KMT woos Taipei with airport revamp
By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - The revitalization of Taipei's Songshan Airport is a gift of the
Taiwanese government of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) to the voters of Taipei.
President Ma Ying-jeou and Taipei City mayor Hau Lung-bin have turned the aging
downtown domestic hub into a major business terminal by establishing direct
international flights not only to Shanghai but also to Seoul and Tokyo.
As Ma talks about the creation of "Northeast Asia's Golden Triangle of
business", Taipeiers are flattered at seeing their city emerge onto the
international stage after long isolation.
One look at Songshan Airport reveals Taipei's past and possibly the city's days
to come. It's a piece of authoritarian architecture
made in times when KMT generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ruled over Taiwan with an
iron fist.
In striking contrast is the newly built modernistic mass rapid transit system
(MRT) station at the airport's main entrance. Glass, steel and ponds with
fountains guarantee good feng shui and therefore an unobstructed inflow
of money into the city, as the Taiwanese believe.
However, Taipei's taxi drivers wait in a never-ending line there as they have
always done. Passengers on the newly launched cross-strait flights might bring
investment, say taxi drivers, but they don't take cabs.
The airport's upgrade is needed to secure the KMT's lead in the year-end
mayoral election race. Although popular with city dwellers, the airport's
revamp has complicated matters for Taiwan's opposition Democratic Progressive
Party's (DPP's) mayoral candidate for Taipei, Su Tseng-chang.
His party has long wanted the airport to be closed down and relocated. Now,
however, Su has diverged from the party line, realizing that opposing the
project would dent his mayoral chances. Forced to accept Taipei City being
closer connected to mainland China through direct flights, Su has had to
counter the KMT government with a last-resort strategy - searching for minor
flaws in the airport.
It's unclear whether or not Su's plan is going to work. Nonetheless, Taiwanese
media have been running daily stories on Songshan Airport's notoriously slow
luggage conveyor belts, overpriced tickets and even a cockroach discovered in
noodles sold at the airport's canteen.
Since the opening of Chiang Kai-shek International Airport - now called Taiwan
Taoyuan International Airport - in 1979, Taipei's downtown Songshan Airport has
functioned as a domestic hub. After the inauguration of the Taiwan High Speed
Rail in 2007, both passenger and load volume dropped significantly.
Then-president Chen Shui-bian's administration planned to turn the airport,
which covers an area of 1.82 square kilometers, into a huge plot of urban
parkland.
At that time, Ma was Taipei mayor. Ma had long pressed to turn Songshan Airport
into Taipei's main cross-strait terminal. However, the DPP vehemently opposed
the plans, since launching direct flights from Taipei's domestic airport to
mainland cities implied that Taiwan and China were one country - as Beijing
asserts. Apart from ideological issues, the DPP also cited security concerns
since the opening of Songshan Airport would mean that Chinese planes could come
close to Taiwan's Presidential Office building.
Finally, on June 14, after years of Taiwan's hallmark fierce political
wrestling, direct flights from Songshan Airport to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport
were launched. As both locations are city airports, commuting between Taipei
and Shanghai within a day has become possible. To counter the DPP's nagging
complaint that direct flights from a Taiwanese domestic airport to the mainland
manifest Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of China, Hau promises that later
in the year there will also be direct flights to Tokyo's Haneda Airport and
Seoul's Gimpo International Airport.
More in accordance with the laws of geometry than Ma's "Golden Triangle of
Business", Hau calls this a "one-day living circle" since business travelers
will theoretically be able to visit Taipei, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo in a day.
In the eyes of Hau, the convenience of significantly reduced travel time is
bound to attract international businesses to set up operations in Taipei.
However, Hau's argument of more convenience obtained through the possibility of
hopping on a plane in downtown Taipei instead of traveling 51 kilometers to
Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport, doesn't wash with Su. Apart from
criticizing Songshan Airport's conveyor belts and accusing it of not being in
shape to handle international flights, Su has yet another case to make: From
2013, a new MRT line is going to connect Taipei with Taoyuan International
Airport. This, Su argues, makes Songshan Airport redundant since travelers will
be able to reach the much larger airport at Taoyuan in 35 minutes.
However, a reason why the Songshan Airport project can nonetheless be seen as
an ace card played by the KMT is to be found in mathematics.
"Seven million people live in Taipei and Xinbei [the name of Taipei county
after the upgrade to a special municipality], that's a third of Taiwan's
population. The voters there simply want their airport to be located in
Taipei", Professor Yao Li-ming, a sought-after commentator often seen on
Taiwan's political talk shows, said in an interview with Asia Times Online.
"Furthermore, the political balance between the KMT and DPP on the municipal
level has changed during the past weeks. With the help of Songshan Airport, the
KMT has made sure that Taipei won't be lost in the year-end five special
municipality elections."
About 60% of Taiwan's 22-million population live in the five special
municipalities Yao refers to. They are Taipei, Xinbei, Taichung, Tainan and
Kaohsiung. It's there where crucial elections will be held. According to most
observers, the results will either make or break Ma's current policy of
cross-strait reconciliation, since a DPP win in three or more out of the five
special municipalities would effectively turn him into a "lame-duck" president.
Since the southern cities of Kaohsiung and Tainan are traditional DPP
strongholds where DPP candidates enjoy comfortable leads, Taipei and Xinbei in
particular are seen as keys to Taiwan's political destiny.
The fifth municipality, Taichung, was a city the KMT could once take for
granted. Yao says this has somewhat surprisingly changed. "Only two months ago,
it was unthinkable that Taichung's mayor Jason Hu [KMT] would lose in the five
municipality elections. This has changed through the recent Taichung
shootings."
Hu has seen his approval ratings dropping from 56% to 36% within two weeks. The
reputation of the once immensely popular politician took a major dent when at
the end of May gunmen walked into a Taichung shop and killed a local gang
leader. The shop's surveillance camera caught four police officers hiding under
a table while the shooting occurred.
The following investigations clearly exposed connections between the underworld
and Taichung's police force. It is far from certain that the local KMT will be
able to recover by November 17, when the five municipality elections are to be
held.
In Taipei, incumbent Hau is believed to have a lead of 5% to 9% over Su.
Taipei's "internationalization" through the launch of direct Shanghai, Seoul
and Tokyo flights from Songshan should further boost the KMT politician's
standing with the electorate.
The race for Xinbei, however, is closer. Here, DPP party chairwoman Tsai
Ying-wen is running against current Vice Premier Eric Chu. Observers predict a
neck-and-neck race.
Yao predicts that an imminent event will be a major disadvantage for the DPP in
the Xinbei race; an event that could have a more dramatic impact than the KMT's
Songshan Airport revitalization coup.
"Very soon, Chen Shui-bian [former DPP president serving the first year of a
20-year jail sentence for corruption] will be freed [on bail]. If Tsai Ying-wen
refuses to rehabilitate Chen, she will lose support in the south; if she's seen
as being a good friend with him, the important political centrists in Xinbei
will be turned off," Yao expounds. "Chen Shui-bian is a bigger obstacle to the
DPP than Songshan Airport," he says.
Jens Kastner is a Taipei-based reporter.
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