The distinction between politics and entertainment in Taiwan is becoming increasingly blurred, with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) being the most typical example.
As everyone knows, Ma has always relied on his good looks to win more women’s votes than his rivals. He often attends public events wearing super-short shorts and makes sure that the media get a good view. He also made up a titillating story about having been handed a towel by a farmer’s daughter while showering during a “long stay” in southern Taiwan and so on.
Although Ma has won a string of elections by showing himself off and using pretentious words and actions, over the years his true colors have come to light. His bumbling policies have been dragging the nation and its society down for a long time, and many people who once supported him now regret it.
Likewise, a lot of candidates standing in Saturday’s nine-in-one elections think that they can gain an advantage by playing on people’s interest in sex and focus on appearances.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) has been saying a lot of things that he does not believe himself, while getting his pretty wife to campaign for him by wandering among plain folk like an angel descended from on high.
Lien’s KMT comrade, New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), who is seeking re-election, has been busy attending bogus groundbreaking ceremonies. He is clearly trying to copy Apple chief executive Tim Cook, while claiming pretentiously that he does not aim to be like anyone in particular. Yet his ability and achievements fall far short of Cook’s.
KMT Legislator Lin Tsang-min (林滄敏), who is running for Changhua County commissioner, has made a campaign ad mimicking the poses that Taiwanese-Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) struck in a rural setting for an airline commercial. Decked out in the same kind of dazzling white shirt, Lin looks as fresh and clean as a bean sprout.
In Chiayi, the KMT has parachuted in a loveable princess, Chen Yi-chen (陳以真), to stand as its mayoral candidate. The party hopes that the former TV newsreader’s cute looks and nimble tongue will help conceal her questionable administrative ability, downplay her party affiliation and obscure her corporate connections.
These are all examples of how sex appeal, pretentious language and bogus activities are being used to package candidates and give them an electoral advantage.
Elections are supposed to be about picking the most virtuous and capable candidates, not the prettiest or most handsome ones. This is not a song and dance contest, after all. Food and sex may be people’s primary needs, but humans also have intellect and dignity of spirit. Nonetheless, in a society that is becoming increasingly materialistic, voters’ perceptions of candidates’ appearances are often the main factor determining who they vote for, and people’s ability to think about things rationally seems to be on the wane.
Many politicians who are good at cultivating their images turn out to be unwilling or incapable of doing a proper job once they are elected.
One of independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) characteristics is that he likes to tell the truth, which has made him a hero in the public’s eyes, yet many people are still caught up in the atmosphere of entertainment-style politics and they often let politicians fool them without realizing it.
All the sex and lies need to be cleared out of Taiwanese politics. Then people will be less likely to make wrong choices that they live to regret.
Chang Shyue-yih is a professor at National Yang-Ming University’s School of Medicine.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS