Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has once again found himself in hot water and this time it is of his own making.
In an interview with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-friendly UFO Network on Tuesday, Wu said that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) cross-strait policy continued to abide by the principle of “no reunification, no independence and no war.”
“You don’t have the capability to unify [China] and you don’t want to be unified by it, nor are you capable of declaring independence, which would cause a split domestically, not to mention the possibility of danger from an external force,” he said, using his rhetorical skills to blur the lines and in the end not not say very much.
Then came the kicker: “Only irresponsible people or idiots would want to seek independence [for Taiwan].”
Soon afterwards, several pan-blue lawmakers pointed to the inappropriateness of Wu’s remarks, while pan-green lawmakers demanded that Wu step down. Others also asked if, from his comments, it followed that those who seek unification with China are “responsible and smart.”
A seasoned politician who has served several legislative terms, Wu has earned a reputation as a good talker. In a democracy like Taiwan, where freedom of speech is respected, everybody — officials included — is entitled to his opinion.
This, however, does not mean that Wu, the nation’s top administrative official, should feel free to speak carelessly and use offensive language to characterize people who don’t agree with him.
The main task of the premier is to draw up administrative policies that will benefit Taiwanese, regardless of gender, age, religious belief or political leaning.
Wu’s indiscretion comes at a time when the KMT’s image is suffering, but this insult affected more than just a few people.
A poll released by Global Views magazine in October showed that 29.3 percent of people in Taiwan would support immediate and/or eventual independence, an increase of 3.9 percent from a similar poll conducted in May. Those who supported immediate or eventual unification with China remained fixed at 8.3 percent. In other words, if we look at the world through Wu’s eyes, about 30 percent of Taiwanese are idiots, while the more than 50 percent who support the “status quo” could be regarded as mildly retarded.
Ma has himself stated on several occasions that “Taiwan’s future must be decided by Taiwan’s 23 million people.” Furthermore, following the KMT’s less-than-stellar showing in the local elections on Saturday, Ma, who doubles as party chairman, said that all party members should show humility and think about what went wrong. Surely, insulting a large swath of the electorate was not part of his plan.
Dogged by reporters and unyielding at first, Wu eventually admitted that his comments were inappropriate and that he wished he had never made the reference to “idiots.” He then apologized.
Apology accepted, but this man of many words might profit more from being silent when he feels like saying the first thing that crosses his mind. Lots of voters, and the KMT, would be thankful.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number