Hotter than Hillary and Barack

Think the US election is heated? Sure, the rallies of Hillblazers and Mommas for Obama have made a fuss with their picketing and pontificating. However, the bickering translates to no more than a whisper on the global scale. Certainly, Hillary and Barack have drawn attention abroad. But I’m not sure if the American election has had as much international influence as Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election.

How can something so distant continue to affect those who immigrated from China or Taiwan years (even decades) ago? Well, the politics are carved into the very roots of these people – literally. Though Taiwan has considered itself independent for some time (adopting the name “Republic of China (ROC)”), China still considers Taiwan to be part of the mainland.

This upcoming presidential election can alter the fate of Taiwan’s national identity.

The two major parties in the election are the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP believes in independence from China while the KMT believes in maintaining the status quo between China and Taiwan and keeps in sight the possibility of eventual reunification with China.

In the January 12 elections for legislation, the KMT won 81 out of 113 seats. The DPP had been the ruling party since 2000, when President Chen Shui-Bian won his first term in office. Before 2000, the KMT had been in power in Taiwan for over 50 years.

So the KMT is back. And all that is left is the popular vote for president. The choices? Frank Hsieh, the chairman of the DPP or Ma Ying-Jeou, the former chairman of the KMT.

The positive and negative reactions to the actual election are as contentious and as palpable as the opinions regarding nominees – even in the Triangle’s Chinese communities. So much that no one wants to talk about the upcoming Taiwanese election.

Most of the Taiwanese I spoke with in the Triangle refused to be quoted. One smiled and walked away, shaking his head as soon as I used the words “blog” and “election” in the same sentence. Only one woman, a Triangle shop owner, agreed to answer questions, albeit anonymously.

“It’s a very sensitive issue…these politics,” she said.

If people knew about her political views she would lose business, she said.

She met a Chinese girl last week who was discouraged about school. The girl related that two Taiwanese students had transferred into one of her classes. After the professor introduced them as students from Taiwan, Chinese students in the class immediately criticized the teacher’s introduction. The professor should have introduced the new students as Chinese, they said.

It shouldn’t be like this – not in America, the shop owner said.