“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ [危機] is composed of two characters — one represents danger and the other represents opportunity,” former US president John F. Kennedy once said.
After a series of recent government policy announcements that have prompted many to worry about the nation’s future and wonder where President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is leading Taiwanese, concerned citizens might look to the quote and think optimistically that all is not as hopeless as it seems.
Taiwanese have good reason for being anxious about the future and the nation’s well-being. For one, despite the discovery of a new case of mad cow disease in California late last month, the Ma administration shows no sign of softening its stance on its plan to conditionally relax the ban on imported US beef containing residues of the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine, something that could potentially pose a health risk to consumers.
Then there was the government’s decision to allow fuel and electricity price increases, which further rubbed salt into the wounds of the many who have suffered the sting of stagnant salaries and a rising cost of living in recent years. The inevitable rise in retail prices has led many people to worry how the rising cost of living might further contribute to the list of family tragedies that have been served up at the newsstands in recent months.
Anyone who put their faith in Ma’s government, thinking it would eventually come up with something beneficial to the public, has had their hopes dashed — Ma, in an interview late last month, said he does not have to curry favor with voters now he has been re-elected.
It sends a chill down the spine to think the president could be so arrogant as to say such a thing in public.
As if this were not bad enough, data from the National Debt Clock, released on Monday, showed the country’s national debt has increased to about NT$5.23 trillion (US$178 billion) as of the end of last month — the sixth monthly increase in a row.
Fortunately, although Ma may no longer need to cozy up to voters, lawmakers still do.
Lawmakers of all parties need to be responsive to their constituencies. They must all heed the concerns, frustrations and grievances of voters in their respective constituencies if they hope to be re-elected in the next round of legislative elections.
This was seen on Monday when the Cabinet’s proposal to relax restrictions on imports of US beef products containing ractopamine residues was voted on by the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Ru-fen (鄭汝芬), who opposes relaxing the ban, did not show up at the meeting, providing a good example of how Taiwanese, through exerting pressure on lawmakers, could still force the government to serve the public interest.
Ma may choose to remain oblivious to the people’s voice, now that there is no prospect of him having to run in an election again. However, the question all lawmakers who aspire to another term must ask themselves is: Do they want people’s votes in the next legislative election?
If the answer is yes, they are advised to search their conscience — and not simply follow the directions of their party chairman — when they cast their vote in the legislature on issues that matter to the nation and its people’s interests and well-being.
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
Delegation-level visits between the two countries have become an integral part of transformed relations between India and the US. Therefore, the visit by a bipartisan group of seven US lawmakers, led by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul to India from June 16 to Thursday last week would have largely gone unnoticed in India and abroad. However, the US delegation’s four-day visit to India assumed huge importance this time, because of the meeting between the US lawmakers and the Dalai Lama. This in turn brings us to the focal question: How and to what extent