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▎ ke wenzhe (center) walks out of the court accompanied by people's party legislator huang kuo-chang (right). image source: taiwan media

editor's note

on the evening of august 31, ko wen-je was arrested for being involved in a political donation fraud scandal and a case of profiteering from jinghua city. he was released two days later. he said that he "suffered oppression and abuse within two days." taiwanese media commented that "ko wen-je's case is a great gift to lai qingde." within three months of lai qingde taking office, former taoyuan mayor zheng wencan, kuomintang legislator ying xiaowei and other politicians were detained one after another. why is this a great gift to lai qingde? will the forces of cross-strait friendship be affected? phoenix da cankao specially invited guo xueyun, a senior cross-strait media person, to interpret this incident for readers.

key points

1. lai ching-te frequently took action within three months of taking office, including the "blue bird operation" protest, the detention of "tsai ing-wen's confidant" zheng wencan, the search of dpp legislator lin yi-jin, and the suspected bribery of kmt legislator ying hsiao-wei. his "sweeping" behavior earned him a reputation of "investigating corruption and fighting corruption with an iron face" within 100 days.

2. the relatively friendly voices in public opinion towards the people's party in may and june this year are now almost gone. not only has the people's party's support rate dropped, but ko wen-je's incident also reflects the shaking of the "blue-white alliance" in taiwan's legislature. if the people's party continues to decline and the kuomintang cannot play a cohesive role, then the situation that the blue camp hopes for "lai ching-te to be controlled by the legislature" may gradually disappear.

3. although ke wenzhe has fallen from grace, the pragmatic forces he represents, which do not approve of the dpp's "extreme anti-china" stance, are still there. the most concrete example is that the "blue bird movement" that the dpp is now fully promoting is a far cry from the "sunflower movement" of the past. in addition, during the olympics, many taiwanese netizens gave positive comments on quan hongchan; recently, "black myth: wukong" has also been very popular among taiwanese gamers. if there is a third option other than blue and green, some young people will consider switching sides.

author: guo xueyun, a senior media person from both sides of the taiwan strait

compile 丨hou yichao ji wanqi

ko wen-je is gone, but lai ching-te is safe?

on the evening of august 31, the taipei district prosecutors office detained and denied access to visitors to people's party chairman ko wen-je on charges of accepting bribes and seeking personal gain in violation of his duties. ko wen-je had already been caught up in a storm over fake political donations, and now with the jinghua city profiteering case, it has only been more than half a year since he received 3.69 million voter support in the election at the beginning of the year, until he was handcuffed.

(brief introduction: jinghua city is a well-known shopping mall in taipei city. its floor area ratio skyrocketed during ko wen-je's tenure, so ko wen-je was suspected of profiteering from the industry.)

▎ when the news of ke wenzhe's release came out, his supporters cheered outside the court. source: united news network

in a forum with many young people in taiwan, there is a dispute between the two factions of "is it a political conspiracy" and "if you don't want others to know, then don't do it yourself". a poll released by taiwan's "formosa daily" on august 26 showed that the dissatisfaction of taiwanese people with the people's party is as high as 65.3%, the highest since the people's party was founded in 2019.

the people's party is highly tied to the halo of ke wenzhe himself, and ke wenzhe's supporters are called "little grass". "we are little grass, and we want to become strong grass in the wind" was once the propaganda of the people's party. the supporters of the people's party once called themselves "democratic little grass" and a force that could supervise after the blue and green parties became interest groups.

now,amid the voices that "ko wen-je is profiting from business", such a moral halo no longer exists, and "the ko wen-je case is a big gift to lai ching-te" - this is the evaluation of the taiwanese media.

how many things have happened in the three months since lai ching-te took office?

just a few days before ko wen-je was detained, zheng wencan, former chairman of the straits exchange foundation, who was accused of taking bribes, was ordered to release on bail of nt$28 million. reporters waited at the taoyuan district court for zheng wencan to appear. a few hours later, major taiwanese media described him as "looking haggard and having lost 10 kilograms."

three months after lai ching-te took office, zheng wencan lost 20 kilograms, and in these short 100 days, taiwan's political arena was bustling almost every day.

first, after may 20, the three parties’ legislators clashed in the legislature over the passage of the reform bill jointly promoted by the kuomintang and the people’s party. the green camp even mobilized civil groups to launch a protest called “blue bird action.” the “blue bird” fire continued to burn until mid-june.

on july 11, zheng wencan, the former mayor of taoyuan and considered a "confidant of tsai ing-wen," was detained. on august 19, gao hongan, the former mayor of hsinchu (also the only local county and city head of the people's party), was sentenced to seven years in prison in the first instance for fraudulently claiming assistant fees. on august 21, lin yi-jin, a dpp legislator, was searched for suspected fraudulently claiming assistant fees. lin yi-jin was considered a "disciple of lai ching-te." on august 29, ying hsiao-wei, a kmt legislator, was detained for suspected bribery in the jinghuacheng case.

▎ zheng wencan left taoyuan district court on the 28th. source: huanqiu.com

on august 31, ke wenzhe was detained by the prosecutors. ke wenzhe called it political persecution, but even many former "little grass" did not buy this statement.

the targets of lai qingde's series of "shooting" after he took office included tsai ing-wen's people, "political enemies" such as the kuomintang and the people's party, as well as lai qingde's own confidants. regardless of whether there is an inside story or not, lai qingde has earned a reputation in taiwan's public opinion field for his first 100 days in office as a "corruption investigator with an iron face and impartiality."

taiwan’s public opinion has gone from making political associations in the beginning to making so many that the only thing left is the evaluation that “all crows are black”.

the supporters of the people's party are mostly young people who "follow public opinion". the number of their "die-hard supporters" is far less than that of the kuomintang and the democratic progressive party. in may and june, there were many relatively friendly voices in public opinion towards the people's party, but now they are almost nonexistent.

with ko wen-je's incident, what can be seen in the short term is that the "blue-white alliance" in the legislature has been shaken. if the people's party continues to decline and the kuomintang is unable to play a cohesive role, the situation that the blue camp originally expected, that "lai ching-te is controlled by the legislature," will no longer exist.

lai ching-te, can you rest easy?

whether lai ching-te can rest easy or not, we need to look back and see why the ko wen-je phenomenon occurred.

to put it bluntly, young people have a need to "not vote for the kmt, and the dpp is also disappointing." if the blue and green parties were to face off today, most young people would choose the dpp; but if there were a third option today, some young people would consider switching.

the most specific example is that with the full support of the democratic progressive party and lai ching-te, the energy of the "blue bird movement" is far inferior to that of the "sunflower movement" in the past. even in taiwan's forums, the term "blue bird" has become negative and sarcastic.

during the olympics, many taiwanese netizens gave positive comments about quan hongchan; recently, black myth: wukong became a hit among taiwanese gamers.this means that young people in taiwan do not buy into the dpp’s “extreme anti-china” approach.

▎ taiwan's china times reported on the game "black myth: wukong"

in taiwanese society, "not wanting to be unified" is a consensus, "watching tiktok" is a consensus, and "wanting to play monkey king" is also a consensus among many people.most taiwanese people do not completely deny things about the mainland. they have different attitudes and acceptance levels towards "political china" and "china in life". lai ching-te's "anti-china" color is too heavy. when young taiwanese have "pragmatic needs" for mainland china, the dpp's response often appears old-fashioned, unpleasant, and out of date.

this kind of "oldness" used to allow ko wen-je to find loopholes and gather a group of young people who "don't like the political correctness created by the democratic progressive party in recent years", and it may also be possible in the future.

ko wen-je was once deified because many people were tired of the "mainstream political correctness" formulated by the democratic progressive party, and because ko wen-je could say things that many people wanted to say but "dared not say" due to the atmosphere.

ko wen-je has fallen from the altar, but people's fickleness and desire to "find a new leader of a third force other than blue and green" have not disappeared.