From a reader: “As a Republican economist living in Taiwan, I think your
comparison of the KMT and Republican Party is rather far-fetched. One’s
views toward China largely determine whether one is Green or Blue, so on
economic issues there is more difference within the parties than between the
parties. The only exception is trade with China and that is no more an
economic question than trade with the USSR during the Cold War was an
economic question.
“The environmental policies of the DPP central government and the KMT Taipei
City government are equally annoying. One way in which the KMT is similar
to the Democratic Party is that government bureaucrats, educators and the
press are as strongly KMT here as their American counterparts are
Democratic. For this reason, it is very hard to imagine that the DPP could
successfully cheat in an election or fake an assassination. At least 3/4 of
the vote counters are Blue.
“I think the reason that the Blues and the Democrats both attract
bureaucrats, teachers and reporters is that like Democrats, the Blues tend
to believe in the superiority of experts and have a strong Chinese respect
for education and the ability to pass academic tests. Blues like to
stereotype Greens as uneducated. Greens are mainly Taiwanese (often small
businessmen) who feel disadvantaged within the Mandarin-Chinese education
system and their sceptical view of intellectuals reminds me of American
Republicans.
“As far as social policy is concerned, Pres Chen often panders to left-wing
PC groups, but the younger generation in the KMT, the Taipei mayor for
example, are trying hard to keep up with him on this front. Since the
average Green voter is more rural than the average Blue voter, they often
have more traditional values. Pres Chen can officiate at gay marriages
because the average green voter has never met a gay person and has no more
opinion on gay marriage than he has on inter-species marriages among zoo
animals.
“Although I prefer some of the Blue policies and many of my friends are
Blues, I tend to lean Green. Partly this is because I am very suspicious of
China, partly it may be the influence of my Green Taiwaneese wife, but I
think mainly it is because unlike the Republican ‘daddy’ party, the KMT
really is domineering and paternalistic.
“Both the Republicans and the Blues believe strongly in absolute moral
values, but Republicans think that the man on the street usually understands
these values better than high-falutin intellectuals and government experts.
The Blues think these moral absolutes are understood mainly by the
government and the properly-educated classes and that the unwashed masses
have to be force-fed these truths.”