Critique

This Chapter is mainly focused on showing audience the historical truth, from the initial stage of the protest to the climax then to the end. The authors’ description is very detailed and truthful.
But when the authors talked about why pan-blue party called for a recount, the reason and evidence are some limited. They only talked about there was the suspectable shot. I admit the shot was a quite significant reason, but I believe there are two more reasons, realistic and historical.
First, according to my memory, there is another realistic reason which we must pay attention to. The pan-blues called for a recount on the basis of voting irregularities and an unusually high invalid ballots. After the vote, many people found their vote in the garbage and they support pan-blue parties. This of course irritated the pan-blues. They suspected it was President Chen and DPP(Democracy Progress Party) did this.
The second reason is a historical reason. In 1989, the former president Jing-Kuo Jiang claimed that the autocratic times was over. Taiwan will become a democratic country and he allowed other parties to take part in political issues. This was a great progress in Taiwan history. But this also caused KMT, who have ruled Republic of China for 78 years step down the historical stage. In the election of president in 1990, KMT was defeated by the new-founded DPP. If we know this, it will be easy to understand why KMT was eager to win the 2004 election. KMT do not like to be forgotten by history, they can not affording losing this election. It is ture, because after losing the election, the Chairman of KMT resigned. That is the historical reason why pan-blues called for a recount.