After attending a meeting of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Central Standing Committee Meeting a few days ago, Taipei Mayor and party chairman-elect Ma Ying-jeou (
He then proceeded to drink a toast in kaoliang before hurrying to his next scheduled event, where, almost too drunk to handle himself, he repeatedly gave children money, as if he were tipping prostitutes in bar. Besieged by the media, Ma's drunken behavior was all captured on camera.
With Ma drunk during office hours, it is no wonder that his subordinates misbehave, as happened when a city mortuary employee died after he and a few colleagues skipped work on Aug. 6 to go wining and dining at a Taipei restaurant. Not only did this mortuary employee fail to report his absence from work, he even asked a colleague to punch in for him.
But this is not the most sensational part of Ma's exhibition of the "Drunken Mayor" style. Although he apologized to Taipei citizens on Aug. 12 and admitted that he had set a "bad example," there was one proviso -- Ma shifted the blame onto KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
But is all this only about drinking on the job? If it were, it may not have been such a big issue. What makes the whole incident interesting is that it tells us something more about Ma. He has nowhere to run to, and his problems are too many to count.
One of the problems is that Ma has put himself on the spot. He issued the ban prohibiting city employees from drinking on the job or on their lunch breaks. He has denigrated his own position by breaking this rule. He even excused himself by saying that it was "difficult to refuse the invitation." With such a mayor, it is all too easy to guess what his staff must be like.
A second problem is that he lied from beginning to end. He was clearly so drunk that he could no longer handle himself, but still he told the media that, "I've had something to drink, but I'm not drunk."
That may be of little import, but he altogether avoided mentioning his own drinking ban. Not until things became more serious did he change his story and offer an apology. This is how he does things most of the time.
A third problem is that Ma's city government is devoid of discipline. From the day he took office until today, 357 people have been disciplined for drinking on the job, and we have no way of knowing how many have been lucky enough to slip through the net.
The city government isn't merely suffering from a loose screw or two, the whole structure is coming apart. They cannot even enforce a simple "drinking-on-the-job" ban, with the mayor himself imbibing to his heart's content. It wouldn't be very surprising if the whole city government took to drinking.
The fact that Ma was forced to issue a drinking ban after less than two years on the job shows him to be a bad leader; the fact that he issued the ban but fails to enforce it shows him to be a bad administrator.
Since now he is spending his time dreaming of becoming the next president, I guess the people of Taipei will continue to be responsible for their own happiness.
Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti and Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS