"Integrity is honesty in action" is an aphorism Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential hopeful Ma Ying-jeou (
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
After Hsieh claimed the next day that he knew Ma's green card number, Ma called an emergency press conference later that night and said he did obtain a green card in 1977 to facilitate his application for student loans and for employment purposes. Ma said that both his and his wife's green cards were invalidated in the mid-1980s when they applied for visas at the American Institute in Taiwan to travel to the US.
Whether Ma is still a holder of a valid green card as the Hsieh camp alleges remains to be seen, but that's beside the point.
What is relevant is how Ma responds to such enquiries and what kind of crisis management skills he has for issues of genuine importance.
When first confronted by Hsieh with the green card question, Ma resorted to a rhetorical game of half-truths.
Telling a half-truth -- and then admitting it -- suggests Ma can all too easily turn an easy yes-or-no question into a snowballing headache.
If Ma had simply said that he once possessed a green card, then the matter would have ended there.
The way Ma has been coping with potential crises lately elicits deja vu.
Back in late 2006, when Ma was faced with accusations of embezzling his special allowance fund during his stint as Taipei mayor from 1998 to 2006, he said he was scrupulous in separating public funds from private interests.
It was only after he was indicted for embezzlement that he changed his statement, arguing that he understood the special allowance fund was a "substantial subsidy" that formed part of his official income.
Long a darling of the press, Ma has been able to maintain a clean-cut image through sophisticated image manipulation. As a result, it often seems like Hsieh is running against a pop idol rather than a presidential candidate.
As a democratic country, Taiwan no longer needs an idol to worship as it did under the KMT's authoritarian regime.
It is time to scrutinize Ma for the integrity and leadership skills needed to lead the country.
What Taiwan wants is a candidate with integrity to win the election on March 22 -- not celebrities who crack under precious little pressure.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and