Let's face it, everybody screws up, especially when it comes to politics. But the difference for politicians is that their screw-ups wind up on the front pages of newspapers. The "good" politicians develop an ability to recover from a foul-up. By doing so, even if you screw up, you take responsibility and thereby demonstrate that you are responsible and perhaps smart and politically correct. That's exactly the dilemma Vice President Annette Lu (
As one of the most outspoken political figures in Taiwan, Lu's recent words and deeds illustrated a lack of prudence and comprehension on what role a vice president should play in Taiwan's unique political environment.
Constitutionally speaking, a vice president plays no significant role in the government. But during her first term as vice president, Lu has not only deconstructed the stereotype of the VP as "the one with no voice" but also redefined her role as an active player in the administration.
As a long-time advocate for human and women's rights, Lu is well known for her strong and outspoken personality. Her successful re-election, with a strong endorsement from President Chen Shui-bian (
Nevertheless, her latest inappropriate statements on changing the title of the country, as well as her criticism of the government's disaster relief efforts, created the impression that she is not part of the administration. Even worse are her comments about Aboriginal people. While she put all the blame on local media for misrepresenting her ideas about relocating Aboriginals to Taiwan's allies in Central America and about whether the Aboriginal people indeed are native-born Taiwanese, the problem lies in the timing of such messages.
First, reconstruction after Tropical Storm Mindulle is the administration's top priority. Any discussion of future environmental protection and resource allocation should wait. Although Lu might have her own opinion about reconstruction, no prior consultation was made within the administration's decision-making mechanism before she unleashed her "personal comments" on key issues. The results were inconsistency and an apparent lack of internal discipline from the Chen administration.
Moreover, Lu's attempted political maneuvering over key issues revealed her intention to move to a higher level in 2008 -- at least, that is how her actions were interpreted. While claiming that her latest moves have nothing to do with the election in 2008, Lu's sometimes eccentric performance may constitute a huge liability to her own popularity.
Lu is one of the DPP's leading candidates to become the next president, along with Premier Yu Shyi-kun, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (
How should Lu recover from her past screw-ups? She must realize that she is a member of the DPP team. And she has to make sure her role is helpful to Chen. Lu should play the same tune as the DPP government, instead of dancing to her own music.
Compared with her predecessors, Lu enjoys more leeway in terms of exercising political influence. Chen assigned her as the head of two advisory boards: the Science and Technology Task Force and the Human Rights Task Force. Lu has rarely been treated as an outsider to Chen's inner circle.
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past
President-elect William Lai (賴清德) is to accede to the presidency this month at a time when the international order is in its greatest flux in three decades. Lai must navigate the ship of state through the choppy waters of an assertive China that is refusing to play by the rules, challenging the territorial claims of multiple nations and increasing its pressure on Taiwan. It is widely held in democratic capitals that Taiwan is important to the maintenance and survival of the liberal international order. Taiwan is strategically located, hemming China’s People’s Liberation Army inside the first island chain, preventing it from