More terrorism -- this time from the "One China" camp
Taiwan President Chen Shui Bian and VP Annette Lu have both been shot on the eve of the country's election. Fortunately both will survive. Chen was shot in the stomach and Lu was hit in the knee. I'm not sure if they were both hit by the same bullet.
Chen now looks to lock up a "sympathy" vote and partially as a result of the assassination attempt will most likely win what was a neck-and-neck race between pro-autonomy Chen and the KMT candidate Lien Chan, whose party supports maintaining the status quo in the interest of business and trade relations.
Meanwhile, we've been having a fierce debate in Hong Kong about the "One China" principle. I've been outwardly supporting direct elections, and politicians like Martin Lee who was spit at when he returned from a recent trip to Washington to speak to Congress about the state of democratization and civil rights in Hong Kong. It's the same type of people who would shoot at President Chen that would also pull something similar in Hong Kong.
My question is: what are they so afraid of that they have to resort to assassination? Why can't they just let history play itself out. Its' going to anyway. If Martin Lee gets killed, he would be martyrized, and the pace of political reform would move faster than ever. There's nothing Beijing can do to stop the populace from wanting to make their own decisions, and there's nothing their fanatical supporters can do either. It's clear, both in the case of Taiwan and of Hong Kong that any instability is caused by the government not accepting the will of the people.
The assassin has not been caught.
Meanwhile, on a somewhat unrelated topic, what the hell is wrong with people in the Philippines? You think they would have learned their lesson with Estrada.
Chen now looks to lock up a "sympathy" vote and partially as a result of the assassination attempt will most likely win what was a neck-and-neck race between pro-autonomy Chen and the KMT candidate Lien Chan, whose party supports maintaining the status quo in the interest of business and trade relations.
Meanwhile, we've been having a fierce debate in Hong Kong about the "One China" principle. I've been outwardly supporting direct elections, and politicians like Martin Lee who was spit at when he returned from a recent trip to Washington to speak to Congress about the state of democratization and civil rights in Hong Kong. It's the same type of people who would shoot at President Chen that would also pull something similar in Hong Kong.
My question is: what are they so afraid of that they have to resort to assassination? Why can't they just let history play itself out. Its' going to anyway. If Martin Lee gets killed, he would be martyrized, and the pace of political reform would move faster than ever. There's nothing Beijing can do to stop the populace from wanting to make their own decisions, and there's nothing their fanatical supporters can do either. It's clear, both in the case of Taiwan and of Hong Kong that any instability is caused by the government not accepting the will of the people.
The assassin has not been caught.
Meanwhile, on a somewhat unrelated topic, what the hell is wrong with people in the Philippines? You think they would have learned their lesson with Estrada.
Comments
Last year, she was there when SARS broke out, this year, this happens. Oy.
As you said, all this is going to do is galvanize Chen's supporters.
Maybe the shooter did it for Jodie Foster.