Taiwan Quick Take: Editorial version

正名運動 Name Rectification

This is a losing issue for the KMT, and they aren't helping themselves by talking about it. They should let A-bian quietly do it, make very little protest. They certainly shouldn't talk about how they'd change the post office name back. This will hurt them.

國民黨黨內狀況 KMT Internal Situation

Ma has moved too fast by announcing his candidacy; he's lost the moral high ground. When he called for A-bian to step down, even taking out an ad, he insisted the indictment was a very good reason for a resignation; by declaring his own candidacy in identical circumstances, he's gonna lose a lot with the non-hardcore voters.

He won't be able to find a peaceful apartment in Kaohsiung, so I'm not sure why he wants to move down there. He's going to end up with protesters all over him. It's not a face-saving plan.

Honorary KMT Chairman Lien Chan is flying out of the bat cave to try and hold the KMT together and prevent any sort of Wang/Ma related infighting. I would almost think Wang is best off sitting this fight out, begin a loyal party member, giving his warnings quietly on the inside, wait for Ma to loose in '08, grab power then and force the KMT to really become Taiwan-oriented.

還黨產於民 Return KMT party property to the people

The KMT has a lot of party property that they obtained either from the Japanese government, gave or sold to themselves from the Taiwan provincial government, confiscated from private citizens or used other special privileges to obtain. The more people know about it, and the fact that Lee Teng-hui, Lien Chan and Ma Ying-jeou have all made great effort to sell off as much of it as possible to their friends before a DPP legislative majority or referendum could force them to give it back to the government.

I hope people demand the KMT return all the cash they've made from selling these assets to the national coffers. It will never really replace the original resources including companies and land, but it's all people can hope for.