In recent weeks the government dragged its feet on a number of issues, including allegations that former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) lied about her US citizenship, toxic pollution in Chaoliao (潮寮) Village and uncertainty over the implementation of International Accounting Standards Statement No. 10.
A consequence of the government’s failure to deal with these problems promptly is that they became worse and hurt the image of the government in the process.
Let us consider the case of Lee’s suspected dual citizenship. More than 300 days have passed since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presented evidence that she is a US citizen. Lee maintains that she gave up her US citizenship upon making a loyalty oath to the Republic of China (ROC) when she became a public servant. However, her behavior was in sharp contrast with many US citizens who have returned to Taiwan to take up civil service posts in central or local governments. Unlike Lee, those people renounced their US nationality at US representative offices precisely because they did not assume that taking up an official ROC position automatically led to loss of US citizenship.
If, as Lee asserts, assuming office leads to automatic loss of US citizenship, then why was she so relentless in her interrogation of then-Taipei deputy mayor Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) of the DPP on whether he was a US citizen?
Meanwhile, the KMT and the government went against their better judgment by tolerating and protecting her. They could have forced her to follow the law and resign as a legislator. Instead, they allowed the case to drag on, sowing controversy and confrontation, much to the annoyance of the public.
As for the toxic fumes in the Tafa Industrial District (大發工業區), a visit by the Environmental Protection Administration minister failed to find a culprit. Instead, the minister threw a smokescreen at legislators — who, we must remember, were elected to monitor the government — saying it would be impossible to find a guilty party and immediately eliminate the source of the problem. Adding insult to injury, he also derided the dean of a nearby school for having what he described as overly developed olfactory senses.
The government lacks crisis management skills and fails to understand the needs — and fears — of the public.
Finally, the Presidential Office’s group of economic advisers unexpectedly and inexplicably suggested a few days ago that the implementation of International Accounting Standards Statement No. 10 would have to be delayed. Late last year, the statement was vigorously discussed in business, accounting and investor circles. It was also appraised twice by the Financial Supervisory Commission, which conducted an in-depth assessment before announcing that it should be implemented according to schedule.
The suggested postponement on the eve of implementation risks creating problems for the Cabinet, ministries and the stock market. It could also cause public apprehension and damage Taiwan’s international image.
These incidents are only some examples of the government’s delayed response mechanism and its inability to understand important issues. The government and the KMT keep harping on about public suffering without understanding the root causes of that pain or doing anything to remedy the situation.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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