Twenty-five days of shame
May 20 was a proud day for all Taiwanese. Another peaceful democratic transition took place as Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was inaugurated as president. It’s been almost a month since that glorious day, but President Ma has fallen short of public expectations.
Although there were breakthroughs in cross-strait dialogue — something Ma promised and promoted during his campaign — the administration has lost focus on important domestic issues and unnecessarily escalated a boating incident with Japan.
In the 25 days since Ma took office, Taiwan’s economy has been threatened by inflation and higher prices of oil and fertilizer. Prices rose overnight without warning to adjust to global market conditions and to prevent hoarding.
In theory, the price adjustments make sense, but because oil and fertilizer suppliers are state-owned and their prices controlled by the government, the aftermath for consumers has been quite shocking. The ripple effect of rising fuel prices caused significant drops in the TAIEX as investors reacted negatively. Workers, farmers and investors must now deal with having thinner wallets.
Since Ma entered the Presidential Office, children have been threatened by a spreading disease that claimed the lives of seven infants and infected hundreds more. There is no coordinated effort from the executive level to counter the epidemic; so far it’s the local municipalities that have drawn up plans to fight the disease. Schools are being shut down, playgrounds are closed and parents are being advised by city and county governments not to take their children to crowded areas.
The administration seems so set on approving a deal to bring over Chinese tourists and arranging airplane services that it has neglected these young sufferers and their distressed families.
It has been 25 days in a typical rainy season. Recent downpours have drowned towns in the south and devastated crops. Along with the higher fertilizer price, this has not been a good year to be a farmer in Taiwan. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) visited the hardest-hit regions, but the president remained silent on the matter when he was questioned by reporters during a trip to Tainan. Neither did he extend his itinerary to visit nearby flooded regions. Where is the compassionate politician that the public elected?
Ma has also faced his first international incident, which could soon escalate into a crisis. A Taiwanese fishing boat conducting business off Diaoyutai collided with a Japanese patrol vessel and sunk. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested the incident, demanded an apology and recalled its representative to Japan. Now there’s talk of sending the navy to Diaoyutai to face off with Japanese patrol boats.
This saber-rattling merely reflects the immaturity of the administration. The defense and foreign ministries should know that only the president has the constitutional authority to deploy the military, and that sending battleships in that direction would not be taken lightly and could even be construed as an act of war.
Keeping in mind that there is no formal diplomatic relationship with Japan, Tokyo actually saved Taiwan face by treating this as a legal dispute and not a diplomatic one, but the foreign ministry, by recalling its envoy, transformed it into a diplomatic matter.
To make matters worse, Ma again remained silent, never coming out to publicly declare Taiwan’s sovereignty over the Diaoyutai islets nor offering a clear, concise course of action.
What if Japan offers no apology? Are we to risk severing all ties with Japan, one of the most important East Asian nations? What if China decides to send its naval ships there, too? What position will we take then?
Judging by how the administration is handling these issues, the public would likely give Ma and his Cabinet a failing grade in a first monthly review. That’s really a shame, because voters had high hopes for — and were promised — positive changes in Taiwan.
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