From: jkh3@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jerry K Huang)
Subject: Re: Fight in Taiwan's legislature reported on WPIX TV, NYC 
Reply-To: jkh3@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Jerry K Huang)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:18:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.184331.1781@cbfsb.cb.att.com> wa2ise@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (robert.f.casey) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.125757.4237@vax.cns.muskingum.edu> ericlaw@vax.cns.muskingum.edu (Eric Law, Geology Department) writes:
>>	** After seeing the spectacular fight among Guo2 Dai4
><	   on Jan 8, [....   ]                      ^^^ Taiwan's congress?
>
>Last night (Jan 8, Friday), on New York City TV channel 11 (WPIX), on their
>news show, they showed video footage of a fight that broke out in their
>legislative body (equivalent to the USA Congress) during a dabate.

They are not legislators. In fact, they are even not law-makers. They were
elected, in equivalent, as "representatives", literally, but not empowered
to make laws except the Constitution. (With enough representatives to
co-sign a motion, they may be able to require the Legislators to adopt a
law, though. But this never ever happened in the history of the nation.)
However, they form a body to elect the President of the nation, which is
not working in the form of the electoral college in US politics. What's
funny, according to the Constitution, the National Assemby, which is the
official name of that body, is the supreme institute of a nation named
ROC. 

>  Showed
>members yelling and throwing fists and wrestling on the floor.  No mention
>on this newscast as to what issue was being debated that started this
>brawl.  Mentioned that members of the "opposition party" and the "ruling
>party" were involved.  I had the feeling that the news reporters of 
>this TV channel were "milking" this story for laughs, and saying that
>debates in USA's Congress, while heated at times, rarely get like this.
>I seem to remember hearing about another brawl in Taiwan's legislature
>about 6 to 12 months ago?  Hope I'm wrong, but how common is this anyway?

At the beginning of the meeting that day, the members of the opposition
party motioned a counting to the representatives present, which has the
highest priority to be processed by the Chairperson without any further
discussion and postponement. And if the outcome of the number is not
enough, say, 1/3 of the total members, the Chairman should, and must
announce the termination of the meeting without any condition. 

It turned out that the outcome number did not meet with the required
amount. Nonetheless, the Chairman then announced a "break for ten minutes"
instead of termination to the meeting. This immediately irritated the
opposition party, and soon followed the immense angry actions. (This is
somewhat like calling a balk after, not before, the guy at bat
hits a run homer......)

Years ago, the Legislator Chu initiated such kind of "body struggle"
strategy because he asserted that there could be no other way to reform
the congress except using the force, which he stated was better than
resorting the force on the streets. He began to perform his art of martial
activities after he was sworn by some aging, ten-thousand-year legislators
with 4-letter-words. However, the media only showed to the people his
martial arts, instead of the insults that initiated such fightings. 

In the past, the opposition party had at least 30% of the total ballots,
but representing only 1/10 to 1/5 of the seats in the Legislative Yuan.
Thus almost everything would be subject to the struggle of being just and
assumed legitimacy. Physical brawls among the legislators is just
something that I'd only feel okay since civilian Taiwanese were not like
Americans' ancestors to 'go to arms' to fight with the rulers who taxed
them and rejected them with political equalities. 

The TV news crew in the WPIX did not even bother to double-check that
news. As an alien foreigner who also 'witnessed' the way they processed
the news from a place which was viewed to be less developed, I certainly
am able to recall that kind of bias in the mainstream of the US media
workers. I mean, collectively they should be respectable enough to
irritate Bush in condemning their overreacted liberalism. But when there
is comparison, it is not difficult to get a feeling that the US media
tends to impose upon the Asians with their stereotyped images.

Should things like that in Taiwan happen in US, (actually it happened in
New York several times) I guess the European media will be excited to cover
the punches by calling for I-Witness-Videoes. (And the Japanese might also
be interested in.---Better it's shot by Sony or Nikon camcorder....)

Jerry
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan