A few days ago I remarked that the “blue” party in Taiwan (centered around

Chiang Kai-shek’s old Kuomintang) was the “daddy” party, like the

Republicans in the U.S., while President Chen Shui-bian’s “greens” were more

of a “mommy” party, like our own dear Dems. I was working from the fact

that the “blues” are more closely associated with business and the military,

while the “greens” tend to favor things like gay marriage and environmental

conservation. For a much more nuanced analysis, here is an American living

in Taiwan:

“Derb—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.”