A number of indicators have shown how dissatisfied Taiwanese are with the performance of the Cabinet.
Aside from the volleys of criticism fired by critics and typhoon victims over the Cabinet’s poor judgment and sluggish execution of rescue operations in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, various opinion polls have also found Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) is particularly unpopular.
A recent survey conducted by the Chinese-language United Daily News, a media outlet generally perceived as sympathetic to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), put Liu’s approval rate at 20 percent. Meanwhile, a separate poll by TVBS, also known for its KMT-leaning stance, showed the approval rating for Liu’s performance had sunk to an embarrassing 13 percent.
In view of the numbers reflecting the public’s lack of confidence in the government’s administrative capability, Liu on Aug. 19 said he had reached a consensus with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to carry out an “across the board [Cabinet] reshuffle” early this month.
“The reshuffle will be a review across the board … of course I will be included in the assessment as well,” he said in response all of to the criticism.
Of course the government had to say something like that to stop the nosedive in ratings and to buy some time. It is fully aware of the shortness of most people’s attention spans. This deft move gave the impression that the government was addressing public concerns, while at the same time creating a window of delay in which people might forget what they were so angry about.
Now, two weeks later, Liu, commenting on the same topic on Tuesday, said the reshuffle would be moderate.
“The scale [of the reshuffle] will just be a little bit more than small-scale,” he said.
In other words, the reshuffle, slated to be announced on Monday, will not be as far-reaching as Liu promised.
By not conducting a full-scale review, the government has not only gone back on its word, it has insulted the public by assuming people will forgive and forget the administration’s ineptitude so quickly.
If Liu keeps his job as expected, it remains to be seen if the government will offer any justification for the decision or if it will act as though Liu’s performance has been acceptable.
This is reminiscent of last November when, faced with mounting protests, Liu famously said: “This kind of thing will blow over in a couple of days.”
The public has witnessed the incompetence of the Cabinet under Liu’s leadership, ruining public confidence in the government’s efficiency and crisis management. As the nation braces for the increasing threat of influenza A(H1N1), people have no faith in this government’s ability to care for them. An across-the-board Cabinet reshuffle as promised is therefore crucial to rebooting the public’s confidence in the government.
In an interview in May, Liu on his own initiative laid out three scenarios under which he would resign from the premiership.
“The three scenarios are: whether the people are not satisfied with me, whether the president is not satisfied with me and whether I am not satisfied with myself,” he said. “I will leave the post if any of these three find me unsatisfactory.”
Whether Ma is satisfied with Liu or whether Liu is satisfied with himself are a function of how out of touch the two are, but one thing is perfectly clear: The majority of Taiwanese are not satisfied with Liu’s performance.
How can Ma expect the public to believe the government he leads is capable if the upcoming Cabinet reshuffle turns out to be little more than a perfunctory act — and with such an incompetent premier leading the pack?
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The stocks of rare earth companies soared on Monday following news that the Trump administration had taken a 10 percent stake in Oklahoma mining and magnet company USA Rare Earth Inc. Such is the visible benefit enjoyed by the growing number of firms that count Uncle Sam as a shareholder. Yet recent events surrounding perhaps what is the most well-known state-picked champion, Intel Corp, exposed a major unseen cost of the federal government’s unprecedented intervention in private business: the distortion of capital markets that have underpinned US growth and innovation since its founding. Prior to Intel’s Jan. 22 call with analysts
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
International debate on Taiwan is obsessed with “invasion countdowns,” framing the cross-strait crisis as a matter of military timetables and political opportunity. However, the seismic political tremors surrounding Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) suggested that Washington and Taipei are watching the wrong clock. Beijing is constrained not by a lack of capability, but by an acute fear of regime-threatening military failure. The reported sidelining of Zhang — a combat veteran in a largely unbloodied force and long-time loyalist of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — followed a year of purges within the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
RSS