 I'm actually representing Bonnie Glaser here, she's stuck on a metro between West Falls Church and Farragut West. She will arrive when she arrives but she asked me to not delay the proceedings on her account. This gives me an opportunity to thank her profusely for all she did and her staff did to make this event possible. We are really pleased to partner with her on this occasion and I think that we're going to have a really great event. I'm pleased that so many of you could come on such a nasty day. I'm particularly glad to see my former colleague Barbara Schragi, managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan. The program you have before you, three panels, a lunch and talk by yours truly, and we're particularly pleased to have so many outstanding scholars from Taiwan to help us understand Saturday's election and what it means for a variety of different issues. We're also pleased to have one of the People's Republic of China's most outstanding scholars of international relations, Xu Shulong, my former colleague. Since we have so much talent on tap, I think we should get going and I'd like to turn the proceedings over to Ed McCord. I don't know if his two remaining panelists have arrived but they're staying in the neighborhood so they should show up pretty soon. Ed? Well, I hope some of you are awake. I know a lot of us were in Taiwan and we're all a little jet lagged and so I expect to see yawns today but that's okay, you know, we'll understand why you're yawning. Our panel this morning is titled Analysis of the Presidential and Legislative Elections. So it's a very broad title and I think as we expected in this election as well, you saw the same kind of major themes that always happen in Taiwan elections. This time there was some attempted emphasis on domestic issues, economic issues, and government efficiency issues, mainly by the DPP and by James Song. Then there's the perennial identity issues, much less than forced it seemed to me this time than in previous elections and then finally, of course, cross-strait relations which always can overwhelm everything else. So those are the three kind of themes I thought really did provide kind of stability in terms of election-to-election but we also saw procedural things like charges of corruption or charges and counter charges of corruption or government mismanagement or dirty tricks, things like this and then of course there's also the element of external forces influencing the United States, influences of the PRC. So those are what I feel kind of the broad issues in the elections but what I was hoping of course is to hear from our very expert panelists today to kind of straighten out what was really most important among that possible spread of issues. And so we're going to, since our other two people aren't here, we're going to reverse our order of people and we're going to start out with David Fell, who's the senior lecturer in Taiwan Studies from the Department of Political and International Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He's also the Deputy Director of SOAS Center for Taiwan Studies. He's the coordinator of the European Association of Taiwan Studies. He's written a number of books on Taiwan. Most recently it was Government and Politics in Taiwan, which came out in 2011. So without further ado I'll turn the podium over to David Fell. Right, thanks very much. It's great to be back in Washington. I was just here about a month ago looking ahead and making some predictions on the election. So it's nice to kind of come back and see what I got wrong or what I got right. Because I don't have the best record in the world for actually predicting Taiwanese elections. I've been very fortunate to have been in Taiwan for most of the major elections over the last 20 plus years, going back to the late 1980s. And each election has its unique features. From my perspective, perhaps the most unique feature of this election campaign has been the merging of the presidential and parliamentary elections. The first time this has ever happened. And one of the most interesting things for us political scientists in this election has been the interrelationship between the two campaigns. Now merging these two elections together has had its positive and negative sides. One of the stated motivation for merging these two elections, of course, was saving campaign spending. And I think to a certain extent that has actually been true. And also another positive aspect has been improved parliamentary voter turnout, which in recent years has been a decline in parliamentary voter turnout. But there have been some negative implications for merging these two elections. To a large extent the parliamentary election has been overshadowed by the presidential campaign, at least until the final month of the campaign. Taiwan's legislative UN is an extremely powerful body, but it's also an extremely unpopular institution. If you look at public opinion surveys, you find that voters have extremely low trust in legislators and political parties. And that has meant that this election, in this election, the parliament hasn't received the democratic scrutiny that it deserves. Of course, saving money was just the stated reason for merging these two elections. In reality, both parties were motivated by partisan advantage. The KMT's hope was that incumbent KMT legislators would help the campaign of a relatively unpopular presidential candidate. In contrast, the DPP's hope was that a strong DPP presidential campaign would help a large number of new parliamentary candidates. Now if you look in detail, I think we find that both were right. But it varies geographically in terms of the interrelationship. Overall it would appear to me that the DPP benefited more than the KMT by this merging. And I think the KMT would have actually done better if the two had been split. Now one of the things that I've been particularly focusing on looking at in this campaign has been the parliamentary election. And hopefully that means that I won't be overlapping too much with the other two speakers. One of the things that I've been arguing repeatedly, both in my writings and talks over the last couple of years, has been the importance of Taiwan's parliament. In many ways I would argue that the parliamentary election was actually more important than the presidential one. But of course in terms of media coverage, that hasn't been the case. If we think about the Tsensui Bien era, one of the key lessons, as I've mentioned in my last talk in Washington, was that essentially without parliamentary control, presidents are extremely constrained in Taiwan. That meant that even if Taiwan had won this election, I think she would have been forced to moderate her position without control of a parliamentary majority. So to a certain extent, the KMT's terror message, the idea that Tsai's election would have meant a ruining of cross-rape relations, economic relations, was a bit of an exaggeration because Tsai would have been extremely constrained. Overall if we look at the parliamentary results, we can see that the system still favors the KMT. But I think there have been some positive trends in this election, particularly the increase in political diversity, the fact that third parties have actually received seats. And I'll come back to that a little bit later. Overall, this parliamentary election was a disappointment to the DPP. Essentially the DPP managed to win back seats that it should have won back in 2008. There were a few surprises in the results. Places like Ponghu, which were won by the DPP for the first time. But the DPP also had some major setbacks. And of course the DPP also lost some seats that it had won in by-elections. Although the DPP only won 40 seats on this occasion, it could have won quite a lot more. And indeed, some predictions were talking about the DPP winning 50%, or even a parliamentary majority. One political scientist in Taipei was predicting a possible DPP majority. And here it just would have required quite a small vote swing for the DPP to have done far better, because it lost narrowly in about six seats. So it just needed a small swing here. If we think back to this first Mainjo term, the KMT lost quite a large number of seats as a result of vote-buying cases. This means that if we see a similar kind of trend, then the KMT's narrow majority could actually be eroded and become a less workable majority. So I think to a large extent, Mainjo is going to be constrained in the parliament, despite his seemingly working majority. Now, why didn't the DPP do as well as people like myself and others had been predicting? I think the DPP did make some strategic mistakes in this campaign. Some of these, I think, are focused on this campaign. But some of them are quite long-term mistakes. I think one of them, in particular, that I've been quite critical of the DPP over the last decade or so, has been that it's tended to put too much focus on presidential campaigning and not enough on the parliament. And I think we can see this in this election. In this election, I think it's also made some errors in terms of its nomination. In other words, it had too many inexperienced candidates in parliamentary district races. And I think it also had many very strong candidates in its party list that could have won, or at least been more effective, at the district level. I think the best example of this is the DPP's nomination in Taipei City, where most of the DPP's candidates were quite young and less experienced, up against very strong KMT candidates. Now, one of the things that I think we found as election observers this time is the question of, how are the parties going to cope with defeat? Now, one conclusion that we came to was that defeat would have been far more damaging for the KMT. The KMT has been over-reliant on Mainjo for the last decade or so. And I think the KMT would really have struggled with losing the presidential election. It would have gone through a very serious power struggle. For the DPP, which is the losing party on this occasion, we have the question of where the Tainwan could actually survive as party leader and potentially presidential candidate in 2016. When we asked the question about who would be a potential successor to Tainwan, if she doesn't continue to stand, it was quite disappointing to hear a number of old names, people like Sutan Tsang. Nevertheless, if we look at the way Taiwan's political parties have coped with defeat or learnt lessons of defeat, I think I would argue that the DPP has been much more successful at dealing with defeat and recovering from defeat. We see this in the way it recovered from setbacks in the 1990s and the way that it's within only a couple of years, it recovered from the quite disastrous elections of 2008. In contrast, the KMT tends to be much slower at responding to defeat. And we saw that in the way it responded to defeat in 2000 and also in 2004. It took the KMT almost five years to really become electable again after the 2000 defeat. Now, parties don't always learn the right lessons of defeat. And in many ways, observing this election reminds me a lot of the British general election of 1992, when many observers expected Labour to come back to power. But at the last moment, voters opted for the safe option. After Labour lost in 1992, it went through very, very comprehensive reforms and made it electable. And this is the kind of lesson that the DPP needs to go through on this occasion. It needs to look at how it can expand its base, how it can win floating voters, swing voters. And it's gonna need to look for a really convincing new vision and I think it needs to look again at its cross-strait policy. Now, overall, I think there's been some positive trends in this election. One of them I'm particularly pleased with is seeing an increase in political diversity, particularly in the parliament. The fact that we see seats won by the Taiwan Solidarity Union and also the People's First Party, I think is a very positive sign. Even the Green Party was able to reach a record vote share and actually become the fifth largest party in terms of vote share in Taiwan, exceeding the former important party, the new party. I think it was also good to see the parliament become much more balanced. The election in 2008 saw the KMT getting almost three quarters of the seats, which made Taiwan look almost semi-authoritarian in some respects. So I think this new balance I think is a very positive sign. Of course, disproportionality is still a problem in the Taiwanese political system with this kind of single-member district electoral system. But again, I think it was positive to see that following the election, again, there was some discussion of electoral reform of the parliamentary system. Whether or not it can really happen is another big question. So overall, despite some kind of worrying signs, for example, in terms of external pressure on Taiwanese voters, I think there's a lot of positive signs. And I think the increased diversity and increased balance, I think, make Taiwan's democracy look much more optimistic than in the last four years. So we have our full panel now, so we'll go back to our original order. Our second presenter is Antonio Zhang, a journalist and a publisher. He was very active in the Dong Wai Democracy Movement in the early years. He was the co-founder of the new journalist magazine, editor-in-chief of Taiwan Daily News, founder of the Taipei Times. He also received a master's in political science from National General Daxue and served as a deputy secretary general of the National Security Council from 2000-2004. He remains today a political commentator and a columnist and a senior fellow for the Institute for National Policy Research in Taiwan. So with those credentials, I'm looking forward very much to hearing from him. Good morning, thank you. I'm very sorry to keep waiting. I mean, come to lay here. First of all, I have to thank C.A.S., I.S. and Brookings for the invitations. But I think the topic today is a lot easier for us because I will hope if D.B.P. wins, we're more exciting. And if we have first female president, we have a lot to talk. But now seems back to the business as usual. So everybody could be very wise to explain what's happening in Taiwan. A lot of people are disheartened. A lot of people are overjoyed by the result. For people like me, I am not so surprised because I saw so many election in the past. More than 30 years, constant elections. So I'm confident that the voter will have played that kind of invisible hand, try to balance, compensate. They always compensate the defeat with some reward and they teach some decent for the winner. For the past, we have already done more than four times of presidential election. So this is the fifth time. I think most of the people were agreed this is the first, the best election, presidential election we ever have. In terms of the electoral culture, election culture, the improvement of the platform, I mean the vote-buying, nobody really talk about vote-buying. And nobody talk about unification or independence. And the ethical men under Taiwanese issue is gone. And also nobody talk about the history of Taiwanese history. So it seems that the whole page is turned over. Maybe because we have the best candidate from both party, Ma Ying-jeo and Tsai Ing-wen, their personality, their style, their background is very different from traditional politicians. So that's, I have to give them the credit for improving the, I mean, no much negative campaign when you compare US election. And best of all, we have no budget, no magic budget this time. So everything seems to run very smoothly and professionally. The ready, the machine, the advertisement is very professional. I think we have enough know-how to export to people maybe in the Middle East. I remember the eve before the voting. We met with a lot of Chinese reporter and writer from China and Hong Kong. This time they have more than, maybe I'm wrong, but I know they have more than 2,000 people from mainland China observing this election. And I'm lucky to have a lot, to meet with very famous writers, poet and reporter from China. And they are so excited, the first weakness, the weakness, this democracy in action. They went to the headquarter of KMT to see how Ma Ying-jeo make a speech. And then they move, they all went to Banqiao-du to see how, what happened in Tsai Ing-wen's last night, last evening, I mean the biggest ready. And they are so excited. And everybody come to the conclusion that it's no way for Ma Ying-jeo to win because it's no comparison. I mean the emotional enthusiasm, emotional reaction from a big ready. Tsai Ing-wen's big ready is emotionally, very big crowd and enthusiasm. That's very lacking in Ma Ying-jeo's. And they come to, we have a very, very happy snake, nice snake, until 3 o'clock in the morning. Everybody get drunk. And they say, oh, Tsai Ing-wen win, I say no, no, come on, come on. And I said, you can now judge from the number of the scene of the ready. Because KMT used to be more emotional, more and the border in TBP is more enthusiastic. KMT is very different. So we can now judge by the result from the ready. So I just cool them down, but everybody get drunk. And then they are so excited, they are so happy and then they became so sad. They said, oh, come on, we can never have that kind of election in China. So, and this time it's not the question, the election, for me, I don't surprise that Ma Ying-jeo win. Because from the beginning I believe Ma Ying-jeo will win by a small margin. I believe that the political atmosphere is not ready for TBP to get power, to get the power back. I think Tsai Ing-wen still have the last mile to cross. That last mile can be a very long mile. So the issue here is now why TBP lost. The issue is why Ma Ying-jeo campaign so hard, so difficult. He enjoyed such a perfect, more than any political leader enjoyed, three-quarter of majority, and perfect ruling. And he had the whole support of the business community. And those men from Washington, DC, and the whole support, more than support from Beijing. He had all the good conditions, as Yui Chen said, and yet he campaigned so difficult. The campaign is so difficult. In the time, in the last stage, he almost lost the election. The anxiety and tension in the blue team so obvious, so overwhelming. That's why in the last stage, they played that kind of crisis car. Everybody feels a crisis. If Ma Ying-jeo lose, it's a devastating for KMT. And some people think also straight relations. So this time, people wonder why, how Ma Ying-jeo is a decent man, how he lost that kind of mandate for the past more than three years. And the DBB didn't do much to improve. Cai Yihun didn't say much. She had not enough charisma. He didn't do much to prove her leadership yet. Yet she almost make, I mean, she almost defeated Ma Ying-jeo. According to the poll all the time, I mean, especially the last months, the KMT almost lose the election from every poll. There is a small, very small margin. So people wonder why is, a lot of people are thinking that DBB are going to win. But then most, many people think why, the piggy bank can defeat 92 consensus. And they almost defeated 92 consensus, only through a piggy bank. But I think we have to critic Jin Xiaodao, switch, break, Jin. He, I think he have come out with a very skillful strategy. And the main reason for Ma to win, the comfortable majority is because this issue, a state, the state of, is about stability and change. And people fall for stability instead of change. Because Tsai Ing-wen is now, is untest. And because if Tsai win, there are so much unpredictable. I mean, people already, they have no trust. And also because during campaign, DBB try to avoid the substantial, I mean the issue. The party platform from DBB is rather vague, evasive. And some slogan is rather slogan. And the slogan is empty. So even DBB, a lot of people from DBB think Tsai won will have a soft landing. She will cope with the crisis after she get elected with very skillful, I mean, way to calm down the tension. But in the end, people fall for stability. This election, as a friend from Mr. Fair mentioned, I think I'm so great that I speak after him. He give a lot of comprehensive analysis given all the facts. The LOI is very important. And this result of the LOI is more healthy, new balance. The KMT, even KMT win the election, but actually KMT lose many votes, many seats. And DBB increase to a more healthy opposition, I mean, strength. KMT is from 81 seats to become 64. And DBB from 27 now increase to 40s. So in fact, DBB has increased on the rise. And KMT is declining. That's more healthy because they come back to the best structure of society. And also the presidential election. The KMT, the Maingyo farmers last time 56% to now 51%. They downgrade, I mean, they lose 5%. And DBB is increasing 3%. So DBB is on the rise. The general trend is DBB on the rise. And KMT is going down. But that is not surprised because I think that will be more healthy, more balanced. And as Mr. Fell mentioned, the third party has more space. That's very encouraging. I saw that view. The TSU and people's first party also all have their caucus in the LOI. But I think overall, our Taiwanese social structure is rather, it reflects the social structure is rather stable. The north and south and the central is, you know, the KMT is dominating the north part of Taiwan and DBB on south. And in the central is for everybody. So this structure is, it seems very difficult to move around. And the percentage of DBB and KMT in terms of percentage, I think it's about 45 to 55 and 40 to 50. The same, you know, the DBB and KMT's strength is very competitive. That means Taiwan is a middle class society. It's now easy to make a drastic change. They always come back to the balance. Talking about this, the most sensitive issue is about 22 consensus. 22 consensus is kind of, I don't know, is it mantra or 92 consensus? Okay. Some people said this election results is a reflection, is a fermentation of the mandate of, is a kind of referendum of 92%, 92 consensus. But I think if there's a mandate, it's a reduced mandate. I think that maybe is overreach. People vote for stability, not necessarily vote for 92 consensus. Consensus is a secret code. It's a kind of prayer before breakfast. Somebody said, you have to pray before you eat. But DBB said, no, I just want to eat. I don't want to pray. And it's already 20 years, 92 until now, it's 20 years. The first phone, 20 years ago is now the first voter. They don't know what that means, 92 consensus. And according to the opinion poll, more than 70% of people don't understand what that means. 92 what? Nobody know. But don't care. It doesn't matter. 92 is 92, okay. Just a prayer. We don't need to go into the contents. This election also shows this generational cessation. People, the old men like Lee Deng Hui and Lee Yuen Zhe. And I think this is their last chance to speak, to support DBB in public. A lot of people in DBB is very moved by Lee Deng Hui and also by Lee Yuen Zhe. They sincerely believe that Taiwan will be in the turning point. But I think most of the general young people don't care about, they don't think this way. They don't think Taiwan is in the crossroad. So in the DBB and Lee Deng Hui and Lee Deng Hui show up in the reddit, can be backfired. It makes the KMT very nervous. It didn't get much from the, no help for medium, for middle voters. And especially Chen Sui Bien. I think this, the fact that he plays some politics in the hero. And that his son in the election make a lot of people very nervous. And then the depth from DBB is, I mean they do turn the bat. From then on, from now on, DBB is, don't care about Chen Sui Bien. I think most of people are fed up with that kind of up and shadow. So I think the DBB is out of the shadow of Chen Sui Bien this time. And here I have to say something about Tsai Ing-wen, because most of, maybe many people don't understand, don't know her enough. Including me, but I have some traditional, I mean I have some, I work with her for some times and I have personal observations. I think Tsai is very, very traditional politician. It's very different from traditional DBB, her background, her education, her lifestyle. She is very different from, it's very new for DBB. And DBB is very curious about her, too. But she has that kind of charm that a lot of people cannot resist. As a woman, lady candidate politician, she looks so innocent. Maybe disguised, I don't know. No ambition. And she pray very, very quiet, charming. Dutty Sam, everybody. So all these affectionate was disarmed by her. She became a reluctant politician. Then it seems a strong sense of admission. And she is very soft-spoken, and logic, and rational in private. And when people talk to him, talk to her, I mean, especially this, she has special appearance to intellectual, to middle class, to young people, to women, and to high-tech people. And she very appeared into the professional. I think if she got elected, she was, maybe it's too late to say that, she will recruit a lot of professional technocrats in her government. Because maybe many people here, including Alexander Huang, have worked with her. And you know her personality. And she has a lot of friends in the middle class, I mean in the professional field. And I have confidence if she had a chance to run the government. She will run very careful. She very cool. She is more conservative than most of people think, but very persistent. As a negotiator, she will be very careful. She always talk about security net. She's not a leader that always lead in. She's more defensive, preserve the status quo. I think people should give her more confidence. But the fact that she's new in the party, she's by accident become the sure woman of the party. That she's reluctant to come up with her idea, afraid of making somebody unhappy during campaign. That's why she try to be evasive. As a professional lawyer, she is very, she's going to put all her stake in public. But DBP, everybody knows that the time has changed so much. And so I think if DBP have a second chance, they will come up very differently in our straight relations. And they will come from, next time they will come from the 92 consensus. And this time the KMT also have some, they try to reform the party. Now next is by the party structure, but they try to come up with some new faces. I think we should give a credit to Ma Yingqiu and also Jin Xiaodao for that, come up with new face. They try to avoid no money politics this time. I mean the party didn't provide big money for the candidates. I know that because Ma Yingqiu run on the KMT's platform. So in the end I think the election is always a humbling process for the politicians. But this time and every time the democracy, I mean the election is consolidating our democracy in Taiwan and democracy is working and in action is marching this time. So I conclude my speech. Thank you. So I'm going to speak from down here so Professor Zhu can work in his PowerPoint presentation. So our final panelist today is Professor Zhu Yunhan. He's a distinguished research fellow at the Institute of Political Science, Academia Seneca, and professor of political science at National Taiwan University. He's also the president of the Zhang Jinglu Foundation. Received his PhD in political science from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in Chinese and East Asian politics, political economy, and democratization. He's the author, co-author, editor of at least 13 books. His most recent book in 2008 was How East Asians View Democracy. And I'm done, but I'm not sure if we'll be talking more about you should get more set up. That's my trick, you know, to try to get more of that advertisement, you know, before I speak. Nevertheless, you know, good morning. It's truly a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Bonnie and Richard, you know, for inviting me to this very important event, the very first event within the Bellway, analyzing this very important election. As a third speaker on the panel, actually I would only, you know, add a few footnotes following two great speeches. And I think I will actually just, you know, pick up from where Antonio left off. I think before I really get into the dynamic of the election itself, I will rather, you know, offer my assessment about the quality of democracy as has been, you know, revealed through this campaign process. And we see many signs of maturing democracy in this particular race. We know that this election is the fifth popular election for the highest executive office on this island since popular election for president was introduced in 1996. And for the parliamentary election, this is the seventh for the national representative body since 92. So in a way, competitive electoral election and power rotation have become normalized. And in a way, you might argue that the partisanship also has become steadily more crystallized. At the same time, I hasten to point out that, you know, the road to democratic consolidation has not been a very smooth one. You know, we have traveled down some bumpy road over the last decade. Based on survey data, you know, we can witness that the citizen confidence in the democratic system has suffered quite a setback due to the protracted political great luck and the escalation of conflict over national identity between 2000 and 2008, but has been gradually restored in the recent past. Let me, you know, get your attention to the turnout rate itself. I think it actually is not just a number. I think there's a very important story behind this number. If you look at the trend, you know, for the four recent presidential election, each time the turnout rate dropped about two to three, sometimes four-point percentage. So if we compare with year 2000, you know, it's eight point, you know, drop, you know, and if you compare with the last election 2008, it's almost two-point drop. I think, you know, this actually as a way, you know, Taiwan, democracy become more normalized, okay, more become, you know, a routine. But nevertheless, this, you know, almost 75 percent of turnout rate, such as that the passion of the island's electorate remained quite high, but no longer at a traumatic level. And before the election, there had been a lot of prediction that this time the turnout rate will actually, you know, be higher than the previous one. That's the prevailing view among the pundit. The pundit turned out to be wrong, okay. And, you know, they have two good reasons. One is that they perceive tightness. You know, there's going to be a very close, you know, race. So, you know, that usually will mobilize more people to come out. And also you have the synchronization of the parliamentary election and the presidential race, right. So that might reinforce each other, but it didn't happen this way. But at the same time, I still have to say that this turnout rate cannot be sustained over the long term. You know, you require still a lot of passion in Sweden, you know, to have this kind of turnout. The reason why is that, you know, in Taiwan, we don't have the absentee ballot. Okay. So there are a lot of people for physical reason, institutional reason, they were not able to vote, no matter what. Okay. At any point in time, we have about six percent of the population, believe it or not, they were hospitalized. Okay. Waiting for surgery, you know, for, you know, recovery, whatever. Okay. Usually they don't come out of vote. We have active duty, you know, military officers who are stationed, you know, in places far away from their home. And also we have a large number of people who, you know, live and working overseas, who not all of them can come back, you know. Although this time, obviously, many, many, Taiwanese expatriate return from China and also some of them from the West Coast of the United States, but most of them, you know, wouldn't have the time and energy and money. So if you take those, you know, you know, people out of the picture, this 74.4 turnout rate, you know, can be translated into a defective turnout rate more than 85. Okay. So it's much higher than any other mature democracy that we know, and higher than South Korea, by far, by far. But nevertheless, you know, it's just a slow trend, you know, meaning that signs of over-mobilization have gradually dissipated. And the scale of mass rally, you know, although I would say still, you know, very emotional, very impressive. But if you compare with what has happened in the past, you know, each time those rally have drawn a steadily smaller crowd. Okay. So I think that's a healthy sign. And although, you know, this is the kind of passion, okay, before the wedding, the bride, you know, managed to cast her ballad, you know, something even more important, you know, right, than, you know, her wedding ceremony. Anyway, and I think another unusual, so that's what, you know, Antonio said, you know, the page of history has turned in the sense that this is the first national election in recent memory, where the time-independent issue was not on the agenda. Okay. Maybe it's still, you know, in the background, but not, you know, up front. The DPP held back its frontal challenge to the legitimacy of the state structure or the ROC constitution. Okay. No more tactical move to tie a provocative referendum to a presidential race. Remember what happened before that. Okay. And so, and the national identity issue is overtaken by the debate over the 1992 consensus. So I will argue that the politics of polarization had taken a milder and less divisive character. Aspiration for time-independent has been replaced among the green constituency the fear of being infiltrated and assimilated by China. Okay. That really, you know, is the key psychological, you know, factor, you know, drove them to the polling station. But nevertheless, I don't think for the green camp voter, for them, it's no longer the case that, you know, it's the end of the world if Ma gets reelected, you know. They worry, but they are not desperate. But I think Ma should know. No independence, no re-education, and no war. The open pledge, you know, helped in part neutralize the anxiety and hold off this potentially explosive issue. I also, I think, you know, we should congratulate ourselves, you know, as a young democracy. This is an election, you know, with civility in many important way. Mind you, this man-landed background, non-native status was never an issue, nor was China women's female or marital status. No major dispute. I wouldn't say non-dispute, but no major dispute over the fairness and preparedness of the election. And Tony also mentioned that there are no more bizarre incidents, okay? Dubious shock in vain on the eve of election day. Both can, although both can still practice, you know, negative campaign, just like in any other democracy nowadays, but it was conducted by and large within a limit of reason and popular tolerance. And in the end, the DPP, especially Lady Tai, gracefully and calmly accepted the result. I also think this election is election, you know, that carry another important feature. You know, we do have some meaningful and substantive debate over some important issue, over the future direction of Taiwan. So I think the election over meaningful choice for the citizen, I would condense on to three issues, which define the presidential race. The first and foremost is cross three relation. So Maingyu's, you know, his more considerate approach was subject this time to a timely popular approval. The second issue is about the integrity, capability, experience of the leadership. And the third issue is related to the second, but I would think it's still separate, you know, conceptually separate from the second. It's about which party is more capable of addressing the economic challenge about the euro crisis in the short round and the growing social economic inequality in the long run. Now then I moved to, you know, the what account for the outcome. You know, Ma's convincing wing and Taiwan, you know, didn't, you know, you know, get the kind of majority support the DPP had hoped for. I think it's actually quite simple, you know, in hindsight. Basically, Taiwan electorate found no reason to replace incumbent with a proven trap record with someone with unknown quality. So Tai, her leadership is still untested. And many people still have done lingering doubt about her capability in managing the cross three relationship, but also the economy. The majority of voters, you know, 51.6%, were not persuaded that they should unsee an incumbent president who had brought peace to the trade, earned the trust of major allies, especially in the United States, expanded Ireland's international space, managed the impact of global financial crisis relatively well and kept his promise of delivering clean politics. So stability conscious middle class and business community, especially, wanted to stay on the course of cross three rapprochement and preserve the momentum of reinvigorating Taiwan's economic vitality. And the other side of the same token is, you know, what explained Tai's failure to expand DPP's electoral base. I would argue that, you know, she did, you know, the by-and-large, quite effective campaign in many ways. At least she, you know, helped the party restore its power. It's, you know, the kind of electoral strength used to enjoy. But nevertheless, I would still argue that DPP's cosmetic adjustment to its China policy did not bow well at both fronts. It is too vague to convince the independent voter. And it's too timid to governize its traditional supporter. And I have evidence to support this argument. The decision to place emphasis on the issue of socio-economic equality or inequality did not give DPP a decisive competitive advantage. As the KMT itself is inherited with the legacy of the casual party and also is known for its ideological eclecticism. The DPP ticket, although I agree that, you know, Tai, you know, is a very, you know, I think attractive candidate among, especially the younger generation voter. But I would argue that the DPP ticket was not as strong as it can be. I would argue that Sudentown plus Tsai Ing-Wen will be a stronger ticket, okay, in comparison. And it turned out that the Su Jiaquan, you know, Tai's lonely mate turned out to be a liability rather than an asset. And also the DPP, I think their strategy, you know, tried to prop up Jim Sohm's electability turned out to be counterproductive. Okay, because her, he's, you know, you know, the entrance into the race and also the fact that he still maintained a considerable, you know, portion of public support well until the end of the campaign really, you know, created a sense of crisis among the Pembroke constituency. But the reason why Jim Sohm can have that momentum in the beginning, you know, thanks a lot to the green-canned mass media, okay. They gave him, you know, the interview after the interview, you know, things like that. So basically in the end, Tsai only recovered the DPP's electoral strength, okay, 40, 45, and couldn't really move beyond that threshold. And then everyone have to answer this question, you know, why mass winning margin surpass most people's expectation, right? Including myself, I always predict that, you know, he might win the election by two, no more than 3%, you know, a percentage point. And the answer line is the question itself. Most people believe it's going to be a very tight race. And that is, you know, the reason why, you know, the many, many independent, you know, the stability-conscious independent voter and also reluctant, lukewarm, Pembroke voter, you know, eventually they will prompt it, you know, to come out to vote. And also many more Taiwanese people are going home. And some, James Sones, eventually in the end they decided to split their vote. So that's why the PFP got more, you know, more than 5% for the party list, you know, in terms of popular vote, but much less, you know, for himself. And in addition, you know, this is the last point is very important. Normally if the pro-green constituency, they are really, you know, enthusiastic and passionate enough, the turnout rate in the south would be higher than the turnout in the north, but this time it's just opposite. Okay, the Taipei and Taoyuan and, you know, in Xinbei they all have, you know, at least 1% or 2% even 3% higher turnout rate than Gaoxiong or Tainan Si. Okay, this is, you know, that's explained, you know, among the Panbrew voter. And another interesting, you know, the question is why the election has appeared to be too close to call. Okay, what really fumble and puzzle the old experts including myself, you know, Antonio, you know, and people who get drunk, you know, you just mentioned. I think the first of all, you know, Ma initially looks kind of vulnerable, but he entered the race, you know, with a 34% approval rate and 53% people who disprove his performance. But however, among those 53, many of them are the Panbrew and Dbrew voter. Okay, they blame, you know, team for a variety reason. Obviously very different from the green camp. And secondly, no reliable poor figure, you know, due to very high portion of respondents refusing to indicate their preference, even, you know, up until the last day of the of the campaign. I think there are many Panbrew voter who are kind of really reluctant, you know, duke warm. Okay, so they refuse, you know, to express, you know, very overly. You know, they refuse to vote for Ma, or they might come out to vote at all. And also the prediction, all the forecast was inferred by an outdated, now I can say outdated, okay. Yes, okay, receive, view, which assumes that the poll tends to underestimate DPP carrying the real electoral strength. So everyone say, even though I would say most of poll, I actually, this one I want to know what Antonio has said. Except for the Libra's time poll, most poll predict Ma, you know, will enjoy a 3% to 8% lead, okay. But nobody believing that, you know, they have this assumption, okay. So, you know, you have to do some waiting, okay. Anyway, I think it was also very difficult to predict, you know, exactly how much vote James Song might eventually get, you know, how many people will, you know, vote sincerely and how many people will vote strategically. And both can want it, you know, to sustain the perception of the tirade for different reasons. The DPP, okay, to sustain the morale, to generate the bandwagon effect, okay. The KMT, you know, to play the crisis card, okay. So that they converge. What's, I know I'm running out of time, but maybe I would just go quickly. I think what's the implication? I know, and I don't want to upstage the speaker of the follow-up panel, but I just want to say a few words here. I think this election consolidate the political collusion behind the KMT policy across political consolation and economic cooperation. And also, I think the center of political gravity has been shifted. The Dushuri independence agenda, including new constitution, new nation, UN membership, and self-determination, and so on and so forth. It's overtaken by the more programmatic debate over how to maximize the gain and minimize the cost and risk that came with cross-strait economic integration and the larger process of economic globalization. I also believe that for the next four years there will be less political obstacle to cross-strait economic integration. I think the mile will stay on the course and also he will feel quite confident. The KMT although have a reduced majority but still a solid one. 64 plus 3 independent. I think they will stick together. And also I also argue that many people argue that many low-handing through, in terms of cross-strait relations has been picked, but I believe there are many more left to be picked over the next four years. And also DPP I think will revisit its food-dragging strategy as Tsai Ing-wen himself openly pledged that her party will not turn back the clock if she gets elected. And I think this time the two-party system has been further consolidated. And the TSU when you look at the district election for the AOI, if you add a popular vote and this time the TSU actually they decided not to nominate any candidate in any district. So the DPP will be able to capture the entire potential electoral support among the constituency for the district AOI election. And I think the future fate of the minor party I don't totally agree with my two previous speakers I think they are quite precarious. I don't think maybe the Green Party might have a better future but the TSU and PFE I don't think they will survive the longevity of their charismatic founder. And this time the TSU get 9% due to sympathy to Li Deng Hui. And this could be his last time come out on the stage. But lastly I want to argue that the domestic political agenda will consume most political capital in the end during his second term. Okay. You need to overcome the resistance to economic openness speed up the FTA negotiation with major trading partner and prepare Taiwan for the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is for the medium to long term. And also he need to accelerate the re-trafficking economy to upgrade and diversify Taiwan's export and most importantly he have to find a way to cope with the worrisome demographic trend that Taiwan is going to be wrestling with for the next decade. I stop right here. Thank you for attention. Yeah. I hear a consensus emerging that stability is very important. I was trying to think if there's any lessons for the American elections does Obama have to become the president of hope and change become the president of stability. Is that the key? We have time for questions now about 15, 20, 15 minutes for questions. What I'm going to ask I'll pick people, please make sure to identify yourself very quickly. Also don't do a presentation perhaps. Do a question. Make your questions very short because we want to get a lot of questions in. If you want to make your question to a specific member of the panel say which panel you want to do to otherwise we'll open it to all of them to respond. We also have roaming mics so don't ask your question until you get a mic in your hand. Okay, so we'll just go ahead now. Thank you very much. Jack Zang from the Eurasia Group. My question is about the future of partisanship in Taiwan. Do the panelists see the two major parties moving towards an increasingly polarized party platform going forward as is often the case in the two-party system or do we believe that for the next election the parties will align increasingly to the center as we see in this election. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's a great question because one of the things we saw in the particularly the latter period of the transition period here was that move towards polarization. I'm pretty sure that in this campaign we have actually seen movement towards the center. The DPP's movement has not perhaps been as gone as far as it needed to to win election. I think a couple of of us have alluded to that. My instinct is that the DPP is going to continue to move towards the center in this next phase, at least if it really wants to win re-election in 2016. I think it should have a very strong chance particularly facing a new KMT candidate. Overall, presidential and also single-member district electoral system does seem to be pushing Taiwan's parties towards a moderate position. The other thing we need to think about is that overall Taiwanese voters are very conservative. If you look at the opinion poll data on national identity if you compare the average voter to politicians again I think you'll find that most Taiwanese voters are very moderate and I think that has a very major constraining role on political elites in Taiwan. Questions? Eileen Lin from Foreign Affairs. Many aspects of this election were focused on domestic issues such as jobs environment. According to certain polls many people are not happy with the unemployment rate as well as the skyrocket housing rate. So why do you think the Taiwanese people prefer stability over change? Also from you stated that the election results reaffirmed Taiwanese people think President Ma's close ties with China is a better option. President Ma also has many other policies not just the cross-strait one. What specific evidence do you have to make such conclusion? Thank you. Thank you for the question. Well first of all on the one hand yes among the younger generation especially people who are just of college it's very difficult for them to find a decent job in this overall non-environment although this is not an issue a problem unique to Taiwan I think it's everywhere so in relative terms I would say the unemployment rate it's not comfortable but not very serious. It's 4.8 at the end of the last quarter when the data is available the latest and also I think that the DPP although they are in the opposition so they can attack the mass penetration or many many the aspect including the social inequality, housing price the unemployment rate for the younger generation I don't think they have the recipe of penicillia at all and most people I think in the middle class they actually they worry that if there's a major rupture in the cross relation then the economy of Taiwan will suffer even more so I think that's why the stability is not just stability versus unknown it's not changed it's uncertainty and certainly in a negative sense whether people worry about the closer tie with China obviously yes some people, a lot of people including a lot of people who voted for for Chinese but I think this is a challenge this is a dilemma we all have to face even the United States will be exempt from this dilemma people will say the United States owe too much to Beijing in terms of who owns the larger share abroad of the US Treasury Bill every economy surrounding China now export more to China than anywhere else and that trend will continue although you can argue that Taiwan obviously is exceptional in saying that we have to wrestle with the security implication so that's why we really condom unite support and security commitment under TRA not only that I think what Antonio had just described I think another very important defense not in a traditional sense that might protect from any future course of a companion from Beijing is how we might win over the heart and good will among the opinion leader among those emerging middle class in China if they regard Taiwan on the one hand it's not productive at the same time it's a shining example of how democracy can be established in a culturally Chinese society I think in and by itself it will give the trans leader very little pretext to be hostile at least to what Taiwan so I would argue that it's not a small challenge but something we have to wrestle with wisdom and support from our major ally could I also have a quick response I'm glad you asked this question I think one of the things we have to be very careful about is oversimplifying Taiwanese elections just on to cross-strait relations I think particularly in this kind of setting I think voting behaviour is affected by a lot of domestic variables and I think Taiwan was quite effective in using this kind of social justice appeal it's been one of the key dimensions to the new DBP in Taiwan since 2008 but I think that if we look at this kind of appeal comparatively China was much more successful at actually offering some real solutions to social inequality particularly using a social welfare appeal while in today's kind of economic climate it's much harder to make those kind of appeals so I think Taiwan's really struggled with solutions beyond that kind of slogan that was my one point there Doug Spellman from the Woodrow Wilson Centre I wonder why does Taiwan not have an absentee ballot mechanism is there any chance that this might change and if it were to change would it have much more impact I think any one of us can I think there's little consensus between the two camps over introducing absentee and how that system should be introduced and through what stages for instance we have so many Taiwanese experts living and working in China and people will say well they're living on free society right so how can you guarantee the secret ballot and things like that and also at the same time you have people with dual citizenship living on the west coast there's a lot of complicated issues in any sense I think the DPP objects this reform more vigorously than the KMT much more vigorously they really worry about the army of Taiwanese expatriate living and working in China I don't think they will vote 100% for a month no, not at all but maybe 65 versus 35 according to the convention Gregory Ho from Radio Free Asia the question is about many failures which poll will be more believable and trustworthy even the underground gamblers who know more about the sentiment, the election they lost money and even the future affairs exchange they are predicting wrong this time so could you give us any insights at which poll will be more believable from now on you are more proponent well let me get to your point that whether the book maker they have a better sense unfortunately not depends on in the south yes there are some book maker in Taiwan's favor but in the central part in the northern part it's opposite people who are kind of influenced by their immediate surrounding so people in the end they are not very rational if people are really fully informed rational actor then we won't have a crisis now getting back to the poll I think nowadays the internal poll I believe that the KMT have conducted turned out to be quite reliable looking at the hindsight but nobody really entirely believing it but my colleague Hong Yong Tai he worked closely with the KMT headquarters they use more systematic way to do the stratified sampling and they enlarge the sample size to more than 4,000 so they can predict not just the island wide but also the north the central and south most media I think the methodology they employ is flawed in many ways it cannot cover people who use mobile phone only they cannot cover overseas expatriate and also they cannot overcome the fact that a lot of people simply refuse to review their preference so they have to do a lot of educated guess in this time of future market the misfire in a totally different direction so I'm sorry I don't have any good answer to your question there are limits to what extent the poll can be reliable but obviously we have to say the margin this time is not big enough we cannot enjoy more than 10% leave them it gives you some kind of assurance but not this time my one suggestion is look at previous voting patterns I think that's probably much more reliable than looking at quite biased media polly microphone it's now thanks Betty Linn of the World Journal could the panelists address the timing issue because the election is only a few days before the Lunar New Year vacation so a lot of people, southerners working in the north they didn't bother to go back home and come back to work for a couple of days and then make another long trip and do you think this is one factor for people not showing up in the south thanks there's an issue the DPP complain about the timing because the Lunar Chinese New Year and it's difficult to come to go back to the south and come back to work and the students still in school but the weather also plays a role it's clear weather and the other clothes the boots the weather work favorable for KMD too so all kinds of factors come together we have like one more question so you had your hand up thank you my question is about the point to make the new healthy balance on one hand which is encouraging sign I agree and do we need to worry about the possibility that we make the political great luck that we often see even worse in the days to come thank you I think this if we think about democracy as having checks and balances then I think this new parliament is very positive I think the overwhelming domination that the KMT had I think created a sense of alienation among many people in Taiwan in March 1st term so I think it's going to take it's going to be very hard for Ma to actually push his agenda and actually I slightly disagree with Professor Zhu's comment that there will be less obstacles for cross-strait development because I think it's going to be I think this will probably slow down development in cross-strait relations with a smaller majority and again I think this is positive because you need to have checks and balances that's a democracy and it's going to take it's actually going to force mind you in the KMT regime to actually look for some consensus even though the KMT was quite critical of Tai on the Taiwan consensus per se some of Ma's post-election comments show that I think he needs to reach out to other groups in society not just the DDP but I think the reach out to civil society so I think that's very positive I just want to at one point I think the DPP have to think very deep about what kind of role they want to play in the parliament whether they want to continue the food-dragging strategy which cut both ways for their future electoral fortune okay if they are content to be the parliament not already I think they feel free to do that if not I think they have to revisit their strategy and I think the fact that if you look at the ECFA initially the DPP is like over my dead body but in the end they fully accept this phase are complete and not only that Tai went on her campaign trail she promised that nothing will change maybe if she get elected she might want to slow down the process but I think we are DPP too they now live under a new reality no one can totally ignore the larger trend which has been unfolded over the last decade so finally I just want to say if any of the panelists had any last words they wanted to say after all the discussion will you enter in? I think the last election is a landslide victory for my enjoying year 2008 that's unhealthy now it's back to normal the rotation of power or political parties will become normal practice as a pattern and if DPP can success for the overtake I mean about the mainland policy straight relations then DPP have much more chance to win back power than KMT the key of the Taiwan relations is for DPP now in KMT we know about this and sooner or later DPP will take into power if they learn a lesson I'd like to have you join me in thanking our panelists for a very enlightening session