recommend everyone looking into and thinking more deeply about this idea. He explained in greater details in his interview with Taipei Times (part I, part II). I will write about my own thoughts on this proposal after I have finished posting articles about his philosophy. One may or may not agree with his idea but what most green supporters cannot deny was his sincerity in finding a feasible plan and a practical solution for the whole Taiwan (not just for the DPP) before it achieves full independence.

Throughout his political career, he has been known as someone who is willing to negotiate and make acceptable compromises as opposed to someone who attacks and fights others head-on. For example, when he was the party whip in the parliament, he was more likely to work out what the KMT wanted, their bottom line and patiently negotiate with the KMT party whip whereas Chen Shui-bian often argued when he was the party whip. When he proposed to combine three local elections into one in 2005, the then party leader, Su Tzeng-chang seemed to be offended that Hsieh did not communicate enough with the party. At the time, they were the two most hopeful DPP presidential candidates for the 2008 election and anything between them was examined with a magnifying glass by the press. Hsieh defused this situation by immediately going to see Su in the DPP HQ and leaving the decision to the independent Central Election Commission. Many described Hsieh’s approach as the Taichi style – soft and gentle in his movement but powerful and lasting in its effect.

As a person, he is believed to be more sensitive and less self-centred than other politicians. An example of this was the way he looked after a student leader in his days. When he was in the university, he once joined a student movement. One of the leaders was a student from another university, called Hsu Hsi Tu (許席圖). Hsieh had a lot of respect for Hsu and was impressed by his confident and elegant demeanour. In 1969, at the age of 22, Hsu was arrested and convicted of treason after protesting against the KMT. Hsu was sentenced to life and had a serious mental breakdown after being severely tortured in prison. He was sent to a mental health institution as a result but the time he spent in institution did not count towards his sentence. In other words, if he ever recovered, he still had to serve the time in prison. However, his mental health is so poor that he has never come out of the institution. Hsu seems to have dementia (my guess rather than his actual diagnosis) as he does not remember anything after his arrest, does not recognise anyone and has been incontinent. When people ask him how old he is, he always says ‘22’. The torture must have been so horrifying and traumatising that his mind simply freezes at the age of 22 and blocks out anything that has happened afterwards. Hsu family stopped visiting him long time ago and he had no other important friends but Hsieh always remembered and started visiting him from the 1980s. He took the initiative to get his conviction reversed and became his legal guardian so that he could apply for compensation for the wrongful imprisonment on Hsu’s behalf in 2001. The money has been used to cover Hsu’s needs and Hsieh never benefitted financially for the work he did for Hsu. In January 2003, Hsieh went to see Hsu again, telling him in person that his name was cleared and that he would receive compensation but Hsu simply did not respond. Hsieh could not help but got in tears at that point. He got very sad when he though about what a confident and promising young leader Hsu used to be and how that bright young man’s life was completely ruined by the KMT cruelty.

There are many other anecdotes in various blogs about the bloggers’ encounters with Hsieh which indicate genuine kindness and empathy on his part. Those were clearly not work ‘commissioned’ or prompted by Hsieh or the DPP. It was refreshing to read those stories especially when one simply cannot find the same for other politicians. I don’t intend to collect or translate them all. The point is just that certain characteristics of his were actually very consistent and not ‘manufactured’ for PR. I believe that those traits would have an impact on the way he thinks and shine through his work. The purpose of mentioning them was to make it easier for readers to put his beliefs and actions in context. There are, of course, many other aspects one can write about his life but I’m going to stop here for the moment and move on to his philosophy in my next post.

Summary

1946	Born in ‘the Blacksmith Street’ (now Cheng De Road) in Taipei.
1967	Got into the law school in National Taiwan University
1969	In his third year (a year before graduating), he passed the bar exam to become a lawyer.
1972	Started studying in Kyoto University, Japan
1979	Became a human rights lawyer after the Formosa/Kaohsiung incident
1981	The first time he ran for Taipei City Councillor
1986	The DPP was founded on 28thSeptember 1986.Put forward the New Culture Theory for Taiwan (新文化理論)
1987	Put forward the concept of ‘Taiwan as a Community’ (台灣命運共同體)’, the predecessor of mutualism (共生).
1989	The first time he got elected as a LegislatorProposed ‘the Four Major Priorities’ (四大優先)
1991	Led the ‘UN for Taiwan’ team to New York and proposed to apply for UN membership under the name of Taiwan
1996	Being the running mate of Prof. Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) in the presidential electionAnnounced his decision to run for Kaohsiung mayor and moved to Kaohsiung
1998	Elected as Kaohsiung mayor
2000	Became the DPP leader
2001	The DPP became the largest party in the parliament and the pan-green coalition reached its peak
2002	Re-elected as Kaohsiung mayorHanded over the party leadership to former President Chen Shui-bian even though the parliamentary election in his term as leader was an enormous success
2005	Became the premierProposed ‘Reconciliation and Mutualism’ (和解共生)
2006	Due to the animosity and polarisation in the society, he chosen ‘Love and Trust’ as the theme for his Taipei City mayoral election campaign
2007	Proposed ‘Taiwan Restoration’ (台灣維新) during the primary for the 2008 presidential election
2008	Proposed ‘Happy Economy’ as a way forward for Taiwan during the presidential election campaignBecame the DPP leader the second time after former President Chen Shui-bian stood down as party leader after the terrible defeat in the 2008 parliamentary election
2010	Organised ECFA referendum sit-inDPP Chairperson of the Central the Campaign Committee for the mayoral elections
2011	Urged the pro-independence and status-quo supporters to join forces against annexation/unificationProposed ‘Constitutional Consensus’

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(by TWIMI http://www.twimi.net)

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References

‘A Youngster from the Blacksmith Street: The Story of Frank Hsieh (打鐵街少年: 謝長廷的故事)’ written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2005.

‘A Brave Figure (勇者的身影)’ written by Prof. Chang Yen-Syan (張炎憲), published in 2004.

‘Seeking Success in Adversity (逆中求勝)’ written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2007.

The Story of Frank Hsieh (I)

Frank Hsieh Chang-ting (謝長廷) used to be a human rights lawyer, a Taipei City Councillor, a Legislator, Kaohsiung Mayor, a premier, Democratic Progressive Party leader and the 2008 presidential candidate. He has been known as a calm and intelligent strategist and one of the most eloquent speakers in Taiwanese politics, with a unique sense of humour. He is probably best remembered for the Kaohsiung miracle he made happen when he was the mayor. This is a summary of his life story. I am aware that I promised a ‘short’ biography. I should have made it clear that it was short in comparison to a book but not necessarily a short post. I do apologise.

Family background and childhood

Frank Hsieh was born in May 1946, a few months after WWII ended and less than a year before the 228 massacre, in ‘the Blacksmith Street’ (now Cheng De Road) in Taipei City, Taiwan. He has an older brother, two younger sisters and a younger brother. His ancestor who first settled in Taiwan was a high level official in Manchu Dynasty, stationed in Penghu and Tamsui. The family later married members from aboriginal (Pingpu, one of the Austronesian groups) and Haka families.

His father, Hsieh Jen Shou (謝仁壽), was a Chinese medicine doctor and very into poetry and classics after being brought up by his grand uncle, Hsieh Tsun-Wu (謝尊五), a well known poet in Taiwan. As a child, Hsieh enjoyed reading and writing poems with his father, which made him very close to his father. Before he reached school age, he had already read a lot of classic texts in literature and history. Because his father received Japanese education and was very fluent in Japanese, Hsieh was exposed to Japanese culture and language very early in his life.

Chinese medicine doctors were well respected and the pay was decent in the old days. Therefore, his family was not particularly well off but financially secure. However, this changed when his father got into a huge debt after the friend his father went into business with ran off with all the funds. Hsieh was about 12 when it happened. He and his siblings all had to work in their childhood, selling food and lanterns etc. in order to survive. Having to work and sometimes starve was not the worst part of family debt. People’s dismissive attitude, the embarrassment and the verbal abuse from those to whom they owed money were harder to take, especially for a child. In junior high, Hsieh threw himself into gymnastics as a respite and often stayed at school for practice after classes. By the time he noticed, he was falling behind academically and could not get into the senior high he wanted. However, his gymnastics teacher did not give up on him and for his encouragement, Hsieh studied hard and got into a good vocational high school.

University life: Finding direction

While in vocational school, he had to work part time to pay his own tuition fees and cover living expenses. He spent a lot of time after school training in gymnastics, hoping to get recommended for a place in National Taiwan Normal University, a teachers university where fees were all paid by the government in exchange for students’ future service as a school teacher. He did get a gold medal in a national competition. However, after watching a tape on the performance of the Japanese champion in a world competition, he realised he would never reach that level no matter how hard he trained. Therefore, at pain, he decided to give up this dream. Worrying about his future, he decided to take the national university entrance exam and get into a university. At that time, it was very difficult for vocational high students to do well in the university entrance exam because of the huge differences between senior high and vocational high school curricula. The fact that he spent most of his spare time on gymnastics for the first two years of vocational high school made his goal even more unattainable. He worked extremely hard to catch up academically in his final year and managed to get into the law school in National Taiwan University (NTU).

To make up for what he missed in teenage years, he studied hard and read a lot around different subjects such as sociology, history and philosophy. He has kept up with his reading habit since. Outside the lectures and all the reading, he also joined the debate society. He had been very sharp and articulate since childhood. The debate society definitely suited him. Apparently, he already ‘duelled’ with Ma Ying-jeou and Wu Den-yih in their student days in that society.

University was an important turning point for him because he found direction and regained confidence. The insecurity stemmed from his earlier experience was gradually behind him. He also met his wife, Yu Fang-chih (游芳枝), a bright and lovely woman, in the university, as the two of them were course mates. He passed the bar exam for lawyers in his third year (university takes four years in Taiwan). In that particular year, there were only seven places and over 1,000 took the exam. Hsieh passed with the highest mark. Upon graduation, he also got the highest mark in the entrance exam for the Masters in Law run by the NTU law school. He decided to do his compulsory military service before entering postgraduate study and he managed to pass the bar exam for judges while doing the military service.

Studying in Japan: Formation of philosophical framework and political beliefs

Given his father’s influence, Hsieh did very well in Japanese classes for his first degree and felt drawn to the idea of studying in Japan. A year into his Masters study in NTU, he got a full scholarship from the Japanese government, administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology. So in 1972, at the age of 26, Hsieh set off for Japan for a Masters course and doctorate study. Given his longstanding interest in humanities and feeling inspired by lectures on analytical philosophy during undergraduate study, he decided to do Philosophy of Law in Japan. He got engaged before he left for Japan and got married a year later. The couple lived in Japan afterwards but his wife went back to Taiwan to give birth to their daughter. The family was reunited shortly after and his wife recalled the time in Japan as the happiest time in her life after marrying Hsieh.

His first choice for a place to study in Japan was the University of Tokyo, ranked top in Asia and known as the traditional training ground for government civil servants. However, they refused to take anyone from Taiwan in that year after the Liu-Yen incident. (Two Taiwanese human right activists got arrested by the KMT government. As they were registered as postgraduate students in the University of Tokyo at the time, a group of students there protested on campus against the KMT. The University then decided to reject all Taiwanese applicants in the year.) So he went to Kyoto University, rival to the University of Tokyo, the traditional cradle for opposition scholars and critics, instead. Hsieh’s overall experience in Japan set the foundation for his future philosophical stance and political views.

On the first day he arrived at Kyoto University, there was a student protest on campus. This sight shocked him because he had not seen anything like it in Taiwan. Nevertheless, he kept an open mind about his new experience. It happened to be a time when there were a lot of social movements and protests in Japan. The students he shared an office with often talked about their views on those social issues. He then gradually saw the rationale behind social movements and the necessity for street protests. Hsieh also met students who supported Taiwanese independence. Like many other Taiwanese students abroad, he got the chance to read materials the KMT banned in Taiwan, to hear voices the KMT desperately tried to silence and consequently to reconsider his own political views.

In terms of philosophy, he was influenced by his supervisor, Professor Shinpei Kato (加藤新平), a prominent Japanese scholar in philosophy of law and an expert of Immanuel Kant’s work. He was also heavily influenced by Professor Yozo Watanabe (渡邊洋三), a keen populist, even though he only read Prof. Watanabe’s work but never studied under his supervision or attended his teaching. He also paid a lot of attention to the Japanese society, learned how Japan endeavoured to live in harmony with the nature and protect their historical and cultural heritage. He applied what he learned and observed to political and social issues Taiwan and his idea/theory of the New Culture (新文化) for Taiwan started to form then.

The former vice chancellor of Kyoto University, Professor Shigeaki Tanaka (田中成明) recalled Hsieh as being academically brilliant when he was studying in Japan. Professor Tanaka just finished studying in the United States and returned to Kyoto to teach when he met Hsieh. He remembered Hsieh being very sharp and knowledgeable in group discussions and seminars and Hsieh’s dissertation draft was already almost perfect. Had Hsieh gone down the academic career path, he could have been an excellent academia. However, life took another turn for Hsieh and forced him to end his academic pursuit prematurely.

Return to Taiwan

During his doctorate study, his father became terminally ill and was diagnosed of liver cancer. Therefore, in 1976, shortly after he finished all the taught component of the doctorate programme and before he could finish writing up his thesis, he returned to Taiwan. He started working as a lawyer upon his return and soon got a good reputation. He initially specialised in commercial law and a lot of the major companies were his clients. He was extremely well paid. His annual income could go as high as NT$ 5 million when the majority earned less than NT$50,000. However, his empathy for workers and those less well off still shined through his legal practice. In contrast to typical corporate lawyers, his work was respected and appreciated by a lot of factory workers because when he represented the creditors for companies which shut down with no warning (some cases might have involved fraudulent bankruptcy), he always made sure that a fair share of money from selling the company’s stock or assets was reserved for the workers. As a voluntary lawyer for the Consumers’ Foundation, he also wrote a lot of articles, supporting PCB poisoning victims in the 1970s.

In the 1970s, Yao Chia-wen, Lin I-hsiung, Chen Ji-cheng and Chang Te-ming founded two organisations which became the cradle for human rights lawyers and activists who challenged the KMT rule and heavily influenced Taiwanese politics. One was the Taiwan Law Society and the other was its practice arm: the Legal Aid (平民法律服務中心), offering free legal services to those who could not afford a lawyer. Immediately after Hsieh returned from Japan, he joined both the Taiwan Law Society and the Legal Aid where he met other young lawyers who supported democracy and human rights, including Chen Shui-bian and Su Tzeng-chang.

Becoming a human rights lawyer

On 10^th December 1979, Formosa/Kaohsiung Incident broke out and a lot of opposition leaders and activists were arrested and tried in the martial court. Hsieh served as Yao Chia-wen’s defence lawyer and joined the defence team for the activists. As soon as he took on the case, like the other lawyers, he and his family started being tailed by the secret police and receiving threatening phone calls. Those lawyers were not put off by this and worked well together to prepare their defence. Even though all the accused were sentenced to jail, their addresses and the lawyers’ arguments in court made a lasting impression to the society affected many people’s views. Despite the pressure and harassment, Hsieh recalled that period as the warmest memory of his political life because all of them were simply acting on their belief in justice and democracy. No one was suspicious of each other’s motivation and there was certainly no faction issue.

After the Formosa Incident, he established himself as a defence lawyer and representative for political dissidents and those who were oppressed by the KMT. For example, in 1981, he started representing Dr. Chen Wen-chen’s family after his mysterious death. After Henry Liu, a critic of the KMT and the author of an unauthorised biography of former KMT president, Chiang Ching-kuo, was assassinated, Hsieh one of the legal representatives of Liu’s widow when she sued the ROC government in the civil court. When the KMT raided pro-democracy magazines in the 1980s, he often rushed there to argue with the KMT secret police and save as many copies as he could.

Entry into politics

As most of the opposition leaders were in jail, their family members ran for the 1980 local election to carry on their work and most of them got elected. So when the 1981 city/county council election came up, the defence lawyers felt that it was their responsibility to take part. Hsieh felt that he should try to make positive changes to the society and try for an opportunity to implement the New Culture theory for Taiwan which he had been working on since he was studying in Japan. Therefore, he and Chen Shui-bian both decided to run for Taipei City Council and got elected.

Hsieh soon became one of the most popular speakers in the opposition camp. Compared to the others, his strong suit is to convey serious or complex social or political issues through plain language, stories and examples that most people can easily relate to in a humorous way. He is one of the best in defusing a hostile audience or their questions by quick wit.

The issues the opposition politicians were most vocal about at the time were the lift of martial law, direct mayoral elections, freedom of expression and freedom to form political parties etc. Hsieh also spent much time on the environment and the preservation of cultural and historical heritage. He paid a lot of attention to pollutions, tax reform and the rights of workers and women.

Founding the Democratic Progressive Party

While working as a defence lawyer for the Formosa Incident trial, Hsieh started thinking more deeply about Taiwan’s political development. He came to the conclusion that the chance of Taiwanese starting a radical revolution was very slim unless there was another incident like the 228 Massacre acting as a catalyst. Therefore, the most logical step to push the opposition movement to the next level would be setting up another political party. Another lawyer, Yu Ching (尤清), had already brought up the idea of a new party and Hsieh followed up with some possible strategies.

Under the KMT imposed martial law, it was illegal to have any political party other than the KMT. Apart from the Formosa Incident, the arrest of Lei Chen, who tried to found the Chinese Democratic Party and advocated for the name of the country to be changed to ‘Chinese Republic of Taiwan’ indicated how much the KMT feared the opposition getting organised and gaining momentum. However, the KMT had to allow some local elections probably because of the pressure from the international community about Taiwan’s human rights and the need to distinguish themselves from the communist regime in China by creating the image of allowing democracy. Those elections provided the opportunity for the opposition to get together and set up all sorts of local support groups and organisations. Hsieh was instrumental in organising the major groups/associations then, which facilitated the publications of articles or magazines advocating for human rights and democracy and setting up local organisations which mobilised supporters.

The working group for setting up a new party was formed in secrecy in the early spring of 1986. They usually held their meetings in Chou Ching-yu’s home. Within the working group, Hsieh was responsible for drafting the party constitution. A subgroup of three (Fu Cheng 傅正, Yu Ching and Huang Er Shiuan, 黃爾璇) worked on the declaration and party rules. To minimise the risk of their work being leaked to the KMT, none of them brought their assistant to the meetings and they all had to share minute/note taking and typing etc. During that time, Hsieh often worried about being arrested or assassinated by the KMT secret police. Therefore, he had got his will ready, taken care of his finance and asked a trusted colleague to pass everything on to his family if anything happened to him.

When he felt that the right time was coming and they were ready, he and Yu agreed that the conference to form and launch the party must be somewhere with a big crowd. Hsieh thought that a venue like the Grand Hotel would serve the purpose. He thought that the nominating convention of the opposition association on Sunday, 28^th September, Confucius birthday, also known as the Teacher’s Day in Taiwan would be a good time. A national holiday falling on a Sunday meant that the next day would also be a day off. Hsieh believed that the KMT would feel relatively complacent and not react quickly enough to any sudden change of the situation. Therefore, as soon as the convention started, Hsieh and Yu asked to add setting up a party to the agenda and proposed an immediate action. Most of the attendees agreed and signed the document. They also added the discussion on the party name and constitution to the afternoon agenda. The name ‘Democratic Progressive Party’ proposed by Hsieh was accepted by most of the participants. So at 18:06 on 28^th September 1986, the DPP was born and the KMT was caught off guard like Hsieh predicted. According to a biography of former President Lee Teng-hui, Chiang Ching-kuo did not speak for a few days after it happened and no one from the Investigation Bureau dared to go and see him, knowing how furious he was.

(To be continued)