In the course of the past two months, however, the government’s pro-China slant has not produced any noticeable boost for the economy. In fact, it has allowed China to be all the more confident in its ability to take advantage of Taiwan.
Beijing took advantage of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung’s (吳伯雄) fondness for the grandiose, his vague position on Taiwan-China relations, and his naivete, both at the forum that was held by representatives of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party and at the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
The usual way for a government to implement its policies is first to agree on the central idea, then assess the objective conditions before formulating actual policies, and only then to make those policies public. In the case of the Ma team, its central idea is vague and its assessment of objective conditions distorted. The result is that its policies tend to be little more than wishful thinking — the promise that the TAIEX stock index would rise to 20,000 points being a case in point. No wonder people are losing faith. Such problems can hardly be resolved by pep talks and publicity.
With no clear central idea to guide policy on the economy and cross-strait affairs, Ma’s Cabinet has no direction other than an undignified dependence on China.
This lack of ideological clarity also causes problems in political leadership. The KMT is organized along Leninist lines, whereas the five-power national Constitution is based on the thought of KMT founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), while the mechanism for formulating and revising laws is a curious two-headed system even odder than the French one. While this system needs tightly organized European-style parties to function, what Ma would really like to see is separation of party and government, with loosely organized political parties, US style.
Ma does not have his own central idea, but he is asking everyone to follow him. His Cabinet’s policies offer no clear direction other than an unrealistic tendency to lean heavily toward China.
Their only answer to these problems is to get better publicity. No wonder this government finds itself bogged down in crisis.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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