Democracy of self-interest
The efforts to oust Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) from the legislature in the unprecedented recall vote failed, because only 25 percent of the registered voters showed up, instead of the 50 percent required as a threshold for recalling. Recalling is as difficult as a referendum.
This voting indicates that government officials once elected virtually attain tenure in their positions, irrespective of their performance. Many officials do not care what people want. Their priority is the interest of their party and/or their personal interest.
For example, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) used “the golden decade” as a campaign promise, but Taiwan has lost its status as one of “the four little dragons of Asia.” He wanted to “nullify KMT assets,” but he sold some assets cheaply and used them for elections. When political commentators questioned about the illegal contributions from large corporations in exchange for government favor, he sued these commentators instead of answering their questions.
The young people in the Sunflower movement wanted to talk to Ma, but he was more interested in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Now 118 people have been indicted as a result of the Sunflower movement protests.
As president, Ma’s main duties are diplomacy, defense and relations with China. Many officials in charge of these fields have resigned. China has drawn a defensive line close to Penghu, Ma cannot do anything. He has signed many agreements with China even if China has modern missiles aimed at Taiwan. His popularity has dropped from the most to the least.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
Lean means less waste
Ko P’s — a popular nickname for Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — rapid rise and his first month’s performance as Taipei mayor have opened many people’s eyes, including the international community. Other than his blunt style, straightforwardness and speed of action, his most prominent acts have been following a standard operating procedure (SOP) and saying that there is always room for improvement.
Actually, Ko P’s fondness for reading implies that he might have perused the latest in quality management books.Among them, there are books on lean manufacturing, a method which originated with the Japanese and has been widely applied in manufacturing and lately also to management. Simply put, a lean process reduces waste.
Before identifying waste in the process, current practices need to be identified and documented, and this is the so-called SOP. Ko’s most famous SOP involves the MG149 account at National Taiwan Hospital University, which was singled out by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾). One of Lo’s comments about MG149 was about the SOP, which had been revised many times.
As it is an account, she probably could not understand why an SOP needed to be revised so many times. In the spirit of continuous improvement, a process always needs to be revised to improve efficiency and leanness based on newly acquired data. An SOP is not a fixture, but a living document of current best practices.
As a quality professional, I find it amazing that Ko P is able to adopt quality management theory into political practice. He does not have the experienced politician’s baggage, including ideas of what can be done and what cannot. He does not follow the conventional wisdom of what a politician should be doing in a situation, but instead his only guide is his scientific training of how to create the optimum process.
The old Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) political system, which inherited a lot of Chinese court culture, always deifies the chosen leader. That is, the chosen leader is always right, and thus any decision or decree made by the leader is always right and cannot be challenged.
This explains why Ko P’s approach and actions really open up a window, letting fresh air into the staid and stinking air that saturates the political sense in Taiwan. Ko P’s actions are not new, but his application of leanness into politics is.
Shin Ta Liu
San Diego, California
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under