Logical Connection between Men-Tzi and Li-Tzi

Prospect of DPP & PFP Coalition

Step 3 Logical Connection between Men-Tzi and Li-Tzi

Once the above two step are achieved, the third step is to make sure the connection between the preservation of face and more substantial political exchange, which is beyond minimum winning seat, is at any time logical and feasible. In essence, every substantial political gain has to be wrapped beautifully by the face-caring discourse for legitimating actions of politicians and make the inquiring of political gain process sounds morally correct. While moreexchangeof“Li-Tzi”, such as cooperation on certain legislative bills and forming campaign ally on local election, will be restlessly pursuit and negotiated by rational politicians to the goal of maximizing return, each act of seeking political gain from both actors needs to be carefully crafted under face rule. On the

contrary, if any coalition negotiation result might hurt the face of any concerning actors, the tango will be crippled but a full stop of this tango will not come up until the two parties lose their substantial needs from each other to form a coalition.

Case Study of DPP-PFP Coalition

In the following section, we tend to analyze the prospect of DPP-PFP coalition by following the three-step tango theoretical framework mentioned above. How does the DPP-PFP coalition be brought out initially? What is the electoral background which creates the motivation to call for a DPP & PFP coalition? While saving his or her face, how is the face-saving strategy channel the coalition outcome? With the computerized TDT method, we specifically analyze the news reports on the Bien-Soong meeting which is the peak of coalition negotiation process and observe how the discourses of both actors are played out for the sake of Li-Tzi and Men-Tzi.

Step 1 Substantial Need to Form Coalition

What is the electoral background to call upon a DPP and PFP coalition? From the DPP point of view, the Pan-Green⁴⁴ together with DPP and TSU for two times cannot form a majority in the Legislative Yuan (table 1). Neither the 5th nor the 6^thPan-Green legislator seats sum more than 113 out of 225 seats in the LY. As a result the Bien administration often confronted legislative gridlock created by the majority opposition Blue-Pan of KMT and PFP. Not only were many bills favored by the DPP not passed in the LY, the Bien administration also faced enormous obstacles from the ____________________________________

44 Both the Pan-Green and Pan-Blue sustained and adhered to each respective partner due to ideological nearness, especially on cross-strait unification and independence issue.

opposition camp. Immediately after the 6^thlegislature election, DPP as the executive ruling party actively sought solution to mitigate the future legislative gridlock problem. A PFP and DPP coalition came along to be an option. On the part of PFP, after KMT and PFP failed to cooperate effectively on the 6^thLegislature election⁴⁵ on December of 2004 whereas PFP Chairman Soong felt not being treated equally by KMT Chairman Lien as strategic partner, Soong and Lien coalition had been almost broken.

Table 1 Party Affiliation of Elected legislators since 1995 Term Election

Year

DPP KMT PFP TSU NPSU* NP None/

Other

Total

6^th** 2004 89 79 34 12 6 1 4 225

5^th 2001 87 68 46 13 n/a 1 9/1 225

4^th 1998 70 123 n/a n/a n/a 11 12/9 225

3^th 1995 54 85 n/a n/a n/a 21 4 164

Source: Central Election Commission Dec, 2004 Note: Pan-Blue (KMT/PFP/NP) Pan-Green (DPP/TSU)

*Non-Partisan Solidarity Union

** During Dec of 2004 to June 2005, PFP has lost three legislators in total, among which the most famous is Chou Hsi-Wei who returned back to KMT. (please refer to footnote 3). Therefore, as of June 2005 only 31 legislators are affiliated with PFP.

Having both the DPP and the PFP the incentive to approach each other, the coalition is called upon and the tango between Li-Tzi and Men-Tzi begins. The first step of coalition tango as

discussed above is to fulfill the substantial need to form a coalition. Base on pure seat calculation, 87 seats of DPP adding with 34 seats of PFP on December 2004 can form a 121 majority in the Legislative Yuan, which is the minimum winning coalition with a little more 113 seats out of a total 225 seats. DPP and PFP indeed are qualified to form a coalition. And as long as the aggregate seats ofDPP and PFP areoverminimum sinning size,“Li-Tzi”issecured asthefirwststep and thetango will be carried on to the next step.

Step 2 Men-Tzi Comes to Wrap Li-Tzi

____________________________________

45 Under the so called KMT-PFP campaign ally, PFP lost 12 seats at the 10^thlegislature election, compared to the 9^th legislature election while KMT gained 11 seats.

In Taiwan society, Men-Tzi usually acts as moral correctness and also justifies the action of politicians to ensure his or her sustainable political career in the future. In the case of DPP and PFP coalition, this paper proposes to analyze the focus of the DPP-PFP negotiation, namely the

Bien-Soong meeting. Indeed, our research utilizes the Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT)⁴⁶ system to trace back all news reported on the Bien-Soong meeting and specifically attempt to uncoverhow thediscoursesbetween Soong and Bien arepresented.Whatistheroleof“Men-Tzi” played in the discourse? How Soong or Bien use the face-saving strategy if any to warp Li-Tzi?

TDT Analysis for Bien-Soong Meeting

The time line of the Bien-Soong meeting defined in the TDT system is from Dec. 11, 2004 to March 3, 2005 when the President’ssenioradvisor,Wu Li-Pei⁴⁷ expressed his discontent towards the DPP-PFP reconciliation and also after this day the focus of news attention is shifted to the anti-secession law. Upon computerized researches, in total of 195 relevant news reports are collected. The first news concerns the Bien-Soong meeting appears on Dec. 15, 2004. The result derives from the TDT system is the following:

1. The Bien-Soong meeting empirical data only partially confirms the rational choice prediction ____________________________________

46 TDT research develops algorithms for discovering and threading together topically related material in streams of data such as newswire and broadcast news. This data collection and research are sponsored by National Science Council research project NSC93-2414-H-110-009 “Study on Legislative Yuan –Information Gathering and Network Comparison in the Fourth and the Fifth Section”Researches concerning news analysis includes Allan et al., 1998; Ku, 2000; Franz et al., 2001; Hui et al., 2001. A detail of TDT project on Bien-Soong Meeting can be found in “Topic Detection and Tracking Application of Political News –Case Study of Bien-Soong Meeting”by Da-Chi Liao, Fu-ren Lin & Chia-hao Liang, published on April 14-15, 2005 Fo-Kuan Social Science College “The Fifth Symposium on Politics & Information Technology.”.

47 Wu Li-Pei although currently serves in the President’s senior advisory groups, he represents by a large the Taiwanese-American community. He turned in his resignation as the Presidential Advisor on March 3, 2005 as a gesture of opposition on the Bien-Soong meeting. However, after talking to the President the next day, he retrieved his resignation for sake of good yet saying that "Just because I decide to stay at the post does not mean I completely accept the 10-point consensus, although the truth is that the consensus did not upset me that much, since it's basically in line with what Chen said before," said Wu, a long-time overseas Taiwanese independence advocate who gave up his US citizenship last July to return to Taiwan and to serve as a senior advisor. Taipei Times, March 04, 2005.

on the fact that political parties, who are interesting in forming a minimum winning coalition (DPP 89 seats, PFP 34 seats, total of 123 seats), are primarily for the purpose of maximizing its gain in the distribution of cabinet seats or in general issue of personnel appointment.

Statistically speaking, 54 out of 195 articles are concerned with the issue of personnel appointment where as the rest wander on ideological issues with key words such as Taiwan independent-unification, cross-strait peace, cross-strait relation, ethnic group, the ROC. Among all other issues, the Taiwan independence or unification question is most widely discussed in 53 of the 195 articles. (see table 2).

Table 2: Number of article appearance on different issues Issue Personnel ROC Taiwan

Independence – Unification

Cross-Strait Peace

Cross-Strait relation

Ethnic group

Number of article

54 41 53 41 37 23

Furthermore, we demand the TDT system to draw a distribution map on various selected issues.Graph 1 portraitsthatthe“personnel”issueappearsatthe earliest on December 15^thwhich is the first day of the system selected research and remains steadily mentioned over time until March 3, the last day of the selected data. In total of 78 days in our selected period, the personnel issue was not mentioned only in 12 days.On theotherfront,the“Taiwan independenceor

unification”issuehasnotbeen raised untilDecember30,2004 and thefrequency ofitsappearance does not intensify until Feb. 24 when Bien and Soong finally met. In between there are 16 days of interval, mostly before Feb. 22, that the issue is not discussed. Therefore, in overall, the

“personnel”issueshall,aspredicted by therationalchoiceschool,bethecoreconcern of Bien-Soong meeting, whereas the ideological issues brought out as the inevitable content on the discussion lists.

Graph 1:“Personnel” & “Taiwan IndependenceorUnification” issuesdistribution map

( personnel) (Independence/Unification)

Asidethe“Taiwan independenceorunification”question,otherideologicalquestionssuch asthe

“cross-straitpeace”,“cross-straitrelation”,“theROC”,“ethnicgroup”allhavesimilardistribution, intensifying only afterFeb.19 (seeGraph 2 & 3).Onceagain,the“personnel”issueistheonly question which is mentioned steadily throughout the meeting yet why at the end no personnel arrangementispreciously madeultimately? Theissueof“personnel”shallaccord with theinterest ofpartiesin expanding theirpoweriffollowed Riker’stheory and is at the core of coalition party discussion in most of traditional party coalition process, why in the DPP-PFP coalition formation of Taiwan theissueseemsto bea“taboo”?

Graph 2: Cross-strait peace & Cross-strait relation issues distribution map

(cross-strait peace) (cross-strait relation)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

2004-12-15 2004-12-22 2004-12-29 2004-12-30 2004-12-31 2005-01-01 2005-01-02 2005-01-05 2005-01-06 2005-01-07 2005-01-08 2005-01-09 2005-01-10 2005-01-11 2005-01-12 2005-01-13 2005-01-14 2005-01-15 2005-01-17 2005-02-03 2005-02-04 2005-02-05 2005-02-12 2005-02-13 2005-02-14 2005-02-15 2005-02-16 2005-02-17 2005-02-18 2005-02-19 2005-02-20 2005-02-21 2005-02-22 2005-02-23 2005-02-24 2005-02-25 2005-02-26 2005-02-27 2005-02-28 2005-03-01 2005-03-02 2005-03-03

Date

Posts 人事台獨統獨

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Date

Posts 兩岸和平兩岸關係

Graph 3:“ROC” & “EthnicGroup” issuesdistribution map

(ROC) (Ethnic group)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Date

Posts 中華民國族群

2. Following the observation of 1 and 2 above, although the issue of “personnel”ismentioned steadily throughout the Bien-Soong meeting, how does that issue been discussed? What is the directional dimension of the issue, namely positively or negatively discussed?⁴⁸ Upon careful ____________________________________

48 In semiotic analysis and organization theory in Barley, Stephen R. (1983). Semiotics and the Study of Occupational and Organizational Cultures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28 (1983): 393-413, one has to explore the dialectic interpretation in wording in order to capture the real meaning of a sentence and the characteristic of an organization.

Both the positive and the negative side of the arguments have to be presented before the core focus of the event can be

analysis of the content of the personnel issue raised by Bien-Soong in our event review system, the“personnel”issueisnegatively broughtout.Thecabinetcoalition issaid to beimpossible and no personnel exchange is to be promised. On December 15, the first time the keyword

“personnel”issearched, Chairman Soong clearly states that he will not join the cabinet of DPP or participate in any personnel arrangement. At the day of the meeting on Feb. 24, both leaders confirmed that no discussion on personnel appointment took place. (see Appendix 1 for full report).Therefore,the“personnel”issueisnegatively presented notonly signify thecore concern of Bien-Soong meeting surrounds on such an issue but also implies the

inappropriateness of the clarification on this issue embedded in an organizational culture trait.

Men-Tzi Wraps Li-Tzi

In sum, deducting from the above TDT analysis, how the Men-Tzi wrap the Li-Tzi in Bien-Soong meeting is two-folded. Firstly, morally speaking the PFP Chairman Soong is not expected by the public to directly ask for cabinet seats in the discourse as predicted by the rational school. For the Chinese culture we associate power seeking with negative image. It is not an

appropriate act for a politician to fiercely ask for power directly in discourse. PFP Chairman Soong, in order to save his own Men-Tzi, although back of his mind might wish to acquire cabinet seats when the DPP-PFP coalition is called, as our TDT analysis shows, at the Bien-Soong meeting day, no personnel arrangement deal is directly brought out for Soong would not want to create an image of an ambitious man in a negative form.

Secondly, as we all observe the fundamental ideological gap between the blue-origin PFP and the green-origin DPP. Especially the party ideology of the two parties on independence-unification issue is highly polarized. Soong acting as the party chairman of the deep blue PFP cannot betray his party members and constituency. He cannot lose the face of his own and that of his party. In

determined.

consequence, Soong during the Bien-Soong meeting repeatedly emphasized in his public

announcementthathewillnotgiveup thePFP’scoreideologicalinsistence on unification and the one-china policy. On the part of Bien, he cannot be seen as going to sell out the face of DPP giving up the DPP stand on the unification-independence issue for meeting with Soong.⁴⁹ Therefore for saving both actors’faceand publicimage,to clarify theideologicalstanceon the

unification-independence issue is on the top list of both leaders which has been proved true as we observe the Bien-Soong meeting.

Step 3. Logical Connection between Men-Tzi and Li-Tzi

Li-Tzi is an indispensable part of Men-Tzi. For the tango can be carried on, the exchange between “Men-Tzi”and “Li-Tzi”shallbelogical.Whilepartiesarerationaland are primarily after the substantial political gain, the inquiring process should coincide with the face principle. In the case of DPP and PFP coalition, although the personnel issue is not the focus of the Bien-Soong meeting, it should ultimately be resolved if a coalition is to be realized in the future. Interestingly, while Soong is saving his own face, not revealing his power seeking intention at the meeting, Bien took the first lead to sell face to Soong with the signing of the ten point consensus which

approaches more to pan-blue ideology. However, Bien, risking of irritating his own pan-green supporters,isnotselling outthe“face”to Soong forfree.By apparently seemed to solvethe fundamental party ideology nearness issue for the purpose of initiating the party coalition talk, in return, Bien is looking forward to exchanging some political gains from the PFP. For instance, Bien mighthopeto exchangeforthePFP’ssupportattheLegislativeYuan on arm-procurement and the new military budget⁵⁰ and other bill such as personnel nomination on Control Yuan⁵¹. In return to ____________________________________

49 The Bien-Soong meeting created a big stir inside the DPP party and many pro-Bien supporters. The most obvious incident is the resignation of the presidential senior adviser Wu Li-Pei for opposing the Bien-Soong meeting.

50 The opposition blue pan lawmakers continues to block the proposal of the NT$610.8 billion defense budget, proposed to purchase a defensive weapons package of eight diesel-electric submarines, twelve P-3C Orion anti submarine aircraft, six batteries of PAC-3 missile launchers and 388 Patriot missiles. Such a military budget is the biggest in the last decade and is in great concern of our biggest arm provider –the US.

the favor of PFP, President Bien might consider in exchange to allow Soong to play a role in the Committee for Cross-Strait Peace and Development Chen wishes to establish.

Under such condition, a DPP-PFP coalition can be feasible. As for Bien, cooperating with Soong in this case not only can help the executive branch function with the necessary bills it requires; but for the good sake of all Taiwanese people, through Soong in Cross-Strait Peace and Development Committee, Bien can ultimate advance cross-strait peace which is for the good of Taiwanese people and not swings away from the DPP ideology–securing both Li-Tzi and Men-Tzi.

As for Soong, his face is secured at the ten-point consensus. Although, in terms of exchange of Li-Tzi, PFP might be struggling in whether to support DPP in specific legislative bills, PFP might be more willing to compromise if given the chance to take a major role in furthering cross-strait peace negotiation which coincides the PFP party ideology and within the expectation of their supporters.

Conclusion

The potential instability and nuance of party coalition formation is at the heart of politics. The rational choice school model for explaining the party coalition behavior might be simple and analytically useful in analyzing cases in an advance democratic society in the west. This paper argues that to understand further the complex phenomena of party coalition formation, the culture trait should be brought into the scene. In the case of Taiwan, we need to go beyond rational school and takeinto accountofthedeeply rooted “face”culturein socialand especially politicalarena.

“Li-Tzi”isstillimportantforpoliticiansyetthemethod ofacquiring politicalgain is often laid undertheshadow of“Men-Tzi”.Asaresult,thepaperdevelopsaLi-Tzi and Men-Tzi three-step tangoing model to delineate the picture of DPP-PFP coalition prospect.

51 The tenure of the incumbent Control Yuan members expired at the end of January, 2005. Until the present day, one of the five governmental branches, responsible for impeachment, censure, and audit, is not functioning with the absence of successful nomination. Leaders of the pan-green alliance of the DPP and TSU have warned of a constitutional crisis if the Legislature fails to approve new Control Yuan members. The negotiation process on the issue continues.

Thedynamicof“Li-Tzi” and “Men-Tzi”exchangein each step isrich in variety. Any

exchange of political gain cannot be seen as face hurting and vice versa. For the tango is successful,

在文檔中立法院立法表現之研究：第四屆與第五屆審議法案的資訊蒐求及資訊網絡之比較(II)The Legislative Performance of Legislative Yuan: A Comparison of Its Information Gatherings and Information Networks for Examining Bills between Its Fourth and Fifth Terms (II) (頁 170-180)

Logical Connection between Men-Tzi and Li-Tzi

Prospect of DPP &amp; PFP Coalition

Step 3 Logical Connection between Men-Tzi and Li-Tzi

Prospect of DPP & PFP Coalition