When a government is facing a crisis of governance, it is a sign that its administrative measures are ineffective; when a government faces a crisis of trust, it is a reflection of the obstacles to its policy implementation. However, when a government is facing a fundamental moral crisis, the result will be the total collapse of its legitimacy. Unfortunately, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is facing all three types of crisis. The tragedy is that not only are Ma, Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) incapable of resolving these crises, they are also constantly adding fuel to the fire.
The back and forth on the implementation of the capital gains tax on securities transactions is a reflection of constant flip-flopping on policy grounded in incompetence. The dispute over whether to continue the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Gongliao District (貢寮) should have resulted in a policy debate based on safety, security, environmental and energy issues, but instead the government managed to further intensify public distrust by attempting to run over the majority of the public’s opposition to nuclear power through a political scheme based on a clever application of the unreasonable Referendum Act (公投法).
The government also tried to resort to closed-door dealings to amend the law to decriminalize the expenditure of public funds on alcohol in hostess bars by elected officials, and although it had to back off and defuse the situation at the last minute after a strong backlash, it had already managed to elevate the crisis to the point where it had lost all moral legitimacy. It will now be very difficult for the government to do anything to improve the situation.
When a government whose popularity, credibility and support ratings keep plumbing new depths is faced with these three crises, it goes without saying that it should abandon its arrogance, start listening to the public and restrict its abuse of power. However, this has not been the preferred route of the Ma administration. Instead, it has chosen to continue to hide behind propaganda and large numbers of bodyguards, to duck growing social criticism and to violently suppress protesters, bringing the specter of authoritarianism back to Taiwan.
From the unjust demolition of people’s houses, despite promises to the contrary, to the opaque, closed-door negotiations over the cross-strait service trade agreement, Ma, Wu and Jiang have lost all credibility. When they fell so far that they resorted to misusing the national security forces to illegally arrest National Chengchi University professor Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮) for calmly protesting against the government, they formally sounded the alarm against the call to “bring down the government.”
The only thing that now keeps the Ma administration in power is the high constitutional threshold for recalls: The protection of the ruling party’s legislators makes it impossible for the public to initiate a recall procedure. To turn the dissatisfaction and anger throughout civil society into concrete action for real change, it is necessary to turn to the legislature. During the extraordinary legislative session that is just about to start, legislators must give serious consideration to the question of whether they are on the side of Ma’s opinion or on the side of public opinion so that we can decide whether we should initiate recall procedures for our legislators to enable us to elect a group of public representatives that really want to stand together with civil society.
Huang Kuo-chang is an associate research professor at the Academia Sinica’s Institutum Iurisprudentiae.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS