Wed, Nov 23, 2016 page8

• EDITORIAL: Leaving before being shoved out

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  The General Association of Chinese Culture (GACC) was once a low-profile group run by high-ranking individuals and usually helmed by the nation’s president. Despite the pedigree of its membership, the association has mostly kept to itself. No more.

  Despite the change in government in May, GACC president Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), a former premier and Soochow University president whose term was scheduled to end two days ago, said last week that he wanted to stay on, triggering the ire of the pan-green camp. Politics should not interfere with cultural issues, he said.

  However, after two committee meetings and then an extraordinary meeting to elect the group’s president were canceled due to the lack of a quorum, the GACC became the center of a very public row.

  The GACC’s Game of Thrones moment was more than a war of words played out in the media. The pan-blue and pan-green camps encouraged their followers to apply to join the 285-member group, which led to the association receiving more than twice as many applications as usual — 624 — since May’s government transition, presumably in a bid to tip the balance in one camp’s favor.

  Without a list of applicants, there is no way to know whether the majority of the applications came from the green or blue camp.

  However, Liu’s suggestion that the government was attempting to overrun a civic group was disingenuous. Everything was done above board, in accordance with the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法).

  Before a general committee meeting to review membership applications, two large batches of applications have to be reviewed by the GACC’s standing committee. However, the first attempt by the standing committee to meet after May 20 was canceled because of the lack of a quorum — essentially because many members appointed by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — including former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member — failed to show up.

  Given the way the GACC was established, it would be natural to see a turnover in the organization when there has been a transition of power in the Presidential Office.

  However, Liu insisted that since the GACC is a non-governmental organization, having to revise its membership because the nation has a new president, would mean “this is not an independent cultural association.”

  To resolve the impasse, he said that he favored “a way that society would find acceptable.”

  However, the GACC has never been an independent body. Liu was not appointed to lead it because of his scholarly erudition or his success in writing martial arts novels: his was a political appointment.

  Ever since its establishment by former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), the GACC has been headed by the incumbent president: Yen Chia-kan (嚴家淦), Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma all took their turns, but then Ma changed the rules of the game by appointing Liu to succeed him.

  Having the sitting president head the GACC is not a decree carved in stone, but it has been the convention thus far.

  President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been in office for several months. The decision on whether she takes up the leadership of the association is hers — and hers alone — to make. She has no need for Liu to contribute his two cents.

  Liu does deserve thanks for what he has achieved as GACC head. He has been a patron of the arts, raised large amounts of money for the association and made an admirable contribution to the running of the organization.

  However, time has been called, and it is time to go home. Liu’s surprise announcement yesterday afternoon that he has decided to step down was the right thing to do.
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