Chen Chu: Someone to watch

Chen Chu has racked up an impressive number of accomplishments recently. Having won election as mayor of Kaoshiung, Taiwan's second largest city, by a mere 1,120 votes in 2006, she did not have the greatest mandate. Furthermore, the fortunes of her party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), began to decline soon after. The Kuomintang (KMT) won 71% of the seats during the 2008 legislative election and Ma Ying-jeou was elected president with 58% of the vote. With the KMT in control of the legislature and the government, former president Chen Shui-bian facing corruption charges, and the DPP preoccupied with internal squabbling, the KMT seemed to have the initiative. Hau-Lung-pin had succeeded Ma as mayor of Taipei, so four of the five largest population centers were under KMT control, and party bigwigs were likely licking their lips with anticipation at sweeping up the last DPP holdout in the municipal election scheduled for 2010.

However, recent events have thrown a spanner into those plans. While in China to discuss its participation in the 2009 World Games held in Kaoshiung, Chen made headlines by referring to President Ma by his title in public, although Chinese censors immediately blocked the offensive sound from the broadcast. This stood in stark contrast to then KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung and former vice president and current chairman emeritus Lien Chan, who had dutifully used the term Mr. Ma to avoid distressing their hosts during previous visits, since the Communist dictatorship does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. I personally suspect that the real reason why Wu and Lien refused to say President Ma is that they each felt that it should be President Wu and President Lien, not President Ma. The KMT leadership's blatant kowtowing to the Chinese government must have been a bit hard to swallow for much of the party since Chen received praise across party lines. Worse, the Chinese leadership apparently decided that the brief reference to the existence of an independent Taiwan was not worth the bad publicity of boycotting the games, so Chen was not punished. In fact, the games were a huge success and brought in a significant amount of revenue for the city.

This would have been an isolated incident if Typhoon Morakot had not shown the incompetence of the Ma administration as the cabinet dithered over whether to allow countries other than China to give aid. The death toll passed 700 and the government's tardy emergency response caused such a drastic fall in Ma's approval rating that he implemented a cabinet reshuffle, replacing Premier Liu Chao-shiuan with Wu Den-yih, despite the fact that Liu had been appointed premier because of his supposedly vast experience. Since the typhoon had primarily struck the southern part of Taiwan, near Kaoshiung, Chen cooperated with the mayors of six other municipalities to invite the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan to hold a series of public prayers. Although there were fears that trade deals with China would be affected, the Dalai Lama's visit was uneventful, and trade negotiations continued uninterrupted. One can judge people as much by their enemies as by their friends, and the Chinese dictatorship's unrelenting attacks on a man who has forsworn violence and does not even seek independence for Tibet, just increased autonomy and religious freedom, does not indicate a tolerance for other viewpoints.

Furthermore, while Kaoshiung's two MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) lines are considerably fewer than Taipei's six lines, both were introduced during Chen's administration and they have been running smoothly, unlike the Neihu line which opened during Hau's administration and has been plagued with glitches.

Following the crushing double defeat in 2008, the DPP seemed to be on the ropes. All of the leaders from the martial law period had left the party, abandoned politics or were keeping a low profile, while the next generation of standard bearers lacked national name recognition. Worse, the DPP seemed limited to organizing street protests and publicly criticizing the policies of the Ma administration but had few practical options. However, increasing disillusionment with the government and a skillful handling of a complex situation have enabled Chen Chu to stand out as the DPP leader to watch.

Instead of looking forward to the 2010 mayoral election in Kaoshiung, the KMT leadership should be worrying about the presidential election in 2012.