Why? It's election time!

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party isn't spearheading the new war against American beef, which its leaders have claimed is a scheme to poison the people of Taiwan. Taipei signed with the American Institute in Taiwan a protocol on bovine spongiform encephalopathy-related measures for the importation of beef and beef products for human consumption from the United States on October 22.

Opposition leaders have since then stepped aside to let the people, businessmen and even Kuomintang local chief executives organize an islandwide boycott of “unsafe” American bone-in beef and offal, which supposedly has a one in a billion chance to infect consumers with fatal mad cow disease. For their part, these politicians are planning to collect enough signatures to initiate a referendum on such imports from the United States, although they probably know full well it will never be called.

On the other hand, they are turning up the volume of their bickering on the floor of the Legislative Yuan. Earlier this week, they summoned Su Chi, secretary-general of the National Security Council, to the legislature where they billed the agreement as an unequal treaty, like many of those that the Great Qing Empire was compelled to sign after the Opium War of 1839.

Incidentally, Tamsui, spelled Danshui in pinyin, was opened as a treaty port under the Treaty of Tientsin, signed after the Arrow War in 1858. The Arrow was a lorcha, a hybrid vessel with a European hull and Chinese sails; it was owned by a Chinese resident of Hong Kong and registered with the British authorities of the crown colony for protection from coastal piracy, which the Chinese government was unable to suppress. On October 8, 1856, while lying off the city of Canton (Guangzhou) with British flags flying, the Arrow was boarded by Chinese officers for the alleged purpose of searching for one notorious pirate who was said to be aboard. Twelve Chinese crew members were arrested, and in the turmoil the British flag was hauled down. This was the cause of the war.

Su Chi was labeled by opposition lawmakers as Li Lianying, one of the favorite eunuchs of the Empress Dowager, who had ruled China for 48 years until her death in 1908. The lofty title of the empress dowager was awarded to President Ma Ying-jeou, who is alleged to have ordered the beef import protocol signed. She assumed power at the Qing imperial court in Beijing after her husband, the emperor, died in Jehol where he and his imperial family had fled to when a joint Anglo-Franco army was marching on Beijing for a takeover during the Arrow War.

No parallels can truly be drawn between Su and Ma on the one hand and the eunuch and the Empress Dowager on the other, of course. The sole purpose of the farcical diatribe is to promote an impression of Ma as an ignorant tyrant like the Empress Dowager who nonchalantly gave away chunk after chunk of territory in betrayal of Chinese national interests. Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonseki to conclude the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95. Su is depicted as Ma's slave and running dog, just as the eunuch was to the Empress Dowager. All indications now are that the beef war between the ruling Kuomintang and the opposition will continue until December 5 when eligible voters go to the polls to elect 17 mayors and magistrates across the country.

Both parties have kicked off their respective unofficial campaigns. Official campaigning can only start two weeks before Election Day, according to the Central Election Commission. They are barnstorming now anyway.

There won't be a letup in the opposition's election campaign and smearing is the only tactic the opposition party can afford to adopt. If the war on American beef ever comes to a tie, DPP politicians have a ready substitute cause in the ongoing gambling scandal with the professional baseball league or a very recent alleged scandal involving Premier Wu Den-yih.

The baseball scandal has escalated to the point that a Japanese head coach of the Brother Elephants has been incriminated in game-fixing. Shin Nakagomi was released on bail a couple of days ago, while 16 players and bookmakers are being implicated, with at least four of them having been taken into custody for further questioning. The administration is going all-out to bail out Taiwan's ailing Chinese Professional Baseball League, which an increasingly large majority of people want to disband.

The premier, meanwhile, is in hot water because he and his wife were shown visiting the Indonesian resort island of Bali last year with a local mafia don who is now on parole after doing time for murder, gun-running, and extortion. Opposition lawmakers are demanding that President Ma force Wu to step down as premier for his intimacy with the mob in the land-locked county of Nantou. Wu was sworn in less than two months ago to take over from Liu Chao-shiuan, who quit in order to take responsibility for government incompetence in handling relief efforts in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot.

War or no war over American beef, the Democratic Progressive Party will continue escalating the political upheaval until it wins or loses the all-important local islandwide elections.