Last week both Sean Lien (連勝文) and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) made thinly veiled attacks on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his handling of the economy. Lien remarked that whoever is elected as the next mayor of Taipei, given the sluggish economy, “could be, at the very most, the master of a beggar clan,” while Wu commented that Ma was guilty of selecting individuals for important government posts from too narrow a group.
Senior members of the KMT and the party spokesperson hit back at Lien and Wu, but nothing was heard from Ma. It was only when he made a personal appearance, after the furor failed to dissipate, that everyone realized that Ma had asked senior party members and the party spokesperson to speak out on his behalf.
The World Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce criticized Ma for “looking in the mirror for political appointees.” While it is widely acknowledged that Ma always chooses people with preconceived ideas from a limited circle, the mirror metaphor nailed the problem so neatly that people finally started talking about it openly. Wu’s comments were neither new nor particularly acerbic, but Lien’s beggar clan remark rang true, striking a chord with a society suffering from shrinking incomes and feeling they are virtually living like beggars already. With the poverty gap so wide, millions are finding it difficult to make ends meet and feel that the days of the “beggar clan” are not too far off.
Ma chose not to deal with the problems that the press are giving him a daily roasting for, preferring to keep his head down and ride out the storm, offering no account of himself. When the criticisms became more than mere criticisms and the public actually started to feel the direct effect of his policies, he found himself at a loss for words. It is no wonder that even the pro-blue press are saying that Ma has lost the power of speech.
However, the public are more interested in what he proposes to do, rather than in what he has to say. It has got to the point now where the public do not just disbelieve what he says; they actually feel derision every time he opens his mouth.
Ma’s bringing the economy to its knees did not start in his second term. Financial commentators are united in saying that by making the economy overly reliant on China, Ma has allowed companies to make a profit, but at the price of transferring technology, capital and talent to the other side of the Taiwan Strait, impoverishing the country. Economists on both sides of the political divide have made a similar assessment. Manufacturing representatives have come out in the last few days slating the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) as being next to useless in getting Taiwan out of its current predicament.
Why did Taiwan sleepwalk into becoming the “Republic of Beggardom”? The saddest part is that the public is not to blame.
The citizens of the forthcoming “Republic of Beggardom” will be beggars indeed, but Lien’s “masters of the beggar clan,” will still be living in glory and riches. The attacks on Ma within the KMT were not done with the public interest at heart, they were about little more than shifting power relations. Those in the party can smell a time when Ma will no longer be leader and they are riding on the back of increasing public anger as if speaking for them. Do not be fooled.
Is Lien blameless for Taiwan’s current predicament? Should Wu not shoulder some of the responsibility for where the nation finds itself?
If accounts are to be settled, it should be done properly.
Masters of the beggar clan — Taiwanese should make pariahs of the lot of them.
Allen Houng is a professor at National Yang-Ming University’s Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition.
Translated by Paul Cooper
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan. For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly widespread in workplaces, some people stand to benefit from the technology while others face lower wages and fewer job opportunities. However, from a longer-term perspective, as AI is applied more extensively to business operations, the personnel issue is not just about changes in job opportunities, but also about a structural mismatch between skills and demand. This is precisely the most pressing issue in the current labor market. Tai Wei-chun (戴偉峻), director-general of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation at the Institute for Information Industry, said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times
RSS