All are agreed that President Chen Shui-bian is a very resourceful newsmaker.In the campaign of 2008, in which he himself isn’t running, he has never failed to make up something to court wide, if controversial, publicity at the expense of those candidates he is helping to get elected.After demonizing Chiang Kai-shek and renaming the memorial dedicated to the generalissimo, Chen is now publicizing his and his family’s safety being threatened.
Chen first said her dentist daughter received a threatening letter.Chen Hsing-yu, the first daughter, left Taipei for the United States with her son for “a visit,” which opposition lawmakers ridiculed as her no-confidence vote on the National Security Bureau that provides security service for the first family.
The president followed it up by revealing his son, Chen Chih-chung, also received a threatening letter.Then he went on the record by saying he himself got an e-mail letter threatening himself and his family with violence.His public affairs chief showed the letter signed by a “Killer in Black,” who threatened to send him “two bullets” if he does not apologize for demonizing Generalissimo Chiang, who ruled Taiwan from 1949 to 1975 as president. Two homemade bullets were fired by a gunman in Tainan on March 19, 2004.One of them grazed Chen’s abdomen and the other lodged in a knee of his vice president, Annette Lu.Both of them were aboard the same open car on the eve of the presidential election, when the shooting took place.The incident was rumored as an assassination attempt orchestrated by China, and Chen won reelection by a paper-thin margin of 0.2 percent, thanks chiefly to tens of thousands of sympathy votes.The gunman, a trained diver, committed suicide ten days after the shooting out of remorse by drowning himself in a Tainan canal, according to police who couldn’t find the smoking gun.
It’s not unusual that a president – and for that matter, a politician or a celebrity – receives letters of intimidation.But it’s unusual for the president to publicize why and how his life is threatened.Usually, an aide will just throw all such letters into a wastebasket without even showing them to the boss.If the letters are very specific about what violence is threatened, the aide may ask for a thorough investigation to locate their sender or senders.
That’s why opposition lawmakers are claiming that President Chen is paving the way for declaring martial law or issuing emergency decrees to cope with a national crisis he can precipitate under the pretext that the life of the head of state is under clear and immediate threat.If martial law were declared, Chen could call off the presidential election and continue to govern the country by decrees.
（本文刊載於96.12.18 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
