Did the U.S. intervene in Taiwan’s presidential election?
By Ching-chih Chen (陳清池）

Evidence has pointed to the fact that the U.S. government failed to live up to its repeated public statement that it would maintain neutrality in the election of January 14, 2012.

First of all, in September, 2011, right after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen had a meeting with U.S. National Security Council as well as State Department officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Cambell, in Washington, D. C., Financial Times reported an unidentified senior official said that Tsai had left President Obama’s administration with “distinct concerns” about her ability to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait. State Department immediately made known publicly that was not their view. The unidentified senior official has subsequently been widely viewed by critics in the U.S. and Taiwan as a White House official. And, this official’s talking to Financial Times has been generally interpreted as a clear attempt to cripple Tsai’s presidential campaign.

Later developments unfortunately have also shown that the U.S. did exercise its enormous influence in impacting the outcome of the election in Taiwan. According to Douglas H. Paal’s opinion piece titled “Taiwan Election has the United States and China on Edge” for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he is vice president for studies, “To reinforce its policy preference, the Obama administration has successfully approved a $45.852 billion arms sales package for Taiwan…arranged visits by American officials of five agencies at increasingly high levels that had not been seen in more than a decade, and signaled its intention to admit Taiwan to the valued visa waiver program next year—all in advance of the election.’’ The visa waiver program nearing approval announced by the American Institute in Taiwan in December in particular handed President Ma Ying-jeou an election-season and Christmas gift.

However, the role Douglas H. Paal played a few days before the election is most controversial. Paal is former director of American Institute in Taiwan (2002-2006). In his above-mentioned essay appeared on January 11, he writes, “When Tsai was in the United States last September, she suggested vaguely that the four-month interregnum should give Americans some room to see that she will handle things smoothly. It was this vagueness, however, that prompted administration officials’ doubt and did not reassure them. Subsequently, officials let it be known widely, but anonymously, that on the basis of what she had to say, they lacked confidence in her ability to manage cross-strait relations effectively.” Apparently not content with having expressed his view in writing, he flew to Taiwan knowing full well that the presidential election in Taiwan “appears to be tight”. On the evening of January 12, Paal talked to a local television channel station suggesting that Washington was unhappy with Tsai Ing-wen and her tougher approach to dealing with China. He further made it clear that both Washington and Beijing would breathe “a huge sigh of relief” if President Ma were re-elected. Paal thus rattled Taiwan before the election, according to a New York Times report. (See Andrew Jacobs’ “Former U.S. Diplomat Rattles Taiwan Before Election, January 13.) The same report also pointed out that Frank H. Murkowski, the former Republican senator from Alaska who was leading a delegation of election observers in Taiwan, called Paal’s remarks “careless,” “irresponsible” and “inexcusable” in a press conference and accused Mr. Paal of deliberately trying to aid the campaign of Mr. Ma.

In spite of his claiming that he did not speak for the American government, the Taiwanese newspapers nevertheless stressed that Paal was a former de facto U.S. ambassador to Taiwan. Taiwanese voters thus perceived that Paal spoke for the U.S. State Department. While he said that he spoke “when I’m asked to give my opinion,” I would say he went to Taiwan not so much to observe the election but to make a difference in the outcome of the election. Now that Ma has won his re-election, it would be hard for reasonable people to believe that the U.S. government has not appreciated Paal’s efforts that had helped to make a difference.

The damage was done although there is no way of knowing to what extent the U.S. intervention had impacted the election result. In the eyes of many freedom-loving people, it is fairly clear that the intervention has also tainted America’s long-cherished reputation of being pro-democracy.