It's Party Time!--Overseas Activists in the ROC's Elections

There are those who say that the only people who would spend over US$1000 for an airline ticket and a week or two of vacation just to cast a vote in this year's presidential election must be either "political fanatics" or "rich guys with nothing better to do with their time." Is that really true?

A group of more than 80 KMT campaign workers from overseas provided welcome support in last year's legislative elections. The photo shows them paying their respects before a statue of Chiang Kai-shek. （photo courtesy of the KMT Department of Overseas Affairs）

Those willing to return to Taiwan to vote or even to work on campaigns constitute only a small proportion of all overseas Chinese, yet they have created quite a stir. Why have they come back across to the ocean to join in electoral battles? What has been their impact in Taiwan?

In the chilly days of January, the situation in Taiwan's presidential election remains, as the Chinese proverb has it, "like a duck swimming"--all the action is going on below the surface. But sparks are already flying in overseas Chinese communities.

On January 13, as association of alumni of Taiwan universities living in southern California held a seminar in Los Angeles on the upcoming elections for president and vice president in the ROC. Over 100 overseas Chinese attended.

At the seminar, Tseng Hui-kuang, a supporter of the ticket of incumbent president Lee Teng-hui and his running mate Lien Chan (from the KMT), said that the best way to consolidate Taiwan's current success and future development, and to get the world to affirm Taiwan's existence, is to vote for Lee. In Tseng's eyes, Lee has the strongest academic background as well as the most practical experience. Huang Kuo-chang contended that Lee has done much to sweep the influence of money and organized crime out of the government, and that his reforms have paved the way for a bright future for the ROC.

Their comments drew sharp rebuttals from supporters of opposing candidates, and the seminar quickly heated up.

In the middle of last December, a group of veteran KMT members, with an average of over 20 years in the party, gathered in front of the Eastern United States branch of the KMT (located in Chinatown in New York City). There they protested against the decision of the KMT to revoke the party membership of presidential candidate Lin Yang-kang and his running mate Hau Pei-tsun. (Lin and Hau, both KMT vice-chairmen before their expulsion, are running as maverick independent candidates against the ticket of Lee, the KMT chairman, and Lien, also a party vice-chairman.) Besides holding up banners, the demonstrators also burned pictures of Lee Teng-hui. This was the first ever demonstration by party members at the New York branch headquarters since its founding nearly a century ago.

In fact, the fires of local politics had spread overseas as early as last September, when the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) completed the second stage of its primary process for choosing the party nominee for president. Wu Li-pei, chairman of the California-based General Bank, who is very influential in overseas Chinese circles in southern California, faxed an open letter to major papers around the island calling on Hsu Hsin-liang, the main challenger to eventual primary winner Peng Ming-min, to concede defeat. Speaking as an old friend of Hsu's, Wu wrote in the letter, entitled "Elder Brother Hsu, It is time to bring the battle to a close," that Hsu should save his strength and work together with Peng to challenge the KMT nominees in the "battle of the century."

Wu's letter naturally displeased Hsu's supporters. Within a few days, Hung Shun-wu, a Hsu loyalist in overseas Taiwanese organizations, sent his own letter from the US back to Taiwan. He criticized Wu for failing to call on Peng to withdraw from the race after Hsu had won the first stage of the two-stage primary, and argued that it was completely unreasonable to ask Hsu to concede before the second stage was over.

Overseas networks

Peng Ming-min, now officially the DPP nominee for the election for the 9th presidential term under the constitution of the ROC, lived in exile for many years as a result of political oppression. While abroad, he built up a strong personal network. Take for example J. Ben Wei, general-secretary of the Asian-Pacific Council on Democracy, who has been a consistent supporter of Peng's for many years now. When Peng returned to Taiwan, Wei, a well-built man with expertise in karate, put aside his personal business and came back to serve as the candidate's confidante and bodyguard.

Maysing H. Yang, director of the Department of Foreign Affairs at the DPP, points out that Peng was very active during his 20 years in the US. He visited all major cities in the States, and also traveled to Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, to lecture and to set up branches of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations. "He was the spiritual leader of the overseas opposition, and his return to represent the DPP in the presidential election is like a dream come true for overseas Taiwanese," Yang explains, adding that Peng has tremendous appeal among overseas Taiwanese, so she expects many to return to vote for him.

After the elections for the Legislative Yuan last December, a number of overseas Taiwanese groups (such as the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations, the Taiwan Association of University Professors, and the organization Friends of Peng Ming-min) got together and formed a North American support group to back Peng's presidential bid. The group plans to take advantage of the upcoming Chinese New Year to organize a promotional effort on Peng's behalf: They have produced specially designed New Year's cards for association members to mail back to friends and family in Taiwan encouraging them to vote for Peng. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Friendship Association of Southern California is planning to organize more than 200 people to return to Taiwan in March to work for Peng's campaign.

Danny Chen of the New Zealand Taiwanese Association says that even if he can't make it back to Taiwan personally for the elections, he will still use the telephone to campaign. He also plans to open up the association phone for any members to use free of charge. "Many of us there go back and forth to Taiwan frequently, and it should be easy to coordinate trips to be there to cast ballots. In fact, these people who go back to Taiwan often are the only true 'overseas Taiwanese.'"

The next best thing to being there

Most overseas support groups try to recruit well-known personalities to help their cause. Thus, for example, on the occasion of the establishment of an eastern US support group for the Lin-Hau ticket, Cheng Lang-ping, author of the controversial book T-Day 1995, put in an appearance to lash out at the idea of Taiwan independence. He chastised those in Taiwan who would change "Retrocession Day" (the day marking Taiwan's return to Chinese rule at the end of World War II) to "War's End Commemorative Day." Such an attitude, declared Cheng, is not so much Taiwan independence as the establishment of a colonial government.

Recently, supporters of the New Party, Taiwan's second largest opposition party after the DPP, have been very active cooperating with supporters of the independent Lin-Hau ticket. Taipei Report, a magazine staffed entirely by volunteers from among New Party supporters, and whose expenditures for writing, publishing, and mailing are entirely self-funded, has a circulation of 40,000 in North America. Magazine president Cecilia Yen says with a smile, "The impact of our work will make itself felt at election time."

They also have a campaign for each individual to call back to Taiwan at least five times to encourage people to vote for the Lin-Hau ticket. And there is even one Lin-Hau diehard who is putting promotional literature out to every nook and cranny of the Internet.

Publicity boost

Though opposition party supporters abroad get a lot of attention, the strength of support overseas for incumbent president Lee Teng-hui should not be underestimated. According to Cheng Chien-jen, director-general of the KMT's Department of Overseas Affairs, already 49 associations have been organized abroad for the Lee-Lien ticket, and the number is continually growing.

Most of the overseas support associations for President Lee are organized by people from civic groups (mainly associations of overseas Taiwanese), members of Taiwanese business federations, and overseas KMT members.

Recently the pro-Lee association in Washington DC, noting criticism of Lee within Taiwan, moved actively to his defense. They put supportive advertisements in major newspapers in Taiwan in early January, and they plan to organize a group to come in March to cast ballots for Lee.

The Seattle support association for Lee has been even more active. Association director Huang Ching-yen is personally offering to pay for two nights of free hotel accommodation for any association member who flies back to Taiwan to vote. Considering that the government's Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission is not offering any help to overseas Chinese to return to vote (because of concerns of compromising administrative neutrality), the Seattle organization's offer looks especially attractive.

Says the KMT's Cheng Chien-jen: "Although the actual number of votes from returning citizens will be small, they can have a great impact in terms of promoting candidates and generating publicity. No political party can afford to ignore them, especially the KMT, which was founded abroad." He adds that the KMT began organizing "overseas election-support associations" as early as the year before last to participate in the races for provincial governor, mayors of special municipalities, and city and county executives. The number of participants has been growing. During last year's elections for the Legislative Yuan, when the KMT faced the prospect that it might lose its absolute majority in the legislature, overseas party members were stirred into a crisis mentality, and more than 80 people returned to Taiwan to work in the campaign. "I believe that for the presidential election the number will exceed 100," concludes a confident Cheng.

Overseas think tank

In fact, all three major parties have supporters abroad concerned about the political development of Taiwan, and they have been deeply involved in domestic politics. Among these are many overseas supporters of the opposition (now the Democratic Progressive Party) who have long worked to promote democratization in Taiwan.

A group of Taiwanese who studied in North America in the 1960s and 70s got involved in anti-regime activities, for which they were placed on the government "blacklist" and banned from returning. Yet their concern for Taiwan only deepened with time. After the abolition of the blacklist, they finally had their opportunity to come back and enter politics. Some like Stella Chen and Peng Ming-min, have opted to run for office themselves. Others return to work in campaigns every time an election rolls around.

Thomas Gold, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who returned to Taiwan to observe last year's legislative elections, took note of the central role played by returnees from abroad. He particularly pointed to the prominence of social scientists who earned their degrees abroad and of leading figures from groups that are active in lobbying governments and the media overseas (such as the Formosan Association of Public Affairs and World United Formosans for Independence). These overseas intellectuals helped candidates do voting estimates, secure the support of civic groups, liaise with important local personalities, and organize strategic alliances, in "a beautiful display of the combination of theory with practice."

Something for everybody

Besides providing intellectual resources, overseas supporters are also crucial sources of financial support. Last November, during the runup to the legislative elections, various local groups of Friends of the New Party cooperated to run an ad in the Chinese-language US-based newspaper World Journal, and within seven days they raised over US$70,000. Cecilia Yen brought the money to Taiwan and presented it to the New Party at the "Night of New Hope" dinner party.

"Although it is just a drop in the bucket, it symbolizes our support. The New Party is the new hope for all overseas Chinese," Yen asserts. She argues that the New Party now has the largest base of support overseas of any party in the ROC. When Wang Chien-hsuan, a key New Party founder, went to the US last year to drum up support, in San Francisco alone roughly 1,000 people attended a fund-raising dinner for him.

But Cecilia Yen acknowledges that all three of the main parties have support abroad, and that the situation might best be described as a "balance of power." "Everybody feels that there are people out there who will support them, so everybody is taking the game more seriously and playing more intensely."

Though the direct impact of overseas residents (in terms of number of voters) is small, the concern and assistance that come from abroad nevertheless are of great psychological help to candidates. Chuang Kuang-tsai of the KMT's Department of Overseas Affairs says that when overseas support groups come to Taiwan, they bring auspicious gifts to candidates such as Japanese sake (which is served at celebratory occasions and thus implies a successful outcome) or persimmons (symbolizing "May all things be as you wish"). "When they come to the campaign headquarters, they even help the campaign workers staple together brochures and blow up balloons." These are small gestures, but help boost morale.

From the margin to the center

Jeannie Wang, a committee member in the US headquarters of the KMT, returned to Taiwan last December to work in the legislative elections; it was the third time she had come back to campaign. She says that overseas she feels like a grain of sand, unable to do anything about the situation in Taiwan despite being deeply anxious about it. "Coming back to work in a campaign gives you a sense of participation, and you feel like you've returned from the margins to the center." She came back during last year's legislative elections just at the time that the PRC was conducting missile tests very close to Taiwan. "There was really a strong sense of everyone pulling together to get through a difficult period for the country."

In the campaign support group for KMT legislative candidates, the oldest was a woman of more than seventy who returned from Japan. The more than 80 people in the support group followed candidates through the streets all across Taiwan, generating a startling amount of publicity. On one occasion, a KMT candidate in the southern part of the island held an outdoor rally, but cold weather kept voters at home. Fortunately the 80-plus strong overseas support group showed up, saving the candidate from a rather embarrassing situation.

Though overseas support groups are generally welcomed by candidates, especially those facing uphill battles or those who have few resources of their own, returnees have also sometimes run into people who are less than happy to see them. Guillermo Shih-min Chang, who lives in Costa Rica, was campaigning in southern Taiwan (wearing a special uniform that marked him as an overseas support group member) when a local citizen said to him in Taiwanese, "Why don't you people go back where you came from."

No difference in information

Many overseas residents have felt the "cold shoulder" despite their own warm feelings for Taiwan. Though they may be deeply patriotic, after many years abroad don't they face a huge gap in understanding the domestic situation? How can they be so confident in their own judgment about what is best for the nation?

When you ask overseas residents these questions, whatever party they may support, they all answer with confidence: They have as much information and understanding of the situation in Taiwan as people still living on the island.

"We have access to all three of Taiwan's broadcast television stations, CTN satellite news, and all kinds of periodicals. We have World Journal [a subsidiary of Taiwan's United Daily News] and the overseas edition of the Central Daily News [the KMT party organ], plus Hong Kong, PRC, and US media. We are far removed from the scene, but for that reason we can see the overall picture all the more clearly," says Jeannie Wang.

New Party activist Cecilia Yen firmly rejects criticisms by political figures in Taiwan that people overseas "don't understand Taiwan's political reality." Why is she so sure of herself? "I have been abroad for eighteen years, but every time I come back I am asked to go on call-in programs, so how can I not stay well-informed? You can get all of Taiwan's media overseas, so you simply have to make an effort and you can follow everything. Also, now long-distance calls are incredibly cheap. When the rates are low, even a one-hour call from the States to Taiwan costs next to nothing. And there are always people going back and forth. So how could there be a lack of information abroad?"

Affecting the overseas community

Yet overseas residents are well aware that only a limited number of people will come back to vote, so they cannot have that great an impact on the presidential election.

"Maybe we aren't very influential, but at least by going around and speaking we can impart a certain point of view. Dr. Sun Yat-sen had it much harder than us when he was traveling in America trying to win support," says Tai Chi, a New Party activist in California. Tai notes that Dr. Sun didn't give up despite the hardships, because he knew that support from overseas would be one of the pillars of the revolution. "Today," Tai concludes, "information is readily accessible, travel is easy, and overseas Chinese have higher social status than in the past, so we should not underestimate ourselves. Even if there is only the slightest hope, we must do what we can." In any case, he argues, even if in the final analysis New Party overseas supporters can only cast a few ballots, getting active in the presidential elections will have a great impact on the political environment in overseas Chinese communities.

But haven't most overseas Chinese already given up the idea that "the fallen leaf returns to its root" and accepted that they should put down new roots of their own abroad? Will their enthusiasm for politics in Taiwan affect their ability to adapt to their new homes?

"People who are concerned about politics are concerned about politics everywhere and anywhere. Half the people in our Friends of the New Party groups also participate in politics in their adopted communities," explains Tai. For example, Chang Chao-fu, one of the founders of a Lin-Hau support group, was last year elected to a local school board in San Francisco.

Fragmented overseas Chinese?

Although the enthusiasm of many overseas residents for politics in Taiwan does not seem to hamper their integration abroad, it inevitably has an impact on overseas Chinese communities. Perhaps it is true, as Tai says, that most Americans can't follow the ads carried in the Chinese language newspapers and that anyway Americans have little interest in what these overseas Chinese are arguing about in the first place; but local residents of Chinese ancestry can't help but notice what's going on.

According to Lee Yung, a reporter for the World Journal, the split in the Kuomintang over the presidential elections--in which the maverick Lin-Hau ticket was expelled from the party for challenging the party's Lee-Lien ticket--has created many "needless" conflicts in overseas Chinese society.

For example, when Hau Pei-tsun toured US overseas Chinese society for the first time, some complained that he was given "too enthusiastic" a welcome, while others charged that those who did not give him an enthusiastic welcome were "splitters." Or, when some overseas Chinese went to the UN to protest against PRC president Jiang Zemin, there were conflicts between supporters of the mainstream KMT (identified with the Lee-Lien ticket) and supporters of the non-mainstream faction (Hau-Lin). Lee Yung wrote in an article last December that "People who worked together in the past to resist communism and oppose Taiwan independence have now become rivals in internal struggles."

In another article in the World Journal, Wang Fu-chuan also noticed that the election infighting in Taiwan has altered the overseas Chinese community in southern California. "Anti-communism is steadily weakening," he wrote, pointing to a decline in support among older 幦igr廥 for the current KMT, "and consequently there is greater willingness to accept the PRC." He added that, "The vast majority of people in the middle don't know how to react."

Fried noodle meeting

Fissures in overseas Chinese society reflect conflicts within Taiwan, and the former can only be overcome if the latter are resolved. In terms of relations between the KMT and DPP, in the past overseas opposition figures drew a clear line between themselves and the KMT. "However, due to the efforts of [the KMT's] John Chang, minister of Overseas Chinese Affairs, the two sides have begun a dialogue," notes the DPP's Maysing Yang.

As for relations between the DPP and the New Party, recent talk of a "grand alliance" in Taiwan has been reflected in overseas Chinese communities. Last year in Taiwan, the New Party invited the DPP for "a chat over coffee." On Christmas Day, the Los Angeles branch of Friends of the New Party invited DPP figures to a "chat over fried noodles," initiating contact between the groups. In their discussions they explored the connections between "mainlanders," "Taiwanese," and political parties. They agreed that there should be a consensus on the idea of "loving Taiwan first," after which other problems could be discussed. Lin Mei-ying, who hosted the event, expressed willingness to hold similar meetings in the future.

Yet, despite being supported by more than 60% of respondents in polls in Taiwan, the idea of the "grand alliance" has been shelved for strategic reasons related to competition between the parties in the upcoming elections. So the cooker has been for the time being shut off on the overseas noodle dinners, to the embarrassment of their sponsors.

Who knows when the smell of noodles will again waft over LA?

There has been talk of a grand alliance between the DPP and the New Part y in Taiwan. Will this alter the political scene in the overseas Chinese community? （photo by Wu Kuang）