PFP INSIDER SAYS: PFP HAS NO FUTURE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 000054 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/06/2016 TAGS: PGOV MASS MCAP TW SUBJECT: PFP INSIDER SAYS: PFP HAS NO FUTURE Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason(s): 1.4 (B/D). ¶1. (C) Summary: People First Party (PFP) legislator Lin Yu-fang told AIT that the PFP has no political future and that he and a number of other legislators will be returning to the KMT before the next LY session begins in February. Lin describes PFP Chairman James Soong as deeply jealous over the political success of the younger KMT Chairman, Ma Ying-jeou. Recent meetings between the two chairmen achieved little toward unifying the putative Pan-Blue allies. Lin, a longtime critic of the Defense Procurement Special Budget, explained that Ma began considering the defense budget issue seriously only after his election as Chairman in July 2005, but he subsequently backed off, skittish in the face of criticism from Soong and maverick legislator Li Ao. Lin views President Chen's strident New Year's Day speech as intended to bolster deep-Green support for Yu Shyi-kun, Chen's favored candidate for DPP Chairman. Finally, as he said during the hubbub attending LY approval of the Kidds purchase, Lin sought to assure AIT that he was not anti-U.S., but that his vocally critical efforts to formulate reasonable defense budgets and policies for Taiwan were actually in sync with U.S. interests and policies. End Summary. PFP Insider: PFP Has No Future -------------- ¶2. (C) On January 5, AIT met with PFP legislator Lin Yu-fang, one of the four Chairs of the Legislative Yuan (LY) Defense Committee. Lin, a strong critic of the Defense Procurement Special Budget over the past sixteen months, has made a public show of declining to meet with AIT for most of the past year. Elected from Taipei's southern district, Lin told AIT that he will be returning to the KMT before the start of the next LY session in early February. He explained that his supporters have repeatedly told him they will not vote for him over the KMT candidate in the 2007 LY election. Lin predicts that a number -- perhaps eight to nine -- other PFP LY members will leave the party one by one, until only the most die-hard Soong supporters remain. Lin said "legislators-at-large," or those elected on the PFP ticket who have no home district or constituency of their own, will stick with the PFP until the very end, because without the party they have no chance of winning a seat. ¶3. (C) Lin said he began trying a year ago to persuade James Soong to return to the KMT. He told Soong directly and through intermediaries that the PFP's power would continue to decline, and the longer Soong waited to return, the fewer bargaining chips he would have. Lin advised Soong that the KMT would give him a hero's welcome if he offered without conditions to return to the KMT the PFP's 33 LY members and its considerable strength in the city governments of Taipei and Kaohsiung. For his part, Soong should offer to become a "lifetime volunteer for the party" like KMT LY Speaker Wang Jin-pyng. Lin reminded Soong that he and others left the KMT because of Lee Teng-hui and that, now that Lee had was out of the KMT, it was Soong's and the PFP's "duty" to return to the mother party. Lin told AIT that he had been repeating this argument over and over to Soong, as recently as one month ago, but to no avail. Once a close confidant of Soong, Lin now rarely speaks to him. Ma-Soong Talks Catharsis For Soong, Little Else -------------- -- ¶4. (C) Lin said that after the PFP's poor showing in the December 3, 2005 local elections, he feared that Soong, angry over KMT tactics during the race, would quickly attack Ma and his KMT, creating a rift in the Pan-Blue that President Chen could exploit. To avert this outcome, Lin said he and others in the PFP pushed hard for a quick meeting between the two chairmen. Lin told AIT that the two Ma-Soong meetings have helped curb Soong's anger toward Ma, serving as a form of catharsis for the PFP Chairman, and have thus far kept relations between the two men from "getting worse." Soong still resents playing second fiddle to the younger Ma, since the two men had similar career tracks as they rose in the seniority-driven KMT. There has been no progress on a Pan-Blue mechanism for apportioning candidates for next year's LY election, said Lin, who then added that since most TAIPEI 00000054 002 OF 003 PFP LY members will have returned to the KMT well before the 2007 election, the nomination mechanism will be mooted. Ma Receptive To Rational Defense Budget Analysis -------------- --- ¶5. (C) Lin told AIT that shortly after Ma was elected KMT Chairman in July 2005, Ma requested a briefing from Lin on the Special Defense Budget issue. Lin said he told Ma that the "vetoed" 2004 missile defense referendum had ruled out any discussion of the PAC-III missiles for the foreseeable future. Even though the submarines were too expensive and too many at the average price of $1.1 billion each, Lin counseled Ma against flatly rejecting their purchase. Instead, Lin suggested Ma ask the Ministry of National Defense (MND) to pursue a price reduction, after which the LY could consider the purchase, perhaps under a "four-plus-four" scheme, where, if the first four did not meet the MND's requirements, the purchase of the second four could be considered. As to the P-3C ASW planes, Lin told Ma the price seemed reasonable, but Taiwan perhaps needed only eight planes to meet its defense objective. Ma agreed to all of the foregoing in principle. ¶6. (C) Shortly after briefing Ma, Lin recommended the KMT establish a four-member "arms procurement working group" to set KMT defense budget policy, and to develop a strategy to pursue it in the LY. The group included LY Defense Committee member Su Chi, Adm. Shuai Hua-min (ret.),and KMT Vice-chair Kuan Chung. After the working group's first meeting, Lin recommended a poll be taken to determine whether a gap existed between public opinion and the KMT's opposition to arms procurement. Before the poll could be conducted, Lin said, the existence of the working group was leaked to the press. Independent legislator Li Ao attacked the group as evidence the KMT was caving in to U.S. pressure to buy unnecessary weapons. Five months before the December 2005 local elections, and desperate to distinguish his party from the KMT, Soong publicly accused the KMT of having gone soft on the weapons issue, and claimed that the PFP was the more "courageous, independent" party, still willing and able to say "no" to the U.S. arms procurement package. Under political pressure, the working group was dissolved, Lin said, and Ma retreated from the arms procurement issue. Chen's Speech for DPP Consumption -------------- ¶7. (C) Lin said he was not surprised by President Chen's change of direction in his New Year's Day speech. After having paid attention to Chen for years, Lin now understands, he explained, that Chen is "not rigid ideologically," but is rather "very pragmatic" and has no "set principles." Lin told AIT that he views Chen's strident January 1 remarks as primarily intended to help Yu Shyi-kun become the next DPP Chairman. Chen hoped his remarks would energize the deep-green base to turn out in sufficient numbers to elect You as the new DPP Chairman. Chen is confident, said Lin, that he can control the party through Yu, but he fears becoming a lame-duck should Yu lose the race. Chen's decision to adopt a "consolidated deep-green" strategy follows the DPP's humiliating loss in the December 3, 2005 local elections, whose results show, said Lin, that traditional DPP voters broke from the party to support blue candidates. Once his objectives are achieved, Lin said, Chen will probably return to a moderate tone. ¶8. (C) Lin said Chen, since entering politics, has tried to cultivate relationships with tycoons, particularly Chang Yung-fa, Chairman of Evergreen Shipping. On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, when Chen announced his intention to restrict the three links, including direct cross-Strait transport services, Chang, Chen's long-time benefactor, openly and harshly criticized Chen, and transferred his support to then-KMT presidential candidate Lien Chan. Lin also said Beijing has learned "a lot of useful information" since Lee Teng-hui became president, about how politics works in Taiwan, and the delicate balance among Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. Beijing now understands, said Lin, that if "worse comes to worst," Washington will put sufficient pressure on Chen or another president to avoid confrontation, TAIPEI 00000054 003 OF 003 obviating China's need to do so. The PRC also understands that Chen's flexibility is both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness: he can make decisions quickly, but changes his position too often. Knowing he will change tack soon, Beijing now ignores Chen's provocative remarks, and avoids stirring up anti-China sentiment on Taiwan for Chen to exploit. Lin Wants To Rehabilitate Himself -------------- ¶9. (C) Lin said he is upset that he has been "marked" by AIT as "anti-American." (Note: Last June, Lin and others involved in the arms budget question were invited to a lunch at the Deputy Director's residence. Lin publicized the invitation, and proclaimed that he would not go, to avoid being "pressured" by AIT on the arms issue. End note.) As evidence that his views were really in close accord with the views and policies of the U.S., Lin told AIT that after the LY had decided to cut the budget for the Kidd-class destroyers by 17 percent in 2001, he was the one who found a solution to keep the deal alive. Lin said he told Wang Jin-pyng that it had been foolish of the LY to cut the budget to try to force the U.S. to discount the destroyers, and suggested that instead of confronting the U.S. with the diminished budget, Taiwan should simply buy fewer missiles. Lin claims that without his intervention, the Kidd purchase would not have gone through. Lin also asserts that it is he, and not KMT Defense Committee Member Su Chi, who first insisted that the MND be allowed to buy the P-3Cs, and that the Procedural Committee should release the ASW planes to the Defense Committee for consideration. PAAL