Saturday, February 3, 2007

Application of Sun Zi (ii): Lee Tenghui's brilliant coup

Those who had played 2-dimensional strategy games versus a computer will know, the computer player A.I. is often badly programmed, such that you can trick it into following you to a dead end, trap it, and take its territory. (the software had not improved since Pacman and Load Runner, you can still do these tricks with Civilization, and Sangokushi)

Lee Tenghui is perhaps such a great game player, for he has successfully tricked his competitor, the DPP and Chen Shui-bian, into such a corner, and has now emerged to take DPP's vast territory, from the empty space the DPP has already given up -- the light green. (See 1, 2, 3, HT ESWN)

Despite all the controversy about his character or political foxiness, you have to admit that he is good, indeed very good.

When Lee was forced out of KMT, the Green camp has already been taken by CSB and his DPP. Lee has to settle for a niche of "deep green" called TSU. For years he has been trying to re-take his territory, the central light green area which supports status quo (instead of aggressive independence), but in vain, because that area was already taken.

As CSB and DPP under SK Yu (a puppet of CSB) are trying to defend their position amid various scandals by moving toward fundamentalism, Leng Tenghui started a race to fundamentalism with them, accusing them of not being aggressive enough. Now that DPP has fallen into his trap, Lee suddenly emerged on the other end of the map and shut the door behind him.

People accused Lee of flip-flopping. I tend to believe Lee has planned for this for a very long time. Expect TSU taking the middle ground and emerge to replace DPP as the leader in the green camp, and expect this new TSU to be more or less a replicate of the KMT under Lee era, sans the light Blue members -- in fact, Wang Jingpin might jump ship soon. 2008 may belong to Ma Yingjiou as the Green will be split, but soon afterward TSU will dominate the Green camp and DPP marginalized. TSU and DPP will switch chairs. By 2010 perhaps Lee may be able to defeat KMT!

The only question that remains is, why does CSB, who used to be such a smart politician, behaves like a player on badly programmed A.I. algorithm?

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