East Asia Forum discusses US and Chinese interests in the election. The Washington Times has a similar article. The KMT gives five reasons to be suspicious of the TaiMed case and Tsai’s involvement. The KMT United Daily News explains why the TaiMed and Fubon scandals are completely different kettles of fish.  The latest China Times poll puts Ma ahead by 5.2%. Do they think increasing the number of decimal places will make it more believable?

Ma and Tsai exchanged words over the interpretation and validity of the 1992 consensus. Former president LTH considers Ma’s insistence on the 1992 consensus is not based on fact and also urged voters to support the DPP – ““Ma’s continuous remarks that the ‘1992 consensus’ exists is unacceptable as it is an action that distorts history and is effectively lying to Taiwanese.” Ma denies selling out Taiwan to China over agreements made between Taiwan and China during the past few years. Tsai warns of unification with China if Ma is elected for a second term – “If President Ma is re-elected, this generation might face the issue of ultimate unification.” Jerome F Keating discusses the outcomes of the legislative election

Finally, this being the season for being thankful, I would like to extend my gratitude to the contributors who have helped make this blog such a success thus far: Sigrid Winkler, Dafydd Fell, Michael Turton, Jens Damm, Mikael Mattlin, Sheng-chih Wang, Julie Chen, Linda Arrigo, Gunter Schubert, Harry Wu, Chris Wang, Paul Katz, Muyi Chiu, Dalton Lin, Tim Rich, Malte Kaeding, Sasa Istenic, Chun-Yi Lee, Julia Famularo, Wang Hong-zen, Jeremy Taylor, Bonnie Glaser, John F. Copper, Scott Simon, Cal Clark, Lin Pei-Yin, Ko-hua Yap, Jerome Soldani, Tony Liu, Ben Goren, Michal Thim. My thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word, and for retweets to @TimMaddog, @Taiwanderful, @davidonformosa, @chungiwang, @Koxinga8, @KeepTWfree, @TaiwanCorner, @taiwanreporter, @filination, @Brownlaoshi, @blickpunktaiwan, @Portnoy and so on.

The campaigns won’t stop for Christmas, but the blog will be taking a few days off. If anything interesting happens, be sure to let me know by mail at jonathan.sullivan@nottingham.ac.uk or Twitter @jonlsullivan. Normal service will resume on Dec 28, and we have a great line up of people to guide you through to Election Day. Happy Holidays everybody.