Former adviser to the president Wu Li-pei (吳灃培) has made criticisms about President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration. He did not try to hide his anger, naming Premier Lin Chuan (林全) as one person he thought should step down.
Former national policy adviser Huang Tien-lin (黃天麟) has also made comments. However, instead of just regurgitating what other people are saying, he used data to show how the economy has improved since Tsai and her administration took over.
The only similarity between their commentaries was the timing.
Huang pointed out that Tsai had done better during her first 100 days than former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did. The stock market index increased by 1,035 points, while it dropped by 1,199 points over Ma’s eight year-tenure.
During the first quarter of the year, the economy continued to contract, but that changed to growth in the second quarter. Economic indicators improved for five consecutive months after the January elections, and in July, they flashed “green.” After 17 months of negative growth, exports increased by 1.2 percent in July.
Taiwan is a small place and people often tend to behave like sheep and say what everyone else says.
Huang thinks that the main reason the government’s approval rating keeps sliding is misleading reports from pan-blue media outlets and complaints from within the pan-green camp that most government appointments have gone to people other than pan-green politicians.
Wu’s main complaint is that the government has ignored ideology in its personnel appointments and that the pan-blue camp remains in charge, despite the election results.
Starting with the Mega International Commercial Bank case [regarding breaches of US money-laundering rules], he took aim at the unaffiliated premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維), a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which has temporarily suspended his membership and “lent” him to the Tsai administration.
It is of course always difficult to satisfy everyone when it comes to personnel appointments, but Tsai was nominated by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to make a clean sweep at the ballot box. Despite her success, the party is now only in charge of the legislative branch, while the Cabinet is under the control of a motley crew of non-DPP supporters.
If you want to be nice, it could be called “soliciting talent by casting a wider net,” but it could also be described as the DPP carrying the sedan chair for KMT officials.
The excuse offered by the government for relying on pan-blue officials is that there are worries that the DPP would not be able to shake the bureaucracy into action. In other words, the party-state complex is still alive and well, and the government is worried that civil servants who have been nurtured by the KMT will hamper the government.
This makes it difficult for party politics to work the way it is supposed to, so Wu’s anger is justifiable. However, to confidently state that the government has failed after 100 days is a bit premature.
The DPP is free to welcome anyone with talent and similar ideals to join the party and the ruling team, but it must not be controlled by old bureaucrats whose only concern is to become or remain an official and only to stick stubbornly to KMT dogma.
KMT officials protect each other and solve things among themselves behind closed doors as we could see in the Mega Bank case. The Tsai administration has an undeniable responsibility to reform the system and eliminate this unsatisfactory state of affairs.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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