The new Cabinet is only a few days old and already the competence of the premier is under scrutiny over his brief, but bizarre, trip to Hong Kong. Ostensibly a fact-finding trip on landslide prevention technology, it turns out that Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) spent a good proportion of his time meeting Chinese powerbrokers in the Special Administrative Region — and, believe it or not, taking time out to accompany his son on a spot of fortune telling.
Fittingly, none of this augurs well. Whatever initial period of grace existed for the new premier has expired with this sloppily executed slice of cross-strait diplomacy. With Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators howling over reports by the Apple Daily in Hong Kong and Taiwan on Wu’s unannounced itinerary, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) must be wondering what he has to do to find a politically astute person to run the Executive Yuan.
Ma has previously “delegated responsibility” — let’s be euphemistic — to the Cabinet on sensitive domestic issues based on what he perceives to be a constitutional separation of powers.
It would be intriguing, therefore, if Wu was serving as Ma’s emissary. From Ma’s and China’s perspective, what does Wu have that Ma’s other negotiators and party colleagues lack?
As Ma prepares to take over the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship next month, party and legislative tensions over how things are being run are in check — just. Even the discordant voices that exist on the pan-blue side of politics — KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) is a good example — remain largely supportive of the president.
This may not last much longer. Typhoon Morakot, the Deaflympics, the World Games in Kaohsiung, the swine flu outbreak and the trial of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his co-accused have helped to obscure this government’s struggle to make an impression in the more mundane aspects of day-to-day policy development and implementation.
There is, indeed, much about the way that this country is being run that is crying out for critique and overhaul. However, when a government is on the back foot, as this one is, more provocative reforms tend to be traded for the comfort of vulnerable legislators.
With the Ma administration, there is a significant deviation from this pattern. Cross-strait detente demands ongoing negotiations that please China, regardless of what anyone thinks back home. To continue along this road, it is essential that Ma’s Cabinet deliver results across all portfolios to ensure that DPP accusations of domestic neglect are neutralized.
Perhaps this is what Ma was getting at yesterday when he asked that civil servants bear the rights of ordinary people in mind. If the government cannot attract public support on issues as fundamental as basic policy, parity, respectful treatment and due process, then what hope will trade-offs with China have?
Ma’s problem — and it has always been his problem — is that his pretty language has rarely been backed by action when it comes to reforming the behavior of people under his command. His challenge now is not to reform the lowest ranking people on the civil servant scale, but to make something competent out of the people at the very top.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
RSS