Taiwan’s blue KMT Hou Youyi and the White People’s Party Ko Wenzhe negotiated for more than 40 days on the “Blue and White Cooperation”, and finally broke through on November 24. Hou Youyi and Ko Wenzhe each found running partners to run for office, turning the “Blue and White Cooperation” into It ended in a farce.
The most dramatic incident occurred at the “Grand Hyatt Club” held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei last Thursday (November 23). It was the eve of the nomination and the “Blue and White Club” was on the verge of collapse. Ko Wenzhe asked Terry Gou to set up a club at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Bureau, hoping that the Kuomintang Hou Youyi would conduct final negotiations, but the whole “Grand Hyatt Club” was more like a performance than a negotiation. Since Ke Wenzhe’s party asked reporters to wait at the scene early in the morning, when inviting Hou Youyi to participate in the meeting, they also put up an electronic clock to indicate the time of the candidacy. , the pressure on Hou Youyi is very strong. In the end, Hou Youyi first asked Ma Ying-jeou and Kuomintang Chairman Zhu Lilun to accompany him to the meeting. Later, he refused to negotiate in a secret room and demanded that reporters be present openly. In this situation, breaking up on bad terms is a destined outcome.
The break of “Blue and White” reveals several problems:
One, no one wants to play second fiddle. Although after the break, it was reported that Huang Shanshan, Ke Wenzhe’s core staff, was the one who strongly opposed Ke Wenzhe’s participation in the “Blue and White Alliance”. However, regardless of the two camps’ respective opposition to joint candidacy, the key is that neither Ke Wenzhe nor Hou Youyi want to act as deputy. This is the root cause of the incompatibility between blue and white. Some people say that the “Blue and White” negotiation is reminiscent of Game Theory, especially the coward’s game that arises from it. Two people are driving a sports car against each other. The one who is afraid of collision and swerves first to avoid it is the coward. However, if neither of the two people are willing to be cowards and the two cars collide head-on, and everyone is killed, it will be like the current situation where the “Blue and White Cooperation” negotiations have broken down.
Second, the biggest beneficiary is the Democratic Progressive Party. The original intention of “blue and white combination” is that Lai Qingde of the DPP has always been leading in the polls, with more than 30% support, while Ko Wenzhe and Hou Youyi both have more than 20% support, so if blue and white do not combine, they will lose the election. If you stand for election, you will have a strong chance of winning. The biggest beneficiary of the collapse of “Blue and White” today is naturally the Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Qingde.
Although after the tie was broken, the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation released a poll conducted before the tie was broken on Monday (November 27), indicating that Ko Wenzhe led with 31.9% support, a surge of 6.3 percentage points, while Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party led the way with 31.9% support. Ranking second with 29.2% support, a drop of 0.5 percentage points, while Hou Youyi only received 23.6% support. Although it increased by 2.5 percentage points, there is still a large gap between support and other candidates. It shows that Ke Wenzhe is blue because of his blue background. Thanks to Baihe’s publicity, his popularity rose dramatically. However, the credibility of these polls in Taiwan is still questioned. The Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation also released party polls that showed that support for Ko Wenzhe’s People’s Party has surged. The blue media “United Daily News” used the four words “unbelievable” as its headline. Taiwan’s polls can be used as a reference but cannot be relied upon. The person who benefited the most from the blue-white divide is Lai Ching-te. It is said that Lai Ching-te’s decline in public opinion will help the DPP to push for votes.
Third, the assumption of rationality is invalid. As I said earlier, if we look at “Blue and White” from game theory, if both sides think rationally, they should be able to win, because whether Hou Youyi or Ko Wenzhe give in and act as deputy, they can eventually overthrow the Democratic Progressive Party. It is better for the party to come to power than to stand for election independently, which is likely to fail in the end. But when no one is willing to be a deputy and the negotiation breaks down, it becomes a gambling mentality, which is not a rational choice.
The discord between Blue and White also shows that Taiwan has no political leader, and the top leaders of both parties are unwilling to sacrifice for the overall interests. Behind this is a situation of “rational ineffectiveness”. This is similar to the thinking model of Ukrainian President Zelensky. Until the war between Russia and Ukraine started on February 24 last year, as long as Zelensky chose to give up applying to join NATO and made a public commitment, the war would not be fought, but he chose to persist. Bet that Ukraine could defeat Russia with the support of the United States and the West, but now it has lost four points to a country. Therefore, the invalidity of Taiwan’s rationality hypothesis has profound implications. Don’t think that if the DPP continues to be in power, it will stop playing for Taiwan independence and avoid war. Many times politicians only look at short-term electoral interests and will not know how to stop when they rush to the edge of the cliff.
“Bus Newspaper” is an online newspaper that allows netizens to
Hold your phone or tablet to see.
www.bastillepost.com
[email protected]
Lu Yongxiong
#Yongxiong #Enlightenment #invalid #rationality #hypothesis #TaiwanBus #comments
2023-11-28 16:00:00
