Thu, Dec 19, 2019 page8

• EDITORIAL: Chang’s bullying quips problematic

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  Having made controversial remarks about the government’s record on the nation’s birthrate — accusing President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), unmarried and childless, of being incapable of understanding how new mothers feel — former premier Simon Chang (張善政), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) vice presidential candidate, wants people to focus on the issues and stop being nasty to him.

  His initial remarks — which he has said were taken out of context, unleashing online criticism that he claimed amounted to “bullying” — were that as Tsai has not given birth, “she would not understand the feelings of a parent.”

  The remarks were met with accusations of misogyny — which certainly should be addressed — but there are other aspects germane to the discussion: the wearisome mendacity of politics, the hypocrisy inherent in Chang’s attempts to walk back his comments and his failure to understand why so many people found them troubling.

  A chart Chang provided to illustrate the Tsai administration’s “failing” policies on reversing the falling birthrate — an issue faced by governments the world over — was full of errors, which were helpfully pointed out by online commentators.

  First, he placed the beginning of Tsai’s tenure in the final year of former president Ma Ying-yeou’s (馬英九) second term. Second, he ignored that government policies — from formulation through development to implementation and effect, including the time delay in planning to start a family or having another child — can take years before they are reflected in national statistics. Third, he tied this “failure” to Tsai’s gender and unmarried, childless status.

  Chang noted the first two errors in a subsequent Facebook post, saying how important it was to rectify mistakes for such important issues, and tried to account for the controversy by saying that his comments were misunderstood.

  If he wants voters to trust him in government, should he be making such rudimentary errors in presenting statistics? Surely they were not intentionally used to distort the situation. Would he do that on such an important issue? Perhaps the errors were the fault of his team, and not his alone.

  It is arguable that — misogynistic suggestions aside — Tsai is not individually and solely responsible for her administration’s policy in addressing the birthrate “crisis.” Perhaps the president consults teams of experts and government departments when formulating major national policies.

  Maybe the policy is not entirely the fault of her “failure” to perceive the fears and concerns of young couples newly arrived in a foreign nation with no financial support or an established social network.

  Perhaps Chang has found himself in every conceivable context, qualifying him to direct government policy on all possible matters that might present themselves to a new government.

  Please note the sarcasm.

  Instead of acknowledging the perceived, implied misogyny of his initial comments, Chang called for people to focus on what he described as his core point: Pregnant new immigrants unable to apply for health insurance in their first six months in Taiwan might have government subsidies for maternity checks, but that this would not help them if those health checks discovered something amiss.

  It is a fair point and worth looking into within the context of the government’s policy on supporting immigrant families.

  However, Chang went on to politicize the matter by suggesting that the government had unleashed an “Internet army” bent on subverting the discourse, an obvious reference to the Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如) affair.

  Does he not see that criticizing a politician on the basis of her gender and marital status is bullying? If not, that is the problem right there.
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