The Tibet factor

How many votes will the Tibet crackdown swing in tomorrow’s elections in Taiwan? Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh is looking to Tibet to salvage a lagging campaign: Ruling Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh, who has trailed in media polls, has pushed a message that to vote for the more China-friendly Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

How many votes will the Tibet crackdown swing in tomorrow's elections in Taiwan? Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh is looking to Tibet to salvage a lagging campaign:

How many votes will the Tibet crackdown swing in tomorrow’s elections in Taiwan? Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh is looking to Tibet to salvage a lagging campaign:

Ruling Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh, who has trailed in media polls, has pushed a message that to vote for the more China-friendly Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou could make Taiwan "a second Tibet".

These voters, at least, seem a lot more concerned with the sagging economy, and Ma has been touting a potential "common market" with Beijing. We’ll soon see whether Tibet has reminded voters that Chinese guns may accompany the butter.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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