Taiwan: Abysmally Unpopular Ma Ying-jeou -- and Disassembling Bad Analyses Thereof

Check out this recent post from the always-good View From Taiwan. Michael takes a look at an odd piece of recent "analysis" that, in his words:

Sometimes not too bad, sometimes completely wrong, Rigger [the analyst in question] mostly sounds like a colonialist missionary trying to explain to the audience at home, in a fair and open-minded manner, the beliefs of the local heathens, which he understands in terms of his own Christianity. . . Rigger does not appear anywhere to get the complexities of local politics. The whole piece is framed in the best Establishment style by the cross-strait relationship, as if Rigger were simply squinting through a telescope on the banks of the Potomac at Taiwan.

Alas, this is all too frequent a trait of "analysis" about Taiwan.