Fatalities of the Limelight III: Sisy Chen, for Sale or Rent
Wednesday September 08, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
Fatalities of the Limelight III: Sisy Chen, Hired Gun for Sale or Rent
If anyone in Taiwan would be experienced in manipulating Taiwan’s media, it would be Chen Wun-chen (Sisy Chen). For over twenty years, public relations, promotional activities, talk show hosting, media editing, producing etc. have been part and parcel of this flamboyant lawmaker’s bag. However, even those who make their living positioning themselves or others in the limelight can be blinded by it. Even the best of political spin makers can be caught in their own webs and even the most garrulous must eventually answer for some consistency in their words.
Born March 25th 1958, Sisy Chen is no stranger to the limelight. She was 21 at the time of the Kaohsiung Incident (December 1979) and quickly entered the political fray. Shortly after that incident in 1980 she seemed to stand solidly on the side of those who would become the founders of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and helped the wives of victims of the Kaohsiung Incident run and win positions in the Legislative Yuan.
The Kaohsiung Incident was a defining moment in Taiwan’s democratic movement, but participation in it does not guarantee anyone lifetime status as an advocate of democracy.
To fight with the opposition in any cause is a quick and easy way to gain attention. Limelight favors the notorious; the media follows controversy. Only time and consistency will separate those who fight more for principles from those who seek a piece of the limelight or personal gain.
Sisy gained a Bachelor of Law Degree (LLB) from prestigious National Taiwan University and began a life full of activity. In 1982-3 she worked with the China Times Daily News as Vice Editor of their American Version literary page. In 1983 she was active in the campaign of Lin Hsiung’s wife to be a lawmaker. In 1984, years before the DPP was officially formed she was editor of opposition essays. In 1985 she promoted the campaign of the opposition candidate for Mayor of Taipei County. 1985-86 she was editor of the opposition’s (and soon to be DPP’s) New Tide magazine.
In the late eighties, she went to the States to pursue a doctorate at the then still radically chic University of California at Berkeley; it didn’t happen. She later transferred to the New School for Social Research in New York but also gave up graduate studies there. Whether she lacked the capability of going the distance for the doctorate or whether the call of the limelight in Taiwan was stronger can be disputed. Certainly she would know the cachet of having a doctorate in Chinese society. To give up after so many years abroad and come back with no degree can be an early sign that even she knew she had more style than substance, more flair than depth. Spin making would have to be her lot.
If the eighties were active for Sisy, the nineties became a whirlwind. In 1992 she coordinated the Religious Art Festival in Taipei County. From 1993 to 1995, among other things she produced a play, was a member of the UN Minority Group for Asia, did more editorial work, was chairperson of the Taiwan Relations Center’s office of the UN, and was producer for Italian National Broadcast’s Asia Department. By 1995, TVBS had voted her as #4 in the top ten people in Taiwan for 1994. Chen Shui-bian then Mayor of Taipei was #1 that year.
In 1996 she was General Manager of Song Records and well into Public Relations. She received the Public Relations Best Announcer Award and was representative of the charity commercial for the Women’s Rescue Foundation. The late nineties were probably her peak period. She had taken over promotions for the DPP and was their Director of Information. She hosted “Women’s Talk” and was a TVBS Host from 1998 on. In 1998 she was voted one the most influential, wise women in TVBS Magazine’s Poll. Also in 1998 Asia Week voted her in the top 25 of those creating trends; she could speak well on women’s issues. Blunt outspoken statements like “A woman’s breasts are her best diplomatic tools,” were her characteristic trademarks.
Her lists of positions are long and many but another pattern emerges. Few positions lasted more than a year or two. There was enough time to always make a splash but not enough time for accountability or judgment on significant contributions.
It was in the late nineties that Sisy seemed to hitch her wagon to Hsu Hsin-liang’s failing star. It may have been a match of opportunists and wheeler-dealers. Sisy, Hsu Hsin-liang and Parris Chang would tour the United States. The DPP was on the rise and they were in positions of influence.
When Hsu Hsin-liang was rejected a second time as the DPP candidate for president in 2000, Sisy became more vocal in her criticisms of her former party. Both she and Hsu began openly and actively to court the more lucrative KMT party.
The nineties had other controversy. In 1997 the prominent Taiwan female writer Li Ang wrote the novel The North Harbor Incense Burner that seemed directed at Sisy. In this novel the main female protagonist manipulates and sleeps her way to the political top. Symbolically, everybody sticks his joss stick in the incense burner.
Li’s motives may have been jealousy as she and Sisy did share a mutual relationship. However, Sisy's denials were so plentiful that for many they indicated the "unclaimed reserve seat" was hers. Charges of libel were never made.
By 2001, Sisy Chen had broken completely with the DPP and ran as an independent to become a lawmaker representing South Taipei. She won. She now had the enviable but also very questionable position of using her talk show hosting to promote her political career and her political position to promote her talk show hosting. One of her criticisms of the DPP at that time was that it was playing the ethnic card. Ironically at that time she began accepting favors and sponsorship from the most notorious of Taiwan’s ethnic card parties the Kuomintang (KMT). In 2001, she was offered and accepted a KMT controlled position on the board of Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) the governing body of one of Taiwan’s main broadcast television stations.
In 2001 she also became the spokesperson of the Mountain Alliance, a new pro-unification think tank with her cohorts Hsu Hsin-liang and Shih Ming-teh. Little has been heard from this alliance. Amusingly this same trio would start the Taiwan Democracy School in 2004 and advocate future union with the totalitarian, one-party state People's Republic of China (PRC).
One of the worst criticisms one can get in Chinese society is to be called a person with no central thought. Sisy Chen has changed positions like a weather vane with the prevailing winds being those of financial reward and notoriety. If there is any central thought in Sisy Chen, it is to stay in the limelight.
Sisy Chen’s most recent defining moment was forever captured on TV footage on March 19, 2004, the election eve of Taiwan’s 3rd Presidential Race. A bare eight hours after an assassination attempt was made on President Chen Shui-bian, and before any voting had taken place, in true hired gun fashion the “independent” Sisy Chen was crying foul and shooting from the hip. Surrounded by the leaders of the Pan Blue Alliance of Kuomintang (KMT) and People’s First Party (PFP) she railed against this seeming injustice and how the assassination attempt was nothing but a staged political machination.
One could see that for many of the KMT/PFP stalwarts this was their last Hurrah and hence their vehement, even vitriolic outbursts; but why was Sisy so impassioned? Then one realizes that accountability had finally caught up with her. As master strategist for the KMT campaign her skills were also under question. She was the alleged insider who had gone over to the enemy with secrets that would surely tip the scale for a KMT/PFP victory. This was her campaign more than theirs and even they were beginning to realize it.
When later blamed by KMT stalwarts, in true PR Teflon fashion Sisy would dodge the responsibility and place the blame back on them. She was only saying, “what the KMT/PFP leaders had fed her.”
Sisy has always been cut slack by the Taiwan media. After all she is one of their own, and Taiwan’s media has the reputation of seeking the sensational over the accurate, style over substance and anything that smacks of gossip. Few budding journalists would want to risk her venom or revamp their jobs.
What is next for Sisy Chen? She claims she will not run again for legislator in December. She certainly can still be a talk show hostess and commentator. There are always the young and naive whose heads can be turned by her brassy, outspoken remarks.
Further, there is always the Mainland. Despite Sisy’s claims that Taiwan should never give up; do not be surprised if you some day you see her being “sponsored” by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The KMT has to think more about its own survival now and cannot continue to welcome ex-DPP soldiers of fortune. Who else has money to spare?
Sisy’s record has been tarnished by the KMT/PFP defeat in 2004. Despite being their strategist, she should not shoulder all of the blame; the loss had been long in developing as Taiwan’s voters continue to size up who really is on their side in Taiwan-first sentiments and localization.
On the other hand, the Boys in Beijing have never been known to worry about logic or consistency in argument. They will hire any gun as long as they think it will help their cause, the brassier the better. Who better then than Sisy Chen who can now claim she knows not only the inside workings of the DPP but also the KMT and PFP?
Can a vamp that is beginning to push 50 make it in Beijing or image conscious Shanghai? Sisy has talked her way into more controversial situations than this. Give her a year or two; that is about all she has held any position in the past anyway.
Is she capable of “sleeping with the enemy across the straits?” When you look at Sisy’s life long enough and hard enough, you realize that there is “no enemy” for Chen Wun-chen. There are no sides; there is only money, opportunity, notoriety, and limelight. What more does a hired gun need?
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