Word: chiangs
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...Such sentiments are the reason Taiwan's March 22 presidential election is potentially one of the most important East Asia has seen in recent memory. A Ma victory could usher in a sea change in the tense relationship between China and Taiwan. In 1949 Mao Zedong's communists chased Chiang Kai-shek's KMT from the mainland after a brutal civil war, and ever since the two have glared icily at each other across the narrow but heavily armed strait that separates them. Beijing considers Taiwan to be no more than a wayward province destined to be reunified under communist...
...noodle-soup vendor, with a heroin addict for a son. Still, after watching her boy stick needles in his arms for a decade, what harm could there be in sending then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra a note identifying her son's dealer in the northern Thai town of Chiang Rai? A billionaire tycoon turned politician, Thaksin had just launched a war on drugs. The campaign would be assailed by human-rights activists for claiming more than 2,000 lives in just three months in 2003. But for this single parent, tough action was just what was needed...
...weeks later, Mati was dishing out bowls of beef noodles when she noticed police cars crowding her street. A man sauntered toward her restaurant and ordered some soup. It was the Prime Minister, who said he had come to personally promise her that he would combat the Chiang Rai drug trade. Today Mati's son, at least, is clean. "Thaksin is my hero," says his 53-year-old mother, wiping away tears with her apron. "He is the only Prime Minister who ever cared about normal people...
...Thailand's beloved King - but, for people upcountry, as the Thais like to call it, Thaksin's populist health-care initiatives and village funds were manna. "When the soldiers took over, people were scared to say they liked Thaksin," says Nuntana Sommun, a teacher of Thai dance in Chiang Rai. "But in our hearts we still supported him." Such sentiments propelled the People Power Party (PPP) to victory in the first postcoup elections last December. A proxy for Thaksin, whose own party was disbanded by the junta, the PPP is led by Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. His new Cabinet teems...
...Even so, the government's survival isn't assured. On Feb. 26, Thailand's election commission found the PPP's deputy leader, Yongyuth Tiyapairat, guilty of vote-buying in Chiang Rai. Under Thai electoral law, the ruling could lead to the PPP's dissolution. Nor can Thaksin run for office, since he was banned from politics for five years by the junta. Any attempts by Samak's government to ease Thaksin back into politics could ignite protests by upper- and middle-class Bangkok residents, who took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands shortly before the former...