Amid the ongoing wrangle between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the price of persimmons and other fruits, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday visited a traditional market in Greater Taichung to demonstrate his concern about the issue.
At the market, Ma bought about 5,000kg of persimmons as a gesture of support for the farmers, as well as to counter the DPP’s claim that fruit prices have plummeted.
While the move was certainly designed to show Ma’s concern and support for fruit farmers, a closer look might lead one to doubt the sincerity of his actions.
Ma footed the bill not from his own pocket, but from the president’s state affairs fund. While some might argue that it is the thought that counts and that there is nothing wrong with using the fund — which Ma can use at his discretion — to pay for the purchase, many others might ask whether withdrawing the money from the fund truly shows Ma cares about the farmers.
If he did care, wouldn’t he set a better example and win more respect from the public by purchasing his pile of persimmons with his own money, rather than paying with taxpayer funds?
That he did not dip into his own pocket leaves many unconvinced that Ma genuinely cares about the plight of farmers: His thoughtful gesture was, after all, made at the expense of the taxpayer.
And is it at all possible for Ma to comprehend the big picture and the seriousness of the situation that the farmers are facing through a mere visit to a traditional market?
If Ma wanted to find out how he could help the farmers, he would visit farms and see firsthand the damage that has been caused to crops by unusually heavy rains. Perhaps then he might grasp something of the pain being experienced by farmers who have had to watch their months of hard work, sweat and tears go down the drain.
Aside from the seeming lack of sincerity, Ma’s extravagant persimmon purchase was also in itself contradictory.
Ma and the Council of Agriculture have in the past few days slammed the DPP over its claims about persimmon prices and argued that fruit prices have not dropped as low as the DPP has said.
However, if persimmons were selling at as reasonable a price as the KMT government says, why the need for the president to sponsor the purchase in the first place?
Ma has become fond of saying: “I’m not selling out Taiwan; what I sold was local fruit.” However, it appears that what he is actually selling out is the nation’s fruit farmers.
Amid the rhetoric of the fruit-price wars, the KMT — to show it stands on the side of the fruit farmers — yesterday placed an advertisement in several local newspapers trumpeting Taiwan’s fruits as being first-class.
Indeed they are. That’s how the nation earned the honor of being called the “kingdom of fruit.”
However, what are Taiwanese fruit farmers supposed to do in the face of an incompetent government whose concern for the issue — last-minute advertising and empty gestures of buying up persimmons — is evidently only skin deep?
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
China’s supreme objective in a war across the Taiwan Strait is to incorporate Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic. It follows, therefore, that international recognition of Taiwan’s de jure independence is a consummation that China’s leaders devoutly wish to avoid. By the same token, an American strategy to deny China that objective would complicate Beijing’s calculus and deter large-scale hostilities. For decades, China has cautioned “independence means war.” The opposite is also true: “war means independence.” A comprehensive strategy of denial would guarantee an outcome of de jure independence for Taiwan in the event of Chinese invasion or
A recent Taipei Times editorial (“A targeted bilingual policy,” March 12, page 8) questioned how the Ministry of Education can justify spending NT$151 million (US$4.74 million) when the spotlighted achievements are English speech competitions and campus tours. It is a fair question, but it focuses on the wrong issue. The problem is not last year’s outcomes failing to meet the bilingual education vision; the issue is that the ministry has abandoned the program that originally justified such a large expenditure. In the early years of Bilingual 2030, the ministry’s K-12 Administration promoted the Bilingual Instruction in Select Domains Program (部分領域課程雙語教學實施計畫).
Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry spoke at the Yushan Forum in Taipei on Monday, saying that while global conflicts were causing economic strife in the world, Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region and offers strategic opportunities for small island nations such as Fiji, as well as support in the fields of public health, education, renewable energy and agricultural technology. Taiwan does not have official diplomatic relations with Fiji, but it is one of the small island nations covered by the NSP. Chaudhry said that Fiji, as a sovereign nation, should support
RSS