Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), always smiling and silent, has once again been entrusted with an important position by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Ma appointed Siew as the “chief architect” and director of the committee organizing the 100th anniversary celebrations of what is now a nominal Republic of China (ROC) in 2011.
Hopefully, Siew will live up to Ma’s expectations and put on a presentable show.
Siew has done this kind of job twice in the past, and both times they have turned out to be shams. After eight years of treading water, he returned to politics to serve as Ma’s running mate in last year’s presidential election becoming the “chief architect” of the effort to shape Ma’s image as a “Taiwan-loving” man, while endorsing Ma and guaranteeing that he would not sell out the country.
After winning the election, however, Ma ignored public suffering and revealed his true colors as he has succumbed to China at the expense of Taiwanese sovereignty. As Ma’s accomplice, how could Siew serve as Ma’s stand-in with a clear conscience?
As the government’s economic coordinator, Siew has promoted an economic strategy of relying on China in the belief that it will help kick start Taiwan’s economy. But after a year and a half of the Ma administration, the nation is suffering economic recession, high unemployment, large government debt and the migration of domestic capital and technology to China. Taiwan has been transformed from an Asian tiger into a docile kitten.
These two failures stemmed from mistaken premises. Siew touted Ma’s “Taiwan-loving” image on the mistaken assumption that Ma was sincere and trustworthy, but those are two qualities Ma has all but squandered. Siew’s design of Ma’s image succeeded in tricking people into voting for him, but it was a vicious swindle at the expense of the Taiwanese people.
Furthermore, Siew mischaracterized the Chinese economy as a free market economy, when in reality, it is politically directed — China uses the economy as a political tool to achieve its goal of annexing Taiwan. Using the EU as an example to excuse shackling Taiwan’s economy to China’s is nothing but an act of deception, both to oneself but also to the public at large. Each EU member is a sovereign state that recognizes each of the other member states — they do not seek to annex other members.
If Siew, as the coordinator of the ROC’s 100th anniversary celebrations, wants to live up to public expectations, the priority should be to make sure the centenarian has nothing to do with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). If the founders of the ROC had not defined their goals, but instead just fought to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, they would never have won public support.
Siew should invite the PRC, the US and Japan to the event and let China broadcast the celebrations live on Chinese TV. The ROC government should only invite them because it is the polite and friendly thing to do.
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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