Typhoon Morakot was a turning point for the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Its mishandling of the disaster response made a mockery of the slogan — “We’re ready” — adopted by Ma’s campaign team during the 2008 presidential election. After the Morakot fiasco, Ma’s popularity rating plunged from 70 percent to just over 30, and never really recovered. It’s been two years since the typhoon wreaked havoc and the government is still hoping to pick itself up and dust itself off. It’s a shame Ma can’t stop putting his foot in his mouth.
Ma, keen to show solidarity with Morakot victims, spent Saturday in Majia Township (瑪家), Pingtung County, in a new “permanent housing” unit built for those left homeless by the disaster. He said it was a pleasant experience, describing his stay as balmy and comfortable and likening the area to Provence, France, and “Peach Blossom Land” — the latter being the paradise on earth described in a popular Chinese fable.
No sooner had he uttered the word “Provence” than the objections started pouring in. The reference certainly didn’t sit well with many of the disaster’s victims, and Web babble started to question whether Ma thought this was all a holiday. The pan-green camp said his attitude was reminiscent of that of Emperor Hui (晉惠帝) of the Jin Dynasty, infamous for not understanding the plight of ordinary people.
As part of his damage control exercise, Ma took to Facebook to explain that his reference to Provence was meant to express how tranquil and fragrant the area was. He said he didn’t want his words to be distorted by others.
What was Ma thinking, comparing “permanent housing” in a disaster area to living in Provence, with its fine sunshine and blue skies? It’s perfectly possible that he was trying to praise the reconstruction project, but he only succeeded in rubbing salt into the wounds of Morakot’s still-traumatized victims. The allusion was entirely inappropriate. It’s one thing for the president to swan around for a day, but it’s another thing to actually live in the devastated area.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was moved to tears during a press conference on Monday to mark the second anniversary of the disaster, recalling how people had been forced to leave their homes. The opposition sniffed about crocodile tears, given that Wu wasn’t involved in the relief efforts at the time. However, Wu has been responsible for the reconstruction efforts and many of the victims have been openly critical of the government’s record.
The central government’s reconstruction program, costing more than NT$1 billion (US$34.5 million), is seriously behind schedule. The Indigenous Peoples Action Coalition of Taiwan dispatched a group of disaster victims to Taipei to protest the glaring disparity between policy pronouncements and actual deeds, saying that they wanted their own homes back. They also condemned the Ministry of Transport and Communications’ decision not to continue work on two highways they say are key routes connecting their areas with the national road network, without which they cannot ship their produce around Taiwan.
There is quite a difference between the lives of these people and those living in Provence. The government has neglected the psychological and social importance of losing one’s home, and of having to eke out a living in an unfamiliar environment. The reconstruction effort has been found deeply wanting.
There is also a growing divide between Ma himself and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) way of governing the country, which is felt most keenly in the center and south. Ma won brownie points in the 2008 campaign for his “long-stay” visits, but three years on any political currency he earned has long been spent. His trip to Pingtung over the weekend was an attempt to buy more currency and help close the divide, but it seems to have had the opposite effect.
Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize. It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
RSS