People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
At a press conference announcing the release of a book by PFP Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (
We all know that the provincial government required a NT$200 billion budget. We also know that, during his tenure as provincial governor, Soong spent several tens of billions of NT dollars every year building connections within the local factions, leaving the provincial government to shoulder debts amounting to hundreds of billions of NT dollars. All this now must be paid with taxpayer's money. One of the reasons why former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) called for the downsizing of the provincial government was that Taiwan is a small country and does not need four levels of government -- central, provincial, county and township. Therefore, in accordance with the government reform plan following the amendments to the Constitution, the government structure was simplified to three levels so as to avoid bureaucratic redundancy, cut the government's excessive personnel expenses and improve administrative efficiency and team spirit. Demolishing the provincial government was thus in the interests of a majority of the people.
As we all know, Soong has reached a tacit agreement with Lien on the succession of political power -- regardless of whether they win next year's election, Lien will not run again in 2008, so Soong will have a chance to run for president. This is the primary reason why Soong wants to revive the provincial government -- he wants to use it to install people in central and southern Taiwan to campaign for him in the 2008 election. There is no real intent to serve the people. Soong's political machinations should be obvious to everyone.
Recently, Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is also a KMT vice chairman, expressed doubts about the Lien-Soong ticket. He asked reporters whether the Lien-Soong union was for the overall interests of the Taiwanese public or the private interests of Lien and Soong. These doubts raised by a veteran politician deserve attention from the Taiwanese public. Even Wang seems to have had enough of Soong's behind-the-scenes deals to share the spoils of power.
If Soong succeeds in his ambitions to revive the provincial government, this would not only contravene the trends of the times but also cost the people hundreds of billions of NT dollars every year. By bringing back the provincial government, Soong perhaps wants to gradually make Taiwan a local government of China and accept Beijing's "one country, two systems" position. For the sake of our future generations, Taiwan's voters would do well to carefully observe the political ambitions hidden deep inside Soong's heart.
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