While Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) recently revealed her vision of a nuclear-free Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) seems to be reneging on his promise of establishing an all-volunteer military to replace conscription. Although these two issues might seem unrelated, they reveal the lack of a sense of responsibility in politicians.
Former Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), once said that politicians are not necessarily bound to honor promises made during election campaigns. Whether this is correct depends on one’s interpretation of Lee’s statement. It is one thing to feel it means that politicians may break their promises if, after taking office, they are unable to fulfill their pledges despite their best efforts to do so.
However, one cannot agree with Lee’s statement if it is interpreted to mean that politicians have no moral obligation to honor a promise. An assurance made during an election campaign is a contract between a politician and the electorate. An individual gives their sacred vote to a politician because of specific promises and has no recourse if that politician later reneges. The only avenue open to them is to not vote for that politician again.
It is only right to exercise a degree of understanding should a politician be relatively new to politics or if some major catastrophe occurs during their term in office. In such cases, one should be forgiving. However, such latitude should not apply to a politician who has held major positions in central government, who has access to considerable political resources and who acts on their own volition, with no external pressure.
Both Tsai and Ma belong to the latter group.
Even former Atomic Energy Council chairman Ouyang Min-shen (歐陽敏盛), who is in the pan-green camp, questioned Tsai’s non-nuclear stance, saying that a completely non-nuclear Taiwan by 2025 was unworkable, unless we manage to replace it with green energy. Even if Tsai is elected president next year, there is nothing to say that her successor would continue her policies after 2020.
Surely Tsai has not forgotten what she learned during her time in senior positions in central government. How could she not be aware of the realities of Taiwan’s dependence on nuclear power? Did she really only become aware of the danger presented by Taiwan’s nuclear plants after the March 11 Japanese earthquake? If this is an indication of how she is going to perform if she ever makes it into office, one shouldn’t hold out too much hope.
Ma must have known the reality of the situation when he included establishing an all-volunteer military as one of his campaign promises. Now that he is in office, the Ministry of National Defense has announced on several occasions that conscription is to be scrapped on schedule.
Now we hear that because of financial constraints an all-volunteer system is unlikely and that the government has also considered other financing options that will benefit private business groups and not the general public.
Politicians are always big on ideas, if not concrete plans, continually failing to translate words into actions. They make promises, only to later dismiss public concern with various excuses. Both Tsai and Ma have proved to be more astute at academics than governance: That much we can see from the campaign promises they have made.
In the up and coming legislative and presidential elections, the electorate needs to think carefully about whose promises are actually feasible.
Ball Chang is an assistant professor at the Chihlee Institute of Technology’s Department of Applied English.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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