what i do at work

This past week all we did at work was preparation for the DPP chairman's week-long visit to Washington and other parts of U.S. A lot of scheduling went down. I wasn't able to help that much, since my Chinese isn't good, but I did help them whenever English was involved.

The chairman left on Friday so work changed (by the way, if you're in D.C. on Wednesday July 6th, he will give his only public speech at CSIS at 3:00pm). Today I e-mailed German journalists and organizations in Taiwan to try and set up interviews for an article I'm writing in the DPP's international newsletter. The brief article will be a very broad inquiry into how Europeans, and especially Germans, feel about Taiwan.

It goes without saying that Germany and Europe have a very different relationship with Taiwan than the United States does; although Taiwan is the EU's 10th largest trading partner, Germany recognizes Taiwan as a part of China, and the Taiwanese president, vice-president, and foreign minister are all barred from ever entering Germany. This apparent antipathy towards Taiwan reflects Schroeder's careful effort to strengthen ties with China; the EU's recent willingness to lift the arms embargo on China is another example of their surprising lack of interest in the troubles of the young Taiwanese democracy. The upcoming elections in Germany will determine a lot, as opposition candidate Angela Merkel (CDU) is supposed to be more skeptical politically of China.

Anyway, that's what I've been working on. Everyone in the office is very nice to me, at least partially because I'm a foreigner, but the same can't be said of how they treat each other. Who would have thought that the staffers in the office of a political party would engage in office politics and inter-departmental bickering? Little did I know when I changed from the youth dept. to the international dept. that I had entered the middle of a protracted war. My friends in the international dept. complain about the youth dept. and their incessant requests to fund expensive and unproductive projects (which is true), and my friends in the youth dept. complain that staffers in the international dept. are pretentious (which is also true). In any event, I hope none of them ever see this blog.