Auric Goldfinger, James Bond's most memorable adversary, said of unfortunate events with a tendency to recur: "The first time is happenstance, the second time coincidence, the third time is enemy action." So who is the enemy responsible for this week's Cabinet near-meltdown, the third in two years? Unfortunately, if the blame is to be pinned on anybody, it is not on the much-questioned motives of those who organized Saturday's protest demonstration by farmers and fishermen. Rather it has to be laid at the door of the president himself. Chen Shui-bian (
It was shocking to hear of Chen protesting last week that he had been misled by the Cabinet as to the real nature of farmers' and fishermen's grievances and the strength of opposition to the Ministry of Finance's restructuring plan. How could the president have been misled? Maybe there is truth in KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (
It would be nice to know exactly where Chen thinks he has been misled. Was it that he was not properly informed about the finance ministry's plan? Then surely it was his job to get informed. He's the president; he just has to ask for a briefing. Was it that he was not informed about the farmers' and fishermen's feelings? The Council of Agriculture should have told him. If it couldn't, he should have demanded better intelligence. And whatever information it did provide, he should have used his own sources -- talks with legislators of party rank and file from rural communities for example -- to cross-check. It was, in fact, just such a meeting which led to his asking the Cabinet a week ago to suspend the financial reform plan. But why didn't Chen initiate something of this sort before the reforms were implemented in the fist place. It is simply unacceptable to be told that a crisis, which has the potential to wreck the Cabinet and has been two months in the making, can catch the president unawares.
The premier is apparently to stay in place. Nevertheless Minister of Finance Lee Yung-san (
We do not yet know who might take the spare Cabinet places. But a wider question has to be: why would anybody want to? First on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant issue and now on the reform of farmers' and fishermen's credit associations, the president has displayed political incompetence, followed by an ugly tendency to call on ministers to allow ignominy to be heaped upon their heads to save him from the consequences of his own lack of judgement. It is hard to imagine that a job description which revolves around a readiness to be the president's whipping boy is going to attract the sort of expertise the Cabinet really needs.
KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent visit to Beijing and her upcoming visit to Washington will serve as a high-level test of her diplomatic mettle. In Beijing, Cheng was received with symbolic gestures, a warm reception, and high-level access. In Washington, she will receive far less pomp and far sharper questions about the KMT’s vision for the future of Taiwan. Her challenge will be to persuade Washington that the KMT’s engagement with China can coexist with strong deterrence. Cheng’s April 7-12 visit to mainland China coincided with an intense period of conflict in Iran. Despite the strategic significance of Cheng’s trip,
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent the vast Asian chemicals industry into a tailspin. Deprived of the likes of Qatari natural gas and Saudi Arabian oil, the region’s fertilizer and plastics plants are slowing production or even shutting down. Everywhere except China, that is. In petrochemicals, China is unique. As well as a traditional industry that uses oil and gas as feedstock, it has parallel output that relies on its abundant domestic coal. Unsurprisingly, India and other regional powers want to copy and paste the Chinese method. This would not be easy — or climate friendly. The
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto says he knows how to fix the problems facing Indonesia. Yet his economic mismanagement and authoritarian tendencies are steering the nation toward a familiar mix of currency instability and political chaos. The world’s fourth-most populous nation risks reversing the hard-won democratic and business reforms that came after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. At that time, the rupiah collapsed and the political upheaval that followed forced former president Haji Mohamed Suharto from power. Prabowo’s administration is ignoring similar warning signs. That disconnect was apparent in a national address on Wednesday, when Prabowo projected the swagger that has
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